Over to you, Mr Woodbine, sir.

5

I awoke from a dream about a doctor’s office and clutched at a dented skull.

“Tongues of the jumping head,” I said. “That hurts more than a broke-dick dog on the rocky road to ruin.”

I didn’t trouble myself with the old “What happened?” or the even older “Where am I?” That stuff’s strictly for the cheap seats; you’re in the dress circle here.

I blinked my baby blues, choked away a manly tear, cast aside all thoughts of pain and even those of taking up a hobby (such as playing Kick butt west of the Pennines, without the aces wild), and copped a glance at my present surroundings.

I lay, sprawled handsomely, though a tad dishevelled, upon a carpet. But it was a carpet of such an unspeakable nature that no words could naturally speak of it. This carpet was spread on the floor of a room which was long and low and loathsome. There was a ghastly hatstand, rising like a gallows tree. A water cooler of evil aspect, dripping poison from its crusted chromium spout. A filing cabinet, coffin black, which surely rotten corpses held. A desk, dark foreboding, and a chair of surly misdemeanour. Above me turned a ceiling fan, its blades slowly cleaving the rank air. Its motion conjured dire thoughts of the pendulum in the tale by Edgar Allan Poe and chilled my soul and placed an icy hand upon my heart.

“What foul and evil den is this?” I cried. “What fetid wretched chamber of despair? Oh, what has it come to, that I should find myself in such a dismal place? What vile crimes have I committed, that I should be cast into this dungeon of hopelessness? This sordid, filthy—”

“Get a grip, chief. You’re back in your office.”

“Aaagh!” cried I. “The evil one himself speaks inside my head. The father of lies. The spawn of the pit. I am possessed. I am possessed.”

“Turn it in, you twat, it’s me, Barry.”

“Barry?”

“Barry, chief. Your Holy Guardian Sprout. The cute little green guy who sits in your head and keeps you on the straight and narrow. The little voice that speaks to you and only you can hear. Your bestest friend, who helps you solve your cases. Your little gift from God’s garden.”

“Ah,” said I. “That Barry.”

“That would be the kiddy, chief.”

“Yeah. Well, I knew it was you all the time. And I knew it was my office. I just thought I’d add a bit of atmosphere and excitement. And demonstrate my skills with the old Gothic prose.”

“Best stick to what you do best, eh, chief?”

“Being the best private eye in the business?”

“That would be the kiddy, chief. You wish.”

“I didn’t catch that last bit, Barry.”

“I said that would be the kiddy, chief, you’re bliss.”

“Thanks, Barry.”

I lifted myself into the vertical plane with more dignity than a belted earl at a defecophiliacs’ disco. Made my way across my office with more style and suavity than a dandy in the underground and sat myself down on my chair with more polished aplomb than a plump pink plumber from Plympton.[7] And with a certain amount of care in comfying up the cushion, as my piles were playing me havoc at the time.

Before me, on my desk, I spied my snap-brimmed fedora and my trusty Smith and Wes Craven.

“My hat, my gun,” said I with some degree of amazement.

“Say ‘Thank you Barry’,” said Barry.

“Eh?”

“Say ‘Thank you Barry for putting thoughts in a couple of heads and getting my hat and gun back so I can set out once more on a case without looking like a hatless, gunless, gormless git.’”

“There’s no bullets in this gun,” said I, examining same with my eagle eye. “I had at least two bullets left, I’m sure. I remember shooting that black guy in the alley who asked if I wanted to buy the Big Issue. And I put two in the head of that fat woman, because she was taking up too much space in Fangio’s and I’ve never seen the point of fat people. And one in the kid with the lollipop, because I can’t be having with dogs and children either. And …”

“‘Thank you, Barry’ not a happening thing at the moment, then, chief?”

“Yeah, sure, Barry, thank you. But like I was saying, I’m certain I should have had at least two bullets left. And bullets don’t grow on trees, Barry. Bullets cost bucks.”

“You ungrateful schmuck.”

“What did you say, Barry?”

“I said you’re a wonderful buck, chief.”

“Yeah, I guess that I am.” And guessed that I was. That’s one of the things that I liked about Barry. He recognized greatness. “So, little green buddy,” I said. “What have you been up to? You weren’t with me in Fangio’s when I got bopped on the head.”

“I always like to miss that part, chief. Rattles me all about inside this empty skull.”

“So where have you been?”

“Been up in Heaven, chief. We Holy Guardians have to check in every week. Put in our expense chitties. Write out our reports. Get a bit of fertilizer rubbed into our leaves by a bra-less Charlie Dimmock lookalike with five-star bottom cleavage. But it’s mostly paperwork. You know how it is.”

“I do,” said I and I did. “So how are things, topside, amongst the choirs celestial? God keeping well, is He?”

“Well, that’s the thing, chief. Actually things aren’t exactly hunky-dory in Heaven at the moment. God’s gone missing again and His wife’s getting pretty upset.”

“God’s wife? I didn’t know that God had a wife.” And I didn’t. I knew that every dog had its day and that a trouble shared was a trouble halved and I even knew that if you take two mobile phones, call one of them with the other, then place the two of them ten inches apart on a table with a raw egg between them, the egg will be cooked in less than twenty minutes.[8] But I never knew that God had a wife.

“Does He?” I asked Barry.

“Does He what? Own a mobile phone?”

“No. Does God really have a wife?”

“Of course He does, chief. A wife and three kids.”

“Three kids?”

“Only one by marriage. The other two, well, you know the story.”

“I don’t,” said I, because in truth, I didn’t.

“Wake up, chief, you do know the story. Little baby, born in a manger, three wise camel jockeys coming over the desert, nice Christmas presents but a really rotten Easter.”

“OK, yeah.” I dug into my desk drawer and brought out a bottle of Old Bedwetter Bluegrass Bourbon. The taste of the South that makes any day a Mardi Gras. I always like to take a slug of Old Bedwetter at times like these. It adds that certain something that you just don’t get from other sippin’ liquors. No siree. By golly.

“Don’t start that!” said Barry.

“Start what?” said I.

“Endorsing products.”

“Sssh,” said I. “I never was.”

“You lying git.”

“Barry,” I whispered. “There’s a fortune to be made by endorsing products. It’s a market that’s never been exploited by private eyes. I’m sitting on a gold mine here.”

“I thought you were sitting on your piles. So where was I?”

“You were telling me about God’s wife and His three kids.”

“Oh yeah. Well, you know about Jesus. He’s pretty famous. But what you didn’t know was that he had a twin sister called Christene. But she got edited out of the New Testament because God gave Jesus overall artistic control and the full translation rights. Favourite son and all that, you know how it goes.”

“Yeah, OK, Barry, I get the picture.”

“But not the Big Picture, chief. Everyone knows that Mary was the mother of Jesus. Although they don’t know about Christene. But there’s not many who know that God already had a wife and just how peeved she was when she discovered that God was having a bit on the side and had got His girlfriend up the duff.”

“Hoots a crimbo!” I clapped my hands right over my lug-holes. “Put a sock in it, Barry, that’s big time blasphemy.”