A Fate Worse Than Death (6 page)

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.

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.”

“I’ll wait,” I said.

I sat at the bar and waited. And waited and waited and waited. Hours ticked by, yet still there was no sign of the wayward journalist. Even the barman, as he passed me my fifth lemonade, expressed surprise at his tardiness. Finally, when I was about to down my last glass and abandon all hope, Alby strolled in looking extremely pleased with himself.

“Not one for an early start,” I said.

“On the contrary, this morning I was up with the dawn. Can I get you a drink?”

“I’d better not. If I have another lemonade, I think my teeth will sue me.”

“As you wish. My usual please,” he called to the barman, before turning back to me. “As I was saying, this morning I rose with the dawn, repulsive though I find that concept.”