Hello, listeners, What on earth is this an episode on Tuesday? Surely
there must be some kind of mistake. Well, no, there's no mistake.
This is a bonus episode. It was a bonus episode at Patreon,
and since it's now had five years of exclusivity there, I thought i'd share
it as a bonus episode here too. It is, in short, a
cut scene from what ultimately became episode fourteen of season four, which was the
episode that you listen to previous to this one. I'll leave it to myself
from twenty seventeen to explain, though. Please note when I make reference to
episode twenty seven in my introduction, I'm referring to the Underwood and Flinch Underground
episode number at Patreon, because this is a Patreon episode, and Patreon's episode
twenty seven is, as I say, our season four episode fourteen. So
what you are about to hear then, is the original Patreon bonus episode,
including intro and outro. Got it of course? Yeah, it is not
complicated. Oh and by the way, do stick around at the end of
the twenty seventeen recording for an additional twenty twenty three outro from me. Oh
yes, okay, over to you past Mike, Hello, You me here
for a very laid back podcast with me literally laid back in my chair as
opposed to, you know, in my little studio where I usually am with
my legs crossed and my arm on the arm of the chair, chatting to
you like some night owl DJ like Adrian Barbeau in the nineteen eighty film The
Fog. This is Stevie Wayne, You're a night Light and KB Antonio obeys
on the air. I do like The Fog even though it's good. It's
flaws like number one, Why the flip would a young woman like Jamie Lee
Ker just want to have a romantic relationship with craggy old geezer Tom Atkins.
I know he had a van or whatever it was he was driving around him,
but every time I watched that film, I think, really, Oh
But anyway, yes, back to this podcast. I wanted to get something
out to you this week, patrons. But the next episode of Underwood and
Flinch Underground is still being finalized and polished. As always with the police based
episodes, it's been tricky because, you know, not being a policeman,
I've got no police experience other than what I've seen, you know, in
TV and movies and read in my research books that, of course, and
the OCU isn't real police either, so you know, it's a marrying of
real world police stuff and complete fantasy. And though the draft of the next
episode is finalized in its structure and content, I'm still getting the text right
and it's not ready yet. But as I say, I still wanted to
give you something from the underground world. But what well, I asked myself
this question, and I had an idea. Since this, this whole Patreon
thing is a kind of inclusive production, with you, the reader or listener,
actually coming along for the ride as far as the writing and production of
this book goes, might it be interesting for you to look at some of
the things that I write but don't actually include in the Finnish story. Now
one such bit. And I've often thought about podcasting this in some fashion,
but never quite know how to do it, and so this kind of you
offers me that opportunity. But anyway, let's just talk about it. It's
from episode twenty seven, and David and Ronnie Bishop have just met for the
first time and are in the pub opposite Hoban Station. This is just before
David spots Damer and goes running into Hoban. Now, this, of course
is the area of the story that I've been you know, reviewing and writing
episodes from at the moment, and so I've gone back to this area,
so you know, it sits uppermost in my mind. It's a first and
a non revised draft because obviously it was scrapped and it doesn't have an ending.
You know, I stopped it before I ended it. But why then?
Why did I stop it? Why did I cut it? Basically,
I think because I realized that this was a story in itself and it was
far too big a story for a secondary character in Underwood and French Underground to
be telling. It was making episode twenty seven too long, and practically all,
if not all, of it was irrelevant to the action of episode twenty
seven, which needed to be tight and to the point not going you know,
miles off topic. So, having read it and you just recorded it,
it reminds me of the sort of thing you'd find in a detective story,
you know, where the client comes in and engages, the detective tells
him everything he knows, and then the rest of the story is the detective
trying to find out what happened, but that, as the saying goes,
is literally another story. And I did have a kind of, you know,
a denumere for it and ending for it that could have occurred later in
Underground, but I was never sure whether I was going to use it,
and now I'm, you know, ninety nine percent sure that I never will
because it's still basically just not necessary. But for all that, for all
it's not being necessary, I did write what I wrote of it, and
the backstory is still, whether used or not, Ronnie's backstory. So here
it is. Then, if you're interested, let me just say to be
clear that this is a cut scene. None of it matters. It's not
going to impact on the action of Underground. I just share it here with
you as a kind of a bonus. So where are we? David and
Ronnie have been talking about the London Vampire. Ronnie has told David what he
heard about the historic vampire known only as the Lord who killed the original Malius
group back in Victorian London, which, in case you don't know, was
chronicled in the Underwooden Flinch story Disturbing the Devil. But that's another story.
We're at a point now then, where Ronnie has been telling David about how
Coleridge and his partner beat him up on a towpath of the Regent's Canal in
Camden in nineteen eighty one, and how strangely they both had silver rings on
the third fingers of their right hands. Oh, and before we begin,
some word references for people not familiar with UK slang but at least old UK
slang. Puff is cannabis, billy whizz is amphetamine sulfate or speed. The
neck is a police station, the plod is the police police officers, presumably
because police constables traditionally walk around a lot on the beat and plod is a
slang word for walking in a board fashion. And lastly, to flash the
ash is to socially offer your cigarettes to other people. So smokers will,
or were at least used to say, I don't know, I haven't been
in the situation for only twenty years. It's my flash or issue or flash,
depending on whose turn it is to share their cigarettes. And so,
without the usual theme tune, because this isn't an episode of Underwood, Flinch
Underground, here is the cut scene from Underground episode twenty seven. David was
trying to process what Ronnie had just told him. Coleridge, one of the
ring wearing thugs that had beaten Ronnie up in nineteen eighty one, was now
leaving the hunt for the London vampire. So what you think, Maybe this
guy Coleridge might be some kind of modern day member of the Mallia society.
Ronnie spread his hands and shrugged. I don't know, could be just a
coincidence. It was the early eighties, men were wearing makeup, gender bending
and all of that. Maybe him and his mate were just being fashionable.
Or maybe yeah, they were part of some secret society, which seems a
more unlikely to you. It is strange, certainly an unlikely coincidence. What
is it you were doing on the night they beat you up, following someone
someone they were also following, who bloke I suspected had a role in the
missing person case I just mentioned. Tell me about it, the case?
What happened? Ronnie smiled? What's it worth? What? How much you
willing to pay me for it? Really? Said David? I thought we
were working together on this. We are, But you can put the emphasis
on working right now. You're like any newspaper editor. You want the story,
you've got to pay for it. David sighed and took out his wallet.
He had three twenty pound notes. He took them out and showed them
to Ronnie. This is all I've got. Ronnie took the notes and tucked
them into the chest pocket of his jacket. That'll do so, he leaned
closer over the table and resumed his confidential tone. Back in nineteen eighty one,
I was working for a weekly music paper called Sounds. Good Times.
They were music wasn't shit like it is now. It was all going on
scar punk, new romantic heavy metal. But me I was into the emerging
goth scene. Susie and a Banshees bowhouse, sex gang, children, alien
sex fiend. You know why you were a goth? David squinted, trying
to blur the image of this balding, bespectacled fifty something into a leather clad
young man with black painted eyes and a black mohican. Ronnie laughed, well,
I used to dress up for the clubs, A bit easier to pull
the birds that way. Half of them wouldn't have looked at you twice if
you come in wearing normal street clobber, and they definitely wouldn't have danced with
you, right, said David, smiling, So what did you look like?
A knob? Most likely? But at the time I blended in well
enough. Anyway. There was one bird I used to see at a goth
night they used to have down at Dingwalls, Isabel May. His eyes moved
away as he said her name. God, here's a name I haven't said
in the long wall, lovely Isabel May. I was mad about her now.
She was a goth, not a part timer like me. She was
twenty four to seven, raven black air rings, bangles she rattled when she
walked. She used to have so many bangles on, and her figure in
Samados outfits she used to wear. He shook his head. All the blokes
wanted her. She could take her pick when she did too. I wasn't
I on the list. Not being a full timer was one of the things
that went against me, and not having a ready supply of puff and billy
whiz was another. But one thing I did have was me plus one on
the guest list at any gig in turn music you don't know you know,
So sometimes I'd get lucky with her, take her to a gig, get
her Inverfari and at the end of the night, she'd stay over at mine.
Fuck me. He closed his eyes and touched her hand to his brow,
shielding them. She was something, mate, If I'm honest, I
loved her, I really did. But she wasn't into that regular boyfriend,
being tied down and all that, Not with the likes of me anyway.
But then he came along. He took his hand from his face, and
the bitterness had come into his eyes. Vincent, she said. His name
was no surname, just Vincent, right, wonker. He was handsome and
he knew it. Thick black hair, dyed, of course, but so
thick he could probably slash gallons of bleeding die on it and not give a
toss if he lost half of it. Not like me. Well see for
yourself. I was always thin on top, so dying it was never a
smart move, not that it stopped me. I sometimes wonder whether that was
a start of it falling out. Yeah, anyway, said David impatiently.
You were saying about this vincent bloke. Yeah, right, so he starts
seeing him. She was mad about him, you could see it in her
face, in a body language whenever she was around him. I was jealous
of course, sick with jealousy. But what can you do? She was
at ten, he was at ten. I was a five at best.
All I could do was avoid him. I decided to devote myself exclusively to
the heavy metal scene, which pleased the editor no end because Sounds was big
on metal at the time. I didn't see her for weeks, and I
ran into a mate of her as at a gig. She asked me if
i'd seen as He before she left town. Of course, I'd stunned by
this, and I say, what left town when? And she says last
week. She and nat Vincent backed up and moved up to Leeds. So
I was gutted. You know, Leeds was a center of the goth universe
back then, so in a way it made sense. But why would she
leave all her friends? And she had a lot of friends, believe me.
So I went round to the squat where she'd been living and asked her
housemates and founew anything. They told me. She'd basically just disappeared one night,
left practically all stuff, along with a note saying she didn't want any
of it and was moving to Leeds. Ronnie paused to take a drink of
his paint. Did she say why she'd got asked David. No, but
her house mate said it must have been Vincent's IDEA funny thing was, they
told me as he had been knackered for about a week before she left,
week sickly, like she was coming down with something. She'd sleep all through
the day and only roused herself at night when he came round. They'd go
into her room and when they came out, she'd be her old self again.
Now, maybe it was the restorative power of just being around. That's
heurd she was love sick for. But I thought it was more likely he
was chopping at some premium whiz for her. That would explain how come she
was always so wasted on the next days, and as she'd have had the
energy to move up to Bleeding Yorkshire. But it didn't explain why she'd go
leaving her stuff like that, leaving her mates. Ronnie shook his head.
It just wasn't like her. So what did you do? What could I
do? It's not like she was my bird or anything. I don't think
I didn't think about going up there and looking for her for a while.
I thought about nothing else. I'd dream about finding her living a shitty life,
hating him and throwing her arms around me when I came to rescue her.
But what were the chances of that? More likely she was having a
great time. I'd turned up at their door and a pair of them would
just laugh at me and send me the fuck off. So I did what
anyone else would have done in my position. I moved on, trying to
forget about her. Look at the bright side, I thought, at least
I didn't go back to me old haunts again without having to worry about seeing
her and him now, And so I did. A couple of weeks went
by, and I was starting to feel better, you know, realizing there
was other birds in the world besides Isabel Bleeding May. But then one night
I was at a UK Deka gig and I saw him Vincent. He was
watching the band, but he wasn't busy. He was with some other bird.
Now, the sensible part of me wanted to leave it none of my
business, right, but I'd had a few points and I was so surprised
to see him. Before I knew it, I was tapping him on the
shoulder. He turns around and I say or shout. Since the bandwidth playing
at the time. Oh it may where is Izzy? Urge, you too
have moved up to Leeds. He shakes his head and says he's heard the
same thing about her moving, only without him. Said she dumped him the
night before she left, and that was the last he's scene of her.
Big argument. He reckoned, We couldn't really hear each other. But there
wasn't really that much to say. She dumped him and run off to Leeds.
That was all there was to it. But it didn't sit well with
me, you know. So the next day I went round to the squad
to see if any of them knew where Isy's parents lived. They didn't.
But while they'd either sold her stuff off or claimed it for themselves, as
she suggested they'd do in her note, they still had some of her personal
stuff kept aside just in case she came back, including her address book.
She did it since before she moved out of a family home, and then
she'd written her own address in the front of the book. And this book
belongs to a bit along with the phone number. I rang it and spoke
to the dad and guess what, he didn't know where she was. Ronnie
nodded. They didn't even know she moved. Weren't they in touch with her?
She lived in a squat dave no phone and any immobile phones then either
is he used to use a call box whenever she rang them or anyone else.
The parents lived in Norwich, so not exactly round a corner. So
what happened. Well after I told them what had happened, and now no
one knew where she was, they called the police to report a missing person.
I went into Camden Nick to tell them what I knew, and the
police interviewed their assmates and all. For a while after that, I'd give
the parents a ring from time to time because they were the only ones.
The cops were given updates too, not that there were any updates. Posters
went up in police stations in London and Leeds, but that was about it.
It was frustrating, You're so bloody helpless in that situation. There's nothing
you can really do but wait for for what for nothing to keep on happening.
But then I realized there was something I could do. I could write
a story on it and get it into one of the nationals. Of course,
there was nothing unique in a situation. Stuff like that goes on every
day. But I reckon if I could find an angle, make it intriguing
enough and I could shift it, maybe even get it onto Police five.
Police five, David had never heard the phrase. It was a TV show,
a call for witnesses sort of thing. Were you on search and search
a street at ten pm on Thursday night? If so, ring your local
Nick. Stuff like that used to get a big response. So I went
back to Camden Nick, but this time to ask the questions, only to
be told the case had been passed on the Falcon Bridge, the same place
as current investigating the London vampire murders. Well yes, supposedly, but back
then it was actually open for business prop my little cop shop it was.
So I went down there and asked to speak to the bloke who was in
charge of the case, and outcomes the then Detective Constable Coleridge. Unlike to
plod up at Camden, he was very interested in what I had to say,
especially about Vincent. He said they already had his name and they were
looking into him. I asked him if he was a suspect, but he
says he can't say, only that they're pursuing their inquiries. Ronnie raised his
fingers and made quotation marks in the air. But then he starts asking me
about my movements at the time as he went missing, like he thinks I
might have something to do with it. Question me for about an hour or
so. He did so much for me, asking the questions. But still
I was happy to talk with him because I had nothing a wide and I
can see they were taking it seriously. Ronnie drained his glass and nodded to
the window. And I need a fag. You want to come or stay
here? No, I'll come with you, said David. I could use
a fag myself. Good, said Ronnie, rising, you can flash the
ash. I'm running low. Actually I was hoping I could catch one off
you. I haven't got any typical, said Ronnie, shaking his head in
disgust. You know you're doing better out it's deal than I am. Come
on outside, so you were saying, said David, through a stream of
exhaled smoke. Coleridge was questioning you about is he? Yeah? I told
him everything I knew. Like I said, I had nothing a wide.
He writes it all down in his notebook and seals me, and it will
be in such if they need to see me again. I tried to get
some answers out of him for my story, but he wouldn't give me shit.
Said they didn't have anything as yet, but would make a public statement
when the time came. Waste of time, right, So I did what
I arguably should have done in the first place. I looked in the gig
listings to see what garth acts were playing up in Leeds over the next few
nights. If Isabelle had gone up there for the scene, then she most
likely beat the gigs right. So I saw there was a show by a
then obscure little outfit called the Sisters of Mercy. I'd heard this single one,
I knew there was a buzzer man. So I had a word with
my editor and convinced him to count me a train ticket so I could go
up and do a review with a gig an interview the band afterwards. He
grinned a Roddy Bishop coop. That was first national music paper to do a
big piece on him. But anyway, what that part of the job went
well, nothing else did. Isabel didn't show up. I showed the missing
person poster of her around, but no one, neither punters nor staff recognized
her. I left him with a copy of it and asked him to call
me if she came in, But I never did not. As far as
it goes, there is no more. So there we are, Ladies and
John. The music they're generously provided by your fellow Patrion sect member Andrew Rothman.
But at least as far as I wrote it, do you see what
I mean about how it was just getting too big and certainly too big for
the action of episode twenty seven? If I told all that, you'd have
forgotten why David was even talking to Ronnie in the first place. And also
you have to ask myself, would Ronnie have shared all that with a stranger?
Maybe? But I didn't think so much, as I would have liked
him too, And so it's cut. What happened next is basically Ronnie keeps
looking into the story and his suspicions of Vincent deepen, and one night he
follows him from a gig along the Regent's Canal towpath in Camden, only to
be told to stop and back off by Coleridge and his partner, who are
also surveiling him. Ronnie tells them no, and so because this is making
them lose their quarry, the policeman beat Ronnie into a condition where he can't
follow. They then continued after Vincent. After that, Ronnie did back off,
and he and Coleridge have been on unfriendly terms ever since. Isabel May
was never found or heard of again. So was Vincent a vampire no one
ever knew, but between you and me, yes, he was. I
you see such a big story, a novel in itself, you might say,
too big for Underwood, Flinch Underground, but just big enough in this
contracted version for this little podcast, and I hope you enjoyed it. But
now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for me to go for the twenty
year old Jamie Lee Gertis has just formed a sudden and illogical attraction to me
simply because I've got a car and she's into old geezers. So we're going
to drive off to battle of vengeful ghost zombies as you do so from me
for now, this is Stevie Wayne. Nightlight in kb Antonio'bay is going off
air, and so until the next time, farewell and we're back in twenty
twenty three again, listeners, and again, just to emphasize that scene you
just heard is not officially part of the Underwooden Finch Underground story, and so
the mysterious Vincent is not the London vampire. He does not exist. He
and Isabel may are cut characters, never officially part of the story and who
will never be heard of again, unless, of course, maybe you'd like
them too in a spinoff story, perhaps sometime in the future stories of the
Underwooden Finch universe. I like the idea of I like the idea of a
vampire being around at the height of the original London nineteen eighties goth scene.
I think he'd fit right in. Just because Vincent doesn't fit into the world
of Underwooden Flinch Underground doesn't mean he can't fit into his own standalone story someday,
does it? I mean, why not? So what I've done is
I've set up a chat posting on my substack where you can reply, and
I'll post a link in this episode show notes to that. Oh and while
you're at substack, don't forget to subscribe so that you get email notifications anytime
I post anything there. It's like being on a mailing list. What kind
of is a mailing listerally a mailing list in a blog? So yeah,
check it out. As the young people say, you can also reply on
my website if you have a word Press account, or if you use Spotify
to listen now this is new, you can reply there too, because I've
said it as the audience question and poll. So if you are a Spotify
user and you're listening to me right now using Spotify, open it up,
tap on this episode and you'll see the option go to episode. So go
to episode and then you will see the question and pole, and there you
can leave your reply. Isn't that neat? It's it's a new innovation thing.
It's only been going for a few weeks, so well, yeah,
it's early days. I don't know what to say really, but it's so
far, so good. Obviously, as far as the you know the chat
thing goes, usual terms and conditions apply. Be nice, no swearing,
no spoilers, just be excellent to each other. And so lastly, talking
of this you know this new thing at Spotify, I thought i'd give a
quick shout out to the Spotify users who have already found that facility and have
used it to reply to the default question on previous episodes. I've only ever
used the automatic default question, so far which is the rather bland sort of
general purpose. What did you think of this episode? But you know I
got some nice replies and here they are. On episode nine, Emma said
loved it. Thank you, Emma. I'm glad to hear it. On
episode ten, Pete Ramos said excellent as always, Thank you, Pete.
Colin laidlaw, I hope I pronounced that correctly, says every episode leaves me
wanting more. Haven't stopped since the first episode. Thank you, Colin.
That's good to hear. On episode eleven, Zippo four one nine said,
I enjoyed the insanity of the new fledgling vampire Demo and his ghostly friends.
I saw it like American werewolf in London, where he could see and talk
to the dead trapped on earth. Is this the same or a dream?
There's a good question, Thank you, Zippo four one nine. It is,
in fact just a dream. On episode twelve, FC Manzella says,
enjoying it quite a bit, always a relief at end of chapter that another
is in the wings. I'm hooked, lowell splendid. Thank you. FC
Manziella Brett said, I enjoyed it. I wish it had been longer.
Thank you, Bret so do I and A W two five nine one said,
great episode as always. Mike's awesome. I love everything he writes.
I'm blushing now. He is a wonderful reader too. He transports me to
a new reality. I consider his readings to be true. Theater kudos,
thank you very much. A W two five nine one. That's very kind
of you to say. On episode thirteen, Zippo four one nine Zippo again
says f y are you get cut off short at the end? I imagine
du two new ads. This episode had a double dose of them, some
at the beginning and some at the end. Well, yes, I do
have ads at the beginning and at the end, and sometimes on the longer
episodes, I have to have them in the kind of the middle of the
podcast as well. This is part of the terms and conditions of my arrangement
with my podcasting host. You see, previously I had to pay for my
podcast hosting, but as long as I'm running ads on my podcast, I
don't, and I get paid as well, which is fantastic. But terms
and conditions dictate that every now and again, longer podcasts do require a little
bit more advertising in them, So sorry about that. It's not perfect solution,
but you know it's pretty good as solutions go. Nicky Cook says,
love it, Ace, Ace. It's good to hear that word again.
Used to be very popular when I was a kid. Thank you, Nicky,
I'm glad you enjoyed it. And finally, on episode fourteen, FC
Manzella again says, are there anymore? Well, yes, there's this one,
isn't there? And there's another one tomorrow episode fifteen of season four,
and there will be two more episodes after that in season four as well,
So do stay subscribed. And that's it. Many thanks again to everybody who
found this facility at Spotify and has used it. I check the thing about
once a week, so if you should post a comment there and you don't
see it appear automatically, don't worry. I have to check them first to
make sure it's not mean or offensive, and provided it's not, then I
will share it in due course. Oh and ps, if you'd like a
more personal shout out, add your name to your comment, otherwise I'd have
to use your Spotify ID, as you've heard in these examples here, And
so that brings us then to the end. Of this little bonus show.
I hope you've enjoyed it, and I will see you again tomorrow for episode
fifteen of season four Underwooden Flinch Underground. Until then, listeners, thank you
for listening, and farewell. Keep up with all Mike Bennett's news at Mike
Bennett Orthor dot com, because if you don't, I'll tell ma'am, I say,