by Tom Holt
‘He’s dead,’ Cassie said mournfully. ‘He came looking for me because I’d been horrible to him, and he got lost and they locked the doors and the goblins got him and it’s all my fault, and I’ll never ever forgive myself and’
‘He can’t be dead,’ Benny said suddenly. ‘Think about it. If the Very Bad People have been ringing his house asking where the hell he’s got to, he must still be alive. If he was dead, they’d be the people most likely to know about it, after all.
Cassie looked at him in mid-sniffle. ‘True,’ she said. Thank God. But -‘
‘Tell you what,’ Benny went on firmly, ‘why don t you ring again now - his house and the factory - and see if he s still missing. Bet you he’s turned up by now. Probably what happened was, after you’d run off blubbering - don’t pull faces at me, Connie, you’ll stick like it Colin felt really rotten about it, went down the pub, drowned his sorrows and spent the night sleeping it off in a skip somewhere. It’s what I’d do. Have done many times,’ he added, with a faint nostalgic smile. ‘Go on. Or better still,’ he added, ‘Connie can ring instead, she’s marginally more coherent than you are right now. Where’s the number?’
So Connie rang; and no, Colin hadn’t come home, which was most unlike him; and no (Rosie Tanner at the factory said), hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him all morning, and that Oscar’s really getting steamed up about it, and normally Oscar wasn’t her type at all but there was something about him when he was angry that reminded her a bit of Hugh Grant, or maybe Paul Newman
‘Fine,’ Benny said, as Connie replaced the receiver. ‘So he’s not at home, he’s not at the factory and he’s not dead. So where the hell is he?’
‘Sorry?’ Colin said
‘There is no need for apology,’ replied the elderly Chinese gentleman who’d just materialised out of absolutely nothing at all, with that special kind of automated politeness that only comes through long, bitter years of dealing with the public. ‘You do not know me. I…’ He paused, and a trivial asymmetry at the ends of his mouth could just about have been mistaken for a smile. ‘I have been aware of you for a while. You,’ he added carefully, ‘in various versions. In fact, I knew you long before you were born, which is in itself ironic’ He frowned, as if acknowledging a rebuke. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘My name is Dao Shan-Chen. I am the chief cashier and acting deputy assistant manager of the Bank of the Dead.’
‘Bank of the’
‘Exactly what it sounds like,’ Mr Dao confirmed. ‘Like so many of the world’s great institutions, a Chinese invention; set up to make it possible for the living to send money across the Line to pay for the maintenance of their deceased ancestors in the afterlife. Of course, we have moved on since then, expanded our operations, to the point - ‘ This time Mr Dao’s smile was almost pronounced. ‘To the point where we’re even bigger than Tesco. For the time being, anyway. Although, strictly speaking, time has no meaning here.’
‘So you’re saying,’ Colin said, very deliberately, ‘that this is sort of the afterlife.’
Mr Dao nodded elegantly.
‘But I thought’ Colin’s eyes opened wide. ‘How did I get here, then? A moment ago I was in a building in the City of London, and’
‘Ah.’ Mr Dao beamed, and nodded. ‘Seventy St Mary Axe. J. W. Wells & Co.’
‘That’s right,’ Colin said. ‘I was looking for - for someone,’ he went on quickly, ‘and I sort of wandered into one of the offices, and there was another door inside the room, so I opened it, and then I was here.’
He paused. That was a rather bland way of putting it. What had actually happened was that he’d opened the door and immediately tumbled through out of the light into what he could only describe as a total absence of anything at all. No light, no floor, no walls; no air (but he could still breathe), no sound, nothing he could feel with his feet or hands; nothing. And then, just as he’d filled his lungs with lack-of-air for a really big scream, Mr Dao had popped up
‘Quite so,’ Mr Dao said. ‘And here you are.’
‘The afterlife.’
‘Yes.’
‘So I’m dead.’
At the very least, Colin had anticipated feeling fear; also despair, maybe a little anger. Instead, just a thick skin of bewilderment overlying a total deficiency of emotion. ‘But I thought the afterlife was Heaven and Hell,’ he said. ‘Well, Hell, at any rate - I’m not fussed about Heaven one way or another.’
‘Ah.’ Mr Dao moved his head in a small gesture of uncertain meaning. ‘Many cultures believe in a very bad place and a very good place. In order to meet their requirements, the Bank has various subsidiary franchises in, let us say, the hospitality and entertainment sector. Those who seek Hell will find it here, and just because it has been carefully designed to accord exactly with their expectations doesn’t mean it isn’t entirely real.’
Colin nodded. ‘The very bad place,’ he said.
‘Quite so.’
‘Right. And the very good place?’
Mr Dao sighed. ‘You just left it.’
‘Oh.’ Colin thought about that for a moment. ‘So I’m really dead?’
Mr Dao chuckled. ‘Of course not, Mr Hollingshead. You would know it if you were. Instead, you accidentally strayed though the connecting door installed in the cashier’s office at J. W. Wells & Co. You are still completely and perfectly alive.’
‘Ah.’ Colin felt his face blossom into a relieved grin. ‘So it’s all right, then. I can just turn round and go back the way I came.’
‘Alas,’ said Mr Dao, and quite possibly the compassion in his voice was entirely genuine. ‘Unfortunately, there are quite strict regulations and protocols about the use of translinear connecting doors. Access is restricted to customers of the Bank, their employees and agents. You are not, I believe, employed by J. W. Wells?’
‘No.’
‘Unfortunate. You are, of course, a client of theirs, but the connection is rather too tenuous to be construed as a form of agency. Consequently, the door is not available for your use. You will have noticed,’ he added sadly, ‘that it has disappeared. You will not be able to find it again. This is not,’ he added, ‘a matter over which I have any control. It will not allow itself to be found.’
‘But that’s’ Colin realised he was shouting, and lowered his voice. ‘I can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘I’m alive, you just said so yourself.’
‘Indeed.’ Mr Dao nodded. ‘And you will remain alive for the rest of your natural span. Which,’ he added, ‘in the absence of food, water and air, will not be unduly long. It will then be my privilege to escort you to our associated facility, where of course you are expected, under the terms of the contract you signed with the franchisee.’
Instinctively, Colin breathed in; it felt normal.
‘A certain amount of air came through with you,’ Mr Dao explained. ‘Enough for, perhaps, fifteen minutes. If you wish, we could play chess. Or backgammon.’
‘Fifteen’
‘Or perhaps you have unresolved issues about your past life which you would like to explore. If so, I will do my best to assist you.’
Suddenly, it was as though someone had flicked a switch and turned the power on. ‘No, fuck it,’ Colin said angrily, ‘that’s not fair. All I did was go through a door, to look for’ He hesitated, and breathed out through his nose. ‘The point is, I didn’t do anything wrong, I just opened a door and walked through it. That doesn’t carry the death penalty, does it? I mean, not even Dave Blunkett ever went that far.’
Mr Dao shrugged slightly. ‘In these matters,’ he said, ‘context is everything. As far as the opening and use of doors is concerned, for example, it makes a considerable difference. Opening and walking through a door in your own home is generally quite safe. It would be different, however, if you were aboard a helicopter. Or,’ he added, ‘in the cashier’s office at 70 St Mary Axe. Fairness is also a relative concept. We can explore that, if you like, but I should point out that it’s a rather complex is
sue to cover in -‘ he paused, and muttered calculations under his breath ‘- twelve minutes and eighteen seconds.’
At various times in his life, Colin had believed he’d felt afraid; for example, once when he’d overtaken on a blind corner and found a lorry coming straight at him, and again when he’d seen Oscar for the first time. Now he realised that what he’d felt on those occasions was just a free sample, a trailer for the real thing. It was as though someone was winding his guts round a stick while crushing his chest with a hydraulic press. ‘You mean it,’ he asked ‘I’m going to die. ‘
Mr Dao nodded gravely. ‘All living things die, ‘ he said, ‘in time; and time has no meaning here. When something is too small to be measured, it might as well be treated as though it doesn’t exist. In the context of infinity, human life is that small. Had you not come through that door you might have survived, let’s say, another seventy years. Seventy years is nothing. It takes that long to grow two millimetres of a stalactite. Even if you were to spend that time travelling at ten times the speed of light, you’d still be a very long way from reaching Andromeda. Consider your loss, Mr Hollingshead: it is trivial, like dropping a penny through a hole in your pocket, hardly worth stooping to pick it up. Besides,’ he went on, ‘unlike most of your fellow humans who arrive here, you have a future. Not,’ he conceded, ‘an entirely attractive one, but the majority of our residents would consider it preferable to the alternative, which is nothing at all. Although,’ he added, ‘there is a basket-weaving class, and intermediate conversational Spanish.’
Colin was backing away, but it was like going the wrong way on an escalator. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘there must be something’
‘No.’ Mr Dao set his mouth firmly. ‘Unfortunately,’ he added. ‘Concessions are available only in the most exceptional circumstances, such as star-crossed true love. And of course, since you have just now resolved the anomaly in which your previous incarnations were involved, that particular concession most certainly does not apply in your case. Accordingly’
And then Mr Dao hesitated. It was as if a message had come through on headphones, except that he wasn’t wearing any. He froze, stood completely motionless for a moment or so, and then smiled.
‘Your door,’ he said, and immediately a door swung open to Colin’s left. Light streamed through it, bright and hot as a phaser beam. ‘We apologise for any inconvenience. Have a nice day.’
Colin took a step toward the door, then hesitated. ‘But surely’ he said.
‘Mr Hollingshead, ‘ Mr Dao said firmly. ‘The difference between luck and a Land rover is that you don’t have to push it to make it work. Quite the opposite, in fact. Goodbye. It was a pleasure meeting you, and of course this is merely auf wiedersehen.’
‘What?’ Colin said, then, ‘Oh. Right.’ Already the door was starting to drift shut. Colin lunged at it, collided with it, and fell through it into blinding, burning light.
When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the floor of the office he’d wandered into. Next to him was a door. It was padlocked, bolted, chained and barred, and in case there was still any room for doubt, there was a little notice on it saying No entry. Fine, Colin said to himself, no problem.
He was alive.
There had been times over the years when he’d wondered whether being alive was everything it’d been cracked up to be. There were a lot of things wrong with life - unpleasant people, domineering parents, boring, pointless jobs, maths homework, ravioli, girls who burst out laughing when he asked them out on dates, stuff in general - and at various low ebbs in his career he’d wondered whether life was a tooth better removed than endlessly drilled into and root-filled. To be, he’d asked himself, or not to be. Now, at least, he had an answer to that old chestnut. To be, every time, no contest, and bugger not-to-be for a game of soldiers.
Colin lifted his head a little and gave the door a long, hard look. He didn’t ever want to go back there again.
‘You,’ someone said; and a hand attached itself to his collar and hauled him to his feet.
He squirmed, and the hand let go. He staggered.
‘There you are. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
It took him a moment to place the short, bearded, bespectacled man who’d just let go of him: a Monopoly board, and vague memories of tea shops and pins and needles.
‘Benny Shumway,’ the man said. ‘We met in Funkhausen’s Loop. This is my office. What are you doing in it?’
Colin backed away, felt something obstruct him, looked over his shoulder and saw a desk. ‘I’m sorry, ‘ he said. ‘Only, I was looking for - ‘
‘Cassie Clay.’
‘Yes. And then I went through that door there.’
‘Oh.’ The short man frowned thoughtfully. ‘You did, did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now you’re back again.’
‘Yes. I met a Chinese bloke.’
The short man’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Mr Dao.’
‘That’s right. You know him?’
‘Oh yes. And he let you go?’
Colin winced. ‘I don’t think he wanted to, not at first,’ he said. ‘But then he changed his mind.’
‘He changed his mind?’
‘Yes. In fact, he pretty well chucked me out.’
‘Fine.’ The short man frowned, as though trying to crush a beetle to death with his eyebrows. ‘Sit down. I’d better give Connie a ring, let her know you’ve turned up at last. You do realise you’ve been here all night.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Colin objected. ‘I was only in there a few ’
In his mind he heard Mr Dao’s voice: ‘Time has no meaning here.’ ‘Oh,’ he said.
The short man grinned. ‘Count yourself lucky,’ he said. ‘You could’ve been in there for thirty years, and it’d still have felt like five minutes. Or the other way round, of course. So that was all there was to it, then? He changed his mind and let you go?’
Colin nodded. ‘Bloody good job, too. Look, was that place really?’
‘Yes. Now sit still and be quiet while I phone Connie.’
The short man picked up the phone and talked to it for a bit, then put it back. ‘She’s coming over,’ he said. ‘Wants a word with you. Me too, for that matter. I don’t know if you realise, but you’re causing a lot of problems for a lot of people.’
‘Am I? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’
The short man shrugged. ‘I guess being you is a bit like being a landmine. You didn’t ask to be left lying around for people to walk all over, and when it starts going wrong you’re the first one who gets blown up. You have my sympathy; but that doesn’t mean you’re not a bloody nuisance. In case you’re wondering, I asked Connie to tell young Cassie that you’d been found, but not that you’re here. It might complicate matters, and we’ve got things we need to talk about.’ The short man sighed and sat down on the other side of the desk. ‘Right,’ he said, resting his elbows and steepling his fingers. ‘How much do you know already about this mess?’
Telling his complex and unfortunate life story to a complete stranger struck Colin as a dubious course of action; on the other hand, the short man seemed to know more about it than he did, and besides, he’d just come back from the dead. If there was any chance that this strange person with the beard and the glasses could actually explain any of it, he was prepared to take the risk.
‘Well,’ Colin said. ‘You were there, weren’t you, when ’ He stopped. The Monopoly incident. It occurred to him that, up till now, he’d been assuming it had all been a dream, like the Bobby Ewing farce in Dallas. But the short man knew all about it, so obviously it hadn’t been.
‘Funkhausen’s Loop, yes. So you know about the time-crossed lovers thing. What about the contract with the Bad People? You know that it’s you that’s for the high jump, not your Dad.’
Colin nodded. ‘I had sort of gathered,’ he said.
‘And you know that yesterday, someone spiked your tea with love potio
n to make you fall in love with young Cassie.’
‘That too,’ Colin said, with a faint, humourless grin.
The short man sighed. ‘Then you’re pretty much up to speed,’ he said. ‘And now you’ve been through that door there, you’ve met Jackie Dao and he let you go. You know, that’s rather interesting. In fact Oh, bloody hell, what is it now?’
The phone on the desk was burbling. The short man picked it up, listened, then started up the beetle-squashing routine again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s not here, but don’t bother ringing around any more, I’ll come and deal with him. Yes, fine. Bye.’
He put the phone down and leaned back in his chair. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know our new receptionist, would you?’ he said.
Colin nodded. ‘She’s my one true love,’ he said. ‘Or at least,’ he added with a scowl, ‘she was, until someone put that stuff in my tea.’
‘I see.’ The short man was staring into space; then he seemed to snap out of it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you may be interested to hear, your old man’s just turned up at the front office, and he wants to see young Cassie. I don’t think that’d be a good idea right now, and I feel like a word with him myself. You want to see him?’
‘No.’
‘Didn’t think you would, somehow. All right, you push off. Go sit in one of the empty offices or something. I’ll get Connie to come and find you when the coast is clear. I’m going down to have a chat with your Dad.’ Benny stood up, then stopped. ‘I had a look in the closed-file index,’ he said. ‘Turns out that your Dad’s company has been a client of ours for a hundred and eighty-odd years. You wouldn’t happen to know offhand exactly what it is that we’ve been doing for you all that time, would you?’
‘Not a clue.’ Unlike the short man, Colin didn’t have the eyebrows for beetle extermination, but he could probably have managed a small earwig. ‘The first I heard about this firm was when Dad was negotiating the contract. And he made it sound like he’d only just found out about you.’
‘Mphm. Well,’ the short man said, ‘it may pain you to learn this, but your Dad’s a bit of a fibber. I hope it won’t scar you for life, me telling you that.’