Waiting for Godalming (10 page)

Icarus buried his face in his hands. “No,” he wept. “No.”

“Pull yourself together, lad. People will look. The
wrong’un
will look.”

Icarus did some snappy pulling together. “We have to do something about this,” he said. “This is big. This is really really big. This is bigger than anything. The knowledge of this could really change the world.”

“So, it’s a good thing you won’t be telling anybody about it, isn’t it?”

Icarus looked up in horror.

The chauffeur of the long dark automobile looked down.

He wasn’t a wrong’un. But he was a bad ’un.

He gestured with a bulging jacket pocket.

“Yes,” he said. “It is a gun. You might have seen it earlier. Now pick up all the boxes and the paper and walk quietly before me to the front door.”

“And what if I don’t?” said Icarus. Suddenly bold and very very angry. “Are you really going to shoot me in here, in a crowded bar?”

Icarus heard the pistol cock.

“Without a second’s thought,” said the chauffeur.

Icarus could see the man within the man.

And Icarus could see that the man wasn’t lying.

Icarus gathered up the boxes and the papers and the spectremeter, and with Johnny Boy before him and the chauffeur behind, moved across the crowded bar towards the door.

They passed close by the creature standing before the counter. Icarus could feel its pitiless gaze and a chill ran through him. What was he to do? Shout for help, turn suddenly and fight?

The jacket-muffled muzzle of the gun dug into his back. “Just keep walking,” came the chauffeur’s voice at his ear.

Outside and drawn up close to the kerb was the long dark automobile. As Johnny Boy and Icarus approached it, a rear door swung open.

“Get inside,” said the chauffeur.

Johnny Boy peered in, then jerked back in horror.

“Go on,” said the chauffeur, “both of you get in.”

Icarus climbed into the car. Johnny Boy followed him.

Stretched out on the rear car seat was a single occupant.

The single occupant was not a human being.

The long quills glistened and twitched, moving singly or in pairs, probing, sensing. The cold reptilian eyes swivelled in their scaly sockets. The complicated mouthparts moved and chewed and sucked.

“So,” said the creature in a cold dead voice. “We meet again.”

“We do?” Icarus Smith whispered the words. His throat was dry and he was shaking terribly.

“Well, briefly,” said the creature. “In Stravino’s barber’s shop. You stole my briefcase, I believe.”

Now, when I found myself standing in an alleyway, at the back of the Crimson Teacup, looking down at the dead body of God and turning up my collar to the howling hurricane, I stayed as cool as a Conservative councillor caught with a Cockney castrato in a curate’s cloakroom.

“Deny everything,” I shouted to Barry, above the wind and weather. “We’ll just have to deny everything. Hide the body. Pretend this didn’t happen. Spin some line to God’s wife that He’s off on a fishing holiday in Norfolk and I’ll change my name and grow a beard and become a Muslim.”

“Neat thinking, chief.”

“You think there’s a chance I can pull it off?”

“About as much chance as Dr Harold Shipman becoming the Queen Mum’s personal physician.”

“Quite a
slim
chance, then?”

“Somewhat thinner than Fangio’s waistline, chief.”

“Then that leaves me with only one alternative.”

“And what’s that, chief?”

I shoulder-holstered my trusty Smith and Wesleyan chapel, dropped to my knees in the rain, hail, fog and snow and sleet and sunshine, closed my eyes and clasped my hands in prayer. “Please forgive me, God’s widow,” I wept. “It wasn’t my fault. I tried to save Him. I shot the two hoods who gunned Him down. Have mercy on me, miserable sinner that I am.”

“Turn it in, chief.”

“Sssh please, Barry, I’m praying.”

“She won’t be listening, chief. People don’t pray to Her, because they don’t know She exists. So She doesn’t listen to praying. Got me?”

“Gotcha,” I said. “So it’s bury the body, grow the beard and Allah Akbah till the sacred cows come home.”

“Comparative religion not really your strong point, eh, chief?”

A rain of frogs came down upon my head.

“I think we’d better discuss this back at my office,” I said. “My trenchcoat can’t take this sort of punishment.”

Now the last thing I needed at a time like this was another client showing up. So when I walked into my office to find a broad sitting behind my desk, you could have knocked me down with an auctioneer’s gavel and bathed my butt in borax.

I’ve seen some ugly fat dames in my time, but this one took the dog biscuit. She made Mo Mowlam look like Madonna. I didn’t figure this dame looked good for anything but using as a roadblock in Belfast. But always being the gent that I am, I gave her the big hello.

“Hi, babe,” I said, as suave as Sinatra. “Did the circus leave town without you?”

She shot me a glance like she was chewing on a stewed chihuahua and moved more chins than Chairman Mao on his glorious march to the south.

“Did you just shake your head?” I said. “Or was that a Zeppelin docking?”

“Sit down, Mr Woodworm,” she replied, and she didn’t smile when she said it.

“The name’s Wood
bine
,” I said. “Lazlo Woodbine.” And added, “Some call me Laz.”

“Well, I shall call you cadaver, boy, if you don’t sit down when you’re told.”

This dame had more front than Frinton. But I wasn’t in the mood to take a donkey ride.

“Listen, lady,” I told her. “I’ve had a rough evening. I’ve just left three dead men in an alleyway, and the world won’t weep for a fat lass. So kindly shift your wide load off my chair and your whole damn trailer-park out of my office.” And I made the kind of shooing motions that you do to a dachshund that’s doodling on your dahlias.

Which, as it turned out for me, wasn’t the smartest of moves.

The dame lifted a mitt the size of a silicone implant
[10]
and zapped me with a lightning bolt that singed my decorum and set my fedora ablaze.

I went up like Crystal Palace and down like a funk soul brother.

“Oooh! Aaagh! Eeek!” I went. “Oooh! Aaagh! Eeek!” and “Waaaaah!”

I didn’t cotton on at first to just what was happening to me. I figured it was a case of spontaneous human combustion. I get that every once in a while, if I’ve eaten too much coleslaw. But usually this just makes my socks smoulder. Which is no great shakes.

But what was happening to me now had nothing to do with coleslaw. This was the full B. K. Flamer.
[11]

I beat at myself like a borderline self-mutilator and hopped and howled like a hedonist.

And then the dame moved her mitt again and my water cooler sort of lifted itself off its stand, swung across the room and emptied its contents all over my head.

Which had a more than sobering effect.

I did a couple more ‘Aaah!’s and ‘Eeek!’s and then I got down to a bit of serious grovelling. “Please forgive me, God’s widow,” I wept. “It wasn’t my fault. I tried to save Him, I shot the two hoods who gunned Him down. Have mercy on me …”

“Shut it!” said Eartha, widow of God, because that’s who
She
was.

“Shut it!” She said.

And I shut it.

Eartha raised her bulk from my office chair and leaned across my desk. She glared me glances that jangled my nerves and set my knees a-knocking. “Mr Woodworm,” She said (I didn’t correct Her). “Mr Woodworm. Am I right in assuming that my husband is dead?”

“Well, ma’am,” I went. “You see, I, well, in as much as, which is to say …”

“
Yes
or
no
, Mr Wormwood?”

“It’s yes, ma’am, I’m afraid.”

“Be afraid,” said Eartha. “Be
very
afraid.”

“I am, ma’am,” said I. And believe me, my friends. I was.

“Dead.” She dropped back into my chair to the sounds of splitting floorboards.

“I’m truly sorry, ma’am,” said I.

“Shut up, you fool, I’m thinking.”

I shut up and I kept my head well down. Outside my office window, the hurricane was gaining further strength. I glimpsed a chewed chihuahua and a pair of Ford Fiestas blowing by.

“Cease that infernal racket.” Eartha raised Her mighty mitt and the storm died all away. “Get up, Mr Wormwood,” She said. And I got up. “All right,” She said. “Now I understand that you were not to blame. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. The old fool was asking for trouble. But what I want to know is this: who murdered Him and why?”

“Two guys,” said I. “I shot them dead. Two slugs, two corpses. That’s the way that I do business.”

“And I like the way that you do business. But there were two gunmen. Were they professional assassins, and if so, who ordered the hit?”

I was warming to this dame. She obviously had the hots for me in a big way. “Ma’am,” I said. “I shot them dead. And as dead men tell no tales, that ain’t my province. Why don’t you have a word with their souls? I’m sure you could persuade them to spill all the beans.”

“Because that is not how it works any more. And if you don’t put a bit more respect into your voice, I’ll burn off your bollocks, got me?”

“Got you, ma’am,” I said.

“Now look at this.” The dame spread out a paper on my desk. It was a pretty big paper. More a broadsheet really, or a double tabloid, which is very much the same as a broadsheet, or possibly just a bit smaller.

“What do you have there, ma’am?” I asked, with a great deal of respect in my voice.

“God’s last will and testament.”

“Whoa!” said I. “And might I take a look?”

“You may.”

I examined the last will and testament of God. Now, I didn’t know just what to expect. Well, you wouldn’t really, would you? I mean, I might have expected a lot of legal fol-de-rol and perhaps some archangels getting the odd knick-knacks and possibly even me being given all the lands to the south in honour of my services to crime detection. But this was short and sweet. Well, at least it was
short
.

To my son Colin, I bequeath my beloved planet Earth. To my dear wife, Eartha, the rest of the Universe.

Signed GOD

“And that’s it?” said I. “It’s, well, it’s brief.”

“Very brief,” said Eartha.

“But surely, if I recall my scripture,” I said, “it clearly states that the meek are supposed to inherit the Earth.”

Eartha made the kind of face that Joseph Merrick made a living out of. “It’s
my
Earth!” She shouted, rattling my ceiling fan and damn near having the remnants of my hat off. “He gave it to
me
as a birthday present.”

“Ma’am,” said I, as I straightened my flambeaued fedora. “Ma’am, please, surely now God is dead, you are in complete control of everything. I mean, you just sorted out the weather with a wave of your lily-white hand. You can do whatever you want, can’t you? I mean, you could just zap the will and forget all about it?”

“No, Mr Wormwood, I can
not
do that. There are protocols to be observed. Even God had to abide by certain rules. Now I want you to investigate this, Mr Wormwood. I want you to find out who put the hit on my husband and what this will is all about.”

“Ma’am,” I said. “With all due respect. I do know my business and in cases such as these, it’s usually the person who has the most to gain from the death of the subject who’s the guilty party. I don’t wish to cause any offence here. But I reckon your son Colin is in the frame for this one.”

“If that
is
the case,” She said, “then so be it and I will deal with Colin myself. But I want proof, Mr Wormwood. Absolute proof. I want to know the truth about what happened to my husband and why. And you are going to find that truth for me, aren’t you, Mr Wormwood?”

“Ma’am,” I said, “you can rely on me.”

“Yes, I know that I can. Because if you fail to deliver, within one week from today, I shall visit upon you such torment that even the devil himself will turn his face away from the horror. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

“Absolutely, ma’am,” said I. And boy, did I need the toilet.

She didn’t leave in a puff of smoke, or anything fancy like that. She just kind of got off my chair and dragged Her big butt out of my door. No thank yous, no fond farewells and no sweet goodbye kisses.

Off She went and that was that and I was left alone.

Alone!

“Er, Barry,” I called. “Barry, my dear little pea green buddy. Where are you, Barry, my friend?”

In my head was silence. Stillness. Hush.

“Barry,” I called. “Where are you, Barry?”

In my head was quietude. Tranquillity. Dead calm.

“Barry, dear Barry. Where are you?”

“Sorry, chief. I was having a nap. Have I missed anything?”

“Barry! You little …” I pummelled at my skull. “You traitorous cur, you lowdown dirty …”

“Leave it out, chief. Stop. Oh ouch! Oh ow!”

“You could have warned me, you lowdown double-dealing …”

“Chief, what could I do? I—”

“You let me walk in here and insult God’s widow and now I’m in deeper doo than a coprophile in a cow manure Jacuzzi.”

“You’ve got seven days, chief.”

“Seven days? She
knew
, Barry. She
knew
that God was dead. She turns up in my office less than half an hour after He gets it. And She’s even got His will with Her. The will that clearly implicates Her son.”

“Seems like an open and shut case, chief. One that even you could solve.”

“Barry, you little green golly. She
knew
. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I think you’re saying She knew, chief.”

“That
is
what I’m saying. She was here and She knew and She wasn’t even concerned. God is dead and She doesn’t give a damn. And why, Barry, why?”

“Well, chief …”

“There’s no other explanation. I didn’t get to be the best in the business by missing the most obvious clues. She was here. She knew. She had the will with Her. The will implicates Her son.
She
did it. Case closed.”

“Well, not exactly, chief.”

“Not exactly, Barry? How much more exactly would you care for?”

“Well, chief, exactly
how
She knew might help.”

“She knew, because
She
ordered the hit.”

“Er, no, chief. She knew because
I
told Her.”

There was silence once again. But it wasn’t just in my head this time.

“You told Her?” I fairly roared. I did. I kid you not. “
You
told Her?
You told
Her?”

“Calm yourself down, chief. I had to. I was only doing it to save you from Her terrible wrath, if She’d found out some other way. You’d have never got away with dressing up as a Muslim. I had to come clean with Her. Explain that it wasn’t your fault and that you’d find out who’d done it.”

“But
She
did it.”

“No, chief, I’ve just explained that. She didn’t do it.”

“Then it was Colin.”

“Well, chief, I do agree that he looks a likely candidate. And he is a real bad lot. But whether he’d really have the guts to top his own father, I don’t know about that.”

I dropped into my chair, dragged open my desk drawer and brought out the Old Bedwetter. At times like these, when the going gets rough, I find that a slug of—

“Don’t start that again, chief. And advertising B. K. Flamers. How low will you stoop in the cause of an easy buck?”

“Barry, do you realize the trouble I’m in here?”

“Of course I do, chief. We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, right!” I took a hefty slug.

“If you go down, I go down, chief. I only get one shot at this Holy Guardian game and if I foul up, I’m on the celestial compost heap. I
do
have your best interests at heart. And I do want you to solve this case. Think of it, chief. This is the Big One. Woodbine brings the murderer of God to justice. How could there ever be a bigger case than that?”

I nodded thoughtfully. And I did it with style. I mean sure, my hat was in sodden tatters and my trenchcoat gone to ruination. My socks were smouldering and I had third degree burns over 60 per cent of my body. I was up to my neck in the deep brown stuff and had just seven days to solve the crime of the eternity, knowing that if I didn’t, I would become toast in a million ways more than one. But like I say, I nodded thoughtfully.

And I did it with style.

Now there are some times when you have to sit and think. Mull things over. Cogitate. Employ your mind. Cerebrate. Conceptualize. Contemplate. Commune with your inner self.