Geek Tragedy

by Nev Fountain

  ‘Exactly darling. That kind of thing. He didn’t know exactly when it happened and who slammed the door on my bun-filled oven, but he knew for certain that I didn’t get pregnant when I said it happened. And he made certain that I knew he knew. He was a worm, darling; but the thing about worms is they know how to dig. All those fans, they know so much and have so many ways of finding out—it’s so difficult to keep things from them.’

  ‘Oh yes. I know that.’

  Vanity continued. ‘He knew everything there was to know about the show, and he used that knowledge. He had all the trivia; names, locations, dates, stored in his head like a computer… He took an anecdote here, an off-the cuff remark there… He put them together, and suddenly he’s ringing me up at home, darling, and I start getting offers I can’t refuse. Oh, it’s not blackmail in the strictest sense. Nothing the little bastard can be arrested for, it’s more subtle and insidious than that…’ She put her hand to her ear to represent a phone, and aped Simon’s nasal voice. ‘“Vanity darling, I’ve got a little thing going on in Newcastle, and I wonder if I could trouble you…” Every damn convention and event I had to attend for him. And I was paid a bloody pittance. The little shit.’ She blew air out of her cheeks. ‘Anyway, that’s all over now. I decided to end it.’

  ‘How did you “end it”?’

  Vanity looked surprised. ‘That’s what the autobiography’s for, darling!’

  ‘Your book? It seems a bit drastic, to tell your daughter in a book.’

  Vanity’s panda-eyes widened in disgust. ‘What do you take me for, Mervy? The book was my ultimatum to myself. It was just to help me—to force me—to set the record straight. I told my darling girl everything before we came to this convention—and I told her about Simon and his little blackmail scheme.’ She grinned savagely. ‘After all my fears, you wouldn’t believe how easy it was! I wish I’d done it years ago. My little girl wasn’t bothered, in fact she was more angry on my behalf about the blackmail. She was all for caving Simon’s head in with something sharp…’

  Oh really?

  ‘She was furious darling. Really. She’s such a feisty girl. She sort of lost herself and sent Simon some very angry letters…’

  Death threats.

  ‘…But that’s not important now. It’s all over now, in the past.’

  ‘And did you think to expose Simon’s blackmail in the book?’

  ‘The lawyers wouldn’t allow it, darling. Anyway, Simon was very clever. As I said, it was all innuendo, all open to interpretation…’

  Mervyn remembered the letter he’d got yesterday. Nothing in it was too obvious. The words could have been interpreted as a friendly ‘hiya’ and an opening for negotiations for the next convention fee. Very clever of him.

  Vanity stood up, and her mask slid back on. ‘Anyway. Regrets, I’ve had a few and all that…’ She resumed stuffing her suitcase.

  ‘Wait a minute… You can’t go…’

  ‘Why not, darling? I’ve thought very hard about it all morning—ever since I picked you up from the station. There’s nothing to keep me here. I’m collecting my daughter, and I’m leaving.’

  Mervyn was desperate. He had a new chief suspect, and she was being taken away by her mother. Right now. He had to do something.

  ‘You can’t go. What about me?’ he heard a voice saying. He was shocked to find the voice was his.

  ‘You, darling?’ her face emerged from behind a pile of knickers.

  ‘Yes. Ahm… It’s a very big hotel in the middle of nowhere…’

  She sashayed towards him. Mervyn found that he was being impaled against the wall by the points of her breasts.

  ‘Look…’ he said, ‘there’re no places to eat, no nice pubs around here. It would be unbearable to stay here without… Another friendly face.’

  ‘Are you saying…that you would miss me, darling?’ She started to absent-mindedly run her fingernail down his face, following the line of the bruise on his jaw. ‘Are you saying you’ll feel all lonesome without me here?’

  Mervyn fastened a smile to his face. ‘Now Vanity…darling… I don’t even have to answer that, do I?’

  ‘Well in that case… I think I might be…persuaded to stay…’

  Mervyn’s spirit wilted as he felt her arms encircle his waist. He was so damn tired. He’d been thrown off a stage, dragged to a police station, dragged back, trapped inside a Styrax, nearly burnt to death, forced to have sex twice in one night… And now…

  Oh God.

  The things he was prepared to do for this investigation…

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  There was a knock at the door.

  The spell broken, Mervyn and Vanity stared at each other, dumbfounded.

  There was another knock; louder, heavier.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Vanity hissed. ‘It’s my daughter! She can’t find you in here!’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘Think, darling! Think! She’s already coming to terms with me putting out for a midget! I can’t show her that the moment I arrive at a convention I start diving into bed with every Tom, Dick and Harry!’

  ‘Thank you very much!’

  ‘You know what I mean! She’s got a temper on her that could stop a rhino! You have to hide!’ She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and forced him to the floor. ‘Quick! Under the bed!’

  Mervyn’s head thudded against the bottom of the bed, and he howled in pain.

  ‘Vanity! There’s no gap under here! It’s all bed!’

  There was another knock. Very hard. It was very forceful—more an attempt to batter down the door.

  That’s her daughter?

  ‘The wardrobe!’

  She grabbed his collar, hauled him up and shoved him towards the wardrobe, opening the doors and pushing him in with one smooth movement. The doors slammed in his face, missing his large nose by millimetres.

  Mervyn looked through the slats. Vanity had already composed herself, hair immaculate and ragged make-up removed. She was spreading a beatific smile of innocence across her face. It was beautifully done, he thought. A consummate performance. It seemed as though the years she’d spent appearing in grotty touring sex farces as her star power dwindled hadn’t been wasted. She opened the door.

  It wasn’t her daughter.

  ‘Why little man,’ she trilled. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure…again?’

  Smurf pushed angrily past her and prowled across the room. He paced backwards and forwards feverishly, always with his eyes fixed on her, like a small yappy dog waiting for his owner to take him for a walk.

  ‘Right. Let’s have this out. Now.’

  ‘Well there’s an offer a lady can’t refuse.’

  ‘Oh shut up. You bloody know what I mean.’

  Mervyn saw Vanity sit back on the bed, stretch her arm across the headboard and pose languidly. It wasn’t just the hair and make-up that had been repaired. Gone was the emotionally damaged and rather vulnerable woman that just confessed her sins to Mervyn. She’d regrown her hard outer shell; her voice was once again the bored, affected drawl, the eyes now dry and flinty, mouth beautiful and full, ready to chew up and spit out anyone who inspired her displeasure.

  ‘I want that libel out of your book. You’re ruining my reputation.’

  ‘Enhancing it, darling, enhancing it, surely. It’s not as if I said you were rubbish…’ The lighter flicked open again and another cigarette was produced. ‘After all, you did very well in my league table in the appendix.’

  ‘It’s not true and you know it!’

  He started pacing furiously again, this time next to the wardrobe. Mervyn could see his head bobbing back and forth. Now Smurf went purple. ‘And your daughter’s been following me about the convention again…’

  ‘Our daughter, darling…’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘You can’t blame her for trying to get to know her father, sweetheart…’

  ‘Stop it!’ Smurf was literally hopping up and down with rage. ‘How
can you lie to her like this? I’ve seen her watching me, looking daggers at me, all because of you. First thing this morning I opened the curtains, and who could I see out my window, staring up at me from the car park? I’ve been getting notes pushed under my door…

  ‘She’s upset her father is ignoring her, darling.’

  ‘But… It’s… Not… Bloody… TRUE!’ Smurf clapped his hands to his head and howled. He looked like a cartoon character who’d failed to catch the canary and blown himself up into the bargain. If he had a hat, he would have thrown it to the floor and jumped on it. ‘She’s going to do something she’s gonna regret, and it’s gonna be your fault. It’s freaking Katherine out. She and me, we were happy. We were getting along great until she got wind of what you’d put in your book.’

  Vanity’s head drooped to one side in mock-sympathy. ‘Oh you poor darling. Can’t she get over the fact you’d been with me first? That’s a shame. I can understand how it must be upsetting for her. After all, once the understudy, always the understudy.’

  ‘Don’t say anything against her.’

  ‘Of course, she was bound to end up with a midget. With her career, she’s got to be used to small parts.’

  He hurled a quivering finger in her direction. ‘For the last time… I’m warning you… You’d better—’

  Vanity had had enough. She stubbed her cigarette out, squishing it into a saucer with grim resolve. ‘Better what, darling? What should I do? Rewrite my book? Stop it going out? Not possible, darling. Too late. The presses have rolled. There are a hundred thousand copies stashed in a grotty warehouse in Leavesden.’ She looked condescendingly down at his angry face. ‘So sue me! I’m hardly accusing you of rape or murder, darling, simply of being a jolly good shag and a fertile little munchkin. The publicity alone will generate enough extra sales to offset any costs…’ She sashayed to the door and opened it. ‘So if that’s all… If you’re a very lucky little boy I’ll send you a free copy.’

  ‘You don’t know who you’re messing with, you bitch. I’m going to get you—my way.’

  ‘You’re not going to bite my ankles are you, darling?’

  ‘No, really, I’m serious. I’ll sue. I’ll take a DNA test and I’ll sue. You do this to me, you’ll be sorry. I sorted Sheldon out, and I’ll do it to you.’

  Mervyn almost fell through the wardrobe doors. Sheldon? What did he just say about Sheldon?

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘Definitely. He crossed me. I got rid of him—’

  Got rid of him?

  ‘—and you’ll be just as sorry. Remember what happened to Sheldon. That’s your last warning, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘Threats don’t work on me darling. I’ve been threatened by aliens, robots and at least four ex-boyfriends; including an East-End gangster and a middleweight boxer. Empty threats from one of Santa’s little elves aren’t going to interrupt my beauty sleep.’

  Smurf’s feet pattered across the room. ‘You’ll be sorry. Just wait. Sheldon was sorry. You’ll be too.’

  Mervyn mind was spinning. Investigating one murder, had he just heard a confession to another one? One that everyone presumed was a tragic accident?

  Is this what it’s all about? he thought wildly. Was Simon blackmailing Smurf too? About something he did in the past?

  ‘Why does it have to be me?—all the blokes you’ve—why do you have to invent shit like this? Why can’t you just pull someone else out of your bloody closet? Someone like Mervyn, for example…’ As he said this, he illustrated his point by gesturing towards the wardrobe; he pulled open the doors, revealing Mervyn sandwiched between two coats that Vanity had yet to pack.

  Smurf stared at Mervyn, open-mouthed. ‘Mervyn?’

  Mervyn waved, feebly.

  ‘Jesus Christ! Mervyn?’

  Smurf slammed the wardrobe shut again and stormed out. The room shuddered as the door banged shut. The wardrobe doors were immediately flung open with the force.

  ‘The coast is clear, darling…’

  Mervyn expected to get yanked out by his lapels. Instead, Vanity slipped into the wardrobe and snuggled up to him.

  ‘Well this is cosy… Mmm.’ Mervyn felt something wet and slimy wriggle into his ear.

  Mervyn wasn’t in the mood. ‘Vanity, what did he mean?’

  ‘Mean what, dear?’

  ‘What did he mean by “sorting out” Sheldon?’

  ‘I don’t know Mervy, I don’t know what the nasty man was talking about, I’m not cwever wike you.’ She was putting on her baby voice now; an ominous sign that sex was imminent.

  ‘He must have meant something by it…’

  ‘Who cares? He’s like all little men—big temper, big talk, no action. He’s harmless.’

  Mervyn wasn’t so sure. ‘I have to go and talk to him.’

  Mervyn tried to escape, but an arm lassoed his neck and dragged him back in. ‘Not yet darling. You haven’t persuaded me to stay yet…’

  There was a sound; a ‘harrumph’ noise. Someone close by had cleared their throat very loudly and very meaningfully. Mervyn and Vanity both looked in the direction of the noise.

  At the other end of the wardrobe, separated from Mervyn by Vanity’s coats, was an attractive young man clad only in a shirt and boxer shorts, holding a pair of shoes, trousers and a jacket. Mervyn thought he looked familiar. He mentally dressed him, put a jacket and bow tie on him, and realised it was one of the younger receptionists. The young man gave a feeble smile and an even feebler wave.

  Vanity was truly surprised. Her eyes were wide and her mouth had formed a perfect circle, as if she was auditioning to model for her own sex doll. ‘Oh balls,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten about you, darling. Mervyn, meet Jeremy, Jeremy meet Mervyn.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Jeremy’s very good. Always willing to do that bit extra for favoured guests… He gave me a room with a lovely view.’

  Jeremy and Mervyn both made their excuses and left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Mervyn should have used the opportunity to ask Jeremy for a better room, but it didn’t seem sporting to take advantage of a man running down the corridor with his shirt hanging out and his shoes in his hand. Besides, he wanted to talk to Smurf.

  He saw Smurf in the hotel lift, jammed his foot between the doors and slipped inside.

  ‘You traitor!’

  ‘Smurf, calm down!’

  ‘Et tu, Mervyn!’

  ‘I wasn’t having sex with her!’

  ‘You’ve got scratches on your cheek!’

  ‘That wasn’t her. That was her coat-hangers.’

  ‘Oh yeah?

  ‘I was investigating!’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘She was confessing something very private.’

  ‘Stop digging the hole, Merv, you’re looking shorter than me.’ The lift doors opened and Smurf strode out, heading for the room where he kept his Styrax.

  ‘Smurf when I was in the wardrobe—I heard you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I heard what you said.’

  ‘So? Do you blame me? She libels me in her book, and her daughter sends nasty threatening letters to me. Of course I said that stuff.’

  ‘No. What you said about Sheldon.’

  ‘What about Sheldon?’

  They walked past another queue of expectant fans, waiting to have their photos taken with the star of Vixens from the Void wearing his Styrax costume. At the front of the queue was Hefty Helen, looking at her Star Trek watch and sighing. ‘At last!’ she hooted.

  Mervyn was not to be deflected. ‘You said you’d “got rid” of him.’

  ‘Too right I got rid of him. Served him right. You know what he kept calling me? He was half an inch taller than me. Half a bloody inch! You know what nickname he had for me? “Small fry”! Small fry! The toffee-nosed half-pint fascist called me small fry! How can you be sizeist and a dwarf?’

  The Styrax was set up in the corner
of the room, a ‘GONE TO LUNCH’ sign hanging round its neck. A vulgar diorama of stars and planets was suspended behind it.

  Morris was in the room, checking his camera. His massive head swivelled upwards. ‘All right, Smurf. Mervyn… Stand anywhere, but don’t go near the Styrax.’

  ‘That joke’s never going to get old,’ muttered Mervyn.

  ‘Shall I start letting them in?’ droned Morris.

  ‘Yeah, okay. Mervyn, if you’ll excuse me… I’m working here.’ Smurf took the sign off, and opened the Styrax with slightly too much force. The hatch bounced open and wobbled dangerously on its tiny hinges.

  ‘But what did you mean by it?’

  ‘What do you think I meant?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Hefty Helen had entered the room, and was standing pointedly behind Mervyn, clearing her throat like a dying bull elephant. ‘Excuse me!’

  Smurf clambered into the Styrax.

  ‘I don’t know, so tell me. Did you get rid of him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, what, you killed him?’

  ‘What?’ The back slammed shut.

  ‘Are you saying you killed him?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t kill him.’ Inside the Styrax, his voice was blurred and distorted, like someone speaking into a plastic cup. ‘It was an accident. A fire at his house. Faulty wiring—plain and simple…’

  ‘Can we get on?’ thundered Helen. ‘I’ve got photos with Bernard Viner and the Styrax Superior on the other side of the hotel. I’ve got to be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘…accidental death. Tragic accident. Poor bastard…’ There was an angry scuffling from within as Smurf wriggled around in the Styrax. ‘Look, wait a sec. Mervyn are you still out there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The back opened again and Smurf leaned out. ‘Are you doing your detective thing again?’ He gave a big grin. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, mate. Look, when I said I got rid of him, I didn’t “get rid of him”. Not like that. What I mean was I “got rid of him” from the show. I was the one that shopped him to the BBC and got him sacked. You see, he hadn’t taken his medical. He said the BBC was a socialist bureaucracy and that medical tests were Stalinist. Or was the BBC a Stalinist bureaucracy and medical tests were socialist? Whatever. You know how he went on. So he paid another dwarf to go along to do the medical for him… And guess who that was?’