You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (44 page)

The thin-faced girl looked at her. ‘Have you finished?’ she said.

‘For now.’

‘Good.’

‘Very well.’ The thin-faced girl held out a piece of paper. ‘I assume you’re competent at simple arithmetic. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to add up the column of figures and divide the result by twenty-six.’

‘You what?’

‘If you’d be so kind.’

Connie shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said. A minute or so later, she said, ‘Nine.’

Then something curious happened. The thin-faced girl smiled; not a humourless grin or a sardonic smirk, but a great big beaming smile. Practically angelic.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘So that’s all right.’

Not only did the penny drop, it landed with enough force to bury itself to the rim in concrete. ‘So maths is working again,’ Connie said. ‘Which means the cock-up is all sorted out.’

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ the thin-faced girl replied. ‘Before that can happen, Mr Hollingshead needs to go down to the front office.’

‘Me?’ Colin sat up sharply. ‘What’ve I got to do with—? Ah, right,’ he added. ‘But that won’t do any good,’ he said sadly. ‘She dumped me, remember.’

‘I think it may be possible to induce her to change her mind,’ the thin-faced girl said. ‘Provided you can do a simple thing like apologising without making a mess of it. Given the trouble we’ve all been to in order to secure you a happy ending, it’d be appreciated if you could see your way to making a special effort. ‘

Colin was about to object that all that trouble wouldn’t have been necessary if a bunch of bastards hadn’t decided to play funny games with his life, but he decided not to. More important things to do. He stood up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well, goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’ The thin-faced girl dipped her head in a very tiny gesture of acknowledgement. ‘Send us a postcard from Vanuatu.’

Colin thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said, and left the room.

‘Now, then.’ The thin-faced girl had slipped straight back into brisk mode. ‘Before we wrap up this meeting, are there any questions?’

Do angels have teeth? Connie wondered, and if so, what weapon and how much force would be needed to smash them in? ‘Yes, actually,’ she said. ‘Why did you open the door in Benny’s office? You nearly scared the poor lamb to death.’

‘It was essential,’ the thin-faced girl replied.

‘So the dead couple could come and see me?’ Cassie put in.

The thin-faced girl shook her head. ‘That was merely a diversion,’ she said, ‘or at best an incidental benefit. The real reason was so that Mr Hollingshead could go through the connecting door into the Bank of the Dead, and then come back again.’

‘Really?’ Connie said. ‘Why?’

This time, the thin-faced girl’s smile was more of a sneer. ‘Because he had drunk the philtre and fallen in love with Ms Clay, but that had failed to solve the problem. Therefore it was necessary to undo the philtre’s effects. The philtre, you will recall, remains effective for as long as the person who drinks it lives.’

‘But that—’ Connie frowned. ‘Oh, right. And going to the Bank counts as dying.’

‘Correct, technically speaking. Of course, the Bank officials recognised that they had no jurisdiction over Mr Hollingshead and sent him back—’

‘Just visiting,’ Connie said, remembering something. ‘The get-out-of-death-free card. No, it’s all right, it doesn’t matter. Go on.’

‘Thank you. I should point out,’ the thin-faced girl went on, ‘that this was something of a miscalculation on our part. Simply visiting the Bank does not, in fact, count as death, a fact subsequently pointed out to me in a memo from the Bank’s acting assistant manager. Fortunately, he had the insight and the intelligence to recognise a star-crossed lover when he saw one, and send him back immediately. Otherwise—’ She paused, and if it had been possible for angels to blush, she would have. ‘It also follows,’ she went on, ‘that it couldn’t have been Mr Hollingshead’s visit to the Bank that released him from the effects of the philtre, and I can only conclude that you were correct and that it was his pre-existing true love for Ms Williams that achieved that result. Nonetheless, thanks to Mr Dao an awkward complication was avoided,’ she said. ‘For which we can all be heartily grateful.’

She wasn’t expecting the awkward silence that followed. It was Connie, needless to say, who broke it.

‘Some of us, at any rate,’ she said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Connie exploded. ‘You think you’ve been ever so smart and clever, even though you misread the whole stupid business and nearly got us all killed, or unborn or whatever. But maybe you’re overlooking the fact that poor Cassie here’s been left up to her neck in it; unless, of course, you’ve got the power to override a duly executed binding contract.’

Before the thin-faced girl could reply, Cassie sighed and said, ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind.’

Connie scowled at her. ‘Cassie, dear, don’t be so bloody stupid. Haven’t you been listening? These people—’

‘It’s all right,’ Cassie repeated firmly. ‘It doesn’t matter, because I don’t believe in all that bullshit. Hell, I mean, and afterlives and stuff.’

The thin-faced girl pursed her lips. ‘With respect—’

‘Respect,’ Cassie snapped. ‘That’s a laugh, coming from you. No I don’t believe in you either. Oh, I’m prepared to accept that you’re some kind of supernatural bureaucrat, because I know people like that exist, I spend half my life leaving messages on their voice mail. But that’s all you are. I don’t believe in you because that’d mean I had to believe you’re somehow better than me, and quite obviously you’re not; you’re just bigger and stronger. So I don’t believe in Hell, either. I think it’s just ordinary death, or maybe not even that. In fact, do you know what I think Hell is, Miss whatever-your-stupid-name-is? I think it’s being pushed around by the likes of you; in which case, I’ve put up with it this long, I can probably cope with it for ever and ever. Just knowing that whatever happens, I was in the right and you people were in the wrong will make it bearable. No, shut up, Connie,’ she added sharply. ‘I’m just about to get my own back, so don’t interrupt. I’m going to teach this stupid cow a lesson she won’t ever forget.’

The thin-faced girl’s face had never been thinner. You could’ve shaved with it. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How do you propose doing that?’

Cassie’s turn to smile; definitely angelic. ‘Easy,’ she said. ‘I’m going to forgive you.’

The brief silence that followed was broken by a loud, vulgar noise from Connie: part whoop, part snort of laughter, part rebel yell. ‘Cassie, that’s brilliant. You go, girl. Oh, she’s going to have so much trouble explaining that one away to her boss when she gets home.’ She grinned savagely, like a wolf. ‘I take it you do have assessments and performance reviews and stuff where you come from?’

‘Of course,’ the thin-faced girl said.

‘And baseball caps? Tell me you have baseball caps.’

‘Certainly. We find them a very potent symbol of the team ethic’

‘That settles it,’ Connie said cheerfully. ‘It’s the Other Place for me when I go.’

‘Ms Clay.’ The thin-faced girl was doing icicle impressions. ‘I realise that, through no fault of your own, you’ve been placed in a highly invidious position. Let me assure you that I will bring pressure to bear through every available channel to ensure that your stay in the environment in question will be as painless as possible. However — ‘

It was probably just as well for her that she got no further, given the mood that Connie was in. As it was, the door opened and Benny Shumway charged in. He was out of breath, and holding a plastic carrier bag.

‘Connie,’ he barked, ignoring everyone else in the room, ‘I’ve just been talking to young Hollingshead. Is it true?’

Connie nodded. ‘If you mean about the contract.’

‘Yes. Right.’ He turned away and faced Cassie. ‘Here,’ he said, reaching into the bag. ‘Catch.’

He threw something. Much to her surprise, Cassie caught it.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’m not hungry. And anyway, I don’t like apples.’

‘Apples?’ Connie said. ‘Benny—’

The thin-faced girl had pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘Ms Clay,’ she said, ‘please give me that.’

Cassie looked at her, and then at Benny, who said, ‘Just eat the fucking apple, Cassie. Trust me.’

‘What?’ Cassie said. ‘Disobey a direct order from the boss?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled. ‘No contest,’ she said, and bit.

All the way home in the taxi, they hardly said a word; but when they reached Mortlake, they got out and walked up the street for a bit, until they reached a shop. Yesterday it had been a Dixons. The day before that, it had passed through a Robert Dyas phase before morphing into a Body Shop. But before that, in the distant, unreal time before the weirdness came, it had been the same travel agency for fifteen years; and, when Colin looked up at the words written on its window, that was what it was again.

Colin smiled. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said.

Fam hesitated, but not for very long. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘By the way, where the hell is Vanuatu, anyway?’

‘No idea. But I want to go there anyway.’

‘Oh.’ Fam looked at him, then down at the ground. ‘Do we really have to?’ she said. ‘I mean, I do love you, and everything’s all right, and I know you want to get away from all this horrible stuff that’s happened to you, with your Dad and those nasty people and the love potion and everything, but — ‘

‘No,’ Colin said firmly. ‘I want us to go to Vanuatu.’ She was still looking at him, but now she was smiling. ‘All right,’ she said.

Colin put his hand on the shop door and pushed gently. ‘And then,’ he said, ‘I want us both to come back.’

‘It was nice of her,’ Benny said, putting his feet up on Connie’s desk, ‘to give us the company.’

Connie shrugged. ‘It was the least she could do,’ she replied with her mouth full. ‘And anyway, you heard what she said: her lot didn’t have any more use for it. Typical bureaucratic mentality; it’s less hassle to get rid of it than to figure out how to write it up in the accounts. Not,’ she added, ‘that I’m complaining. It’s just—’

Cassie looked at her. ‘What?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Connie swallowed the last of her slice of apple. ‘It’s just that all these years I’ve dreamed of being made a partner, right? But — This is silly, but I’d have liked it to have been because someone finally recognised how bloody good I am at my job. Not because a senior admin-grade angel wants to keep the auditors from giving her a hard time. Spoils it,’ she said. ‘A bit,’ she added. ‘Not a big bit, though.’

‘And there’s eternal life on top of that,’ Benny pointed out, neatly spitting an apple pip into the waste-paper basket. ‘Which means — ‘ He stopped, froze, dived into the basket like a dog chasing a ball and emerged holding the discarded pip carefully between forefinger and thumb. ‘Anybody got a matchbox?’

‘Benny, what are you—?’

He smiled. ‘Not exactly your ordinary apple-seed, remember?’

‘Oh.’ Connie took an envelope from her desk drawer and handed it to him. ‘You were saying?’

‘Basically,’ Benny mumbled as he licked the envelope flap, ‘you’re never going to have to retire.’

‘True.’ Connie allowed her face to slide into a grin. ‘And I can’t wait to see how they take the news. That’s going to be fun.’

‘Allow me to spoil it for you.’ Benny yawned. ‘Cas Suslowicz will burst into tears, say how happy he is for you and how much you deserve it, and give you a big hug that’ll probably crack two ribs. Dennis Tanner will be livid, which means his mum’ll love us all for ever. As for Jack Wells—’ Benny frowned. ‘Actually, that’s harder to call. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to retire.’

Connie shook her head violently. ‘No way. Not in a million years.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Benny said. ‘Between us and the night and the music, I did hear a suggestion that he’s been headhunted.’

‘Get out. Who by?’

‘That’s the good bit,’ Benny said. ‘Jackie Dao, of all people. Apparently, the Bank of the Dead has plans to expand into the insurance and pensions sector. Logical,’ Benny added, ‘when you think about it.’

‘I guess so. But Jack Wells? Don’t see it myself.’

‘Well, I don’t see him buying a bungalow by the sea and growing hollyhocks. Anyhow,’ Benny went on, ‘we’ll know soon enough. Oh, while I think of it. Cassie.’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks for letting us share the apple,’ Benny said gravely.

‘What? Oh that’s all right.’ She frowned. ‘After all, you both went to a lot of trouble on my account. Besides,’ she added, ‘I wasn’t sure you’d even want to.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Benny grinned, doglike. ‘Living for ever and ever? Still being around when the sun goes nova? Wouldn’t miss it for worlds. Oh, remind me, someone. I’ve still got Colin’s Dad locked up in the lavatory on the second floor. Sooner or later I suppose I’ll have to go and let him out.’

Cassie smiled. ‘He’ll be a bit fractious, I imagine.’

‘I hope so,’ Benny said. ‘And anyway, he’ll calm down fast enough when I explain to him that he may have lost a son, but he’s gained a permanent supernatural workforce, contractually bound to serve his company during the lifetime of an immortal. Exactly what he wanted, so that’s all right. I mean to say, he’s an arsehole, but if there’s servings of happy ending left over when all the good guys have had theirs it’d be churlish to begrudge him any just because he’s a nasty little shit. That’s forgiveness,’ he added. ‘Divine, apparently.’

‘I wonder how they’ll get on,’ Connie said. ‘Young Colin and his girlfriend, I mean.’ She leaned forward and picked up the baseball cap that lay on her desk. It was still the same ill-advised mix of colours, but thanks to a basic transfiguration spell the JWW logo had been replaced by a gracefully intertwined SSC - Schwartz-Alberich, Shumway, Clay & Co. She’d grown rather attached to it over the last fifteen minutes. ‘True love,’ she said, and sighed. ‘I used to want that, when I was young. Mind you, I also wanted dark purple nail varnish, a beehive hairdo and a pony. The nice thing about getting old is growing out of things.’

‘Don’t knock true love,’ Benny said seriously. ‘Thought I’d found it, five - no, scratch that, six times’ and ‘Well, the first one dumped me after six months, the second one ate onions in bed, number three was all very well until I met number four, number four was Countess Judy, and the fifth one got rust in the sills and had to be scrapped. Silly really. Which isn’t to say,’ he added with a grin, ‘that when the seventh one comes along—’