Captain Ian pointed a gun. It was my gun. And he pointed it at me.
“All right,” he said. “Enough. We haven’t slept and I get very edgy when I haven’t slept. I might just lose my temper and beat you about the head with this pistol.”
“So what do you want from me?” I asked, in the manner known as polite.
“I want you to tell us all about the case you’re on and then we’ll tell you all about the case we’re on.”
“Oh,” said I. “You’re on a case too, are you?”
“The biggest ever,” said Icarus.
“No way, buddy. The case I’m on is far bigger than yours.”
“Isn’t,” said Icarus.
“Is,” said I.
“Isn’t.”
“Is too.”
“Isn’t.”
“Chaps,” said Captain Ian. “I don’t know whether you’re brothers or not, but—”
“Not,” said I.
“Are,” said Icarus.
“Not.”
“Are too.”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said the captain. “But I will beat you most severely with this pistol, Mr Woodbine, if you don’t tell me everything you know.”
“I’ll tell you, fella,” said I. “But you won’t believe a word of it.”
And so I told them mine and they told me theirs. And when we were all well done with the telling, which took quite a fair old time and required us to send out for several more pizzas, it was slack jaws all round and a lot of heavy silence in the air.
But I for one could hear the sound of distant applause. It was still a week distant, but I felt certain I could hear it, because now I had a handle on the case. Now it made some kind of sense to me.
“The surveillance video,” I said. “The one I have here in my pocket. Play it on my TV and tell me what you see.”
“Fair enough,” said Icarus. And he took the cassette and slotted it into my VCR.
Now OK, I know I didn’t tell you that I owned a VCR, but hey, come on. Who in this world doesn’t own a VCR? They’re commoner than canker on a tomcat’s codpiece.
“Let it roll,” said I and the kid let it roll.
Icarus and Johnny Boy and Captain Ian viewed the television screen. I viewed it too, but I couldn’t see what they were seeing.
“Demons,” said Icarus, “two demons and they’re shooting a man. But he’s not a man, he’s golden, golden. He’s …”
“God,” said Captain Ian in a croaky choky voice. “They’ve murdered God.” And he sank down onto my unspeakable carpet and buried his face in his hands.
Icarus stared at the captain and then he stared right back at me. “I’m prepared to believe the evidence of the video footage,” said he. “But I still don’t believe that you’re Lazlo Woodbine. You are my brother and that is that.”
“Kid, I ain’t your brother.”
“And how come you can’t see the demons or angels? You’ve taken the drug, but you can’t see them. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I have a theory of my own about that,” I said. “But if demons murdered God, a whole lot of things make sense and I can have this case wrapped up in a couple of days.”
“Do what you like,” said Icarus. “I don’t care. I have to make the public aware of what is going on around them. That creatures of Hell are here among us, orchestrating everything. I have to tell the world.”
“Just one moment,” said Captain Ian. “Back at the Ministry of Serendipity, I said that I would explain everything to you. About what is really going on in the world. Now I think would be the time for me to do it.”
“Do you mind if I take a pinch of snuff before you get started?” I asked, pulling out the silver snuffbox that was given to me by a crowned head of Europe, in reward for certain services rendered, of which I must not speak. “I always find that a pinch of Crawford’s Imperial, the king of snuff, helps me to cogitate at times such as these. As the poem goes, whenever the going’s getting rough, take a pinch of Crawford’s snuff. I’ve tried others, but—”
“Shut your face,” said Captain Ian. “Or I might just shoot you in the head.”
I shrugged. “God’s widow won’t take kindly to that,” I said.
“No,” said Captain Ian, “you’re probably right. What I’m going to tell you all concerns Her. You see, God created the Earth as a present for His wife.”
“I knew that,” I said.
“I’ll shoot your balls off,” said the captain.
“Pray continue with your most interesting narrative,” I said.
“He created the Earth as a present for His wife. But that was a good many years ago and there have been many many years since, which means many many more birthdays for God’s wife. And He had to keep giving Her more and better. Women expect that, you know. God may have infinite wisdom, but even He doesn’t have infinite resources. There eventually comes a time when the bills have to be settled and it costs a great deal to construct galaxies and nebulas and black holes and splatagramattons.”
“What’s a splatagramatton?” asked Johnny Boy.
“It’s a posher version of a carmufti.”
“Oh, I see.”
“God kept digging deeper and deeper into His robe pockets until finally they were empty.”
“So who was He paying out to?” asked Icarus.
“The cosmic builders,” said Captain Ian. “The celestial corps of engineers. Everything is subject to universal laws. God might appear to simply wave His hand and cause the Earth to come into being. But certain forces have to be invoked by that bit of hand-waving. And call those forces whatever you like, they don’t work for free. God took a second mortgage out on Heaven and then a third and a fourth. And then He went bust and so the angels got evicted from Heaven. And God had to move His family to Earth. You’ve heard about people having visions of the Virgin Mary. They couldn’t have visions of her if she was up in Heaven, could they? They can only see her if she’s down here on Earth.”
“So Jesus is down here too?” said Icarus.
“You’ll have seen him on the telly. But I am not at liberty to divulge his earthly identity.”
“This is all too much,” said Icarus. “Far too much.”
“It gets worse. When God went bust, He had to sell up Hell too. So the demons all got evicted and now they’re here as well.”
“And you and they have been battling it out ever since, with mankind in the middle?”
“It was all predicted in the book of Revelation.”
“Isn’t everything?” said Johnny Boy. “But tell me this. Professor Partington reasoned that there was no afterlife. No Heaven or Hell to go to when we die.”
“Not any more,” said the captain.
“But there could be again?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. “I know, because I’ve solved it.”
“What?” they all went. Well, they would, wouldn’t they?
“I’ve solved the case,” I said. “Now that I’ve heard everything the captain had to say, I know who did it and why.”
They looked from one to another and then they all looked back at me.
“Well, go on then,” said Icarus. “Tell us.”
“No way, buddy. Not until the final rooftop showdown. I know, but I need proof. I have to present this proof to my employer. To wit and to woo, God’s widow. When I’ve done that, I’ll tell you the lot.”
“He’s bullshitting,” said Icarus. “He doesn’t know. He’s just making it up.”
“Kid,” said I, “once I’ve solved this case, you can forget about angels and demons walking the Earth. Everything will be back the way it should be. Trust me on this, I’m a detective.”
“Well,” said Johnny Boy. “Where does this leave Icarus and me?”
“Dealing with it ourselves,” said Icarus.
“My advice to you”, said Captain Ian, “would be to lie low until Mr Woodbine has solved the case.”
“Oh yeah, right,” said Icarus. “As if I’d trust him.”