A Fate Worse Than Death Read online

  “Indeed. I’m afraid the Master is not in a good way.”

  “Has something happened to Him?”

  “You’d better see for yourself.”

  He led me to the door of God’s chamber and knocked loudly.

  “Mr Clarenden to see you, Master.”

  “Show him in, Gabriel, show him in.” God’s voice sounded surprisingly jovial through the chamber door.

  I pushed open the door and passed through. God’s chamber was alarmingly different. The couch was gone and in its place there was an enormous throne, carved out of mahogany and gilded with precious stones. Sitting proudly atop the throne, God himself no longer wore a simple white robe. He was instead arrayed in a massive red cloak, trimmed at the edges with white fur and seams of gold thread, while on His head sat a crown of gold that sparkled with diamonds and other jewels.

  The only thing about the room that was resolutely unchanged was the television on the far wall. On the gleaming screen, a salesman was screaming about the amazing benefits of his particular brand of hypnotherapy, while a parade of supposedly satisfied customers gave his message an air of profound banality.

  God turned to me and held out His arms. He was beaming.

  “Mr Clarenden, do take a seat.”

  “I can only see one chair, and you seem to be occupying it comfortably.”

  “So I am,” God chuckled. “I keep forgetting. I’ve just discovered the most wonderful thing.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Television home shopping networks. Thanks to them, I’ve got my new throne, and a completely new wardrobe, and take a look at this.”

  He lifted the crown and shook His head, sending His white hair flapping and waving.

  “I’ve found a shampoo that gives my hair a new bounce and life it’s never had before!”

  I stood, unable to form words, as God continued discussing the details of His purchases, including His new exercise machine, His new fat-free deep fryer, and His new set of steak knives. There was only one conclusion to be gained from any of this. The pressure had finally gotten to Him. God had gone completely mad.

  When I’d heard all I could take, I walked over to the television, placed my finger on the power switch, and pressed it. Immediately, all salespeople vanished. For a moment, merciful silence filled the room, broken only by God’s anguished cry.

  “What did you do that for? That man might have changed my life.”

  “Seems to me you’ve had your life changed enough for one day.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means it’s time we had a talk. Take a look outside. Drag your eyes away from that idiotic screen, just for a moment. You’ll see that things aren’t going too well here in Heaven. If we don’t get to the bottom of this mystery, your precious kingdom will be nothing more than a festering, stinking pile of garbage.”

  God’s face went redder than a bloody Mary stirred with a raw steak. “You dare to talk to me like that, here in my palace?”

  “I dare that and a whole lot more. It’s time for you to level with me. I need you to tell me everything you know, and I need you to tell me right now.”

  “You really think it will be that easy? You really think I can just snap my fingers and give you all the answers you need?”

  “I didn’t say that. I have no illusions about this being easy. But you can start by putting an end to this stalling. When we first met, you mentioned that Phil helped you out with certain things, but you wouldn’t tell me what those things were. ‘Odds and ends’ were the precise words you used. Since then, I’ve managed to discover that one of the things Phil did was sign contracts with the Devil regarding the maintenance of the infrastructure here in Heaven—which I do believe includes garbage collection. So tell me, God, was that an odd or an end?”

  “I admit that Phil did sign that contract,” God muttered, His eyes making a close inspection of His brand new stress-absorbent running shoes. “I was extremely busy and I didn’t have the time.”

  “I’ll bet you were busy. What was it? Midgets with Oedipal complexes on a talk show? Or was that the day when Blake discovered Tiffany was having an affair with Nash on your favourite soap opera?”

  “So maybe I needed a little additional relaxation that day.”

  “And I suppose you also needed additional relaxation on the days when Phil restructured the administrative procedures at the Pearly Gates. Or the day when he decided to allow a journalist named Alby Stark to remain in Heaven after an unfortunate breakdown of those procedures.”

  “So that is what this is all about,” God grumbled. “Every time something goes wrong, I’m the one who has to set it right. Well, sometimes I can’t be there to fix things. Sometimes I have to leave it to others. What do you expect? Do you think I can be everywhere at once?”

  “Actually, I thought you could.”

  God started to open His mouth, but then He stopped. He slumped down in His great throne and suddenly He looked very tired and very old. Eventually He spoke, the voice of a tired, old man.

  “You’re right, I can be everywhere at once, but I don’t often choose to be. Most of the time, I’m quite happy to sit in my little chamber and watch TV. You were right, Mr Clarenden. I’m really not that busy at all.”

  “But if you’re spending all your time watching television, who’s looking after Heaven?”

  “I would have thought that was obvious. Phil is the one who’s been looking after Heaven. That’s why I need him back so urgently.”

  There was a tinkling sound inside my head: the sort that a very small coin makes when it hits the ground.

  “Why couldn’t you have told me this earlier?” I said. “Why pretend that Phil is your little helper, when he’s really the guy who’s running the show?”

  “Why pretend? I’m God. This is my kingdom. Do you really think I want everyone to know that I’m no longer in charge?” God sighed. “I’m sorry for misleading you. I hope my foolish pride hasn’t compromised your investigation.”

  “Compromised, but not irreparably. If we move quickly, we still may have a chance. But first I need more information. I believe that whoever is behind this plot is trying to set himself up in competition with the Devil. Do you have any idea who that might be? Can you think of anyone who could possibly want to muscle in on the Devil’s operations?”

  “I don’t know,” God moaned.

  “There must be an answer. Try to think.”

  “I don’t know,” God repeated with a sudden petulance in His voice. “I’m so sick of all of this. All this power and responsibility. I’ve had enough.”

  “You can’t really mean that.”

  “Why not? You think it’s so great being God? Well, let me tell you, it’s no picnic. I’m stuck in this palace all day, which I don’t even like that much. I’d much prefer something simpler and smaller. But no, I’m God. I’m expected to project an atmosphere of grandeur and majesty. I’m supposed to sit on my throne and make all these grand proclamations that no one ever listens to anyway.”

  “That’s not true,” I interjected. “People are constantly talking about your words.”

  “How do you know they’re my words?”

  “I guess I just assumed—”

  “Exactly. You assumed you knew what I was saying. Everybody thinks they know more about my words than I do. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve supposedly said. But I’ll tell you one thing. As soon as people have got problems, who does everybody come running to? ‘Help us, oh Lord,’ and ‘save us, oh Lord.’ Well what about me? I’ve got problems too. Who am I supposed to pray to?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t sure it was a question that even had an answer. Then again, God was now on such a roll that even if I did have one, I don’t think He would have paid any attention to it anyway.

  “Being God is a full time job, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 100 years a century. I’ve never taken a holiday. Never had a chance to relax on a b
each or take a tropical cruise or enjoy a walk in a rainforest or scuba dive in a coral reef or—”

  Suddenly the door burst open and Gabriel came charging in. His face was whiter than a peroxided albino in a snowstorm.

  “Excuse me, Master, for breaking in, but I’ve got awful news. Peter is gone!”

  As God was no longer in any state to respond, I figured I’d better do the honours.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Nobody knows. He’s just disappeared.”

  Gabriel had barely finished speaking before I was legging it out of the palace, leaving God to His self-pity, and racing to the Pearly Gates. My foes had made their next move. I only hoped I wasn’t too late.

  * * *

  Chaos reigned at the Pearly Gates. The queue had disintegrated, and everyone was making a mad dash towards the Gates, pushing and jostling like a herd of roller-skating wildebeest. But most alarming of all, nobody seemed able to stop them. Despite the efforts of a handful of red-uniformed inspectors, people were streaming past the booths and through the Gates. All procedures for verifying bona fides for entry into the Kingdom of God had been abandoned. The Gates of Heaven had been flung open to all comers.

  As I observed this crazed inrush, its true impact hit me as if a hammer had struck a giant bell inside my head. More was going on here than just an attempt to take on the Devil. This was an assault on Heaven itself. I knew that I couldn’t salvage this situation alone. I grabbed hold of the nearest person and spun him around. Instantly, I discovered that I hadn’t made a bad choice. I’d made an absolutely appalling one.

  “What’s happening here?” said Lizard Neck with a smirk. “Must be the criminal returning to the scene of the crime.”

  “You always thought you were so smart,” sneered his frying-pan-faced sidekick, who as luck would have it was standing alongside him. “Well this time you made the biggest mistake of your life.”

  Before I could move, Lizard Neck had me pinned to the ground, while Frying Pan was pulling my arms behind my back and sticking on the cuffs.

  “You have to let me go!” I screamed. “You don’t understand what’s happening here.”

  “Oh we don’t, do we?” said Lizard Neck. “Then perhaps you’ll be able to explain it to us through the bars of your cell.”

  I yelled and swore and struggled with all my might, but against the two of them my resistance was futile. There was nothing I could do to stop myself from being trussed up and dragged away. But then another voice spoke.

  “You don’t have to take him. Why don’t you leave him with me? I’ll look after him.”

  We all turned. Standing right behind us was my old friend, the bellhop. I couldn’t help but recall every charming detail of him, from the arrogant tilt of his head to the intense stare of his green eyes and the feel of his rank breath on my face.

  The cops looked at each other, clearly unsure about whether they’d be breaching any of their non-existent protocols.

  “C’mon fellas,” said the bellhop. “I’m in charge of the Gates now. If anyone is responsible for dealing with Peter’s kidnapper, it should be me.”

  That seemed good enough for the two cops. They mumbled something about it being close to bedtime and then disappeared.

  I looked at the bellhop. It seemed like a longshot, but I didn’t think I’d have another chance.

  “I know we didn’t get off to the best start, but you need to listen to me now. This situation is extremely urgent.”

  The bellhop didn’t say anything. For a moment, he looked at me with a lopsided kind of grin. The next moment, his fist was on a collision course with my face.

  Something had to give. It wasn’t going to be his fist.

  CHAPTER 15

  I OPENED MY EYES. IT WAS DARK. I was lying on a concrete floor. Fortunately, some kind soul had removed the handcuffs from my wrists. Unfortunately, that same soul had replaced them with a couple of lengths of rope, tied tightly around not only my wrists but also my ankles. I had all the mobility of a stuffed walrus.

  “Awake at last,” said a voice, but it was a friendly voice. As my eyes began to adjust, I could dimly make out my companion. Although he was lashed up in a similar fashion, I recognised the beard at one end and the spindly legs at the other. It was Peter.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “I’ll live,” I replied.

  “Ah Jimmy, always the joker,” Peter chuckled. “I can rely on you to cheer me up.”

  I rolled across the floor so that I was closer to him.

  “Listen to me, Peter. The time for jokes is well and truly gone. I need to know exactly what’s been happening. Can you tell me who brought you here?”

  Peter made a strange twisting gesture with his shoulders that probably would have been a shrug if he hadn’t been tied up like a pig on a spit.

  “I can’t tell you much. It all happened so quickly. I was in the middle of sorting out the paperwork after a food poisoning outbreak in Japan when a couple of masked men burst into my office and placed a wet cloth over my mouth. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor in this cold, dark room with a beast of a headache. And then you arrived.”

  “So you’ve got no idea who these masked men were?”

  “No idea. I couldn’t even start to describe them. I’ve also got no idea how they got into my office. Since the riots twenty years ago, we’ve operated under the tightest security.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea how they got in. You remember when we first met, how you told me good help was hard to find? You were right.”

  Peter gasped. “You don’t mean?”

  “Yes, I do. This is an inside job.”

  “But I don’t understand. Who would want to—”

  “Don’t worry about not understanding. You’re not the only one with that problem. But time is running short. Do you at least know where they’ve taken us?”

  Peter made that shrugging gesture again. “I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  I looked around the room. With my eyes now well-adjusted to the dark, I could see that we were in some sort of cell. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all featureless concrete. There were no windows and only one door. The room looked like the creation of an interior designer with all the imagination of a commercial television programmer.

  “I guess our location isn’t so important,” I said. “The main thing is, how are we going to get out of here?”

  Peter made a different gesture this time. I think this one was supposed to be a nod. “So what’s your plan?”

  “What’s my plan?”

  “You do have a plan, don’t you? You must have been in situations like this hundreds of times before. I bet you’ve got all sorts of escape tricks hidden up your sleeve.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve never been in a situation remotely like this before. I was once locked in a public toilet for a couple of days, but I don’t think that’s quite the same. I’m also sorry to say that the only things I have up my sleeves at the moment are a couple of large bruises.”

  “You mean you don’t have a plan?”

  “No plan. I have no idea how we’re going to get out of here.”

  “Then we’re trapped.” Peter rolled away from me and lay, facing the far wall.

  I rolled after him. “Just wait a minute. I said I didn’t have a plan. That doesn’t mean we can’t put our heads together and come up with one.”

  Peter rolled back to me. “You think I can help you come up with a plan?”

  “Why not? You’ve read lots of detective books. You must have a pretty good idea about what an escape plan involves.”

  “I’ve got lots of ideas,” said Peter, his enthusiasm renewed. “We could knock down the door with our heads and then roll under the feet of the guard and away. Or we could bite through the concrete floor, discover a hidden underground river beneath this cell, and swim to freedom. Or we could lure the guard into our cell, remove his wooden leg, and use that as a weap
on to escape.”

  “Those are great plans,” I said.

  “You think so?”

  “Most definitely. If we should ever find ourselves with a group of children to entertain, I’m sure they’d love to hear them. Unfortunately, I’m not sure they’ll be much use in our current predicament.”

  “What do you mean?” Peter sounded just a little hurt.

  “What I mean is those plans will work fine as long as the guard happens to have a wooden leg, or there actually is a miraculous underground river underneath this edible concrete floor. But those seem like pretty big assumptions to make. This isn’t some fantasy. This is real life.”

  “No it isn’t,” said Peter. “This is Heaven. At least I assume it is. Maybe they’ve taken us . . . down below. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been down there.”

  “But I have,” I said.

  Given that the rest of his body was virtually immobile, Peter’s face did an excellent job at exhibiting his surprise. “You’ve been down below?”

  “Yes, I’ve most definitely been to Hell, and I know exactly what it’s like. In Hell, nothing works. Whatever you try to do, no matter how simple, always turns out wrong.”

  “So if we’re in . . . Hell, any escape plan we try is bound to fail.”

  “Exactly, which gives me an idea. I think I know a way we can at least discount the possibility that they’ve taken us to Hell.”

  “What do we have to do?”

  “Pretty much anything. Whatever we try, we know it won’t work in Hell. So if we manage to make it work, then we’ll know for sure we’re not in Hell.”

  “Brilliant,” said Peter. “What do you suggest we try?”

  “In our current state, I think just standing up should represent enough of a challenge.”

  I rolled away from Peter to give myself a little space. Then I attempted to raise my upper body away from the ground, while at the same time flipping my legs underneath. It was a hopelessly complicated maneuvre that should never have had any chance of success, but suddenly there I was, standing up straight in the middle of the cell.