“Better than he deserves,” replied Major Pickles, checking the cookie jar. “The rotten blighter has pigged all my Jaffa cakes.”
“Spike,” I said, pointing at a desk diary I’d found on the counter, “we’re not the only people who have had an appointment this morning.”
He and Major Pickles bent over to have a look, and there it was. This morning was the first of three days of soul entrapment that Raum had planned for the house-call professionals of Swindon, and we had been the third potential damnees. The first, an electrician, Raum had crossed out and made a note: “sickeningly pleasant.” The next, however, was for a new washing machine, and Raum had made three checks next to the name of the company: Wessex Kitchens. I rummaged through the papers on the counter-top and found a job sheet-the workman had been someone called Hans Towwel.
“Blast!” said Spike. “I hate it when Satan obtains a soul. Don’t get me wrong, some people deserve to be tortured for all eternity, but damnation without the possibility of salvation-it’s like a three-strike life sentence without the possibility of parole.”
I nodded in agreement. Obscene though the crime was, eternal damnation was several punishments too far.
“All this defeatist claptrap is making me sick to the craw,” growled Major Pickles. “No one is going to hell on my account-what happens if we get the money back?”
Spike snapped his fingers.
“Pickles, you’re a genius! Mr. Towwel doesn’t join the legion of the damned until he actually makes use of his ill-gotten gains. Thursday, call Wessex Kitchens and find out where he is-we need to get to him before he spends any of the cash.”
Ten minutes later we were heading at high speed toward the Greasy Monk, a popular medieval-themed eatery not far from the rebuilt cathedral of St. Zvlkx. I had tried to call Towwel’s cell phone, but it was switched off, and when I explained that there was a substantial sum of money missing from Major Pickles’s house, the boss of Wessex Kitchens said he was horrified-and promised to meet us there.
The restaurant was filled to capacity, as the cathedral of St. Zvlkx had just been nominated as the first GSD drop-around-if-you-want-but-hey-no-one’s-forcing-you place of worship/contemplation/meditation, and the many followers/adherents/vaguely interested parties of the single unified faith were having lunch and discussing ways in which they could best use the new multi-faith for overwhelming good.
As soon as we pushed open the doors Spike yelled, “Hans Towwel?” in his most commanding voice, and in the silence that followed, a man in a navy blue coverall signaled to us from behind a wooden plate of bread and dripping.
“Problems?” he said as we walked up.
“Could be,” said Spike. “Did you pay for that meal with the money you pinched from Major Pickles?”
“Did I what?”
“You heard him,” I said. “Did you pay for that meal with the money you stole from Major Pickles?”
“Ballocks to you!” he said, getting up. Spike, who was pretty strong, pushed the man hard back down into his seat.
“Listen,” said Spike in a quiet voice, “we’re not cops, and we don’t give a shit about the money, and we don’t give a shit about you-but we do give a shit about your soul. Now, just tell us: Have you spent any of the cash or not?”
“That’s well sweet, isn’t it?” growled Towwel. “Some cash is missing so you blame the workingman.”
“Towwel?” said a crumpled and untidy-looking man in a crumpled and untidy-looking suit, who had just arrived. “Is what they say true?”
“Who are you?” asked Spike.
“Mr. Hedge Moulting of Wessex Kitchens,” said the untidy man, offering us a business card. “I must say I am shocked and appalled by our employee’s behavior-how much was taken?”
“Now, look here!” said Towwel, growing angrier by the second, which caused Mr. Moulting of Wessex Kitchens to flinch and hide behind Spike. “I don’t steal from people. Not from customers, not from pensioners, not from you, not from anyone!”
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” said Moulting, still half hidden behind Spike. “You’re fired-and don’t expect a reference.”
“How do we know you didn’t take it?” demanded Towwel.
“Me?” exclaimed Moulting. “How dare you!”
“you made a random inspection of my work this morning, and you’re a sleazy piece of crap-I say you took it.”
“An outrageous accusation!” yelled Moulting, waving a threatening finger in Towwel’s direction. “You’ll never install a washing machine in this town again, and what’s more I will make it my duty-nay, pleasure-to see you convicted of this heinous crime. A thousand pounds? From a war veteran? You deserve all you’re going to get!”
There was silence for a moment.
“Mr. Moulting,” said Spike, “we never said how much was stolen. As I said to Mr. Towwel here, we don’t give a shit about the money. We’re here to save a soul from the torment of eternal damnation. It was a diabolical entrapment from one of Old Scratch’s accomplices. If you’ve got the money and haven’t spent any of it, then just drop it in the nearest poor box, and your soul is clear. If you have spent some of the cash, then there’s nothing anyone can do for you.”
I turned to Mr. Towwel. “Sorry to have accused you unjustly, sir. If you need a job, call me anytime at Acme Carpets.”
And we walked out, bumping aside Moulting as we went. His shaking hand reached for a chair back to steady himself. He had turned pale and was sweating, trembling with the fear of the man who is condemned to eternal hellfire and knows it.
We recarpeted Major Pickles’s entire house with the finest carpet we had. We also did his shopping, his washing and bought him two dozen packets of Jaffa cakes. After that, the three of us sat down and nattered all afternoon, drinking tea and telling stories. We parted the best of friends and left our phone numbers on his fridge so he could call us if he needed anything. I even suggested he give Polly a call if he wanted some company.
“I never realized carpet laying could be so much fun,” I said as we finally drove away.
“Me neither,” replied Spike. “Do you think Bowden will be pissed off that we’ve done this one for free and it took us all day?”
“Nah,” I replied with a smile, “I’m sure he’ll be just fine about it.”
29. Time Out of Joint
I never did get my head around time’s carefree propensity to paradox. My father didn’t exist, yet I was still born, and time travel had never been invented, but they still hoped that it might. There were currently two versions of Friday, and I had met him several times in the past-or was it the future? It gave me a dull ache in the head when I thought about it.
How was work?” asked Landen when I walked in the door.
“Quite good fun,” I replied. “The floor-covering business is definitely looking up. How are things with you?”
“Good, too-lots of work done.”
“On The Mews of Doom?” I asked, still hopeful about Scampton-Tappett and remembering that I had sent a note down to Bananas for Edward for him to swap books. He’d cost me a thousand book-guineas, and I was sure as hell going to get my money’s worth.
“No. I’ve been working on Spike’s weird-shit self-help book: Collecting the Undead.”
Damn and blast again.
I recalled a news item I had overheard on the tram home.
“Hey, do you know what Redmond van de Poste’s Address to the Nation is all about?”
“Rumor says it’s going to be about the stupidity surplus. Apparently his top advisers have come up with a plan that will deal with the excess in a manner that won’t damage economic interests and might actually generate new business opportunities.”
“He’ll top the ratings with that one-I only hope he doesn’t generate more stupidity. You know how stupidity tends to breed off itself. How are the girls?”