Geek Tragedy (12 page)

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.’

Mervyn felt a fine spray of coffee on his face as Katherine spluttered.

‘What?’

Big-Nose Bob seemed oblivious to the monumental embarrassment he’d just initiated. ‘Oh, as you said, you can’t keep anything from us fans,’ he said happily, raising his voice over Katherine as she coughed into her napkin. ‘We get to know everything sooner or later.’

It was an innocent boast that sounded uncomfortably like a threat.

‘Well we’re not perfect, are we Robert?’ said Derek, tapping his elbow. ‘After all we didn’t know about Simon’s death, did we?’

‘Ah. But we’re the first with the anecdote. And that counts for a lot.’

‘Too blummin’ right,’ said Derek, and then he lurched upright in his chair as if a woman had placed a hand on his knee. ‘Oh my God! The Loughborough posse went for a pizza last night, so they won’t have heard. I’ve got to go and tell them.’ He wiped his chin on a napkin, got out of his chair and headed over to spread the anecdote.

Mervyn entered the foyer, which was already buzzing with people. Morris was by the reception desk addressing the stewards. Minnie was among them, her eyes darting in his direction while trying to listen to what Morris was saying. Morris was explaining how he’d laminated some of the schedules on cardboard, attached a string and persuaded the hotel to let them hang them over light fittings and picture hooks.

Mervyn saw Smurf sitting on a sofa and plonked down beside him. ‘Everyone’s being so flippant. Isn’t anyone shocked by it? I mean, Simon thrived at these conventions. He lived for them. How could he…just…you know?’

Smurf shrugged. ‘Don’t tear your hair out for the likes of him. Simon wouldn’t have been the slightest bit bothered if it were the other way round and it was you who’d topped yourself. He’d probably act like nothing’d happened; prop you up to try to get you to sign a few autographs before you started to smell.’

‘Yes, I know all that, but even so.’

‘Anyway, who cares? You didn’t like him, did you? No one did.’

‘No, of course I didn’t like him. He was an irritating two-faced snide little creep. I don’t know why I’m so…’ He frowned. ‘No, I know. I do know. Perhaps it’s because I feel a bit responsible.’

‘What?’

‘Well. If I hadn’t taken my pills perhaps I would have woken up quicker and got to the Styrax before he suffocated. I’m always such a light sleeper.’

Smurf laughed. ‘Merv! Once a script editor, always a script editor. Always going through the story with a fine-toothed comb. No one, no matter how mental, is going to blame you for Simon’s death.’

Morris sidled up to them and handed Mervyn a card. ‘Someone left this for you. Wants you to be available to answer some questions.’

Mervyn’s hand went numb as he read: SC STUART COULSON METROPOLITAN POLICE and the address of the local police station.

Oh God, they know I took evidence away from the scene. Who told them?

Mervyn made his excuses and left.

CONVIX 15 / EARTH ORBIT TWO / 10.00am

EVENT: ‘DAY OF THE STYAX’ REMEMBERED—VANITY MYCROFT, RODERICK BURGESS Katherine Warner LOCATION: Vixos Central Nerve Centre (main stage, ballroom)

EVENT: ‘EXPIRATION POINT’ EPISODE SCREENING

LOCATION: The Catacombs of Herath (video lounge—room 1024)

EVENT: AUTOGRAPH PANEL—JOSEPH McANDREW, TIM WARNE, BRYCE CAMPION, RICK AMORY

LOCATION: Arkadia’s Boudoir (room 1013)

EVENT: PHOTOS—NICHOLAS EVERETT

LOCATION: Transpodule Chamber (room 1030)

EVENT: NEW VOIDS—AUDIOS EXPERT PANEL with Graham Goldingay, Fay Lawless, Craig Jones, Darren Cardew

LOCATION: The Seventh Moon of Groolia (room 1002)

A few minutes later, Mervyn was in a police station surrounded by sludge-grey walls. As with most cop shops, the reception area was covered with unhelpful posters shouting at the public—who’d come into the station after being mugged, burgled or swindled—to ‘Watch out! There are muggers, burglars and con artists about!’

He was shown into a glass-fronted office.
After about five minutes, a young man with straight blond hair and round John Lennon spectacles entered. He sat on the other side of the desk and bent low over his notes. ‘Thanks for coming Mr Stone. I really, really appreciate it.’

Mervyn was in a state of panic. The thing he’d taken from the Styrax was still in his jacket pocket, screaming to be discovered. He stared and tried to answer; his jaw moved, but his lips failed to reciprocate.

‘Egh.’

The man opened a slim black folder and inspected the contents closely. ‘Before we start, may I just ask you a few questions?’

‘Agh,’ Mervyn went. He nodded madly to emphasise that ‘agh’ was his current word for ‘Yes’.

Wait a minute. He’s not taping us. Surely he should be taping us. And why aren’t we in an interview room? Oh right, I get the picture. I know the score. I wrote for
The Bill
, mister
.
It’ll just be a few friendly questions and then he’ll introduce me to his superior officers, Superintendent Rubber Hose, Chief Inspector Sock Of Sand and Detective Chief Inspector Open Stairwell.