Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk (4 page)

“It wasn’t what I did,” I told him. “It was how I did it. It’s all in the delivery.”

“Still and all, dear boy,” he said, “a fine example of legal sleight of hand. I’m proud of you.”

“I had a good teacher,” I said.

Yes
, said Anansi.
Yes, you did
.

F
LUSH FROM THAT
success, I decided to exact revenge on my one-time blind date, who was still spouting uncomplimentary things about me behind my back. I phoned the Law Society and gave them an anonymous tipoff that the young lady was conducting an improper relationship with a senior partner in her firm of solicitors. I’d done my homework. I named the man, who was married, a father of two, a churchgoer, a charity fundraiser, a pillar of his local community. Whiter than white, in so many ways. Never in a million years would he be likely to dally at the office with an employee, especially one of colour – which somehow made it all the more plausible that he might, not to mention all the more outrageous.

The bigger the lie
, said Anansi,
the more credence people will give it
.

And he should know. Had he not wooed and won his wife Aso by convincing her he was greatly in demand among the female animals and hence a worthy “catch”? He did this by tying a rope to each of his eight legs and having hidden animal friends tug on the different ropes. He told Aso the ropes were attached to other prospective wives, who were tugging to get his attention. If Aso wished to marry him, she should agree to it quickly, before one of her rivals hauled the oh-so-eligible bachelor off and claimed him for herself.

Unfortunately – and there’s almost always an ‘unfortunately,’ in any Anansi story – Anansi’s eight animal friends happened to pull on the ropes at the same time, and with all their might. The result was that Anansi was suddenly and violently yanked in eight directions at once, and his legs, which had been short and stubby, were stretched out like toffee. And that is why all spiders have thin, spindly legs.

But the good news as far as Anansi was concerned was that Aso laughed at the sight of him being hauled in different directions and stretched like a piece of chewing gum. She laughed so hard that she found herself falling in love with him, and next thing she knew, she was consenting to be his bride.

It was a decision she would come to regret, for Anansi was famously unfaithful, and all his cunning schemes seemed to come to nothing, and he often made himself and his family a laughing-stock. In legend, Aso has become synonymous with the exasperated, long-suffering wife.

My lie, at any rate, gained traction and ran. The Law Society made discreet enquiries, as it was duty-bound to do. It found no evidence of impropriety, but the very fact that it was investigating the firm at all caused ructions and sparked rumours. Word got around that the affair I’d conjured up out of thin air might actually have happened. Gossip spreads fast in legal circles, as it does in any close-knit vocational community. The dash of miscegenation added extra flavour to the already spicy broth of workplace adultery. The world of lawyering in Britain is not as progressive and race-blind as it would like to think it is. Nor is it in any sense liberal.

In no time the girl was seeking employment elsewhere. Her departure was heralded as a spontaneous act, one born of the desire to seek new pastures and fresh challenges, and was given the blessing of her superiors. She received a severance package she wasn’t, strictly speaking, entitled to, and she didn’t have to serve out her notice.

But a sacking is still a sacking, however gilded the circumstances, however gently it’s handled.

Bravo
, said Anansi.
Well played. Couldn’t have done better myself
.

Was I ashamed? Not for a moment. You do not fuck with Dion Yeboah. The girl had learned that to her cost. Others would too.

F
OR THREE, FOUR
months, I was golden. Nothing could touch me. Nothing could stop me. More and more cases came my way that, on face value, looked like lost causes. Few other barristers would touch them with a bargepole. I, and Anansi, tackled them with relish.

You may have read in the newspapers about the BBC higher-up accused of taking bribes in return for insisting that a certain mobile phone company’s latest product feature prominently in several drama serials he commissioned, in direct contravention of the terms of the Corporation’s charter. I was able to get the charges dismissed on the grounds that the items in question were so desirable, so up-to-the-minute, so lusted after by those who love technology and progress, that the BBC would have been remiss in its duties as the Voice of the Nation if it
hadn’t
shown them regularly on our TV screens.

You may also be familiar with the plight of a Member of Parliament who chose to claim the cost of a visit to a massage parlour in Pimlico on expenses. Remember the tabloid headlines? “We Pay So He Can Get His End Away”? It wasn’t difficult for me to rescue him from ignominy by drawing attention to the stresses and the long working hours that his job entailed. I implied that the use of parliamentary allowances to reimburse him for this particular form of relaxation was in fact a wise investment of public funds. A rested, revitalised politician was apt to make calm and clear-headed decisions, was he not? Certainly more so than a tense, frustrated one.

And what of the footballer with a couple of dozen England caps to his name? Snapped by paparazzi leaving a Mayfair hotel in the company of a girl reputedly several months shy of the age of consent? I obtained a High Court injunction on all reporting of the case and ensured that it never came to trial. Beyond the paparazzi photos, there was no proof of any sexual liaison between the two. Demonstrably my client had adopted an avuncular role towards the child, as evidenced by the arm he placed fondly round her shoulders in several of the pictures and the chaste kiss he gave her on the forehead. I maintained that he and she had enjoyed an innocent breakfast together at the hotel, where the topics of conversation had been his career and her education. Furthermore, the meeting might be regarded as being in the nature of an interview, for the girl had her eye on a media career and could well have been intending to contribute an article about the footballer to her school magazine as a first step on the road to becoming a journalist. Far from being her lover, he was merely her scoop.

The judge swallowed it. The press were more sceptical but, gagged by the injunction, could do little but mutter obliquely and darkly.

Anansi, inside me, simply squirmed with glee. Pulling the wool over other people’s eyes – there was nothing that delighted him more.

P
LEASE DON’T GET
me wrong, I didn’t represent only unscrupulous rogues. There were plenty of cases during this time in which the innocent were exonerated and justice was done. None, however, demanded much in the way of ingenuity or subterfuge; nor was any of them especially dramatic or memorable. It’s a sad truth about being a barrister that one gains greater satisfaction from reversing the course of the law than from merely seeing its natural status quo preserved. It is when one is the law’s master, not its servant, that one feels one has genuinely achieved something. It is like being in a daily battle of wits with the ponderous, imposing bulk of jurisprudence, and sometimes, if one is clever, one wrestles it to the mat.

Anansi is a trickster god, a creature of intrigue and stratagems, weaving artful ploys like he weaves webs.

Perhaps we lawyers are the same, in our way. If we brethren of the law were to worship a god, by rights it would be Anansi.

I
T WAS A
terrific joyride, those months of one spectacular victory after another.

But like all joyrides, it couldn’t last. It had to come to a screeching, crashing halt.

I was out jogging when Anansi announced that our partnership would be entering a new phase. It was not long after sunrise on an autumn morning, and there was a misty haze in the air that you could taste as well as see. While I huffed and puffed along the Regent’s Canal towpath, Anansi and I chatted, as we often did, about an upcoming trial, the various tacks the prosecution might take and how best to deal with them.

Then Anansi dropped the bombshell.

You realise, of course, Dion, that there’s a price for all this, don’t you?

“What? What do you mean?”

You don’t get the services of a god for free. No one does
.

“What are you talking about?”

I’d fallen into the habit of speaking aloud during my conversations with Anansi, even in public. It was easier than keeping them confined to my head. At first I’d received some strange looks when doing this, but I’d got around the problem by the simple expedient of wearing a Bluetooth headset whenever I was out and about. It wasn’t switched on or even connected to a mobile, but people didn’t know that. All they saw was a man taking a phone call on the hoof. I didn’t appear to be different from any number of businesspeople you see on the street, working as they walk. The only distinction was that whereas they were talking to a colleague or a stranger, I was talking to a god.

“Explain yourself,” I said. “Is this some sort of joke?”

No joke, Dion. We’ve been working well together, haven’t we? Quite a streak of wins we’ve had. We make a good team. But who’s benefited from it more, do you think? You or me?

“Me,” I admitted.

Absolutely. Your stock has never been higher. Dion Yeboah is in demand like never before. You’ve been billing enough in fees to make your peers and rivals gnash their teeth. Your name has cropped up in the papers – not just the
Law Society Gazette
, but the national dailies. You’re a star in the legal firmament. But Anansi... Well, what has poor old Anansi got out of this?

“Entertainment,” I offered, lamely.

Oh, yes, entertainment indeed. But is that enough? I’m a god, after all. Gods cannot be expected to get by on entertainment alone
.

I was passing London Zoo. My pace had slowed. The animals were grumbling and hooting to themselves, a soft, wild dawn chorus.

No
, Anansi continued.
Our association is a two-way street, Dion. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. You’ve had your go. I’ve done you a favour. Now it’s my turn
.

“You want something from me.”

Naturally I do. But don’t panic. It’s nothing terrible. You might even enjoy the challenge
.

“I won’t do anything illegal,” I said firmly. “I just won’t.”

Nor would I expect you to. What if I said I’d like to give you the opportunity to exercise your skills at coercion and skulduggery in another theatre of combat, outside the courtroom?

“Go on.”

You’d be pitting yourself against some of the greatest swindlers, backstabbers and double-dealers the world has ever known
.

“I’d say my career so far has been ample preparation for such a thing.”

A pair of pretty women ran past me, bouncing beautifully in Lycra. I followed them with my gaze, and Anansi, with his many eyes inside me, looking out through mine, followed them too. Neither of us could help himself.

Yes – ahem – now, where was I?
said Anansi.
Oh, yes. You see, Dion, once in every generation an event occurs – an event like no other. You could call it a convocation of likeminded individuals. A competition. A kind of divine Olympics
.

“Divine...?”

I am not the only trickster god in existence. You must realise that. There are, oh, dozens of us. Perhaps even hundreds – no one’s done a census. Just about every pantheon that’s ever been counts a trickster amongst its number. We’re kind of fitted as standard. You don’t get the full set of gods if it doesn’t have one of us, just as you don’t get a full pack of cards if it doesn’t have a joker in
.

“But they don’t... I mean, they’re not...”

Not real?
Anansi chuckled.
But I am, aren’t I? And if I am, then all gods must be too, surely. Stands to reason
.

By this point I had slowed until I was plodding along like a donkey, almost at a standstill. What Anansi was telling me was hard to process. Somehow, without meaning to, I’d become embroiled in something far bigger than I’d thought, far bigger than I could readily imagine. Until now, Anansi and I had just been fooling around, toying with the legal system, enjoying ourselves, getting one over on judges and juries. But this – all at once, this seemed serious. Deadly serious.

“Other trickster gods,” I said. “And what do you do when you get together once in a generation? Drink? Party? Dance ’til the early hours?”

There’s a certain amount of that, sometimes
, said Anansi.
Depends on the venue and the circumstances. Mostly we play tricks one another
.

“Play tricks? That’s it?”

We are, are we not, trickster gods? Clue’s in the name. It’s a free-for-all contest of chicanery. Each of us attempts to outwit the others. Last one standing is the winner
.

“Why do you need me for this?” I asked. I was searching desperately for a way to excuse myself from participating in this contest. Anansi was doing his best to make it sound like it was all just one jolly jape, but I wasn’t convinced. I sensed there was more to this contest than he was letting on. “Does it have to involve me at all? Isn’t there some sort of divine meeting place where all you gods can go, up in heaven or another dimension or wherever?”

That’s not how it works
, said Anansi.
All of the pantheons dwell in separate, discrete planes that don’t intersect with one another. The only place they do all meet up is here, the mortal realm, where our followers and worshippers are, where our stories are told and retold and spread
.

“Earth.”

Exactly. Earth. And the only way we can manifest on Earth is by assuming a living form. For some that’s simply a matter of transubstantiating their incorporeal selves into flesh. For most of us, however, the vast majority, it’s a case of temporarily ‘borrowing’ a host body, usually a human one, and using that as an avatar
.