Idles explained to the assembled throng what she'd managed to piece together so far. "It seems the scmindie case all came to light when Honey disappeared. Then I found out that Murdoch was about to run off to Rio; and now Robin has been taken away as well. Maybe he got too close to the truth - who knows. Looks like we'll never find out now - I'll be suprised if we see him alive again." A gasp of horror came from all in the room, except Murdoch, who remained eerily quiet. "Photojenni - you'd better watch out, you're next on the list. That message you got from Miss Crush - that's just a sham. They try to entice people to a secret rendezvous point, then Blam!, they hit you on the back of the head, and you wake up in a car crusher. They've got loads of people already. I remember when Keith Watson used to get loads of messages from this Miss Crush, and he's not been heard of for ages." "But who's behind it all?" asked the ugly dame, wishing the narrator would stop arsing around and just get to the bloody point. "Well, I've got some ideas." The assembled cast groaned, because they'd been wishing someone would tell them once and for all so they could all go off and be smutty together. "I don't think the evil Chu is the evil mastermind he likes to portray himself as. He's not the one pulling the strings. Otherwise he wouldn't have dared go to the gang's recruitment meeting in London on Saturday. You've got to make sure you don't end up going to one of those, they'll brainwash you, and before you know it you've been dragged along to their initiation ceremony - Tigermilking I think it's called - and you'll never be normal again." "Anyway, as I've been investigating, I've kept coming across the same code letters - B&S. Well, I think I've cracked it - it stands for Buggery and Sodomy. There's a big paedophilia ring going on, and I think that man is behind it." She slowly raised her hand, and pointed at... ...Murdoch. He jumped up, protesting. "It's not true! I swear, I didn't do anything!" "Go on then, defend yourself!" Sunset snarled. "Look, I'm perfectly innocent. B&S stands for Belle and Sebastian. We're a pop group." "What, named after a crap French cartoon?" queried Idles. "We haven't got time to go into that now. Someone's life might be in danger!" Idles gave him a withering stare. "Why don't you just tell us everything, from the start." Murdoch started sobbing. "Everything was going so well. The band were getting good, we'd even started practicing for a change. But then one member - let's call him Stuart David, because that's his name - got upset. It turns out this Canadian gal had dumped him, and she was making moves on me. Boy, she was hot. I can see why he was upset. But he just flew off the handle, and walked out, swearing revenge on us all. "We didn't believe him at first - how can you be scared of anyone who just goes round shouting 'pish' all the time? But he started getting serious. When we got somebody in to replace him, we had to pretend she was a boy - Bob, I think we called her - to protect her. Then there was the incident on the beach, but let's not get into that. Now, he's getting really mad - he's started going for our fans." "What, people actually like that twee crap you sing?" interrupted the ugly dame. "Shut up, toots," said Idles, who was feeling very embarrassed about getting the whole thing completely wrong. That is, if this Murdoch fellow was to be believed - still, he sounded pretty convincing. She decided to hear him out. "He needed some way to get to them, but first he had to get Honey out of the way. That was alarmingly easy - he just had to tell her there was a perfume sale going on in France. Then he got down to his dirty business. Sure, some people tried to escape his clutches. Sam changed his name to Asm. Rachel went even further - she got a sex change operation and started calling herself 'Archel'." The ugly dame cringed at the realisation that the gorgeous bloke she'd been with the other night wasn't all he was cracked up to be. "But a few people haven't escaped his clutches, as he goes on his evil plan to take over the minds of the fans, and persuade them to buy his pathetic excuse of a book. "That's all I know, we'll have to find him quick before he gets anyone else. I'll drive, I've got this great new car..." "But how will we find him?" asked V bird, casually stroking her hamster. "Last I heard, he was living at 10 Roddington Place. Let's go!" But Idles wasn't having any of it. "Why should we believe you? You're still the same person with an account at the sex-toy shop, you've even written a song about it. And we've heard what you do to people with your carriage clock." Murdoch implored her. "I implore you" he said. "I don't trust you. Who knows where you'll take us in that car of yours?" "Look, Idles, if you come with me, I'll give you a snog." "Oh, OK then, let's go!" And so, our intrepid investigators headed out into the night, not knowing what dangers awaited them... +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+