A Fate Worse Than Death

by Jonathan Gould

  “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.”

  “I’m sure the dawn wasn’t so keen on rising with you either.”

  “Don’t act smart with me. I have the information you were after.”

  “Then don’t keep it to yourself. Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s nice to share?”

  “Keep that up and the only thing I’ll be sharing will be this drink over your head,” said Alby as the barman handed him a glass. He took a sip, screwed up his face, and then began.

  “I’ve spent my morning at the library. The historical records section, to be exact. And I’ve discovered a number of things that are highly interesting.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, did you know that the police force in Heaven is extremely new?”

  “Of course I did. The history of Heaven was my major in high school.”

  “In that case, you must know whose idea it was to set it up.”

  “I must have skipped that class. Can you just cut to the chase? Tell me when the police force was set up, who wanted it set up, and why they wanted it set up.”

  Alby took another sip of soda water, swirled it around in his mouth, and swallowed loudly. “The Heavenly Police Department, or HPD, was set up almost exactly a year ago. Just after I arrived in Heaven, coincidentally enough. Previously, there had been no police force of any kind, and as far as I can tell, absolutely no need for one.”

  “So if there was no need for a police force, why set one up?”

  “The records don’t say. Perhaps you should go and ask Sally.”

  I choked on my drink, and considering I didn’t actually have a drink, that was quite an achievement.

  “Yeah, she makes me feel like that too,” said Alby, “only slightly worse.”

  “I take it that Sally is the one behind these heavenly police,” I said after regaining my composure.

  “Right first time, sleuth boy.”

  “But you don’t know why?”

  “Like I said, it’s not in the records. What I do know is it was not a popular decision. Apparently the only one who supported her was that little goody-goody angel, Raphael. Everyone else was dead against it. Even God’s own son.”

  “Jesus?” I said.

  “No, the other one. Patrick or something, isn’t it?”

  “Phil, I believe.”

  “It doesn’t really matter. Whatever Sally wants, Sally gets. That’s the way it works up here. And now that you have your information, I seem to recall you saying you could make this worth my while. So, what can you do for me?”

  I called out to the barman. “Get this man a soda water.”

  * * *

  I left The Loaf and the Fishes with my mind spinning like a washing machine in overdrive. What I’d just learnt had thrown the case wide open. Sally was furious with Phil because he’d allowed Alby to stay Heaven. Shortly afterwards, the Heavenly Police Department was established at Sally’s instigation. Phil was now missing and Sally was conducting late night meetings with a sinister stranger. There was no other course of action left to me.

  It was time to pay another visit to that mansion on top of the hill.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE HEAT OF THE MIDDAY SUN beat down upon me as I climbed the hill towards Sally’s mansion. I stopped for a moment to wipe my brow and considered myself lucky to be in Heaven. If it was this hot here, I couldn’t imagine what it must be like in . . . that other place.

  As I reached the top of the hill, my mouth made a big O and my eyes danced a two-step. Even though I had been here the previous night, I was totally unprepared for the sight of Sally’s mansion in the full brightness of day. It stood before me, the sunlight gleaming on its various facades, each of which seemed to have been designed by a different architect from a completely different time period. There were gothic facades and baroque facades and art deco facades and post-structuralist, modernist facades. I hadn’t seen this many facades since the last time I’d had gone undercover at a society party.

  The mansion, by virtue of its elevated position, was clearly the highest structure in all of Heaven, towering even over God’s palace. The way the two buildings faced each other across the humble rooftops below, it seemed as if there was some sort of statement being made. A statement to let everybody know there were other powers in Heaven besides God.

  Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Perhaps she just liked the view.

  I approached the gates and was surprised to find they were unlocked. I pushed them aside and walked up the path towards the veranda. As I ascended the stairs, I couldn’t help noting the absence of creaks. Those things only happen at night, of course. I pushed the doorbell, and from deep inside the house I could hear a low chime. After a couple of minutes, the door opened very slightly and Sally’s head poked out. As soon as she saw me, a smile flashed across her face―the sort of smile that flashes across a crocodile’s face when it sees a dog getting close to the water’s edge.

  “Jimmy Clarenden, I’ve been expecting you,” she said. “I think I might have something for you.” She squeezed through the barely open door, quickly closed it behind her, and stood in front of me, still radiating that subtle physical appeal that could overturn a bulldozer. In her hand, she held a piece of bl
ack fabric.

  “I believe you left this here last night,” she said, and then she laughed. “I imagine this is the first time you’ve actually gotten to the bottom of a case.”

  I took the material from her, examined it, and shook my head. “Not my tailor,” I said. “And besides, I’m not in the habit of leaving anonymous gifts in the middle of the night.”

  “Believe me, this is not a gift any lady would ever want to receive.”

  “Then perhaps I should give it to you instead.” I made to hand the fabric back to her. She didn’t take it.

  “Do you really think you can convince me you weren’t creeping around here last night?” she said. The crocodile wasn’t smiling quite so broadly now.

  “So what if I was?”

  “What do you think you’re doing, spying on me?”

  “Hang on a minute,” I said, putting the remains of the trousers into my pocket. “I’m the detective here. I’m supposed to be asking you the questions.”

  Sally laughed again. “You, a detective? I bet there are a lot of people who would dispute that.”

  “Such as?”

  “I can think of two for a start. One, a woman who suspected her husband was cheating on her, to whom you delivered a dog. Two, a man whose dog had gone missing, to whom you handed over some highly embarrassing photographs.”

  This time it was my turn to laugh. “It might have been a mix up, but I still got paid.”

  “Why would anybody pay for such slipshod work?”

  “Because, as it happened, the owner of the dog was the husband of the other woman in the photographs.”

  Sally’s eyes narrowed and her mouth opened, as if she was about to snap back a retort, but no sound came out. Instead, she closed her mouth again and that smile slowly slunk back. “All right, Mr Clarenden, you obviously are a man of amazing deductive power. So tell me, what you would like to investigate?” As she spoke, she leaned back on the door, swept a hand through her hair, and then lifted one leg and placed it across the other very slowly.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” I asked innocently.

  “On such a lovely day? Surely you’d rather stay outside and enjoy this beautiful sunshine. We can go and sit over there.” She pointed to a couple of garden chairs out on the lawn.

  “I tend to burn easily,” I replied, “so I’d rather not spend too much time in the direct sun. But I would very much enjoy the chance to take a look inside your house. They say it is the pride of Heaven, putting even God’s own palace to shame.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s out of the question. The plumbers are here and I’m afraid the place is a bit of a mess.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to postpone the guided tour, but I’ve still got a couple of questions for you. Questions about the police force you were so keen to establish, despite opposition from just about everyone else in Heaven.”

  “What interest could that possibly be to you?”

  “Many things are of interest to me. It’s what makes me such a well-rounded individual. But I’ll tell you something strange about cops―they always have the opposite idea. They seem to figure that the less I know, the better.”

  “Perhaps they understand that there are things you don’t need to know.”

  “Is that the reason you needed police? Because there are things you don’t want anyone else in Heaven to know?”

  “Why don’t you take your little magnifying glass and go home.” Sally was still smiling, but it was now the smile of a condemned building. Any moment now, it might collapse.

  “Because I don’t carry a magnifying glass,” I said. “I rely on nothing but my eyes, my ears, and my nose. I can sniff out the facts if I need to, and what I smell here is rotten to the core.”

  “I would like you to leave right now.” The debris flew as Sally’s smile crashed to the ground.

  “But we were just starting to get to know each other.”

  “Get your filthy, stinking face out of my sight right now or I’ll . . . What are you doing?”

  I was holding my hand up to my ear. “I think it’s the phone.”

  Her face creased up. “I can’t hear anything.”

  “It’s all right, I’ll get it.” I made a lunge for the door handle. She screamed and tried to block me, but she wasn’t fast enough. I brushed her aside, flung open the door, and leapt into the house.

  I ran down a short entrance hall and turned right. My initial course was set towards the room I had observed the previous night, but a faint sound made me change my course. It was footsteps, no doubt about it, heading deep into the interior of the house. I chased them through cavernous rooms and down corridors that never seemed to end. Gradually, the footsteps grew clearer. I was gaining on whomever it might be. Eventually, I rounded a corner, just in time to see a tall male figure in a dark suit disappearing through a door.

  I raced across the room and opened the door, to be greeted by blackness. I took out my lighter and flicked it on. I was in a stairwell. The stairs only went one way, and in this case the only way was definitely not up. Down they spiralled, disappearing into the depths of who-knew-where. The sound of those footsteps echoed up from below, then quickly receded into nothing. I stood, debating with myself over whether or not I should follow them into the darkness. In the end, I didn’t make a decision either way. I didn’t need to.

  A broad, heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I spun around and looked into two pairs of beady eyes. Funny thing about policemen. They say they’re never around when you need them.

  “Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” said Lizard Neck.

  “Must be some sort of little crawling insect,” sneered Frying Pan.

  “Well, I think this little insect has crawled into the spider’s web, and he can’t say we didn’t warn him.” Lizard Neck grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back, where Frying Pan rather clumsily cuffed them. At that moment, Sally came into the room. The smile was back on the crocodile’s face.

  “Well, Mr Clarenden,” she said. “You wanted to find out more about our wonderful police force. Now you’ve got your chance.”

  “A bit well dressed for a plumber, don’t you think?” I said as the two cops dragged me out of the room.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was walking beside me, her hips swinging like a jazz band on a hot summer night.

  “Sure you do. He was tall, dark, and handsome, but I didn’t see a plunger in his hand.”

  The music stopped. She stood, stationary, her eyes blazing.

  “You’re scum, Clarenden,” she hissed. “There’s no room in Heaven for people like you, and I’m going to make damn sure you get sent down to the place where you really belong.”

  I turned to my two captors.

  “Nice girl,” I said. “So, do you come here often?”

  * * *

  The cops walked me out of the house and down the hill to a low building that stood away from the other houses, right where the ground began to rise. On top of this building, a sign declared HPD Headquarters. I didn’t put up any resistance as they pushed me through the door. I was actually quite eager to get inside. I wanted to see exactly what went on at this Heavenly Police Department.

  I’d been in plenty of police stations during my misspent youth and my even more misspent adulthood, so I had a pretty good idea of how they were supposed to look. They were working buildings, full of dirt and sweat and blood. They carried the threat of violence like a butcher carried a cleaver. In short, a police station had as much to do with an interior designer as a water buffalo had to do with a Savile Row tailor.

  As soon as I walked into this police station, though, I could tell it was different. Maybe it was the thick carpet on the floor. Maybe it was the gleaming new furniture. Or perhaps it was the fresh pastel colour scheme on the walls and the ceiling. Whatever it was, it was clear that this was not a functioning police station. The whole place was a complete sham.

  We walked over to an
empty desk. Lizard Neck tried to throw me onto a chair, but as it was padded with a large, soft cushion, the effect was lost. Frying Pan bent down behind me and tried to undo the handcuffs. It took him a while. He obviously hadn’t had much practice.

  While Frying Pan fumbled with his keys, Lizard Neck went and sat behind the desk. He spent a while rummaging through the desk drawers, and eventually he removed a number of sheets of paper. Then he sat back, affecting an expression that he must have thought was tough, but that actually looked more like he’d just ruptured a hernia.

  “All right, name,” he barked.

  “You know my name,” I said.

  “Just give me your name, wise guy.”

  “All right. My name is Robin Hood.”

  Lizard Neck leaned forward and brought his eyes close to mine. “You better tell me your name, Jimmy Clarenden, or I’ll—”

  “Don’t tell me. You’ll huff and you’ll puff and you’ll blow my house down.”

  “Just listen to me, Clarenden,” roared Lizard Neck. “I’ve got jurisdiction.”

  “Yeah, he’s got jurisdiction,” echoed Frying Pan from behind me.

  I laughed. “You’ve got jurisdiction? You two wouldn’t know your jurisdiction if it showed up here with a big, shiny name badge. You wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it if it came with a step-by-step instruction manual.”

  “We don’t have to take that from garbage like you,” growled Lizard Neck.

  “You’ll take that and more,” I snapped. “Just what is it you’re supposed to be doing?”

  “We are the official department in charge of law enforcement in all of Heaven,” huffed Lizard Neck, trying to sit up tall in his chair.

  “Yeah, all of Heaven,” puffed Frying Pan.

  “Must be a pretty dramatic, life-or-death sort of occupation, this law enforcement in Heaven. Must keep you both right on your toes. All that violence out on the mean streets. The shoot-outs. The car chases. You boys are a couple of real heroes.”

  The two cops looked at each other. Conducting interviews had clearly not been part of their officer training. Seeing as how they had no idea what to say next, I decided to help them out by continuing.