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GOTH DETECTIVES--episode 1: BACK IN BLACK

Starring:

Noel Fielding as Noel Fielding and Bob Skeleton

Russell Brand as Russell Brand

Guest Starring:

Richard Ayoade, Jonathan Ross, Danny Dyer, Jimmy Carr, David Walliams, Rob Brydon, Russell Howard, and sort of Miranda Hart

Chapter 1

There were things to be doing, but Russell Brand didn’t feel like doing them. Instead he went back to sleep and decided to attend to his business at a more gothic time of day—which was not day at all, and was, in fact, night.

Chapter 2

“Aha! Finally I’ve come upon you Noel, if only to return you to your former state of gothic glory!” Russell declared, grinning and spreading his arms triumphantly.

            “What?” Noel said. This was quite a way to wake up in the wee hours of the night—or as the goths like to call it, morning.

            Russell’s response was to bop Noel on the head with a large spoon and barge into his abode, a dark and cave-like house squashed like a wilted tomato between two other houses with far better lighting. He dragged a confused but complacent Noel behind him and forced him into a leather chair.

            “I’m not knocked out, you know,” Noel said, despite being limp as a wet noodle. “What are you doing?”            

            Russell ran his fingers through Noel’s blonde hair and cringed, steeling himself for the task ahead.

            “What needs to be done, Bob,” he said. “What needs to be done, for the sake of all the fine people of Camden who can’t go no’ere to get their morally questionable cases solved by other people of morally questionable standards—in fact, people of the greatest moral questionability, as you can’t have questionability without nobility—I am doing a service for them, and probably the universe and all that, and I think you’ve just got to deal with it Bob.”

            “Why—?” Noel began, before his hair was yanked forcefully and smeared with black hair dye. Russell wielded the brush with the kind of flourish that a drunken vagabond who dabbled in art might, using Noel’s hair as his canvas. “You’re not even doing it properly,” Noel complained. “Who the hell taught you to dye hair?”

            Russell made a face. “How should I know how to dye hair? I wake up looking like this!”

            “I’ve seen you wake up—you look better when you’ve just waken up.” The implication being that he looked slightly less like someone who’d just rolled out of bed and never seen a comb or brush.

            “Quiet, Bob! I can’t concentrate while you shout these abuses at me!”

            “You’re the one shouting. I’m actually quite peaceful right now.”

            Russell put the finishing touches of dye on Noel’s head and stepped back to admire his work. It was horrendous. But at least it wasn’t blonde. All was right with the world. Apart from the awful news Russell had received that morning.

            After waiting thirty minutes (which they spent watching a completely black television screen) and washing out the dye in Noel’s sink, Bob had made a full recovery.

            “Bob Skeleton’s back,” Noel/Bob Skeleton said, flinging his pitch black cape up so it covered everything but his eyes. “But why have you forced me back into the spotlight again, Russell? What’s happened?”

            “The world needs—when did you get that cape?” Russell asked, squinting his eyes in confusion.

            “When I became Bob,” Bob replied.

            “Oh.” He nodded slowly, feeling the legitimacy of this explanation. “Well, anyways, I was going on about something important, and here it is: The world needs us again—it needs Bob Skeleton and Russell Brand to be the Goth Detectives! Or maybe even for the Goth Detectives to stop being Noel Fielding and Russell Brand! One of those, or maybe both.”

            “But why?!”

            Russell widened his eyes to an insane degree and looked off into the distance at a camera and possibly a live studio audience, neither of which were there.

            “Miranda Hart,” he said gravely—but not too gravely, because come on, he didn’t know the broad personally—“has been murdered.”

*Goth Detectives theme song*

~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkNask_pMKo~

Chapter 3

Approximately two hours later.

            “Well, I guess we should get started on the case then,” Noel said.

Chapter 4

The city was dark and still, the air silent. Two pairs of footsteps, moving at a pace slower than a walk but not quite a meander, echoed on the dark cobblestones, disturbing the night.

            “According to my sources, the crime committed by perpetrator or perpetrators unknown is up here, behind this bakery,” Russell said loudly.

            “What sources are those?” Noel asked.

            A man stepped out from the shadows of the bakery. He wore a tan suit and fedora, his nose either wrinkled with distaste for the situation or because of the stench of the dumpster he’d just stepped out from behind.

            “It’s the murderer!” Russell hissed. “He’s come back to gloat at the scene of the crime like all other murderers before him—not a very original murderer, is he?”

            “I’m not the murderer,” the figure said.

            “Exactly what the murderer would say!” Russell declared triumphantly. “Unless he were so inclined to have himself caught to feed his fetish for jail cells.”

            The man stepped further into the light of the streetlamp, his features becoming more distinguishable.

“Police Chief Jonathan Ross?” Noel said.

            “Shhhh,” Russell warned. “He’s disguised as a tramp lord. He can’t be seen talking to us.”

            “I’m not in disguise,” Ross said, peeved.

            “Were you just standing behind that bin looking for sexual favors then?” Noel asked.

            “No! I’m here about the murder, you twats.”

            “Did a mysterious source also send you to this precise location?” Russell asked, peering around into nooks and crannies for clues.

            “I was the source! The department has no leads after about two hours of investigation and we’re desperate. I thought to myself that the only ones I could call were the Goth Detectives—and then I contemplated putting a gun to my own head, because I didn’t know if I could live in a world where that’s true. But obviously I decided I could, and here we are.”

            “Well I’m glad, Johnny, truly,” Russell said, “but I think we’re both here to rob a bakery—”

            “Solve a murder,” Noel corrected.

            “To solve a murder,” Russell continued, “not to hear about all the things that make your life impossibly and comedically sad.”

            Muttering to himself, Chief Ross walked over to the yellow police crime tape and ducked under it. Russell and Noel batted it aside and tossed it on the ground in a crumpled yellow heap before following after him. A white chalk outline could dimly be seen on the ground, depicting a woman’s body in a strange Egyptian pose.

            “How rude. Some kid’s just been here making chalk drawings and poking fun at Miranda Hart’s murder,” Noel said, starting to erase some of the chalk with his foot.

            “We drew that,” Ross said with annoyance.

            “Then you should be ashamed of yourselves!” Russell declared valiantly. “A woman is dead! I mean, I’ve no idea really who she was or what she was like, but I’m sure she wouldn’t want her death to be ridiculed by people who can’t even solve a simple murder.”

            The weary police chief had no choice but to agree.

            “Well these are the facts: we haven’t got any facts. Good luck, boys.” Chief Ross walked away and left them to it.

            Russell and Bob Skeleton pulled out their magnifying glasses and sniffed around the crime scene.

            “There’s a very odd smell here,” Russell said. He flared his nostrils so as to get a better sense of the scent.

            “Kind of like a dead possum that’s been left out in the sun,” Noel suggested.

            “Exactly, Bob! I think we may have just stumbled across the murder weapon. Now all we need is the motive. . . .”

            “And the culprit,” Noel added. “That’s kind of the main thing we need.”

            “And I know just who to ask,” Russell said with one of his crazy-eyed stares off into the distance.

Chapter 5

            “Well, well, well,” Noel said, perching on the back of a chair while his cape fluttered behind him in a self-generating wind. “If it isn’t Jimmy Carr.”

            “That’s right, it is,” Jimmy said. He sat across the table from them, but the light that was supposed to be illuminating his figure had died and never been replaced, so he sat in the shadows like an ominous cartoon villain, leaning back in his seat with casual disdain. Or perhaps because the chairs were highly uncomfortable (Noel had resorted to perching on the back of his like a bat, after all, and Russell wasn’t even sitting).

            “You’re a criminal informant now?” Noel asked.

            Jimmy nodded.

            “You’re a disgrace is what you are, Jimmy. You could’ve been a perfectly decent criminal but instead you had to go and betray the trust of your fellow criminals and rat them out to a bunch of sorry pigs who couldn’t solve a murder if it was thrust upon them like the sharp edge of a knife,” Russell scoffed. “That’s what you are Jimmy.”

            Jimmy pulled a cigarette from the breast pocket of his gray suit and put it between his lips. After an exhale, he said, “And yet, you’ve come to me, Russell. You’ve come like two kids shagging in a box.”

            “What kind of cigarette is that?” Noel wanted to know. “You didn’t even light it.”

            “Don’t need to,” Jimmy said coolly. “It’s made out of candy.”

            “Shall we come to the purpose of this meeting, Jimmy?” Russell asked, resting his leg on the chair next to Noel. With the tightness of his jeans and the angle of his leg, Jimmy found himself in the rather unfortunate position of having Russell Brand’s crotch staring him in the face. (Or maybe Jimmy Carr didn’t find it unfortunate at all; we’ll never know.)

            “I assume you want the answers to something,” Jimmy said. “Always with the answers.”

            Russell banged his hand on the table. “Tell us who did it!”

            “Did what?” Jimmy asked, taking another fake puff of his fake cigarette.

            “Oh, I think you well know,” Russell said, staring at him intensely.

            “I think I bloody well don’t,” Jimmy replied.

            “But you know the answers to everything,” Noel said. “You’re Jimmy Carr.”

            Jimmy sighed. “Most people don’t realize this about me . . . but I only know the answers to stuff I’ve seen beforehand. I haven’t got time to know things off the top of my head—I’m too busy thugging, flossing my cleak, spittin’ my flows, gettin’ some nan gash on the side. That’s what Jimmy Carr’s all about.”

            “We didn’t come here to talk about our Tuesday nights, Jimmy!” Russell said. “Now smell my finger, you cocky bastard!”

            “What?”

            Russell held out his pinkie finger. “I’ve collected a sample of our only clue, possibly most likely the murder weapon, right here on my finger. Now smell it and tell us its origins!”

            Jimmy hesitantly sniffed at the finger. “All I smell is garlic. Maybe a hint of syphilis.”

            “Wrong finger.” Russell held out his middle finger.

            “I actually collected some of the smell in a jar I found in the rubbish. Can you store a smell on a finger? I don’t think you can,” Noel said. He produced the jar, which had previously contained some sort of jam, from within the confines of his cape, defying all logic and science.

            Jimmy leaned away from the jar. “Didn’t you just say that that was the murder weapon? And I still don’t know who’s dead, anyway.”

            “No, the weapon’s been mostly neutralized by the air, or else we’d all be dead now,” Noel reassured him, before negating the reassurances in a typically goth way. “But then again, I guess we could still die now—lightning could strike my house and cause a fire, or one of us could get possessed by an evil spirit and kill the other two.”

            “Miranda Lungs is the victim,” Russell told him.

            “You mean Miranda Hart?” Jimmy asked.

            “Heart, lungs, luscious hair, the point is she’s dead, now smell our jar.”

            Noel uncapped the jar and tilted it towards Jimmy’s nose so he could take a whiff.

            Jimmy’s eyes widened. “My God. I do know that scent.” He stared into the distance, contemplating a horrible and scarring past event. “I could never forget it.”

            “What is it?” Noel asked, unconcerned for Jimmy’s current state of mind.

            Once his eyes were able to focus on the two of them again, Jimmy told them the name of the culprit.

            “We should’ve known,” Russell said.

Chapter 6

            “The logical thing to do at this point would be to tell Chief Ross who the murderer is and call it a night,” Noel said once Jimmy had left.

Chapter 7

            Russell and Noel stood across the street from the murderer’s house, blending very proficiently into the shadows of a tall tree. They had immediately dismissed the idea of safely handing off the case to Jonathan Ross in favor of a dangerous confrontation with the murder suspect.

            “Now all we need is an ingenious plan,” Russell whispered, peering around the broken branch they were holding in front of themselves.

            “We could try around the back,” Noel suggested.

            “Genius!”

            They loped across the road like startled gazelles with broken hind legs and sidled around the house, freezing with their faces pressed against the windows when they thought they heard a noise, assuming they’d just be mistaken for ghosts if anyone was looking.

            Russell rattled the back door handle. “Locked. He must’ve been expecting us.”

            He turned to confer with Noel and found he was no longer by his side. Russell looked back towards the door in confusion and made a startled face. Noel was staring at him through the glass from the other side—and he did indeed resemble a ghost.

            The door swung open.

            “No door can stop Bob Skeleton,” Noel said, fluttering his cape around him.

            “That would’ve been helpful information to know while we were outside,” Russell commented, striding purposefully into the murderer’s lair.

            The two of them stood in a dark kitchen. No lights seemed to be on anywhere in the house, meaning Russell and Noel felt at home enough to make themselves a sandwich, cut it into two triangles, and eat it at the murderer’s table before continuing their investigation. They didn’t drink any of the liquor in the cabinet though—that would’ve been rude and unprofessional.

            The first thing to confront them in the hallway was a plastic skeleton dangling from the ceiling.

            “Any relation?” Russell wanted to know.

            “He wishes,” Noel scoffed, sweeping past.

            A swarm of bats flew through the hallway from the basement, fluttering around them in a frenzy of wings and bat noises.

            “Damn that murderous prick,” Noel said once they’d passed. “I could never get any bats to follow me back to my house.”

            “One day, Bob. One day,” Russell said, stroking his hair soothingly. “What a lovely house this murderer has though. What do you suppose the chances are of us, say, requisitioning this house and turning it into our detective headquarters after this bloke’s thrown in prison?”

            “I think the chances of that would be pretty high actually,” Noel said. “I mean we are gonna be heroes after this, and you don’t just not turn over a murderer’s house to a couple of murderer-catching heroes.”

            “Well put, Bob.” Russell nodded his crazy-eyed nod.

            It was further into the house—past the bathroom where they stopped to take a leak on the killer’s potted window plants—that they encountered it. Noel jumped back in alarm, hissing. Russell pressed himself against the wall, striking a pose with his leg up that once again exposed his crotch area to the world.

            “It’s . . . it’s hideous,” Noel said.

            “The fiend,” Russell agreed. “He must’ve placed this monstrosity here to deter us from our mission of his capture.”

            The hideous monstrosity that had frozen them in their tracks was a giant pink teddy bear sitting in front of a plain and unassuming white door, smiling innocently at them.

            “He must not want anyone to see what’s behind that door,” Russell said.

            “More victims, perhaps?” Noel asked with a hint of gloomy eagerness.

            “Let’s find out. I’ll deal with him while you get that door open.” Without waiting for a response, he launched himself at the teddy bear, tackling it to the ground and viciously bashing it about the head. “Hurry, Bob! Finagle that door open!”

            Noel stepped forward and opened the door. “It wasn’t locked. Now stop boffing that bear and come on.”

            Russell gave the bear a few more blows to make sure it stayed down and then sprang to his feet, following Noel into a new hallway, which had slightly better lighting than the rest of the house had so far due to the swaying light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. The door at the other end of the short hallway was noticeably more reinforced than the one they’d just entered through. It was made of metal, and probably actually locked since there was some type of key pad on the wall next to it.

            As they approached the device a light on the front began to flash red, and a slightly insane robotic voice said, “Please enter password.”

            “Bollocks!” Russell hissed, licking the key pad in frustration.

            “I’m afraid that is not the correct password,” the voice informed them.

            “Try ‘swimming,’” Noel said.

            Russell did so. The light switched from green to yellow.

            “Please finish entering password.”

            Russell typed in ‘is the most important thing ever.’ The machine beeped and turned green, sliding aside to reveal . . . an identical door.

            “Please enter password. It is fill in the blank,” a slightly even more insane robot voice said. “‘Face of a choir boy . . .”

            “Life of a naughty priest,” Russell shouted, typing it in. “Too easy.”

            Once again the door slid aside to reveal . . . an identical door.

            “Please enter—”

            “Oh shut up,” Noel told it. With an exasperated flourish of his cape, he typed in the password without hesitation. “A killer such as this could only have his own name be the final password,” he explained.

            The final door slid aside to reveal the killer’s lair—a round room with glass walls and multitudes of colorful fish floating behind them. And sitting in the center of this giant fish tank was the killer, whose identity was and had always been . . .

            “David Walliams!”

Chapter 8

After Russell let out this involuntary and unnecessary shout, alerting David Walliams to their arrival in his lair, a struggle of epic proportions ensued.

            David Walliams spun around in his rolly chair squirting water guns at them. Russell made vague fist motions and attempted to distract him with nonsense so that Noel could get in a shot. And Noel stealthily crossed the room via cape so that he could tap the glass walls and pester the fish.

Chapter 9

Chief Ross burst into the lair ten minutes later, gun drawn, expecting bloodshed of some kind.

            Instead he found them drenched in a room full of dead fish and broken glass. Russell and David were in the center next to the chair (which had caused the broken glass and dead fish with a little help from Russell in a fit of longstanding insanity), slapping at each other with limp wrists. The Chief spotted Noel somehow holding himself up in the only corner of ceiling beside the door so as not to get wet.

            “Oh, for Chrissakes,” he muttered. “David Eleanor Walliams, you’re under arrest.”

Chapter 10

*Law & Order sound*

~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMalvNeJFLk~

            Queen Victoria Court, 1 PM

“All rise for Judge Danny Dyer,” Russell Howard said, standing at attention next to the judge’s box in his short-sleeved and flatteringly form-fitting bailiff uniform.

            Danny Dyer walked gruffly into the room and sat down in his chair, wearing his traditional judge’s robe. He looked out at the room in distaste.

            “You may now be seated,” Russell Howard said.

            Judge Dyer consulted the papers in front of him so he’d have a vague idea of what was actually going on. “So today we have David Eleanor Walliams—”

            “Edward! My middle name is Edward!” David shouted from his seat. He wore a suit and was handcuffed to the table. “Where does everyone keep getting Eleanor?”

            The judge pounded his gavel. “Did anyone say you could speak?! This is my court and I honestly couldn’t give one fuck about your middle name! So as I was saying, David Eleanor Walliams is being represented by Rob Brydon today for the murder of one Miranda Hart. And the lawyer for the prosecution will be Richard Ayoade. Alright, now let’s get this done with. Do whatever the first thing you’re supposed to do is.”

            Chief Ross leaned over from the front pew to whisper to Richard. “Where’re the Goth Detectives? I told them to be here an hour early.”

            “Well, Chief,” Richard replied, “I’m sure you may have noticed how goth the two of them are—they call themselves the Goth Detectives, is how goth they are, despite the state of being goth having little to do with actual detective work—so they’ll probably only show up when it suits them, Jonathan. You’d do well to learn how goths work if you expect them to solve cases for you.”

            Jonathan leaned back in his seat, sulking and seething and occasionally muttering words that sounded like “put a gun to my own head.”

            “For my opening statement, all I have to say is this,” Rob Brydon said. “Look at this face. That right there is the face of a choir boy, ladies and gentlemen. Have you ever known a choir boy to kill anyone? Thank you.”

            Richard pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “How old are you, David?”

            “Objection!” Rob shouted.

            “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Go on, Richard,” Judge Dyer said.

            “Thank you, Daniel. I’ll ask my question again—how old are you, David? Mid-forties? By definition, a choir boy is, in fact, a boy—it’s in the title. Now, you’re mid-forties, I’m guessing, meaning your boyhood was over many, many moons ago. Choir boys may never kill anyone, but you, David, are not a choir boy, and are therefore more than capable of the act. That concludes my opening statement.”

            Russell Howard shot him a discreet thumbs up. Richard discreetly nodded back.

            Everyone looked at Judge Dyer for confirmation to proceed. He waved a hand vaguely.

            “Well go on then. Do the . . . Call the witness.”

            “I call Jonathan Ross as my first witness,” Richard said.

            Grumbling, Chief Ross took the stand.

            “Tell us about the murder of Miranda Hart,” Richard asked him, pacing in front of the box he was in.

            “Well she was dead. Still is. We found her body out behind the bakery in a strange contorted pose. Science was recently able to tell us that her body died of shock and self-induced deoxygenation,” Ross said.

            Richard rested his elbow on the surface in front of him. “And can you tell us what that means, please, in terms the unscientific can understand?”

            “It means she forced herself to stop breathing long enough for her to die of the strain that it placed on her body.”

            “Uh-huh. And why would she do that?”

            Chief Ross shrugged. “I can only guess it was because she smelled something nasty.”

            “I’m finished with the witness.” Richard Ayoade refastened a button on his blazer and took his seat.

            Rob Brydon stood up to cross-examine Ross.

            “If this smell was so nasty, why didn’t Miranda just leave the alley?” Rob asked.

            “Objection!” Richard shouted. “Is that Miranda Hart’s ghost up there on the stand? No, no it isn’t. I would have to ask that you refrain from asking questions that can only be answered by the presence of a Ouija, in which case I would have to leave.”

            “If I may, your honor,” Ross said. “I would like to answer the question.”

            “Well then that’s alright then,” Richard said.

            “Fine, bloody answer it,” Judge Dyer said.

            “Our forensics team hypothesize that she did, in fact, try to leave the alley, but smells, as any schoolboy knows, travel through the air, and therefore it followed her as she tried to escape and brutally finished the job it had started.”

            “But your department was unable to make any progress in the case, isn’t that correct?” Rob asked.

            “That is correct,” Ross grudgingly admitted. “All of these science things were found out after Walliams was taken in as a suspect.”

            “And why was he taken in to begin with? What subpar pair of idiots—”

            “Objection,” Richard interrupted vehemently.

            “I take it back,” Rob said quickly. “But who did you call, Chief Ross, to handle this case for you?”

            Ross muttered something unintelligible.

            “What was that?”

            “I said we—I—called the Goth Detectives,” he repeated.

            “And can you point them out in the courtroom here today?”

            “No,” Ross said after a pause. “They aren’t in the courtroom yet.”

            “No further questions,” Rob said, going back to his seat with a smirk.

            Judge Dyer jotted down a few scribbles, Ross left the stand, and Richard called in his next key witness—Jimmy Carr.

            Jimmy strolled in in his usual fashion these days—gratuitous walking stick in hand and slightly askew top hat on his head, forcing everyone in the room to ask themselves how it wasn’t falling off. He swaggered to the stand and set his hat on the table in front of him.

            “Tell us your story, Jimmy,” Richard said. “Tell us why you’re here.”

            “Well wouldn’t you all like to know? Do I look like the kind of guy who just goes and tells everyone my personal business? No, not with the bloody police chief in the room—and it’s that kind of smart that’s gotten me this far outside the law, ’cause they can’t catch me, for reals.” Jimmy finished it off with a hand gesture vaguely reminiscent of a gang sign—very, very vaguely.

            Richard squinted at him. “But we did catch you, Jimmy. How is it do you think you got here if not for being caught? Do you not remember? Can you not remember five months ago? Can you not remember David Cameron leaving the summit meeting to say that you’re—and I’m quoting here now—an asshole?”

            Jimmy stared into the distance, plagued by uncertain memories. “Oh yeah. Has it only been five months? It feels as though I’ve been this way forever.”

            “Can we get back to the question please?” Rob Brydon said exasperatedly.

            “That’s fine with me, Rob,” Richard said. “Again, Mr. Carr, I’d ask you to tell us your involvement in this case.”

            “Right.” Jimmy snapped out of his reverie. “Well a while back Russell and Noel came to me—”

            “And for anyone here who might not know, who are Russell and Noel when they’re Russell and Bob?” Richard interjected.

            “They’re the Goth Detectives, of course. They came to me with what they believed to be the murder weapon of Miranda Hart and asked me to identify it.”

            “Can you describe the murder weapon for us?”

            “I can. It was a jar, containing one of the most foul smells known to man—diluted, of course, or I wouldn’t be sitting here alive today.”

            Rob Brydon rolled his eyes.

            “And could you identify this toxic, deadly smell?” Richard asked.

            Jimmy shuddered visibly. “Unfortunately I could.” He raised the end of his walking stick and pointed it at the man who was grinning and handcuffed to a table. “It was David Walliams’ smelly, smelly fart.”

Chapter 11

            “And just for further clarity, the man you’re referring to right now is one”—Richard consulted the papers in front of him—“David Eleanor Walliams?”

            “That’s correct,” Jimmy replied.

            “No further questions, your honor.”

            “Your witness, Brydon,” Dyer said in a bored tone.

            Rob stood up regally and walked over to Jimmy at a painfully slow pace. He stared into his eyes with intense scrutiny. Jimmy raised an eyebrow and squinted his already pretty squinty eyes in response.

            “The prosecution can keep him,” Rob finally said, going back to his seat. “I’d like to call David Ele—Edward—Walliams to the stand instead.”

            Jimmy put his hat back on and walked out of the court with his cane and swagger once again, spitting on the ground next to Brydon and Walliams’ table as he passed—typical behavior for a thugly CI such as himself.

            Russell Howard reluctantly uncuffed David from the table and marched him to the stand, re-handcuffing him there.

            David made a nasty childish face and opened his mouth.

            “Objection,” Richard Ayoade said quickly.

            “For what?” Rob complained.

            “He was about to speak,” Richard said. “No one gave him permission to do that.”

            “I’ll allow it,” Judge Dyer said.

            David Walliams opened his mouth again, and everyone in the courtroom had just braced themselves for a slew of complaints and whining when the doors burst open.

            Russell Brand and Noel Fielding strutted in, each wearing feather boas, skintight leather pants and silk shirts. They strode purposefully up to the judge’s podium, intentionally hitting people in the audience with their scarves as they went.

            “That’s him, your Judginess,” Russell shouted, pointing at Walliams. “That is the murderer! We detained him fair and square.”

            “Oh, it’s we is it?” Chief Ross grumbled.

            Russell draped himself across the tabletop in front of Walliams while Noel became distracted talking to Richard.

            “Why hasn’t this man been imprisoned?!” Russell cried. “I demand justice!”

            “We’re having the trial now, you bloody idiot!” Judge Dyer said.

            He ignored the judge and slapped the table underneath him, then grabbed David Walliams by the necktie. “You’re murderous scum! Confess! Confess! This is what happens when you swim too much! It’s suspicious then, isn’t it, that you’re always swimming?”

            “Why’re you wearing a dress?” Noel asked Judge Dyer.

            Danny gave a start and shooed Noel away. “What’re you doing under there? It’s not a dress, it’s a fuckin’ robe, you hear? The Judge of the Queen Vic wears a robe.”

            “What’ve you got on underneath it?” Noel asked, popping out from behind the judge’s stand. “Are you naked under there?”

            “Of course not! Get out of here!” He finally was able to herd Noel over to the proper side of the bench.

            “Of course he’s not stark naked under there,” Richard said primly. Danny made a motion of agreement, unaware of the next part of the sentence. “The Judge of the Queen Vic wears leggings underneath his robe—although I believe the proper term for them is jeggings.”

            “The hell’s a jegging?!” Russell demanded, repositioning himself in such a way that he was flashing his entire crotch to the audience. “I demand this man be arrested!”

            “Order in the courtroom, please,” Russell Howard tried.

            Judge Dyer banged his gavel to no effect.

            “He’s got a Shakespeare play on after this,” Chief Ross informed them. “They’re for the part.”

            “Hell you hear that from?!” Dyer shouted, growing red in the face. He scratched his beard angrily. “I did a twenty-stretch in EastEnders and now I’m a judge—you’re just a police chief, and a shit one at that—so all of you’s can fuck off!”

            “We’ve broken the rules of the court, gentlemen,” Richard said. “No one’s supposed to mention the dress, leggings, or Shakespeare around the—Judge of the Queen Vic, was it?”

            “That’s right,” Dyer said.

            “Can I borrow your dress?” Noel asked, interrupting the rest of what he’d been about to say. “I have some scarves that would go nicely with it.”

            “That’s it!” Judge Dyer declared. “He’s guilty! He killed Miranda Hart with his fuckin’ fart and now he’s doing ten to life! Now get out of here all of you’s—I couldn’t give one fuck at this point what any of you have to say! This case is a fuckin’ disgrace.”

            He left in a huff, and throwing off his robe on his way out to reveal jeggings and a leather jacket underneath. Russell Howard hurriedly picked up the robe and followed after him.

            “Case dismissed—no one talks shit about jeggings to the Judge of the Queen Vic,” he said, then pointed at a shocked and still handcuffed David Walliams. “I’ll be sending in people to collect you.”

            Russell flexed at Richard once before leaving as well.

            “Bob, what’s just ’appened?” Russell Brand asked, climbing up onto the judge’s box.

            “I think we won,” Noel replied. “Walliams is doing ten to life or som’ing.”

            “Justice! I knew we could single-handedly put this bastard in prison!”

            With that, Jonathan Ross had to leave, for fear of putting a gun to his own head before the day was over. Such is the life of a police chief.

            “All in one day, we capture a murderer and then hold a trial that finds him guilty,” Russell continued. “The Goth Detectives have prevented the inevitable destruction of the city!”

            “He was arrested days ago,” Richard pointed out.

            “Really?” Noel asked. “If feels as though it’s just been a few minutes ago. I was wondering why the trial started in the middle of the night.”

            “It was actually only midday for the rest of us,” Richard explained.

            “Ah.”

            Police officers arrived to take David Walliams to prison, and the crowd steadily filed out of the room now that the action was over.

            Russell Brand eventually found his way into the judge’s chair and began examining everything with his magnifying glass.

            “Look, Bob, I’ve found a rag under here that smells of goose,” he said. “Do you think it could be a clue?”

            “We haven’t even got a case,” Noel said. “And I’m not even wearing my Bob cape right now.”

            “But your soul is always wearing it—”

            “My what?”

            “—because we have a reputation to live up to now. We have to be the criminals the city needs us to be—like in that movie, what’s it?—resting by day, awake by night. Like . . . bats or some’fing. Yes, we are . . . the Gothmen.”

            He held up his hands like a mime trapped in a box with no one to shag and stared off into a corner of the room. Noel stared there as well, holding up his hands like he was showing off a piece of art, or about to tear up a piece of art before being chased by security guards.

            Richard glanced at the mundane, undeniably empty corner and began packing up his briefcase.

            “It’s been a pleasure as always, gentlemen,” he said, getting to his feet. “Until the next time the city needs us.”

            He walked out of the courtroom, leaving them the only ones there, frozen, staring into an empty corner. And when the door shut behind him, as they had intended the second they arrived, Russell and Noel stole the judge’s gavel.

Chapter 12

            “Hey, whatever ’appened to that gavel we stole?” Russell asked a few days later.

            Noel shrugged. “Lost it on the way home.”

Chapter 13 (the most Goth of chapters)

            The Goth Detectives were sitting in their new headquarters (the study in David Walliams’ old house) when the phone rang.

            And rang. And rang.

            It was a reasonable time of goth day—eleven PM—but answering the phone sounded as though it would be a lot of effort, especially when one couldn’t hear.

            Noel took out his earbuds, which weren’t doing anything to conceal the earachingly loud music he was listening too. “What’s that noise?”

            “The phone,” Russell, who could hear perfectly well and had his feet situated on David Walliams’ desk right next to David Walliams’ phone, replied. He turned the page of the weeks old newspaper he was reading out of sheer boredom as the phone rang again.

            “Oh,” Noel said, putting his earbuds back in. “Probably just David Walliams’ mum or something.”

            Russell dropped his newspaper, sprang forward in David Walliams’ desk chair, and grabbed the phone.

            “Hello? Yes, I’d like one order of your steamiest buns, your kung powiest chicken, with a side of rice, another side of rice, another side of rice, and two of your moodiest dragons,” he said.

            “It’s me.”

            “David Walliams’ mum, has anyone ever told you that you sound like a more feminine version of Police Chief Jonathan Ross?”

            “It is Police Chief Jonathan Ross,” Police Chief Jonathan Ross said exasperatedly.

            “What’re you doing working at a takeaway restaurant?” Russell asked. “Have I called the wrong number?”

            “I called you! I had a feeling this is where you’d be when I showed up at Noel’s house and no one was there—we told you you weren’t allowed to live there!”

            “And since when do I take orders from David Walliams’ mum?! Your womb holds no power over me!”

            Noel took out his earbuds again so he could listen.

            After some unintelligible muttering, Ross said, “God help me, can you put the other one on the phone?”

            Russell held out the receiver to Noel. “The takeaway people want to know your order.”

            Noel came over from the couch and sat on the corner of the desk. “Hello?”

            “It’s Jonathan Ross!” Jonathan Ross shouted.

            “Oh. Hello Jonathan Ross. Anyone ever tell you you have the exact same name and voice as this one police chief? Except your voice is a little more feminine.”

            “It’s Police Chief Jonathan Ross!”

            “Ah. You work at a takeaway restaurant now?”

            Jonathan Ross sighed. There was no use trying to get through to these two, so best he just come right out with the point.

            “David Walliams has escaped from prison,” he said.

            Noel and Russell leaned back and stared at each other for a few seconds before going back to the way they’d been before.

            “But how?” Noel asked.

            “He somehow snuck in his portable ocean and swam right out of his cell. He could be anywhere now.”

            “And when you say, anywhere, where might that be?”

            “Well, there’s the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, his house, the Indian Ocean, the Thames, countless rivers—”

            “Sorry, did you say ‘his house’?” Noel asked, looking at Russell again.

            “I”—there was a thud as the receiver was dropped—“Hello? Are you still there?” Ross asked.

            A long bout of silence made it clear they were not. In the distance he heard doors slamming open and Russell shouting “Grab all the liquor! This is no time to keep our professionalism about us!”

           “Bloody twats,” Ross said before hanging up.

FIN…

(no fish were harmed in the making of this fanfiction)