Текст книги "A Fate Worse Than Death"

Автор книги: Jonathan Gould

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Chapter 5

BEFORE I RETURNED TO THE OFFICE, I went into a little sandwich bar to grab some lunch. Then I hit the shops to pick up some of the essentials I was going to need in order to function effectively as a private investigator. This shopping without money was one thing about Heaven I could definitely get used to.

Back in the office, I made some hasty renovations that put my new purchases to good use. Then I paused to consider my progress.

My morning expedition had been surprisingly successful. I’d already found two people with potential grudges against Phil: Raphael, because Phil didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm for a charitable society; and Alby, because Phil had sentenced him to an eternity of peace and contentment. All right, so Raphael seemed about as dangerous as a pygmy Chihuahua in a steel muzzle, but you could never be too sure. Alby, on the other hand, was a completely different kettle of slimy gossip. I decided I would have to talk to Peter to find out more about how this special case slipped into Heaven.

Remembering what Peter’s workload was like, I figured I’d better give him a call first to see if he could fit me into his schedule. I checked the information on his card, picked up the telephone receiver, and dialed the number listed for St Peter Inc.

After a couple of rings I heard a click and then Peter’s voice.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hey, Peter,” I leapt in. “It’s Jimmy Clarenden here and . . . ” I paused. Not only did Peter not seem to be listening to me, but he kept right on talking.

“ . . . You have called St Peter. I’m sorry, but I’m far too busy to pick up the phone at the moment. Please leave a message at the tone. I probably won’t have time to get back to you, but I’ll try my best.”

I should have expected that. I waited for the tone and then I spoke.

“Peter, it’s Jimmy Clarenden. You remember me, the mug with the bullet holes. I know you’re busy, but I was wondering if we could possibly meet up, like we talked about.” Then I left my number and hung up. The chance of a callback seemed pretty slim. If I wanted to find out more, I was going to have to do my own legwork.

I stood and was about to grab my hat and coat when there was a knock on the door. I opened it and a woman stepped in. Suddenly, my dimly-lit office was bathed in a surreal glow. A glow that, of course, emanated directly from my newly-arrived visitor. It was the third angel, Jessie.

She had medium-length, reddish-brown hair that descended in waves over a pale, slightly freckled face. Her eyes were soft brown, but her mouth was pulled into a tight frown. The robe she wore was long, its bottom swishing against her feet. Unlike at least one of her fellow angels, she clearly subscribed to the virtues of modesty, though as far as I could tell from the outline through the robe, she had nothing to be modest about. All in all, she cut a highly appealing figure. Not stop-you-in-your-tracks, knock-you-down-in-the-street, and rip-your-eyes-out-of-their-sockets attractive like Sally, but highly appealing nonetheless.

I showed her to a seat and went back to my desk. As she sat arranging her robe about herself, I quickly adjusted the Venetian blinds I’d just hung over the windows, attempting to restore the office to its previous state of gloom. Presently, she spoke.

“I just wanted to say how sorry I am, Mr Clarenden.” Her voice was soft. I had to strain my ears to catch it.

I said, “I can’t accept your apology.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because, to my knowledge, you haven’t done anything you need to apologise for.”

She looked down for a moment.

“Or are you apologising in advance, for something you’re about to do?” I continued.

She looked up again. Then she smiled. Just a small smile, for a fraction of a second, but it made a difference.

“I’m not apologising for anything I did,” she said. “I’m apologising for the way Sally treated you yesterday. It wasn’t right or fair.”

“You don’t have to worry about that—it was all my fault. I didn’t realise I’m supposed to be nice to her.”

“You’re a kidder,” she said. “But you don’t understand what you’re saying. You don’t really know Sally.”

“Are you going to tell me more about her?”

“I’m going to tell you to be very careful of her.”

“I’ve already learnt to be careful of her. She could skin a man alive with that tongue of hers, and as for those legs—”

“You think it’s a joke.” Jessie was staring at me with her head held high, but underneath the bravado, I could see how tightly her hands were clenched, and the slight tremble in her shoulders. There was no doubt this was an angel who was terrified of something. Or of someone.

“I don’t think anything is a joke,” I said. “When anyone warns me about someone, I listen. But I also wonder about the real purpose of the warning. Is there any reason I should be as frightened of her as you seem to be?”

Jessie looked away. Her eyes scanned the room, eventually alighting on the large picture frame I’d placed in the middle of the desk, from which the face of a young woman gazed out wistfully.

“Who is she?” she asked.

The change of subject took me by surprise. “She was my wife.”

“She’s very pretty. She must be missing you.”

“I doubt that very much. She left me for a smooth-talking shoe salesman many years ago.”

“A shoe salesman?”

“That’s right. She said she could never love a man with fallen arches.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open up old wounds.”

“There are no wounds to open. A man in my business has to take the bad with the bad. But you didn’t come here to chat about my personal tragedies. And I don’t think you came here just to warn me about Sally. So what’s the real story? What do you want from me?”

She tore her eyes from the photo. “I don’t really know how to say this.”

“Words usually work for me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Fending off that question from pretty much everyone I meet.”

“And how long do you plan to keep fending it off?”

“Until you people stop asking and finally leave me in peace.”

“Do you take us for fools, Mr Clarenden?”

“Call me Jimmy, and I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“You really think you can tell us that you’ve just died and gone to Heaven. Come off it, Jimmy. Anyone who looks at you can see you’re not Heaven material. You’re here for some other reason.”

I shrugged. “So maybe I am.”

Her eyes widened. “So you admit you are?”

“I admit nothing. I’d just like to know why it’s such a concern of yours.”

“It’s no concern. I just thought I might be able to help you, that’s all.”

I laughed. “You really want to help me? You’re a saint.”

“Actually, I’m an angel.”

“Okay, Angel, if you really want to help me . . . ” She angled her head towards me. “ . . . Tell me where in this God-forsaken place I can have some fun.”

Back went the head. “What do you mean, fun?”

“You see, that’s the problem. Nobody here seems to have any conception of how to have fun.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know what I’m saying all right. Heaven is a morgue. I could have more fun in an old person’s home. I haven’t even been here a day and I’m already sick of it.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Jessie was on her feet, crying out with surprising violence. Her eyes were filled with tears and her lower lip was quivering.

“Angel, take it easy.”

“You’ve barely been in Heaven a day and you think you know what it’s all about. Well you’re wrong. Heaven is a place where people are happy. It’s a beautiful place, a blessed place. If you can’t see that, then you definitely shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m sure you know far more about these things than I do.”

“Don’t play with me.”

“I’m not playing. This whole business is deadly serious, as far as I’m concerned.”

She looked at me. I looked at her. Nothing moved in my tiny office, save for the slow rotation of the ceiling fan I’d recently installed. Finally, she sat down.

“I’m sorry if that seemed a bit overdramatic,” she said as she went through the whole robe arranging thing again. “It’s just that I care a lot about this place. Maybe in time you will too. Anyway, as I said before, if there’s anything I can do to assist . . . ” As she finished with the robe, she leant forward, listening intently. Too intently.

I said, “You want to help me and I’m a three-legged ostrich.”

She rocked back. “Excuse me—”

“No, you excuse me. I think I’ve figured out what’s going on here. You want something from me, but it’s not something you can just come out and ask for. So instead, you come here with these apologies and warnings and offers to help, hoping that what you want will slip out of my mouth without me knowing it. You’re waiting for me to give you a sign. What sort of sign, Angel? What do you need me to tell you?”

“I think I’d better go.” She stood up again and began walking towards the door. I called after her.

“Is it something to do with Sally? Can you at least tell me that much?”

She stopped and turned back to me.

“Remember, my offer to help still stands. Anything you want, just ask.”

There was something she could do for me all right. “Angel, if you can scare me up a bottle of whisky, I’ll be your friend for life.”

But she’d already walked out of the office, leaving the door open behind her. I peeked through the Venetians and watched her exit the building and disappear down the street.

I went to close the door, but at that minute the phone rang. I dashed back to the desk and picked up the phone. It was Peter.

“Jimmy, how are you?”

“Just blowing in the wind. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Still busy?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Big earthquake in Mexico. I’ve barely had time to breathe. But I can always squeeze in a minute for a detective like you. How can I help?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Sounds exciting. Are you on a case?”

“I can’t say. Can I meet you this afternoon?”

“Just a moment, I’ll check my schedule.” For a couple of minutes, I heard nothing but frantic paper rustling. Then Peter’s voice came back on the line.

“I’m sorry, this afternoon isn’t good. Gas explosion in the Philippines and mudslides in Bangladesh. It looks like we’re going to be snowed under for the rest of the day.”

“That’s too bad. What about tomorrow?”

The paper rustled again. “I might be able to squeeze you in at half-past seven tomorrow morning. How does that sound?”

“Like a woodpecker drilling for oil in my head. But I’ll be there. See you at the Gates tomorrow.”

“At the Gates,” agreed Peter. “It will be a pleasure.”

I hung up and sat down again. A meeting at half-past seven? So much for carousing until the break of dawn. The sacrifices I made for this lousy job.

* * *

I did go out that evening. As the sun slowly set and Heaven’s skies acquired a soft pink hue, I sat and ate dinner in a small cafe. The food tasted fine. Not special but fine, like the food you could get in a multitude of cafes back in the land of the living. Mind you, even if it had matched the food from a restaurant with five chef’s hats and three gold stars, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it much. My encounter with Jessie had left me deeply troubled.

What in the world, or outside the world perhaps, could upset an angel? Angels weren’t supposed to have worries. Angels were meant to sit around on clouds, playing their harps and smiling beatifically. But, beneath the demureness and the offers for help, I could see the fear in Jessie’s eyes. What was the source of her discomfort? What did Sally have over her? And how did any of this connect with Phil’s disappearance? All of those questions consumed me as I tried to consume my dinner.

After a while, unable to arrive at anything resembling a satisfactory answer, I gave up on eating and left the cafe. Rather than go home, I decided to take another walk and experience the world of Heaven after dark. Perhaps things really did pick up once the lights went down. Maybe Alby Stark’s complaints were just the jaundiced ravings of a cynical old hack.

It didn’t take long for this cynical old hack to realise Alby was right on the money. Heaven after dark was jumping as high as an elephant seal on prescription downers. I walked down streets and lanes, and looked over fences and through windows, but I didn’t see or hear any signs of anything that might vaguely resemble nightlife. The streets were abandoned and the entire population of Heaven seemed to be having a quiet night in. Nothing was open. No bars, no clubs, not even any bingo halls. Silence reigned in the streets.

I’d been out for about an hour and was about to call it a night myself, when something caught my attention. The street I was walking along began to climb a small hill, and at the top of the hill, a light shone brighter than any of the modest lamps in the other houses. I walked up the hill, increasing my pace as I became aware of a massive structure looming above. When I reached the top, I stopped to catch my breath, looked up, and could barely believe my eyes.

The place was huge. It was hard to fully discern in the darkness, but it looked like a mansion built above a mansion and then topped off with a mansion. Apart from God’s palace, all the other houses I’d seen in Heaven had been small, modest affairs. This one clearly had to belong to someone important―perhaps someone who had been a great leader, or whose life had been spent performing wondrous deeds.

The road towards the house was blocked by a large and extremely locked iron gate. Fortunately, the wall beside the gate didn’t pose too much of a challenge, and I was able to climb over it fairly easily. I found myself on a broad lawn. Up ahead, along the front of the house, a patio stretched. From a window above the patio, to the right of the front door, streamed the light I had seen from the bottom of the hill.

I walked softly across the lawn towards the house. As I approached, I began to hear voices coming from the lighted window. The steps of the patio creaked under my feet as I climbed them, but the voices didn’t stop. Nobody heard me as I crept along the patio, crouched underneath the window, and listened.

It didn’t take me more than a second to place the first voice. It was someone whose major claim to greatness was the pair of legs she displayed beneath those shorter-than-short robes.

“ . . . I assure you, we have nothing to be afraid of,” said sweet, angelic Sally.

“You’re sure nobody knows about this?” I didn’t recognise the other voice. It was a man’s, very deep and somehow disturbing. Its tone jarred in my ears, like a record being played at slightly the wrong speed.

“Nobody suspects a thing,” said Sally.

“What about this detective? You don’t think—”

He was interrupted by laughter from Sally. “Jimmy Clarenden? You’ve got to be joking. The man couldn’t solve a jigsaw puzzle if it only had one piece. I promise you, we have no reason to fear him.”

I raised my head slightly and tried to peer through the window. The room looked like some sort of lounge, with a plush couch and a fireplace against the opposite wall. Sally sat on the couch, her long legs spread provocatively over its violet cushions.

“I hope you are right,” said the other voice. I couldn’t make out its owner. He stood on the far side of the room, his features obscured in the shadows.

“Don’t worry about Clarenden,” said Sally. “I know how to deal with his type. I’ll just . . . ” She paused and then turned towards the window.

I ducked down just in time. While she had been speaking, I’d adjusted my position in an attempt to get a better look at the shadowy stranger, which had caused the patio to creak again, considerably more loudly. Though I could no longer see through the window, I could hear footsteps approaching. It was time for bed.

I leapt over the side of the patio, feeling a sudden tear as my pants caught on something. There was a strange sensation of coldness on my nether regions as I scurried away―not that I bothered to look back. I didn’t stop running until I was over the wall, down the hill, and back in the tranquil streets below.

All was silent as I made my way back towards the office. By this time, there was not a light visible in any of the houses I passed. Heaven slept, blissfully unaware of the plots being hatched behind the walls of the mansion on the hill. Nothing breathed. Nothing moved. And then I heard it.

It was a low rustling, coming from just beside my feet. I looked down and saw something small sliding along the ground, propelled forward by the light breeze. I picked it up and examined it. Nothing but an empty potato chip packet. I prepared to toss it back to the ground, but something made me pause. This was only the second piece of garbage I’d seen in Heaven all day.

I took a closer look. It was utterly innocuous. From the big, bright writing to the cartoon character beaming at me from the front of the packet, there was nothing in the least suspicious about it. And yet, as I stared, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something deeply disquieting about it.

Chapter 6

AT SEVEN O’CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING, I dragged myself out of bed. As usual, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and my heart felt as light as a fully-laden semi-trailer. Somehow, I managed to dress myself, finding to my relief that during the night my wardrobe had been stocked with multiple pairs of fresh, clean, and amply-bottomed trousers. Then I trudged out into the streets of Heaven and made my way to the Pearly Gates.

When I arrived at the Gates, I walked over to the door through which I had first passed into Heaven. It was firmly shut, but beside it there was a buzzer and a small note. The note said, Please ring the buzzer for service. Be prepared for a very long wait.

I rang the buzzer. I prepared myself for a very long wait. In less than a minute, the door opened and I found myself greeted by Peter’s lined but cheerful face.

“Mr Clarenden, welcome again to the Pearly Gates,” he said as he ushered me in.

I followed Peter down a short corridor, up a flight of steps, and into a very small room.

“My humble office,” Peter said.

The room looked less like an office and more like the place where all the world’s paper went to die. There was paper everywhere: stacked up in unsteady-looking piles on the one small desk in the middle of the room; laid out over the ground like an unkempt arrangement of floor tiles; overflowing out from the drawers of the filing cabinet standing in the corner.

Apart from this extensive paper collection, the only other objects of note were a batch of books arranged on top of the cabinet. I took a closer look. Every single one of them was a detective novel.

“A small selection, I know,” said Peter, observing my glance. “As I said before, I have very little time to read. Would you like some chewing gum?” He proffered a stick.

I shook my head. “Not before breakfast.”

“This is breakfast for me.” He popped the stick into his mouth. “Keeps the old nerves in check on stressful days. And believe me, every day here is a stressful day. But I’m sure that’s not what you came here to hear. Please, take a seat.”

I shifted some paper off a chair and sat down. As he went to extricate another chair from behind the mounds of paper on the far side of the room, I quickly scanned the contents of the desk. Most of it seemed to be official paperwork of some sort or another, but one pile caught my eye. I picked up the top sheet and read it aloud.

“The Case of the Screaming Angel. A novel by St Peter.”

Peter snatched the sheet away from me. “Don’t look at that old thing.”

“You never told me you were an author.”

“I’d hardly call myself an author.” Peter picked up the rest of the pile and placed it on the floor behind him. “You wouldn’t want to look at it. You’d probably just laugh. Anyway, it’s not even half finished. Writing is a luxury I can barely afford. You can see how much paperwork I’ve got to get through. In fact, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to give you my undivided attention, but don’t let that stop you.” He placed a pair of reading glasses over his eyes, grabbed a pile of papers from the desk, and began to leaf through them. “So tell me, are you really working on a case? I’d love to hear about it.”

“All in good time,” I said. “I was just wondering if you could tell me about what this paperwork involves.”

Peter looked at me over a handful of paper. “You really don’t want to know about this.”

“Try me. They say curiosity killed the cat, but I guess I don’t need to worry about that anymore.”

Peter chuckled. “No, I guess you don’t. If you must know, most of this is biographical details. You see, as soon as someone dies, a decision has to be made about whether they come up here, or whether they go . . . down below, to the other place. In order to make that decision, we need to have as much information as possible about that person’s life. All the good things and bad things they’ve done. How they’ve treated other people. Basically everything about them.”

“And that’s your job?” Suddenly I didn’t feel like I’d ever had it so tough.

“What is this supposed to be?” Peter exclaimed, glaring at the sheet in front of his face. Then he looked up at me again. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if all that biographical detailing and decision-making was your job.”

“Not exactly.” Peter picked up a pen and began scribbling furiously on the paper.

“Not exactly?”

“I don’t actually find any of the biographical details myself. We have a team of researchers that does that. I also don’t decide who is to go up and who is to go down. We have a committee that is responsible for all those decisions. Mine is purely a managerial role. I have to make sure everything everyone else does runs smoothly, and that the appropriate procedures are being adhered to, and that every last form is correctly filled. And, as you can see, there are an awful lot of forms that need to be filled.” As Peter spoke, he alternated between scrawling over the paper and waving the pen in descriptive circles through the air.

“Can I detect from your tone that you are not enamoured of these appropriate procedures?”

Peter sighed and put down the pen. “Look, there’s no way we could manage without the procedures. It’s just that, well, this job isn’t what it used to be.”

“What did it used to be? Welcome to Heaven parties every day? People bringing you flowers and chocolate when they arrived at the Gates?”

“Maybe not quite,” Peter said with a dry laugh, “but it used to be a whole lot easier. There was a time when I used to manage all of this on my own. Back then, I could make decisions myself, and there was no need for any paperwork. I made a point of greeting every person individually as they arrived at the Gates. Never had any trouble remembering anybody’s name. And in the evening there was always the chance to curl up in front of the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn.”

“Sounds like a good life. Why ruin it with procedures?”

Peter picked up the pen again. “Population explosion. The more people there are being born, the more people there are dying. Eventually, there were far too many people arriving at the Gates for me to deal with each one personally. If you think the queue is bad now, you should have seen it twenty years ago. It was taking almost six months for anyone to get through.”

“A fellow could die and go to Heaven in the time it took him to die and go to Heaven,” I said, rather cleverly I thought.

Peter wasn’t paying the slightest attention. “What have you done now, you idiot?” he cried, his eyes red with exasperation. “I’ve told you a hundred times, surname first, then given names.” He ripped up a couple of sheets of paper and tossed them onto the floor before looking back at me. “I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”

“Procedures.”

“Of course, the procedures. Eventually, we reached a point where the people in the queue got so impatient they rioted outside the Gates. Some of them actually tried to enter Heaven by force. It got so violent, half the people involved ended up being sent down below. Can you imagine that? Sent down for misdeeds you committed after your death.”

“That’s why I made sure to get all my misdeeds out of the way before I died,” I said. “So what happened after that?”

“I can’t follow any of this. He’s going to have to start again from scratch.” Peter cleared a place on the left side of the desk and dumped the pile of papers down. Then he picked up another pile from the middle of the desk and began thumbing through that. In the midst of all this activity, he did his best to answer the question.

“Obviously something had to be done. There was a crisis meeting of the Heavenly Council. We had to figure out how to speed up the passage of people through the Gates. We had to streamline our operation, to make it . . . what was that expression . . . best practice. It took over a week to sort things out, but in the end the solution we came up with was these procedures.”

“So that’s how you ended up becoming a celestial paper pusher.”

“I suppose I am,” said Peter as he pushed more paper. “To be honest, I never particularly liked the procedures, right from the beginning. I don’t get anywhere near the job satisfaction that I used to. I miss the personal aspects, the chance to meet and talk to the people as they come through. These days, all I seem to be doing is filling in charts and spreadsheets, and making sure quotas are met. Or, more likely, fixing other people’s mistakes. I mean, just look at this.” Peter waved a sheet in front of my face. “They’ve completely messed up the date of birth section. Apparently this person, who has just died, isn’t due to be born for another thirteen years.”

I looked over the sheet. “That’s nothing. According to this, he had no children, but somehow he was blessed with seventeen grandchildren.”

Peter looked at the sheet again. “Yes, but one of those grandchildren is his father, and another three are his great aunts.”

“Now it’s starting to make sense.”

Peter shook his head. “It might sound funny to you, but to me it’s no laughing matter. Do you know there’s already been one serious mistake? We’ve actually allowed someone totally undeserving to pass through the Gates and into Heaven. A nasty little journalist called Alby Stark.”

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr Stark.”

“So you know the story. Believe me, it never would have happened in the old days. You wouldn’t believe the kerfuffle it caused.”

“But thanks to God’s son Phil, Mr Stark got to stay in Heaven. How did you feel about that?”

“Relief, mostly. The whole episode was highly embarrassing to me. Otherwise, I can’t say I felt too strongly. Not like that angel, Sally.”

“Sally didn’t like the decision?” Now this was starting to get interesting.

“Not at all. It seems she has some pretty strong ideas about the sorts of people who should be allowed into Heaven.”

“She has a particular problem with scruffy private investigators.”

“So she’s been at you too,” said Peter. “She’s trouble, that one. I don’t understand why God puts up with her. I guess only He is capable of seeing her inner beauty.”

“I suspect the outer beauty has a bit to do with it.”

Peter put a finger up to his lips. “Such talk is not worthy of us. All I will say is she gave me quite an earful over it. But I got off lightly compared to Phil. You should have seen her ranting and raving at him. To this day, I don’t think she’s forgiven him. Not that any of it seemed to bother him. Have you had the chance to meet Phil? You seem to have met just about everybody else.”

“I haven’t actually met him yet, but I’ve heard so much about him that I feel like I know him.”

“He’s a smart kid. Most of the procedures we decided upon at the crisis meeting were his idea. He’s got a great head for that sort of thing.”

“So Phil is the one you have to thank for making your job so much less rewarding?” As I asked the question, I watched Peter’s face carefully to see what he might give away.

Peter wasn’t rising to any bait. He frowned and put the papers down. Then he answered, speaking slowly and carefully.

“I don’t blame Phil for any of this, if that’s what you’re suggesting. No one more than me recognises the need for these procedures. I’m not denying that I preferred it the old way, but I also know you have to move with the times. Things are always changing and you have to be able to deal with them. If it wasn’t for Phil, I don’t know how we would have coped.”

“So you’re not upset with Phil?”

“Of course I’m not upset with him. He’s a great kid. I wish I could have more chances to catch up with him. Apparently he’s even more snowed under than I am.”

At that moment, the phone rang. Peter picked it up, and as he listened his face dropped like an elephant on a paper glider. He put the phone down and looked at me.

“Bad news. A plane’s just crashed with a couple of American rock stars on board.”

“Difficult customers?”

“The worst. It’s going to need my personal attention. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I stood up. “That’s okay. I don’t want to get in the way of your work.”

Peter and I shook hands. “I feel so bad,” he said. “I spent the whole time talking about myself. You didn’t get a chance to tell me anything.”

“There’ll be other times,” I said.

“I hope so.”

Peter led me back down the stairs and out of the Gates. “I’ve enjoyed talking to you,” he said. “You really are a breath of fresh air to me.”

“It’s nice to hear it,” I said. “Most people just say that I stink.”

As I walked away from the Gates, Peter called after me. “If you are on a case, I’d be happy to help. Just call on me if you need anything. I’d love to work with a real detective.”

* * *

Back in the streets of Heaven, I made my way to The Loaf and the Fishes. I went in and sat at the bar. Alby wasn’t there.

“Is there anything I can get you?” asked the barman, in a voice that was clearly hoping the answer would be no.

“I’m looking for Alby Stark. Do you know where he might be?”

The mention of Alby’s name caused an invisible hand to grab the barman’s face and squeeze it, ever so gently. “I doubt that you’ll find Mr Stark up and about at such an unearthly hour. But I’m sure that if you wait, he will eventually drag himself from his bed and stagger in here.”