by Nev Fountain
‘Write it down. V. useful.’
‘So what can I do for you, Dominic?’
‘Weird thing happened. Thing is, man rang me up. V. mysterious. No name. Asked about your monsters. The Styrax.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Wants the rights. So asks me! “Name your price.” “What?” I say. “Monsters not mine. Deffo not. Talk to Dad—Dad’s the monster man. Big bad alien king.” Then man says. “Not to worry. Just asking. Hypothetical stuff. If you owned rights. Would you? In principle.”’
‘I see. V. odd. And you said? I mean, that’s very strange, and what did you say to that?’
‘The amount he said? Deffo. Could go round world. Several times! Well up for that. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not, Dominic. You’re my closest relative. Once I’m gone, everything I’ve got is yours.’
‘Thought so. Love you Dad. Have to go. Duty calls. Everyone not pleased. Looking at me funny. Better get off platform. Back into train. Passengers might sue.’
‘You stopped your train to make a phone call to me?’
‘Yeah. Off at Earl’s Court. Had to really. No signal underground. That’s the big second bummer. Bye, Dad. Love you and stuff.’
Mervyn tucked his mobile away thoughtfully. There was only one reason why his son would get a phone call like that. Someone expected Dominic to inherit the rights to the Styrax, and there was only one way that could happen.
Deffo mortality potential.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mervyn went for a walk in the gardens. He needed to be alone to think. The sky was starting to glow with sunset colours, and the faint cry of the seagulls mingled with Ken’s distant screams as he tried to get his scenes in the can before darkness engulfed them all.
Mervyn sat near the restaurant to take advantage of the artificial light. He bought a coffee and a postcard and tried to compose a few paragraphs of his book. Five minutes later he gave up on the book and took advantage of his newly-found mobile phone signal to make some calls. He phoned his agent and told her about the extra money he’d been promised. He was thinking very hard about phoning his solicitor and changing his will to cut out Dominic, but decided against it. Why deny his only child an inheritance just to piss off some nutcase? No, he had to find and expose this person, whoever he or she was. That was the only way to end it… This person was annoying him now. Without the tiresome trying-to-kill-him nonsense, he would be really content right now.
If only this potential murderer would go away and leave him to enjoy his time with…
Maggie?
Mervyn blinked.
Maggie was sitting at the next table. She was like a genie; it was as if the act of thinking about her had conjured her into existence. She was reading a book on the gardens, flipping the pages with long delicate fingers. He watched the muscles in her jaw twitch and flex as she munched on a biscuit. He watched her foot stretch leisurely, allowing her shoe to slip off and flap against the heel of her foot.
He leaned across, trying to move into the edge of her peripheral vision. She wasn’t noticing him. He bent lower and lower, scraping the floor with his shoulder and feeling rather foolish. He waggled his fingers.
Her eyes flicked across to him, just for a split second, and she realised she was being watched. Her cup clattered against her saucer, and she started to choke. And kept choking. Alarmed, Mervyn sprang up and started slapping her hard on the back.
‘What are you doing here?’ she spluttered.
‘We’re filming in the gardens today. We’re just over there.’
‘Really? Ooh! Exciting!’ She stretched her neck to catch a glimpse of the cameras, but could see nothing.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I come here when my mum’s pretty bad and doesn’t want me in the room. This afternoon she thought I was Adolf Hitler come to interrogate her.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s just a small setback in my plans for the Fourth Reich. I don’t know how she saw through my disguise.’
Mervyn was never ready for Maggie’s flippancy, he always took a second to be shocked before feeling delighted at finding a woman with such a darkly humorous streak within her.
‘Do you want something?’ she asked. ‘I’ll get you a coffee.’
Mervyn bit his lip, his writer’s instinct for scavenging struggling to break free. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Oh go on. I can see you want another.’
‘I’ve got a busload of free coffee just over that hedge.’
‘Yes, and that’s why you bought one over here, is it?’
‘Well…’
‘And they won’t let you drink your telly coffee over here and you want to sit with me, don’t you?’
‘Your logic is good… But you’ve already given me a lift in your car—if you buy me a drink then I’ll officially be the woman in this relationship.’
‘You’re right. Tell you what. I’ll get you a coffee, and you can lend me your jacket if it gets chilly.’
‘That sounds like a deal.’
‘Do you want food?’
Mervyn patted his bag. ‘All sorted. Sandwich courtesy of the magic of television. And they bought it at this restaurant, so I don’t think they’ll move me on for eating it.’
Maggie disappeared inside and returned with two coffees. They drank them, sitting companionably side by side, not talking.
This is what a good marriage probably feels like, thought Mervyn. You’re not talking to each other, but it’s not because you don’t want to. It’s because you don’t have to; you’re just aware of the other person and enjoying the fact you’re together.
Mervyn eventually broke the silence. ‘If you want I could introduce you to the Stepford Wagz. They’re all here this afternoon.’
‘Oh no. I couldn’t!’
‘Why not? Come on!’
She shook her head, laughing. Her ringlets slapped against the side of her head and continued bouncing long after she stopped. ‘Have you never heard of the old saying, “Never meet your heroes”?’
‘I prefer my old saying: “Never meet your fans.”’
She laughed again. All of a sudden, Mervyn knew it was his sole life ambition to make that woman do her giggle and cause all the hair-bouncy action that went with it.
‘Come on, I’ll take you to meet them.’
‘Absolutely not Mervyn. Anyway…’ she looped her arm in his. ‘Why would I waste my time in this garden meeting pop stars when I could spend it walking round this garden with you?’
She took him into the undergrowth.
*
‘It’s very peaceful here.’
‘Yes, it is.’
They walked through the gardens, stopping and looking at the plants. ‘Oh, look at the fuchsias!’ she said, gasping with delight. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mervyn, hoping that he was looking at the right thing. She was pointing at a huge blanket of bluebell-type things (only they were red), trailing down a wall. ‘Very lovely.’
‘I knew you’d like them. I have an amazing skill—just by talking to people I can guess what type of flowers they’re into.’
‘Really?’
‘I thought you’d be a fuchsia person.’
‘Absolutely. Yes. I like them very much,’ said Mervyn uncertainly.
What he knew about plants he could write on the tiny withered leaves of the thing that had died on his bathroom window sill, but he was damned if he was going to admit that.
She gave another gasp; she had seen something else. ‘Agapanthus!’ she exclaimed, running ahead. ‘These are my favourites.’ She was standing by a large flower with a round blue head, like an enormous dandelion clock. ‘What I like about them is—they look like a lovely big flower when you’re quite a distance away. But when you get closer, you can see what it really is. Lots of little flowers.’
Mervyn looked closer, and sure enough the big blue flower was lots of litt
le blue flowers clustered together.
‘So it is. It’s very pretty.’
She laughed at him. ‘You’re not impressed.’
Mervyn tried being direct. ‘I prefer lilies,’ he said simply, staring into her eyes. ‘They’re pretty, they smell nice, and they leave their mark on you if you’re not careful.’
Maggie smiled bashfully and looked away. ‘It really is very peaceful here… How’s your filming going? Is that peaceful?’
‘Oh, not peaceful at all. It’s been a terrible shoot. Lots of problems, stuff going wrong, creative differences, someone’s been trying to kill me…’
She laughed, and her hair did the bouncy thing again. Then she caught his expression. ‘Seriously?’
‘Oh yes, it’s been a nightmare, retakes, fighting over the script…’
‘I mean, seriously as in someone’s seriously trying to kill you?’
Mervyn told her about the incident at the supermarket. Her eyes widened in a wonderful, innocent way.
‘It could have been an accident, but then my son got this phone call…’
‘Son? You’re married?’ she said, a little too quickly.
‘No,’ he said, even quicker. ‘Dominic’s the product of an unwise dalliance with a completely loopy actress when I was at university.’
‘Ah.’
‘She was always seeking out life experiences to enrich herself as an actress, which usually meant sleeping around behind my back and taking huge quantities of drugs. Neither made her any better as an actress, but at least they had the advantage of keeping her quiet for a few blissful hours.’
‘Ah.’
‘One day she decided—without telling me—that the act of childbirth was an essential part of an actor’s “experience palette” and flushed her contraceptive pills down the faculty toilet. Take it from me, Maggie, actresses can be a bit batty. You wouldn’t believe the things they’re prepared to do in the interests of their career.’ He put air-quotes around the word ‘career’.
‘I’m sorry,’ Maggie said, blushing. ‘You were telling me about this phone call from your son. Please continue.’
‘Well, I got a phone call from him just now. He’d been contacted anonymously and asked what he’d do with the Styrax in the unlikely event I dropped down dead tomorrow and he inherited the rights.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘No!
‘Oh yes.’
‘That’s just weird. And creepy.’
‘I’m not arguing.’
‘You’re taking this all very calmly.’
‘Well, my mysterious assailant hasn’t done a very good job so far. He or she didn’t even manage to give me frostbite.’
They’d walked round in a wide circuit and found themselves heading back to the spot where they’d met. He could see their table, which was still vacant. Mervyn had placed his bag on his chair and looped his jacket over the back—a typical Londoner’s way of claiming ownership of the spot. There was nothing remotely valuable in either his jacket or his bag, so Mervyn was quite relaxed—if a little annoyed—to see his bag had been tampered with. It was lying on the ground, its contents strewn around his chair. His Vixens script was flapping around like a wounded bird.
It was only as they got closer that they noticed something white by the bag. At first Mervyn assumed it was a plastic bag, but then he saw it had feathers.
‘What’s that?’ Maggie was concerned.
‘Is that a seagull?’ said Mervyn.
It was a seagull. It was splayed out under his chair, beak open, eyes staring, wings spread at an awkward angle. Crumbs and bits of crust were scattered around its body. Mervyn tapped the bird with his foot. It was quite dead.
‘It must have hit the window of the café and been killed instantly,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ve seen birds do that.’
‘I don’t think it could have bounced all the way back to our table, no matter how hard it hit the window. I could be wrong, but my guess is that it went in my bag and ate my sandwich.’
Maggie gaped at him. ‘Your sandwich!’
‘Yes. The one that was sitting in a big box with my name written on it.’
*
There was nothing left of the sandwich but crumbs. Mervyn gingerly took the dead seagull by the foot and held it above the bin.
Maggie was astonished. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m dumping it.’
‘I bet you do that to all the gulls.’
Mervyn laughed, and dropped the seagull.
‘Shouldn’t you take it away to be examined?’
‘I don’t think the police round here have the time—or the resources—to do autopsies on seagulls. It might have had a heart attack, but I think, given what we know, we can guess it was poisoned.’
‘Well okay, Sherlock, but what are you going to do now?’
Once again, Mervyn couldn’t answer. Once again, he hadn’t the faintest idea.
CHAPTER THIRTY
>CLICK<
[SIGH]
Same shit, different day.
Once again, Mervyn Stone stays wedged in my U-bend, no matter how hard I yank the chain. Jesus. What went wrong? I tried very hard this time. I made a plan.
[SIGH]
How he can be better than me? He’s got ‘loser’ written all over his shitty face. Why won’t he flush?
Talking of shits, Roger Barker was being his usual twatty self. Shitty actor, shitty personality, arrogant shit. I’ll give him jokes. I’ll laugh his head off for him, with a fucking chainsaw.
If I’d thought it through, I could have killed Roger first, murdered HIM as a rehearsal to kill Mervyn, but I’ve done that now. No regrets.
God knows how I could have knocked Roger off though; maybe I could have got some cyanide and put it in that bottle of amyl nitrate he keeps in his briefcase on the off chance he gets lucky. The nitrate will probably kill him anyway. He’ll end up dead meat, collapsed over some poor flabby make-up girl.
God, Roger really is an old woman this time round. You would not believe how much of an old woman he was today.
But no. Roger’s a dick, and everybody knows it. That’s his crime, and that’s his punishment. But Mervyn… No, Mervyn is in a class of his own.
So I didn’t get you this time, Mervyn. Never mind. There’s more than one way to skin a twat. The clock is ticking, Mervyn fucking Stone. And it ticks for thee.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The moment Mervyn sat down for breakfast, Maggie bent low over the teapots and whispered: ‘So, have you decided what you’re going to do yet?’
‘I’m going to set a trap,’ said Mervyn. ‘And if you want to, I could use your help.’
*
The journey to the shoot was tense. Randall was uncommunicative; his eyes were trained on the road and his tie had ended up resting on his right shoulder, but he didn’t even notice. He looked like he had things on his mind. Mervyn decided not to mention the dead seagull.
Penny something-or-other was also silent, lounging in the back, reading a script and making little doodles in the margin.
‘Everything all right, Randall?’
Randall flashed his teeth. ‘Sure it is. All hunky-dory. We’ve hit a few potholes on the freeway, but we’re on schedule.’
‘You seem preoccupied.’
‘Can’t get anything past you, Merv. I’ve just had some good news from the US…and some bad news. Nothing the gang can’t handle.’
‘Oh, anything you can tell me?’
‘I’m gonna tell everybody, but I prefer to tell everyone in one go. I’m sure you’ll understand.’
‘Definitely.’
And that was their conversation for the whole journey.
*
It was day two in Trebah Gardens, and Ken was instantly in trouble. Cameramen and lighting riggers were carrying equipment back to the spot where they were yesterday.
Louise was shouting at Ken. Nick was standing to one side, arms folded. Louise was furious and she wasn’t worried about hiding it.
‘There’s barely enough time to do this again, what were you thinking? We need that shot!’
Ken glared at her, but said nothing.
‘We could just make it a smaller shot. I mean, we could cut the tree for reasons of time…’ said Nick hopefully.
‘No, we are not doing that. Clockworks spent a week designing that damn tree and we’re not losing it because we haven’t got a ten-second shot. Okay?’
‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a job to do,’ snapped Ken.
‘Good,’ said Louise. ‘It’s about time you fucking started.’
Ken marched away, flipping a lit cigarette into the grass.
Mervyn watched all this from Randall’s 4x4. The American switched the car off and blew out a big sigh. ‘What now?’
Mervyn left the car and approached Louise, who was kicking the gravel angrily with her foot. ‘What’s going on?’ asked Mervyn.
‘It’s a production matter.’
‘I am on the production team, as it happens.’
‘Oh yes, I remember your contribution as a member of the production team the day before yesterday, when you ground filming to a halt. And yesterday, when you insulted one of our leading ladies and she wouldn’t come out of her trailer for three hours. You’re a cog in a well-oiled machine, Mervyn.’
Randall joined them, twirling his car keys in his hand. ‘What’s going on now?’
Louise didn’t answer, she just leaned against her car, pushing a cigarette between her lips with shaking fingers.
Nick eventually spoke. ‘Ken filmed yesterday morning’s tree sequence with no prep, and didn’t allow enough space in the shot for the CGI. Not only that, he didn’t time the CG animation, so the actors moved too quickly. And he didn’t allow for the noise of the tree falling, so the actors were speaking too softly.’
‘Well you can’t blame Ken for not allowing for the noise,’ said Mervyn. ‘If an imaginary tree falls in a fake forest and there’s no one to see it, does it really make a sound?’
‘Ha bloody ha, Mervyn,’ said Nick. ‘You’re such a tonic in these trying times.’
Louise folded her arms and stared at the gravel. ‘I swear Ken’s doing his level best to sabotage this project.’