"What's the deal?" I asked. "You got an outstanding parking fine?"

"They follow me sometimes. They'll have been following you, too."

"Nobody's tailed me," I said wearily. "I'd have noticed."

He led me into a bookshop that sold predominantly academic titles. The guy behind the counter, late fifties with a goatee beard and a pair of crescent-shaped spectacles on a chain round his neck, nodded to him. "Upstairs room?"

"Yes," the Prof said. Then, to me: "Does anybody know you're here?"

"Here specifically, here in Nottingham, or here as in the metaphysical nature of my existence?"

"Honestly!" he expostulated, shaking his head at my attempt at humor. "This way!"

There were even more books in the upstairs room, many of them antiquarian editions. A small window obscured by a nicotine-yellow net curtain provided filtered illumination. Two dusty armchairs were positioned near the window and he waved me towards them.

"You got my name from Laura," he said. It was a statement, not a question. "I trust she hasn't told anyone else?"

"Not as far as I know."

"And what about you, gumshoe? Shoot your mouth off? Anyone else know you're..."

"Not apart from Laura."

"Good. Let's hope nobody puts the squeeze on her."

"Who'd do that? And why?"

Dust motes danced a saraband of irritation before my eyes and around my nose. The piles of books were like headstones, their authors out of print and unbiographied.

"My God!" he exclaimed. "You know nothing, do you?"

"You're the Professor," I said. "Educate me."

---

"I'll bet you believe it, don't you? Every word of it. No reason why you shouldn't. You've seen the setup, after all. It was mortals whom He gave the choice. To believe or not. To obey or not. Hah! Not us, though. From the start, we've had no choice but to believe."

"I've got four questions," I said: "Yeah? And? So? What?"

"Are you simply being glib, or do you genuinely not know what I'm driving at?"

"All I know is you're talking about something that isn't even an issue. Of course I believe. What is there for me to doubt? I've seen it all."

"But have you? Have you seen it all? Heaven? And Hell? In their entirety?"

"Well, not all of Heaven," I admitted. "Some of it is maximum security, you know?"

"And what of Hell?"

I shrugged. "Never been there. Why should I have? Doesn't alter the fact that I know it exists."

"But not what it's like or how it's run."

"Suppose you tell me what you're driving at."

"Stop asking stupid questions and I will."

Ungraciously, and with enough macho posturing to retain my hard man of the afterlife image, I did as he asked.

"It's when you've been banished from Heaven — cast out — that you start to question things. Or rather, I started questioning things before then. Too vociferously as it turned out. That's why they gave me the elbow. And why they killed Samangelaf.

"I've lived among mortals for two hundred years now. My real name's Gamaliel. You won't find mention of me in any of the authorized documents, but I'm probably still on file somewhere. They keep files on everyone. If those files were to be made public ... "

"What files?"

"Those which prove the conspiracy."

The small part of my brain that counseled common sense, skepticism and the kind of rational thought that private eyes ought to employ more often, if for nothing else than to avoid beatings, advised me that getting up and walking out was a valid option.

But I didn't.

"Who are 'they'?" I asked. If they gave Oscars for questions that get you into trouble, I'd have swept the board.

"I'd better take you through it step by step. Then I'll tell you. You're an angel, right? Just like I was — am."

I nodded.

"We don't figure very highly, do we? Bottom of the third choir, in fact."

"I've never been into class systems," I said.

"In that case, I will educate you. There's three choirs of angels. First, and most holy, are the seraphim. They sit next to the throne of God. It is the love which emanates from Him that gives them life. Have you ever met a seraph, gumshoe?"

"No."

"Ever wonder why?"

"Not really."

"Bear with me for a while, and I'll tell you why. Second to the seraphim are the cherubim. Those fellows are entrusted with His knowledge. Used to be, they did the missions the likes of us are given nowadays."

"Like the expulsion from the Garden of Eden," I said, remembering my History.