'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 had 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.'
'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 f
lying. 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?'
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 33
