‘Oh yes, Mr Everett. Nicholas. The moment the Styrax got broken. I knew exactly what Simon knew. I mean, gosh, it was obvious wasn’t it? It was there, lying in the bits for all to see. Any fan could have worked it out.’ He gave a cheery grin. ‘I followed Simon, and I watched him photocopy his lump of Styrax in the office and I watched him leave his little blackmail notes, and I watched your meeting with him, and I watched you get him drunk, and I watched you put him in the Styrax Superior, and I watched you and your sloppy murder attempt, and then you went away…and then I did it properly for you.’
Mervyn looked hollow-eyed. ‘And then you contacted me.’
‘Of course! What a chance! Mervyn Stone with a proper murder mystery with proper bodies! What an opportunity to see you investigate in reality! Wow! Mervyn Stone deducing a real murderer!’ His bottom lip popped out. ‘But disappointing, too. My goodness it was hard prodding you in the right direction! Reading out the book to you, pulling out the blackmail note you’d missed in the envelope…’ He slapped his forehead in exasperation at the foolishness of it all. ‘…Pointing out the Styrax were padded with papier-mâché, actually
giving
you a piece of Styrax… You didn’t want to try and fit it all together. Even when I dragged you to a computer and showed you what the numbers meant, you got all excited, and the next thing I know you’d given up and were checking out of the hotel! I didn’t expect to have to do the last murder all by myself, but you didn’t seem interested in doing a proper job either! It was just like the script for “Day of The Styrax” all over again, just so sloppy, so half-hearted! You just kept missing the connections, I had to do blummin’ everything! Kill the fan, put the evidence in an easy-to-spot place and then escort you to the murder victim!’ He rubbed his forehead theatrically. ‘Talk about hard work!’
He stopped talking. Finally.
The looked at each other uncertainly; the detective, the almost-murderer and the detective-turned-proper-murderer.
‘So, my darlings…’ said Nicholas, with an arch of an eyebrow. ‘What now?’
‘Yes,’ said Mervyn, fearing the worst. ‘What happens now?’
‘Well,’ grinned Stuart, ‘I’ve got brilliant footage of you accusing Nicholas of being the murderer, and Nicholas admitting it. I haven’t recorded this last bit, that would spoil it. But the first bit is going to look so good on my website, after I’ve cleaned it up and sorted out the sound issues…’ He tapped his finger on his chin. ‘…I’m kind of thinking that, and this is just off the top of my head here, you two have a fight, and kill each other, and everybody leaves the convention thinking that Nicholas murdered everybody, including the man who discovered his guilty secret. That’s you Mr St—Mervyn.’
‘I gathered,’ said Mervyn drily.
‘Sorry…’ burbled Nicholas, confused. ‘Let me just clarify. You want us to…kill each other?’
‘Oh no. You don’t have to do that!’ laughed Stuart. He pulled out an automatic pistol. ‘I’ll shoot both of you, and leave the gun in Mr Everett’s hand, sort of a suicide thing, how’s that sound?’
Mervyn tried to keep his voice steady. ‘I don’t know. Is there a plan B?’
‘Not really,’ said Stuart cheerfully. ‘It’s the best I could come up with in the circumstances, sorry.’
‘I don’t know,’ sighed Mervyn. ‘It just seems rushed and sloppy. It’s kind of like what we’d do in the old days, eh Nicholas?’
Stuart frowned. He was hurt.
‘I mean, who’s going to believe a man who murdered three people to keep his secret buried is just going to commit suicide after killing a fourth? It’s just not logical, is it?’
Stuart blushed furiously. ‘Well it’s the best I can come up with given the time.’
‘Oh they all say that,’ snapped Mervyn. ‘We’ve heard it all before. All the excuses. “We had no money, the budget had been cut again, the lights were too bright, the studio was too small, we couldn’t afford this, we didn’t have time to do that, the unions were pulling the plugs out at ten, and we had to get it in the can…” All the usual tired old excuses…’ Mervyn pointed at the gun with disdain. ‘And the fact I contrived to confront Nicholas in my own hotel room, just at the point when Nicholas
happened
to have a gun in his pocket? And I didn’t see it? Bit of a huge bloody coincidence isn’t it?’
Nicholas was staring at Mervyn, his eyes threatening to fall out of their sockets. ‘Mervyn, this is serious, old fruit. I thought I’d told you to stop thinking like a fan…’
Stuart waved Nicholas quiet with a flap of the hand. ‘No, no. Shut up. No. He’s right. He’s right. He’s got a point. It’s sloppy. I’m sorry. So, Mr—Mervyn, Mr script editor, what do you suggest?’
‘Well…’ Mervyn frowned and ‘hmmm’d. He walked to the desk. ‘Perhaps Nicholas could have come into my hotel room very quietly to shoot me? I could be sitting at this desk here, working away, my back to the door. Perhaps he suspected that I was near to the truth and had come to shut me up.’ Mervyn aimed his finger at the desk. ‘He shoots me—but not fatally. I struggle with him, and with my dying breath I wrestle the gun from him and shoot him too.’
‘That’s great!’ fawned Stuart. He clapped his hands like he believed in fairies.
‘No, it’s crap,’ muttered Mervyn, brutally. ‘It doesn’t explain your camera footage. I had to have known he was coming. If you’re going to use the footage on your website, then the story has to be as is, with me confronting Nicholas by the wardrobe.’
Nicholas piped up. ‘I’ve got an idea, sweethearts. Perhaps I
don’t
get killed, I run off and you can all blame me? Just call the police and make them comb the country to search for me? I’ve got some holidays coming up.’
‘That might work,’ frowned Mervyn, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘What do you think Stuart?’
‘I don’t know Mr—Mervyn. If he gets caught, he’s bound to tell the police that I did the murders for him.’
‘Yes, but who’s going to believe him, with all the evidence you’ve got about Sheldon? And will your mates in the police seriously believe you’d murder three people just to give me something to investigate? And then murder me too? It’s just completely unbelievable. You can just say Nicholas killed me when I found out about his crimes, and it’s your word against his—the word of an overweight, over-the-hill producer with an unfashionable beard, a dead midget in his past and a chronic drink problem.’
‘I’ll have you know this beard is my trademark, Mervy…’
‘Hmm… All right. Okay,’ said Stuart. He twitched the pistol toward the door. ‘Off you go then Mr Everett.’
Scarcely able to believe what was happening, Nicholas walked to the door. He stopped and turned. ‘I can’t leave you, old love…’
‘It’s fine.’
‘I just feel rotten about what’s happened. I feel it’s all my fault.’
‘It is, in a way, Nicholas, but that’s fine too.’ Mervyn grinned. ‘Better get running. You’ll be a wanted mass murderer in just a few minutes. Better get a disguise. Shave that damn beard off.’
‘Never get rid of the trademark, old petal.’
And he was gone. Stuart and Mervyn were left alone.
‘So,’ said Mervyn.
‘So…’ said Stuart. ‘What do you suggest we do to iron out this bit of plot?’
‘I suggest I should be shot on this side of the room, in the back. I could have allowed Nicholas to go into the bathroom to compose himself before I ring for the police to arrest him. He’s been my friend for years, and I would allow him that. I’m a pretty decent sort of chap. He would have gone into the bathroom, got his gun out…’
‘Oh! I thought you said the gun was too much of a coincidence.’
Mervyn sighed wearily, a long sigh. It sounded like the sigh of a man tired of having to point out the obvious, but it was cover for a man whose brain was thinking furiously.
‘Well! It
would
have been, if he’d had it in his pocket when he was confronting me by the wardrobe. Who walks around with a gun in their pocket? Contrived or what?’
‘Contrived,’ echoed Stuart.
‘Talk about a plot device.’
‘Plot device,’ echoed Stuart, again. He knew the words. The words were comforting to him.
‘But the gun would have been in his
bag.
That makes far more sense to me. Perhaps he was going to use it to kill John the Stalker but he never got a chance to use it, so he stowed it in his bag, remembered it was there, asked to go to the toilet, got it out in the bathroom and shot me in the back.’
‘Okay, good,’ said Stuart. ‘A great solution. This is brilliant Mervyn. You are a great detective, and the best script editor ever.’
‘Thank you, Stuart. Now you need to stand near the bathroom door, so you can pretend to be Nicholas, and I’ll stand here with my back to you, unawares…’
Mervyn turned, closed his eyes, whimpered and prayed.
‘Okay, Mr Stone. I’m ready…’ He said it in the manner of someone playing hide and seek.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll try and kill you outright.’
‘Thanks Stuart.’
It was then Minnie made her move.
She had been in the bathroom for some time now. Of course, she had lied to Mervyn about leaving him alone—she was that kind of girl. She wanted to spook him one more time so she’d used the room key she’d taken from him, sneaked into his bedroom and waited in the bathroom, ready to rush out with a kitchen knife upraised like Glenn Close in
Fatal Attraction
. She’d waited for Mervyn to be alone. And waited. And waited. And listened. And watched.
And heard everything.
It was just as Nicholas said ‘So, my darlings… What now?’ that she’d managed to catch Mervyn’s eye through the crack in the door. Mervyn struggled to conceal his surprise. She winked at him, and waved the knife.
Ever since then, unknown to Nicholas, Mervyn was contriving a way for Stuart to stand by the bathroom door.
The door crashed open, colliding with Stuart. He howled in pain and surprise. Minnie flew through the door, embedding the knife in his arm. Stuart fell backwards, tumbling over the bed, staring in stupefied horror at the knife sticking out of him like an alien appendage from a particularly cheap fan-made costume.
Minnie dived over the bed and ran for the door. Mervyn was well ahead of her, and they both pelted off down the corridor, overtaking Nicholas, who was huffing along as fast as he would do. He goggled in surprise.
‘Aren’t you dead yet?’
Gunshots from the other end of the corridor interrupted any retort Mervyn planned to make. ‘Come on!’
‘These robots have killed, sir!’ Roddy stood up, swaying slightly as he did so. Stewards clustered around him at the edge of the stage, preparing to catch him if he fell.
‘They killed Josh, their spy, their faithful puppet, and we did nothing! They killed the little chap who tried to control them and we fell back! We have taken casualties and done nothing! We have had their filthy claws around our throats for far too long! We have been crushed under the jackboots of their tyres and retreated like Frenchmen! Well, no more!’ He pulled a Tommy gun from behind the chair and pointed it in the air.
‘Um, Roddy, I’m not sure you ought to do that…’
Roddy pulled the trigger.
A bang. Bits of plaster fell from the roof. The gun wasn’t firing blanks. There were screams. People started rushing for the exits.
Roddy aimed at the last remaining Styrax, sitting at the side of the stage. ‘You’ve had this coming. you robot scum!’ he yelled. He squeezed the trigger. ‘The Day of the Styrax is over!’
He pumped a dozen bullets into it. This Styrax must also have been ‘souped up’ with propane gas cylinders (most likely Bernard’s handiwork) because something exploded inside. A column of flame leapt upwards, scorching the ceiling and melting the plastic chandeliers.
There was pandemonium.
*
Mervyn, Nicholas and Minnie were running, pounding down the corridor, the vomit-coloured splat shapes a blur under their feet. More shots were heard; louder, nearby. One of the tiny lights on the corridor walls shattered and Nicholas screamed and threw his hands up.
‘Go to the stairs,’ gasped Minnie. ‘We can’t risk the lift.’
‘Good point,’ said Mervyn.
Nicholas didn’t say anything. He was throwing all his concentration into moving his stout form along the corridors at an acceptable rate.
What an interesting thing it is,
the life of an amateur detective
, thought Mervyn.
Just an hour ago I was in fear of my life hiding from Minnie, and just a half-hour later I was terrified for my safety as I readied to confront Nicholas. Now here I am, running for my life alongside my two chief suspects.
They reached the stairwell, and started clattering down it.
‘I can see you.’
They froze. Stuart was at the top of the stairs. They hugged the side of the wall, trying to stay out of his line of sight.
‘I can see Mr Everett’s shoe.’
Nicholas pulled an embarrassed face and moved his loafer back to the wall.
‘All right, you can see us, so what?’ shouted Mervyn. ‘It’s over, Stuart. You might be able to shoot one of us, but another one of us will get out and tell someone.’
‘But what’s the point? It’s over.’
What?
‘What?’
‘Come on Mr S—Mervyn. Don’t say you didn’t enjoy the adventure, the detecting, the thrill of the chase…’
‘I don’t deny it. But this is real life. You’ve killed people, and I would rather have had them alive if it’s all the same to you.’
‘But it’s over now. We’ve explained everything. We’ve solved the murders.’
‘You don’t solve the murders by creating the dead bodies in the first place. Kind of defeats the object.’
Stuart continued as though Mervyn hadn’t said anything. ‘The adventure’s over now. You’re just prolonging it by running away. Making it messy. No one likes long, drawn-out endings…’
‘That’s life, Stuart. It’s just one long, drawn-out ending.’
‘Remember what you said to me: “Anything’s better than just fading away, dining out on past glories…”’
‘I’ve changed my mind. I’ll take fading away, thanks.’ Mervyn lowered his voice. ‘The fire doors,’ he hissed at them, pointing at a green sign. ‘When I say “Go” we split up. You run into the hotel and raise the alarm. I’ll run out the back through those. I think he’ll go after me.’