Only Human Page 6

  The insipid male voice said it was Duncan Philips, and insisted that he’d like to speak to Rachel Esterling, please. He said the name slowly, as if to a moron or a foreigner. He couldn’t see Maria grinning, which was probably just as well for his peace of mind.

  ‘Just a moment,’ she said, ‘I’ll get her for you.’ She put the phone down on the desk, took a deep breath and yelled ‘RACHEL!’ as loudly as she could. Then she counted to three, slammed a heavy book on the desk just next to the mouthpiece, made a few vaguely wild-animal noises, picked up the phone and said, ‘Rachel Esterling here, how can I help you?’

  ‘Er, hello, it’s Duncan Philips. Who’s that peculiar girl who answered just now?’

  ‘My mother,’ Maria replied. ‘She’s ninety-six and just recovering from a massive stroke, so I thought I’d better have her in here with me where I can look after her properly. Do you have a problem with that, Mr Philips?’

  ‘Um, no. Sorry. Look, if it’s not convenient—’

  ‘No, it’s fine, really - Mother, please stop doing that, it’s not funny. Hello? Sorry about that. She will keep slumping forward in her chair and holding perfectly still, bless her. I think it’s wonderful the way she’s managed to hold on to her sense of humour. Hello?’

  ‘Hello? Look, I really think I’d better leave it for now, you’ve obviously got a lot on your plate at the moment and—’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Maria cooed. ‘I’m here to work, and the way I see it is, if she dies, she dies. I mean, ninety-six, she’s had a good innings - Mother, if you do that once again I’ll take away the bottle. You just tell me what needs doing, Mr Philips, and it’s as good as on your desk. Just because I’m having a personal crisis doesn’t mean - oh damn.’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about, just spilt this wretched sun-tan lotion all down my top. That’s one thing you can say for black leather, it doesn’t show the stains. Please tell me what it is you want me to do, Mr Philips. If Mother sees me getting agitated, it might bring on one of her turns.’

  ‘All it was,’ said Mr Philips, sounding like a man who’s just walked into the cathedral tea-rooms and found it full of Hell’s Angels having an orgy, ‘I was supposed to be meeting Mr Nogamura and his party for lunch at Ciro’s and I can’t make it, so I was going to ask if you could stand in for me, but . . .’

  ‘Ciro’s, right, fine. Half past one?’

  ‘Yes. But . . .’

  ‘That’s great. I’ve been dying for a chance to wear this little Hawaiian number I picked up the other day.’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘And you’ll just poke your head round the door every ten minutes or so, make sure Mother’s okay?Thanks ever so. And if anything does happen, I’ll leave the solicitor’s number at reception. Got to move fast, you see, because of my brother.’

  ‘Your broth—’

  ‘Sad, isn’t it? Nothing like a death to bring out the worst in people - Mother, I won’t tell you again. If you do that to poor Mr Philips, I shall be very cross indeed. Well, then. All right, see you later. Bye.’

  She dropped the phone back on to its cradle, stretched out her arms and legs and yawned. The painting, she fancied, was giving her a disapproving look. She stuck her tongue out at it.

  Ciro’s. Mr Nogamura and party. Right. Well, it was better than lying around in here all day. She knew that Rachel Esterling lived in mortal dread of Mr Nogamura, who was something grand in the parent company and never stirred from his lair without a retinue of seven identical young men who spoke no English. Somehow, she fancied, unlike Ms Esterling, she could speak fluent Japanese. This could be mildly amusing.

  She stood up and faced the picture, using its glass as a mirror.

  ‘The trouble with you is,’ she muttered, ‘you’re no respecter of persons.’

  Which was only to be expected, really. When you’ve hung on the walls of some of the most remarkable people in history, starting with Duke Bernabo Visconti and generally speaking going up in the world thereafter, you find it hard to be overawed by a lot of silly little men in suits with bits of coloured string knotted round their necks.

  (An odd habit, the wearing of ties. Back when she was first painted, men put a noose round their necks when their city had just been captured as a sign of abject surrender, as if to say their lives were at their master’s disposal. There’s one thing, she reckoned, that hadn’t changed all that much over the years.)

  The picture scowled at her; which is to say, it scowled all the time, thanks to Pietro del Razo’s idea of a serene expression, but on this occasion it was more than usually appropriate.

  Why are you doing this?

  She curled her lip. ‘Listen, sister,’ she growled. ‘When you’ve been a painting as long as I have, you’ll know. Now stop pulling faces or you’ll frighten the baby.’

  Baby? What baby? I . . . Oh my God, how long’s that been there?

  ‘Since thirteen ninety-something,’ Maria replied. ‘But it only bites if you annoy it. Bye for now.’

  She picked up the raincoat she’d found in Ms Esterling’s wardrobe, pulled it on over her bikini, left the office and hailed a taxi.

  ‘Ciro’s,’ she said. ‘No hurry.’

  Fortunately, the driver seemed to know where Ciro’s was, because he didn’t try and argue the toss. They’d been driving for something like four minutes when Maria leaned forward and hammered on the glass partition with the heel of her hand.

  ‘Stop!’ she shouted. ‘Here, as soon as you can.’

  She jumped out of the cab, not bothering to shut the door behind her, and sprinted up the street until she was standing directly underneath an advertising hoarding, on which was plastered a toothpaste advertisement. She looked up at it and narrowed her brows.

  ‘What did you just say?’ she asked.

  ‘Sh,’ replied the poster. ‘People are staring. Look, get rid of the taxi and come round the back where we can talk. All right?’

  Maria nodded and strolled back to the taxi.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘Could you possibly do me a favour?’

  ‘Do me best, miss.’

  ‘Thanks awfully. Right, here’s two hundred and fifty pounds. I want you to go to Ciro’s, find a party of eight Japanese men and buy them lunch. Do you think you could manage that for me?’

  The driver looked at her. ‘I’ll give it a go,’ he replied. ‘Japanese, you said.’

  Maria nodded. ‘Tell them you’ve taken over Mr Philips’ job, all right? That’s terribly sweet of you. Ciao.’

  The taxi drove off, swerving as it did so to avoid an oncoming van. Maria waited till it was out of sight, and then slipped into the nettle-infested space between the hoarding and the wall. Apart from the nettles, there were broken bottles, empty cans, some decomposing newspapers and a dead cat. All in all, it reminded Maria strongly of fourteenth-century Milan.

  ‘Hello?’

  Ah, there you are. I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.

  Maria bent down and rubbed a nettle-bitten ankle. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m here now.What’s so important I’ve got to miss my free lunch?’

  A slight breath of wind rifted between the hoarding and the wall, making it tremble a little.

  Ah. Listen.

  CHAPTER THREE

  You know that moment in the high-budget adventure films where the hero’s just fallen through a trapdoor into a dark and sinister pit; and he strikes a match and looks around, and sees that the place is knee-deep in irritable poisonous snakes?

  Think what it’d be like the other way round. Imagine you were a decent, law-abiding puff-adder, and one moment you were sidling along mind your own business, and the next you found yourself in a dark, sinister pit full of heroes . . .

  A part of Artofel’s brain urged him not to overreact; they were, after all, just a load of humans, while he was a Duke of Hell and a member of the Infernal Council, with his own parking space with his nam
e on it and his own key to the executive toilet; if there was any terror knocking around in this situation, he ought to be inspiring it rather than feeling it himself.

  ‘Erm,’ he said.

  The congregation looked up at him; whereupon the rest of him suggested to the valiant minority that it had better shut up or they’d chuck it out of his ear. It took the point.

  ‘Dearly beloved,’ he said.

  Where did that come from? The memory banks, apparently. He hoped there was plenty more because he really hadn’t the faintest idea what he was supposed to be doing here, or even why he was here at all.

  Hmm. Fairly standard human mindset, as far as he could judge. Perhaps the feelings of disorientation and fear just come with the territory. He smiled.

  It didn’t go down well. The congregation shuffled their feet and carried on looking at him. He hammered on the door of the memory banks and pleaded for help.

  ‘Dearly beloved,’ he repeated. ‘My sermon today will be about Hell.’

  The audience relaxed visibly, and Artofel cautiously allowed himself to join them. According to the get-you-started pack of memories and instincts that went with this body, he was now supposed to preach to the congregation for about a quarter of an hour on some uplifting topic; such as, for example, the horrid things that were going to happen to them after they died if they weren’t good. That, Artofel reflected, ought to be a piece of cake; except . . .

  Except that, if he told them what it was really like, they weren’t going to believe him. In fact, they’d probably start booing and throwing things. If the word-associations that went with Hell in the host’s memory were anything to go by, these people had a set of preconceptions about Flipside that made Artofel wonder if they were talking about the same place.

  Probably better, he reasoned, to give them what they’re expecting; so he launched into a rambling description of lakes of burning sulphur, dog-headed fiends, pitchforks, fire and brimstone that would’ve been downright amusing in any other context.

  It was the right thing to do, apparently; because when the service was over and the punters were filing out past him, most of them made a point of shaking him vigorously by the hand and saying how nice it was to have a good, meaty, old-fashioned sermon for a change, instead of all the modern stuff. Apparently these poor fools wanted to believe in the combination-sewage-farm-and-barbecue vision he’d conjured up for them. As if believing in all that cod somehow made them better people.

  Still, he told himself as he bolted the church door and tottered into the vestry, if that’s what they want, good luck to them; the chances were that none of them would ever get to see the real thing and realise he’d been telling them a load of porkies. And, provided he could get out of this mess and back behind his nice safe desk in HQ, he couldn’t care less anyway. He was, after all, a wages clerk, not a political officer. When it came to the crunch, what he actually knew about Good and Evil could be written on a wasp’s eyelid with a thick-nibbed pen.

  He dismissed all such considerations from his mind, remembered where his host kept a half-bottle of supermarket Scotch and took four substantial glugs. It wasn’t a patch on Flipside liquor - there are some advantages to living in God’s wine cellar - but it helped quite a lot, simultaneously clearing the mind and numbing pretty well everything else.

  In the mirror he saw a short, bald, middle-aged man with rosy cheeks and square, black-rimmed glasses; not entirely unlike what he saw in his mirror at home, except for the lack of horns and the regrettably uncloven feet. Trying to balance on these flat nan-bread-shaped things was a nightmare in itself; to someone who was used to the functional elegance of the hoof, it was like trying to do a Fred Astaire dance routine in snowshoes. The lack of horns was something else he’d have difficulty getting used to if this strange state of affairs lasted for any length of time. He’d often wondered how mortals managed without them; particularly office workers. How else did they pierce paper for filing in box files, or remove staples, or open Cellophane-wrapped packets of biscuits?

  Above all; how had he got here, and how the Flipside was he going to get back?

  He was just about to try another glug to see if that would produce any answers, when he heard a frantic banging at the door. Quickly slipping the bottle into his pocket (just the right size for a half-bottle of Scotch, the pockets in these dressing-gowns; wonder why?), he slipped out of the vestry and drew back the bolts.

  There were two middle-aged women on the doorstep, both breathing heavily as if they’d been running. He recognised them; they’d been sitting in the front row of the congregation. He gave them a big smile and asked them how he could help.

  ‘It’s old Mr Higgins,’ panted the shorter of the two. ‘Vicar, you’ve got to come now. He’s frothing at the mouth and throwing things.’

  Artofel frowned. ‘But what can I do?’ he asked. ‘Surely you need a doctor, not a . . .’

  ‘He’s possessed!’ interrupted the other woman shrilly. ‘Just like the last time, and the time before that. You remember, Vicar. He’s doing that demonic laughing again, too. He only does that when he’s possessed or when he’s been watching the Cosby show, and it’s not a Wednesday, so it must be the devils.’

  ‘I see.’ Topside, muttered Artofel under his breath, are they really serious? In this day and age? Do they really think we’ve got nothing better to do than take over human beings’ bodies and . . .

  Eeek!

  Demonic possession! It’d explain a lot, certainly. He’d heard of it, of course, in the same way that a computer programmer in the Navy’s heard of yard-arms and marlinspikes. He hadn’t the faintest notion how it worked, but he’d always been under the impression that it was the demonic spirit that usurped the human body, not the other way round.

  Maybe he was wrong; in which case, what his notional colleague inside this Mr Higgins probably meant to convey by the demonic laughter was Let me out! Let me out!

  He has my sympathy.

  ‘I’ll be right with you,’ he said to the two women. ‘Now, let me see. What did I use the last time?’

  ‘The bell,’ said the shorter woman, ‘and the book and the candle. Worked a treat, if you remember. He was back at work down the slaughterhouse first thing Wednesday.’

  Bell. Book. Candle. Feeling incredibly foolish, as a veteran astronaut might feel while sticking feathers to his arms with beeswax he trotted back into the vestry and poked about until he found a candle, a copy of the 1972 edition of Wisden and—

  Bell. No bell. Curses. Where did this bothersome priest keep his bell? He was just about to give up when his eye fell on an ancient bicycle propped up against the wall. Fortunately there was a toolkit with the right size of spanner in it; a few turns with that and it came away as easy as anything. Right. Bell. Here we go.

  On his way to Mr Higgins’ house he discovered that he was the vicar of St Anthony’s, a rural parish made up mostly of retired city-folk who lived in converted barns. Mr Higgins wasn’t one of these. He was the local slaughterman; seventy-seven if he was a day and U-shaped with rheumatism but still gamely plugging away at the job he loved, scragging livestock from dawn to dusk seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, with only the very occasional break for a spot of demonic possession and speaking in tongues. That made the whole possession business seem even more unlikely. Devils aren’t snobs, as a rule, but neither do they go in for slumming. Besides, the whole point about recruiting for Flipside is that once you’ve got a recruit, you’re stuck with him. Old Mr Higgins didn’t really sound like the type of person anybody’d voluntarily choose to spend the rest of eternity with. Come Judgement Day, in fact, he’d probably end up in the pool of people neither side wants, like the fat kid when they’re picking football teams at school.

  Mr Higgins clearly represented the avant-garde as regards accommodation in the parish, because he lived in what appeared to be the only unconverted barn in the village. It was very old, very authentic, and smelt rather powerfully of stale blood. The chances
were that if he’d had any commercial acumen, he’d have offered to sell it to Clive Barker or Stephen King as a place they could go when they were in need of some really heavy ambience.

  ‘Hello,’ called out the shorter woman, poking her head through the open door. ‘It’s only me. I’ve brought the vicar to see you.’

  As Artofel followed her apprehensively into the murk, he thought he saw something shuffling about in the shadows. Dukes of Hell are not, of course, afraid of things that scuttle about in dark, blood-scented hovels. It must have been the cold that made Artofel shiver slightly.

  ‘Hello?’ he said.

  There was an outburst of crazed, melodramatic cackling, suddenly cut short.

  ‘Art?’

  Artofel’s jaw dropped. ‘Keith?’

  ‘Over here. And get rid of those two old bats, will you? They’re starting to get on my nerves.’

  The two women hadn’t heard this exchange, because it was conducted in the Infernal tongue, a language which is remarkably like Welsh and invariably spoken at a pitch that only dogs and bats can hear. Artofel nodded, then turned to his two escorts and suggested that they should leave now, before the firework display. He had to suggest quite forcibly before he was able to get rid of them.

  ‘What the dickens are you doing in these parts, Art?’ the voice said, when they were alone. ‘I thought you were strictly a desk man.’

  ‘Long story,’ Artofel replied. ‘Could you switch the light on, please?’

  A switch clicked, and Artofel found himself facing a gnarled, evil-looking old man as unlike his old college chum Meskithial as was diabolically possible.

  ‘I know,’ Keith muttered, ‘it’s too small for me and not my colour.You learn to rough it in the field ops grade.’ He stopped, frowning, and then apologised. ‘Didn’t think about it,’ he explained. ‘You get so used to having your friends and colleagues turning up in unexpected bodies, you get out of the habit of noticing. Why’re you dressed as a vicar, Art? Going to a party or something?’

  Artofel dusted off a chair and sat down. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me. I was sitting quietly in my office, and the next thing I knew, here I was. So far, nobody’s seen fit to tell me what’s going on.’