The Fan Who Knew Too Much E-Book

Nev Fountain

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 573

Beschreibung

Launching a new series, a podcaster and cult science fiction superfan stages a documentary to solve her friend's murder, and a 40-year-old disappearance, in this riotous and fiendishly twisty mystery. Perfect for fans of classic TV such as Doctor Who and Star Trek, wobbly cardboard sets and spandex costumes, and sharp-witted amateur detective crime such as Richard Osman, J. M. Hall and Andrew Cartmel. Kit Pelham is a professional fan, interviewer, host of the podcast The First Cult is the Deepest, and occasional obituary writer. Except this time the obituary is for her friend, maverick podcaster Wolf Tyler, who is murdered in his shed during a live broadcast, moments before revealing a huge secret about the cult TV show Vixens from the Void. Kit and her group of friends and fellow superfans soon realise Wolf had discovered something about the disappearance of Lily Sparkes, an extra on Vixens from the Void, back in 1986. And it was a secret worth killing for… To find justice for their friend, and much more importantly, new trivia about their favourite TV show, the gang decide to put together a 'Then and Now' Blu-Ray documentary that will reunite the original cast and crew. Armed with only a shoestring budget, an occasionally soggy drone, action figures (in the original packaging) and encyclopaedic knowledge of 1980s sci-fi TV, they have just four days to discover Wolf's secret, and solve his murder.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for… The Fan Who Knew Too Much

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

Part Two

7

8

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10

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17

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Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

PRAISE FOR…

THE FAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

A KIT PELHAM MYSTERY

“Laugh-out-loud-on-the-bus funny.”

Ben Aaronovitch, author of the Rivers of London series

“A dark, funny look at fandom from someone who really knows.”

Jenny Colgan, bestselling author of Do You Remember the First Time? and six Doctor Who novels

“I loved this funny, intriguing, moving, bonkers story. It’s a world I recognise and a must read for any fan of science fiction.”

Sophie Aldred, Ace in Doctor Who, 1987-1989

“This is a delight. Nev Fountain’s genre savviness, his sardonic humour and his skill at storytelling come together in a perfect storm of crime-fiction fun.”

Andrew Cartmel, author of the Vinyl Detective and Paperback Sleuth series

“Funny, acerbic, ingenious… a witty, twisty murder mystery.”

Simon Guerrier, author of David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television

“Revels in sci-fi nerdism, spoofing it and extolling it simultaneously… a murder classic.”

John Lawton, author of the Inspector Troy and Joe Wilderness series

“Nev Fountain is a very funny writer. The Fan Who Knew Too Much is a very funny book.”

Simon Brett, author of the Mrs Pargeter, Fethering Village and The Decluttering mysteries

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The Fan Who Knew Too Much: a Kit Pelham Mystery

Print edition ISBN: 9781803365527

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803365565

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: July 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Nev Fountain 2024. All Rights Reserved.

Nev Fountain asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

This book is dedicated to Ian ‘If’ Fountain.

“The play’s the thing, wherein I’llcatch the conscience of the King.”

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

Extract from the ‘Vixens from the Void’ Programme Guide, originally printed in ‘Into the Void’ Fanzine #1.

CORONATION. (Serial 1A)

Transmitted: 18 September 1986

Recorded: Studio: BBC Television Centre

16-17 May 1986

Location: Brighton Pavilion,

Brighton, 16-27 June 1986

Arkadia: Vanity Mycroft

Magaroth: Emilia Green

Medula: Tara Miles

Vizor: Roger Barker

Captain Talon: Patrick Finch

Tania: Suzy Lu

Velhellan: Jennifer McLaird

Elysia: Samantha Carbury

Excelsior: Maggie Styles

Costume Design: Joan Peverin

Stuntman: Duggie Fletcher

Production Design: Paula Marshall

Writer: Mervyn Stone

Script Editor: Mervyn Stone

Director: Leslie Driscoll

Producer: Nicholas Everett

Synopsis:

The female empire of VIXOS spans the whole galaxy, ruled by the VIXENS. The peace of the empire is shattered by the news of a tragic accident. The royal shuttle crashes in a barren area of space known as the VOIDLANDS. VIXOSSIA the PRIME MISTRESS of VIXOS is killed, along with half the royal family.

The sister of the PRIME MISTRESS is MAGAROTH, who was already ruling in her older sister’s absence. When the news comes of the accident she is expected to step down in favour of ARKADIA, third in line to the throne, next to her mother and her older sister BYZANTIA (who also perished in the crash).

To the surprise of many, MAGAROTH refuses to step aside and assumes the role of PRIME MISTRESS, claiming that ARKADIA is too young and inexperienced to rule, and offering tutelage to ARKADIA in the royal palace.

CAPTAIN TALON, meanwhile, makes a journey to the VOIDLANDS to recover the royal ship, and becomes suspicious that the accident may not have been an accident at all…

Notes:

‘Vixens from the Void’ was pitched by producer Nicholas Everett and writer Mervyn Stone to the BBC to fill the hole left by the cancellation of ‘Doctor Who’. They summarised it as ‘Dallas’ meets ‘Dynasty’… but in space!

The BBC was particularly interested in the idea, as Head of Episodic Serials Hugo Treadway had recently issued a directive to include more female voices in BBC drama.

Treadway showed the proposal to his wife for approval, who hated it, and pointed out it was written by two men. Thankfully for ‘Vixens from the Void’ fans, Treadway dismissed her strong reservations as his wife’s ‘moody time-of-the-month stuff’ and ‘Vixens from the Void’ was commissioned.

‘Vixens from the Void’ premiered on BBC1 on 18 September 1986. A party was held in BBC studio 8 to celebrate the new show, attended by the cast, production team and the Head of Episodic Serials with his new wife, former personal assistant, Selena Treadway, who became Head of Sitcom Development the following year.

The opening episode concerned the offstage death of a character and the other characters’ reaction to that death. The soap opera ‘EastEnders’ did something similar a year before.

The first episode of the series, ‘Coronation’, was given a larger than usual budget with extra days for location filming, as it was decided that generic exterior shots could be taken and slotted into subsequent episodes. The same practice was undertaken for the first episode of series two, ‘Assassins of Destiny - part two’, and all subsequent series.

The climax of series one, ‘Assassins of Destiny - part one’, was largely filmed in the studio because the series budget had run out at that stage. If the story is watched as a compilation, it is interesting to note there is a point around the fifty-minute mark where everyone decides to go outside.

‘Vixens from the Void’ was an instant success, with nine million viewers tuning in regularly for the first series.

However, in recent years the programme has been marred by allegations made relating to its inception. Accusations were made by several woman writers claiming they had been asked to contribute to Hugo Treadway’s ‘female voices’ initiative by pitching ideas for a new sci-fi programme in 1985. They were invited up to his office on the eighth floor, where they were confronted with a naked Treadway, a bottle of chilled Dom Perignon and a sofa that folded out into a bed. These allegations have been reported to the Metropolitan Police’s ‘Operation Mulberry’ department (set up in response to the ‘#metoo’ movement) and are currently being investigated.

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

Brighton, 2022

Pillows were stapled to the walls and the ceiling. Even over the windows.

The shed looked like the inside of a padded cell.

The occupant of the shed certainly looked like a lunatic. He had a rambling untidy beard. His black hair was long and fell in a lank centre parting. His clothes were loose and shapeless, as if some unseen authority figure had confiscated his belt, shoelaces and any sharp objects he had about his person.

But the shed was not a lunatic asylum, and Wolf Tyler was not a lunatic. Not quite. Wolf Tyler was a podcaster.

Wolf took a huge slurp from his coffee, pulled his headphones over his ears and grinned at his Special Mystery Guest, who was sitting quietly by the desk.

“Okay,” said Wolf. “So, we’re about to go live any second. We’re just going to chat for thirty minutes or so, about your life generally, and then after that we’ll really get into the subject and talk for another hour.”

The Special Mystery Guest asked why the interview would be an hour-and-a-half long. There really wasn’t that much to tell.

Wolf cackled.

“Don’t you worry about that. I once managed to talk for two hours about C-3PO’s right leg. Believe me, the time will just fly by. Ready?”

The Special Mystery Guest nodded.

“Fantastic. Let’s go for a take. I’ll do an intro. Just keep quiet while I do that.”

The air was filled with a bass-heavy hip-hop instrumental; Star Wars fans might have recognised Darth Vader’s ‘Imperial March’ buried in the mix, but it had been cut into shreds to stay out of the clutches of Disney’s copyright lawyers.

Wolf yelled over the music. “Welcome one and all to the Nerd Mentality podcast! I am your host, Wolf Tyler, and remember, in space… no one can hear you meme!”

The music dipped into the background.

“I’m here with a SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST for a special episode! Now, I know I promised I was going to give you my definitive list of Top Ten Klingon Foreheads, and we will definitely do that, I promise. But this week we are completely livestreaming this episode, because what I’ve got just won’t wait for all that pre-recording bollocks… Me and my SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST are clearing the schedules for a scoop!”

He pushed his chair away from the microphone and howled an ‘awoooo’ into the air.

“And have we got a scoop! A NEW FACT! An actual bona-fido thirty-six carat NEW FACT from an actual classic science-fiction series!”

He howled again and grabbed another swig of coffee.

“Yes, I know, I can barely believe it too! It took a bit of arm-twisting but my SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST is here to tell you about this major exclusive…”

Wolf paused, gulped and blinked furiously.

The Special Mystery Guest looked at Wolf impassively.

“Ha. Um. Where was I? Yes, let me repeat that one more time – an actual NEW FACT that isn’t on any website, programme guide, Blu-Ray production note or reference book. They will ALL have to be re-written, so in your FACE all you super-nerds, you’re just going to have to delete that Word file and start all over again! But first…”

He leaned into the microphone and his voice dropped an octave.

“Do you get sweaty testicles? I know I do… So why not buy The Loin King? That’s the all-in-one pelvic freshening kit, which includes ball-balm deodorant, winnet wipes, fuzz trimmer and gentle alcohol-free aftershave that guarantees no nasty surprises in your downtown abbey…”

Wolf paused again. He had lost focus on the words in front of him. He shook his head, as if waking from a dream. “Woah…” He tried to continue, but his voice was slow, uneven like an old vinyl record that had warped in the sun.

“Iiiii… don’t use anything else to keep the horrible hum off my… errr… happy-sacks… So… That… That’s ‘The Loin King’, formerly known as ‘Scrotey McScroteCase’…”

He never got the chance to finish his advertorial. He never got the opportunity to tell his listeners about the six different scents available for the ball-balm deodorant or let them know about the thirty per cent online discount at Loinking dot com with the offer code ‘NERD’, because the Special Mystery Guest grabbed a microphone stand and smashed it in Wolf’s face.

Wolf screamed. “Ow, what the-fff—!”

He clawed at the recording desk, as if reflexively trying to keep the podcast going, but he was dazed, sluggish. The Special Mystery Guest whacked the stand into Wolf’s head again. Wolf paddled his swivel chair backwards in a vain attempt to get away, but only succeeded in hitting a cable and toppling the chair – and Wolf – to the floor.

Wolf flailed his arms and legs and struggled to right himself, but he couldn’t move.

“Yrrrrr!” growled Wolf. “Nrrr wyre yurrrr…”

The Special Mystery Guest straddled him, wrenched a pillow from the wall and pressed it down on Wolf’s face. Wolf scrabbled at the pillow feebly but his arms couldn’t reach. His elbows were immobile, pinned to the floor by the Special Mystery Guest’s knees.

The seconds stretched to minutes, as Wolf’s struggles and his muffled screams subsided and his arms flopped to his sides.

The Special Mystery Guest stood up, gasping with the effort and the sudden explosion of adrenalin.

The listening audience of the live Nerd Mentality podcast only heard one more thing – the crash of the shed door as the Special Mystery Guest left.

1

Whenever she took the train to Brighton station, Kit Pelham always looked up at the criss-cross of metal beams that formed the roof over the platforms and thought them rather beautiful, like the drydock station for the Starship Enterprise (The Motion Picture, 1979) or the docking bay for either Death Star (Star Wars, 1977 or Return of the Jedi, 1983).

As the train nosed into the platform and the doors hissed open, a tiny shiver of excitement rippled up her spine. When she emerged blinking in the sunlight, she liked to imagine she was disembarking from a space shuttle and stepping foot on an alien world.

Which, in a way, she was.

From 1986 to 1993, the production team of the BBC sci-fi TV series Vixens from the Void decamped to Brighton for location filming, and this tatty stretch of the English coastline officially became the planet Vixos, the hub of the Vixen empire.

Kit knew this fact, and many many many more facts besides, because she was a fan of Vixens from the Void.

Not your common-or-garden fan, oh no! Heaven forfend! Not anymore. She hadn’t been that type of fan for a long time. She was no longer that type of fan who waited in long queues to get autographs, or that type of fan who bought merchandise on the day of release no matter how much of a rip-off it was. And certainly not that type of fan who followed celebrity guests into toilets during sci-fi conventions just for the thrill of urinating next to an actress who once played one third of a crab-creature in 1988.

No, she was a Professional Fan now.

As she’d tried to explain to her Uncle Geoff many times, the job of a Professional Fan could not be defined easily. Her roles were myriad: interviewer at conventions, columnist for cult magazines, talking head on behind-the-scenes documentaries, host of DVD commentaries, author of twelve little-read biographies about little-known TV celebrities (published by Crazy Badger press) and presenter of her own podcast called The First Cult is the Deepest.

And, of course, she wrote obituaries.

* * *

The passengers spilled out of the train and scurried for the exits. Kit was well ahead of them, her Mandalorian backpack (a freebie she got from a launch party) bouncing on her shoulders as she half-walked, half-jogged out of the station.

Most of the passengers drifted down towards the coast to the shops, bars, hotels and beaches, but Kit walked the other way, deeper into the interior. Into the unfashionable end of Brighton. Where her friends lived.

Despite the blazing summer sunshine, she was wearing heavy platform boots, a black frock coat in crushed velvet and a patterned waistcoat from which dangled a gold watch chain. A pink velvet ‘newsboy’ cap was on her head, perching precariously on a tangle of bright red hair, shorn at the sides and sweeping forward into an impressive fringe.

Kit’s look was very important to her. She tried to find an image that she thought was very 1980s (her favourite period in Earth history) but also slightly eccentric – studious but cheeky, jaunty yet authoritative. A bit of Annie Lennox, a soupçon of Cyndi Lauper… In reality it didn’t quite work. Every morning she looked in the mirror she was forced to admit she looked like every David Bowie that ever existed happening all at once.

Binfire said the frock coat and the waistcoat made her look like a Dickensian orphan who’d just come into a fortune from a mysterious benefactor. But what did he know?

Even though she looked like Ziggy Stardust playing the Man Who Fell to Earth looking for his China Girl, no one gave her so much as a glance. Because this was Brighton, where trying to outweird each other was as much a pastime as getting bombarded by seagulls.

Kit walked with a spring in her step, despite the sad circumstances of her visit. It was always good to meet with friends, if only for a short time.

Especially for a short time.

It wasn’t long before she could see the sign for Hanover Parade. Some wag had scraped a ‘G’ between the ‘N’ and ‘O’ of the word ‘Hanover’ – with good reason. The whole street looked like it was recovering from a heavy night. The terraces had long since seen better days; rusty microwaves, broken furniture and children’s toys littered the front gardens, as if the houses had been eviscerated and their internal organs placed out in the open as a warning to others. Crisp packets frolicked around her boots and chased each other along the kerb.

No. 33 Hanover Parade was better kept than most, but with its dead lawn and crumbling garden wall, it still wasn’t particularly inviting.

The chipped front door was ajar and Kit pushed it open. The interior did nothing to dispel the impression of a student house: letters piled on the mat, movie posters tacked to the walls and homemade bookshelves (planks wedged between piles of bricks) groaning with paperbacks, DVDS and Blu-Rays. She skirted around a tottering tower of Akira comics topped with volumes of Cerebus the Aardvark and ventured further inside.

The décor morphed from ‘student flat’ to ‘serial killer’s lair’ as she went along a grim corridor, through an even grimmer kitchen, until finally she was bathed in light; a modern conservatory had been added to the house like lipstick on a leper.

The back garden was just as scrappy as the front. Parts of the lawn were either yellow or overgrown. There was an inflatable paddling pool half filled with muddy water and sprinkled with dead leaves like a giant cappuccino. The pool was placed in front of a rusty swing, hinting at long-past hijinks. Lightsabers were lying in the flower beds, their plastic beams and handles bleached almost white by the elements.

At the rear of the garden was some faded decking. In the left-hand corner was a shed with the words NERD MENTALITY PODCAST STUDIO burned into the frame above the door.

The shed where Wolf Tyler had been…

Kit didn’t know what to expect, probably yellow slashes of police tape criss-crossing the door, but it looked just the same as on her last visit. She guessed the police had finished examining the crime scene and packed up and left.

Everything looked so… normal.

In the right corner of the garden there was a rusty barbecue, fizzing and hissing angrily. A round-faced, shaven-headed overweight man in his fifties was standing over it, wearing an apron with MAY THE FORK BE WITH YOU written across his belly. He was poking at a rack of burgers and sausages.

In the centre of the lawn a young woman in her early twenties was spread out like a starfish on a tie-dye rug. She was wearing sunglasses, but that was her only concession to the heat. Like Kit, she was in unseasonably warm clothes: black leggings, black skirt and black pullover.

That was odd for a start: Freya was a Brighton goth so she never exposed herself to the sun. She only took the job at Forbidden Planet on the condition she stayed in the basement with the graphic novels and never saw daylight.

Wolf’s death must be hitting her hard.

When Kit slid back the screen door of the conservatory it made a shunk. The fat man in the apron looked up at the noise, smiled at her and waved his spatula. Freya levered herself up on one elbow and pulled her sunglasses off, revealing heavy black make-up in the style of Daryl Hannah from Blade Runner (1982). It looked like her sunglasses had left rings around her eyes like a joke telescope, and in the circumstances Kit couldn’t help but smile. Luckily, Kit could pretend the grin meant ‘nice to see you’.

“Hello Freya.”

Freya was so delighted to see Kit she hurled the sunglasses into the flower bed, scrambled to her feet and gave Kit a big hug. Kit prayed that black make-up stayed attached to Freya’s face and didn’t transfer to her velvet coat.

“Thank you sooo much,” she hissed in Kit’s ear. “I am sooo grateful you wrote that obituary for Wolf in StarCrash. Thank you sooo much Kit.”

“It was the least I could do.”

This response satisfied Freya and she did more hugging. It also satisfied Kit, because it was factually accurate.

Freya Grant was Wolf’s ‘widow’. Not that she and Wolf were married, but they had been going steady for a few years. They had shared a room, a collection of first-edition Marvel comics and a bong shaped like a Death Star.

“You came,” she said. “I hoped you would.”

“I told Binfire I would be along.”

The tubby man waved his spatula. “Binfire makes a lot of stuff up. We couldn’t be sure. I put some veggie sausages on just in case.”

“I do not make stuff up, Robbie! You mutha frokker!”

Binfire (aka Ben Ferry) was standing on the roof of the conservatory, holding a pair of binoculars. He was a ragged looking man in his fifties with a lumpy, shaven head, mad bushy eyebrows and a flattened nose. He wore aviator sunglasses, cargo pants and a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off heavily tattooed arms, thin but threaded with muscle. He looked like a GI Joe action figure that a sadistic child had put in the microwave.

He also wore a disturbing-looking necklace.

Ten years ago at the Birmingham sci-fi convention ‘Phasers Set to Brum’, Kit saw this strange guy strutting around the sellers’ tables wielding a Nerf gun and striking action poses. Kit, being Kit, couldn’t help but stare at the string of ears threaded around the man’s neck.

Binfire noticed her stare, and Binfire being Binfire, just looked her straight in the eye, grinned madly and said:

“You like my necklace, pilgrim?”

“Erm, very nice. I like the… ears.”

Binfire had pulled the necklace away from his throat and thrust it into her line of sight so Kit could see the ears were made of rubber.

“Each one of these ears is a battle trophy. I fight Trekkies at conventions. I don’t like Trekkies. Every fight I win, I take their Vulcan ears and add them to my collection.” He pointed to a pair of large brown ears. “Look, I’ve even got a pair of Klingons.”

“Why don’t you like Trekkies?”

Binfire slapped his forehead. “Because Starfleet glorifies the neoliberal American industrial military complex.” He shrugged. “And I’m a recovering alcoholic and I think all Federation starships look like bottle openers.”

At that moment Kit knew she had to be friends with Binfire – there was no alternative. Through Binfire she met Robbie, and through Robbie she met Freya, and through Freya she met Wolf, and through Wolf she met Victor. And when Victor bought 33 Hanover Parade and her friends moved in together, she was happy to visit, as long as she didn’t have to stay too long.

Binfire saluted and waved his binoculars. “I had eyeballs on you, pilgrim. I was watching you make your journey with my night-vision goggles.”

Kit craned her head up. “It’s not night time.”

He patted the binoculars. “They’ve got a day setting.”

“By ‘day setting’ you mean an ‘off’ switch?”

Binfire grinned. “Nothing gets past you, pilgrim.”

He clambered halfway down the drainpipe and dropped the rest of the way onto the patio. He leapt up and aimed a few playful jabs in the vicinity of her solar plexus, causing Kit to flinch. Then he held out a palm, inviting a high-five. When Kit started to reciprocate, Binfire snatched his hand away and lunged forward, holding Kit’s face by her cheeks and licking her nose.

Kit spluttered, screwing up her eyes. “Ewww! You are disgusting!”

Binfire put his hands on his hips. “That’s my new post-Covid greeting. Now it’s your turn to lick my face.”

“I’m not licking your face! You’d be like one of those South American toads! I’ll be hallucinating for months!”

Kit put up her hands to wipe her face and then stopped, realising it would mean her hands touching Binfire’s saliva. She was paralysed with disgust until someone sidled up to her and pressed a handkerchief into her hand. “Here you go, mate.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry Kit, I should have warned you about Binfire’s new greeting.”

The owner of the handkerchief was Victor, Robbie’s boyfriend. He had a long, sort-of-handsome face with prominent cheekbones, and curly orange hair clung on to his scalp like a fuzzy crash helmet. His slender form was enveloped in a suit that looked slightly too big for him. He was younger than Binfire and Robbie, closer to Kit’s age – Kit was nearly thirty.

She rubbed her face with the handkerchief and tried to return it to Victor, who held up his hands in surrender. “No thanks. I think we’d better burn it like we did his mattress.”

Binfire huffed. “He always brings up the mattress.”

“It was disgusting, mate.”

‘Mate’ was Victor’s well-worn term of affection. Kit suspected he used it a lot in the office when he didn’t know the names of his colleagues.

“I was trying to grow a new form of life out of my sweat. And you destroyed my experiment.”

“Damn right I did. Have you showered today? Because you did promise…”

“No way. I did not promise.”

“I’m not getting in that shed with you if you haven’t showered.”

“Yeah, I frokkin’ showered, alright?”

When Kit was at university, she observed that people thrown together in shared accommodation often fell into pseudo family groups. The inhabitants of 33 Hanover Parade were no different.

Victor was obviously the ‘dad’ and he self-consciously lived up to that role. He always wore a suit, even when he was at home. It was his statement, just like Kit’s velvet outfit, and the statement was: Yes, I live with these lunatics, but let’s not forget I’m the one paying the mortgage on this house. I have a job, and a good one – I’m a senior administrator at a very prestigious hospital trust. Let’s not forget that.

It was no surprise to Kit that it was Robbie standing over the barbeque with the novelty apron, because Robbie was definitely the ‘mum’ of the family. He organised the laundry, the cleaning rotas, the food shops, and was always first to slip on the Marigolds and put his hands in the sink.

Nervous energy came off Robbie in waves, as if perpetually aware that his boyfriend was younger, better looking and had the ability to leave him at any moment. Kit often felt strong Joe Orton/Kenneth Halliwell vibes in the way Victor and Robbie quarrelled, and half-expected a middle-of-the-night phone call to tell her that Robbie had gone mad and caved Victor’s head in with a hammer.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be thinking these kinds of thoughts now. Not actually the right time to imagine another murder in 33 Hanover Parade.

Freya was the good daughter, an ineffectual dreamy soul who thought the best of everybody. Goth on the outside, hippie on the inside. Binfire was the unruly son, with the metaphorical catapult in his back pocket.

And Wolf?

What role had Wolf taken in this family unit?

Wolf was many things: the racist grandfather in the attic, the sinister uncle, the boyfriend the parents disapproved of. The one living in the house on sufferance because he was dating Freya.

The one who was difficult to like.

Kit had felt little surprise on hearing of Wolf’s death. It was just a matter of time. That was what she thought when she’d heard the news. She was embarrassed at how little sadness she felt, but it was an incontrovertible fact: Wolf was a man who had measured success by how many people he pissed off on any given day.

Lost in dark thoughts, Kit was caught off-balance when Victor spoke.

“I guess now you’re here we can start?”

“What? Oh yes, of course.”

“Give her a chance, Victor.” Robbie put his hands on his hips, watching his barbeque spit and snarl. “She’s only just got in the door. Let her get a drink and a veggie sausage.”

Victor gave a sideways glance at Kit. “Be honest, mate. Do you want a drink and a veggie sausage?”

“If I’m honest, I’d like to get straight on to recording the podcast.”

“I knew you’d say that.” He grinned at Robbie. “I knew she’d say that.”

Robbie pulled a mirthless smirk. “Bully for you, Doctor Strange.”

“Shall we start, then?”

Freya was waiting at the door of the shed.

“Sure, let’s do it.”

2

So. The shed.

Freya, Victor and Robbie went inside, but Kit hesitated. Binfire slapped her on the back.

“Don’t worry about it, pilgrim. They took the body away weeks ago.”

The place felt different somehow. Darker. As they squeezed round the table and stared at each other, Kit was uncomfortably reminded of a séance.

Freya put the earphones on her head and asked her guests for level. They dutifully talked nonsense into their microphones for a few seconds, then Freya activated the hip-hop-not-quite-Darth-Vader-Imperial-March theme tune and whispered sadly into the microphone.

“Hello everyone… Sooo glad to welcome you to the Nerd Mentality podcast. I’m Freya Grant, sitting in Wolf’s chair, where he has sat so many times for this podcast. You probably know me, as I have been a guest on this show many, many times, but for those who don’t, I was Wolf’s lives-partner and soulmate.”

She swallowed hard and fanned her face, as if trying to dry non-existent tears. Robbie leaned forward and gave a comforting pat on her elbow.

“It’s been three weeks since Wolf’s last fateful broadcast and I – we – have had hundreds of lovely emails sending their love and support. Sooo lovely. And also asking about the future of Nerd Mentality. Well, that’s a decision for another day. For the moment it’s just me, and I’m here to take this opportunity to commemorate the life and works of Owen ‘Wolf’ Tyler. Cult hero, podcaster extraordinaire and… the man I loved sooo much.”

The guests made sympathetic noises.

“But before we begin…”

Freya picked up a piece of paper and started to read in a hollowed-out, tearful drone. “Do you get sweaty testicles? I know I do. So why not buy The Loin King? That’s the all-in-one pelvic freshening kit, which includes ball-balming deodorant, winnet wipes, fuzz trimmer and gentle alcohol-free aftershave that guarantees no nasty surprises in your downtown abbey… I don’t use anything else to keep the hum off my happy-sacks…”

Binfire surrendered to giggles, ending in a snort of amusement, his nose exploding with snot. He wiped it with the back of his hand, still sniggering.

Robbie harrumphed.

“I’m sorry, Freya, but do we have to do the advert? This is a respectful tribute edition for Wolf, after all.”

Freya stopped, put the paper down and sighed. “They insisted. The sponsors were not happy that Wolf was slurring his words when he read out their advertisement last time.”

Robbie was outraged. “He was being murdered! His murderer had spiked his coffee with ketamine and he was losing consciousness, for crying out loud! Then he got smothered with one of his own noise-cancelling pillows!”

“Yes, I did point that out. But they said that was the reason why they want us to repeat it. The say the fact he was being murdered while doing their advert brought negative connotations to the Loin King brand.”

“I guess we should start again,” said Victor.

“Don’t worry,” sighed Freya. “I’ll go from the start of the advert. I’ll edit it together.”

Freya read the script again and everyone listened in tense silence with one wary eye on Binfire, in the knowledge that if anyone so much as tittered, they would have to do it all over again.

Finally the torture was over and Freya put the paper down. “To start the tribute I’ve taken the opportunity to put together some montages of best bits, so we can be reminded, one more time, of Wolf’s genius.”

She pressed a key and the air trembled with Wolf’s voice, played at an indecent level. Lots and lots of clips of him being a bit cheeky to interviewees, sharing gossip and honking with laughter with his guests about terrible superhero movies.

Kit was unimpressed. Not really what she would call a ‘genius’.

More clips followed, more bits of interviews, crank calls to bemused celebrities from old TV shows, more gossip and in-jokes with his guests. The seconds stretched into minutes. Then came the chat. The anecdotes about Wolf being a great bloke, even though Kit knew he was nothing of the sort.

Kit soon found her mind wandering.

If a podcaster gets killed in the middle of a podcast and no one listens to it, does it really make a sound? And when goths mourn, how can we tell? Shouldn’t Freya be wearing bright yellow trousers and a luminous kaftan?

* * *

“…thanks for your great obituary in StarCrash.”

Kit suddenly realised Freya was talking to her.

“When you were writing it, did you find anything interesting about him that his fans wouldn’t know about?”

Kit’s mind was a blank. In her research she hadn’t found anything about Wolf she didn’t know already.

“Not… really.I… think we all know that with Wolf, what you saw was what you got.”

Everyone nodded approvingly at this comment.

“Perhaps we’d better address all the speculation as to his murder,” said Robbie in a portentous voice.

Freya winced. “Do we have to? It’s sooo distasteful.”

“Sadly, I think we do, Freya. It’s getting pretty ugly out there. I’ve looked at the websites – they know who they are – and there’ve been a lot of silly rumours flying around fandom, and I think the police are getting a lot of calls from ‘amateur sleuths’.” He did the air quotes. “So I think it’s only fair to them that we quash some of the wilder theories.”

Robbie enumerated them on his fingers. “Hello listeners. Can I say to all of you out there, once and for all, that there is no evidence to the rumours that Wolf was choked to death by his priceless Boba Fett doll with the spring-loaded rocket that was removed from sale because it was a choking hazard.”

Binfire sniggered in a way that suggested he was the one who started the rumour.

Robbie continued. “Neither is there any evidence that Wolf’s murderer was a vengeful celebrity who got annoyed by one of his prank phone-calls and hired someone to kill him. Mentioning no names… And there is absolutely no evidence that he was killed by a rival podcaster, and certainly no evidence that he was murdered by anyone close to him.”

Like many cult TV fans, Kit had a pedant monster. A tiny grumbling creature that sat on her shoulder and whispered things in her ear.

‘Oho! Oft recited myth alert!’ it would say to her. Or: ‘Methinks I think you’ll find that is nothing more than erroneous hearsay packaged as a truism.’ Or even: ‘You cannot leave this keyboard until you squish this King of Lies and salt the ground so that he or she never darkens this internet forum again.’

Now she had been elevated to ‘professional fan’ status, Kit was proud that she had caged the pedant monster. For example, when interviewing stars at conventions she never fact-checked them when they were recounting dusty anecdotes. As long as she knew the truth of events, there was no need to embarrass them on their faulty memories.

But occasionally, on rare occasions when her guard was down, the pedant monster broke free.

An occasion like now.

“That’s not strictly true,” said Kit.

Robbie looked at her, askance. “What?”

“When you said there’s no evidence that he was killed by someone close to him, that’s not strictly true.”

“I don’t get you.”

“Binfire called me – he told me they took fingerprints and DNA swabs from all of you, to eliminate you from their enquiries.”

“Yeah! It was frokking brilliant.” Binfire was very chuffed. “We are so on file in a warehouse somewhere. They could clone us if they wanted to.”

Kit continued. “He told me they only found your fingerprints and DNA.”

“Well, obviously,” said Victor. “We live here.”

“I know that. I’m just saying that the evidence – such as it is – points to someone in this house.”

“Are you serious?” spluttered Robbie. “Are you accusing one of us of murder?”

“Kit’s just doing her pedantic thing, Robbie,” said Victor. “Keep calm, mate.”

“Keep calm?” Robbie’s voice went up another octave. “She accuses one of us of murdering Wolf and you want me to keep calm?”

“I’m not accusing anyone. I don’t believe any one of you killed Wolf – not for a second. I’m just saying it’s inaccurate to say there’s no evidence that someone close to him killed him.”

Binfire leaned into the microphone and hissed in a sepulchral whisper, “Perhaps one of us did kill him…”

“Binfire, mate. Just stop,” said Victor.

“Robbie, man, you were always moaning about you and Victor having the second-biggest bedroom in the house. If you killed him, you could move in and put Freya in the boxroom!”

There was a squeal from Robbie’s chair as he stood up, quivering with indignation. “You take that back!”

“Sit down, Robbie,” said Victor wearily.

“Not until he takes that back!”

Robbie jabbed his finger at Binfire, and Binfire gave a grin, sliding lower in his chair. Kit suddenly realised they were in the middle of the ‘furious blonde woman yells at smug cat’ meme.

“He’s just provoking you, as usual. And it worked. As usual. He doesn’t mean it.”

Binfire was indignant. “Who says I don’t mean it?”

“Don’t say you mean it,” sniffled Freya. “It’s all too horrible to think about.”

Victor leaned across the table, the harsh overhead light bathing his face in yellow and making him look like a zombie. He gave Binfire a cold, withering glance. “You know it doesn’t make sense, Binfire, mate, so don’t say it.”

“Why doesn’t it make sense?”

“Firstly, it’s my house, and I gave Freya and Wolf that room myself, because I didn’t want our room to look out onto the street. There’s no way Robbie and I would want to move in there.”

Robbie crossed his arms and sniffed. Obviously that was an argument for another day.

“And secondly, and most importantly… Wolf said over and over that he was with a SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST. You heard the podcast – what there was of it. That’s who killed him. I hardly think any of us qualifies as a special mystery guest, do you?’

“Oh yeah.” Binfire looked disappointed.

“Precisely,” sighed Victor, rolling his eyes. “We all appeared on his podcast hundreds of times. None of us are special, and we definitely don’t qualify as mysterious. It has to be someone from outside.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. Sorry, Robbie – as you were.”

Robbie sank slowly back into his seat. Calm descended.

“Fine,” said Robbie stiffly. “I accept your apology.”

“I think the stress of the last few weeks has taken its toll,” said Victor. “It’s only natural we get a little snippy.”

“I’ve got another clips package to play,” said Freya. “Shall I do that?”

“Seriously though, who would do it?” blurted Robbie. “I mean – who? Who would do such a terrible thing? Murder is bad enough, but murdering Wolf seems so much worse than your average murder.”

“Why is it so much worse?” Kit couldn’t help herself.

“Well… because he was such a colourful character, so full of life and into the dramatic.”

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

The pedant monster had broken free again. Kit was about to go down another unwise conversational cul-de-sac. She knew it, but again she couldn’t help herself.

“If he wasn’t so colourful… If he wasn’t so ‘into the dramatic’, he would have just announced who his special mystery guest was and we would know who’d killed him.” Kit scratched her forehead. “Actually, come to think of it, if he had announced the identity of the guest straight away, Wolf would probably still be alive.”

“That’s sooo unfair,” said Freya.

“Actually, it’s not,” said Victor, surprisingly. “Wolf must have had an inkling that his guest was dangerous. Or at least not willing to share whatever secret they had with the world.”

“We don’t know that.” Freya was now close to tears again.

“Exactly,” said Robbie. “Thanks for the deduction, Mr Data, but they’re just theories. They are all very well, but we don’t know anything. Neither do the police it seems.”

“Don’t they?” Kit was intrigued.

“Victor has a policeman friend,” snapped Robbie. “Don’t you, Victor?”

“I know a lot of policemen, Robbie,” said Victor wearily. “Policemen come into my hospital because that’s part of their job.”

“Of course! Part of their job.” Robbie rolled his eyes.

This was obviously the vestigial tail of a very long argument between Robbie and Victor.

“Anyway, what did he say Victor?” sneered Robbie. “Please enlighten us.”

“He said they had no witnesses. And no good leads. From what he hears they’re just trawling though the internet and making lists of people who said they hated Wolf. They could be doing that for months. Probably years.”

None of them said anything after that. The futility of the investigation into Wolf’s death was finally brought home to them.

That was the problem with murdering podcasters, Kit thought. In many ways it was the perfect crime. There are thousands of podcasts out there where, if the host and his entire studio was napalmed and all that was left was a blackened corpse and the smell of burning polystyrene, there wouldn’t be a jury in the land that would convict the perpetrator.

“I’ll play the clips package now,” said Freya.

Freya played the clips package.

3

They emerged from the shed, blinking in the fading summer sun. Kit started to head back to the house, but Robbie grabbed her arm.

“Wait a second, Kit. We’ve got one thing left to do.”

“What?”

“We’re doing a ceremony. We’re going to film it as an extra, for subscribers to Wolf’s Patreon page.”

“Come on, you guys,” said Binfire. “Gather round.”

Binfire had emerged from the house holding vodka bottles full of luminous blue liquid. Victor, Freya and Robbie joined him on the lawn, standing in a rough circle. Kit joined them.

“Here, have some Romulan Ale.”

Victor and Robbie took a bottle each. Kit also took one and looked at it doubtfully. Robbie shook his head and grinned.

“I wouldn’t drink it if I were you. It’s fifty per cent vodka, fifty per cent mouthwash.”

“Wait a second, guys,” said Freya. She ran into the house and emerged carrying a digital camera. She pointed it at the little circle of friends.

“Wait… wait… Just… Okay,sooo… I’m recording. You can start.”

Binfire held out his bottle to the camera. “The Vixenhood are here to pay tribute to our homie Wolf Tyler with some genuine Romulan Ale, purloined from Orion slave traders near the Neutral Zone.” He cleared his throat. “Not that I’m a fan of Star Trek, but Wolf was, so you know, respect for his memory and all that…”

“Get on with it,” snapped Robbie.

Binfire turned the bottle upside down and allowed the vodka-mouthwash to splatter onto the decking. “To Wolf Tyler, a comrade and friend, Vixphile and Jedi, Whovian and Trekker, Potterhead and Thronie, Browncoat and Lurker, a hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was.”

He looked up in the sky and saluted. “I’m sure that, somewhere in the multiverse, there’s a version of Wolf who isn’t dead, and he’s looking through a dimensional portal and smiling down at us right now.”

The others all said “amen” and also poured their bottles onto the wooden decking, with rather too much vodka-mouthwash cascading over a wide area. Kit stepped back to rescue her boots from the splatter.

After a few awkward seconds, Freya’s camera beeped, and she lowered it. “Got it. That was sooo fantastic.”

“That was very moving,” Kit said, not sounding moved at all.

Binfire held up a finger. “Ah-ah-ah! We’re not finished yet, Captain Kit!”

He reached behind his back and pulled a gun out of his belt.

“What’s that for?”

“It’s part of the tribute.”

Kit was unnerved. Is this a cult? Have my friends become disciples in Wolf Tyler’s coven in my absence? Have I been invited to a mass suicide?

As usual, Binfire read her mind. “It’s not a real gun, pilgrim.” He broke it open and showed it to her. The gun was fatter, the barrel huge. Nestling inside was a massive cartridge. “It’s a flare gun.”

“Where on earth did you get that?”

“Got it off a pirate.”

“A pirate?”

Binfire shrugged. “Video pirate. I got him some seventh-generation copies of ‘Doctor Who and the Evil of the Daleks’ episode seven and he owed me. We’re gonna use it to shine a light for Wolf. Are we ready?”

Freya looked up. Dusk was spreading across the horizon and the sky was bruising into a deep purple.

“Yes, I think it’s dark enough now. Let’s go for it.”

Binfire yelled, “We’re going for it! Get ready!”

Freya activated the camera again and knelt down until she was level with Binfire. “Okay. We’re rolling.”

Binfire pushed his face into the lens of the camera and said, “Hi folks. We’re still here paying tribute to Wolf. Now we’re gonna use this flare to shine a light in the heavens as a beacon for his force ghost to come and find us.”

He aimed it into the air. “Stand well back, everybody.”

Freya walked backwards, training her camera on the skies. Kit, Victor and Robbie scuttled over to the far side of the decking by the barbeque.

Binfire fired the gun and the stillness was shattered by a deafening crack. A red light appeared and threaded through the blackness. Kit heard an “oooh” next to her ear. She looked at the source of the “oooh”.

Freya gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I always ‘oooh’ at fireworks. Force of habit.”

Binfire had his precious military binoculars in his hands and was training them on the sky. “Here it comes! Re-entry alert!”

“What?”

They watched as the ball of red light descended back to planet Earth like an escape pod from an exploding alien spaceship. It glided slowly down into the garden of 33 Hanover Parade, or to be more specific, the piece of decking where the gang had all just poured four bottles of vodka-mouthwash cocktail.

The decking erupted in a carpet of blue flame.

“Holy fuck!” gurgled Robbie, and staggered backwards, knocking over the barbeque and hurling smouldering hot coals along the decking. Before any of them had a chance to react, the fire spread along the splatter pattern of the Romulan Ale and started to grow, feeding on the elderly planking and roaring with gusto.

Kit turned to Robbie.

“Where’s the fire extinguisher?”

“What?”

“Do you have a fire extinguisher?”

“Kitchen – I think!”

Kit and Robbie started sprinting for the house. Freya and Binfire had the same idea and they all collided at the back door. Kit entered the kitchen first and looked frantically round. “Where?”

Robbie pointed at a piece of plastic moulding above the fridge. “It was there!” he screamed.

“Well, where is it now?”

“I don’t know!”

Freya was behind them. She suddenly screamed “Shit!” She looked up and yelled, “Wolf, you idiot!” She ran upstairs, still shouting, “Shitshitshit!” and soon they could hear the thud of her feet as she entered her bedroom.

“What the hell?” yelled Robbie. “What in the name of Thanos is she doing?”

Behind them, the glow from the garden was huge. Kit scarcely had the courage to turn back and see how big the fire was.

There was another sequence of thuds as Freya ran across the landing and back down the stairs. She was wearing a large backpack complete with long tube and nozzle.

“You remember! Last year’s Halloween party?” she shouted.

“Oh Christ, yes!” Robbie clutched his head. “Wolf made it into a Ghostbusters proton pack!”

The fire had consumed the deck like an aperitif. Now it was gorging on the shed, which was little more than a golden column of flame stretching into the sky.

Freya pointed the nozzle, but the lever was on the fire extinguisher, and the fire extinguisher was behind her, immersed in gaffer tape and papier-mâché.

“Allow me,” said Kit. She pulled the safety pin and pushed the lever. The nozzle erupted in a jet of grey gas which – of course – reminded Kit of the Dalek extermination effect from the Doctor Who movies (Dr Who and the Daleks, 1965, and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, 1966).

Freya advanced towards the conflagration, dragging Kit along behind. The gas chased the flames around the wall of the shed, making swirling black shapes. The fire retreated but didn’t seem any less angry.

“Out the way! Coming through!”

That was Binfire’s voice.

Binfire and Robbie were behind them, struggling and wrestling with the half-filled swimming pool, holding it like it was a giant taco, trapping the water inside. They swung it back and forth and hurled the whole thing at the shed. It glided through the air like an old-fashioned flying saucer. The water hissed and didn’t seem to have much of an impact, but the pool itself clung to the front of the shed, popping and shrivelling until it smothered the fire with a thick layer of melting plastic.

The motion sensitive lights came on, and from where she stood Kit could see the silhouette of Freya brandishing her fire extinguisher nozzle, framed by clouds of smoke and a shapeless monstrous mass of foul-smelling blue ectoplasm.

It was one of the best cosplays she’d ever seen.

* * *

It was a very pleasant evening. Everyone found the exploding shed hilarious in hindsight, even Robbie. Binfire had a Nerf-gun battle with Freya in the dusk, and no one minded when Victor got his acoustic guitar out. Kit even acceded to Robbie’s advances and ate one of his Linda McCartney veggie burgers, on condition she could check the box and find out how many calories it contained.

Kit was startlingly thin, but she was acutely aware she wasn’t naturally thin. Both her parents (now retired, living in a farmhouse in Dorset) were jolly ruddy-faced people shaped like Teletubbies, and the Pelham genes stalked Kit’s sleepless nights like the ghost of Christmas future.

She liked being thin and had no desire to become the cliché of a bull-necked lesbian, so she monitored what she ate with a discipline bordering on mania. She knew there might be an eating disorder waiting inside her, preparing to claw itself out of her ribcage like an acid-blooded alien, but as far as she was concerned she would direct that particular flamethrower at that particular Xenomorph when she came to it.

And so, like a TV show where one of the principal characters suffered a shocking death at the end, the evening silently faded to black. Kit started to make a move. She rebuffed the gang’s pleadings to stay in their spare room for the night.

“I’ve got a room in the Travelodge booked, so I can easily go to the train station in the morning.”

She had booked a room in the Travelodge because she knew she would be exhausted by having to interact with so many people today. She had no desire to wake up in 33 Hanover Parade the next morning and sit through long meandering chats over breakfast or fend off calls to go to the pub for a lunchtime drink and endure more drawn-out goodbyes.

She was at the door shrugging on her velvet coat when Victor came up to her.

“Hey matey. Are you leaving straight away tomorrow morning?”

“That’s my plan.”

“Hum. I don’t suppose you could hang around for a bit?”

“I’m not sure why I’d want to do that.”

Victor lowered his voice. “Because I need talk to you… in private.”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“Shhh!”

Kit lowered her voice. “Why do you…?”

“Because I think I know who murdered Wolf.”

“Criminy.”

For the past couple of days Kit had been experimenting with a new catchphrase; she had decided to say “criminy” to signify surprise.

“It’s true.”

“Criminy.”

She wasn’t sure the catchphrase was quite working, but she had decided to give it a few more days just to make sure.

“Do you want to know who killed Wolf?”

“Well, of course I do. But shouldn’t you just tell the police?”

“You’ll understand when I explain. Meet me at the Grind House on Ship Street tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. Come alone.”

He turned away.

“Make it nine o’clock,” she said.

“What?”

“Make it nine o’clock.”

“That’s a bit early, matey.”

“I want to get a morning train. I have a yoghurt in my fridge that expires tomorrow and I want to get home so I can eat it for lunch.”

“I can buy you lunch.”

“If you want to talk to me, I’ll be there at nine o’clock. Otherwise I won’t be there. Your choice.”

4

The Grind House was part of a cluster of coffee shops at the top of Ship Street. It was ideal for a clandestine meeting because it was incredibly murky. It had sacks full of plastic coffee beans littered around the place, gloomy illumination provided by dangling light bulbs hanging inside glass jars, hard wooden chairs made from driftwood and tall partitions around the tables. There were plenty of dark corners to hide in.

Victor entered the shop to the sound of a jingling bell, and Kit waved from her particular dark corner. He slid in opposite her.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello,” said Kit.

“Hello,” said Binfire.

Victor looked at Binfire, who grinned at him.

“I said I wanted to see you in private,” said Victor.

Kit blinked. “Oh. You meant private as in ‘on my own’?”

“That’s what private means.”

“But it’s Binfire. He’s not really a person as such, are you, Binfire?”

“No,” said Binfire. “I’m what you would call a force of nature.”

“And I got the impression that you’re about to tell me something about Wolf’s death.”

“Yes…”

“I’d feel better if Binfire’s here. When things get tense my stammer comes back. He’s my security blanket, because he’s better at processing shocking information than me.”

“Do you really want him to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Fine.”

“Brilliant!” said Binfire. “Can I have a cake?”

At that moment the waitress arrived. “Would you like to order?”

“Yes,” said Victor. “I’ll have a cappuccino. Kit?”

Kit wrestled with indecision. Pick the most calorie-neutral option.

“Coffee,” she said at last. “Black.”

“Binfire?”

Binfire grinned. “I like my coffee like I like the Millennium Falcon.”

The waitress looked bemused.

“Flat white.”

Victor sighed. “And can I have a millionaire shortbread for my lunatic friend with the ear necklace?”

“You got it.”

The waitress left. Kit got straight to the point. “You said you knew why Wolf was killed.”

“I do.”

“But you’ve not told anyone yet?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you tell Freya?”

“It’s not as simple as that, mate.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.” Victor paused and took a deep breath. “Does the name Lily Sparkes mean anything to you?”

Kit blinked and uploaded the memory to her brain. “Of course it does. Lily Sparkes was an occasional extra in the original series of Vixens from the Void. And by ‘extra’, I mean she was one of a number of local girls brought in to bump up the numbers of Vixos warrior guards during location filming in Brighton.”

Kit kept rattling off the facts like a robot. “She appeared as a Vixos warrior guard in the very first episode ‘Coronation’, and the second part of ‘Assassins of ‘Destiny’ in season two. She was also seen briefly in various episodes throughout season one, because they re-used the location footage to make the studio-bound stories look more expensive. That shot of her running around the side of the palace was used in three other episodes: ‘Quest to Danger’, ‘Prophecy of Armageddon’ and ‘The Doomsday Sequence’. Until about five years ago fandom didn’t know her identity. As she wasn’t a member of Equity her name wasn’t even included on the credits. I tracked her down to interview her for my podcast.”

Victor sipped his coffee. “I know you did, mate. It was amazing work. One of your best investigations.”

Kit frowned. “Not really. It was very disappointing once I discovered she’d died. I did try to talk to her best friend, but she didn’t want to talk, and I attempted to interview her parents, but they were very hostile, very strange people. I had to edit it down to practically nothing.”

Victor smiled. “Nevertheless, it was an amazing piece of work. To track down a non-speaking extra, with no paper trail, no BBC documentation – just on what you could see on the footage. It was amazing.”

Silence fell.

Binfire leaned in and hissed in Kit’s ear. “I think you’re meant to say, ‘thank you for the compliment, Victor’.”

“Oh,” said Kit, surprised. “Thank you for the compliment, Victor. But it wasn’t that hard. I’m a subscriber to the British newspaper archive. I just looked at the local newspapers printed at the time to find articles like ‘Brighton Girl Becomes BBC TV Star’ or ‘Local Girl Gets Telly Break in Sci-Fi Show’. They always do it. Without fail.”

“So they do. It’s the articles you found about Lily Sparkes that started all this.”

“Started what?”

“About a year ago, Wolf and I decided to write another book about Vixens from the Void – about location filming.”

“There’s not a lot to tell. There wasn’t a lot of location filming.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, mate. Apart from a few days in Betchworth almost all of it was around here, in Brighton and in Pulborough chalk pit. So we decided that, if we were going to make the book worthwhile, we should really drill down on the background info, put in a lot of context about what was happening at the time, in the country in general and Brighton in particular.”

“Sounds sensible.”

“So we looked at the articles you found.”

Victor pulled a folder out of his satchel and flapped it open. Inside were transparent sleeves containing newspaper articles from the Brighton Argus, all from the 1980s. He pointed at one. It was dated 2 July 1986.

POLICE APPEAL FOR PUBLIC’S HELP TO FIND MISSING 17-YEAR-OLD