Damned If You Do Read Online Free Page A

penis.
    *   *   *
    On the way back to the office I noticed a fifth door on the landing, just before the stairs. It was white, and shiny, and identified with a name on a small brass plate. I didn’t stop to examine it though. I was too busy thinking about the other remarkable feature of my body: my legs, arms and torso were criss-crossed with thick, black, surgical stitches.
    *   *   *
    The office was empty, except for Skirmish. He was sitting at Famine’s desk beneath the far window, alternately picking his nose and playing a hand-held computer game.
    â€˜Nice suit,’ he said, without looking up. He grinned faintly, his fingers quivering over the controls. ‘It’s one of my old ones.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yep. The one I was buried in.’
    I changed the subject. ‘Where is everyone?’
    â€˜Jobs.’
    â€˜What about Death?’
    â€˜Back soon.’
    I sank into the chair by the door. I badly wanted to return to the coffin. I was surrounded by strangers. I didn’t know the rules. I felt exposed. I gazed at the chess board on the desk again, and noticed that several pieces now occupied the previously blank squares. In an effort to distract myself, I studied the position carefully. I had been a keen player when I was alive, and it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that with a queen sacrifice black could probably achieve mate in three moves.
    I was examining white’s alternatives when I felt a presence at my shoulder. Startled, I turned around and saw Death looming over me. I hadn’t even heard him enter. He was gazing at the crown of my head with alarm, and before I had time to wonder why, he pulled a comb from his shirt pocket and ran it quickly through my hair.
    â€˜You could use some of Pes’ make-up too,’ he observed. His gaze moved down to my jacket, registering an expression somewhere between mockery and sympathy. ‘Then again, I don’t expect anyone will be looking at your face. ’
    â€˜Where are we going?’ I asked.
    â€˜To meet our first client of the week.’
    *   *   *
    I followed Death down the corridor to another white panelled door on the left, opposite the stairs. ‘I need a couple of files from Archives before we leave,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘Can you give me a hand?’
    I nodded, wanting to be elsewhere.
    The room behind the door was narrower and more sparsely decorated than the office. Apart from a naked light bulb and a wide bow window with a view over the street, it consisted entirely of ceiling-high filing cabinets, lining the walls and clustered in the centre of the room.
    â€˜Look in the A–Z index,’ Death said. ‘Under Falling. I’ll get the Life File.’
    He showed me a large filing cabinet to the right of the door. Five drawers, all unlocked. With difficulty I opened the second, marked D–G. It was choked with paper, each sheet so thin and fragile it was almost transparent. I carefully removed a document at random. The page contained around a hundred lines of minuscule type, beginning with:
    DEATH:
    Terminations for special occasions
    Choking on a goat hair in a bowl of milk
    ( CLIENT : Fabius, 66275901748)
    Drowning in a butt of malmsey
    ( CLIENT : George, Duke of Clarence, 4009441326)
    Falling into a fireplace while attacking a friend with a poker
    ( CLIENT : Count Eric Stenbock, 28213124580)
    due to an Incredible sequence of unfortunate accidents
    ( CLIENT : numerous )
    Laughter at seeing an ass eat one’s figs
    ( CLIENT : Philomenes, 0504567722)
    as a result of Stuffing a hen with snow
    ( CLIENT : Francis Bacon, 6176160339)
    by Tortoise falling on head
    ( CLIENT : Aeschylus, 79113751126)
    â€˜Have you found it yet?’ Death was standing on a stepladder holding a pale blue document wallet.
    â€˜Almost.’
    I flicked quickly through the other sheets until I located the document I