Cursed Among Sequels (The Mervyn Stone Mysteries, #3)

by Nev Fountain

  Randall and Mervyn exchanged glances. Mervyn’s own words came back to him. Perhaps they’re not just after me. Perhaps someone’s trying to sabotage the production.

  ‘Well,’ said Randall. ‘He was a good idea at the time.’

  ‘He was your idea at the time, Randall.’

  Randall glared at Louise, and Louise glared at the wing mirror of her car. Mervyn felt very privileged; he’d never seen the ancient TV executives’ ceremony of the Passing of the Buck before.

  Randall threw his shoulders back and took charge. He patted Mervyn on the shoulder. ‘Okay, I better go see if we can salvage anything. I’ll talk to Bryony and the Clockworks boys, see if we can avoid a reshoot. Nick, make sure Ken doesn’t make any more mistakes this morning. Lean on him very hard.’

  Randall was leaving when Mervyn said; ‘Randall, I don’t suppose I could watch the television in your car? There’s my episode of Doctors on today, and I’m curious to see how it turned out.’

  ‘Sure Merv,’ Randall tossed him the keys. ‘Just don’t watch it for more than a half-hour. You’ll flatten the battery.’ Randall jogged off, followed by Nick.

  Mervyn and Louise were alone. Louise didn’t acknowledge him, she just kept on smoking furiously, ash cascading on to the bonnet of her car. It looked like the stress of making a television programme was starting to get to her.

  ‘Louise, I have a question to ask you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have any members of the production team made any enquiries about who holds the rights to the Styrax in the event of my death?’

  Louise shrugged. ‘Not to my knowledge. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I’ve been told someone did.’

  ‘Not from my office they didn’t. Why should they? Bloody Styrax. If I had my way, we wouldn’t have the bloody things at all. They’re just one more headache.’ Her eyes fixed on a non-existent horizon. ‘God, I hate this! I hate it all! When they showed me old tapes of Vixens from the Void, I thought, “God, what utter rubbish. What a cheesy load of crap. There’s no way this can be remade in a way that won’t get laughed off the screen.”’

  ‘No offence taken,’ said Mervyn drily.

  ‘Yes, Mervyn. Offence given. I mean it, if you’re offended, I’m bloody glad. It was a shoddy awful piece of work, even for the 80s, and you all should be ashamed of it. What, were you all pissed or off on holiday or what when you planned it? When they put it out of its misery they were doing us all a favour; but of course, everything has to come back now, doesn’t it? That’s the fashion. Product Lazarus bought the rights—against my advice I might add… And Randall was so enthusiastic. I knew this was a mistake.’ She wandered away gloomily, scuffing the gravel with her boots. Mervyn could hear her voice droning into the distance. ‘I should have gone to the Shopping Channel when I had the chance. All they do hold jewellery up to the camera and talk about it. So much easier…’

  *

  Mervyn wasn’t going to watch the television in the car. He’d never written an episode of Doctors in his life. He had other things to do.

  He opened up the boot of Randall’s car. His aged leather holdall was there. It had, until last night, contained his noxious underpants. He’d emptied the holdall (putting the pants in a very secure plastic bag) and marked it up prominently with ‘M. Stone’ on the handles, filling in the little plastic label on the side with his name and his address. He carried it out, plonked it on a picnic table and left it there, gaping open.

  Mervyn leapt into the undergrowth, where Maggie was waiting.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ‘This is quite some date,’ said Maggie.

  Mervyn raised his digital camera and looked at the viewscreen. They were crouched in Randall’s car, slumped low in the back seat, peering cautiously through the boot. The tinted windows were perfect for hiding their presence.

  ‘Are you expecting anything exciting to happen?’ she asked.

  ‘Not the first time a woman’s said that to me in the back of a car.’

  They grinned at each other, for slightly too long.

  ‘As you can guess, I’ve thought about this a lot,’ explained Mervyn. ‘The poisoned sandwich seemed odd to me. My attacker couldn’t have known whether I’d ask for a sandwich at all or even just buy a meal from the restaurant. It’s almost like he or she was just wandering around the location with a pocketful of poison, waiting to put something in whatever food or drink I decided to have.’

  ‘Sound thinking. I’m impressed.’

  “From that conclusion, and assessing the incident at the supermarket, I’m thinking: if you were to give this murderer a one-word description, it would be “opportunistic”.’

  ‘I’d concur, Holmes.’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be that much planning involved, more a spur-of-the-moment creativity that smacks of desperation. If that’s the murderer’s modus operandi, then how could he or she resist my bag just laying there, gaping open, its contents for all to see? Surely he or she would try and drop a bomb in it, or a poisonous spider, or something?’

  ‘Look! There’s someone at the bag!’ hissed Maggie.

  Mervyn looked. It was one of the runners, the female one with the purple hair. She looked at it, inspected the name tag on the handle and walked away.

  ‘No,’ he lowered the camera. ‘False alarm.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll come back.’

  ‘Maybe…’ Mervyn was doubtful. ‘Pity. She was near the top of my suspect list.’

  ‘That little girl? Why?’

  ‘She gave me the message to go to find the Styrax in the supermarket, and she got me my sandwich. The circumstantial evidence is quite strong.’

  ‘What motive could she have?’

  Mervyn shrugged. ‘Well…it all depends what this mystery assailant wants to accomplish, really. Either he or she has a personal grudge against me…’

  ‘Like Ken.’

  ‘Yes, like Ken. Or perhaps there’s a professional reason to get rid of me, like putting the rights of the Styrax into the hands of someone more malleable. Glyn would like that to happen. And if Glyn wanted it, then Nick would want it too. Or maybe there’s a more general reason, to sabotage production so much it stops the filming. That could throw the suspects right open. Or, perhaps there’s a mad fan on board, who thinks this whole project is a crime against all that is Vixens and wants to stop it at any cost.’

  ‘The purple-haired girl could be a mad fan?’

  ‘Perhaps. If there were an angry fan about on set, it might explain all the leaks on the internet.’ Mervyn rolled on to his back and took a crafty photo of her.

  ‘Mervyn no! Not from that angle! You’ll get my double chin!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You haven’t got a double chin.’ He took another photo.

  ‘Mervyn!’

  She attempted to wrestle the camera off him, but he dodged her and opened the door. ‘Right, it’s lunchtime. They’ll all be wandering around the gardens, stretching their legs and looking for places to eat. I’m going to sit by my bag and read my paper. Then I’m going to leave, come back, leave, come back, etc. etc., and see if anyone takes advantage of my absence.’ He took another photo of her when she wasn’t looking, saved it in his favourites and handed her the camera.

  Mervyn went out and read his paper, pretending not to notice the production team arriving around him. He made a huge show of rooting around in his holdall, making clear to everyone it was his, then wandered off into the bushes.

  Maggie watched the production crew sit at tables next to it, some glancing at it without interest. It began to get busy, and all the tables became occupied apart from the one with the bag; then that too was occupied.

  Ken sat next to the bag, drinking tea. He seemed as though he was going to look inside, but thought better of it. He walked off.

  The female runner inspected the bag again and put it tidily under a chair. Then everyone left for the afternoon’s fi
lming, and the bag was on its own again. Mervyn returned to the car, and opened the door.

  ‘Hello down there.’

  Maggie waved from her hiding place. ‘Hello up there.’

  Mervyn sighed. ‘Okay, I’m officially starting to feel a little silly. And a bit bored.’

  ‘I’m all of those, and I’ve got pins and needles as well.’

  ‘I don’t think anything’s going to happen.’

  ‘Merv!’

  Randall was standing on the other side of the car park, arms folded. He looked tense.

  ‘Merv, we got a top-level meeting in the location bus. Important business. I want you to attend.’

  ‘Oh…ah, okay…in a minute.’

  ‘Now, Merv, if you please. Everyone else is waiting.’

  Mervyn slammed the car door and walked towards Randall. Randall pointed at the car.

  ‘Wait!’

  Mervyn stopped. Had Randall seen Maggie in the back seat?

  ‘Merv, get the key out of the damn car. I have to lock up.’

  Mervyn stopped, one foot in the air, paralysed by indecision. He turned round on the same foot, walked back, and opened the door. He leaned low and whispered in Maggie’s ear.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘This is so not turning out to be a good date.’

  Mervyn pulled the keys out and slammed the door. He tossed the key to Randall, who aimed it at the car like a miniature ray-gun.

  There was chirp, and the car lights flashed. It was locked.

  *

  When Mervyn got to the bus, the senior production staff were all there; Ken was barely sitting; he was in a half-crouch, foot jiggling, tapping his cigarette lighter on the table surface. He was obviously frantic to get back to the cameras and crash through the afternoon’s filming. Louise was sitting by him, arms tightly folded. She had assumed the crash position, ready for more bad news. Glyn was lounging on the back seat with his feet on a table. Nick was staring at Glyn, and Glyn was staring at his laptop, pecking at the keys, studiously ignoring the attention.

  Mervyn picked a seat equidistant from everybody else.

  Randall pulled the lever at the top of the bus doors. They closed with a sigh. Randall sighed too, and leaned against the door of the bus, loosening the knot on his fancy tie.

  ‘We’ve got a problem.’

  ‘Is this about the leaks?’ said Mervyn.

  ‘What leaks?’ squeaked Nick.

  ‘On the internet. The phone camera stuff.’

  ‘This isn’t about the leaks,’ said Randall.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with our crew,’ snapped Louise. ‘It must be someone in the cast. I bet it’s the Wagz playing games, building up publicity for themselves.’

  Randall rapped impatiently against the bus window. ‘Look, forget about the damn leaks. We’ll investigate that later. That’s hardly our most pressing problem right now. I’ve been sending some raw footage to the suits, and we have a problem.’

  Mervyn wasn’t surprised. He could conjure up an image of how hideous Ken’s footage was and he suspected his imagination wasn’t dark enough to do it justice.

  ‘What’s up with the footage?’ Ken muttered. ‘I’m very pleased with what we’ve got so far.’

  ‘Oh, so are they. Don’t get me wrong. They love it.’

  There was a huge silence. Everyone looked at each other, stunned, like the survivors staggering out of a particularly nasty car accident.

  ‘They…love it?’ said Louise, cautiously.

  ‘Yep. They think the girls are coming across real well on screen. The script is funny…’

  Glyn doffed an imaginary hat.

  ‘The sets look good. Mundane and low-tech, just like the original Star Wars. Their words…’

  Louise harrumphed to herself.

  ‘And they think the camera work is really interesting. Low shots, extreme close-ups, they think it’s got a real Battlestar Galactica vibe.’

  ‘What extreme close-ups?’ said Ken indignantly.

  Nick looked nervous. ‘We’ve had to junk the mid-shots and keep the close-ups to hide things, watches, boom mikes… Clockworks had to crop a lot of shots digitally. Basically we had to make room to put a lot of their effects in the foreground instead of the background…’

  ‘You’ve played with my footage?’ Ken was outraged. ‘I want to see it!’

  ‘Shut up, Ken,’ said Randall. ‘You’re lucky what you shot was usable.’

  ‘So they’ve seen it and they like it. Then what’s the problem?’ asked Louise.

  Mervyn was completely unprepared for what Randall said next.

  ‘They got a problem with the Gorgs,’ he said.

  ‘What…kind of a problem?’

  ‘It’s been pointed out that they’re actually naked.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now this is not my view but…’

  ‘But they’re huge hairy animals,’ said Louise. ‘I’m sure they don’t have a problem with naked dogs. Or naked cats.’

  ‘That’s pretty much what I said, but the way they understand it, they’re human life-forms who have regressed into primitive barbarism. So they’re basically naked stupid guys. So we need to get them clothes.’

  Louise stared disbelievingly at her coffee cup. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. This is a joke, right?’

  ‘Anything but. Hey, I don’t make the rules, but that’s the way it is. Product Lazarus is used to making kids TV, and they’re used to making shows that they can sell to any network in the States without causing a hassle. And if Product Lazarus is putting in the dollars they don’t see why Vixens from the Void should be any different.’

  ‘What, and they can’t show it because a man in a monkey suit isn’t wearing trousers?’

  ‘If Janet Jackson’s nipple can cause a terror alert, then yes, they’re not going to take any chances with naked monkeys. Bottom line is, we have to cover up their genitalia.’

  ‘But they don’t have genitalia.’

  ‘Of course they have genitalia. Everything has genitalia.’

  ‘Everything but the suits at PLM it seems,’ muttered Mervyn.

  ‘You’re not being part of the solution, Mervyn,’ snapped Randall.

  Ken looked aghast. His eyes blazed behind his square glasses. ‘We’ve shot days of footage with those bloody gonks. You’re not seriously telling me we have to go back and do it all again?’

  ‘Of course not. There’s stuff we can do. The effects boys can add clothes digitally to the stuff we’ve shot.’

  Louise and Nick became visibly tense.

  ‘It’ll be a bit expensive,’ Randall continued, ‘but they feel it’s worth it to make sure the show gets an airing, so they’re happy to find the extra budget to do it.’

  Louise and Nick became visibly relaxed.

  ‘But the question remains… What are they gonna wear?’

  ‘A big sash?’ suggested Mervyn.

  ‘That’s not gonna work. The suits will still say that the area where their genitalia is supposed to be is still unclad.’

  ‘How do the suits know where a Gorg’s genitalia are supposed to be?’ said Mervyn.

  ‘Merv, now is not the time to be cute. I don’t give a shit where a Gorg’s genitalia are, but I know where my genitalia are gonna be if I don’t sort this out quickly; stuffed up my own ass.’

  ‘Some kind of shorts, like boxer shorts?’ ventured Nick.

  ‘Marks & Spencers do wonderful pants. I swear by them,’ said Mervyn wistfully, picking his swimming trunks from where they were currently lodged. ‘Very comfy if you’re an active Gorg on the move, flying business class.’

  Randall ignored him.

  ‘How about hotpants?’ Glyn giggled from the corner.

  ‘Or a kilt?’ said Mervyn.

  ‘Lederhosen, my lovely,’ said Glyn. ‘They can wear the little hats too.’

  Randall twisted his tie and stared despairingly at the ceiling. ‘Am I the only one who is still acting like a professional here?’
r />   Louise shrugged. ‘Why not get Valerie in here? That’s really her job. I’m not an ideas person.’

  ‘Great,’ said Randall. ‘Glad to see someone is still trying to work towards the Solution Horizon here.’

  The costume designer, Valerie Pemberton, was called in. After being told of the problem, she immediately realised that this was her moment to shine. She paced down the bus’s gangway, rows of bracelets rattling on her wrist as she pressed her finger to her chin.

  ‘Okay, let’s throw some ideas at the Velcro, see if they stick… Perhaps some little toga type of thing, you know, an ancient Rome vibe?’

  ‘PLM thought about that. All those little folds in the material… They think it might be too difficult for the computer boys to animate.’

  ‘Animal skins?’

  ‘Even worse. It’s the little follicles.’

  Valerie was not to be defeated. ‘Okay, how about something a bit more ancient Egypt? Flat strips of shiny material? That shouldn’t be too hard to animate.’

  ‘Hmm…’ Randall considered, absently curling his tie around his finger. ‘That might fit the bill. I’ll just e-mail my boss and see if that’s acceptable. Can you get one of them in a costume like that for tomorrow?’

  Valerie gulped. ‘I think so. I’ll get my boys and girls to pull an all-nighter.’

  ‘Great.’

  Ken scowled. ‘And what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I’ve got scenes to shoot.’

  Randall handed out a sheaf of script pages. ‘Here are all the scenes we can do without the Gorgs. It’s not much, but it should fill our afternoon.’

  Ken went pale. ‘But I haven’t planned these scenes.’

  You mean you actually plan the scenes you do shoot? thought Mervyn, and he knew everyone else was thinking it too.

  The meeting over, everyone filed out of the bus. Randall stayed around, waving his Blackberry in the air, looking for life, and Mervyn saw his chance. ‘Um… Could I get your keys off you again, Randall? I’ve left my notebook in your car.’

  *

  Mervyn rushed back to the car park, threw open the car door and found Maggie curled up asleep on the back seat. It was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. She’d pulled Randall’s leather coat over her, and her curls were draped across the seat like a pre-Raphaelite dog blanket. Her nose was squished up against the seat back. Mervyn wondered if he dared kiss her awake, but instead settled on giving her a gentle shake of the shoulder.