Critical Mick

From backup record labelled "Flattery_007, Disk 2"

… down to the farmhouse's cellar, padlocking the door behind me. The esteemed authority on all matters literary and scientific sagged right where I had left him, chained in a delightful reproduction of a sixteenth century Judas Chair. A pail of his own cold sweat brought Mr. Langdon R. Danbrown back from the land of nod. He startled up, the self-righteous blatherer, and the threats started pouring forth.

Ignoring my captive, I strutted atop stiletto heels and started oiling every implement of torture mentioned in Val McDermid's novel, The Mermaid's Singing. It had taken me a right good while to complete that collection, I tell you! An inspiring gorefest of a book, devices numerous enough to absorb every corner of dank granite floorspace. Well after both threats and pleas fell on deaf ears, in Danbrown started with the bribes again.

Poor as I am, my genius overlooked by the proud and powerful of British society, am I swayed by his offers of hundreds, thousands, millions? In a pig's brown eye! As if money can make up for the affronts I have suffered in my horrific developmental years- which, dear reader, I have catalogued upon the other tapes in this collection. One day in a more enlightened age, these will be published for the education of all who wish to learn the true importance of Love and Justice. My tapes and The Mermaid's Singing, one propping the other.

Danbrown ran out of steam and just blinked at stark reality. "What do you want?" he finally asked. "You've kidnapped me, locked me up like the Man in the Iron Mask!"

"My my, sixty-nine hours! It's about time you shut your gob, and condescended to listen!" I scolded. Dramatically I paused, testing if he could resist filling the silence.

"Real Judas Chairs didn't have seats," Danbrown blurted forthwith.

"As you're so renowned for your historical accuracy," I let the irony drip like acid, "I believe I will make that correction momentarily. We'll see if your manly arms are more comfortable in the morning."

I may as well have been speaking Greek, which of course I can. Both irony and sarcasm were as lost on him. Americans.

I interrupted his brave litany of other inconsistencies and anachronisms. "Danbrown, sweetie, you asked what I want? Well darling," and here I ran my opera-gloved finger across the lapel of the bestselling author's trademark sportscoat. I leaned whispering close to his ear. And then, I told him.

From backup record labelled "Flattery_007, Disk 3"

…had to explain that DeQuincy was the nineteenth century's tortured scribe of drugs and vice. DeQuincy, literature's darkest pioneer and prophet, and this celebrated superstar had never heard of him! It must have been the stress of being lashed to a rack. I hoped little Langdon would not suffer performance anxiety at the climactic moment later, poor dear!

"I didn't give a rat's ass for DeQuincy quotes introducing each and every chapter. That's too fancy. Too 'Inspector Morse.' The Mermaid's Sinking is better than that," my stretched-out sweetie proclaimed bravely.

"The novel is entitled The Mermaid's Singing," I corrected, caressing the rack's controls. Stress, it drives even a genius's mind to distraction. "And, oh! Langdon, you must give me more insights into it. You, who know the bestseller formula so well! I just knew you were a willing fan. I approached your hotel room with the same ploy that the stalking kidnapper used in McDermid's book, and you let yourself be taken! I knew that you have studied The Mermaid's Singing!"

Danbrown snorted and strained against his cuffs. "Of course. The Scottish sensation, Val McDermid. Love her to bits!"

"So inspiring! The Mermaid's Singing won The Golden Dagger, when released back in 1995. 'Your America can keep its Hannibal Lechters, thank you very much. The profiler genre has come to Britain,' I remember thinking."

"Well, from one McDermid fan to another- let me off of this godforsaken contraption. I'll give you a bestselling author's take on The Mermaid's Singing. We'll jaw, writer to writer, about what inspired you to copy-catlikeness over a few mugs of ale down at ye olde taverne."

Crick, the rack resounded.

"Ahhh-! Get your hand off that thing!" my celebrity sweetie cried. "Let me up or I'll refuse flat out to share my secrets!"

If the last seventy hours had taught him anything, I would have thought it was that some people write about life and death. The better of us live it.

Crick. "One twist of my pretty little hand, and all those ropes going taut! Marvellous invention, this rack."

"OK, OK! I'll talk! I'll reveal what that song meant- just don't rip me apart!"

That song-? "What aire do ye mean, lovey?"

"The song that the mermaid sang! How did it go again- go on, I bet you know it by heart-"

Another author. Another betrayal! "You haven't actually read McDermid's book, have ye, lovey?" As Danbrown started to strain and protest, my poor, bruised heart just sank.

"On my mother's grave, I'm telling you! I read The Mermaid's Singing! Great research, for when I explained the philosophical significance of The Little Mermaid, in my bestselling novel-"

Crick. Crick.

Danbrown then screamed a dirty, dirty clichéd term. Not from pain, mind you. Not yet. The anticipation of pain is so much more powerful, more interesting.

"I read The Mermaid's Singing!" I can help you wite your companion piece! Don't kill me!

Head games. Lovely, lovely head games. "And how many mermaids sang in the book, sweetie?" I put him to the test.

"Three- an ancient and magical number of deep-"

Crick crick crick

And out screamed another terribly clichéd, unimaginative term. When Danbrown, his lies laid bare, gasped painfully for breath, I explained sweetly:

"Fantasy plays a strong element in McDermid's novel, sweetie, but there's no fishladies. The title comes for a TS Eliot poem about an outsider, a stranger, a longing freak who will never know love." The American did not know who TS Eliot was, I wouldn't extended the liar any more benefits of doubt. "Speaking of longing, you might be a wee stretch longer thanks to my rack. Start telling me the truth, lover."

Far dues, so maybe authentic Spanish Inquisition era racks had ropes instead of rubber bands. My homemade implement was powerful enough, because right then something broke inside of Langdon R. Danbrown. He wept at the suggestive sound made by the table he lay upon. Twitching, he began to gabble madly, and I knew that every word which rushed from his pretty, pouty mouth was the absolute truth.

"I swear on a stack of Bibles- I only know that McDermid lady from her interview on writingshow.com!" Danbrown wailed. "I write about nuclear-powered jets, hidden tombs of damning historical treasures, adventurers jumping up and down on icebergs to signal submarines! I never read about your profilers and psychopaths!"

"There, there," I soothed, to let him know hot comfort was close.

"Please-! I'm sorry I pretended to know more than I do! I don't know a thing about twisted, sex-crazed psychoes. I don't know a thing about the English police in their funny hats!"

"Shhh. There, there," I caressed with the tip of my auntie's butcher knife. "There, there. Let's let it all out…."

From backup record labelled "Flattery_007, Disk 2"

…sent a bolt of blue right through him, the lying, filthy traitorous man! Electric blue, six thousand volts! Danbrown screamed like a filthy whore of a girl! "Ha! Who's the liar now, lovey!" Righteous fire was too much for a worm like him. He kicked and squirmed, smoke polluting up from his four-day beard, even after I killed the electric current. I rushed to his side and lashed a boot into ribs taut against black and blue.

"The Mermaid's Singing sounds like an awesome book," Mr. I'm-Such-A-Great-Author gasped at last.

The handle twisted in my sequined grip. His body danced. "Tell me again what it was about! Prove you're truly interested in learning to love it!"

When the spasms died, the American gasped the words out: "In Bradfield's local CID, a beautiful young detective concludes three murders are connected! Theorizing that it's the work of a serial killer they've dubbed The Queer Killer, this Carol Jordan brings in a newly-appointed Home Office profiler, psychologist, Dr. Tony Hill."

"Go on!" I demanded, letting him see my sequins sparkle at the electric switch's handle.

Danbrown cried, cherry spittle flying as his quaked. "Hill quickly provides key insights! He is able to deduce a great deal about this killer- for instance, that he's not openly gay and doesn't target openly gay men! There are other red herrings too!"

Was I appeased? In a pig's black eye, I was! "You're discussing my favourite book! A book not for faint-hearted sissies! Show some respect!"

"It's not preachy!" Grovelling in a pool of blood, Danbrown had learned well to respond by praising my favourite part. "Every other novel that features hate crimes goes out of its way to preach against prejudice! Not McDermid's! She shows, not tells! The Mermaid's Singing includes a gay character who's one of the book's few genuinely honest, decent men. Readers feel the shocking waste when he's beaten down."

I nodded, as if satisfied. Then when my back was to the cringing, lying cur I gave the transformer's handle a savage twist. Ha, ha! But the joke was on me! In righteous anger I had torn the electric cord clear out its socket! My roars of laughter echoed and re-echoed around the torture chamber until I couldn't tell if I was still howling or if hell came from a captive, a stranger, a ghost, the wire in the blood that lay between us....