The Kit Pelham mysteries - Lies and Dolls E-Book

Nev Fountain

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A pacy, laugh-out-loud funny whodunnit set in the world of cult sci-fi fandom, this novel sees the return of neurodiverse sleuth Kit Pelham as she investigates the destruction of rare vintage action figures and an actual murder at a rare toy museum. Perfect for fans of Richard Osman, J. M. Hall, Ian Moore and Andrew Cartmel. Professional cult sci-fi fan Kit Pelham returns in this laugh-out-loud-funny follow-up to The Fan Who Knew Too Much. When Kit and her best friend Binfire head to a stately home in Lincolnshire to view five ultra-rare Vixens from the Void action figures – the main exhibit at the opening of a new toy museum – they come across more than just nerds and toy-collectors. The figures are stolen from their glass case and, just as Kit and Binfire begin to get their heads around this mystery, they start to reappear, broken into pieces, left for their distraught owners to discover. And that's when the real killings start.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Part One: Why Didn’t They Ask Sevans?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

Part Two: Ten Little Figures

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

PRAISE FOR...

THE KIT PELHAM MYSTERIES

“Laugh-out-loud-on-the-bus funny.”

Ben Aaronovitch, author of the Rivers of London series

“One of the funniest writers in Britain.”

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

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

Jenny Colgan, bestselling author of Meet Me at the Cupcake Café and Do You Remember the First Time?, and writer of six Doctor Who novels

“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. Nev Fountain’s The Fan Who Knew Too Much is a witty, twisty murder mystery set amid the egos and eccentrics of sci-fi fandom. Podcasting, conventions, professional fans and unprofessional stars… it’s all here. Shrewdly observed, it’s at once very familiar and yet constantly surprising.”

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

“Nev Fountain… revels in sci-fi nerdism, spoofing it and extolling it simultaneously, outrageously… Out of these 21st-century oddballs and freaks comes a murder classic.”

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

“I’m really annoyed with Nev Fountain for writing this book before I had the chance to think of it. People like him, who happen to be hugely talented and funny writers, think they can come up with original and clever ideas just because no one else has thought of them before. Yes, I admit it’s a brilliant, genre-spanning novel that’s hard to put down, but is that enough?”

Peter Davison, Doctor Who 1981-1984

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

Sophie Aldred, Ace in Doctor Who, 1987-1989

“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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Also by Nev Fountainand available from Titan Books

THE FAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

SPOILER WARNING

The characters in Lies and Dolls freely discuss the events in the previous book in the Kit Pelham mysteries series: The Fan Who Knew Too Much. If you want to read both books, we advise you to read that one first.

This book also parodies the climax of a certain 1995 movie starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. If you haven’t seen that movie (a quick Google search will tell you what it is), but you want to watch it and haven’t got around to it yet, please be aware you will be spoiled.

Lies and Dolls: a Kit Pelham Mystery

Print edition ISBN: 9781803365572

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803365596

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: July 2025

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.

Copyright © 2025 Nev Fountain.

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.

EU RP (for authorities only)eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt. 139b-14, 11317 Tallinn, [email protected], [phone]

Extract from the ‘Vixens from the Void’ Programme Guide, originally printed in ‘Into the Void’ Fanzine #28.

PRISON PLANET (Serial 4A)

Transmitted: 7 September 1989

Recorded: Studio 8: BBC Television Centre16—17 May 1989

Location: Oldbury Nuclear Power Station, Oldbury,17—18 June 1989

Arkadia/Byzantia: Vanity Mycroft

Medula: Tara Miles

Professor Daxatar: Brian Crowbridge

Tania: Suzy Lu

Velhellan: Jennifer McLaird

Elysia: Samantha Carbury

Zerox: Petra De Villiers

Excelsior: Maggie Styles

Captain Talon: Patrick Finch

Production Design: Paula Marshall

Writer: Boris Shakespeare

Script Editor: Mervyn Stone

Director: Leslie Driscoll

Producer: Nicholas Everett

Synopsis:

After intercepting garbled space signals, TANIA and VELHELLAN lead a secret mission into STYRAX space to liberate prisoners held during the war. They arrive to find the prison planet mysteriously empty of all prisoners.

Tania and Velhellan find ARKADIA held on the planet – seemingly the only prisoner. They make good their escape, running the gauntlet of automated security systems and Styrax guards.

Arkadia insists on bringing a suitcase with her; but she doesn’t tell the others what’s inside.

Once back on VIXOS, the audience learns that ‘Arkadia’ is not Arkadia at all, but her missing twin sister BYZANTIA, who has been missing – presumed dead – for the past four years.

Inside the briefcase are all the missing prisoners, miniaturised for storage. Inside is the real Arkadia, who has also been reduced to the size of a doll…

Notes:

The much-heralded return of Vanity Mycroft after missing a season was keenly awaited by fans who considered Arkadia to be the very ‘heart and soul’ of ‘Vixens from the Void’. However, this return was not to be a pain-free process.

Producer Nicholas Everett made a strategic mistake when hinting at Arkadia’s return. He had been given verbal assurances from Vanity Mycroft that she would be prepared to rejoin the show but crucially she had not signed a contract at that point.

As soon as news of her return emerged in the press, she immediately made several demands, including (it was rumoured) the doubling of her salary, freedom to write her own scripts and the removal of any cast members she didn’t like (which was pretty much all of them).

Meanwhile, while planning Arkadia’s return, script editor Mervyn Stone decided that the character should not become Prime Mistress as expected. He concluded that it would restrict her role in the series. Instead, he would resurrect Byzantia, Arkadia’s older sister, who was assumed killed in a shuttle crash (serial 1A: Coronation), to take over the hereditary title. Mycroft objected to the new character, and this too was a major obstacle in negotiations.

Everett decided in a moment of genius (or madness, according to Stone) to make Byzantia the slightly older twin of Arkadia, and to offer Vanity both roles – Arkadia AND Byzantia.

As expected, Vanity was intrigued by the idea, and agreed, dropping her other demands. She made only one further request: she claimed that, as she was now playing two characters, she should be given two dressing rooms to help her prepare for the dual role. The producer gladly acquiesced.

The enthusiasm for Vanity’s return was not shared by the cast, as the atmosphere on the show had improved since her departure. Petra De Villiers, who played Vanity’s android replica Zerox, had proved popular among the production team, and some saw no need to change the format. Most dreaded the inevitable tension between Vanity and Petra.

In the event, this tension was short-lived, as Petra elected to leave the show of her own volition, returning to her native France and marrying the owner of a chain of restaurants. She was torn apart by a pack of mutant crabs off-screen, and not seen again.

The return of Arkadia and the introduction of Byzantia brought the total of main cast members up to ten; Mervyn Stone freely admitted he’d added several characters in order to help secure a merchandising deal for action figures.

When rewriting ‘Prison Planet’ (the original writer having revealed he was a Russian agent and fleeing to Moscow after handing in a sketchy first draft), Stone incorporated a major sub-plot involving miniaturised prisoners held in a suitcase so that they could use the actual models on the show.

Lincolnshire company Braxtons Models outbid Sevans Kits and Dapol Figures and bought the licence to make a range of ten action figures. The company met with a series of misfortunes; firstly, it was sued by Vanity Mycroft, asserting that she hadn’t cleared the finished sculpt as per her contract. She claimed that her action figure would have a detrimental impact on her acting career as the breasts were too small. Secondly, the BBC chose to end ‘Vixens from the Void’, causing demand to plummet. Shortly after, the Braxtons Models factory burned to the ground, killing the CEO, Jack Braxton, in the process.

Braxtons was developing the second wave of ten figures (the ‘Ceremonial Range’) at the time, and only five prototypes survived the inferno. The figures have since been highly prized by fans of ‘Vixens’ and collectors of antique toys.

PART ONE:

WHY DIDN'T THEY ASK SEVANS?

1

West London, July 2024

The severed torso and limbs were wrapped in cellophane, placed in a package and sealed up with heavy-duty masking tape. The package was taken to the post office, weighed and sent by first-class delivery. It travelled to the sorting office, where it landed in another bag. The bag was placed in a van, and the van started the long drive down to London. The body parts sat in Hammersmith sorting office for an afternoon and then were taken to Wormwood Scrubs prison.

After being opened and checked by prison warders, it was resealed and ended up in a cell in D Wing, on a table by a jug of strawberry milkshake and a plate of waffles. One waffle was covered in maple syrup, the other in chocolate sauce. Both were decorated with little pointy mountains of squirty cream.

The fat man sat down to eat the waffles at 9.52 a.m. He ate the waffles, drank a glass of milkshake, opened the jiffy bag, saw the contents and screamed his guts out.

2

The M11 Motorway, August 2024

“Leave the M25 at Junction 27, you will – and then take the M11 towards Cambridge, you must.”

The satnav had the voice of Yoda. Of course it did.

Binfire leaned forward and squinted out of the windscreen like he was looking for enemy starships. “Okay, we’re free of the asteroid belt now,” he said. “Let’s go up to warp seven.”

The asteroid belt. What Binfire calls the M25.

Binfire flicked a broken switch on the dashboard that he had labelled ‘warp drive’ and slammed his foot on the accelerator, pushing the battered motorhome up to seventy miles per hour. He punctuated the acceleration by making the roaring sound of a TIE fighter.

Kit Pelham groaned too, but quietly, and pushed her earbuds deeper inside her ears.

At a casual glance, Kit and Binfire seemed like an odd pair of friends: he, a crazed-looking man in his fifties with shaved head, cargo pants and a sleeveless T-shirt, who looked like he had tunnelled out of a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, and she, a gawky-looking woman just turned thirty, with bright orange hair, jaunty pink velvet cap, black velvet coat and tartan trousers, who looked like she’d flounced out of a Human League video. They seemed to have nothing in common but a penchant for wearing big clumpy boots.

But they were friends, and now they had become even more friends, after they had solved a murder in Brighton a few years ago, culminating in an incident where they were nearly killed by a maniac who tried to blow them both up with a gas cooker. It was a shared experience like that which could create a bond between the oddest of couples.

Kit liked having Binfire as her best friend as he was the only individual in the universe whose presence didn’t exhaust her. As Binfire’s presence exhausted everybody else in the universe, it was a bit of a paradox. Kit thought long and hard about it and concluded that, as Binfire lived in his own special universe he didn’t really impinge upon hers. On this occasion, however, Binfire’s universe was breaking through. She just wanted to submerge herself in back-to-back Ultravox tracks, but Binfire insisted on producing a constant stream of loud chatter and even louder sound effects.

She pulled her earbuds out of her ears. “Can you stop doing that?”

“What?”

“Everything.”

“Sorry, pilgrim, I’m just a bit nervous.”

“What about?”

Binfire looked at her, surprised. “Loaning my action figure to this museum, of course. It’s a bit of a big moment. I dunno – how to describe it? It’s emotional, man. Like driving your only daughter to university.”

Kit harrumphed. “I’m not sure what’s emotional about driving your daughter to university. My parents gave me a lift to Bristol and they didn’t even wait to have lunch. They were driving out of the car park before I found my room.”

“Okay, well. Bad analogy in your case, pilgrim. But you get what I mean. It’s nerve-racking. My hands are shaking here.”

He took his hands off the wheel and showed them to Kit to demonstrate how they were shaking.

“YES! So I see. Can you put them back on the wheel please?”

Binfire looked at his hands as if he’d only just realised they belonged to him, then put them back on the steering wheel.

Kit exhaled with relief.

Why were they sitting in a battered motorhome, hurtling up the M11 towards Lincolnshire? It had all started with the Reverend Jerome Bell. He was a bona fide vicar, with his own parish, but more importantly he was a minor celebrity in the world of action-figure collectibles. He had a popular YouTube channel ‘The Garden of Ebay’, where he showed his ‘flock’ his latest charity shop finds, and if they were dirty, he’d ‘baptise’ them in his sink with some cotton wool and soapy water.

Reverend Bell had contacted Binfire and explained that he’d been tasked with putting together a toy museum at Furley House in Lincolnshire, and he would be thrilled if Binfire would, by any chance, be kind enough to loan them his rare Vixens from the Void action figure. No cash was offered, but there were several incentives: an invitation to the opening of the museum, a night at Furley House, a dinner with the Marquess of Furley in attendance and a chance to have a lesson in clay-pigeon shooting.

He was also allowed a Plus One.

This dovetailed nicely with Kit Pelham’s job. Part of her work as a ‘professional’ fan of cult television meant Kit wrote articles for Vixmag, which covered the sci-fi series Vixens from the Void: both the classic series from the 1980s and the revived series streaming on Fliptop. She asked Binfire if she could come so she could write about the museum. It would make a great ‘interesting’ article. And Binfire agreed.

Kit hadn’t told Binfire the real reason why she wanted to come. Furley House wasn’t just the home of the toy museum. It was also home to the Marquess of Furley’s older sister, Lady Tabitha Pendragon, or, as she was better known, the Cosplay Countess. She was a minor aristocrat who had gained a lot of attention with YouTube videos in which she posed in figure-hugging outfits to the delight of her fans.

There was hope in the back of Kit’s mind that perhaps she would meet her during her visit? Or get an interview? Or just a glimpse of Lady Tabitha in her Princess Leia slave girl costume?

It made sense for Binfire to drive them to Furley House. The stately home was miles from the nearest train station. The only problem (as far as Kit was concerned) was it also meant that they were stuck sitting side by side in a dirty van for two and a half hours.

Kit’s phone buzzed. It was a text which said:

I can see you’ve just got off the M25 and you’re making good time. Well done you. Jackie xxx

Kit didn’t want to send her girlfriend a heart and a smiley face. A fantasy flickered in her head, an image of herself sending a skull and an Edvard Munch scream, as if to say Why are you tracking my every move?

But she sent a heart and a smiley face anyway.

3

“Turn off the M11 and take Junction 14, you must. Follow the road for two miles, you will, and then the A428, you will take.”

Yoda guided them into the countryside, where the Lego landscape of identical housing estates gave way to misty flat-lands. They negotiated winding roads for miles until, at last, they reached the top of a hill where the fields were a patchwork quilt below them, squares of green and brown. Nestling in the middle, like an aged labrador having a nap, was Furley House.

They continued down the hill until they could see the stately home in better detail: the huge entrance framed by Doric columns, the stone walls peppered with tall, thin windows, the roof spiked with turrets and a single flagpole rising out of the roof.

“Reached your destination, you have,” said Yoda.

A man was waiting at the entrance. He looked like he had been carved out of the same mossy limestone as the house. He wore a green tweed jacket, waistcoat, plus fours and thick socks stretching up to his knees. He had thick wavy brown hair that had been wrestled into a side parting.

This was Archibald Pendragon, the eighth Marquess of Furley. Even though he was only in his early thirties, he looked like he was preparing for acquiring the appendage ‘old buffer’. He waved cheerfully as Kit disembarked from the motorhome and strode forward to shake her hand. His palm was warm and damp, and Kit resisted the urge to recoil from his grasp.

“Terribly good to see you!” the Marquess bubbled with enthusiasm. “Kit Pelham, I presume?”

“That’s me.”

“I hope your journey wasn’t too irksome. We are a bit out of the way here.”

It was awful.

“It was fine.”

“Good, good. Now, I gather from my PR girl Melanie you want an interview. I don’t have her here today as she doesn’t do Fridays or weekends, so I’m happy to give you any access you require while you’re here. As I said in the email thingy, if you want a chat, I’d be happy to oblige.”

“Thank you, Marquess.”

“Please, call me Archie. Everybody does. Apart from the servants of course. One has to have some boundaries.”

“Thank you, Archie.”

“I say, I like your hat. Very bohemian.”

With an air of insouciance evolved from centuries of breeding, the Marquess of Furley seemed utterly unfazed by her appearance.

He’s probably used to people wearing anachronistic clothes, Kit thought. Given he’s dressed like he’s about to wave his servants off to fight the First World War.

Archie’s smile didn’t flicker when Binfire poked his shaven head out of the driver’s side of the motorhome and leapt onto the drive, heavy boots crunching on the gravel. He was holding his army kitbag on his shoulder like he was being posted to a warzone.

“Aha!” the Marquess barked with delight, glancing at a piece of paper in his hand. “And you must be Benjamin Ferry. Honoured to meet you, Mr Ferry.”

Binfire stroked his chin and put on his best Alec Guinness impression. “Benjamin Ferry? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a loooooong time.”

Kit explained. “No one calls him Ben Ferry anymore. Everyone calls him Binfire. For lots and lots of reasons which quickly become evident the longer you know him.”

The Marquess chuckled. “How splendid! I do love nicknames. The chaps at school used to call me Winky. Couldn’t work out why. Finally found the courage to ask after a term or two. Turns out I looked a bit like another boy who once lost his shorts during rugger.”

He directed his attention to their mode of transport. “Oh my.” He gave out an appreciative whistle. “What a van! That is impressive. Such colours!”

Binfire’s motorhome was in the classic style, like the one Walter White used as a lab to cook his meth (Breaking Bad, 2008–2013) but Binfire had ‘pimped his ride’. Every inch was covered with murals. The side facing Furley House depicted a blaster-wielding man and a space princess surrounded by stars and galaxies.

“You like it?” Binfire winked. “I tracked down the guy who paints fairground rides and got him to do it. I frokking love that style.” He pointed proudly at the figures. “You see that guy? You see his face? Half of it looks like Harrison Ford, the other half looks like Mark Hamill. It takes a special skill to achieve something that looks almost-but-not-quite like two different people at the same time.”

Archie nodded. “Yes, gypsies are so creative, aren’t they?” He clapped his hands. “Let me show you to your rooms.”

They entered the massive hallway of Furley House, then Archie took a sharp right and led them into a corridor where the way was blocked by two silver stanchions supporting a thick red rope. He unclipped one end and ushered them through.

“Shortcut,” he explained. “Saves us going the tourist route.”

He led them briskly along wood-panelled corridors, past dark oil paintings and grim suits of armour.

He gave a sideways glance at Kit. “I’m given to understand I’m in the presence of an ace detective? Reverend Bell told me you were involved in a web of mystery and intrigue in Brighton? And apparently you solved a murder?”

“Aha. Sort of.”

Binfire piped up, “Yeah, she solved it alright. I was honoured to be her loyal sidekick.”

“Well, that sounds terribly exciting.”

“Let me tell you, Marquess, man, it was frokking dynamite.”

Archie was bubbling with excitement. “What actually happened? Do tell!”

“Well, it’s a long story,” said Kit gravely. “I’m sure we’ll have time, and I’ll happily recount to you ‘The Case of The Fan Who Knew Too Much’.”

“The Fan who…?”

“I catalogue my adventures in my casebook. That’s the one I call ‘The Case of The Fan Who Knew Too Much’.”

“Goodness. And how many cases have you investigated thus far?”

“Just the one. But by cataloguing it now, it’ll be a lot less work if any more cases come up.”

Archie chuckled. “Well that puts a topper on an exciting day! I’m very excited, believe me. Not as excited as the Reverend, of course. But it’s so nice to see such enthusiasm for something in this modern age, even though it’s only a television programme. I expect you know my guilty secret.” He tapped his nose. “I’m not really a fan of Vixens of the Voids.”

Kit’s pedant monster awoke and struggled to break free, urging her to correct the Marquess and say Actually, it’s Vixens from the Void. To her own immense satisfaction, she managed to wrestle it to the ground and put it back in its box.

“No,” continued Archie. “It was more a passion of my father’s.”

They were passing by a section of corridor that was covered in framed photos and clippings, most of them in black and white, all of them featuring a fat man dressed in a kaftan, wearing John Lennon glasses and sprouting an incredible set of mutton chop whiskers. It looked like scientists had taken the DNA from a scatter cushion and spliced it with a walrus. Kit recognised who it was, of course: it was Archie’s dad, Roland Pendragon, the seventh Marquess of Furley, who had passed on three years ago.

One photo was of Roland in front of Furley House, standing by someone dressed as a giant crab. Another had Roland beaming with a young actress wearing Spandex and a cloak. Roland had snaked his arm across her shoulders and placed his hand shamelessly on her left bosom. The young actress was grinning, too, choosing not to register where his hand had parked itself.

“Father loved the show, as you can see.”

“Yes,” said Kit dryly. “I can see how much he loved it.”

“Anyway, you’ll find the museum just outside the east wing. Just walk around the house and you can’t miss it. Pre-meal drinks and canapés are there at six, proper nosh-up at seven thirty in the main hall.”

“Is Lady Tabitha at home?” asked Kit, in a way she hoped sounded like a casual question but suspected it came out like the gurgle of a hormonal teenager.

“Big sis?” Archie stroked his chin. “Oh, she’s definitely about. She wouldn’t miss it for the world. She owns one of the action figures, you know, bequeathed to her by Father. So, she’s got a stake in the enterprise, albeit a small one. She’ll definitely make an appearance at some point.”

“I’d like to interview her too, if that’s possible.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure you would. She’s quite the celebrity, I gather. She’s known as the Cosplay Countess. Though ‘Lady’ is more the correct term than ‘Countess’… Father was a bit of a showman and I think she got all those genes. Compared to the rest of my family, I’m a bit of a dull old cove.”

“So could I?”

“Could you what?”

“Interview her?”

I’m being utterly ridiculous. What’s the point of interviewing her? I already know everything about her. I know her favourite flavour is salted caramel. I know she’s allergic to citrus. I know her favourite song is ‘In the Year 2525’ by Zager and Evans. I know she likes tidy men who buff their nails…

“Well, I can’t promise anything. She is rather shy—”

“Stop ye curs! Go no further!”

He was interrupted by a shout from above. On a landing about forty feet above them was a slender woman dressed in an outrageous costume. She wore a silver tricorn hat, a big frilly white shirt over a black basque, huge flappy boots and a scrappy waistcoat. Her huge, bejewelled belt held two futuristic-looking guns which she unholstered and aimed at them.

As Lady Tabitha Pendragon walked to the edge of the balustrade, Kit could see her face was obscured with eye patches over both eyes. One was covered by a normal black patch, the other was covered by a rotating robot eye which swivelled and threw out a dazzling red light beam.

Kit wondered how on earth Lady Tabitha could see. Probably got a tiny bit of gauze sewn into the black felt.

There was something on her shoulder: a robot parrot. Its head bounced around on its neck as its beak opened and closed, and its wings flexed.

“Ahoy there,” she boomed. “I spy strangers, me hearties!”

Archie smiled up at her like an indulgent father. “Very impressive, Tabby. I like the parrot.”

“I do not take kind words from a lily-livered planet-dweller, like ye. Scum!”

Archie flashed a watery smile at Binfire and Kit. “You’re in luck, Kit. Allow me to introduce my big sis. She’s being a space pirate today.”

Tabitha pointed her guns down at them. There was an electronic whine as they pretended to power up to ‘kill mode’. “Go no further, Spaceforce vermin, or I’ll fill ye full of laser bolts!”

Archie indicated Kit. “Tabs, this lady is a journalist for some space magazine. She’d like to interview you about – whatever it is you do. Would that be amenable to you, at all?”

Lady Tabitha looked down with disdain, examining Kit in her pink hat and black velvet coat. “Why, you’re a thin-hipped excuse for a cabin boy. I’ll wager I’ll squash you like a space weevil when I get you between my juicy thighs!”

Kit blushed.

She pointed her gun to each of them in turn. “I feel it only fair to warn ye, that’s my treasure in that museum. And if ye so much as think of making off with me gold, then I’ll run you through with my laser cutlass and push you out of the nearest airlock!”

She gave a hearty laugh and disappeared inside the depths of Furley House.

“I think that might be a ‘no’.” Archie grinned.

“Oh well.”

“Apologies. She’s a bit of a character, but in our family, we do have a tradition of indulging eccentricities.”

“Don’t apologise,” said Kit. “It was… quite a performance.”

They walked on.

Binfire leaned into Kit’s ear and whispered: “Robbie is going to be so bloody jealous.”

4

“God, I’m so bloody jealous,” said Robbie.

He gave a theatrical sigh and put his fist over his heart. “For a lot of gay men of my age, Lady Tabitha Pendragon is a god.”

Binfire gave Kit a quick told you so look.

They had WhatsApped Robbie. He was on the screen of Binfire’s phone, propped up on a table near a box of Kit’s complimentary teas and coffees.

Robbie was sitting in the living room of 33 Hanover Parade in Brighton. It looked startlingly different. There was a new sofa. The walls had been given a fresh coat of paint. Videos were not piled on planks of wood propped up with bricks anymore, but neatly arranged on gleaming white shelves.

Robbie looked different too: his break-up with his last boyfriend Victor had been messy, to put it mildly. Kit understood that. The worst discovery anyone would usually make in a rocky relationship was finding your partner was having an affair. Robbie had discovered his partner was a psychopathic murderer who’d attempted to kill his friends, so he had a right to a period of rehabilitation. It had been a year since Robbie had decided to stop crying about it and set about reinventing himself with grim determination, camping out in the local gym and toning his pear-shaped form into something beach-body ready.

It’s ironic, Kit thought. He’s finally regained his mental perspective at the cost of losing his physical perspective. Robbie’s harassed-looking bald head now looked tiny, sitting atop a triangular mass of muscle, and though she didn’t like the look, Kit was glad Robbie was putting his ex behind him.

“I don’t believe this! I’m stuck here and you’ve met her? What’s she like?”

“Well, we didn’t actually meet her, Robbie,” said Kit. “She looked down on us dressed as a space pirate and pointed her space guns at us.”

“Oh wow,” gasped Robbie. “Oh wow! She did that? She must have been amazing!”

“Yes, she was.” Binfire grinned. “She’s even more impressive in real life, man.”

Robbie’s eyebrows crawled up his shiny head in disdain. “The Cosplay Countess is more than impressive, Binfire. She’s got about ten million followers. There are only three ways you can get ten million followers on YouTube. Learn to cook, take your clothes off or say you love Hitler, and she’s done none of them. All she does is go on expensive holidays and wear fantastic costumes. And that, in my world, is living your best damn life. And you’ve met her and you’re going to see the opening of a new toy museum full of Vixens from the Void action figures. It’s bad enough Binfire possessing one of the rarest action figures in the world. But the fact he’s decided to take you…”

He tailed off. Obviously, it was too painful to put into words.

“Yes,” said Kit.

“But I thought you’d be teaching at the college today, pilgrim,” said Binfire. “It is term time, isn’t it?”

Robbie flinched at the unwelcome reminder. “Yes, I am, yes, that’s true. But I could have thrown a sickie for Friday. Those kids wouldn’t notice… I should be there. I’m the action-figure guy. I know much more about them than Kit.”

“I know,” said Kit.

“That’s my thing.”

Kit felt obliged to say something to make him feel better. “It’s just a room full of old toys.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Robbie’s eyes flashed. “Exactly. That’s all it is to you. A room full of old toys. You don’t appreciate it like me. I bet you know nothing about the Vixens from the Void Ceremonial Range, do you?” he snapped. “I bet you don’t even know who owns the other four figures.”

“We don’t, man.” Binfire grinned. “We haven’t a clue. Please tell us. Lay your amazing expertise on us.”

Kit looked at Binfire quizzically. We know all that stuff! Binfire gave Kit the tiniest wink. And nodded to the phone. She understood the wink. Let Robbie lecture us. It’ll make him feel much better.

Robbie harrumphed. “Oh. Right. Where to start? Well, let’s start with the most obvious. The Arkadia figure is owned by Graham Goldingay, the biggest Vixens memorabilia collector in the country, in more ways than one. Obviously, he’s not going to be there because he’s in prison for blackmail and people-smuggling, thanks to Kit.”

Binfire punched Kit on the shoulder as if to say Well done. Kit mouthed an ow as if to say Ow.

Robbie continued, “The Medula action figure – that’s owned by Fenton Worth, the comic shop guy.”

Kit knew about Fenton Worth. They all did. Fenton’s sci-fi and fantasy shop, The Starshop Enterprise had started life in London, specifically Lewisham. Over the years, it had scuttled sideways like a crab, heading slowly eastwards where the rents were more reasonable. Kit imagined that Fenton, ever the optimist, was guiding his shop to a promised land where the rents were so low they’d pay him to stay open. Every time Kit visited the shop, it had moved somewhere else, always to an area a bit shabbier and nastier than the last time, like it was wandering the London streets spoiling for a fight. The last time she saw it, it was passing through Woolwich, presumably making a break for the countryside.

“Fenton probably won’t be there either, because he also went to prison, for insurance fraud.” Robbie frowned. “Oh wait. No! Tell a lie. He’s out now. He closed The Starshop Enterprise after he finished his sentence, married some woman with a lot of money who owned a corner shop, and now he’s set up in Peterborough. He opened up The Battlestore Galactica last year.”

Robbie cleared his throat. “Now… The Velhellan action figure. That’s owned by Matty Kearney. You know him, the anti-woke warrior, always complaining about Star Wars being stuffed with gays and lesbians and coloured people and trans people and the like. He reviews movies and TV shows on YouTube and goes on about not being able to offend anybody, while being offensive to everybody.”

Robbie tapped his chin with his finger. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, well there’s Excelsior, that’s owned by Binfire, for whatever reason I cannot fathom in a million years.”

Binfire grinned and held up his shopping bag. He gave it a little shake.

“Don’t do that!” Robbie exploded. “That is mint-in-box and one-of-a-kind. You do not stick a piece of history in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag!”

Kit’s pedant monster woke up. “It’s a Tesco carrier bag.”

Robbie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Yes, well that makes it all completely okay! Now, who do I have left? Oh my god, how could I have forgotten? The Byzantia action figure is owned by Lady Tabitha. She inherited it from her father, Roland Pendragon. She talks about it a lot on Instagram, saying it’s her most treasured possession ever… And I can’t believe you’ve bloody met her!”

“Thanks for telling us all this, Robbie, man,” said Binfire. “You’ve proved a great help.”

“You’re just humouring me,” he huffed.

“Yeah, we are, but you do appreciate the effort.”

He sighed. “I suppose so.”

“Hey, where’s my little goth girl?” asked Binfire.

“Freya?” said Robbie. “No idea. I’m sure she’s at the Hanover Community Centre with her odd friends.” He pulled a disapproving scowl. “She does that a lot now.”

Binfire and Robbie’s housemate was Freya, a goth/hippy hybrid in her twenties. Like Robbie, she was struggling to get past a dead relationship, but in Freya’s case her significant other was literally dead, murdered in the middle of his podcast by Robbie’s ex-boyfriend Victor. She had spent the last two years ingratiating herself with the Krellevangelists, a dodgy quasi-religious group based on an obscure episode of Vixens from the Void. They enticed her in by saying they could put her in contact with her deceased boyfriend and ask him if he was happy, if he missed her and where he’d put that signed copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

They ended the call and Binfire slipped his phone back in the pouch on his belt.

“Okay, I’m going to head to my room.” He looked at his chunky survival watch. “Frokk, is that the time?”

He was just about to leave when Kit’s phone flared into life with her signature ringtone, the opening bars of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’.

Kit could see that the phone said ‘Jackie’. It was vibrating across the coffee table. Before Kit had time to react, Binfire pressed ‘accept’ and ‘speakerphone’. Kit looked furiously at Binfire, but he just grinned, saluted, held a finger to his lips and pointed to the phone.

Jackie’s voice said, “Hello? Kit?”

Kit leaned across and said, “I’m here.”

“You sound funny.”

“You’re on speakerphone.”

“Speakerphone? Are you alone?”

Kit was caught with two options, none of them desirable. She could admit that Binfire was in her room, which would lead to a long, well-trodden conversation later about how Jackie disapproved of Binfire, how she thought he was a crazed nutter, how she knew he was in love with Kit so she’d be wise to cut off all ties with him ASAP…

Or she could just lie.

“Yes. I’m alone.” She gave a murderous glance at Binfire, who just stood there and held his thumbs aloft. “So how are you?”

“I’m fine. Are you busy?”

“No.”

“Oh. That’s odd.”

“Why?”

“I just noticed on Life360 you’ve been at Furley House for an hour now. I thought you would have texted me to tell me you got there safely.”

Why would I need to text to tell you I’ve got here safely when you already know I’ve got here safely? she thought.

“It’s been a bit hectic here. I’ve just unpacked and phoned the guys in 33 Hanover Parade.”

“Right. So getting in touch with them was the priority.”

Kit almost sighed. “I was tired, so I thought I’d get them out of the way first.”

“You’re tired? Poor darling.”

“Yes.”

“So, if you’re tired, I guess you’re not going to the dinner tonight. You can stay in your room and we can talk on the phone.”

Binfire pulled a shocked face and mimed using a knife and fork, then he shook his head in disbelief. Then he swirled a finger next to his ear. Kit didn’t need an explanation for what he was trying to say.

“I’m not that kind of tired. I just need a bit of time to myself, you know?”

“Too tired to talk to me, but not tired enough to go to dinner. I see.”

“How about I phone you once I get in after the dinner? We could talk then.”

“I might be asleep by then.”

This conversation was rapidly becoming pointless. A lot of their conversations had become pointless lately. They weren’t hostile, but they weren’t friendly either; not peace as such, but an absence of war.

“Okay, I’ll text you when I get to my room. If you’re awake, we’ll talk. If you’re not, then we can talk tomorrow afternoon, before we get on the road.”

“Won’t you want to get back straight away? Beat the traffic? I’ve got something really important I really need to talk to you about.”

“Well tell me.”

“No, it’s really important. We’ve got to talk face to face.”

Kit could feel her jaws pressing together, threatening to grind her teeth into a powder.

She’s done this before, she thought. Just last year when I was away at that Devon convention In Space No One Can Eat Ice Cream, she rang me up and said she’d organised a commemoration ceremony for her friend Lily Sparkes on the occasion of Lily’s birthday. She said it had been in the diary for months, but I knew I hadn’t been told. Even so, I knew if I hadn’t come home early to take part in the ceremony there would have been hell to pay.

“Talk about what?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you. Can you get back first thing?”

“It’s the free lesson in clay-pigeon shooting tomorrow afternoon. I don’t think Binfire would forgive me if we miss that.”

“Well, as long as he’s happy.”

Kit felt her left eye start to twitch.

“I wasn’t happy about you travelling up with him, let alone staying the night with him under the same roof.”

Binfire pulled an indignant face and mimed performing a strangulation.

“Technically,” said Kit, “we’re not under the same roof. We’re in reconditioned stables. He’s in a different stable.”

“Don’t set your pedant monster on me, dear.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“Okay, let’s agree to differ. Let’s talk tomorrow, and I’ll let you know when we’re on the road.”

“Okay, I suppose it’ll have to do.”

“I’d better get on. The preview opens in…”

She looked at the pocket watch fastened to her velvet coat.

Fifteen minutes?

“It’s in fifteen minutes.”

“Fine. Goodbye then, sweetie. Have a good one.”

From the way Jackie said it, she didn’t mean it at all, but Kit took the words at face value. It was ironic; Kit had spent so many years learning to detect the undercurrents in people’s voices, only to train herself to ignore the subtext in Jackie’s.

“Thanks, Jackie.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

She ended the call.

Binfire exhaled.

“Don’t start,” said Kit. “Don’t say anything! You just listened to a private conversation, so don’t judge her. She’s very protective of me, which is only to be expected, given we met in unusual circumstances.”

“There’s a fine line between protective and being controlled by a control-freak psycho.”

“She’s not a control-freak psycho. And I’m not being controlled.”

Binfire continued, “It never feels like control freakery, from the inside. When you’re in the relationship it all feels normal, but once you break out of the mind control you realise how mad it’s got. Remember my old girlfriend Scary Sandra?”

“Of course I remember.”

Binfire conducted his love life like a drowsy wasp, bumping against women at random. If Kit wasn’t a more fastidious person, she would have lost track of his girlfriends years ago. But Kit was Kit; she had a file of them in her head and could recite them in order, length of duration and reason for their demise, as if they were Doctor Whos.

Kit downloaded the relevant data from her brain. “Sandra Gale, 2016 to 2018. Long blonde hair. Big fan of the Twilight movies. Didn’t blink enough. Vegetarian. Worked at the Sea Life Centre. Her tenure as your girlfriend came to an end during a climactic confrontation in Somerset. She was the one who put a dog tracker chip in your arm, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, that’s her. Remember I thought the chip was a good idea? It was cute, not to mention pretty groovy and sci-fi at the time. It was only when we split up and I went to Glastonbury and she turned up at my tent, locating me using a phone app, that I realised I had to get rid of it – and her – pronto.”

He tapped his shoulder. Kit knew that underneath his jacket there was a rectangular scar, which had been covered over by a tattoo of R2-D2. “Have you ever tried to cauterise a wound with a joss stick? It’s not the ideal way. But hey, it’s a lovely smell. Surgical instrument and anaesthetic all in one.”

“Jackie is not Scary Sandra, Binfire,” said Kit coldly, with a conviction she did not feel. “We’d better get moving.”

“Good thought, pilgrim. We’ve got to get there before those bastards eat all the canapés.”

5

When Archie had shown them to their rooms, Kit had expected to be led up dusty corridors and into a room containing oil-lamps and a cobweb-strewn four-poster bed. Instead, he’d brought them outside and showed them a collection of reconditioned stables that had been converted into adorable apartments, like Bilbo Baggins’ Hobbiton house (The Lord of the Rings, 2001–2003, The Hobbit, 2012–2014). They had kept the original stable doors and inserted little stained-glass portholes in the top section.

They emerged from Kit’s particular hobbit house, walked around the perimeter of the courtyard and along the outside of the main house, their boots scrunching on the gravel.

“Lady Tabitha, right?” said Binfire at last.

“Yes,” agreed Kit.

“Wow. She was frokking something.”

“She was.”

“She’s got a lot of spirit. What do you think? Do you think a princess and a guy like me?”

“No,” said Kit firmly. “No.”

Having completed their traditional ritual upon meeting any attractive female, cribbing old dialogue from Star Wars (1977), they stayed silent until they reached the chapel. It was a beautiful building with tall stained-glass windows. The door had a cardboard cut-out fixed to it, artwork of a woman in Vixens costume. A bubble came out of her mouth, saying WELCOME TO THE VIXENS FROM THE VOID TOY MUSEUM!

As they walked towards the door, Kit could hear a murmur of conversation coming from within. She instinctively tensed at the sound of the crowd.

I’m not ready for this.

Kit knew she probably had Asperger’s, or autism, or ADHD. But she hadn’t bothered to find out what particular colour on the neurodivergent chart she was because (ironically, for someone who liked to categorise everything within reach) Kit was very resistant to slap a label on herself. She didn’t want to know. Life was complicated enough without having a Thing that she had to take tests for and talk to experts about. It sounded too exhausting. All she did know was she didn’t like crowds, and she definitely didn’t like parties.

She braced herself and followed Binfire inside.

It was a white octagonal room, framed with high beams that stretched into the ceiling. It was decorated with panels with facts and timelines printed on them. Glass display cabinets lined the walls, divided roughly into subcategories. There was a giant pyramid that jutted out of the middle of the room, displaying action figures.

Standing like sentries in the corners of the room were full-size mannequins, dressed like characters from Vixens from the Void. Kit recognised them instantly as the promotional figures Braxtons had constructed to stand outside toy shops back in the 1990s. She used to fantasise about owning one and having it in the corner of her bedroom. She was impressed that they’d found eight of them in such good condition.

The room was filled with people, dressed in various approximations of eveningwear.

The men were wandering around the place, examining everything with keen interest, while the women sat wearily on the chairs, clearly bored and waiting for the sweet release of death. It looked like the Bizarro version of a branch of John Lewis.

Archie Pendragon was there, in an immaculate dinner jacket, talking to a man with a drooping grey moustache and beard, wearing a clerical collar. Kit recognised him as Reverend Jerome Bell.

There was no carpet, just flagstones, so the buzz of conversation was deafening. Kit flinched from the sudden horror of it all. Her hand strayed to her lapel, where her panic badge was pinned, a yellow smiley face that she could spin upside down and signal to Binfire that she wanted to be taken somewhere – anywhere – else.

But Binfire was nowhere to be seen. She looked around and saw he had raced into the depths of the museum in pursuit of the canapés. Now, with his mouth full, he was attempting to talk to a shabby man dressed in an ill-fitting jacket. Fenton Worth. Even from this distance, she could see that Fenton had aged badly, which was only to be expected for comic shop owners who sat in dark spaces all day reading graphic novels and scowling at customers. His mousy hair had long since left the crown of his head and migrated to his ears and down his neck.

She thought about joining their conversation, but she didn’t have the energy. She didn’t want a drink, and she wasn’t going to eat the canapés because she didn’t know how many calories they contained. She was trapped, rooted to the spot and alone in a crowd. A situation she dreaded above all else.

She thought about silently slipping away and hiding in the main house, but then she saw the television set, fixed high on the ceiling.

Sanctuary.

She went over and stared up at it. The picture wobbled and crackled. It was an off-air video recording, of one of the 1990s television adverts promoting the Vixens from the Void Braxtons toy range. A boy and a girl, both about ten years old, were crouching over a Vixens from the Void playset, a docking bay dominated by a huge round platform.

The boy, a fresh-faced lad with a mop of blond hair and big teeth trapped behind shiny braces, was holding a spaceship in the air. He was slowly lowering it onto the platform. It emitted a tinny roar as it descended.

“Hydra spaceship coming in to land on the planet Vixos! No danger detected!”

The girl, also with a mop of blonde hair and big teeth, pushed forward an action figure of a woman in revealing black leather. Then she pushed forward a couple of robots until they flanked the woman.

“Not so fast,” the girl hissed. “I, Medula, have been waiting for you! Me and the Styrax robots have sprung our trap!”

A fruity male voice erupted from nowhere. “The Vixens from the Void action playset is here, coming from a distant galaxy!”

There was a quick cut. The Hydra had been placed on the platform, the side hatch had been opened and a group of action figures placed outside, Arkadia, Elysia and Velhellan, all with right arms raised and pointing little plastic laser pistols. It was painfully obvious that the figures were not to scale, as the only way they would have fitted inside the spaceship was to melt them down and pour them in. The figures were arranged around a giant laser cannon centred on a circular trolley.

“Not so fast, Medula!” the boy said. “We have our laser cannon ready, and it can pulse with a death ray!”

The boy reached down, pressed a button, and the laser cannon’s barrel pulsed with a red light, and made a pew-pew noise. The girl went “Aargh!” and knocked Medula and the Styrax over.

Another quick cut, and the boy was holding his arms above his head, clasping his hands together in triumph. Then another cut, and the boy and the girl had changed teams, the girl whirling the spaceship around her head, the boy pushing the Styrax along the floor. The image changed to a shot of painted stars, and the Hydra and the playset appeared with a shimmer in the middle of the starscape.

The disembodied fruity voice spoke again: “The Vixens from the Void action playset! From Braxtons! All the action and thrills from the original television series, beamed into your own home! Action figures and spaceship sold separately!”

The screen went dark for a few seconds, then the advert started again. Kit calculated if she just watched the advert another one hundred and eighteen times, then the pre-dinner drinks would be over and she’d have achieved her goal of not talking to anybody.

It was a good plan, but it was immediately doomed to failure, as someone was talking to her.

“God, you look ridiculous. What have you come as? A woman from 1985 who’s come to the twenty-first century in a time-travelling DeLorean?”

She turned. The voice came from a man holding a glass of champagne in his hand and an expression of disdain on his face. He was in his fifties and trying desperately not to be. His long hair was greased back on his head, and it was dyed black, as was his ridiculous goatee. He was wearing a dinner jacket over a grey T-shirt with ‘Woman: Noun: Adult Human Female’ written across it.

Matty Kearney. Anti-woke warrior.

He nudged his champagne glass against Kit’s coat. “I’m not being rude. I’m just being honest.”

A woman appeared at Matty’s shoulder. She was tall, black and slim, in her early thirties with pretty eyes and a wide, friendly mouth. She looked very classy. Her head was covered in blonde dreadlocks, and she was wearing a white suit and cream shirt.

“Matty!” she said, outraged. “Sorry about Matty. He has to be obnoxious. It’s his job.” The woman had a husky voice, flavoured in a Midwest US accent. “That’s actually his catch-phrase: ‘I’m not being rude. I’m just being honest’. I’m Saskia Shapiro. His producer.”

Matty gave her an evil grin. “Not just his producer.”

Saskia glared back at him. “Just his producer.”

“Oh yes,” said Kit. “Matty Kearney. I know you. I sometimes click on your YouTube videos.”

Matty’s eyebrows leapt up in interest. “Oh, do you now?”

“Yes.”

Kit said nothing.

“So?”

Kit blinked. “Oh, do you want my opinion?”

Matty didn’t want to admit it, but his ego dragged it out of him. “If you’ve got one. Not that I care either way.”

Kit frowned, thinking. “Well, you do make good points occasionally, about homogeneity in modern sci-fi franchises, but it’s so buried beneath all that repetitive stuff about ‘woke messaging’ that I’ve never actually watched one all the way to the end yet.”

She gave a cold smile. “I’m not being rude; I’m just being honest.”

Saskia hid a grin behind her hand.

Matty’s face clouded in fury, but before he could say anything, a girl pushed her way into the group. She was mid-twenties, and short and plump, her face caked with white make-up and aggressive black lipstick. There was a ring through her left nostril. Her hair was dyed white and cut in a Harley Quinn style (Suicide Squad, 2016) and she had a black denim jacket with sew-on patches that depicted DC Superheroes on one shoulder and Marvel Superheroes on the other, worn over the top of a black cocktail dress.

“Hey, Kit Pelham amiright?” Her voice was that of a child’s, a cross between Marilyn Monroe and a squeaky toy. “You’re in the Vixens from the Void documentaries for the Blu-Rays? And you do that podcast, yeah? The First Cult is the Deepest?”

“Yes,” said Kit.