Howard was not alone. There was a line stretching back as far as he could see . . . stretching so far that even the people in the middle were no bigger than pin-pricks. Looking at the ones who were closer to him, he saw that there were men and women from just about every country in the world and dressed in an extraordinary variety of clothes, from three-piece suits to saris, kimonos, and even Eskimo furs. A great many of them were old but there were also teenagers and even young children among them. They were waiting quietly, as if they had always expected to end up here and were cheerfully resigned now that they’d arrived.
But arrived where?
The answer, of course, was obvious. Howard had been to church only once in his life and that was to steal the silver candlesticks on the altar, but even he got the general idea. The line, the clouds, the harps, the pearly gates . . . it took him right back to Cross Street Comprehensive and religious education classes with Doris Witherspoon. So the old bat had been right after all! There was such a thing as heaven. The thought almost made him giggle. “Our Father who art in heaven . . .” How did the rest of the prayer go? He’d forgotten. But the point was, he’d always assumed that heaven and hell were just places they made up to scare you into being good. It was remarkable to discover that it was actually true.
He stood up, his feet sinking gently into the cloud, which shifted to take his weight. Howard was not particularly bright. He’d only been to school half a dozen times that year and had fully intended to stop altogether as soon as he turned sixteen, but now his brain began to grind into motion. He was in a line of people outside the gates of heaven. All the people were presumably dead. So it had to follow that he must be dead too. But how had it happened? He couldn’t remember being murdered or anything like that. Had he been ill? It was true he’d smoked at least ten cigarettes a day for as long as he could remember, and his mother was always warning him he’d get cancer—but surely he’d have noticed if it had actually happened.
He thought back. That morning he’d woken up in his house in the development where he lived just outside Watford. He’d eaten his breakfast, kicked the dog, sworn at his mother, and gone to school. Of course he hadn’t actually arrived at the school. He’d missed so many days that the social workers had been around looking for him, but as usual he’d given them the slip. He’d gone into town. That’s right. Cheated on the subway, buying a child’s fare, then gone to the West End. He’d eaten a second breakfast in a greasy spoon, then gone to a little pool hall behind Goodge Street . . . the sort of place that didn’t ask too many questions when he went in, and certainly not about his age. He’d thought of going to the new James Bond film but he had an hour to kill before it started, so he’d decided to do a little shoplifting instead. There were plenty of big stores on Oxford Street. The bigger the store, the easier the snatch. He’d slipped a couple of CDs under his jacket and was just picking out some more when he’d noticed the store detective closing in on him. So he’d run. And . . .
What had happened? Now that he thought about it, he had seen a blur of red out of the corner of his eye. There’d been a rush of wind and something had nudged his shoulder, very gently. And that was it. That was the last thing he remembered.
However he looked at it, there could only be one answer. He had been killed! No doubt about it! And . . .
The next thoughts came very quickly, all in a jumble.
Heaven exists. So hell exists. You don’t want to go to hell. You want to go to heaven. But there’s no way you’re going to heaven, mate. Not with your record. Not unless you manage something pretty spectacular. You’re going to have to pull the wool over their eyes good and proper and the sooner you get started . . .
Howard pushed his way into the line, stepping between a small Chinese man with the ivory hilt of a knife protruding from his chest, and an old woman who was still wearing her hospital identity bracelet.
“What are you doing?” the woman demanded.
“Get lost, Grandma,” Howard replied. Even though all the cigarettes had stunted his growth, Howard was still thickset and muscular. He had a pale face, greasy hair and dark, ugly eyes, which—along with his black leather jacket and the silver studs in his ears, left cheek, nose, and lip—made him look dangerous. He wasn’t the sort of person you argued with, even if you could see that he was no longer alive. True to form, the old lady fell silent.
The line shuffled forward. Now Howard could make out a figure sitting on a sort of high stool beside the gates. It was an ancient man with long white hair and a tumbling beard. Dress him in red, Howard thought, and you’d have a heavenly version of Santa Claus. But in fact his robes were white. He was holding a large book, a sort of ledger, and there was a bunch of keys tied around his waist. The man turned briefly and Howard was astonished to see two huge wings sprouting out of his back, the brilliant white feathers tapering down behind him. There were two younger men with him and Howard realized with a shiver that he knew who—or at least what—they were. The keepers of the keys. The guardians at the gates of heaven. He threw his mind back, trying desperately to remember what Miss Witherspoon had said. What was the man with the keys called? Bob? Patrick? Percy? No—it was Peter! Saint Peter! That was it! That was the guy he had to persuade to let him in.
It took another hour but at last he reached the gates. By now, Howard had composed himself. He could see heaven in front of him. But he could imagine hell. He knew which he preferred.
“Name?” Saint Peter (it had to be him) asked.
“Howard,” Howard replied. “Howard Blake, sir.” He was pleased with the sir. He had to show respect. Butter the old fool up.
“How old are you, Howard?”
“I’m fifteen, sir.” Howard tried to sound very young and innocent. He wished now that he had thought to remove all the silver pins from his face.
One of the younger angels leaned forward and whispered to Saint Peter. The old angel nodded. “You were killed on Oxford Street, this afternoon,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I can’t imagine what my old mom will say. It’ll break her heart, I’m sure . . .”
“Why weren’t you in school?”
Howard swallowed. If he told them he was playing hooky, he’d be done for. He had to think of something. “Well, sir . . .” he gurgled. “It was my mom’s birthday. So I asked the teacher if I could take the afternoon to cop something for her . . . I mean, buy something for her. I wanted to buy her something nice. So I popped into town.”
“Were you always kind to your mother, child?”
Howard remembered all the names he had called her that morning. He thought of the money he had stolen from her handbag. Sometimes he’d stolen the entire handbag too.“I tried to be a good boy,” he said.
“And did you work hard at school?”
“Oh yes. School is very important. Religious education was always my favorite class. And I worked as hard as I could, sir.”
“You look like a strong boy. I hope you never bullied anyone.”
Images flashed in front of Howard’s eyes. Glen Roven with a black eye. Robin Addison, crying, with a bleeding nose. Blake Ewing with a twisted arm, shouting while Howard stole his lunch money. “Oh, never, sir,” he replied. “I hate bullies.”
“Hatred is a sin, child.”
“Is it? Well, I quite like bullies, really. I just don’t like what they do!”
Howard was sweating, but the angel seemed content. He made a few notes in his book. He was using a feather pen, Howard noticed. He wondered if the angel had made it out of his own wing.
Saint Peter peered at him closely and for a moment Howard was forced to look away. The angel’s eyes seemed to look right into him and even through him. He wondered how many thousands—how many millions of people those eyes had examined.
“Do you repent of your sins?” Saint Peter asked.
“Sins? I never sinned!” Howard felt his hand curling into a fist and quickly unclenched it. He somehow didn’t think it would be a good idea to punch Saint Peter
in the nose. “Well, maybe I forgot to feed the dog once or twice,” he said. “And I didn’t do my math homework one evening last June. I repent about that. But that’s it, sir. There ain’t nothing more.”
There was a soft clunk and Howard noticed that one of the CDs he had been stealing had fallen out of his leather jacket. He glanced at it, blushing. “Hey! Look at that!” he said. “I wonder how that got there?” He picked it up and handed it to Saint Peter. “Would you like it, sir? It’s Heavy Vomit. They’re my favorite group.”
Saint Peter took the CD, glanced at it briefly, then handed it to one of his aides. He smiled. “All right, my child,” he said. “You may go through the gates.”
“I may?” Howard was amazed.
“Enter!”
“Thanks a bunch, sir. God bless you and all the rest of it!”
He had done it! He could hardly believe it. He had smiled and simpered and called Saint Peter “sir” and the old geezer had actually bought it. And his reward was going to be heaven! Howard straightened his shoulders. Ahead of him, the gates opened. There was a swirl of music as a thousand harps came together in a billowing, flowing crescendo. The music seemed to scoop him up in its arms and carry him forward. At the same time he heard singing, like a heavenly choir. No! It was a heavenly choir, ten thousand voices, invisible and eternal, singing out in celestial stereo. The light danced in his eyes, washing through him. He walked on, noticing that his black leather jacket and jeans had fallen away to be replaced by his very own white robe and sandals. He passed through the gates and saw them swing gently shut behind him. There was a click and then it was over. The gates had closed. He was in!
The next few days passed very happily for Howard.
He floated along through a landscape of perfect white clouds where the sun never set, where it never rained, and where it was never too hot or too cold. Harp music and the soft chanting of hallelujahs filled the great silence. There wasn’t any food or water but that didn’t matter because he was never hungry or thirsty. It occurred to him that although there must have been millions and millions of people in heaven, the place was so vast that he didn’t see many of them. He did pass a few people who waved at him and smiled pleasantly, but he ignored them. He was glad to be there with the other angels but that didn’t mean he actually had to talk to them.
It was heaven. Sheer heaven.
The days became weeks and the weeks months. The harps continued to play soft, tinkling music that followed Howard everywhere. The truth was, he was getting a little bit fed up with the harps. Didn’t they have drums or electric guitars in heaven? He was also a little sorry that heaven didn’t have more color. White clouds and blue sky were all very well but after a while it was just a bit . . . repetitive.
He set out now to meet other people, deciding that, after all, he would probably enjoy the place more if he wasn’t on his own. Certainly the angels were very friendly. Everybody smiled at him. They always seemed happy to see him. But at the same time they didn’t have a whole lot to say beyond “Good morning!” and “How are you?” and (at least a hundred times a day) “God bless you!”
Despite the fact that everything was unquestionably perfect, Howard was getting bored and after he had been there for . . . well, it could have been a year or it could have been ten—it was hard to tell when nothing at all was really happening—he decided that he would purposefully pick a fight, just to see what happened.
He waited until he had found an angel smaller than himself (old habits die hard) and stumped over to him.
“You’re very ugly!” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry?” The angel had been sitting on a cloud doing nothing in particular. But then, of course, there was nothing particular to do.
“Your face makes me sick,” Howard said.
“I do apologize,” the angel replied. “I’ll leave at once.”
“Are you chicken?” Howard cried.
“Am I a chicken?”
“You’re scared!”
“Yes. You’re absolutely right.”
The angel tried to leave and that was when Howard hit him, once, hard. The angel jerked back, surprised. Howard’s fist had caught him square on the chin but there was no blood, no bruising. There wasn’t even any pain. It took the angel a moment or two to realize what had happened. Then he gazed sadly at Howard. “I forgive you,” he said.
“I don’t want to be forgiven!” Howard exclaimed. “I want to have a fight.”
“God bless you!” the angel said, and drifted away.
Another thousand years passed.
The harps were still playing. The clouds were still a perfect, whiter-than-white white. The sky was still blue. The weather hadn’t changed, not even a little drizzle for just a minute or two. The choirs sang and the angels wandered along, smiling dreamily and blessing one another.
Howard was tearing his hair out. He had torn it out several times, in fact, but it always grew again. He kicked at a cloud and bit his lip as his foot passed right through it. He hadn’t been ill, not once in all the time he had been here. He would have quite liked it really. A cough or a cold. Even a bout of malaria. Anything for a change. Nor had he found anyone to talk to. The other angels were all so . . . boring! Recently—about a hundred and twenty years ago—he had started talking to himself but he had already discovered that he also bored himself—and anyway he hated the sound of his own voice. He had been in a few more fights but they had all ended as disappointingly as the first and he had finally decided there was no point.
And then, quite by chance one day (he had no idea which day, and as there was no night he wasn’t even sure if it was a day) he realized that he had somehow made his way back to where it had all begun. There were the pearly gates, and standing with his two helpers, there was Saint Peter, still dealing with the line that stretched to the horizon and beyond. With the first spurt of hope and excitement he had felt in centuries, Howard hurried forward, the sandals flapping on his feet, his white robes billowing around him.
“Excuse me!” he cried, interrupting Saint Peter as he talked to a man with a kilt but no legs. “Excuse me, sir!”
“Yes?” Saint Peter turned to him and smiled through the bars of the gate.
“You probably don’t remember me. But my name is Howard . . . Howard, um . . .” Howard realized that he had forgotten his own surname. “I came here quite a long time ago.”
“I remember perfectly well,” Saint Peter said.
“Well. I have to tell you something!” Suddenly Howard was angry. He’d had enough. More than enough. “Everything I said when I came here was a lie. I didn’t go to school and when I did go to school I bullied everyone, including the teachers. I kicked the cat—or maybe it was a dog. I hated my mom and she hated me. I lied and I cheated and I stole and I know I said I was sorry for what I’d done but I was lying then too because I’m not. I’m glad I did it. I enjoyed doing it.”
“What are you trying to say?” Saint Peter asked.
“What I’m saying, you horrible old man, is that I don’t like it here!” Howard was almost shouting now. “In fact I hate it here and I’ve decided I don’t want to stay!”
“I’m afraid you have no choice,” Saint Peter replied. “That decision is no longer yours.”
“But you don’t understand, you bearded twit!” Howard took a deep breath. “I’m all wrong for heaven. I shouldn’t be in heaven. You should never have let me in.”
The angel didn’t speak. Howard stared at him. His face had changed. The beard had slipped, like something you buy at a novelty store. Underneath, the chin was pointed and seemed to be covered in what looked suspiciously like scales. And now that he looked more closely, Howard noticed that there was something poking through the old man’s hair. Horns?
“Wait . . .” he began.
Saint Peter—or whoever, whatever he really was—began to laugh. Two red flames flickered in his eyes and his lips had drawn back to reveal teeth that were viciously sharp.
; “My dear Howard,” he said. “What on earth made you think you’d gone to heaven?”
The Elevator
“Let’s go over this again,” the detective lieutenant said.
Charles Falcon was a small, unhappy-looking man with graying hair and tired blue eyes. He was wearing a dark suit with a striped tie hanging halfway down his chest. His clothes were, like him, crumpled. He had been a policeman for thirty years and as far as he was concerned that was about twenty years too long. He had lost count of the number of murders he had investigated. The stabbings and shootings, the batterings and stranglings. And that was in addition to the armed robberies, burglaries, kidnappings, and assaults. He was glad it was almost over. Two more months. Then retirement back to Norfolk. A little house in Hunstanton, a dog, long walks along the beach, and no more death.
Two more months and then this had to come along.
He was sitting at his desk in New Scotland Yard. There was a second man opposite him, thirty years his junior, neat and enthusiastic. His name was Jack Beagle, and he was a detective of lower rank than Charles. He had his notebook open in front of him.
“Where do you want to start?” Beagle asked.
“From the top,” Falcon said. “Let’s start with the family.”
Beagle flipped through the pages in his book. “All right,” he said. “Arthur and Mary Smith live in Steyning. It’s a small village near the South Downs. They own the fruit shop there. They have one son, Eric, age eleven. As a Christmas present, they decided to bring him to London. Christmas shopping, lunch at a pizzeria, then the afternoon performance of The Phantom of the Opera. They had seats in the orchestra. A23 to—”
“All right! Get on with it!” Falcon interrupted. That was the trouble with Beagle. Too many details. Give him half a chance and he’d be describing what sort of ice creams they’d had during the intermission.
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