by Nev Fountain
A pipe ran from the exhaust and was wedged deeply into its side grille, held in place by a rag. Mervyn pulled at the rag and the pipe came away, exuding sickly fumes. Everything was cold and wet from the rain, droplets dawdling and slipping down the shell of the Styrax like tears.
Mervyn placed his hands on the shell of the monster, but it was wet and slippery and he couldn’t get a purchase on the secreted door handle. Thankfully, the rag was dry and he foolishly dried his hands on it, forgetting about silly things like DNA and forensic evidence. He threw the rag in a puddle, covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve, gripped the handle with his other hand and pulled. The door exploded open and belched out a cloud of exhaust fumes.
Simon Josh tumbled out onto the concrete.
Dead.
For the third time that day, the fan’s head hit the floor with an almighty ‘thunk’.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Simon’s tongue coiled against his cheek; his complexion dark and purple like a fat bruise covering his face. An empty whisky bottle was clutched in his hand.
Mervyn felt hysteria prowl up his neck and pounce on his brain. Nevertheless, he surprised himself by stepping over Simon’s body and fumbling inside to turn the engine off.
Unfortunately, he turned the wrong key.
The Styrax lit up like a Wurlitzer, disco lights blazing and pulsing in the night. Futuristic sound effects blasted through hidden speakers, whooshing and bleeping and zapping in all directions. ‘DEATH TO ALL PEDESTRIANS!’ it boomed.
This was one of four phrases programmed to fire off in quick succession when activated. All, ironically and unfortunately, along the lines of death, killing and eradication.
‘Turn it off! Turn the bloody thing off!’ screamed Smurf, his hands clapped to his head.
Mervyn found the ignition and twisted it. The Styrax juddered and died, leaving the silence to sing in their ears. The lights in the hotel were crashing into life all around them.
There was an awkward moment. No one knew what to do next.
Mervyn started to move back from the Styrax, but Nicholas clutched at his sleeve.
‘Wait a minute,’ he hissed, peering into the Styrax. ‘Mervy. Look. There…there’s something inside…’
It was on the dashboard, carving out a white square in the gloom, and Mervyn groped towards it. He positioned himself awkwardly, holding on to the door and straddling Simon’s twisted body so he could make a lunge at whatever it was. It had been fastened to the dashboard, and came away leaving a string of goo.
Blu-Tack, of course.
Mervyn hopscotched backwards into Nicholas’s waiting arms. The object turned out to be an envelope with VixEnterprises stamped on it. Smurf peered under Mervyn’s armpit to see what he’d found.
‘A suicide note.’
‘It might not be a suicide note,’ said Mervyn.
‘Most likely it’ll be a letter to the hotel, asking for a refund on his room.’
‘Smurf, please!’ Nicholas snapped.
Mervyn opened the flap and pulled out a white slip of paper. He unfolded it and read it to himself. It was a beautifully handwritten note, explaining in three neat paragraphs that Simon had been depressed for some time about the futility of his life, that he hated his day job, that he only lived for the conventions, and that the rumoured new series of Vixens from the Void would inevitably lead to the BBC withdrawing the licence for his little world. He’d seen it happen to other shows like Star Trek and he didn’t want to live with being increasingly marginalised and pitied.
‘He committed suicide all right.’ Mervyn slipped the note back in the envelope. ‘He’s signed it and everything.’
‘Well he would,’ Morris’s voice rumbled, causing Mervyn to jump.
‘What do you mean “Well he would”?’
‘Well it’s Simon, isn’t it? If he was alive he’d be the first to tell you how valuable his autograph is now he’s dead.’ He scratched the scrubland on his chin. ‘Does that make sense? Oh well. You know what I mean.’ He nodded casually at the letter. ‘If you don’t mind, once the police have finished with it I’d like to have it for VixEnterprises. It might offset the losses from this year’s con. I’ll put it on eBay. It’s what he would have wanted.’
They all nodded at the grotesque idea, more out of shock than anything.
‘We ought to call the police,’ said Morris at last. ‘I’ll go and tell the hotel what’s happened. I’m sure they’ll want to stop people coming into the car park.’
Everyone nodded again and Morris disappeared.
It was only at that point, when Mervyn was closing the Styrax door, that he noticed something else inside.
Something resting on the floor.
He looked round. Nobody was watching.
He scooped up the something gracefully in one low swoop and slipped it inside his pocket. He would examine it later.
‘What the hell is going on out here?’ They all turned. Bernard had hurried out of the hotel, his bony wrists and ankles poking out of a hotel dressing gown.
Nicholas fluttered. ‘There’s been a bit of an…incident. It’s Simon…’
‘Oh God, what’s he done to my Styrax?’
‘It’s not what he’s done to it… It’s more what it’s done to him.’
‘What?’
Mervyn moved to one side so Bernard could see Simon’s crumpled body.
‘Is that Simon? What happened?’
‘He’s gassed himself with the Styrax exhaust fumes,’ said Nicholas, calm and brutal in equal measure.
‘Oh good Christ!’ shrieked Bernard, his spindly legs propelling him to the Styrax. ‘You mean it was left running? Without fuel? The engine—is it damaged?’
Nicholas rolled his eyes to the ink-black heavens. ‘Such compassion…’
Prickly as ever, Bernard advanced on Nicholas. ‘What did you just say, you old pouf?’
‘Just admiring your priorities, Bernard old thing. They always said you’d step over the body of your mother to get your hands on a valuable piece of merchandise. Now’s your chance to rehearse.’
Black clouds gathered on Bernard’s face. ‘Look, if he wants to end his short and worthless life that’s his decision, but I took three months to make this thing, it’s a piece of history and I’ve got a right to know if it’s damaged.’ He pulled the bonnet up and dived in to check the engine. ‘After all, the little shit hadn’t paid me yet, so to all intents and purposes, it’s still mine.’
Mervyn suddenly realised he was shaking. ‘I’m sorry, everyone, I’ve really got to go in and lie down.’
Nicholas grabbed his arm. He was shaking too. ‘Of course you do, sweetheart. We should all go in and go to bed. We’ve all had a nasty shock.’
‘I haven’t,’ snapped Bernard, slamming the bonnet and crawling under the chassis. ‘I’m staying here to look over the damage. You can all sod off back inside.’
They all trudged dazedly back into the hotel, leaving two bodies sprawled across the tarmac. One alive, one dead.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It wasn’t until Mervyn got up to his room that he properly realised he’d woken up alone. Minnie had gone. The only evidence that she’d been there was that funny chemical smell and a war-torn bed.
He was too strung out to sleep. He pulled on a dressing gown over his clothes and watched events from his window. The police were obviously taken aback by the Styrax sitting there waiting for them. Mervyn knew by the half amused, half amazed expressions on their faces that some of the coppers had grown up watching them on television. Some made a point of sidestepping the front end, making morbid jokes about its killing potential, imagining it bursting to life and blasting them with its plastic laser cannons.
They placed the suicide note in an evidence bag. The Styrax was given a cursory inspection and secured in the hotel garage. Simon’s body was taken away.
Is that it? Is that all they do? Mervyn’s brain gibbered. I suppose that’s all they can do. What else is ther
e to do?
He looked at what he’d found on the floor of the Styrax. It was a very, very odd thing to find at the scene of a suicide. Either Simon was attempting one last joke at their expense or someone was playing very silly games with Simon’s death…
Or Simon’s death was a great deal more suspicious than it first appeared.
CONVIX 15 / EARTH ORBIT TWO / 9.00am
EVENT: CELEBRITY BREAKFAST—VANITY MYCROFT, MERVYN STONE, Katherine Warner
LOCATION: The Slug Mines of Krell (hotel restaurant)
EVENT: ‘DEMONS OF THE OUTER DARKNESS’ EPISODE SCREENING
LOCATION: The Catacombs of Herath (video lounge—room 1024)
EVENT: VIXENS FROM THE VOID: WOMEN IN SCIENCE FICTION EXPERT PANEL with Graham Goldingay, Larry Perkins, Craig Jones, Darren Cardew
LOCATION: The Seventh Moon of Groolia (room 1002)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The hotel restaurant was peppered with Vixens fans, distinctive in their swollen T-shirts and unwise shorts. Mervyn was hunched over his ‘continental’ breakfast. He felt groggy from his pills and the disconnected feelings that came from delayed shock. He didn’t feel ready to face anybody this morning.
Unfortunately, this particular morning happened to be the morning of the celebrity breakfast.
For Mervyn, who was not a morning person, celebrity breakfasts were the grimmest part of the convention.
Mervyn stared at his croissant. Its soft yellow semi-circular shape seemed to resemble a smile. It grinned mockingly up at him.
Their table was separated from other attendees by little golden posts threaded together with a scarlet rope; the type usually put up at film premieres and royal visits. Whether it was there to stop unauthorised fans sneaking on to the table, or Mervyn making a break for it wasn’t clear.
What kind of twisted mind would charge fans for the privilege of sitting next to a groggy old actor/writer/director in the early stages of a hangover?
Oh yes. The dead kind.
‘Where is she?’ asked John the Stalker for the eighth time. ‘She should be down by now.’
They were meant to be seven; four fans and three ‘celebrities’. In theory, anyway. Vanity hadn’t turned up, and it was left to Mervyn and Katherine Warner to charm the fans and keep the event star-studded. As Mervyn was just a writer, and Katherine was barely in the show for more than a minute, they weren’t doing too well.
Mervyn had fleetingly encountered all the fans present, so he was at least on uncomfortable nodding terms with them. The fan who kept going on about Vanity’s absence was John. John was the strange greasy fan from yesterday’s autograph session; the one with the binary brain from whose clutches Mervyn had been rescued by Minnie. He was still wearing the same T-shirt from yesterday; which depicted the improbably-designed superwoman. The smell wafting from him was almost as powerful as the woman’s physique.
The others, Helen, Derek and Bob, were from last night’s fancy dress party. Helen was the large woman with the interesting knickers who had won, and Derek and Bob were the two Groolian ambassadors who hadn’t. Scrubbed of their purple make-up, the boys looked extremely nondescript—one squat and round and with heavy glasses, the other with a long horsey face dominated by a drooping nose that pointed towards his toast.
Hefty Helen was distressingly under-dressed, with her planetoid-sized bottom crammed inside a shiny leather skirt that looked like a whole herd of cows had been sacrificed for its construction. She wore the unwisest crop top Mervyn had seen in his life. Her stomach oozed out from underneath it; lumpy, wobbly and white like someone had upended a bowl of rice pudding on her midriff. Her nose, tongue and ears now sprouted an alarming number of metal objects. It made her look part Frankenstein’s monster, part curtain rail.
‘I’m sure she’ll be down in a minute,’ said Katherine tersely, also for the eighth time.
‘Yes. But where is she?’ John the Stalker pleaded. Despite his agitation, John’s voice kept to a flat washed-out monotone.
‘They don’t always turn up you know,’ bubbled Speccy Derek (Mervyn was using his special memory technique to remember which fan was which, hence ‘Speccy Derek’, ‘Big-Nose Bob’, ‘Hefty Helen’ and ‘John the Stalker’. He was quite pleased about coming up with that last one).
‘Oh yes, it’s quite common that stars don’t turn up to celebrity breakfasts. Very common, in fact,’ agreed Big-Nose Bob.
‘But she’s in the programme,’ said John the Stalker, faintly.
Oblivious to his slackly worried face, the Groolian pair continued. ‘This is the seventh celebrity breakfast we’ve done,’ Speccy Derek boasted. ‘Last year we lost Samantha Carbury. Don’t know why. Probably woman’s problems. But we still had Noel Griggs and Jenny McLaird on the table. They were great. Really funny. Best ever.’
‘Don’t forget the one in 2002,’ chided Big-Nose Bob. ‘Roger Barker was a no-show, but we had that American from Stargate: Miami Beach. He was hilarious.’
‘That wasn’t 2002.’
‘I beg to differ. It was 2002.’
‘No it wasn’t. It was 2000.’
‘It was 2002. He’d left the show, remember? If you recall, Derek, he was bitching about the networks and the producer and talking about all his exciting projects he’d got lined up.’
‘No, because if you check your programme guide, Robert, he’d already returned to the series in 2002 as his own clone.’
‘Oh yes. That’s an affirmative. You’re quite right. My bad, Derek, sorry.’
‘Gracious in defeat as ever, Robert. The neutral zone is thus restored.’
Their skirmish over, the two friends relaxed in their chairs. There was a blessed moment of silence, before the inevitable drone from John.
‘But where’s Vanity? I only paid for this so I could watch her eat.’
‘Well…’ Mervyn mumbled, shepherding a reluctant grin round the table. ‘Never mind. It’s still nice with the just the six of us.’
‘I didn’t pay for this. I got this for winning the fancy dress,’ Hefty Helen growled. She jabbed Mervyn with her gaze. ‘Come on, talk, be interesting. I’m not sitting here to watch you drink tea.’
‘Well…what do you want me to talk about?’ Mervyn smiled through gritted teeth.
‘I dunno. Think of something.’
‘Well… Do you have any questions? What would you like to know?’
‘I’d like to know where Vanity is,’ whined John.
Katherine’s eyes rolled with weariness. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, be quiet. She’s not coming. All right?’
John blinked furiously. ‘She has to. She was in the programme.’
‘This is just typical of her,’ Katherine spat, warming to a theme. ‘Thinks she’s the big star but doesn’t have a professional bone in her body.’ She humphed. ‘Plenty of professional boners, of course, but no professional bones.’ Mervyn gave her an askance look as if to say; there are children present! ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, Mervyn. The fans know all about her. Snuffling around, gathering titbits all these years. They probably know more about us than we do. Can’t keep anything from the fans, Mervyn, you know that.’
John the Stalker looked at Katherine as if he’d noticed her for the first time. ‘Are you upset that Vanity hasn’t turned up?’ he asked her.
‘Not exactly.’
‘You look upset. I am too. Did you buy a ticket to meet her? I did.’
‘Hardly,’ she snorted.
‘Oh. Did you win a ticket? Were you in the fancy dress? Were you the one inside the Styrax?’
‘No I didn’t win the fancy dress and I didn’t buy a ticket,’ said Katherine, frostily.
‘Oh I see. Look, this is the celebrity breakfast table. You see that rope there? If you haven’t got a ticket you should eat your breakfast at one of the undesignated tables.’ He leaned confidentially into her space. ‘You could be sitting in Vanity’s special seat. That’s probably why she hasn’t turned up yet.’
Mervyn saw a
pulse throb in Katherine’s neck. ‘Gosh. Where are my manners?’ he babbled. ‘I’m sorry, I have been a bit quiet. I’m not at my best at the moment. I’m a bit frazzled. It was a bit of a rough night for me. As you probably heard.’
The two boys nodded sagely. ‘We get you,’ winked Big-Nose Bob, making a ‘glug glug glug’ sign with his hand.
‘We didn’t see you in the bar,’ said Speccy Derek. ‘Mind you, that doesn’t count for anything.’
Big-Nose Bob gave a crooked grin. ‘God, it was a wild night.’
‘Tell me about it. I nearly forgot my room number.’
‘No, I wasn’t in the bar,’ said Mervyn patiently. ‘I was actually in the car park—with Simon.’
There was a collage of blank looks from around the table.
‘Don’t you, um, know what’s happened?’ Mervyn asked. They shook their heads.
Mervyn recounted the events of last night. Telling the story out loud actually calmed him down, and he was relieved to see his hands had stopped shaking.
There was a profound silence around the table. They looked at him, their mouths agape.
‘Wow.’
‘That was great.’
‘Is that a new anecdote?’
‘Of course it is, you grexnix. He said it happened last night.’
‘Wow.’
‘A new anecdote. Brilliant. And we’re the first to hear it.’
‘That’s great, Mr Stone. I think that’s your second best car park story ever.’
Katherine gave Mervyn a What can you do? look and sipped her coffee. ‘Yes it’s terrible isn’t it? I can’t believe he would do a thing like that. It must have been a ghastly shock to find him like that.’
‘Oh, it was, believe me.’
‘I bet. I know Smurf was absolutely knocked sideways by it. He told me—when I passed him in the corridor this morning.’
Nice save, thought Mervyn.
‘Oh…’ said Big-Nose Bob. ‘You mean after you came out of his room after having sex.’