Proudfoot had given in. Wanted to burst out laughing again. Loaded a plate with cakes and biscuits, lifted her tea. Was resigned to gaining several kilos before getting back to Glasgow.
'Really, Mr Stewart, this has nothing to do with Billy Bremner. However, the crimes of which Barney Thomson stands accused are very, very serious. We believe him to be a dangerous man.'
'Ach, that laddie? I hardly think so. Seemed nice enough.' He touched the back of his neck. 'Even gave me a quick trim. An Andy Stewart, and he only charged me three-fifty.'
Mulholland shook his head, wondering who in their right mind would let Barney Thomson anywhere near them with a pair of scissors. Capitulated. Leant forward, lifted his tea, placed a Danish pastry, a custard pie and two iced buns on his plate. Was resigned to gaining several kilos before getting back to Glasgow; and Melanie wouldn't be there to complain about it.
There came the sound of heavy footfalls in the corridor outside, and then the sight of Sheep Dip marching into the lounge. He stopped short of the crowd and surveyed the table.
'You're late, Sergeant Dip,' said Mulholland.
'Ach, just got a wee bitty distracted. Met a couple of farmers who'd had their hair cut by your Thomson fellow, but it was last week. Don't suppose it helps.'
'Where?'
'Down Helmsdale way, you know, but I think it's too late to be worrying about it. Now, that looks like a fine platter you have there, ma'am, would you mind if I helped myself to a wee cakey or two?'
'Not at all, son, you go right ahead. And here you, I thought you said the lad's name was MacPherson?'
Mulholland stared from one to the other. Proudfoot felt a hint of pity for him, amongst other emotions.
'Mr Stewart,' she said, eating into the heart of the feast, 'can you remember if Barney Thomson said where he was intending to go after leaving here?'
Donald Stewart stroked his chin, bit ruminatively into his slice of apple pie. Nodded his head, then he said, 'You know, Agnes, I think this might have been a wee bitty better heated.'
The Penitent Men Kneel Before God
Brother Herman sat at his desk in the library, poring over records. Books brought in, books taken out, books yet to be returned. Unfortunately, no record of how many times each individual monk had visited the library. This instead: the record of monks who had made transactions on each of the last days of Brothers Saturday and Morgan.
Only two names appeared both times. The first did not need to be thought about, or shown to the Abbot. No need to point suspicion at a quarter where it was not wanted. The other was Brother Babel, a name that continuously cropped up. Returning a book on the day that Saturday died, removing another, returning that book on the day Morgan died, removing a further volume. Firstly, The Elohistic Chronicles, by the Marquis François d'Orleans, a fourteenth-century French treatise on the Old Testament; followed by The Path of Right, an obscure twelfth-century work by an anonymous English monk. Comedic, some called it. Babel had not yet paid a visit to Brother Jacob's new hair emporium, but that hardly meant that he would be unaware of the location of the scissors.
Herman decided he would talk to Brother Babel. One of the younger monks, a man who would easily crack. It was time to apply pressure.
There were a few other names on the library lists, but Babel's was the one which stood out. Nevertheless, he would have to speak to each one in turn. One more day, and the Abbot would be calling in outside agencies of the law, something which Herman could not afford to allow to happen. He needed a suspect before then.
He closed the returns book and settled back in the hard chair. Looked into the heart of the shelves, the thousands of ancient volumes, and saw the faces of all the monks there. He had studied them all at Brother Morgan's graveside that morning, but there had been nothing there but grief and fear. He knew he was dealing with subtle and dark forces, that he could not act too boldly. He would have to bide his time. It would be like a game of cat and mouse. Without the cat.
Or the mouse.
***
There was a certain macabre beauty in cutting a customer's hair with a pair of scissors which had been used as an instrument of murder. So thought Barney Thomson, barber, as he snipped quietly away at the head of Brother Edward. A requested, and slightly racy, (Tonsured) Roger Moore, a revolutionary haircut never before executed. Barney was at the cutting edge of style, out on a limb.
Back behind the seat two days earlier than planned, due to public demand. Only one pair of scissors capable of doing the job, so Brother Herman, however unimpressed, had released them for Barney's use. Barney was aware that, at the rate he was going, he would have everyone's hair cut within a couple of weeks. Full time cleaning floors would follow. He wondered if maybe he could request to expand, cutting the hair of people in nearby villages, but already knew the answer. He was trapped here, in no less of a prison than he would be placed in if he got caught; and maybe not as comfortable.
Prison. If captured he'd be considered a highly dangerous prisoner, and weren't all those guys given three-room suites instead of cells? TV and DVD, bathroom, double bed, the right to invite women over at the weekends? Maybe he'd be better off in prison, a comfortable life, giving everyone a Tim Robbins (Shawshank Redemption).
Bored with his own thoughts, he decided to talk.
'So, what are you in for, Brother Edward?'
Edward raised an eyebrow.
Barney snipped quickly away around the back of the neck.
'Oh aye, right. But you know what I mean. Why are you here, 'n all that?'
Edward stared into the dark, blank wall in front of him. How many times in the past had he stared at the mirror as some new dream haircut had unfolded before him, another killer look which he would use to devastating effect, out on his Friday night sexquest? Ed the Bed, that's what they'd called him. He could lure a woman from fifty yards without a word. A different woman every night of the week, if he'd wanted; and how many of them had he sent to the grave of abandoned desire? He had never talked about it; but there was something about being in the barber's chair.
'Women,' he said to Barney, surprised by his own candour.
'Oh aye,' said Barney, nodding, 'God's second blunder.'
'Brother?'
'Oh, Nietzsche. Said that women were God's second blunder.'
'German philosophy, eh? And what did he consider God's first blunder?'
'Allowing McAllister to take the penalty against England,' Barney said. Laughed as he said it, so that Edward knew it was a joke. Not that he'd thought of it himself; had heard someone say it in the pub once, when they'd had a European philosophers evening. Not much good at jokes, Barney Thomson.
'Right, very good, Brother. I wouldn't let Brother Herman hear you talk like that, or he'll have your testicles on toast.'
Barney swallowed, hesitated, continued clipping. A vivid image.
Suddenly Brother Edward felt released. It was time to get it off his chest. The years of loathing and self-flagellation, the agonies he'd caused; the women he'd cast aside and the lives he'd ruined.
'I was a heartbreaker, Brother,' said Edward. 'I used women like you'd use razor blades. Swept them up with the great Hoover of my personality and good looks. Then, when I was done with them, I reversed the suck to blow and spat them out like so much dust in the wind.'
Barney snipped away. He sneaked a glance at Brother Edward's face. He looked about fifteen. No oil painting either. Wondered if he was delusional.
'Loved 'em and left 'em, that was me. I used to keep a book, you know. A catalogue of success. Page after page of women who had succumbed to my charm and outrageous good looks. It read like a Who's Who of Edinburgh babe society. I broke up marriages, I drove girls to suicide, I led them down the path of carnal degradation. But I changed, Brother Jacob, I changed. It'd make me sick to look at that book now.'
'Oh aye. Where is it?'
'Hidden away,' said Edward, 'where neither man nor beast will ever set eyes upon it again.'
; 'Why'd you not just burn it?' said Barney.
He felt Edward's shoulders shrug. 'Not sure. Suppose I thought that if things didn't work out here, there might be a few new chapters to write.'
'Oh.'
Another penitent man kneeling before God.
Barney had worked in a barber's shop long enough to recognise it; had thought that in this place he would not encounter such a person. The top-division, highly paid, agented, professional bullshitter. Always a mistake to get them started, but Barney had realised it too late. He had opened the box.
'But even after I got here, Brother Jacob, I questioned myself for a long while. Had I given up women for the right reason, or had I merely tired of them? You see, there are two types of women.'
'Oh aye?' said Barney.
'Aye. There's your Sharon Stones, and then there's your Madonnas.'
Barney was almost finished. Wished his next customer would arrive, as he was sure Brother Edward would not be so talkative in company.
'It's the difference between Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence, Brother. In Basic Instinct, you know the scene where they're in bed, Sharon Stone's lying there, and Michael Douglas darts down and gets stuck in. Giving her oral pleasure, you know?'
'Aye,' said Barney. He'd watched some of it once when Agnes had incorrectly set the video, attempting to tape the bumper final episode of the seventh season of Destiny Drive, successful offshoot of the failed Patrick Duffy vehicle, Only The Good Have Big Hair. He hadn't really known what they were doing.
'Well, you're watching that and you're thinking, is he really doing that to her, or is he in fact nowhere near her and it's all done by camera angles? Does he really have his face buried between her legs, or are they fake legs? Is that real pubic hair sticking up his nose, or is it a wig? You're just not sure. So, you see, that's one kind of woman. The kind you're just not sure about. Then there's Body of Evidence. You'll remember the scene with Madonna standing on top of the car?'
'Aye,' said Barney; hadn't the faintest idea.
'Willem Dafoe buries his face between her legs. But he's up there, man, there's no denying it. There's no artifice; there's no elaborate camera angles; there's no sophistry; there's no question that it's Madonna. It's her all right, not some stunt duff. So it's all there for you to see. And you know what you're thinking, Brother Jacob?'
'I hope she's had a shower?'
'You're thinking, that's it. It's all there, out in the open. So what's left? There's no mystery. Everything there is to see you've seen. And when there's no mystery, what is there? You see my problem, Brother?'
Barney had no idea what he was talking about. He ran a comb down the back of his head. Haircut finished. Hoping that he'd be able to send Brother Edward on his way
'Either you don't get it all, in which case you get annoyed because you wonder what they're hiding. Or you see everything and you get fed up because there's no mystery. You can't win. So that's my predicament. Did I run from womanhood because of my guilt, or because I was fed up with the continuing contradictions?'
Barney didn't have an answer. It was a good moment for the door to open, which it did, a prayer answered, and in walked Brother Adolphus and Brother Steven. Greetings were exchanged.
'I'm just finished,' said Barney, removing the towel from around Edward's neck, and mightily relieved with it. 'Would you like to step up, Brother Adolphus?'
Brother Adolphus came forward. Steven sat in one of the three seats behind the barber's chair, where Edward joined him after brushing off his shoulders.
'What can I do for you, Brother?' said Barney, fixing the towel around Adolphus's neck.
'I hear you do a wonderful Sean Connery (Name of the Rose), Brother,' he said.
'Aye, that'll be no bother.' Barney tapped the scissors against the comb, turned and quickly looked at Steven before he started. 'Unhappy with your cut from the other day, Brother?'
Steven smiled. 'No, no, Brother, not at all. I'd finished work for the day, and thought I'd come along and watch a master craftsman ply his trade. One of God's own artisans. You have the Gift, Brother. Angels must weep in ecstasy when they hear the euphonic clip of your scissors, and trumpets sound in Heaven to herald the triumph of corporeal entity over the fantasy of imagination. The mighty swords of the warriors of Gog and Magog could not have been wielded with such eloquence and pulchritude. The demons of impotence and repugnance must flee to their pungent burrows when faced with the edifying totality of your finesse. I see you have realised a (Tonsured) Roger Moore upon Brother Edward here. Wonderful work, Brother, wonderful work.'
Barney smiled. 'Aye, right,' he said, a little uncomfortably.
'Indeed,' said Brother Edward. 'I thought I'd stop a little longer myself.'
Steven nodded and the two men settled back to watch the master craftsman. Barney settled down to the subtle differences between a Sean Connery and an F. Murray Abraham.
Scissors clicked, but the silence would not last long. The Pandora's box of Edward's confession could not yet be contained.
'We were just talking about women,' said Edward. Knew that he shouldn't be having this discussion in the monastery, but that Steven would be a willing interlocutor. He ignored Adolphus, one of the quiet ones.
Brother Steven smiled. 'Ah, women,' he said. 'This is a good life we have, but sometimes you have to miss 'em. O Woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade, By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!'
'Walter Scott,' said Brother Adolphus from the chair, to everyone's surprise. 'Wonderful. How about, Eternal Woman draws us upward.'
Steven nodded his head. 'Faust. Very impressive. Better not let Brother Herman hear you quote Goethe, however, although who knows how many of us monks are here because of some calamitous Faustian pact?'
He received no answer to that, for how many in that very room were there for dark and devilish reasons?
'Woman's at best a contradiction,' said Steven, to take the curse from the conversation.
'Pope!' said Adolphus. 'A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.'
'Excellent, Brother,' said Steven. 'Samuel Johnson. Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda-water the day after.'
'Ah, the Lord Byron,' said Adolphus. 'Those days are gone for us, Brother.'
'Indeed.'
A pause. Edward, feeling left out, made his move.
'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'
Neither Steven nor Adolphus had an immediate riposte. A brake had been put on the momentum of the conversation. Edward seemed quite pleased with himself, but perhaps realised that further revelations about his past might be inappropriate. Barney took his chance.
'Hell hath no fury like a woman's scone,' he said.
Scissors clicked; hair fell gently to the ground; the dark grey walls of the monastery kept their secrets.
'Looks like we're in for a long winter,' said Brother Steven after a while.
The Sex Issue
'What crap are you reading now?'
Proudfoot looked up as Mulholland arrived at the table with lunch. Soup, sandwiches, warm drinks. A small restaurant in Thurso, first-floor, looking down on the snow and the few cars out battling against the blizzard. Cricket highlights from Australia incongruously played on the television.
'The January issue of Blitz!' she said.
'Isn't it still November?'
'You know how it is with these things. The Christmas one's been on sale since the middle of August.'
'So how come you only bought it two days ago?'
''Cause it's a load of pish.'
Mulholland sat down, passed her lunch across the table. Three o'clock in the afternoon. A few hours spent in Caithness, persuading themselves that Barney Thomson had not remained in the area. The man had headed west. They had come as far as Thurso, where the snow h
ad driven them off the road. They were spending all their time eating.
'So what have we got this time?' said Mulholland through a mouthful of sandwich. Turkey, brie, tomato and cranberry sauce.
'It's a special sex issue,' she said.
'This one's a special sex issue?'
'Aye. Just the usual stuff, you know, but more so.'
'Sex?' said Sheep Dip, joining them, his plate brimming with food.
Proudfoot smiled at him, enjoying the belief that Mulholland would be jealous. She swallowed a spoonful of soup, felt the warmth slide down inside her like a satin glove; if you were to eat a satin glove. She let the magazine close and Mulholland took it off her and span it around on the table. Read the cover headlines, printed over the picture of an anorexic foetus with eye-shadow.
Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis - Who's Got the Bigger Cock; Collagen Implants - Why They're Not All They're Blown Up to Be; Why I've Had It With Breasts - Meryl Streep Tells All; Extra-Large Mars Bar v. Cucumber - You Decide; Alien Sex - It's Not As Out Of This World As You Think; Why Isabelle Adjani Is Through with Sex; Ninety Great Ways to the Five Second Orgasm; Gretchen Schumacher on Why She's Shagged Her Last Horse; Lose Weight Through Instant Sex; Why You Might Not Be Getting All The Sex You Should; Forty-Eight Great New Ways To Have Sex; Cybersex - Coming to a Computer Near You; Why Male Models Have Huge Cocks; Trapped between the Thighs of a Cosmic Prostitute. And much, much more...
Mulholland shook his head, pushed the magazine away from him, turning it over so as not to look at the cover. Back page: a wafer-thin wee lassie, in the pouring rain, naked but for wellies. A tampon advert, the subject of which looked as though she wouldn't start menstruating for another three to four years.
'We need to talk,' he said, getting stuck into the soup.
'Why?' said Proudfoot. 'I'll read what I want.'
'Not about that,' he said, brusquely, 'I'm ignoring that. About Barney Thomson.'
'Oh.'
The Barber Surgeon's Hairshirt (Barney Thomson series) Page 12
