'We need to get inside the man. Try and work out what his next move might have been. We're on the right road and closing on him, but he's still a week and a half in front of us.'
'We're not going on any road in this weather,' said Sheep Dip, nodding at the blizzard outside. Unrelenting, sweeping in from the west. No sign of a let-up. 'It's biblical out there, so it is. Biblical,' he added, displaying his local knowledge to its fullest.
'Aye, well, if it doesn't look like easing today, we find somewhere to stay tonight. Hope it's eased by tomorrow. We might go along to the local plods and see if we can commandeer a decent vehicle for the weather. They might have a Land Rover they'll let us have.'
'And back on Planet Earth,' said Proudfoot.
'All right, they might have a Land Rover that we can take after a few calls have been made. Whatever. We head west, but it would help if we had some idea what he was doing. So we have to think about everything we've got, come to some sort of conclusion. See if we can get to somewhere that Thomson might have visited in the past few days, not a week and a half ago. And hopefully somewhere where there's not some bloody woman who thinks he's a lovely lad and insists on filling us up with the entire contents of Safeway's cake shelves.'
Proudfoot mixed soup and sandwich, began to feel life returning to the freezing extremities of her body.
'It does seem strange, though, doesn't it?' she said. 'Everyone we've spoken to who's had anything to do with him, they all think he's a nice enough man. There's none of the usual stuff that comes with serial loopos. I can't equate the Barney Thomson that we're supposed to be looking for, with the Barney Thomson that everyone who's met him describes.'
'She's got a point,' said Sheep Dip. 'They've been talking about him up here for a couple of weeks now. The lad's no killer. Unless he's one of these, what d'you call them, schizohaulics, or whatever.'
Mulholland shrugged. 'Who knows? Nothing he does displays the slightest cunning or criminal intuition. He decides to run, but waits until he gets to where he's going before he takes money out of the bank. If he'd done it in Glasgow we'd have no idea where he'd gone. He quite openly stays in B&Bs. Calls himself Barnabus Thompson and thinks he'll pull the wool over someone's eyes.'
'He did,' said the Dip.
'All right, but somewhere out there, there's got to be a landlady who can see past a man's capacity to eat breakfast.'
'Don't count on it. How many phone calls have we had?' said Proudfoot.
Mulholland shook his head. If only they didn't have to deal with the public. If it was just them and the criminals, with no one else in the way, it would be so much easier.
He took a huge bite from his sandwich and mushed it up with soup. How could it be so difficult to catch a man who was such an idiot?
'There is an alternative,' said Proudfoot. Mulholland raised his eyebrows, speech being lost to him at that moment. 'He could be taking the piss. Intentionally leaving the trail, so we'll know where to find him. Either wants to get caught, or else he's confident he'll stay one step ahead of us. Laughing at our expense.'
Mulholland swallowed. 'Could be. If that's the case, I'm going to kick the shit out of him.'
'Me too.'
'Barney Thomson?' said Sheep Dip. 'Ach, away with you. The lad's taking the pish out of no one.'
'Anyway,' said Mulholland. 'Ignoring his motives. Let's say by the time he buys his one-way ticket to Inverness he's not got much cash left. Lifts two hundred pounds when he gets there, so that's all he's got in the world. So far we've got him down for four nights' B&B. How much?'
'Fifteen a night in the first place, twenty-two in the second. So that's seventy-four,' said Proudfoot.
'Right. And we know he bought some clothes in Tain. He must have had to get the bus or the train around. Eaten something for lunch and dinner. Must have spent well over a hundred. Maybe a hundred and fifty almost. And that was twelve days ago. The man has got to be running out of cash.'
'Remember he's been working,' said Sheep Dip.
Mulholland shook his head. 'Of course, I keep forgetting. There's this huge queue of Highland eejits waiting for the most notorious psycho in Scottish history to start probing around their heads with a pair of scissors. Still, by the sound of it he's not making that much cash. Can't have cut too much hair, for goodness' sake. Not everyone up here can think the guy's all right, surely?'
Sheep Dip shovelled food remorselessly into his mouth.
'That I wouldn't count on. The lad's no more of a hard man than Wullie Miller, and he used to get all sorts of folk speaking to him.'
'Could be he's robbing banks or something like that,' said Proudfoot, not believing it for a second. Was instantly annoyed at herself for this pathetic sucking up.
'Think we'd have heard,' said Mulholland. 'All the crimes that have been reported to us as possible Barney Thomson vehicles, they're just a load of pish. You know that. We obviously don't know much about the guy, but he's just not a petty criminal. He did his crimes eight months ago, he thought he'd got away with it, and now he's having to do a runner. That's it.'
'Could be desperate,' she said.
'I don't think so. He doesn't have the brains for it, or the guts, or the inclination. No, there's something that first woman said. The one in Tain.'
'What?'
'She said that Thomson had told her he was going somewhere that no one would have heard of him,' said Sheep Dip.
Proudfoot tried to remember her saying that, but she'd been too busy trying not to laugh. Now it was her who suddenly felt in competition with Sheep Dip; a ridiculous notion. She rhythmically spooned her soup, blowing over the top of the spoon, lips round and full and moist. Mulholland tried not to stare. Hoped he wasn't going to get carried away, ignore Sergeant Dip, and say something cheesy like, I really love the way you eat your soup.
'Abroad?' said Proudfoot, looking up and catching him staring.
He nodded. 'All right, abroad fits the bill. But why come to Sutherland and Caithness? It may be out of the way, but it isn't abroad. They still get the BBC and the Daily Record.'
'Iceland?'
He shrugged. 'Same again. You don't travel to Iceland from here. He might go to Orkney or Shetland, but they're still going to know who he is. There must be somewhere up here that he thought would have no outside contact.'
'A remote village, then,' she said. He watched her lips. Shook his head. 'Suppose you're right,' she went on. 'It's not like it's the Amazon or something.'
'Exactly,' said Mulholland. 'There're back-of-beyond places, but everywhere still gets the morning paper, even if it isn't until three in the afternoon. There might be places that are a little behind, but not weeks behind liked he'd need. Has to be something cut off from the world. A commune, maybe.'
'Do you still get them?'
He shrugged again. Wondered if she was staring at his lips the way he was staring at hers.
'Sergeant Dip? Is there some tribe of hippies out there like those Japanese that came out of the jungle forty years after the war? They're still smoking dope and doing all that Krishna stuff, thinking the Vietnam War's still on and Wilson's Prime Minister.'
Sheep Dip chewed ruminatively on some springy mince. Proudfoot laughed. Mulholland thought, I could shag that laugh; then wondered what was getting into him. He had to keep talking about Barney Thomson; and try not to say something stupid like, I love the way your nose does that little thing when you smile.
'I don't think so,' said Sheep Dip. 'There are still communes and the like, monasteries and that kind of thingy, but for all their shite, these people are even more up with the modern world than the rest of us, you know? They've all got their own websites and all that. There's no one backward any more, not in this day and age.'
'Suppose you're right,' said Mulholland. 'The minute you get above Inverness, you still tend to think of them all as a bunch of retro sheep shaggers. But it just isn't like that any more.'
'Oh,' said Sheep Dip, shovelling bread and potatoes into his
mouth, 'they still shag plenty of sheep.'
'Right.' And Mulholland wondered for the first time about the exact origins of Sergeant MacPherson's nickname. 'We can ask the local plods when we go along and take one of their cars off their hands. See what's in the vicinity that might make a good hideout for the most famous person in Britain. Might be a commune or a monastery after all. Who knows?'
'You still get them? Monasteries?' asked Proudfoot.
'Don't know,' said Mulholland. 'They're not like normal people up here, are they, Sergeant Dip? Who knows what we'll encounter?'
'Life, but not as we know it,' said Proudfoot.
'Aye,' said Mulholland. 'Better set your phaser on stun, and be prepared to re-calibrate your anophasic quantum confinement capacitor.'
'Only if you remember to bring your protoplasmic photon iridium deflector array.'
Sheep Dip munched slowly on his third slice of bread.
'You don't half get some fancy-sounding equipment down in Glasgow,' he said
***
'Chief Inspector Mulholland, you say? From Glasgow?'
'Aye. This is Detective Sergeant Proudfoot.'
Sheep Dip had disappeared again; more friends or relatives to visit, Mulholland assumed, making enquiries his official excuse.
The large policeman behind the desk in the Thurso station smiled. Extended his hand across the counter.
'Sergeant Gordon. Always nice to have some colleagues up from Glasgow. We usually just see the boys from Inverness, you know. Come on round the back and we'll get you a cup of tea. You must be frozen if you've come all that way.'
They followed him round the other side of the counter and through the door into the small back-room office. Had visions of being presented with another tray full of pastries and biscuits.
'No, it's all right, thanks. We haven't just driven from Glasgow today, and we've just had lunch.'
'Och, aye, of course,' said Sergeant Gordon. 'I've been hearing all about you. On a great odyssey across the Highlands in search of the wanted man. Thrilling stuff. But you must have a cup of tea and a biscuit. I'll just put the kettle on.'
He didn't have to leave the office; the kettle was on another desk, surrounded by opened packets of biscuits.
'I thought the Dipper was with you?'
Mulholland smiled. 'The Dipper's off making other enquiries.'
'Aye, aye, right enough, he will be. A good lad, Sheep Dip, a good lad. Now, what is it I can do for you?'
Mulholland hesitated. He had never liked interfering on other people's patches. It was guaranteed to cause argument and upset, and nothing helped the opposition more than when the police were fighting amongst themselves.
'We're not setting off again tonight,' he began.
'Good Lord, no, of course not. It's awful out there.'
'We're hoping to get on tomorrow, if it's a bit clearer. But we'll need a better vehicle for the snow. A four-wheeled drive. I hate to pull rank, and I don't want to have—'
'Don't be daft, lad, we've got a Land Rover you can have. As long as you bring it back in one piece, it's all yours. None of that fancy Starsky and Hutch stuff that some of the Glasgow lads seem to like.'
The kettle began to grumble. Sergeant Gordon started placing biscuits on plates, teabags in the pot. Things were usually quiet in Thurso, but even quieter when it snowed. Glad to have visitors.
'You're sure?' said Mulholland.
'Ach, no bother, son. We've got the old one out back if we need it for emergencies. There's no point in your chief phoning up my chief and all the keich flying. Just take it and try to bring it back in a reasonable condition.'
'Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.' He looked at Proudfoot and raised his eyebrows. At last. Help.
'No bother,' said Sergeant Gordon, 'no bother at all.'
'Now, we think Barney Thomson might have passed through this way. We're not sure. Have there been any sightings of the man, any hints of his being around here? Maybe a crime that's a little out of the norm?'
'You mean, have we found a collection of body parts in a freezer? 'Cause we've had none of that, not for a couple of years at any rate. Not since Big Hamish threw himself off the pier at Scrabster.'
'No, no, we're not expecting that. Anything really. Anything unusual.'
Sergeant Gordon held the handle of the kettle while it shuddered to the boil. He smiled as he started pouring the water into the teapot.
'Oh, aye, there was something. Old Betty down at Tongue. You know, Betty McAllister, with the enormous breasts. She's got that auld B&B place. Seagull's Nest, or something like that, it's called. She phoned us a week or two back. Said she thought she might have this Thomson bloke of yours staying at her place. Said he seemed like a nice enough laddie, and she definitely wasn't happy about phoning, bless her.'
'What happened?' asked Mulholland. Voice dead, staring at the floor. A week or two ago. Not even beginning to get excited about this. Why was it, he thought, that everybody on the planet was a complete and utter moron?
'Well, you know, I was a bit busy that afternoon. It was a Sunday, I think, and you know, what with lunch and all that, and me having to take Mother back to the hospital in the evening. It was the following day before I got around to calling her back, and it seems like I just missed him. Barney Thomson, that is.'
Sergeant Gordon turned round, two cups of tea in hand. Noticed that Mulholland was turning red. Smiled.
'Keep your knickers on, laddie, I'm only joking,' he said. 'I've heard not a word about the man. And, as everyone around here knows, Betty McAllister's got pancakes for tits. Now, would you be wanting sugar?'
***
They hurried down the path from the police station, back into the car. Out of the cold and the blizzard. Twenty-five minutes later. Cup of tea and three biscuits; nothing to be learned. Had ended up chatting about Sergeant Gordon's children. Directed to the Caithness Hotel to spend the night, where they could sit and fester and hope the blizzard would pass. Would pick up the Land Rover in the morning. They had asked about any communes or similar venues where Barney Thomson might have been able to hide away without fear of recognition, but the sergeant had been unable to help them. Nowhere thereabouts, as far as he could remember.
As Mulholland skidded into second, slithering through the snow, Sergeant Gordon put the kettle on again. There were only two mugs, so he hadn't been able to have one with his guests. As he removed a couple of chocolate digestives from the packet, he remembered about the old abbey halfway between Durness and Tongue. The name escaped him, but as far as he knew it was still active. The monks kept pretty much to themselves, so he believed. Wondered if he should call the hotel and mention it to Mulholland, but midway through his first chocolate digestive, he decided not to bother. A serial killer like Barney Thomson wouldn't be wanting anything to do with monks, nor they with him. No point in bothering them.
By the time he bit into his second biscuit, he was already considering more important matters.
Would all this snow dissuade the widow Harrison from coming over for dinner that night?
Come In To My Parlour
The depths of the night. The blizzard swarmed around the monastery; the dead could hear it engulf the ancient walls. White noise; wind howling through cracks and spoors and holes. A noise of giants; a noise to fear. Life flickered in its midst, struggled against the cold. There was much which would give in to its bludgeoning force that evening, and so the monks wondered as they lay awake: would any from their number be found that coming morning, propped against a tree in the forest? A covering of snow, begun to drift? A knife or scissors or some other pointed implement embedded in the neck? The smile of the contented upon the face? Tunic soaked with blood?
All but one. Only one of the monks knew that there would be no body found in the forest; only one knew that this night was not a night for murder. A night for dark deeds; a night for discovery; but not a night for death. As the blizzard raped the Highlands, and ice descended, Death was busy elsewhere.
The monk sat in a corner of the library, book in his hand, a small candle burning at his side. While all who did not worry slept. This man had worked the shelves and knew this library well. All the secrets and lies of these books. All but the information which he sought. He had almost come to the end of his search, with nowhere else to look; but nowhere could he find an account of Two Tree Hill. He had felt sure it would be written, for how could so fateful a day not be recorded? He had to accept that if he could not find the account for which he searched then his plans would have to change. In recent weeks his search had become ever more fevered as he'd neared the end of his quest; a fever which had led to his discovery, and the necessary, if unfortunate, elimination of the Brothers' librarian. Although, of course, Saturday had had it coming anyway.
Slowly he turned the pages of a book of records, but it was one he had seen before. This was the double check, and he knew that he would not find what he was looking for.
A sliver of sound.
Almost nothing, but he turned his head sharply. Eyes wide, pupils huge, used to the black of night despite the candle. He held still, not even his breath, but there was nothing. Senses sharp, but this was the one man who did not have a reason to fear.
A gentle blow from his lips and the candle was extinguished. Its light had been so insignificant that there was barely a difference. The vestige of light, of snow and low white clouds, was smuggled into the library, but once there, engulfed by the dark. The monk waited.
Had the noise been that of someone going out or coming in? Had he been spotted again, but this time by someone with the good sense not to make himself known? The monk stood, silent. Every sense concentrated on his awareness of the library; and yet he was annoyed at the interruption. There was work to be done, decisions to be made.
He heard another sound, a definite footstep, and so knew that he was not alone. Yet he was not afraid. He fingered the comb within the folds of his tunic. Had another cold plan for murder, although he had not thought to use it so soon; another device to shift suspicion onto their newest recruit, the hapless Brother Jacob.
The Barber Surgeon's Hairshirt (Barney Thomson series) Page 13
