He looked at his watch, pursed his lips, shook his head. Another fifteen minutes and he was going to be out there, on the lawn at the side of the parliament, shirt sleeve weather, sun on his nearly bald head, overlooking Holyrood Palace, prepared with all manner of concerned statements about the quickly diminishing cabinet, and they were going to ask him what he was doing with his napper.
'Could you do me hair extensions or something?' he said, cocking his head to one side.
'You need hair to attach the extensions to,' said Barney glibly.
'Yeah, yeah, I suppose,' said JLM. 'What about implants then, you know like Elton John and all that mob?'
You'd look like a fucking idiot!!!! thought Barney.
'That'd be great,' said Barney. 'But we'd have to pluck hairs from your pubes to implant into your head, and it's not like you don't have hairs in your head. You just need to let them grow.'
'Pubes?' said JLM, frankly shocked.
'Yeah,' said Barney. 'That's why Elton John didn't mind. I mean, those kinds of guys pluck their pubes anyway, don't they?'
'Do they?' said JLM. He looked troubled, believing everything his barber told him, and looked away.
'Any other options?' he asked, after shivering through the thought of his pubic hairs being physically extracted.
Barney took a pace back and studied the hair again. Here we go, he thought, back in the old routine. Give the customer a bit of bullshit, spin the usual crap, get them to feel good about themselves.
'What about purple dye, or something?' said JLM.
'Look,' said Barney quickly, before JLM suggested a wig, spray paint or crayon, 'you hair's fine. It suits you. It's the whole Michael Stipe thing going on. The voters'll love it, the press'll think you're cool'
'You reckon?' said JLM, already buying into his new superstardom.
'Absolutely,' said Barney. 'You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you got asked to model some new suit or other on the Milan catwalks. You could be the face of Scottish Euro-chic with this haircut, you know what I'm saying? You'll be the toast of, I don't know,' hesitated Barney, momentarily running out of bullshit, 'Monte Carlo and all that mob. St Moritz.'
JLM looked critically at Barney in the mirror. Bloody rubbish, he thought, but when your ego is hungry, it'll pretty much eat any old gruel thrown its way.
'Sounds good,' said JLM suddenly. 'You know, you might be right. I like it.'
And he looked at his shit hair through new eyes.
'Really,' said Barney, 'the press are going to be more interested in the disappearance of Kathy Spiderman. This is the perfect time for you to be statesmanlike. Proud, dignified, not cowed in the face of all this murder and mayhem. Defiant in adversity, resplendent and magnificent against the odds, prepared to look the terrorists of the world, or whoever it is that's perpetrating these crimes, squarely in the eye, and to declare that Scotland will not be defeated, democracy will be not be vanquished, and that you, Jesse Longfellow-Moses, will not be shaken in your determination to make Scotland great once again.'
Even The Amazing Mr X gave Barney a bit of a sideways glance.
JLM turned round, rising from his chair.
'Brilliant, Barn!' he said. 'Bloody brilliant! Can you write all of that down quickly? You think you can do that? Do you?'
'If you're desperate,' said Barney.
'Brilliant,' said JLM. 'Right, I love that stuff. Maybe you can start writing speeches for me. Champion. Let's go and kick some arse.'
For the first time in their acquaintance, Barney and The Amazing Mr X exchanged a knowing glance, and then they were charging from the bathroom, on their way to prepare JLM for the biggest press briefing of his tenure.
***
JLM gave a long speech, before taking any questions. He outlined his government's and his own personal stance on the murders; the way ahead; the full force of the law was looking for the perpetrators of the crimes; Scotland would not be broken; blah, blah, blah, blah. Spoke for a full fifteen minutes – with passion, fluency and heartfelt courage – before the first question. Which was:
'First Minister, Russell Hargreaves, Scottish Daily Mail. What's with the new haircut? You look like a wank.'
***
Barney returned to his room a little after six. Due to be picked up by Rebecca Blackadder at seven. Just under an hour to relax, listen to some Hoagy, catch a bit of the news on the TV – Scotland Today were to lead with the claims of fix! surrounding the ejection, at the latter stages, of the Scottish entrant on Big Brother, followed by a feature on JLM's hair, followed by talk of Celtic asking Pele to come out of retirement for £125/week, and finally, squeezed in before the weather and a story about a little girl who'd spilled her ice cream, the account of Kathy Spiderman's unexpected disappearance – have a shower and get garbed up in as plain an outfit as he could find in his wardrobe.
Of course, when life seems simple and laid out before you on a plate, it generally goes tits up. There was a woman waiting for him as he let himself in. Sitting facing the door, jacket off, gin and tonic in her cool paws. Legs crossed, outrageously chic spectacles removed, so that her piercing blue eyes became even more striking. Not that she was especially attractive, although there was a certain vicious beauty about her mouth.
Dr Louise Farrow was the latest JLM babe to pitch up at Barney's place.
'Hi,' said Barney, closing the door behind him, not in the least surprised to see her. It pretty much only left Veron Veron to show his face and give him advice. And X, of course, although he was fairly confident X wouldn't have anything to say. 'You took your time.'
She smiled.
'Thought I'd let some of the shit get flushed away before I made an appearance.'
'Very thoughtful,' said Barney, and he went to the fridge, cracked open a beer, and slumped down into the seat opposite her.
She had left the office about twenty minutes earlier than Barney, although he had barely noticed. Of all of them, she was the one who came and went the most. But then, of all of them, she probably had the least to do. JLM hadn't actually been ill, even slightly, since he'd ascended to power.
'So?' said Barney, and left it at that. Did not feel beholden to any of these folk when they turned up.
'What have they told you?' she said. Sharp voice, a chameleon zinging its tongue out to snaffle a bug.
'Who?' said Barney, although he knew the answer.
'About why you're here,' she said.
Barney took a long drink. Immediately, no bullshit, no crap, no attraction, just an acute tongue, powerful eyes and he trusted her totally. You make instant judgements in life. Whatever he was beginning to feel for Rebecca Blackadder, he wasn't going to feel for this woman; whatever had passed through him in his feelings for Alison Blake, he wasn't going to feel for her either. But he was sure of her.
'In a coma,' he said, voice matter of fact. 'The other two have had me dead and my brain kept in a jar. In one, transplanted into someone else's body, in the other a whole new body grown genetically using my DNA.'
The ice in her glass clinked as she tipped it into her mouth; a lovely sound for a warm late afternoon of an Indian summer. Barney took some beer, wondered what was coming. Actually you're from space. As a matter of fact, you're an insect. It's hard to believe, but we're actually in another dimension; it's all related to Membrane Theory.
'And you believed any of that crap?' she said.
'Not really,' he said, having already given them a fair degree of thought. 'The coma one had a bit of a ring of authenticity to it, but at the same time, I don't know. Didn't sound quite right.'
'Good,' said Farrow, 'because it's bullshit. Ping, you wake up one morning in a strange bed, fully functional after two and a half years in a coma. Bullshit. And the other two you can just forget. You know how many synapses they'd have to attach to do a brain transplant? Jesus, it's fictional stuff. Total bullshit.'
'Aye,' said Barney, 'that makes sense. I suppose you're about to tell me the truth.'
She l
ifted her eyebrow at his acerbic tone, took another swish of g&t to accompanying music, laid down the glass, lifted her briefcase, which Barney had not noticed sitting beside the chair, took out a hardback book in glossy dustcover, and tossed it over to him.
Barney held her gaze for a few seconds, and then looked at the book. Barney Thomson: Urban Legend. On the cover was a rather severe photograph of Barney, and the man in the picture resembled not in the least the man Barney saw when he looked in the mirror. He looked inside, checked the date of publication, the previous year, and leafed quickly through the pages, looking at some of the photographs. Closed it over, felt a strange sensation gripping his inside, the hand on his guts slowly tightening. Not a feeling he'd had when listening to any of the other contrived explanations.
'You're not Barney Thomson,' she said, coldly. 'Although, I suppose, it depends on what you say makes the man. Life is full of that kind of bullshit question.'
'Explain,' said Barney.
'Barney Thomson died two and a half years ago. Chasing a guy called Leyman Blizzard across a moorland in the Borders. Fell off a rock, broken neck, and that's all she wrote. Big news at the time, some fella researched this book, looked into all the shit you were supposed to have committed in your time. Big surprise, discovered you'd done very little of it. Hence the title of the book. Barney Thomson is this urban legend, nothing more. And an urban legend from which society is very quickly moving on.'
Barney was listening, his beer attached to his lips. Drinking slowly, paying attention. Already it had a ring of truth to it that the others didn't.
'Who am I, then?' he said, and he suddenly found he had trouble getting the words out of his mouth. Did he really want to know?
Farrow shrugged.
'No one knows,' she said. 'You're just a guy. You were found late last year wandering about the docks at Leith. In a daze, no one had any idea where you'd come from. You were suffering from amnesia. Doctors did a few tests, decided that you'd likely never recover. There was talk about giving you a new life, inventing a life for you.'
She paused. Barney could feel the scrutiny of her eyes as Farrow searched for signs of belief or doubt. He said nothing.
'A couple of months ago, JLM finished reading the book you've got there. Fascinated by it, the myths that grow up around people. Knew about Leith docks man, decided he'd create his own Barney Thomson. You were kept in hospital, kept hypnotised for weeks, and they implanted the life of Thomson into your head. That's why it'll feel so hazy, because it's all bullshit. It's also all been taken from that book; you read it, see if you can remember anything that's not actually printed there. You'll struggle.'
Barney nodded, held the book in his hand. And this time, unlike the others, his brain didn't seem to be in fugue when hearing the story. It all sounded possible; men lost their memories, men were hypnotised, people could be brainwashed to think anything. It felt right.
'Why you?' he said suddenly.
'Everyone's got their motives,' she said. 'You either trust people or you don't. My motives are just letting you sort out the truth from the crap, nothing else. Altruistic, if you like. No reason why you should believe me and not the others, but that's up to you. I suppose I don't really give a shit whether you believe me or not, I just thought you should know what you're dealing with. Any other stories you'll have heard will just be JLM and Weirdlove messing with your mind. You're their toy. It's like they're picking the legs offa spiders.'
Barney looked at the cover of the book, felt no connection with the face of the man displayed there, then laid it down on the floor at the side of his chair.
'Rebecca?' he said.
Farrow drained her glass, felt the chill of the ice cubes falling against her top lip, laid the glass back down on the table.
'Maybe you should just work it out for yourself,' she said. 'She works for JLM.'
'We all work for JLM.'
'She goes round to the official residence every night after work, did you know that?'
'So what are you saying?' said Barney, quickly.
Farrow hesitated, as if pondering whether to give him any more. She could tell Barney no end of stories about Dr Blackadder.
'You're the new kid on the block. A bit out of sorts, a bit weirded out by it all. A nice guy, honest face, easy to trust. You're their man on the inside. You'll get to know people, those people will trust you with confidences, you'll pass them on to Blackadder.'
'I don't know anything,' he said defensively.
'Don't you?' she asked, and he thought of Solomon and Kent. 'And even if you don't know anything yet, they're thinking long term. You'll learn plenty over the next few weeks and months. JLM's a big picture guy, you must've figured that.'
'Oh, aye.'
'So, you're just part of the picture. He gets a cool barber to cut his hair, and he also gets an agent on the inside of all kinds of places to dig up information for him. An agent operated by Blackadder. Look, what's the best way to torture someone, to get information out of them?'
Barney thought about it, shrugged his shoulders, said, 'Roast their testicles. Stick matches under their fingernails. Drill their teeth.'
'Take them to dinner and buy them a beer,' said Farrow. 'You torture someone, you create resentment and bitterness. They might tell you what you want to know, but then they're more likely to not tell you anything or to lie. If you want the truth and a lot of it, you have to make someone trust you and like you, you have to make them want to take you into their confidence. Rebecca's a psychiatrist. Not only does she know all that shit, she's good at it too. She's a pro. She's this thing, lovely manner, nice eyes, nice mouth, men want to sleep with her, God, most women want to sleep with her. She's delicious. Something about her. People tell her stuff, and she tells all of it to JLM, and so, JLM's power within the Executive grows.'
Barney tipped his head back, tipped the last of the bottle into his mouth. Swallowed, slowly lowered his head and rested the bottle on his knee. Dr Louise Farrow lifted her briefcase and rose from the chair.
'Think about what I've said. There's no reason for you to believe me over any of the others. It's entirely your shout.'
'Where do the murders come into it all?' said Barney, stopping her in her tracks as she walked past him.
She didn't look him in the eye; stared straight ahead, thought about it, finally looked down at him.
'For all the bluster and the over-the-top bullshit, Jesse Longfellow-Moses is an incredibly sinister and dubious man. The team he is supposed to work with, a team for whom he has obviously no respect whatsoever, are getting murdered one at a time. Coincidence? Might be. But if it's not, you also have to look at Rebecca, because she's the one closest to him.'
She hesitated. She was standing right beside him, close enough to reach out and touch his face. A tender gesture, but she knew it would mean nothing to him.
'Just be careful around her,' she said. She let her eyes linger upon him for another few seconds and then she walked slowly away.
The door closed behind her. Barney leant down and lifted the book. Studied the picture without opening the cover for a full five minutes, then let the book drop onto the floor. Stood up, walked to the window. A night out with Rebecca Blackadder, and the evidence, such as it was, was building up against her.
Was it time to put the flag in the window for Solomon and Kent? But then, who the Hell were Solomon and Kent? If he was prepared to believe the story that Farrow had just told him, then what did that do to the credibility of Solomon?
'Jesus,' he muttered, turning away from the bright late afternoon sun towards the fridge. 'It's Miller time.'
One In The Head For The Trudgemeister
The Cabinet Murderer, or Kabinet Killer, as the Sun had dubbed her when they bothered mentioning it, had been pissed off about being whapped over the napper, just as she had been about to proactively announce the death of Kathy Spiderman.
She kept changing her mind. She had Nelly Stratton's toe, which she intended using
to toy with the Undertaker. It would turn up in the post, or on someone's plate of chips, tests would be done, and then the world would know that Stratton wasn't hanging out at Disneyland Paris. But suddenly, with Spiderman, she'd thought how wonderful it would be to tip her over the edge, to let her be spread across the Royal Mile; but again her plans had been thwarted. She'd only been unconscious for a few minutes, but it'd been time enough for her stalker to clear up after another one of her murders; so Spiderman was only missing presumed dead/on holiday/plotting, instead of being meat paste on the Canongate.
Strangely, the Kabinet Killer wasn't all that concerned about who her stalker might be, she was just getting extremely annoyed about it. The fact that someone was doing it at all was the issue; their identity was secondary. She would find out soon enough. For the moment, she was more concerned with working her way through the cabinet until they were all dead. Or at least, until all but two of them were dead.
***
Trudger McIntyre, the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Environment, had been assigned two police officers as protection. He called them Bill and Ben, despite the fact that it didn't seem very sensible to mock the people who'd been assigned to take the bullet for him. Still, Trudger was an artless man, who could think of no reason why anyone would want to kill him, regardless of whether or not they were one by one murdering the rest of his cabinet colleagues.
The thing is, though, that if you're not a psychotic murderer yourself, and you're not trained in the right field, you're not going to know how a psychotic murderer thinks. So, some sleight that you've pulled at someone else's expense, while seeming trivial to you, might seem like a damned good reason to commit murder to your everyday loony. Which, as just so happens to be the case, was about to befall Trudger. Or, the Trudgemeister, as he'd tried to become known in the parliament, to no avail.
So, there he was sitting in the Tolbooth, enjoying a pint of Thatcher's Dry. Very, very tasty. Washing down some alarmingly tasty pub food, involving divans and home made elements and the like. Had dispatched his bodyguards to a nearby table as he wanted to eat alone and in peace. Finished his meal, took the last slurp of Thatcher's, and stood up to go to the toilet. As he rose, he found Ben at his side.
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