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

by Nev Fountain

  Roger was never more than 30 seconds away from the words ‘my yacht’, especially when talking to a woman, just as he was never more than 30 seconds from the phrase that came next.

  ‘You must come on my yacht, Maggie…’ He put his hand over his mouth, in another ‘What did I just say?’ gesture, and sniggered. ‘I’ve got a 30-footer. The yacht, I mean.’ He yukked with laughter, and Maggie joined in.

  ‘Sit down Mervyn, please. Join us,’ Maggie said.

  ‘No-no. I don’t want to intrude.’

  Roger slapped the table vigorously. ‘Rubbish, come on. Pull up a seat Merv, join the party.’

  Mervyn sat down stiffly. His hands immediately started fiddling with things on the table. After listening to Roger’s ragged laughter for a while, he noticed that his right hand had found a butter knife and was gripping the handle very tightly.

  Roger edged closer to Maggie and whispered unnecessarily into her ear. ‘But that’s not the end of it. Did you know old Merv became a producer?’

  ‘Really?’ said Maggie, impressed.

  ‘Oh yes. For all of two hours! Because Nicholas caught a massive chill, so Merv had to fill in. And Ken didn’t like that one little bit, oh no!’ Roger tapped the side of his nose knowingly. Then he tapped the side of Maggie’s nose, and she laughed. Again.

  That was my nose, Mervyn thought. I saw it first.

  ‘Well, the director couldn’t stand Merv—can’t think why—and after an hour of getting bossed around by old Merv he snapped and punched Merv on the nose! Just like that!’

  Mervyn stood up. ‘Right, I think I’ll go and get my breakfast.’

  ‘Are you going to join us?’ said Roger.

  ‘Yes,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m sure they’ll set another place for you.’

  ‘No, I’ll just be over there. Got more space to read my paper.’

  Mervyn was crushed. He sat on his own in the corner. Then, after embedding his nose in the newspaper and trying not to listen to the explosions of laugher from their table, he decided on a perilous expedition to the breakfast buffet, circumventing Roger’s ego on the way.

  Maggie stood beside him. She lay her napkin out on the table. The word ‘HELP!’ was written on it in eyeliner.

  Mervyn’s heart bounded back into his ribcage. He looked at Maggie, who twitched her eyes in the direction of Roger, rolled them in an exasperated fashion, and shaped her eyebrows in the universal sign of distress.

  And then she was snatching up a piece of fruit and disappearing towards the fruit juices.

  ‘Lovely lady,’ said Roger, appearing beside Mervyn at the buffet table.

  ‘She is,’ agreed Mervyn.

  ‘Okay Merv, I’ll cut to the chase. All’s fair in love and war and all that, but I think I’ve got a chance here. So if you could back away a bit, that would be great. You’re cramping my style.’

  ‘I’m cramping your style?’

  ‘Yeah, we were having a lovely breakfast together and then you come and sit with us. Couldn’t you see we were together?’

  ‘If you recall, she asked me to sit down.’

  ‘She was just being polite. You know women. They humour even the worst kind of bloke…’

  The corner of Mervyn’s mouth twitched, a sure sign that his irony detector had just exploded.

  ‘…So, to cut a long story short, I was first, I’ve put my towel down, I’ve pitched my tent. You go try out someone else.’

  ‘Maggie and I breakfasted together before you got here.’

  ‘Come off it. I was here with her yesterday morning and you were nowhere to be seen.’

  ‘That’s because I was out on location. We had an early shoot.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Nice try, good story. Fact is I got to her first.’

  ‘Well I know that, Roger. You did get to her first.’

  ‘Good, glad you admit it.’

  ‘You most definitely did, as you say, get to her first.’

  He said it in such an odd way that Roger looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you recognise her, Roger? Surely you do.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Seriously? You don’t recognise her?’

  ‘No I don’t. I’ve not met her before.’

  ‘Oh, I beg to differ.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I’d remember a hot filly like her.’

  ‘Do you remember what you used to do on location, Roger? When you used to turn up unannounced at houses in the locality, knock on the doors and ask to watch that week’s episode with the family?’

  ‘Of course. Great publicity, Mervy. Everyone thought so.’

  ‘Well, not everyone. Do you remember those times when it wasn’t great publicity? Do you remember the last time we were in this neck of the woods? Do you remember when the BBC had to pay hush money to the parents of that 15-year-old girl, who just happened to open the door to you when you’d “come to watch the episode” one evening?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Roger glared at him. ‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish? She said she was 16. Anyway, she didn’t complain at the time.’

  ‘Of course she didn’t. She was the only one who was completely happy about it. She never forgot you either.’ Mervyn turned his eyes back to Maggie. Roger followed his gaze disbelievingly.

  Maggie waved cheerily at them both.

  ‘She’s been waiting to catch up with you for years, Roger.’ Roger’s face was as white as his cricket jumper. ‘So I’ll leave you to chat about old times. As you said, you got to her first.’

  *

  Roger ate extremely quickly, his fork plucking at bits of sausage and mushroom so busily that his expensive watch was a blur. Then he disappeared, swigging his tea and wiping his mouth on his napkin as he went, leaving vapour trails of choking aftershave behind him.

  Mervyn waited a few seconds then went over to Maggie. Her look of immense relief made him grin so much his face hurt.

  ‘How on Earth did you get rid of that man so quickly? It was like he hadn’t eaten for days.’

  ‘Oh, you know these men of action. Always in a hurry to get back to their yachts.’

  ‘Oh God. He was such a bore yesterday morning. I was praying you’d show up. It was all “my boat” this, and “my little dinghy” that. You’d think he was Christopher Columbus the way he talked about his adventures on the sea.’

  Mervyn glowed with pleasure.

  ‘He’s invited me on his yacht, of course. I couldn’t think of anything more boring than being trapped on a floating bit of wood with him. He probably wears a jumper with an anchor on it, and a sailor’s hat.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll make the offer again.’

  ‘You said something naughty to him. Admit it.’

  ‘Let’s just say, if he comes up to you later and offers you money to keep quiet…’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Just take it.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They had a brief, contented chat about types of annoying people they had experienced over the years. Maggie hated men who ordered for her in restaurants without asking what she wanted; Mervyn hated women who, on finding out he worked in television, wanted him to list all the famous people he’d met.

  …And soon it was time to part. Maggie hugged him, and offered him a lift, but he regretfully declined. It was only after Maggie left that Mervyn realised he hadn’t even mentioned someone was trying to kill him.

  He wondered why that was.

  He slowly worked out what his subconscious already knew; that the attempt on his life was a bit rubbish. Surely, he realised, someone would have found him long before he froze to death? If not the film crew then the supermarket staff opening up the store a bare hour after he got locked in. It was so pathetic, so half-hearted, the danger barely registered, and he didn’t want anybody to spoil his holiday.

  It was such an odd, unusual sensation for Mervyn, to be in the sights of a murderer.

  No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t odd. It wasn’t odd at al
l. It was a very usual sensation for Mervyn to be in the sights of a murderer. This was the second time in two years a homicidal lunatic had attempted to do away with him. That wasn’t the unusual sensation he was feeling.

  It was such an odd, unusual sensation for Mervyn to be happy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Randall insisted he give Mervyn a lift to that day’s location shoot. To quote him exactly: ‘I’m taking no chances. You’re very precious. The Vixens fans would never forgive me if you got killed on my watch.’

  Mervyn thought the sentiment was ghoulish, but even so he was glad when Randall’s 4x4 roared up outside the Black Prince. Mervyn opened the passenger door and was enveloped by a welcoming blast of hot air.

  In the back was a rather thin girl with lank hair.

  ‘This is Penny,’ said Randall. ‘She’s staying at your hotel. She doesn’t drive either.’

  ‘‘Lo,’ said Penny, in a dull voice.

  ‘She’s the script editor for Vixens—hey, your old job!’

  ‘Oh really? Perhaps we can compare notes,’ said Mervyn brightly. But Penny wasn’t listening. She was staring out of the window, twirling a lock of her hair round her little finger. That was the end of that conversation.

  ‘Well I made a few enquiries, Merv. The Styrax was left out the back as the warehouse was the designated space for the larger props. Some joker just wheeled it a few feet inside the meat locker, then got you to go inside.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re not just after me. Perhaps someone’s trying to sabotage the production.’

  ‘That’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. The letters I’ve had. God, and I thought Buggins the Bucket Bear fans were screwy. But ours is a closed set, maximum security. No one gets in and out without a pass.’

  ‘So we’re pretty sure it was foul play.’

  ‘Not nervous are you, Merv? Want to hightail it back to London?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘I’ll double your retainer.’

  ‘…I’m definitely staying.’

  ‘Good man.’

  ‘You didn’t have to bribe me, Randall. I wasn’t going anyway. As murder attempts go it was pretty pathetic. I’m going to be on my guard today.’

  ‘Hey, is this the old Brit stiff upper blitz spirit I keep hearing about?’

  ‘Definitely.’ Mervyn grinned widely. It felt odd on his face, like a pimple that had grown overnight.

  They fell silent. Mervyn felt he had to say something about yesterday.

  ‘So how much footage did we get, in the end?’

  ‘Oh, about eight minutes.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened. I feel it was all my fault.’

  Randall’s face did a shrug. ‘Well you meant well, but… Yeah, you were a jerk for rewriting that scene without clearance. That’s what read-throughs and shit like that are for.’

  ‘Glyn doesn’t seem to invite rewrites in read-throughs.’

  ‘That’s true. But that’s my problem, not yours. It wasn’t for you to do it on set. It wasn’t your job.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But, as I pointed out to Louise—who was cursing your name and demanding you be deported from Cornwall forthwith—you were just trying to save a situation that Ken created. Ken just wanted to get rid of a problem and offloaded it on you. He should have sent out for Glyn. Or Penny here.’

  Mervyn glanced in his mirror. Penny hadn’t bothered acknowledging the mention of her name; she just kept on staring out of the window. He couldn’t imagine Penny dealing with an angry Wag.

  ‘It’s Ken that’s at fault here,’ muttered Randall. Mervyn didn’t argue. ‘And if Glyn hadn’t been quite such a dick about your changes, we could have got a whole day’s filming in the can by now. He should have done what any sane writer would do. He should have offered to tweak the new lines a little, praise the actress for her cleverness, praise you to the skies for your initiative, and then quietly snip the sequence out in the edit. As it is, the whole thing is gonna be a cause célèbre for the dark-haired one, and now she’s gonna be watching the edit like a hawk to make sure it all stays in. His stupid fault. I thought he’d know better. He doesn’t act like a professional TV writer, but then, no one acts like a professional TV anything in this damn country.’

  Something told Mervyn that the triumvirate of Louise, Ken and Glyn was starting to wear Randall down.

  The car surged through the landscape, as big and strange as a flying saucer. The Cornish roads were very narrow and in places only grudgingly let them through, overhanging branches knocking angrily on the roof and windows. There were times when they’d whiz round a corner and have to brake sharply as they’d be bumper-to-bumper with a car coming the other way.

  ‘My, we’re going very fast,’ said Mervyn brightly, hoping Randall would take the hint.

  ‘No worries. I’m a very careful driver. I’ve always been a very careful driver. Where I come from, you have to be.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘I’m very good at anticipating trouble spots.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve got to thinking that employing Ken was a bad move.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mervyn, innocently. He glanced in the mirror to see if Penny was listening, but she was in a world of her own.

  ‘He doesn’t seem that stable to me.’

  ‘Well I did say.’

  ‘Yeah, you did. And you were right. Others have been complaining. Nick in particular.’

  ‘Nick doesn’t seem the type to complain about anything.’ Randall said nothing. He kept his eyes on the road. ‘It seems to me that Nick and Ken have much the same way of working,’ Mervyn continued. ‘If it’s going to be too expensive, tricky or time-consuming, then let’s cut it.’

  ‘Oh Merv, you have got a naïve outlook on things. Yes, that’s Nick’s way of working. He’s a cautious man, feels slightly out of his depth. It’s only natural he doesn’t want to go anywhere where there’s a possibility of a huge fuck-up. But he also owes his position to Glyn. He produced Dog the Wagz, and came across with Glyn, part of the Glyn Trelawney package. If Glyn’s not happy then Nick’s not happy. Nick’s very anxious about staying useful, and that means causing a stink on Glyn’s behalf at all times. And I mean…at all times.’

  As if on cue, there was a ringing noise from a device fixed above the windscreen.

  ‘Excuse me, I need to take this in private,’ said Randall. He switched off the hands-free and pulled a mobile out of his shirt pocket.

  ‘Nick,’ he said with weary resignation. ‘How are you?’

  Randall listened for a very long time, saying the odd ‘yeah’ and ‘ahh-ha’ and then ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to’ and then ‘I’m sure that was an honest mistake on his part’. Mervyn couldn’t hear anything, but he guessed there was a long shopping list of Ken-related complaints coming from Nick.

  Mervyn was also aware that the 4x4 hadn’t slowed down at all. Randall was conducting what was obviously a tiresome conversation while still driving his car at a dizzying speed down an anaemic little country road. Mervyn’s knuckles were hurting; he realised he was gripping the sides of his seat so hard he was leaving finger marks on the upholstery.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Today they were in Trebah Gardens near Falmouth. It was a lush stretch of land on the banks of the Helford stuffed with an amazing array of subtropical plants, a perfect location for an alien jungle.

  Mervyn hopped down from the 4x4. There was no one about, very few cars and no catering van.

  ‘It’s quiet,’ Mervyn said.

  ‘It would be,’ said Randall, dragging out a large refrigerator box from his boot. ‘That’s why I’ve got this. Most of the cast are back at the supermarket, recording the footage we should have got yesterday.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘Stop apologising already, Merv. Shit happens. It’s all part of the rough and tumble of TV production. Bryony the location manager—she’s become
second unit director for a day. She’s playing catch-up while we’re here to try and keep to schedule. We’re shooting all the scenes we can here with Roger and Holly.’

  ‘Holly?’

  Randall narrowed his eyes. ‘I gather that most of the internet refers to her as “the ugly one”.’

  Mervyn felt slightly ashamed. He must make an effort to learn the Wagz’s proper names. Chrissie was the dark-haired one, Gemma was the blonde, Holly was the ugly one. Chrissie dark-haired, Gemma blonde, Holly ugly… It wasn’t fair, because Holly wasn’t ugly at all; a bit pudgy with a flat nose and a heavy jaw, but far from being ugly. Unfortunately, circumstances conspired against her. She was forced to spend most of her days getting photographed standing next to two stunningly attractive females with incredible bodies. It was inevitable that she looked like the ‘ugly one’. He resolved to call her ‘Holly’ the very next time he met her. That would be the nice thing to do. The right thing to do.

  The weather wasn’t good. It was cold, and the wind was being very cheeky, lifting up the hood of the gaffer’s cagoule and trying to snatch the tablecloth from the buffet table. But despite the blustery weather, and even though they had no hot food, one urn of water, a jar of coffee and a box of tea bags between them all, without Glyn and the screaming actresses it felt blissful.

  Unfortunately, they still had Ken.

  They walked into the gardens, and could hear him before they could see him.

  ‘Okaay… You’ve been separated from the other Gonks…’

  ‘I’m a Gorg,’ said the Gorg.

  ‘Yeah, whatever. You’ve been separated from the other Gonks and you hear a ship landing over there somewhere, and you go and hide behind the tree.’

  ‘What tree?’

  ‘The cross on the ground. There’s going to be a tree there. We’re going to put it in later…’ Ken added ‘apparently’ under his breath.

  ‘Well… Can’t I hide behind a tree that’s actually here?’

  Ken, sighed, looked at the Gorg in weary disgust, then realised he didn’t know the answer. He pressed his mike. ‘Can the Gonk hide behind a tree that’s actually here?’