“Gotcha,” I said. “So it’s bury the body, grow the beard and Allah Akbah till the sacred cows come home.”

“Comparative religion not really your strong point, eh, chief?”

A rain of frogs came down upon my head.

“I think we’d better discuss this back at my office,” I said. “My trenchcoat can’t take this sort of punishment.”

Now the last thing I needed at a time like this was another client showing up. So when I walked into my office to find a broad sitting behind my desk, you could have knocked me down with an auctioneer’s gavel and bathed my butt in borax.

I’ve seen some ugly fat dames in my time, but this one took the dog biscuit. She made Mo Mowlam look like Madonna. I didn’t figure this dame looked good for anything but using as a roadblock in Belfast. But always being the gent that I am, I gave her the big hello.

“Hi, babe,” I said, as suave as Sinatra. “Did the circus leave town without you?”

She shot me a glance like she was chewing on a stewed chihuahua and moved more chins than Chairman Mao on his glorious march to the south.

“Did you just shake your head?” I said. “Or was that a Zeppelin docking?”

“Sit down, Mr Woodworm,” she replied, and she didn’t smile when she said it.

“The name’s Woodbine,” I said. “Lazlo Woodbine.” And added, “Some call me Laz.”

“Well, I shall call you cadaver, boy, if you don’t sit down when you’re told.”

This dame had more front than Frinton. But I wasn’t in the mood to take a donkey ride.

“Listen, lady,” I told her. “I’ve had a rough evening. I’ve just left three dead men in an alleyway, and the world won’t weep for a fat lass. So kindly shift your wide load off my chair and your whole damn trailer-park out of my office.” And I made the kind of shooing motions that you do to a dachshund that’s doodling on your dahlias.

Which, as it turned out for me, wasn’t the smartest of moves.

The dame lifted a mitt the size of a silicone implant[10] and zapped me with a lightning bolt that singed my decorum and set my fedora ablaze.

I went up like Crystal Palace and down like a funk soul brother.

“Oooh! Aaagh! Eeek!” I went. “Oooh! Aaagh! Eeek!” and “Waaaaah!”

I didn’t cotton on at first to just what was happening to me. I figured it was a case of spontaneous human combustion. I get that every once in a while, if I’ve eaten too much coleslaw. But usually this just makes my socks smoulder. Which is no great shakes.

But what was happening to me now had nothing to do with coleslaw. This was the full B. K. Flamer.[11]

I beat at myself like a borderline self-mutilator and hopped and howled like a hedonist.

And then the dame moved her mitt again and my water cooler sort of lifted itself off its stand, swung across the room and emptied its contents all over my head.

Which had a more than sobering effect.

I did a couple more ‘Aaah!’s and ‘Eeek!’s and then I got down to a bit of serious grovelling. “Please forgive me, God’s widow,” I wept. “It wasn’t my fault. I tried to save Him, I shot the two hoods who gunned Him down. Have mercy on me …”

“Shut it!” said Eartha, widow of God, because that’s who She was.

“Shut it!” She said.

And I shut it.

Eartha raised her bulk from my office chair and leaned across my desk. She glared me glances that jangled my nerves and set my knees a-knocking. “Mr Woodworm,” She said (I didn’t correct Her). “Mr Woodworm. Am I right in assuming that my husband is dead?”

“Well, ma’am,” I went. “You see, I, well, in as much as, which is to say …”

“Yes or no, Mr Wormwood?”

“It’s yes, ma’am, I’m afraid.”

“Be afraid,” said Eartha. “Be very afraid.”

“I am, ma’am,” said I. And believe me, my friends. I was.

“Dead.” She dropped back into my chair to the sounds of splitting floorboards.

“I’m truly sorry, ma’am,” said I.

“Shut up, you fool, I’m thinking.”

I shut up and I kept my head well down. Outside my office window, the hurricane was gaining further strength. I glimpsed a chewed chihuahua and a pair of Ford Fiestas blowing by.

“Cease that infernal racket.” Eartha raised Her mighty mitt and the storm died all away. “Get up, Mr Wormwood,” She said. And I got up. “All right,” She said. “Now I understand that you were not to blame. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. The old fool was asking for trouble. But what I want to know is this: who murdered Him and why?”

“Two guys,” said I. “I shot them dead. Two slugs, two corpses. That’s the way that I do business.”

“And I like the way that you do business. But there were two gunmen. Were they professional assassins, and if so, who ordered the hit?”

I was warming to this dame. She obviously had the hots for me in a big way. “Ma’am,” I said. “I shot them dead. And as dead men tell no tales, that ain’t my province. Why don’t you have a word with their souls? I’m sure you could persuade them to spill all the beans.”

“Because that is not how it works any more. And if you don’t put a bit more respect into your voice, I’ll burn off your bollocks, got me?”

“Got you, ma’am,” I said.

“Now look at this.” The dame spread out a paper on my desk. It was a pretty big paper. More a broadsheet really, or a double tabloid, which is very much the same as a broadsheet, or possibly just a bit smaller.

“What do you have there, ma’am?” I asked, with a great deal of respect in my voice.

“God’s last will and testament.”

“Whoa!” said I. “And might I take a look?”

“You may.”

I examined the last will and testament of God. Now, I didn’t know just what to expect. Well, you wouldn’t really, would you? I mean, I might have expected a lot of legal fol-de-rol and perhaps some archangels getting the odd knick-knacks and possibly even me being given all the lands to the south in honour of my services to crime detection. But this was short and sweet. Well, at least it was short.

To my son Colin, I bequeath my beloved planet Earth. To my dear wife, Eartha, the rest of the Universe.

Signed GOD

“And that’s it?” said I. “It’s, well, it’s brief.”

“Very brief,” said Eartha.

“But surely, if I recall my scripture,” I said, “it clearly states that the meek are supposed to inherit the Earth.”

Eartha made the kind of face that Joseph Merrick made a living out of. “It’s my Earth!” She shouted, rattling my ceiling fan and damn near having the remnants of my hat off. “He gave it to me as a birthday present.”

“Ma’am,” said I, as I straightened my flambeaued fedora. “Ma’am, please, surely now God is dead, you are in complete control of everything. I mean, you just sorted out the weather with a wave of your lily-white hand. You can do whatever you want, can’t you? I mean, you could just zap the will and forget all about it?”

“No, Mr Wormwood, I can not do that. There are protocols to be observed. Even God had to abide by certain rules. Now I want you to investigate this, Mr Wormwood. I want you to find out who put the hit on my husband and what this will is all about.”

“Ma’am,” I said. “With all due respect. I do know my business and in cases such as these, it’s usually the person who has the most to gain from the death of the subject who’s the guilty party. I don’t wish to cause any offence here. But I reckon your son Colin is in the frame for this one.”

“If that is the case,” She said, “then so be it and I will deal with Colin myself. But I want proof, Mr Wormwood. Absolute proof. I want to know the truth about what happened to my husband and why. And you are going to find that truth for me, aren’t you, Mr Wormwood?”