Bernard continued to stare into the Styrax. Behind him Nicholas looked through the papers on the bed.
‘I can’t see any evidence relating to your crime, dear heart,’ Nicholas sighed. ‘I think you’re in the clear.’
‘Good.’
There was a metallic rattle on the side of the Styrax, as Bernard fiddled with the latch that opened the back. Mervyn tried his best to ooze out of the holes in the bottom, but his body stayed stubbornly corporeal.
‘Have we finished? Because of all people to be discovered with in a hotel room, your name comes slightly lower than bottom of my list.’
There was more rustling and clattering as Bernard moved around the room. Mervyn was crazy with curiosity but he daren’t raise his face to the grille to see what was going on.
‘One thing left to do then,’ said Bernard.
Mervyn couldn’t see what they were doing, but thankfully within seconds of doing whatever it was they
were
doing they left, their voices dribbling back down the corridor.
The ‘ker-chunk’ of the door shutting was the sweetest thing Mervyn had ever heard.
The ‘ker-thunk’ of Mervyn’s head hitting the back door of the Styrax was a less welcome sound.
The hatch stubbornly stayed where it was. When Bernard fiddled with the latch he must have locked it. Mervyn considered smashing his way out, but that seemed far too drastic. He’d destroyed one of these things already, and the cringing writer within would rather suffer and sweat in silence than draw attention to himself. Long years of riding the Metropolitan Line had conditioned him for that.
It was getting stifling in this thing. The heat wouldn’t usually be this bad, surely? He was becoming drowsy. His eyes fluttered and closed, and his head nodded down on to the Styrax panel that operated the guns, lights and arms.
He barely heard the ‘whumf’ that became a strange crackling that sounded like toffees being unwrapped. He didn’t see the orange fingers of flame that tickled the rim of the waste basket.
There was only one of his senses that realised anything was wrong.
Could he smell… Was that smoke?
That was his last thought. Things got blurry; coloured shapes swam across his eyes, and then the world buggered off and left him in blackness.
He’d died and gone to hell, obviously. There was smoke, and flames, and shouting. All the usual hell stuff.
He should never have written that episode where the Vixens whipped men who were tied to crucifixes. Too late now.
An angel was talking. He could hear her quite distinctly.
Did they have angels in hell? She obviously didn’t like it in hell. She was coughing. She didn’t sound happy.
‘Bloody hell, what’s happened in here?’
‘The bin’s on fire!’
There was a clanking and thudding as someone stamped on the fire in the bin. Then a ‘swoosh’ as the taps in the bathroom were turned on.
‘Get that thing outside!’
Mervyn woke up. His head had been knocked against the casing. He was being moved! Quite roughly, in fact. Mervyn looked out and saw three stewards inside the room grappling with him and shoving him towards the door. He was wrestled outside. The cold air blasted into the little holes in the Styrax, and he realised just how hot it had got in that room.
There was a limp hiss as the bin was doused.
‘Who the bloody hell’s done this?’
‘God knows.’
‘I’ll let Morris know what’s happened.’ One moved off to the lift. The other two proceeded to shove Mervyn along the corridor.
‘I don’t know. First Simon kills himself, and then someone sets fire to his room.’
‘Just not his day, is it?’
A bubble of laughter floated around the corridor. Mervyn almost joined in. He was feeling quite giggly.
The second voice sounded familiar. He peered out. It was Minnie. She was right above him, exerting herself sweatily, as she manhandled the prop towards the door. He could see from the way she was swaying alarmingly under her sweater that she still hadn’t managed to replace her bra. If he died now, the last thing he would ever see were her unfettered breasts hanging over him, swaying and thwacking together like an adult-oriented executive toy.
This all added to his otherworldly state of mind. Not only was he woozy from oxygen starvation, his blood chose that moment to leave his head and charge down his body to power a raging erection. His head was soon swimming like a frantic dog in a pond.
Down the corridor he hurtled, and Mervyn found himself on his own personal acid trip. He marvelled at the carpet whizzing by underneath him; the many small ugly patterns blurring into one extremely fat ugly pattern. It was most exhilarating.
‘Did you hear something?’ said Minnie.
‘What?’ said the other steward.
‘I thought I heard someone going “Wheeeeeeee!”’
They wheeled him into the main hall, in front of the stage on the extreme left—exactly where his descending backside had destroyed the other Styrax. He was recovering his wits fast, and tried to hiss at Minnie for help, but she and the other stewards scampered away before he could make himself heard.
He was alone again. Everyone had gone to lunch. The only company he had were rows of empty chairs, the tackily ostentatious décor (plastic chandeliers and silver flock wallpaper), and a strange-looking robot creature about ten feet to his left.
A Maaganoid. That was new—it hadn’t been there before.
The Maaganoids were a race of robots they’d introduced in the final season as a nemesis for the Styrax. It wasn’t one of Mervyn’s better ideas. He reasoned that, just as the Styrax were a type of supercar that had got out of control, the Maaganoids were a form of robot traffic control from the same planet, and that they had also developed their own intelligence. Speed cameras were a novelty in 1992, and the logic of making such a hated new device into a race to combat the Styrax seemed to make sense.
Unfortunately, the idea had two major drawbacks. First, the concept was just too comical for the audience to swallow. It conjured up memories of the
Monty Python
sketch with vicious ‘Keep Left’ signs. Second, and more importantly, there was a problem with the design. The Maaganoid had a huge triangular head, on which was mounted a telescopic eye like a camera lens. The head was perched on a tall column, which tapered down to large round base on which there were two round, stubby apertures from which guns or grasping claws could emerge.
In short; it looked like a penis. A monstrous strap-on wanger for a gigantic porn actress. A six-and-a-half-foot stiffy with huge bloated testicles that spat laser bolts, with the camera-like eye mounted in the head looking like a rather gruesome cock stud. It wasn’t surprising that they became known among the production team as Maa-gonads. They looked obscene, sounded stupid, and kept toppling over on the set. It was safe to say that, had the mythical season eight happened, the Maaganoids wouldn’t have made a return appearance.
So here he was, sweating slowly into oblivion, in a papier-mâché-filled iron maiden with only a huge fibreglass cock for company. He knew certain colourful individuals in television who’d pay for an experience like this, but at this particular moment the attraction eluded him.
‘90 degrees wrong, 120 degrees crap,’ he muttered to himself.
‘What?’ said a voice.
Mervyn fell silent.
‘Who’s there?’ The voice seemed quite near.
Despite the heat in the Styrax, Mervyn suddenly felt chilled. Someone had heard him. Someone else was in the hall with him.
‘Hello? Hello? Who’s that?’
Whoever it was, they didn’t sound like they were going to forget they’d heard him. Too late to lie low now. He’d just have to brazen it out.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello?’ Mervyn replied.
‘Mr Stone?’
‘Is that…um… Stuart?’
‘Yes. It’s me. Where are you?’
Thank heavens. Special constable Stuart might be a bit weird, but Mervyn was sure he could rely on him to be discreet.
‘Listen, Stuart. You see the Styrax by the stage?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m stuck in there.’
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m stuck inside the Styrax.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s been sealed.’
‘Um… Is that a Vanity Mycroft sex thing? I don’t want to intrude.’
‘No. You wouldn’t be a life-saver and undo this thing? I’m getting steamed like a haddock in here.’
‘Um… I’d love to. But… I can’t at the moment.’
‘What? What do you mean “can’t at the moment”?’
‘Sorry.’
‘What do you mean you “can’t”?’
‘Um…’
‘You’re not blackmailing me, are you?’
‘What?’
‘Not a form of police persuasion, regarding our little “chat” at the station?’
‘Gosh, no!’
‘Sure it’s not a subtle “I’ll let you out but only if you agree to play Holmes and Watson with me” kind of thing?’
‘Honestly, no, really. It’s not that at all. It’s just that… Erm… You see the Maaganoid by the stage?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m stuck in there.’
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m stuck inside the Maaganoid.’
‘Oh.’
There wasn’t much to say after that. Mervyn was speechless.
Unfortunately, ‘speechless’ wasn’t a word in Stuart’s vocabulary. There were loads of other words in his vocabulary, however, and he was determined to use every one. He droned happily away inside his prick-shaped prison; having his childhood hero as a captive audience was too good an opportunity to miss.
‘Gosh, the inside of this Maaganoid is a bit ropey. Cheap and nasty. The one we made for our fan videos was much better. We didn’t have to lag the insides with papier-mâché to stop the sharp edges jabbing into the operator. Gosh, this is a funny situation isn’t it? I mean talk about coincidence! I mean, even when Elysia and Professor Daxatar crash-landed on Prendulum Major…and they’d crashed on
the same
planet
where Medula had been hiding since the second assault on Chevron! That wasn’t as much of a coincidence as this! I mean, my gosh that was a coincidence! Talk about contrived! Um… Not that I’m saying it was a bad thing, Mr Stone, but I do actually address that plot hole in my fan video. We remade it shot for shot, except we inserted a scene where the magnetic core of the planet that dragged them down was the reason why Medula was hiding there, because it was the only planet in the galaxy that Vixos sensors couldn’t penetrate. So we made it a bit better than the original, if you like. I really wish I could show you my improved version…’
‘Perhaps if we ever get out of here you can.’
‘Really? Gosh, you’ll be so impressed. We’ve made so many improvements on the original you would not believe it. We corrected all the things you did wrong at the time, you know, just little things, Mr Stone—’
‘Please, call me Mervyn. If we’re both going to sit and suffocate together, then we might as well use first names.’
‘Okay Mr S—Mervyn.’
‘And Stuart, perhaps you can bear in mind that sometimes fate is stranger than anything we can imagine,’ said Mervyn testily. He was getting tired of this ‘improving on the original’ stuff. He was very aware of the shortcomings of the old series, but he didn’t like the shortcomings rubbed in his face by someone who was, after all, supposed to be a fan. ‘As you say, the fact we’re here is a coincidence. Coincidence
is
something that can happen in drama, and coincidence is just as valid as anything else. You don’t have to explain
everything
.’
‘That’s just an excuse for sloppy writing.’
‘No it’s not. Because life’s like that. Coincidence. You said it.’
The Maaganoid went silent, thinking. ‘Well not really…because we didn’t get here randomly. After you left I thought, “Okay, I’ll do a bit more investigating.” You know, poke about a bit, see if anyone was acting suspicious, maybe get some evidence to convince you that my suspicions are correct. Anyway, I thought I’d hide in the Maaganoid because they were keeping it in the convention office where everyone was coming and going, and I thought that would be an excellent place to hear a few unguarded comments. So I crept in and hid myself inside.’
‘And someone fastened the catch, trapping you inside?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And then they wheeled you in here.’
‘Exactly. Just like you. You were investigating, just like me. Because you think Simon was murdered too. So it’s not a coincidence, really.’
Mervyn closed his eyes wearily.
‘Mr Stone—Mervyn.’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t wish to alarm you, but the gas canister under your seat—the one that powers your flame gun? I think it’s leaking. I can hear a hissing noise coming from your Styrax.’
‘No. That’s just me. Sighing.’
‘Are you sure? Because I can hear the noise a lot.’
‘No. Just me. Sighing. A lot.’
‘You see, it’s not random at all. We’re both investigating.’
‘I suppose.’
‘And I’m glad you are. You’re very good at it. Catching Bernard Viner like that. I mean, however you did it… You know… You’ve never told us how you caught him.’
‘Told “us”?’
The Maaganoid seemed to blush. ‘The fans.’
‘I didn’t really want to talk about it.’
‘Oh I understand. I quite understand. There are some things that should be kept private, and that privacy should be respected. Absolutely. Discretion is a much underated virtue. I mean, when Arkadia told the House of Mistresses that Major Karn died like a hero when in reality he’d hadn’t, that was quite noble, but a bit odd, because if you think about it, they’d have known what he’d done anyway through the Osmosis Focuser that transmits soldiers’ dying thoughts into the central—Mr Stone, are you sure you don’t want to check under your seat?’
‘No.’
‘Because it’s a very loud hiss.’
‘It’s fine. Really.’
‘Right. His thoughts should have been transmitted via the Osmosis Focuser—unless someone intercepted them and beamed them somewhere else, which would explain that weird bit in series five when Medula knew what happened on Spartus despite not being anywhere near it at the events of the time. I actually took those plot errors and did something with them. I took the original footage, got some actors and revoiced it, matching the lip movements exactly, saying that the Osmosis Focuser didn’t exist, and it was a lie designed to instill loyalty in the Vixos troops. Much more neat, don’t you think? And then I took footage—’