by Nev Fountain
He looked at his watch. It was 11.56.
He crossed the room and moved the curtains to one side. It was like the window had been coated with oil, utterly and completely black. For a city-dweller like Mervyn, it was unnerving to see the night unpunctuated with points of light.
And then there were points of light. Two of them. They blinked into existence from nowhere; tiny, almost invisible.
*
Mervyn pulled his trousers back on over his pyjamas, shrugged on his coat and pressed his feet back into his shoes. He stood at the door, hand hovering over the handle, undecided and feeling rather foolish. Think about this. I’m just about to charge into the night, pursuing a light in the sky. I’m behaving like some of the fans I meet at conventions; the ones who think the show’s real, ask for Arkadia’s astral address and demand to join the Vixos Space Force. I’m being stupid. Let’s go back to bed and forget about it.
He watched his hand.
His hand gripped the handle and pulled the door open.
Stupid hand.
*
He felt as though he was walking along the bottom of the ocean. His tiny torch created a fuzzy beam of light three feet in front of him. He twitched it one side; it showed him grass. He flicked it to the other; it showed him more grass. It was utterly useless.
He headed grimly towards the two points of light, knowing he’d feel a prize idiot if it turned out to be a pair of lighthouses.
The moon gave a cheeky peep from behind the clouds, and Mervyn fancied he heard a deep mournful howl. Now he felt like Dr Watson; blundering away without a clue as to what he was up to, a puppet doing the bidding of someone much cleverer than him.
Then he reached the lights. They were huge brass lamps, fixed on either side of black wrought iron gates. They were firmly shut, and there was no bell as far as he could see. Not very welcoming.
Well, there was no point wandering around like a tourist. He’d come a long way to look at these lights. He wasn’t turning back now. He walked around the building, found the lowest part of the wall and clambered up, throwing himself over the top. He was fortunate; he landed on a compost heap and managed to scramble down to the ground, slipping and sliding on the decaying plant matter.
He was standing in the courtyard of a converted farmhouse, a building that had been beautiful once but had rashly succumbed to the surgeon’s knife and had had expensive but not-very-classy plastic surgery. The mullioned windows had been punched out and replaced by large sheets of triple glazing. Rods of wrought iron poked out from the tops of the walls.
Then two huge Dobermans came round the corner. They stopped about 30 feet from Mervyn, looking intently at him, heads cocked to one side as if listening for invisible instructions.
Good, thought Mervyn hysterically. That’s good. They’re highly trained dogs, dogs trained to differentiate between undesirables and burglars and decent law-abiding writers like him.
The dogs started to growl.
‘Good dogs. Nice dogs. Good boys.’
They kept growling.
‘Umm… Pandorus?’
They didn’t stop growling. There was an extra degree of growling, with a postgraduate certificate in snarling and snapping.
‘Pandorus?’
Any second now, he thought, they’re going to realise that I’m just a friendly visitor who’s happened to drop by at one o’clock in the morning, that I don’t mean any harm and they’ll…oh shit.
The dogs were running towards him now, heads down, ears flattened.
Mervyn ran for his life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Where? Where could he go? He ran across the courtyard, aware of the skittering sound of claws on flagstones behind him. He hurled himself through a gap between two outhouses and ran alongside the rear, straining his eyes in the darkness, looking for something he could step on and use to launch himself over the back wall.
The dogs had oozed out of the gap he’d just emerged from, fighting with themselves in their eagerness to be the first to wrestle him to the ground and find out what his insides tasted like.
He flailed at the wall, but couldn’t get a purchase on the smooth brickwork. He gave up and concentrated on running, pelting around the corner up to the house. He hoped the owner would be more reasonable about visitors than the dogs behind him, but he didn’t hold out much hope.
He was an out-of-shape man running in the dark with no idea where he was or where he was going, so the inevitable happened. He skidded on something and collided with the ground. He lay there, staring at the moon, hoping he’d wake-up nice and warm in his hotel room in the Black Prince Tavern.
An outside light went on, spearing Mervyn with a blinding beam.
‘Arkadia! Medula! Cease! Daxatar!’
The dogs stopped mid-charge, as if they’d been slapped in the face by an invisible force-field. They fell to their haunches and looked at Mervyn with doleful eyes, as cute as a poster on a kitten obsessive’s wall.
A man clad in a dressing gown was in the doorway, grey hair sprouting in tufts above his ears.
‘I’ve been instructed to bring you into the lounge, sir.’
*
Mervyn was invited into the house by the butler, who disappointingly introduced himself as Paul, not Jeeves or Crichton. Mervyn’s muddy shoes were confiscated and he was given expensive slippers to wear. But before Mervyn could ask any questions about the owner of the house, Paul vanished.
Inside, the house didn’t resemble a farmhouse at all. There was the occasional timber jutting out of the ceiling betraying the building’s original purpose, but mainly the place had the antiseptic look and feel of a television studio; black furniture, glass coffee tables scattered with Broadcast and Variety, and large framed posters of old TV shows on the white walls.
Paul reappeared with a stiff drink and a steaming hot pasty, which Mervyn consumed with gusto.
‘Whose place is this?’ Mervyn asked, spitting bits of potato on to a frighteningly expensive rug.
‘It’s not for me to say, sir. I’m sure my master would like to tell you himself.’
‘Why?’
Paul arched an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t thank me if I squandered his chance to be enigmatic.’
There was no answer to that. Paul disappeared again and Mervyn munched on his pasty thoughtfully.
Once he had finished, Mervyn got up and perused the room. There were several large glass cases transfixed by tiny spotlights. In the glass he saw his reflection; his nose was streaked with mud and his hair was even wilder than usual. Inside the glass cases were cheap and nasty lumps of polystyrene, fibre glass and scraps of costume.
It was all starting to feel horribly familiar.
‘Hello Mervyn.’
The voice came from the adjoining room. Mervyn walked through.
Before him was a man sitting on a sofa. It was difficult to see where the sofa ended and the man began; both were lumpy, overstuffed and clad in a shit-brown hessian material that someone thought was a good idea in 1973.
It was Graham Goldingay. Of course.
Graham was holding a glass of something golden in one hand; it could have been whisky, but it could equally well have been apple juice or Lucozade. You never knew with Graham. In the other hand he had a TV remote, and there was an expensive set of headphones on his lap. A television dominated the whole of the far wall, and on it, actresses with 80s hairstyles and costumes mouthed silent, anguished words to one another.
The two dogs were panting amiably at his feet, looking benignly at nothing in particular, like they’d been taking lessons from Louise Felcham.
‘Sorry I didn’t hear you come in. I normally watch selected classic episodes of Vixens at this hour, and I use my Ultrasone headphones to completely immerse myself in the experience.’
Graham Goldingay was a Vixens superfan, but there was nothing particularly super about him. He had no X-ray vision, to the great relief of the female Vixens stars, and he couldn’t leap tall
buildings; in fact, if he’d entered a leaping competition he’d get out-leapt by pretty much anything; even tall buildings.
He was an unfortunate combination—an extremely anal fan with almost limitless piles of cash. He had set up a successful company that made millions, but he was never more than a spittle-flecked phone call away, always pestering the Vixens celebrities with demands to attend functions, dinners and charity events. Mervyn had been coerced into writing some Goldingay-funded bargain-basement drama that had died on its way to the made-for-video shelf.
‘Mervyn Stone… I thought I recognised Paul’s description, but I wasn’t 100% certain; about 76 to 79% certain, I would say. This is a great honour, and quite a stroke of luck; you’ve already seen the props in my London residence, now you can see the ones I keep in my rural bolthole.’
Mervyn had last encountered Graham during the investigation of a perplexing mystery involving locker keys and old Vixens props. It had involved Graham showing Mervyn round his private collection of memorabilia.
Mervyn dusted himself off with shaky dignity. ‘The only prop I need is my phone,’ snapped Mervyn, pulling out his mobile. ‘I’m going to ring the police now.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘No, I’m just giving you a statement of fact. Mobile phones won’t work here. You’re welcome to use my landline. Why do you want to call the police?’
Mervyn looked astonished. ‘Isn’t it obvious? You’ve kidnapped me, attacked me with your dogs…’
Graham’s mouth only usually opened for talking and tarka daal, but this time it dropped open in astonishment. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘They’ll certainly be interested in what’s just happened to me. I’m sure kidnapping and incarceration are crimes, even in these parts.’
Graham got out of his seat surprisingly quickly for one of such great size, and advanced toward Mervyn like an avalanche with a face. He might have been an adoring fan but he was still a film producer, and he’d been threatened many times before. ‘You’ll be surprised at what are seen as crimes in these parts; trespass definitely is, and they view it very seriously.’
‘I was asked to come here and then I was ambushed by your bloody dogs!’
Graham’s mouth, nose and eyes were pushed together in a frown. It made his head look even larger. ‘Of course you’ve been asked to come here, on many occasions in the past, in fact. You’ve always said you were busy. But I didn’t invite you here tonight.’
‘I was slipped a note.’ Mervyn fumbled in his pocket, produced the note and placed it in the middle of Graham’s meaty palm.
Graham studied it, turning it over and holding it up to the light. ‘I don’t know anything about this. Did you really say the “P” word to Arkadia and Medula?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s their attack signal.’
‘I sort of gathered that.’
Graham drummed his stubby fingers on the table. ‘This is very worrying. Do you think someone tried to kill you using my dogs?’
‘It looks like, doesn’t it?’
‘Who could have done such a thing?’
‘Well… Does anyone know the attack signal apart from you?’
‘Paul does, of course.’
‘That narrows it down.’
‘And I may have mentioned it on a few internet forums…’
Mervyn groaned. ‘…to several thousand Vixens fans…’
‘The attack signal is common knowledge; whereas the signal to cease attacking is less so, for obvious security reasons. Only Paul and I know that. You are indeed fortunate that we were present at the house when you called.’
‘I feel very lucky indeed,’ Mervyn responded drily.
‘This is indeed a heinous act, to think that I, Graham Goldingay, would be wielded as a weapon in the destruction of the most valuable piece of Vixens memorabilia of all time…’ He pointed between Mervyn’s eyes. ‘…Mervyn Stone’s brain.’
‘I think they were more after my guts, Graham, but I appreciate the sentiment.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
‘This is indeed a fortunate meeting, Mervyn. We have much to discuss. Allow me the honour of bringing you into my humble abode and cleaning you up. You must be quite shaken up by your ordeal. Let me show you to my executive bathroom.’
Mervyn carefully stepped over Medula and Arkadia—uncomfortably aware his testicles were dangling within their chomping distance—but the dogs just stared at him happily, pink tongues dangling from their panting mouths.
Graham guided Mervyn’s bedraggled form through his house but was obviously in no hurry to get to the executive bathroom. He was eager to continue where he left off a year ago and show off the rest of his collection to his special guest. Mervyn couldn’t help but notice that the dogs had trotted after them and were following at a distance.
He was led through corridors festooned with recording equipment; cameras on tripods stood to attention on either side of them. They went past recording suites and a TV studio decorated with green screen. It was much better resourced than the Vixens shoot.
They came out into what had once been an open courtyard but was now a covered walkway encased in glass and steel. Suspended above them was more of Graham’s collection, much bigger than the battered chunks of fibreglass in his London home. They were hanging like hunting trophies. Mervyn hoped they were fixed more securely than his kamikaze badger’s head.
‘That was the machine that stopped the Styrax attack in “Acceleration Switch”. The one buried in the heart of Ventricula, left there by the Ventriculans.’
‘The Magnotron?’
‘The Magnotron. They found that inside Ventricula, and lo and behold it just happened to be the right kind of machine to stop the Styrax. It was such a convenient plot device. Such a deus ex machina. Such lazy writing.’
Mervyn had written that episode. Not for the first time, he marvelled at the disconnection fans had when they talked about the show, not realising that the work they dismissed with such casual brutality was the work of human beings with feelings, usually human beings standing right next to them.
‘Such a cop-out. I got so annoyed about the ending to that one. I hated that ending. I hated that machine.’
‘You hated it?’
‘Oh yes. Hated it. Hate it, hate it, hate it.’
‘But you bought it.’
Graham ran his hand along the bottom edge of it, caressing the cheap fibreglass. ‘Of course I bought it. It cost me £8000 at auction at a Nostalgia convention. I was in a fight to the death with Simon Josh, but it was worth it.’
It’s a strange world, the world of a fan, thought Mervyn. Passionately loving and hating something all at the same time. I used to be so amused by their funny mindsets when I was making the show. But now? Just look at me. I both love and hate Vixens too. So I sympathise, I really do.
‘Now that was a good Nostalgia convention,’ Graham ploughed on tediously. ‘One of the great Nostalgia conventions. The best Nostalgia convention I ever went to. Nowadays there’s not much to buy any more. I really miss the old days, when Nostalgia conventions were really good.’
‘You have a very nice house.’
‘Thank you. I come here for the peace and quiet and to work on my edits.’
‘So it’s just a big coincidence your place is just a stone’s throw from where I’m staying?’
‘You still think that I had something to do with attacking you? Oh no, not at all. It’s not a coincidence I’m here, but not in the way you might think. I actually bought this place during the last Vixens shoot in Cornwall, back in 1990, to be near the filming, and goodness me I’ve had it ever since. But it is a funny coincidence that you’ve returned to the same place to film again, isn’t it? It’s very poetic, I think. I approve—of that aspect of the new production, anyway.’ Graham ushered him into a sumptuous bathroom with gleaming taps and fat towels.
When Mervyn emerged, pink-faced, Graham
was still waiting there, like a toilet attendant waiting for a tip; alert, ready to pick his moment.
‘It’s very fortunate you coming here.’
‘You said.’
‘We both need to work together, to stop the remake of Vixens from the Void,’ he said. ‘We need to stop it before it’s too late. And only you can do it, Mervyn Stone.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Mervyn was almost amused. Just moments ago they were talking about an attempt on his life, and now Graham had switched back to his usual preoccupation, Vixens from the Void. The man’s bizarre priorities never ceased to amaze him.
Graham continued. ‘I am begging you, I am imploring you, you can stop this madness, you can do this.’ His least pudgy finger hovered in Mervyn’s direction. ‘You own the rights to the Styrax. You can take the Styrax away from the show.’
‘No I can’t.’
‘Yes you can. You can stop the whole thing in its tracks, and then they can listen to you and you can tell them how the show should be brought back. You owe it to your loyal fans.’
Mervyn sighed. ‘In the first place, Graham, the Styrax are not essential to the relaunch. I suspect a lot of people on the production team would be dancing the Macarena if they were prevented from using them. And in the second place, even if I did do anything like that and it did bring the production to a halt, wouldn’t there be a completely different set of fans threatening to lynch me? The ones that might be keen for this project to go ahead?’
Graham snorted and tilted his huge head down like a charging rhinoceros. ‘Darren Cardew’s mob, you mean? Those people aren’t relevant. They’re idiots. They have no idea how this new show could shred the legacy of Vixens. I believe that this is a disaster in the making and alien to the spirit of the original show, and so does everyone who has lunch with me.’
‘Just what is your problem, Graham? What’s your huge problem with this relaunch?’
