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He bent over and threw one of the men over his shoulder with an aikido move, then sank a nasty knee into the other's goolies.
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The Canberra dummy's head burst, flinging watermelon-bits and cottage cheese across the set.
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The Serial Murders
by Kim Newman
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XII
First thing Monday morning, after a weekend spent mostly on the phone, Richard and Barbara turned up at Haslemere Studios to meet their newly costumed doppelgangers outside the soundstage. Lionel had arranged for publicity photographs. Marcus Squiers, wearing what he fondly thought was his producer's hat, beetled around sweatily in the background, presumably to keep an eye on the doll-making spell.
Actors named Leslie Veneer and Gaye Brough were freshly cast as "Roget Masterman" and "Canberra Laurinz." Veneer had not been in any films or done any television Richard had ever heard of. Having all but given up on acting in favour of work as an insurance adjuster, he no longer had an agent. His head-shot was still in Spotlight just so he could say he was an actor rather than an insurance man when talking to girls at keys-in-a-bowl parties. Gaye's curriculum vitae was more impressive, listing page after page of seemingly everything made in the United Kingdom from A Man for All Seasons to Devil Bride of Dracula—though she admitted you'd need to run prints frame by frame through a Steenbeck to catch her face. In twenty-five years in the profession, Gaye Brough had never played a part with a character name. Essentially, she was an extra. He assumed both players had been cast purely for physical resemblance, which was considerable. When they were posed, Barbara instinctively cosied up to Veneer, and Richard had to reclaim her—prompting blushes, which Gaye instantly matched.
Veneer, obviously shrieking inside with ambitious glee, projected an exaggerated disdain that would come across on screen as woodenness. Gaye bubbled delight and enthusiasm and kept bumping into things—either because the sudden career jump undid her spatial sense or she usually wore thick glasses that were left at home so she could dazzle with her Barbara-like eyes.
The quartet of interchangeables posed together. Veneer and Gaye wore Richard and Barbara's original clothes. Richard and Barbara made do with Tara's dupes.
"With my producer's hat on, I have to say these are perfect."
Squiers looked from the originals to the copies, meek but smug. From him, Richard sensed a species of hurt resentment that his racket had been tumbled, but also a belief that Marcus Squiers was the aggrieved and persecuted party, that he had every right to call on the Saturday Man for aid against those who would thwart his killing business. This was interesting, but beside the point—Richard was curious about the conjurer's motives but knew they weren't important. Squiers thought he was home safe and the interlopers doomed. He was arrogant enough to play the I-know-you-know-that-I-know-you-know game and loiter to enjoy the show as his enemies were supposedly drawn deeper into his trap. Richard hoped that was a mistake.
Richard pinched his wrist and saw Veneer rub what he thought was a gnat-bite.
The writing pack had also turned out and were circling, admiring the casting. As several photographers took thousands of exposures, writers tossed questions at Richard and Barbara, which often bounced off onto Veneer and Gaye, who were bewildered but kept up the mysterioso brooding and glossy smiling that were their single-note performances.
"Richard, do you get enough exorcise?"
"Barbara, what crept into the crypt and crapped?"
"Richard, have you ever laid a ghost?"
"Barbara, what's the best recipe for ectoplasm omelette?"
Mama-Lou watched from a distance. Richard caught her eye, and she winked. Blessings of Erzulie Freda. That was a comfort.
After an age, it was over. Lionel shooed away the photographers, and Veneer and Gaye were ushered off to the Make-Up Department.
"They have to get head-casts made," said Lionel.
That was a significant clue as to what Squiers had in mind for Roget and Canberra. A brace of severed heads should be ready for the episode to be broadcast tomorrow week.
Richard's neck itched. It was the wrong collar.
The props department were calling in axes from the warehouse, to give Gerard Loss a selection to choose from.
Next, Richard had an important interview. In June O'Dell's trailer.
· · · · ·
XIII
Tuesday's episode climaxed with the Bleeds Bogey manifesting a full-on telekinetic storm in Mavis Barstow's lounge. Objects were hurled through the air on dozens of fishing lines, and Ben sank to his knees pleading for mercy as invisible forces lashed his face.
For a brief shot that took longer to set up than the rest of the episode, Dudley Finn had makeup scars applied, with flesh-coloured sticking plasters fixed over them—when the plasters were torn away by fishing lines, Ben had claw marks on his face. Then, as Mavis shouted defiance at her late husband, the doors were torn off their hinges, a flood of dry-ice fog-smoke-mist-ectoplasm poured onto the set and cleared to show Leslie Veneer and Gaye Brough posed in the doorway as if hoping for a spin-off series. Loss needed a dozen takes before he was browbeaten by Marcus Squiers—with his producer's hat on, tapping his watch as the shoot edged ever-nearer the dreaded and never-embraced "Golden Time" when union rules insisted the crew's wages tripled—into accepting Veneer's reading of Roget Masterman's introductory line, "Avaunt, Spirit of Evil … We've come about your bogeys, Mrs Barstow, and not a moment too soon!"
Having been on set during the taping, and even smarmily consulted on the finer points of psychokinesis by an unctuous Squiers, Richard felt he could skip the transmission. His associates were back at the guest house, watching the programme for him.
Inspector Price had said it would be easy to break into the Bank of England while The Northern Barstows was on the air. It was certainly easy to slip into the studio where the show was made. Almost everyone connected with the programme was at home in front of the telly, fuming about the way June O'Dell stepped on their lines or taking notes for the 7:00 A.M. post-mortem in the writers' pit the next morning.
Wearing Marcus Squiers' producer's hat and a long, drab coat, Richard felt like a walking manifestation of the Bleeds Bogey. He stalked through the car park and approached the stage door, which should have been accidentally left unlocked. No lozenge-filching had been required.
When the door gave at his push, he was relieved. Mama-Lou was off her fence. The revelation about Tara, who was after the top job in Wardrobe, fully committed the woman to their cause.
She was a believer, not a priestess—but belief was what this was all about.
Barbara reported that the writers had been forthcoming in discussing Thursday's episode, asking her parapsychology questions she had to invent answers for, but reticent when it came to next Tuesday's, confirming to Richard's satisfaction that Roget and Canberra were due for the chop then. Leslie Veneer, who now had an agent again, and Gaye Brough, who was hoping for the cover of the TV Times, didn't yet know how short-lived their stardom was due to be.
So, it all came down to next Tuesday's episode—which had already been written, in semi-secret, by Marcus Squiers, independent of the pack. Barbara had asked around tactfully and discovered this was standard procedure for shows with major plot developments—and also, obviously, when Squiers was using his video voodoo to kill people. The floor taping was due on Friday, with special effects pick-up shots (decapitations?) scheduled for Monday morning.
That gave Richard a weekend to counter the spell. He trusted making television was as easy as it looked. After a few days hanging round the production team, he thought he could wear all their hats. But he still needed help from inside the enemy camp.
It was dark on the stage. His night senses took moments to adjust.
Someone clapped and lights came up.
He was in the middle of Mavis Barstow's lounge. Prop objects were strewn everywhere, tossed by the Bogey. Cards stuck to them warned against violating continuity by moving anything.
"Mama-Lou," he called out.
His voice came back to him.
He sensed something wrong. Other people were here, whom he had not expected, who weren't part of his deal.
Strong hands gripped his arms. Two sets.
He bent over and threw one of the men over his shoulder with an aikido move, then sank a nasty knee into the other's goolies. Thanks to Bruce Lee and David Carradine, everyone accepted what British schoolboys used to call "dirty fighting" as an ancient, noble, and religious art form. Richard realised he had just floored the Tank-Top Twins. They rolled and fell and groaned and hopped, but had enough presence of mind—or fear of the consequences—not to disturb any labelled props. They got over their initial hurt and came at him more seriously. Richard brought up his fists and thought through six ways of semi-permanently disabling two larger, younger, stupider opponents within the next minute and a half.
"Leave them alone," said a woman. "They're expensive."
The instruction was for him, but it made the Twins stand down and back away. Richard opened his fists and made a monster-clutch gesture while doing a ghost-moan. They flinched.
"Was that necessary?" he asked the woman.
"Now I know you can take care of yourself," said the woman. "Good."
June O'Dell, Mavis Barstow, stood on the set as if it were really her home. In slippers, she barely came up to the mantelpiece, but still seemed to fill any spare space. Richard fancied she looked younger tonight, with a little colour in her cheeks that might come from digesting Emma. Ghost-eaters could do that, often without even knowing how they retained their youthful blush. She wore a filmy muu-muu with mandarin sleeves, diamonds at her ears and around her throat. Mama-Lou was with June, wearing a white bikini bottom augmented by a mass of necklaces, armlets, anklets, bracelets, and a three-pointed tiara surmounted with the skulls of a shrew, a crow, and a pike. Maybe she was more than just a believer.
The Twins faded into the shadows.
"I've been thinking about what you suggested to me the other day about Marcus' sideline, Mr. Jeperson," said June. "It was hard to believe."
"Was?"
"It answers so many questions. I knew Marcus was up to something sneaky. I just didn't imagine it could be so unusual. Such a betrayal of the sacred trust between creative artist and the audience."
"It's dangerous to use the Saturday Man," said Mama-Lou. "Betimes, the Saturday Man wind up usin' you."
"Don't make excuses for the wretched clot, Louise. He was always a worm!"
Richard took off the cap Mama-Lou had given him.
"Ugh. Ghastly thing," said June.
Mama-Lou took the cap back reverentially. It had to become a sacred object.
Richard went to the mantelpiece. All the framed photographs and trinkets had been distributed across the set by the poltergeist, save for Da Barstow's urn—which issued green smoke when it became obvious who the Bogey was. The eyes of the portrait had burned like hot coals. Richard saw where red bulbs had been set into the picture.
He took the urn and twisted off the top.
Screwed up inside were dozens of used cue cards.
"Marcus' words," said June. "This is where he gets to choke on them."
The Twins came back, stepping cautiously. They had fetched a rusty barbeque from the props vault. It usually sat on the obviously indoor set of Ben Barstow's back garden.
Richard lifted the grille and poured the cue cards into the pan.
"You bring what I tol' you," Mama-Lou said to June.
June snapped her fingers and a Twin handed over a brown paper bag.
Mama-Lou looked inside and smiled.
She emptied the bag onto the crumpled cards. Nail-clippings, a still-damp handkerchief, bristles shaved off a toothbrush, blood-dotted Kleenex.
"Obviously, you can't get hair from a bald man," said June. "But Marcus never learned to shave. I think his mummy did it until he married me, and he expected I would take over. No wonder it didn't last. Blood is better than hair, you said?"
"Blood is good, Miss June," said Mama-Lou.
"Will you do the honours, Mama-Lou?" said Richard, bowing.
"Indeed I will. This is my religion, an' I despise what's been done wit' it."
She had a box of Swan Vesta matches caught between her thigh and the tie of her bikini-bottom. She took the box and rattled the matches.
"Erzulie Freda, we call you to the flame," she said, looking up.
Mama-Lou was dancing to unheard music. Her necklaces—which were strung with beads, feathers, items of power, bones, and tiny carvings—rattled and bounced against her dark, lithe torso.
The set lights went down—it wasn't magic: one of the Twins was at the dimmer switch. June snapped her fingers, banishing her familiars—who had orders to stand guard outside. In the darkness, Mama-Lou struck a match. The single flame grew, swelling around the matchhead, burning down the matchstick, almost to her enamelled nails. She dropped the match onto the pile of combustibles, humming to herself. The flame caught.
"Hocus pocus mucus Marcus," improvised June.
Mama-Lou slapped her shoulders, breasts, hips, and thighs with gestures Richard had seen performed by warlocks, witches, and morris-dancers. She added certain herbs to the fire, filling the studio with a rich, pungent, not-unpleasant musk. Mama-Lou shook herself into a trance, channelling her patron, Erzulie Freda. She invoked others of her island pantheon, reciting the "Litanie des Saints." Damballah Wedo, Lord Shango, Papa Legba.
And Baron Samedi. The Saturday Man.
When the barbeque was fully alight, Richard laid the producer's hat into the bed of flames.
They watched until everything was burned down to ashes.
Then they filled the urn.
Richard fastened the lid.
"Now, the seal of Erzulie Freda," announced Mama-Lou. She surprised June O'Dell with a deep, open-mouthed kiss and then applied herself to Richard with nips and an agile tongue. The Wardrobe Mistress' personal loa was the Haitian goddess of love and sensuality. He would have to admit he knew how ceremonies performed under the patronage of Erzulie Freda were traditionally concluded.
Mama-Lou pulled him and June toward Mavis Barstow's enormous Fresian cowhide three-piece suite, elbows crooked around their necks, lips active against their faces. She had a lot of strength in her arms. This development came as something of a shock to June, but Mama-Lou whispered something to her in French which made reservations evaporate. The actress became as light on her feet as she was on her platform-skates and slipped busy fingers inside Richard's shirt.
He remembered the star's hunger and the consequences for unwary ghosts. He must be careful not to let her leech away too much of him. She had used up the best part of her husband, literally. But Mama-Lou was strong too, with a different kind of hunger, a different kind of need.
Two bodies, one very pale, one very black, wound around him and each other. And two spirits, burning inside the bodies, pulled at him.
When he told Barbara about the evening, he would tactfully omit this next stage of the ritual.
He checked the cameras with quick glances. They were hooded. The red recording lights were off.
Which was a mercy.
June and Mama-Lou impatiently helped him off with his trousers. Richard thought of England, then remembered he wasn't actually English.
· · · · ·
XIV
Vanessa, of course, saw what had happened in an instant and held it over him all week, exacting numerous favours. She obviously told Fred, and he went around looking at his "guv'nor" with envious awe. Richard was not entirely comfortable with his own behaviour and took care to be exceptionally solicitous to Barbara, which—later on the night in question—involved a fairly heroic effort in their shared bedroom. He put his evident success down to the lingering effect of Mama-Lou's voodoo herbs rather than the strength of his own amative constitution. Now he was glad, not only that he had not been found out by the professor, but that a night spent with her had followed his hour or so under the spell of Erzulie Freda.
Being open to the feelings of others often led him into choppy waters and he was not about to excuse himself on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He accepted the less admirable, very male, elements of his makeup and determined to rein them in more effectively. The Swinging Sixties were over, and this ought to be the Sensible (or at least, the Sober) Seventies. Besides, he could self-diagnose the symptoms and knew he was falling in love with Barbara Corri.
It was his gift to know how other people felt. All the time. Without fail. But with one exception. He could tell when a woman was attracted to him. He could tell when she was infuriated with him and performing a supernatural feat by concealing it from the world. But he could not tell if a woman he loved even liked him. If Barbara were in love with him, she'd have to come straight out and say so. Even then, he was no more able to tell if she meant it than anyone else in the world could. It struck him that this blind spot was probably the one thing, along with his unique upbringing under the aegis of the Diogenes Club, that prevented him from becoming a monster.
Too many people with talents went bad.
Look at Marcus Squiers. Obviously, the fellow had some raw abilities, or he'd never have been able to co-opt the arcana to a criminal venture. He could have used the influence of The Northern Barstows over the viewing public for good. Or he could have left well enough alone and concentrated on making better TV programmes.
"I wonder if he hit on this by accident," Barbara said on Monday morning as they sat on the studio lawn. They watched Leslie and Gaye, who had grown close over the last fortnight, console each other before the taping of the worst-concealed surprise twist in Barstows history—their deaths. "I keep thinking of Brenda's black baby. The way apparently the whole audience changed opinion when Mavis did. That might have been when it started."
"There was Karen Finch," said Richard.
"She must have been the first victim. The Bogus Brenda was her doll. What happened to BB on the programme happened to her in life. Not killed, but certainly her options were limited."
"Barbara?" he held her hand.
"Yes?"
"I won't let him murder us. What we did this weekend will work. In the end, Squiers is an amateur and I am a professional."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Leslie and Gaye embracing, in tears.
He kissed Barbara and thought, for a moment, he knew how she felt.
Then it was gone again, and he found himself looking at her face and wondering.
"You know," she said. "I can never tell what you're thinking."
"Good. I'd hate to spoil any more surprises."
She laughed, like the sun coming out.
"So, do you want to watch our heads getting chopped off?"
"Why not?"
He took her arm, and they walked across the lawn, toward the stage. As they passed, Leslie and Gaye were brushing grass strands off their costumes and getting it together to undergo their career-ending ordeal.
"Cheer up," Richard told them, "it might never happen."
"Easy for you to say," snarled Leslie Veneer, with more feeling than any of his line-readings. "You're not the Bloody God of Bleeds."
They arrived on the stage before Leslie and Gaye, and—as had become tediously predictable—an assistant director was hustling them onto the set when the real actors arrived. Everyone's identities got sorted out.
Gerard Loss was nowhere to be seen. Marcus Squiers was directing this scene himself, wearing his rarely seen director's hat—a baseball cap. He sat on a high chair like a tennis umpire and wielded the sort of megaphone Cecil B. DeMille had been fond of until talking pictures came in.
Squiers was surprised to see Richard and Barbara but nodded at them with the kind of magnanimous admiration only someone who thought he'd long since won could show for an already mortally wounded foe he was about to decapitate. Richard waved cheerily back.
Almost all the episode had been taped on Friday. Roget and Canberra were shown up as yet more confidence tricksters (a habitual Barstows plot tic). It turned out they were in with Ben Barstow and had been faking the haunting in order to extort a fortune from Mavis—but this had raised the real angry spirit of Da Barstow, who was about to get his revenge.
Clarence "Gore" Gurney, a special effects man who usually worked on cinema films about Satanic accidents, was hired in at great expense—and with resentful grumbling from the O'D-S makeup people—to supervise the Decapitation of Roget Masterman and, to vary things, the Exploding Head of Canberra Laurinz. Realistic dummies, faces contorted in frozen screams, were held in waiting, tubes and wires fed into slit holes in the backs of their clothes. Richard assumed the dummies now wore the clothes filched from his and Barbara's closets. At last, here were proper voodoo dolls, with hairs stolen from brushes applied to the heads. Tara, exceeding her wardrobe job, was helping Gurney set up the effects.
Barbara kept looking at the dummies, struck by the terror on her own faked face.
Leslie and Gaye only had to flounder screaming around the set while Dudley-as-Ben begged Da for forgiveness and fire spurted out of the portrait's eyes. Then the actors were hauled off—and essentially kicked out the studio door, final pay packets exchanged for entry lozenges—and the dummies were set up. This took an age.
Lionel dropped by to say hello.
"They'll never get away with this, luv," he said. "Mucus is mental. Grannies in Hartlepool will have heart attacks. Folk tune in to the Barstards to see Mavis being a cow and Northshire idiots whining about the old days over pints of Griddles, not blood and guts all over the shop. It's like the worst bits of James Herbert spewed into front parlours, and the audience won't like it. The duty officer will log a record number of complaints when this airs. Once it's out, ART will come down like a ton of angry bricks. Mark my words."
"We only have one shot at this," announced Squiers through his megaphone. "All three cameras … make sure you can't see each other or the edge of the set."
Three cameraman gave thumbs-up.
"'Gore'?"
Gurney crouched over a wooden control-box studded with lights and switches and plungers like the ones used to detonate cartoon dynamite. He checked all the leads and saluted Squiers.
"Supernatural smoke, please."
Odorous clouds were puffed onto the set by stagehands wielding gadgets like industrial vacuum cleaners on reverse. Finn coughed, and the smoke settled like a grey ground mist.
"Light the picture."
Da's eyes shone. It struck Richard that Marcus Squiers had posed for the portrait.
"Dudley?"
Finn went down on his knees, warily ready.
"… and action!"
Gurney flicked switches, and the dummies flailed with alarming realism. Finn, nervous to be on set with so much explosive, picked up his ranted lines.
"Dr. Laurinz!" shouted Squiers.
Gurney depressed a plunger. The Canberra dummy's head burst, flinging watermelon-bits and cottage cheese across the set. Barbara pressed her face against Richard's collar, unable to watch.
Richard did not miss Squiers' nasty little smile.
The last splatters of the head's contents rained down. Red syrup spurted from the neck as if it were a sugary drinking fountain. The headless dummy toppled over, mechanics inside sparking dangerously.
"… and Masterman!"
Gurney depressed the other plunger.
A rubber axe flew across the set. Richard watched his own head come off, tumble through the air, and fall, still blinking, at the feet of a screaming Ben Barstow.
"Cut! Thank you all very much. You've made TV history."
There was a smattering of applause, mostly from the writing pack who had been let off school especially to watch the deaths.
"The Ti-bloody-tanic made history," said Lionel, who was annoyed to get gluey red cornstarch on his Clark's tracker shoes.
"What do you think, Mr. Jeperson?" asked Squiers through his megaphone. "How did it look from down there?"
Richard made an equivocal gesture.
"I'll have to see it go out to be sure."
"Indeed you will. Would you and Professor Corri care to be my guests tomorrow? Because it's a 'special' episode, we're having a select celebration here at the studio. We can watch you die and then have canapés and wine. It'll be a treat. Are you up for it?"
Barbara was white-lipped with fury and terror but rigidly self-possessed, refusing to let Squiers see. Richard's blood was up too, but he was calm. He'd seen the worst, and it wasn't so bad.
"We wouldn't miss it for the world," he said.
· · · · ·
XV
"You're early," said Squiers.
"I thought we might not get the chance to chat later."
Squiers was surprised, calculated a moment, then chose to laugh.
Coolly, Richard sauntered down the aisle of the small, luxurious screening room, fingers brushing the leatherette of the upholstered seats. Squiers stood in front of a wall of colour television sets turned on and tuned to ITV but with the sound off, images repeated as if through insect eyes. A quiz programme was on, the grinning host in a silver tuxedo dropping contestants into vats of gunk when they failed to answer correctly, showgirls in spangly tights posed by washer-dryers and Triumph TR-7s, mutant puppets popping up between the rounds to do silent slapstick. No wonder Richard preferred reading.
Squiers wore a different hat tonight, a large purple Stetson, with bootlace tie, orange ruffle shirt, faux-buckskin tuxedo, and rawhide cowboy boots with stack heels and spurs. Richard intuited that the ten-gallon titfer was the writer-producer's "party hat." Marcus Squiers saw himself as a gunslinger.
"Nice threads, Squiers."
"Thank you, Mr. Masterman."
"Jeperson. Masterman is your fellow. The one on TV."
"I was forgetting. It's easy to get mixed up."
"I suppose it is."
Richard was not what Squiers expected. In the producer's mind, Richard (and Barbara) ought to be getting sweaty, nervous, close to panic, sensing the trap closing, feeling a frightful fiend's breath warming their backs. They should be jitterily trying to evade the inescapable, pass mrjamesian runes on to some other mug, get out of the way of safes and grand pianos fated to fall from the skies.
Disappointment roiled off Squiers, who—as ever—was the sweaty one.
For him, this should have been a new pleasure. All his previous marks had been unaware of the gunsights fixed on their foreheads. Richard knew what was happening and was powerless to dodge the bullet. This was the first time Squiers could afford to let anyone know how clever he had been.
"It was Junie's fault," said Squiers. "That first serial, just six weeks of it, was damn good telly. Damn good writing. Better than your Dennis Potter or Alan Plater any night of the week. Junie was good in it. She's always been able to play Mavis. She was the one who pushed for the series. I wanted to go on to other things. Plays, films, novels. I could have, you know. I had ideas, ready to go. But Junie tied me to the Barstards. The things she did. You wouldn't believe. The first few years, I kept trying to quit and she'd wrestle me back. There was never much money. Muggins here got stuck with his 196-flaming-4 salary, while the Moo's fees climbed to the sky. Read the bloody small print—first rule of showbiz. There were other ways to keep me on the hook. Even when we weren't married anymore, she'd find means. 'No one else can produce the show,' she says. 'No one.' Who would want to? I mean, have you watched it?"
Richard nodded.
"I have to live with it. So there might as well be some use in it."
"Your discovery?"
"Yes," the bitterness turned sly. A petulant smile crept in, barely covering his teeth. "That's a good way of putting it. The discovery."
"It must be galling to waste shots on Roget and Canberra. I mean, who's to pay for us?"
Squiers chuckled.
"Oh, there's a purpose to you. Nothing goes to waste in television. I have a select company joining us for this party. But you and Professor Corri are my guests of honour. Where is she, by the way?"
"Present," said Barbara.
She wore a bias-cut tangerine evening gown, with matching blooms in her hair and on her shoulder. She stood a moment in the doorway, then glided down. Squiers applauded. Richard kissed her.
"You make a lovely couple," said Squiers. "But you'll be lovelier without heads."
Richard felt an itch around the neck. It was becoming quite persistent.
Barbara was wound tight. Her arm around his waist was nearly rigid with suppressed terror.
"If you haven't learned something by the end of the evening," said Squiers. "I'll eat my hat."
"And what a fine hat it is," said Richard.
The room filled up. The theatre seats took up barely a quarter of the screening room, which was otherwise available for general milling and swilling. Minions in black and white livery weaved among the guests with trays of food: little cubes of cheese and pineapple on sticks; champagne glasses stuffed with prawns, lettuce, and pink mayonnaise; quartered individual pork pies, with dollops of Branston's pickle; fans of "After Eight" mints; ashtrays of foil-wrapped Rose's chocolates. A barman served wine (Mateus Rosé, Blue Nun, Black Tower) and beer (Watney's Red Barrel, Whitbread Trophy Bitter, Double Diamond). There had been an attempt to market a real Griddles Ale, but it was not successful—beer connoisseurs reckoned the cold tea they drank on telly had a better flavour.
Not everyone from O'D-S was here. Richard and Barbara kept score. Anyone on this guest list was almost certainly in it with Squiers; the rest were on the outside and innocent. So far, the guilties ran to Tara (no surprise), Dudley Finn (but not his boyfriend), Jeanne Treece, and a good three-quarters of the writing pack. Lionel was evidently guiltless, and so was Gerard Loss. Some people surprised you.
Squiers whizzed about, ten-gallon hat bobbing among a sea of heads, pressing the flesh, meeting and greeting. Richard saw three people come in who were his own invitees. Squiers had pause when he recognised Vanessa but clearly had no idea who Fred was and was puzzled to see the third added guest, whom he must be dimly aware of but couldn't put a name to. That was another black mark against Evil on the scoreboard.
Richard was about to make introductions when a fresh knot of outside guests appeared and Squiers barged through the crowd to welcome them, sweatily unctuous and eager.
Now Richard understood Squiers' crack about nothing going to waste in television.
"Good grief," he said, "we're starring in a sales pitch!"
Squiers led his VIP guests down the aisle toward Richard and company. Richard sensed Vanessa and Fred, dapper book-ends in white matador-cut tuxedos, taking flanking defensive positions. Good move.
As Squiers grinned and got closer, Richard saw Mama-Lou and June O'Dell—as near to disguised as they could manage—slip in and take seats hunched down in the back row, huge hat-brims over their faces.
"Mr. Jeperson, Professor Corri," said Squiers. "I'd like you to meet some people. Prospective sponsors. This is Adam Onions."
"O-nye-ons," corrected a youngish man in a blazer and polo-neck. "Not like the vegetable."
He stuck out a hand, which Richard opted not to shake.
"Hello, Barb," said Onions, shyly fluttering his fingers.
The professor was furious at Onions' presence, which she took as a personal betrayal.
Richard guessed how Onions fit in. He was from the Brighton University Department of Parapsychology. Barbara had talked to him before getting involved with the Diogenes Club. His ambition must have been piqued, along with his curiosity. He had made connections and ridden the hobbyhorse.
"I'm with a government think tank now," he said. "The Institute of Psi Technology. Pronounced 'Eyesight.' We're getting in a position to be competitive, Mr. Jeperson. Your gentlemen's club has had the field to itself for too long. Your record is astounding, but your horizons have been limited. Effort has been wasted smashing what should be measured. There are applications. Profitable, socially valuable, cutting edge."
Richard could guess what Onions' political masters would want to cut with their edge.
"Heather Wilding," continued Squiers, indicating a woman with a ring-of-confidence smile, slightly ovoid pupils like cat's-eyes, feathery waves of honey-blond Farrah hair, and a tailored red velour suit with maxi-skirt and shoulderpads. "She represents …"
"I know what Miss Wilding represents."
"Ms.," said the woman, who was American.
"Private enterprise," commented Richard. "Very enterprising enterprise."
Heather Wilding was a name Richard had come across before. She fronted for Derek Leech, the newspaper proprietor (of the Comet, among other organs) who sat at the top of a pyramid of interlinked corporations and was just becoming a major dark presence in the world. Leech was taking an ever-greater interest in television, so his representation here should not be a surprise. This woman sat on the Devil's left hand and fed him fondue.
"And this is General Skinner. He's with NATO."
The general was in uniform, with a chest-spread of medal-ribbons and a pearl-handled sidearm. Over classically handsome bone structure was stretched the skin of a white lizard, making his whole face an expressionless, long-healed scar. He was the single most terrifying individual Richard had ever met. How long had this man-shaped creature walked among humanity? Some of his medals were from wars not fought in this century. Not a lot of people must notice that.
"Mr. Jeperson," said Skinner. "You. Have. Been. Noticed."
No response was required. A restraining order had been served. Richard was eager to look away from the shark to consider the trailing minnows.
"Mr. Topazio and Mr. Maltese are …"
"Olive-oil importers?" Richard suggested.
The little old men with scarred knuckles and gold rings caught the joke at once—it was a reference to the legitimate business of the Corleones in The Godfather—but it went over Squiers' head. These must be his longest-standing clients, the fellows who had interests in seeing Jamie Hepplethwaites and Queenie Tolliver out of the picture. Did they feel uneasy at the ever more high-flying company? How could their poor little organised criminal business compete with government departments out to declare psychic war, a monster with the resources of the military-industrial master-planners at his disposal, or the tentacles of a hellfire-fed multimedia empire? Richard wondered if old-fashioned crims would even get bones thrown to them when Squiers took The Northern Barstows up in the world.
He had been worried about ad-men getting hold of Squiers' voodoo. Now—though Derek Leech had his claws deep into that business too—he saw there were worse things waiting. He had a bubble of amusement at the thought of what would have to be written into The Barstows if these powers took over—earthquakes in countries a long way from Northshire, economic upheavals on a global scale, mass suicides among unfriendly governments. The poor old Barstows would have to expand their field of operations, spreading misery and devastation wherever they went.
If Richard knew who Squiers' guests were and what they represented, Squiers was still puzzling over Richard's third extra guest.
"Have we met?" Squiers asked.
"Good heavens no," said Lady Damaris Gideon, casting a pink eye over the fellow. "Whyever should we have? On the Amalgamated Rediffusion Board, we don't care to deal with tradesmen."
Maybe Squiers saw what was coming. His grin almost froze.
Lights went down and sound came up on the televisions. There was a hustle to get into seats. Richard found himself between Barbara, who held his hand fiercely, and Onions, who settled back with a prawn cocktail in one hand and a tiny fork in the other. The Barstows theme came out of all the speakers.
"This is going out to an estimated audience of nineteen million nationwide," said Squiers, over the music. "Five OAPs and a dog are watching the Dad's Army repeat on BBC1. If BBC2 are putting out the test card instead of the classical music quiz literally no one will notice. Our poltergeist plot has pulled in new viewers. Under other circumstances, we'd keep Roget and Canberra on board. They've proved popular. However, you know what they say in writing class, 'Kill your darlings.'"
In the first scene, Ben Barstow was down the Grand Old Duke, sinking pints of Griddles and blathering about the horrific events up at the Barstow house. All the extras were impressed. Bev the barmaid crossed herself.
Then Roget and Canberra were on screen, setting up mystical equipment in the lounge—an electric pentagram, bells on strings, black-out sheets scrawled with white symbols.
Onions snorted at this arcane nonsense.
"There's no science in that."
The academic was shushed from all around the room. Mavis had a "When I were a lass" speech coming up.
At the end of the scene as scripted was a moment when the fraudsters let their guards slip after Mavis has left the room and chuckle over their scam. In the programme as broadcast, the end-of-part-one card came up early and the network cut to adverts.
Squiers saw at once that this wasn't the show he had written, produced, directed, edited, and handed over to ART for transmission. With VIPs in the room, he couldn't make a fuss, but he did hurry out to try to make an urgent call. He came back ghost-faced and shaking. Fred had disabled the studio's external telephone lines. Even the Phantom Phoner could not get out.
During the ad break, Richard looked away from the screens and was amused to notice Heather Wilding shielding her eyes too. A wrestler known for his thick pelt plastered on the Frü and got a grip on a girl in a bathing suit—without ever having seen the advert, it had seeped into Richard's consciousness, which ticked him off. Skinner's strange face reflected the highly-coloured images sliding across the wall of screens. Topazio was asleep and snoring gently, as Maltese tossed peanuts like George Raft spinning a coin and caught them with his mouth.
On the way back to his seat, Squiers saw June in the audience. She bent up her hat-brim and blew him a kiss. Her presence was a blow to his heart. He was unsteady on his feet the rest of the way. When he sat down, he slipped off his Stetson and unconsciously began to chew the leather.
After the adverts, the new material took over. Though she had studied The Northern Barstows from the beginning, Barbara found it surprisingly difficult to pastiche even a few scenes of script. After hours of effort, she came up with six typewritten pages, which June scrawled all over with her magic marker—some sort of seal of approval Richard frankly didn't understand, but which the professor did. Considering she was writing on and appearing in her specialist subject, she had crossed an academic line which might be hard to hop back over. They had taped their alternate scene over the weekend, using technicians bound to a vow of secrecy by Super-Golden Time wages. June, who authorised the expense in her capacity as a controlling interest in O'Dell-Squiers, participated as if it were a regular episode, while Mama-Lou fussed over the costumes. Richard had worried that sparks might combust between the three women, with unfortunate revelations to follow—but he had defused several potential mines.
On screen, Roget and Canberra began a ritual of exorcism.
Fred laughed out loud, realising he was now watching Richard and Barbara, not Leslie and Gaye. Few others in the room noticed the switch, which was a tribute to the casting. Some of the pack knew this wasn't what they expected, but they were used to Squiers' "last-minute" changes and accepted what was being broadcast as the authentic Barstows. Squiers had a chunk of leather in his mouth and was chewing steadily. He was indeed eating his hat. His shirt was sweated through.
The ritual was nonsense, of course. If it hadn't been, the characters wouldn't have been Roget and Canberra as established on the programme. It was important to keep consistent, not to break the audience's compact with unlikeliness.
The pentagram crackled, and Da Barstow's urn levitated off the mantel.
Squiers clutched his chest, choking on his hat. Apart from Richard, nobody noticed.
"You … barstards," Squiers croaked.
The chanting rose, whipping up a supernatural wind in Mavis' lounge. Mavis blundered in, eliciting a round of applause from the audience, and held hands with the ghost-hunters. June had insisted on being in the scene. It was her show, after all.
"Chant after me," said Richard-as-Roget.
June-as-Mavis nodded.
"Spectre of Evil, Spectre of Pain," said Richard-as-Roget.
"Spectre of Evil, Spectre of Pain," echoed Barbara-as-Canberra and June-as-Mavis.
"Begone from this House, Begone from this Plane!"
"Begone from this House, Begone from this Plane!"
The urn wobbled a bit, but winds continued to buffet the exorcising trio, and flash-powder went off around the lounge.
"Spirit of Darkness, Spirit of Gloom …"
"Spirit of Darkness, Spirit of Gloom …"
"Return to thy Graveyard, return to thy Tomb!"
"Return to thy Graveyard, return to thy Tomb!"
The lid came off the urn, and flaming ashes sprinkled.
Squiers was severely affected now, jerking and gasping in seizure, ragged-brimmed hat bucking up and down on his lap. The people sat around him noticed. Tara ripped open his shirt, scattering buttons, and pressed his heaving chest.
On the screens, the ashes of Da Barstow—the "doll" of Marcus Squiers—spewed out of the urn in a human-shaped cloud, with trailing limbs and a thickness around the head that was unmistakably a flat cap.
It wasn't even special effects—it was an illusion, a lighting trick.
June-as-Mavis held up a silver crucifix, forged by melting down Da's shove ha'penny champion sovereign. Richard-as-Roget raised a fetish of Erzulie Freda, on loan from Mama-Lou. And Barbara-as-Canberra pulled an old-fashioned toy gun which shot out a flag bearing the word "bang!"
"You were always bloody useless, Darius Barstow," said Mavis at full blast. "Now clear off out of it and leave decent people alone."
"Dispel," said Richard, underplaying.
The cloud of ash exploded, pelting the entire set—it had taken longer to clean up than to shoot the scene—and then vanished.
Dawnlight filtered in on a dimmer switch. Tweeting bird sound effects laid over the settling dust.
The camera rolled toward Mavis, who gave a speech about how the nightmare was over and life in Bleeds could get back to "normal."
There was a commotion around Squiers' seat. Squiers wasn't in it anymore. He wasn't in anything anymore. All that was left was a hat on the floor, a fine scattering of grey ash, and an after-the-firework-display smell.
Tara's hands, which had been against Squiers' chest, were withered, like an arthritic eighty-year-old's. One of her fingers snapped off, but she was too shocked to scream.
The end titles scrolled, and the screening room lights came up.
Richard thanked Lady Dee, without whom the substitution of master tapes could not have been managed. The Board was pleased that the proper order of things had been restored—little companies like O'Dell-Squiers (soon to be O'Dell Holdings) might make television, but networks like Amalgamated Rediffusion owned the airwaves and decided what was fed into the boxes. Squiers had focused on working magic in the making of the show and taken transmission for granted, but Richard had understood the pins didn't skewer the doll until the episode in question was watched by the believing millions.
Wilding and Skinner were gone. Not like Squiers, but leaving fewer traces behind. This hadn't worked out, but they had other irons in the fire—which Richard, or someone like him, would have to deal with eventually.
Adam Onions wasn't in that class yet. He was a nuisance not a danger. The man from IPSIT bubbled around excitedly, scratching at everything, diagnosing a new, unknown form of spontaneous combustion. Richard was more than willing to cede the investigation to him. As he was scooping ash into a bag, Barbara stuck her tongue out at his back. She successfully overcame the temptation to boot his rump, mostly because she was wearing toeless spiked court shoes over sheer black silk stockings and reckoned permanent damage to her wardrobe not worth the passing pleasure of denting Onions' negligible dignity.
Maltese and Topazio made themselves scarce, but Inspector Price would know where they lived.
"Well done, guv," said Fred.
"Tricky thing, voodoo," said Vanessa. "Not to be trifled with."
On the way out, Richard nodded to June O'Dell. She and Mama-Lou sat in their seats, ignoring the fuss around Squiers' sudden exit from this world. Richard did not doubt that the show would go on. With June wearing the producer's hat.
Richard walked with Barbara. Fred and Vanessa flanked them. Their way to the door was barred. By the writers' pack.
They really looked like a pack now, fangs bared, hunched over, angry at the loss of their alpha, fingers curled into claws. After all this hocus-pocus, Squiers' followers might opt for good old-fashioned violence and rip their enemies to shreds.
Fred and Vanessa tensed, ready for a scrap.
"Heel," said June firmly.
As one, the pack looked to her.
"You lot, there's work to do. I'll be taking more of an interest in the writing from now on. Porko, tomorrow you will sign Leslie Veneer and Gaye Brough to six months' contracts. Roget and Canberra will be staying in Bleeds to mop up after the Bogey. No decapitations necessary."
The chubby writer checked his colleagues' faces and nodded vigorously. The rest agreed with him. June O'Dell was in charge.
"Professor Corri," she said, "we've had our differences, but I'd like to offer you a job as Head Writer. This is yours for the taking …"
She snatched the school cap from one of the writers' pockets and offered it to Barbara.
"I'll think about it," said the professor.
Beside June, Mama-Lou smiled, eyes glittering.
The Moo and Mistress Voodoo exerted a tug on Barbara, which Richard knew would have an effect. He was more worried about how the professor would fare in the television jungle than he had been when she was only under a deadly curse. But she could take care of herself.
Richard acknowledged these women of power, trusting—against prior experience—they would wield it only for good. He might have to keep watching the blasted programme to make sure they avoided the shadow of the Saturday Man.
He helped the professor, now steady on her feet, out of the room.
The Rolls awaited.
He turned to look into Barbara's eyes and kissed her. Her terror had passed, and new, exciting feelings were creeping in.
"Did we win?" she asked.
"Handsomely," said Richard.
The End
Annotations
89. Keys-in-a-bowl-parties. A '70s thing. You had to be there. Or maybe best not.
90. Steenbeck. A flatbed editing machine.
91. TV Times. ITV's TV listings magazine.
92. Goolies. Testicles.
93. The worst bits of James Herbert. Usually castration anxiety fantasties with extra adjectives (cf. The Rats, The Fog). The word "nasty," as applied to "video nasties" in the 1980s, was devised to describe the brand of moist paperback horror of which Herbert was the preeminent '70s practitioner, followed by the even more prolific Guy N. Smith (Night of the Crabs, The Sucking Pit).
94. Clark's tracker shoes. They had animal footprints on the soles, so you left tracks with them.
95. Triumph TR-7. Not the best car ever made in Great Britain.
96. Titfer. Hat. Rhyming slang, tit fer tat = hat.
97. Dennis Potter. UK TV playwright, famous for, among others, Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective.
98. Alan Plater. UK TV writer, who debuted on the seminal cop series Z-Cars and has scripted many series and serials, like The Beiderbecke Affair, Flambards, and A Very British Coup.
99. Muggins here. A loser in any transaction.
100. Farrah hair. A 'do popularised by Farrah Fawcett.
101. OAPs. Old-age pensioners.
102. Dad's Army. Classic BBC sitcom set in World War Two, about the Home Guard. |
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