Geek Tragedy

by Nev Fountain

  ‘Point taken.’

  Mervyn got onto his knees and started peering under the chairs. ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Shhh!’ More Vixens fans raised their fingers like weapons and fastened them to their lips.

  ‘What? What is it? What?’

  ‘If the other chairs are like this one I could open a second-hand chewing gum shop.’

  Stuart helped with the search, but there wasn’t anywhere to look; no drawers or cabinets or cupboards. They moved around, brushing their fingers along window sills and skirting boards and raising their feet in an exaggerated fashion to make sure they weren’t standing on evidence. They looked more like mime-artists practising a moon walk than amateur sleuths conducting a search. Once or twice they moved in front of the screen, to cries of anguish from the dimly lit figures on the chairs.

  Mervyn crawled under a table, only to find Stuart had crawled in from the other end. He was trapped.

  ‘So what made you suspect foul play?’

  ‘What?’ Mervyn was getting a little tired of this Scrappy Doo made flesh.

  ‘Simon’s death. What made you first suspect? It wasn’t the purple face was it?’

  ‘No it wasn’t the purple face.’

  ‘So what made you suspect?’

  Mervyn had no intention of telling Stuart about the second suicide note. He groped for a story. Any story that sounded plausible. ‘Well… It was the oily rag the murderer used to stuff the pipe in the window of the Styrax.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It was bone-dry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was dry. Everything else was wet; the ground, the Styrax, the inside of the grille, even Simon Josh’s hair and shoes. But the rag was dry.’ Mervyn was warming to his theme; he realised the rag was dry. His ‘story’ sounded terribly plausible. Had it been tucked away in his subconscious and he hadn’t realised?

  He continued: ‘If Simon was prepared to kill himself and then got in the car, the rag would have been wet too. The only way Simon could have done it himself was to sit in the car, wait until the rain stopped, leave the car, get the dry rag out, put it around the hose and then gas himself. But what man in that state of mind waits for the rain to stop to kill himself?’

  Stuart’s mouth fell open.

  ‘A more likely explanation is that Simon got into that Styrax when it was raining, dead drunk, and someone else came along later, after the rain had stopped, and wedged that pipe into the grille with the rag.’

  Stuart looked at him, mouth open still. Respect had given away to amazement.

  ‘Wow…you are good!’ he said loudly.

  ‘Shhh!’

  Despite himself, Mervyn smiled in the darkness.

  Mervyn crept out and made to leave, but the glowing screen in front of them transfixed Stuart. The episode ‘Wings of the Warlock’ was coming to an exciting bit.

  ‘Just look at that,’ he tutted. ‘Look at those giant bats. You can see the wires on them. They’re not very lifelike’

  ‘Well… What did you expect?’

  ‘Just something better, really. The technology of the time was perfectly capable of doing computer-generated bats, you know.’

  ‘Stuart, that stuff was way, way beyond our budget. That was strictly the privilege of Hollywood sci-fi movies.’

  ‘No it wasn’t!’ he said loudly. ‘Star Trek Next Gen did it! They weren’t a movie! Not then!’

  ‘SHHHH!’

  This time the noise came from everywhere in the gloom.

  ‘Come on,’ said Mervyn. ‘Let’s continue this fascinating conversation outside.’

  They crept out of the Catacombs of Herath, leaving the creatures inside to munch on crisps and drink alcohol in a way that was almost—but not quite—lifelike.

  *

  They emerged into the light. Mervyn took in lungfuls of fresh air.

  ‘You should have a look at my version of “Wings of the Warlock”. Two years ago I removed all the wires from the giant bats. Then I removed the giant bats, and put in my ones instead. Then I removed the catacombs because it looked just like bits of scenery and put in my versions. Then I—’

  ‘I get the idea, Stuart.’

  ‘So what shall we investigate next? Let’s try and work out what those numbers mean.’

  ‘Actually Stuart, I think it’s best if we split up and investigate separately.’

  ‘Oh.’ Stuart looked hurt.

  ‘Yes, we can both pursue separate lines of inquiry and we can both meet up…’ Don’t be too specific. ‘…at some point…and then we can pool our information.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You’ll be far better doing your own investigation without me getting in your way.

  Stuart walked sadly to the door, then he turned. ‘Are you being sarcastic?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a long, agonising silence. Stuart stared, aghast, at nothing in particular, and turned his sad eyes to Mervyn. ‘Were you being sarcastic just then, when you said “no”?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And I think if you’re going to investigate, you should lose the costume. Detectives need to be slightly more inconspicuous.’

  ‘Oh. You think it’s too—’

  ‘Yes.’

  From the look on Stuart’s face, it was obvious that he wished Mervyn was being sarcastic. ‘Okay. I’ll get changed. See you later?’

  He disappeared miserably into the corridor. Mervyn watched him go, feeling like he’d just drowned the Andrex puppy in a toilet.

  No time for guilt. He had several lines of inquiry to pursue.

  He looked at his schedule. It was five to three. Someone was just finishing their second ‘How to Blow Up Everyday Objects’ workshop of the day.

  CONVIX 15 / EARTH ORBIT TWO / 3.00pm

  EVENT: MY TIME AS A FORCEFIELD TECHNICIAN—Katherine Warner

  LOCATION: Vixos Central Nerve Centre (main stage, ballroom)

  EVENT: ‘KNIGHTS OF THE LONG KNIVES’—EPISODE SCREENING

  LOCATION: The Catacombs of Herath (video lounge—room 1024)

  EVENT: AUTOGRAPH PANEL—VANITY MYCROFT

  LOCATION: Arkadia’s Boudoir (room 1013)

  EVENT: HOW TO WRITE VIXENS—ANDREW JAMIESON

  LOCATION: Hyperion Bridge (room 1010)

  EVENT: PHOTOS—JOSEPH McANDREW, TIM WARNE, BRYCE CAMPION, RICK AMORY

  LOCATION: Transpodule Chamber (room 1030)

  EVENT: NEW VOIDS—ROLE-PLAYING GAMES, EXPERT PANEL with Graham Goldingay, Fay Lawless, Craig Jones, Darren Cardew

  LOCATION: The Seventh Moon of Groolia (room 1002)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘You! What do you think you’re doing here?’

  ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Don’t come any closer, you bastard! I’m not afraid to use this!’

  ‘That’s a washing-up liquid bottle, Bernard.’

  ‘It’s full of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. I shake this baby…and we go up together!’

  The stewards panicked and rushed to disarm him. He watched helplessly as they took his washing-up liquid bottle away, his lip poking out petulantly.

  ‘I want that back, you know,’ he called after them.

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ said Mervyn.

  ‘Well Mervyn, I don’t want to talk to you. Funny, that.’

  ‘Look, talk to me, and I won’t press charges.’

  ‘What charges?’

  Mervyn was taken aback. Had he forgotten already? ‘When you punched me? When you knocked me off the stage and left me with a bruise the shape of New Zealand on my cheek, and one the shape of Australia on my bottom?’

  Bernard blinked. He’d been feeling so self-righteous after he’d punched Mervyn, it hadn’t occurred to him that he could get into trouble for it. ‘Oh. You don’t want to press charges?’

  ‘No. I just want to talk about why you sold the big Styrax to Simon.’

  Bernard started packing his equipment a
way. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Especially not to you, of all people.’

  ‘“Me, of all people”? What does that mean?’

  ‘Work it out.’

  ‘So, it was about you stealing.’

  Bernard stopped, muttered ‘fuck’ under his breath, and carried on throwing his equipment into a box.

  ‘Should you really chuck gunpowder around like that?’

  ‘It’s not gunpowder,’ he muttered. ‘It’s coffee. Mix it with sweetener, light it with a Bunsen burner and you get a flame-thrower.’

  ‘Oh.’ Another awkward silence.

  ‘Bernard, talk to me! This is more important than some old grudge.’

  He continued to ignore Mervyn.

  ‘Fine. There’s a policeman somewhere in this convention. I suppose I’d better find him and talk about filing an assault charge against you.’

  ‘Yes, of course you bloody would. You just get what you want and you don’t care how you get it. More blackmail. You’re no better than Simon.’

  ‘Right. We’ve got somewhere. It’s about you stealing, and Simon blackmailing you.’

  Bernard muttered ‘fuck’ under his breath again; he finished packing his box and then sighed. ‘All right, if you must know, he was blackmailing me…thanks to you!’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You, you arsehole!’

  ‘Why is it my fault?’

  Bernard sighed. ‘Because he found out I stole the Styrax I sold him.’

  ‘The one I crushed?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘When did he find that out?’

  ‘When you crushed it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah. Oh.’

  Mervyn could have made the point that when he had crushed the Styrax he had been propelled in its direction by Bernard, but he resisted. At least Bernard was talking. ‘How did he work it out?’

  ‘Bloody fans! They know everything, don’t they? There was something written on the inside of the Styrax that he said gave him concrete proof that it was the Styrax we’d used for the end of series two, the final day’s filming on “Day of the Styrax”.’

  ‘The one that got…“mislaid”.’

  ‘Yeah,’ spat Bernard. ‘That one. I was owed something, Mervyn! You got yours, oh yes, you made sure of that! I just wanted mine!’

  ‘If you choose to work on staff, then those are the breaks,’ Mervyn snapped, weary of saying it for the umpteenth time. ‘You gain security and you forgo intellectual copyright. Do you think I’ve not been in jobs where I’ve signed away my royalties for a salary?’

  ‘I made that stuff with my own hands! A lot of it was just going to get thrown into a bin anyway!’

  ‘And a lot of it wasn’t!’

  ‘Okay, I was wrong! All right? I admit it. Wrong, wrong, wrong! I stole stuff. I was wrong and I lost my job. I paid for what I did! I paid for it and I deserve to have it forgotten. But these bloody fans don’t, do they? They don’t forget a bloody thing! I do not deserve to have the whole pile of crap dug up and placed on my head again after all these years!’

  ‘So what? Simon was…’

  ‘He was threatening to sue me for it, or have me arrested for passing on stolen goods. He hadn’t decided. But he wouldn’t do either if I…’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  ‘You guessed it. The sod wanted my bloody Styrax Superior. He’s always wanted it.’

  Mervyn allowed the air to escape from his lungs. He was almost starting to admire Simon for his sheer ruthless chutzpah. He had been quite an operator. A Styrax operator. He smiled at the thought.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ snarled Bernard.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Oh yes you are. You’re smiling. You’re laughing at me. I know what you’re thinking. “Why didn’t old Bernard check the inside of his Styrax for writing that might incriminate him? Hmmm. Oh yes, that’s right. Poor old Bernard can’t read very well! Oh har, har, har! How ironic!” Well fuck you, Mervyn!’

  ‘Simon had evidence that you stole the Styrax? Is that why you broke into Simon’s room?’ A thought struck Mervyn. He’d completely forgotten what happened in Simon’s room after they left. ‘Is that why you burnt the bits of the Styrax in the bin?’

  Bernard stared at Mervyn. It was the wrong time to ask that question. ‘You’ve been spying on me, haven’t you?’

  ‘No I haven’t!’

  ‘Yes you have, you’ve been spying on me! You’re investigating me again! Can’t you just leave me alone, you bastard?’

  ‘Gentlemen…’ Nicholas was standing in the doorway, one hand on his lapel, the other tucked into his waistcoat. ‘…There is a crowd of people out there waiting to hear Andrew Jamieson talk about how to write for Vixens from the Void in this room. Naturally, he’s late…’ The former producer strolled in, patting Mervyn on the back. ‘Of course, thanks to you and your raised voices, my old loves, the crowd has grown even larger. An even greater number of people are now waiting to hear Andrew’s Jamieson’s guide to being a writer. I hope you both can live with the guilt.’

  Nicholas had defused the situation. Thank heavens.

  Bernard glared back at Mervyn, tucked his box under his arm and blundered to the door. ‘I’m done here. Leave me alone.’ Then he was gone. Mervyn could hear him snapping sulkily at the fans waiting outside the door. ‘Careful!’ he shouted. ‘I’m carrying everyday objects! I might explode at any moment!’

  Nicholas now rested his hand on Mervyn’s shoulder. ‘Come on, my old love,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s have a bite. Hotel restaurant?’

  ‘Have we any choice?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Hotel restaurant it is, then.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The restaurant of the Happy Traveller wasn’t bad. It had an unpretentious menu of steak meals and fish dishes, all served up with steamed vegetables and/or curly French fries, neatly divided into tiny bowls. Mervyn could see why they liked having conventions here; the menu seemed to cater for those with a touch of autism. It was quite quiet too; there was only one other table occupied by a few fans, well-behaved enough to be satisfied with a few perfunctory nods and smiles from him.

  In years past, it had been customary for Nicholas and Mervyn to dine together at least once every convention—a chance to pull up the drawbridge for an hour and isolate themselves from the madness swirling around them. Mervyn instantly relaxed.

  Nicholas offered him an insanely generous glass of what was described in the wine list as ‘The Traveller’s Tipple’, but more closely resembled ‘The Motorist’s Mouthwash’. Mervyn declined, electing instead to gulp down pints of iced water to quieten the roaring in his throat caused by smoke inhalation.

  ‘Good God, Mervy! I know I’ve just offered you a glass of the most execrable hotel red; a combination of Vimto and sulphuric acid which would shame a motorway service station, but there’s no need to start drinking water! Has the world gone mad?’ Nicholas suddenly looked perturbed. He drummed his fingers on the table, and cleared his throat. ‘Mervyn old love, I hate to break this lovely ambience of cut-price conviviality, but I do need to say something that might shock you…’

  Mervyn looked expectantly at Nicholas. Here we go. He’s going to tell me Bernard murdered Simon.

  ‘There’s someone hiding in the plastic aspidistra behind us.’

  Mervyn looked over. A couple of leaves parted.

  ‘Hello,’ Nicholas said, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’

  A young man looked at Mervyn through the undergrowth. He held a finger to his lips, begging for anonymity. Mervyn had no intention of playing along.

  ‘Stuart!’

  Stuart stood up reluctantly, and Nicholas saw the strapping young man clearly for the first time. The former producer straightened up and gave a winning smile, unconsciously mirroring Vanity’s behaviour. ‘Goodness me, are you the hotel gardener? Can I be your Lady Chatterley?’

  ‘Excuse me a minute, Nicholas. Sorry about this.’ Mervyn escort
ed Stuart out of the restaurant.

  ‘Have you deduced the murderer yet?’

  ‘No. Go away.’

  ‘But I’ve changed out of my costume.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’re still investigating separately.’

  ‘Are you interrogating Nicholas Everett?’

  ‘No I’m having a late lunch.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Go away Stuart. Go away and conduct your own investigations, and allow me to pursue mine.’

  ‘Oh. You are questioning him? Subtly?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Okay! See you later, Mr St—Mervyn.’ And Stuart bounded happily away.

  Mervyn returned to the table where Nicholas beamed at him.

  ‘Sorry about that. Never start a conversation with a fan. You suddenly become their best friend.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, petal. The worst thing about these wretched conventions is they always manage to find a hotel in the middle of bloody nowhere. No little bistros down the road, no rustic country pubs to escape the masses. There’s nowhere to go. You’re a prisoner for three days, at the mercy of these buggers.’

  Mervyn nodded, wearily.

  Nicholas’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘Do I know that young man? Oh yes! He took an autograph off me, and then proceeded to tell me where exactly I’d gone wrong with the making of our little show.’

  ‘That sounds like Stuart.’

  ‘He said we shouldn’t have used colour separation overlay for the spaceship shots in part two of “Assassins of Destiny”, because it didn’t match up with the other model spaceships we had in part one.’

  ‘You did explain there were two different directors for the episodes, one of whom was Guy Hollis, who gave a shit, and the other being Ken Roche, who didn’t?’

  ‘I tried, old love, I really tried. But he told me I should have used one director for the whole story, that doing it like that was a bit ropey and a bit sloppy. I could have debated with him for hours about the pressures we were under, but I have a life.’

  ‘Did he show you his “remade” versions that were much better?’

  ‘He attempted to, petal, but I faked an attack of the vapours and got three stewards to carry me out.’ He looked at Mervyn. ‘So talking of being at the mercy of these bloody fans… I heard you and Mr Viner talking about Simon and his nasty blackmailing ways. Well more shouting than talking. Could hardly miss it, old love.’