by Nev Fountain
Inside the hall was a mixture of antiquated class and comfy familiarity; Hogwarts for adults. Friendly staff breezed around carrying plates of sandwiches and coffee for the guests, who were chatting in front of open fires, reading The Telegraph or discreetly tap-tapping away on laptops.
As soon as Mervyn entered the front doors, his duffle bag was wrestled away from him by a jolly, pink-cheeked porter who escorted him along wood-panelled corridors, past the gym, swimming pool and games room and out into a small courtyard. A fountain gushed in the centre, and a clock tower looked over the square. The clock hands were stubbornly stuck at 11.33. This was where the more modest rooms were tucked away, further from the main house.
The porter took him into a long corridor, interrupted by a row of identical doors, and left him outside room 79.
He was slightly disappointed with what he found. After the majesty of the house, these rooms were modest, functional. There was no four-poster bed or portraits of men with huge moustaches, just a desk, coffee-making facilities and tasteful paintings. It was comfortable and clean, but it was just like any room in any hotel by any motorway. He may as well have been attending a sci-fi convention.
He didn’t want to waste any time. Dusk was falling, and he didn’t want to spend the night here. He pulled out Graham’s phone again and dialled. It rang once, then a voice said ‘Hey Graham.’
‘I’m here,’ said Mervyn.
‘Quick work. Did you get room 79?’
‘Yes.’
‘Great. I don’t want to go tramping round the hotel.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Look outside the door.’
Mervyn didn’t go to the door straight away. He was pretty certain that Lionel Bickerdyke didn’t know what Graham looked like. Whether he knew what Mervyn looked like—that was less certain. He mustn’t forget that this Lionel Bickerdyke character had recorded and sold footage of Mervyn sitting on the toilet. So at the very least he must have seen Mervyn’s face and found out who he was. Then checked out whether the film he’d made of the tubby guy straining and making notes on the loo roll was of anybody famous.
But more importantly, Mervyn’s face had now appeared in all the papers, and even though the photo they all used was the same blurry shot (the one taken with a huge smelly fan at last year’s science fiction convention that made him look small and sinister and his face wrinkled in polite disgust) he was taking no chances.
He’d only shaved his chin, and left the beginnings of a moustache on his lip. Even though it looked feeble, it helped to disguise his face. Last night he’d dyed his hair black and gelled his tousled locks into a severe back-comb. For the final touch, he crammed cotton wool in his cheeks and put on his sunglasses.
He went to the door and pulled it open. Facing him was a man. Not a particularly striking man; he had a straggly ginger moustache that merged into a scrappy beard. His face was pale and pink-eyed. He wore a ragged checked shirt over a T-shirt. His saggy belly rolled over the belt on his battered jeans.
‘Good to meet you, Graham,’ said Lionel, proffering his hand.
‘Likewise, Lionel,’ said Mervyn, in his best gravelly voice. ‘You were quick.’
‘I’m in room 81, next door. So…’ He pushed past Mervyn and sat down on his bed. ‘Let’s get down to business. The other party has currently made a bid of £50,000.’
What?’
‘Any advance on that, Graham? The clock’s ticking…’
Mervyn tried to think about what Graham would do in this situation.
‘Wait, wait, wait a second,’ growled Mervyn. ‘I’m asked to spend over fifty grand on something and I don’t even know what it is?’
‘I told you what you’re buying, Graham. What you’re buying is information. It’s an item of exclusive merchandise that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt who killed Marcus Spicer. Something only my buyer will know. Along with me and the killer, of course. Just think. You can take that information with you to the grave.’
‘Well,’ growled Mervyn, ‘I don’t know about that. You have to let the truth fly free. I’ll have to tell the world, because I’ll need to update my programme guides, and my fact files…’
Lionel shrugged. ‘Fine. Do what you like. Throw the murderer to the police. It’s all the same to me. I can see why you’d want to. I mean, from now on, you’d be the one—on record—who caught Marcus’s killer. They wouldn’t be able to write a book about Marcus Spicer without mentioning you.’
Mervyn imagined that if he were Graham Goldingay, he’d be salivating so hard he would be leaving puddles on the carpet.
‘I didn’t realise it would be quite so much.’
Lionel shrugged again. ‘If you don’t have the money, then it goes somewhere else. No hard feelings and all that.’
‘I didn’t say I couldn’t pay. I can pay a lot more than a mere £50,000. I do have a considerable fortune. I just need to call my accountant. I will have a definite offer within the hour.’
‘Make it half an hour, Graham. I’m a very busy man.’
Lionel stood up to go. Mervyn followed him into the corridor. He could hear the slam of Lionel’s door behind him as he wandered off pretending to make a phone call. ‘I don’t care, Nigel. If you’re worried, I’ll just sell the Picasso!’
* * *
‘Look I’m sorry your mother’s got sores, Nigel, but you can bathe them later. This is business. Ring up Sothebys and put the Chippendales in the crate.’
Mervyn wandered along the corridor, continuing his imaginary call. He was so engrossed in developing this scenario with his fictional lackey (who had developed an ailing mother and an overly needy girlfriend in the last few seconds) that he collided with someone walking just as aggressively in the opposite direction.
They both ended up flat on the floor.
Mervyn pushed himself up into a sitting position just as the other person did the same. Their eyes met.
It was Brian Crowbridge.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
‘Very sorry,’ Brian mumbled. ‘Didn’t see you there.’
Brian didn’t recognise him.
He stumbled to his feet and carried on. Mervyn stared after Brian’s retreating figure; he was walking down the corridor from which Mervyn had just emerged.
Brian? Here? Was he the ‘other party’ bidding for this evidence?
Mervyn turned back and followed him. But Brian didn’t go to Lionel’s room. Instead, he headed for room 67, just along the corridor, took out a pass key and entered. Mervyn knocked on the door.
‘Hello?’
‘Room service,’ said Mervyn.
There was a pause. A scuffle. ‘I didn’t order any room service.’
‘Just restocking the mini-bar.’
Brian couldn’t resist. The chain rattled and the doorknob turned. Brian stood in the doorway dressed in a fluffy dressing gown and slippers.
Mervyn removed his sunglasses and spat out his cotton wool.
‘Mervyn?’ Brian’s face twitched.
‘What’s going on Brian, what the hell are you doing here?’
Brian’s eyes flicked back inside the room. He looked scared. ‘I could ask you the same question!’ He wedged his hands in the doorframe, obscuring Mervyn’s view of the room. ‘You’re on the run! They say you murdered Marcus!’
‘Oh come on Brian, think! You know that’s not true!’
‘Do I? You were pretty cross at him on the day of the DVD commentary!’
‘Oh the day of…? But his murder must have been planned weeks in advance! That’s exactly why I’m here. There’s a man here who says he has evidence of who killed Marcus, and I’m trying to get hold of it.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I’m telling you I can prove it! Just look!’ He pointed down the corridor. ‘He’s just down there. His name is Lionel. He’s a tubby bloke with a beard and ginger hair and a check shirt…’
Brian just gaped at him.
‘Come on. We’ve
got to get to him before he destroys the evidence!’ Mervyn took Brian’s arm and dragged him down the corridor. Lionel’s door was on the latch and it ‘ker-chunked’ open.
But the room was completely empty, save for a puddle of clothes on the floor.
Mervyn walked into the middle of the room, his arms outstretched idiotically, as if expecting to feel an invisible presence. He dipped his head inside the bathroom, found nothing. He looked behind the bed and in the wardrobe. The room was pathetically small, and there was nowhere else to look.
‘Where’s he gone?’ He tried the windows, they were locked. ‘He’s completely vanished.’
Brian held his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide. ‘It’s the Rapture,’ he gasped. ‘It’s the time when we’re taken up to heaven, leaving our earthly garments behind! It’s another sign, just like Marcus and Robert… Mervyn, the end of the world is nigh! We’re fast approaching the end of days!’ Brian’s eye started twitching again, forcing the wrinkles above his cheeks to pulse like gills.
Mervyn grabbed Brian by the shoulders and looked directly into his good eye. ‘Listen to me Brian. You are a good man. A man of faith. Just because we’ve witnessed two impossible deaths—three if you count me finding the professor—doesn’t mean there’s not a simple explanation for it all. And it does not give you the excuse to start fainting and speaking in tongues like some straw-sucking hick in Overbite County USA.’
Brian seemed to calm down. ‘But…’
‘He’s not here, but he’s not been taken by the Rapture. Trust me, Brian, from what I know about Lionel, he’s not the type the Good Lord would want sitting at his right hand.’
‘If you say so…’
There was something odd about the room. On the ceiling. Someone had tampered with one of the ceiling tiles. It had been moved, leaving a tiny hole about three inches square above the puddle of clothes.
‘Look up. Perhaps he got out through there,’ joked Mervyn, and Brian barked with hysterical laughter. ‘Come on. Let’s see what’s in your mini-bar. I think we both need a drink.’
Brian stopped laughing. ‘Well actually, I’d rather you didn’t go into my room,’ he said nervously.
Mervyn blinked. ‘What?’
‘If it’s all the same to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Ah… I don’t have to give a reason.’
‘Lionel said there was someone else bidding for this “evidence”. I might reasonably assume that that someone else might be the murderer. Are you the other bidder?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘Then why don’t you want me in your room?’
Brian suddenly turned and ran out of Lionel’s room, dashing back down the corridor to his own. But Mervyn was ready. He was running too, and as he was marginally younger and fitter, he overtook Brian, and barged the door open with his shoulder.
The room was also empty, save for two suitcases arranged neatly at the end of twin beds. An ironing board had been erected by the bathroom door, with a pile of shirts folded on one end.
‘Okay Brian, what’s the deal? Out with it, why exactly are you here?
Behind him, a man left the bathroom, also submerged in a big fluffy dressing gown and monogrammed slippers, towelling his hair.
Lewis Bream.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Lewis saw Mervyn, and the colour bled from his face. It became as white as a shroud.
‘What… What’s he doing here?’
‘I just popped in for a drink. Do you have some water? Bottled will do,’ said Mervyn cheerfully. His eyes danced from Lewis to Brian, and then back again. ‘Obviously I’m intruding. You have to forgive me my trespasses.’
‘It’s not what it seems,’ said Brian, feebly. ‘We’re just sharing a room to save money.’
‘I see. You and the Chief Godbotherer bunking up together, just saving money. That makes sense. Rooms are so expensive. Very sensible. You both obviously have so much in common.’
‘Oh God,’ said Lewis.
‘We do have a lot in common, Mervyn. We’re both Christians, despite our differences. We sit and we talk about scripture. We pray together.’
‘Not together, surely. Surely you take it in turns to get on your knees?’
‘Oh God,’ said Lewis again.
‘Mervyn, that’s beneath you…’
‘And what’s beneath you, Brian? Brian, I’m not a religious expert, but I think “Thou shalt not bear false witness” roughly translates as “Thou shalt not lie”.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Lewis again.
Mervyn looked at Lewis. ‘Are you taking His name in vain, Lewis, or are you calling on Him to spirit you out of here?’
‘Mervyn…’ said Brian.
‘He’s just spirited away someone in a room down the hall,’ said Mervyn to Lewis. ‘Maybe He could do the same for you.’
‘Mervyn…’ Brian pleaded. ‘Just listen for a second.’
Mervyn went silent. Brian sat on the bed and sighed wearily. ‘Okay, fair enough, fine. We’re lovers.’
Lewis clutched the bathroom door. He gave a whimper.
‘Don’t worry Lewis,’ said Brian. ‘It’s for the best. If I learned one thing from my AA meetings, it’s that lies are the cracks in ourselves we fall into. I met Lewis a few years back, at a prayer meeting in Maida Vale, when I first heard the call of the Lord. We were both fallen wretches, and we discovered Him together.’
‘And a lot more besides.’
‘Mervyn, don’t do the holier-than-thou bit, please, it doesn’t suit you. You know me, old chap. I don’t believe in any form of discrimination in religion. I am a proud gay Christian. There’s nothing hypocritical about me.’
‘And Lewis?’
‘Lewis can speak for himself.’
From the expression on Lewis’s face, it was obvious he couldn’t speak for himself. He couldn’t speak at all.
Brian continued. ‘Lewis decided to take a different path. Our pastor said there was nothing to be ashamed of regarding our…preferences, but Lewis became convinced that what we did was wrong, and tried to turn his back on his sexuality. But I always thought he would realise the error of his ways.’
Mervyn understood. ‘He’s the friend you were talking about. The one who you were encouraging to get back on the right path.’
‘Yes. It was Lewis. He’s a good man at heart, aren’t you Lewis?’
Lewis remained in the doorway of the bathroom, a hysterical grin fixed to his face, eyes wide in frozen terror.
Mervyn shook his head. ‘You’re a fool, Brian. You always fall for the wrong types. Your wife was a bitch. Tarquin was just a young bastard who humiliated you, and Lewis is…just a bigot with a megaphone.’
Brian shook his head with a smile. ‘You’re wrong Mervyn.’ He smiled at Lewis with obvious affection. ‘He’s just been trapped by his position and his role as head of the Godbotherers to take an extreme view. He just needs to free himself from his earthly cage.’
‘And you seriously believe you can change his position? To coin a phrase?’
‘Oh yes. I’m very hopeful. We talk for hours about scripture, and I believe he understands that we’re not doing anything wrong. Why would he be here, otherwise?’
‘Why indeed?’ Mervyn flashed a cynical smile.
‘The angels always rejoice when a sinner repents. He’s not completely turned his mind against—’
Lewis grabbed the iron from the ironing board and thwacked it, full force, across the back of Brian’s head. Brian was propelled forward, past Mervyn, landing on the carpet. He lay motionless, flat on his back. A deep red stain bloomed from his head, soaking into the carpet. Lewis stood there, bug-eyed, staring at Brian’s body. His mouth was moving, but no words were coming. A tear sprang on to one cheek.
‘Oh my God… Lewis! What have you done?’ said Mervyn.
Lewis dropped the iron, which thudded on to a chair. He looked at Mervyn, then at Brian, then his mouth opened again, and he finally found his
voice. ‘Oh my God!’ he screamed. ‘Mervyn Stone is here! He’s just killed someone! Help! Help!’
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Mervyn fled out of the door, turned to run into the hotel, and came face-to-face with the rosy-cheeked porter, who was huffing bags to a room. The porter was cutting off his escape.
‘Help! Murder!’ screamed Lewis again.
The porter dropped the bags and dived for Mervyn’s legs, attempting to rugby tackle him to the ground. Mervyn went down but kicked himself free. He ran down the corridor and hurled himself into Lionel’s room, locking it behind him.
This time it wasn’t empty.
Lionel had mysteriously returned, and this time he was dead. Obviously God threw him back. He was lying on the floor, fully dressed, next to the pile of clothes. His eyes were bulging up at the hole in the ceiling. A telephone flex was embedded in his furry neck. This gets better and better.
There was a window open—Surely that wasn’t open before?—and Mervyn ran to it, looking out. A figure in a trenchcoat and hat was running away.
Mervyn heard the ‘ker-chunk’ of a pass key in the lock behind him. The porter.
Mervyn struggled out of the window and fled into the night, away from his pursuer and towards the real murderer.
* * *
He ran into the darkness. He could almost hear the distant whine of police sirens floating across the grounds, frightening the deer.
‘Mervyn!’
That was a woman’s voice. He recognised it. Or thought he did. Who was she? Was she part of a search party, a hotel guest being a have-a-go hero on behalf of the police? Or was she all in his head?
He was nearer the trenchcoated figure now. The figure was running towards a battered wire fence decorated with ‘KEEP OUT’ signs. He seemed to know where he was going, because when Mervyn caught up, he found a tangled hole ripped into the mesh. The figure had obviously slipped through.
Mervyn struggled through the hole, knowing he was being insane, but enjoying the insanity nonetheless; there was wind in his hair, rain in his face and wet grass under his
