“But we couldn’t see him for who he really is,” said Icarus. “And we still can’t. I mean, well, sir, you just look like an angel to me. No offence meant, of course.”
“None taken, I assure you,” said the Lord.
“He does look like an angel,” said I. “But an angel with a golden sword. Check out a copy of the Bibliomystikon[18] ‘And the Lord of Hosts shall come amongst them and slay them with a sword of gold.’ It ain’t your regular practice for angels.”
“You certainly know your occult scripture,” said Jesus.
“Lord,” I told him, “in my business, knowing your occult scripture can mean the difference between singing a psalm at a Sunday school clam-bake and spearing a clam with a jaded jackeroo. If you know what I mean and if you don’t, who does?”
“You have me on that one,” said Jesus. “But it wasn’t me who murdered my father. So just who was it?”
“Well, it wasn’t your sister Christene, either.”
“Actually I thought it might have been,” said Jesus.
“His sister?” said Icarus. “Where does his sister come into this?”
“Philomena Christina Maria O’Connor,” said I. “The dame with the dangerous digits. She was in cahoots with Colin. More of that sibling rivalry, you see. Mr Christ here, the elder son, got all the glory. Barry told me how he had his sister edited out of the New Testament. Because he had full editorial control. And they’d stopped writing Bibles by the time that Colin came along, so he never got a mention anywhere. The Godalmings are a very dysfunctional family. There’s a lot of jealousy going on there. The same as in any other family, I guess.”
“I tried to be nice,” said Jesus. “I always try to be nice. I’m noted for it.”
“It’s not your fault, Lord. Well, some of it is. But let’s just have a suspect head-count here. It wasn’t Colin and it wasn’t Eartha and it wasn’t Jesus and it wasn’t Christene.”
“So it was Cormerant,” said Icarus. “He was, after all, the devil incarnate.”
“Right up there in my listings,” said I, cooler than a catechumen at a canon’s coffee morning. “Along with Fangio for a while; you can never trust a skinny guy. But no, my friend, it wasn’t even Cormerant.”
There was a lot of sighing then and a fair bit of scratching at heads.
“So who was it?” Icarus shouted.
“It wasn’t anybody,” I said. “Because God wasn’t murdered. God isn’t dead.”
“WHAT?” they all went, and very loudly too.
“He isn’t dead,” I said. “The whole thing was a scam. A set-up from the beginning. Jesus here gave it away when he told us all about how God had to take out mortgage after mortgage on Heaven and Hell until He ran out of money. I figured, how had He done that? He’d have had to have taken out life insurance, right? A whole lot of life insurance, to cover all those extra mortgages. And who wouldn’t insure God’s life? The guy’s eternal, right? A pretty safe bet. But what if God was to die and His wife cashed in His life insurance policies to pay off all the debts and reclaim Heaven and Hell? If He faked His own death, everything would get sorted.”
“It makes some kind of sense,” said Icarus.
“Pray continue with your most interesting narrative, Mr Woodbine,” said Johnny Boy.
“I was set up,” said I. “From the very beginning. I was diverted away from the briefcase case, because I would have found things out in the wrong order. Barry told me all about how God had this thing about Jewish virgins, so I head off to the Crimson Teacup, where God conveniently shows up and then conveniently gets shot in an alleyway, right in front of my eyes.
“Making me the star witness. And what an unimpeachable witness, the greatest private eye of them all, in the pay of a most illustrious client, to wit, the wife of God. She was in on it with Him, as if you hadn’t guessed.”
“I hadn’t,” said Johnny Boy.
“I’m losing the plot here,” said Icarus. “I’m becoming confused.”
“Try to keep up, kid. It’s all pretty simple. Well, at least it is for me. So I’m right there, right? At the right place at the right time to witness the murder of God. And it might have worked too, if I hadn’t gone back disguised as a reporter and been recognized by Sam Maggot and bopped on the head. I’d have fingered Colin for sure, which was what his mum intended. But I wouldn’t have been able to prove it, so he would have walked free. So God’s wife would have got the money. Colin would have got the Earth and I’d have probably ended up in the fiery place without a sweet thank you for being such a sucker.”
“But there is no Hell any more,” said Icarus.
“Yeah, but there will be again, kid. As soon as Eartha gets the money and pays off all God’s debts, Heaven and Hell will be back on the go and all will be right with the world once more.”
“Explain about the video footage,” said Icarus. “We all saw that. We all saw God getting murdered.”
“We saw what God wanted us to see. Or rather what He wanted the insurance company to see. It would look pretty kosher through angelic eyes. They’d see two demons shooting God dead then me dealing death out to the demons. What with that, and my testimony and the weather going mad, what more proof would they need?”
“A body?” said Icarus.
“Yeah,” said I. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But would they really expect God’s widow to let them view the body of God? Especially as He died in such shady circumstances. His reputation would have to be kept intact. He was God, for God’s sake. When I was in that alleyway, I saw what God wanted me to see. And on the tape the angelic insurance assessors would see what God wanted them to see. Ordinary folk would see what I saw when I saw the tape for the first time. Me shooting two innocent guys. But after I’d taken the drug and Barry let the effect kick in, I played that tape again and again and I saw something more. I fast-forwarded the tape and after the bit where I fall to my knees and sully my trenchcoat and then I get up and walk from the alley with all the wild weather and everything, there’s a bit more. You have to look real close, with a true professional’s eye. But you can just make out through all the wind and rain and storm, God getting to His feet and sneaking away.”
“What?” went Icarus and Johnny Boy and Captain Ian Christ as well. “You saw that?”
“I guess Eartha would have wiped that bit off the tape before She showed it to the insurance company.”
“So that’s it,” said Icarus, shaking his head. “You actually solved it. You solved the greatest case that ever there was.”
“Who else but me, kid? But the sadness of it is that nobody is ever going to know.”
“Why not?” asked Icarus. “I don’t understand.”
“Kid,” I said, “what did you want more than anything else in this world?”
“For everything to be put right,” said Icarus. “That was my dream, my vocation. To put the world to rights.”
“And the only way that the world can be put to rights is if all the angels and demons who fight it out down here and get mankind into a lot of sticky situations go back to where they belong. To wit, Heaven and Hell. And the only way that is going to happen is for us to keep our big mouths shut, pretend that God is dead and let Eartha pick up on the insurance. She pays off God’s debts and the world is put to rights. Am I right, or am I right?”