Damned If You Do (5 page)

‘I heard voices,' I told him, indicating the stairwell.

‘That's why timing was so important. If I hadn't pushed her—'

‘You
pushed
her?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm Death. I have no choice.'

We stared silently at the scene below until we heard people on the roof behind us. When we turned around we saw a young couple kissing by the eastern wall. They were completely unaware of what had happened.

‘Have you written the note?' he asked.

I felt a surge of panic. ‘I couldn't think—'

‘Now would be a good time.'

I took out the pen, rested the notepaper on the sloping lead roof and quickly scribbled a message. At first I thought it was pointless, but the more I considered it the more appropriate it seemed. Death crunched his sweet, glanced at the note, then shoved it into his back pocket.

‘Cute,' he said.

*   *   *

As we passed the couple on our way towards the stairs, my mind drifted again.

I was locked in a kiss. My lover and I were one person, joined at the forehead, nose and mouth, at the arms, hands and chest, at the groin, thighs and feet. We were consumed and controlled by the kiss, worshipping each other so completely with our bodies and minds that we became one spirit, one ecstasy.

And I remembered the taste.

Our mouths were like an orange. Our tongues were like the flesh. Our lips were like the soft, waxy rind.

*   *   *

We reached the foot of the staircase. The ticket booth was empty, but satellite groups of the larger crowd occupied much of the pedestrian area. Death instructed me to wait, pushed his way through the fringes, and melted into his surroundings like a chameleon. It was only afterwards that I realized he was planting my suicide note somewhere on the woman's body.

On his return he asked me a question:

‘What was her name?'

‘Her name?' I echoed.

He nodded.

‘Laika,' I said. ‘Like the first dog in space.'

Less than half a day earlier I'd been indifferent to everything but the security of my own personal environment. Now the fact that we had so quickly ended the life of a woman about whom I knew only a few random details, whose name we hadn't even mentioned until this moment, disturbed me deeply. When I thought of her I only saw the spreading pool of blood, the flattened head, the blank eyes, the shattered skull, the twisted limbs. To the Agency, she had no identity other than as a client; but she was more than this to me … And looking back on this now, I see in this feeling something I was unable to articulate at the time: I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of having signed my contract.

I remembered the note I had written, and wished that I could have created a more meaningful message, something unique to
her.
But all I had managed was a single word:

Sorry.

Dead red roses

We ate at a grim first-floor burger joint a hundred yards from the tower, overlooking the road that led back to the car. Hunger is one aspect of existence I didn't miss as a corpse, and its tentative return at the sight of a greasy chargrilled steak was particularly unwelcome. Death said little during the four hours it took him to devour three T-bone specials, five portions of thick-cut chips, a chocolate nut sundae, a banana split, and countless coffee refills, but he did wonder why, before sampling it himself, I'd only consumed a tiny part of my meal.

‘I've never liked TexMex,' I explained.

‘What kind of a zombie
are
you?' he said.

Frankly, a poor one. Even amongst the undead, I don't make the grade. I am non-violent, relatively sentimental, and have no great lust for flesh – living or otherwise. But even if I had, I still wouldn't have felt like eating.

At the end of lunch, after the crowd, the ambulances and the police had disappeared from the scene, Death paid the bill (without tipping) and we walked slowly back to the car. He tore off a parking ticket fixed to the windscreen and ripped it up before accelerating rapidly away. After a quick trip to Office World to collect five packets of plain white copier paper, a laser cartridge and a novelty pen, we returned to the Agency. Apart from his insistence on humming a particularly mournful tune, and his observation that the reason he ate so much at lunch was that he ate so
little
at breakfast and dinner, Death seemed content to travel in silence.

He reverse-parked in front of the house between a white 2CV and a black Fiesta, turned off the engine, stopped humming, got out, shut the door, and walked away. It was all done with a fluidity and speed born of long practice; but he seemed preoccupied. I remained in the car for a moment, then followed him.

It was early evening and the sun was hidden behind the house. I guessed that it must be late summer, but having been underground for so long I couldn't be sure. A corpse, of course, doesn't notice the passing of the seasons – because for him all the days and months and years are the same.

*   *   *

The sound of laughter led me to the office, where Famine, Pestilence and Skirmish were listening to Death's description of the day's events. As I walked through the door Pestilence failed to stifle a snigger.

‘What's the joke?' I asked.

‘Nothing,' he replied. He let his jaundiced eyes wander the length of my shining blue suit, then smirked.

‘How's the bruise?'

He seemed genuinely pleased by the question. ‘Growing by the hour – and spreading round the back.' He began to lift his shirt. ‘Would you like to have a look?'

‘Later, maybe.'

Death tossed his car keys to Skirmish, with the simple explanation: ‘I've got some paper in the boot. Take one for yourself.' Skirmish tutted and shook his head, but obeyed. He scuttled out of the room, knocking over a coffee cup as he left. Death picked it up and put it on his desk, next to the chess board. Then he turned to me and asked if there was anything I needed.

I needed reassurance that I had performed my work adequately; I needed a translator to help me understand my new world; I needed to know exactly how I had died – but above all, I needed to rest, and this is what I told him.

He nodded. ‘I'll show you to your room.'

We headed for the doorway but Pestilence intercepted us, a sickly grin splitting his pimpled face. ‘Don't forget we have to collect the goods from the Lab tomorrow.
Before
we head downtown.'

‘We'll be there,' Death replied.

We walked back along the main corridor, turned right after the stairs into a narrow passageway, followed the passageway to another long corridor, turned right again and headed for the last door on the left.

Death removed a golden key from his pocket and turned it in the lock. ‘The key is the Chief's idea,' he explained. ‘For the first few nights we'll shut you in. Make you feel more at home.' The door opened into a medium-sized corner bedroom, with two windows facing the side and rear of the house. The furnishing was sparse: a threadbare Barca lounger in the near left corner, a two-tier bunk bed against the left wall, a writing desk beneath the side window ahead, a wardrobe in the far right corner, a table with a stand chair beneath the rear window, and a menacing candelabra cactus to the right of the door. ‘As you can see, you'll have to share. We're one room short, I'm afraid.' He smiled and gave me a comforting pat on the back. ‘Anyway, breakfast is about eight tomorrow. Come to the office when you're ready.'

On the writing desk stood an old Bluebird typewriter. Next to it was a white vase filled with dead red roses.

As a corpse I had had no need to distinguish between good and bad taste, between rubbish and quality. I lost all sense of discrimination, considered all things equal. As a result, when I looked at the Artex ceiling, the white, shagpile carpet, the red-and-black diagonally-striped bedclothes, the floral wallpaper with matching curtains, and the Formica table with its portable television and blue glass ornament in the shape of a swan, I was incapable of deciding whether or not I liked my new home. It was more exciting and more unusual than the coffin – and it gave me a powerful sensation of something familiar from my past – but, fundamentally, it wasn't
me.

I was vaguely aware of Death closing the door and turning the key in the lock. It was a nice touch: that simple sound gave me an immense sense of security. I walked over to the rear window. A canal and a railway line separated me from the long, low meadow and the evening sun.

I returned to the bed and lay down on the bottom bunk. I knew this town, of course – but I couldn't remember its name.

*   *   *

As I sank into sleep, alone and safe once more, I floated back to the warm, slow days of my childhood, and to my parents' house. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, staring at the soft, floral-patterned carpet beneath my feet as I counted the steps; I passed the old grandfather clock on the landing, listening to the lazy swings of the golden pendulum; and I turned the wooden handle on the door to my father's study, and crept inside. It wasn't that I was forbidden to enter, but to walk boldly into such a sacred place seemed somehow irreverent.

I was an only child, and the study provided the perfect space for me to make my own amusement. It contained an old writing desk in which my father kept the tools and scraps of his hobby wrapped in a blue velvet cloth: he used to repair watches in his spare time. There were pictures and painting kits, too – and scrapbooks and photo albums, newspapers and notebooks, curios and potted plants … And there were dozens of board games permanently piled high against one wall. I remember spending the whole of one summer teaching myself to play chess.

But, best of all, the entire room was lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, containing hundreds of books in all sizes and colours. I spent many hours immersed in solitary silence, browsing through volume after volume of fact and fiction, absorbing anything that came my way: science or art, story or trivia, essay or anecdote. Sometimes, if my father was out working late, I would climb onto his desk and reach up to the highest shelves where he kept his crime novels. I think he put them there as a precaution, because of the adult world they described; but I was far less interested in the secrets of adulthood than in fraternizing with the criminals and helping the detectives solve their cases.

It feels now as if most of my youth was devoted to creating and inhabiting an interior landscape of mystery and suspense. I shared arcane knowledge and indulged in melancholic reflection with Sherlock Holmes, exchanged hard-boiled wisecracks with Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, hung out with the comic hoods on Damon Runyon's Broadway, drank tea from china cups with Miss Marple … I could never get along with Hercule Poirot, though. Even as a child, I found him far too smug.

And now, long after my death, I see that I was never happier than in those hours I spent alone, with a pile of unread books before me; listening to the slow ticking of the grandfather clock, waiting for my father to come home.

*   *   *

I awoke to a succession of loud grunts and the rattle of the door handle. It was as if some irate primate had been released in the corridor and was desperately seeking an exit. I sat on the edge of the bed, collecting my thoughts. The room was dark, and pleasantly cool. Through the window I saw stars, and heard the barking of dogs. I was about to speak when the rattling stopped, and the angry grunts were replaced by receding footsteps.

I had just remembered fully where I was when the footsteps returned, this time accompanied by petulant complaints. A key was inserted in the lock, the handle was twisted, and the intruder stood in the doorway.

I heard a sigh.

War's little helper

The silhouetted figure gave a token knock.

‘Who is it?' I said, squinting against the light from the hall.

‘Skirmish.'

‘Come in.'

He did so, switched on the light, locked the door behind him and said, ‘I see you've settled in.' He was carrying a tray with a plate of salad, a wobbling brown dessert, and a glass of water. He saw me studying the food. ‘It's a goat's cheese salad with walnuts, olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Very healthy – I don't want to end up looking like War.' He pointed at the dessert. ‘That's a low-fat creme caramel. Pes stole the last of the rice pudding. D'you want some?'

I shook my head. He placed the tray on the table, turned the chair around, sat down, and took a long, slow drink from the glass.

‘You don't say much, do you?'

‘I'm out of practice.'

He grunted an acknowledgement. ‘It's hard coming out of the coffin.'

He ate his meal noisily and very quickly, shovelling the food into his mouth as if he hadn't touched anything since breakfast. When the last flabby gobbet of dessert had disappeared, he sank into his chair, rubbed his belly in a circular motion, and belched loudly.

‘So,' he began. I waited for him to continue. Instead, he stood up, walked over to the Barca lounger, twisted round and sat down. He eased the lounger into recliner mode and started to pick food from his front teeth.

‘So what?'

‘So … how was your job today?'

I was standing at the top of the tower again, gazing down at the woman's broken body. I imagined Death pushing her, and watched her fall earthward. For one brief, glorious moment she was graceful, like a diving bird of prey, then she thumped onto the pavement below. The thought made me feel sick.

‘It was OK.'

‘Uh-huh.' He ran his tongue around the inside of his lips. ‘You're on a standard contract, aren't you?' I nodded. ‘So it's … shape up or ship out?'

‘If I fail,' I said carefully, ‘I get to choose any one of the deaths I witness this week.'

Not that I had any intention of throwing myself off a tall building on Sunday evening. Suicide was far too low down the list of respected deaths in the corpse community to be my first choice. I couldn't decide what it
meant,
either. To the woman, it was a final decision produced by years of despair and an act of revenge on the living. To the watching crowd it was a shock, or an entertainment, or simply a story they would never forget. To my employer, it was a reluctant obligation.