He could probably have managed to take them on with two of them sleeping, but why bother? He'd come so far, achieved so much, why risk everything at this stage? His plan: to give it another couple of hours, see if he was presented with any more propitious moments, and, if not, bring out the Colt. And he had another, altogether more exciting plan for that. And so, let them taste the bittersweet tang of hot lead; let them feast on the brutal pungency of a steel bullet; let them enjoy the festival of punishment that manifested itself in the searing heat of the monster which was spewed forth from the gun; let them wallow in a cauldron of ballistic Parmesan and let their heads drown in a plate of bloody ordnance.
Steven's mind was also rambling. But he watched closely, preparing to move. He would track them all the way; if they slipped, if they strayed, if they wandered slightly from the course, he would pounce. And if they did not stray, he would shoot them.
A bloody good plan.
And as the four shook themselves down and prepared to start the final long haul to Durness, and as Brother Steven watched every move, Barney Thomson was still far from coming up with that brilliant plan. In fact, Barney slept. Soundly, eyes firmly shut, mind not even dreaming, head lodged in the pillow of a cloak, he slept. And as the others moved off and Steven shadowed them as closely as he could, Barney let it all pass him by.
***
Progress was slow. Men who walk through snow for a living, if there are such men, would have had trouble with this terrain. And as the morning passed, Mulholland began to doubt that they would reach Durness by evening. But he also knew they could not stop and be sitting ducks again. Whatever the weather and whatever the light, they had to limp on until they reached the safety of the town. He knew, however, his beating heart and his fevered mind told him, that they would not even get close to Durness before they had to answer the challenge. It was imminent. He could feel it. Everywhere.
As for how much ground they were covering and their exact location, he had no clue. Brother Martin led the way, claiming to know where he was going; and Mulholland had to trust him, for he himself could not have been more lost. Visibility wasn't bad, but it could have been a hundred miles and it wouldn't have made any difference. When everything was white, it was white.
He made his way past Edward and came up behind Martin, who he could tell was only grudgingly waiting for the rest of them.
'Martin!' he called out from some fifteen yards back to save the final effort of catching him up. Martin turned slowly and waited for him. Plucked himself from the dream of a Swiss chalet in winter; snow outside, a roaring fire and a strumpet of naked women inside.
'You know where we are?' asked Mulholland.
'No problem,' Martin said. He pointed to his left without looking. 'That's Ben Fleah over there, behind it is Beinn Achrah.' Made-up names, but he knew Mulholland wasn't going to know any better. Mulholland looked into the impenetrable white, one snow-covered physical feature pretty much blending into another.
'How can you possibly tell?' he asked.
Martin shrugged. Behind them, Edward and Proudfoot trudged slowly along their footfalls. Heads down, dreaming or depressed, their minds on other things. Neither of them looked up, or behind; and so Proudfoot did not notice that she was becoming detached at the back, and neither did Edward. Brother Steven noticed, however. Brother Steven noticed everything.
'Just can,' said Martin. 'I know these hills pretty well. When you're living with a bunch of goons like that mob, you like to get out sometimes.'
'To the town?'
'That would've been totally awesome, but I could never do it, you know? A guilt thing. Masochistic too, because I always teased myself. Allowed myself the chance to get there, but didn't do it. I don't know what that was all about, but I wasn't the only one doing weird stuff.'
'Well, you can do it now,' said Mulholland.
A large smile began to spread across Martin's face. 'You're right about that,' he said. 'Bloody right.'
Despite the tension, and his cement-mixer stomach, Mulholland laughed. Relief. Another clutch at a straw of comfort.
'So, what are you going to do, then?' he said. 'What's first on the list?'
The smile remained plastered to Martin's face. 'Sex,' he said. 'Stacks and stacks of sex.'
'Available in Durness, is it?'
'Don't care. I'll get it somehow. There's sex to be had in most places, and I'm gagging for it. So that's first, then I'm going to get steaming pished out of my face, then I'm going to have some more sex, then get a decent night's sleep in a warm, comfy bed, then I'm going to get up, have the fullest breakfast they have to offer, then I'm going to have stacks more sex.'
'Fine words for a monk,' said Mulholland, the smile still on his face. 'Think I might join you in getting pished out of your face, but I don't know where you're going to find all these women.'
Martin casually indicated the back of their line with a role of his eyes. 'Might try that wee bit of crumpet you've got there, mate, if you don't mind.'
Mulholland stopped smiling. Took another couple of quick steps and was alongside the man. Lowered his voice.
'One word, one suggestion, one anything in her direction, and I'm ripping your nuts off and stuffing them down your sodding throat. You got that, monkbrain?'
Martin also stopped smiling. But he nodded his head and immediately switched off. Typical police, he was thinking, but he didn't really care. Erin Proudfoot was all right, but there would be plenty more babes in the Sango Sands Oasis in Durness; even at this time of year.
Mulholland gave him another few seconds of hard looks, then gave up when he realised that Martin wasn't interested. So he turned round to check on the back of the line, looking to see that Proudfoot was all right. And that was how he came to notice that Proudfoot wasn't actually there.
The Bloody, Bitter End
Mulholland immediately turned and started heading back, struggling through the snow. He nearly fell over a couple of times, the snow suddenly seemed a foot deeper. Edward stared at him as he approached, stepped gingerly out of the way as Mulholland reached him and pushed past.
'Proudfoot!'
Again he nearly fell. All this death he had encountered, but suddenly his heart was beating like it hadn't for years. Fear? What he had felt earlier, running this gauntlet, was not fear. This was it now, bloody and raw, and his chest heaved, his breaths came in uncomfortably tight spasms. He looked wildly around the grey-white blur, hoping that she had merely stepped from the path, modesty having got the better of good sense, but he knew she wouldn't be that stupid; and he had the gut-churning, sick-to-the-teeth feeling of the certain knowledge that this was serious. This was it. For all the build-up, they had suddenly, brutally, come to the bitter end.
Brother Steven waited.
Mulholland came to the point in their path where the snow was blurred and trampled to the side; tracks led away behind a hill; enough of a disturbance in the snow so that it was apparent she had been dragged off. He turned back to Martin and Edward, who were staring at him with only vague interest. He breathed deeply, knew that the only way was to be calm. There was no blood in the snow; Proudfoot's body had not been left dismembered where she'd been accosted; it could be that she was not yet dead.
Steven had been toying with them since they'd arrived; maybe he intended toying with them even more.
'You two come on,' he shouted back, the words muffled and dying under the weight of cold and snow and low cloud.
Martin held his hands out at his side, in that Referee! gesture. 'Accept it, Chief Inspector,' he shouted, 'she's already dead. Steven hasn't been messing with us. You go off our track and you're walking straight into his trap. What's the point? If we keep going, if the three of us stick tog...'
'You two get the fuck up here right now, 'cause if he doesn't kill you, I'll arrest you, you stupid bastards! Do it!'
But these were two liberated ex-monks, men who had only just shaken off the shackles. They were free, and that freedom rested
gloriously on their shoulders, and tasted sweeter even than Steven's revenge. There was no way they were taking orders from anyone.
The three men stared at one another, long and hard. An eternity of a few seconds.
'Right. Fuck it,' barked Mulholland. 'Get yourselves killed.'
He turned from the path they had made and began following the marks of commotion through the snow. He knew he was walking exactly where Steven wanted him to walk, but he had no option. He could try another route, try sneaking up on the bloke, but this was no time for trickery. He had run long enough; he had been uninterested or worried, and a minute earlier he had been frightened. Now it was time to confront the enemy.
Edward watched him go, was prodded by guilt. He ought to go with him; especially if he wanted to lure Proudfoot to his bed. Of course, the woman would probably already be dead, so it didn't make much of a difference.
'Come on,' said Martin to him, 'we don't need the guy. It's not as if he's protected any of us so far. It's me who knows the way anyway, so we don't need some sad, sexually deprived eejit to look after us.'
Like every other sound in this winter landscape, the sharp crack of the gun was muffled by the snow. In its way, the dull thud of the bullet into Martin's forehead was as impressive a noise as the muffled, crumpled thump of his body as he collapsed, dead, into the snow. A clean shot, immaculately into the centre of his brow.
Brother Steven had never fired a gun in his life, but a man possessed has the aim of the gods.
Instinctively, Mulholland and Edward dived into the snow, no thought for the pointlessness of their action, for they were totally exposed. Edward covered his head with his arms and breathed ice; Mulholland looked in the direction of the gunshot, but there was nothing to see but the wall of white. He gave himself another five seconds on the ground, then slowly lifted himself up. He knew, if Steven had been intending to kill him, he would have done it already.
He stood open and unprotected, looking at Steven's palisade, vague outlines of slopes and edges, behind any of which the man could be hiding. And hopefully Proudfoot too, held captive. Mulholland breathed deeply once more; calm. The sort of moment that gave you the willies to imagine; but when you were in it, you swallowed your fear, you forgot the other guy had a gun, and you got on with it.
'Come on, you,' he said to Edward. 'We're going up this bank and looking over the other side.'
'No chance,' said Edward, from the ground. 'I'm staying right here. At least, until I start heading towards the town.'
Mulholland started tramping through the snow. He had wasted enough time on these pathetic bastards. 'Suit yourself, Edward, but you've just seen what he did to your friend. You want a bullet in the napper, you stay right there. You're not just walking out of this, monk.'
Edward deliberated for a further half-second, then was out of the snow, catching up, and then a pace behind Mulholland as he headed up the hill; although the pace became three paces back as they neared the top.
It was a time for caution, but Mulholland was not for that. He had stepped away from the fight for long enough. His nerves were settled, his mind was set; and if he was to die in the next half minute, then he would have it happen while looking out for one of his fellow officers.
'Very fucking noble,' he muttered to himself, and five seconds later he was at the top of a small ridge, and down below, in the dip, not more than twenty yards away, they awaited them.
Proudfoot was on her knees, roughly bound and gagged; eyes open, staring wildly up at him, as Edward joined him on the ridge. Brother Steven behind her, gun at the back of her head. Proudfoot looked scared, although the frantic eyes were screaming at Mulholland to get away while he could; Steven looked serene. His job almost done, just the dénouement to come. The last of the Holy Order of the Monks of St John; and a couple of hapless police officers to boot. The perfect end to a perfect crime of retribution.
He had not yet faced the great unanswered question of what life offered once a long-held burning ambition had been achieved; the question which haunts everyone who has the misfortune to achieve all their dreams.
'And then there was one,' said Steven, looking Edward in the eye. He had enjoyed toying with Mulholland. Fevered blood swept around his body at the presence of Proudfoot on her knees before him, but this had always been about the monks.
Edward trembled; his resolve did not stiffen. He would have liked to tell Steven to let the woman go if all he was interested in was him, but the words did not make it all the way from his determination to his mouth. At least he did not immediately turn and run, because he accepted that this had to be faced. But still he was incapacitated by fear.
'Let her go,' said Mulholland. 'If this is just about the monks, let her go and the boy and I'll sort it out with you.'
'Come on, Chief Inspector, you'll have to do better than that, gallant though it may be. You don't seriously expect me to relinquish one of my weapons, do you? This is some karmic game of chess we're at, Chief Inspector, and I'm not about to throw away my queen.'
'Very deep,' muttered Mulholland. 'But before you talk any more shite, you want to tell us what this is about? Did they make you pray more than you wanted, or not enough maybe? You a religious zealot or an out-of-place atheist?'
Steven toyed with the idea of their immediate future; a bullet in the back of Proudfoot's head, followed by a couple of quick shots to take care of Mulholland and Edward; or a more drawn-out climax, as he had planned. The villain in a Bond movie climax, taking the time to explain himself before the execution.
Of course, it had to be the latter. No fun in expeditiousness.
'You'll never have heard of Two Tree Hill, Chief Inspector,' he said. Statement rather than question.
Mulholland shook his head; Edward narrowed his eyes. Mild confusion.
'Two Tree Hill is a place of such abomination, of such hideous repugnance and shame, that it eats at the hearts of men like some insidious cancer. It is a place where the veracity with which men decry was at once naked in our vengeful Lord's undying light. It speaks of fear and loathing and shouts to the very insouciance which separates the faithless from the godly. I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Indeed, Chief Inspector, Two Tree Hill is about that and much more. It's that whole life-blood thing – the battle of concupiscence against frigidity, unethical materialism against the rejection of immorality, the ignoble plagiarism of convention against the gemmiferous spontaneity of requited vehemence. It is a great Mahabharata of disenchantment, carved into the path of righteousness. Two Tree Hill is in everything; it is in this snow, it is in the hills, the air that we breathe, the gun I hold at your able sergeant's neck, the clothes we wear, the Abbot's two ridiculous left hands. It is all around us; it holds us and binds us and sucks us into its persecuted province.'
The damning words sat in the air; they begged the snow to fall, the ground to soak them up. They haunted and possessed, they taunted and teased.
'I thought Two Tree Hill was about a game of football?' said Edward.
Steven did not immediately answer.
'What?' said Mulholland.
'I've heard the old guys talk about it. There was some football match at Two Tree Hill. That was about it, wasn't it?'
'Football?' said Mulholland. 'A sodding game of football? Well, was it? All that shite you've just been spouting's over a bloody game of football? No one ever spoke like that when Thistle got relegated to the Second Division.'
The gun trembled slightly in Steven's hand; Proudfoot felt it against her skull.
'It was more than a football match, Chief Inspector. It was about injustice and oppression. It was about one decent man's obfuscation, his descent into a Hades of women and shattered aspiration.'
'Would you stop talking like that for God's sake,' barked Mulholland, 'and just tell us what bloody happened at this Two Tree bloody Hill?'
&nb
sp; Steven seethed; the gun twitched in his hand. He could fire right now. Be done with the ridicule. How could any of them hope to understand?
'It was a game of football,' said Edward. 'In the seventies, some time. Way before I got there. Anyway, our mob were playing a crowd over from Caithness somewhere. Twenty-two guys in robes kicking a ball about a bit of a field. Their abbot was refereeing the game. Near the end it's still nothing each, or something like that, when one of our mob sticks the ball in the net, or whatever it was they had for a net. In the middle of the bloke's celebrations, with no one else really bothering, this abbot guy chops the goal off for offside.'
'It was never offside,' said Steven, and the line had never been uttered more dangerously.
'Whatever. The goal is chopped off, and our guy goes ape-shit. Attacks the ref, does the whole pissed-off player thing. This fixture's been getting played for over two hundred years, and your man becomes the first player to be sent off. So, everyone's a bit embarrassed, the game gets abandoned, and the guy not only gets his marching orders from the match, he's sent packing from the abbey as well, head hung in shame and all that. A bit like Christopher Lambert in Highlander without the physical abuse. And the fixture's never been held since. In fact, I don't think we've spoken to that lot in years. It's a bit like England and Pakistan at cricket after that Mike Gatting business, except it's still going on.'
Edward shrugged. The tension had eased from him with the explanation. It almost seemed normal again; to be having a discussion about football.
'And?' said Mulholland, still searching for the thing that would incite a man to murder.
'That man was my father,' said Steven.
'Which man?'
'The man who scored the goal.'
'What? The offside one?' said Edward.
'It wasn't offside! Don't you fools see that? It was a perfectly good goal, and they ruined his life over it. He was never the same.'
Mulholland waved his hands in front of him, trying to shake away what had just been said. His head shook in time.
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 49
