The most meagre of smiles came to Igor's face. He couldn't hear the bell but the vibration of it got into his soul every time the door opened. The bell was history.
'Thanks,' said Barney, and Igor went to the back of the shop to find the toolkit. Barney watched him go, then turned and looked back out across the sea.
So, here he was again. Back in a barber's shop, and this time, hopefully, he would get to stay. Settle down, a few years of mundane existence and at some stage he would get his life into order, or else he would slowly grow old and die here and that would be the end of it.
Yet the sea was grim and dark this afternoon and, as with everything he looked upon these days, it seemed to hold dark portents. Was anywhere he ever visited free of death and murder? Was there anywhere sleepy enough that he could rely on it to lie down and be dull for the rest of his days?
He shivered and turned as Igor came up behind him, carrying a small step ladder and a screwdriver.
'Thanks, Igor,' said Barney, shaking off the shiver.
'Arf,' said Igor.
I'd Sooner Chew My Leg Off
Ruth Harrison tentatively opened the bathroom door in the wake of the enormous thud at the bottom of the stairs. She had waited for a couple of minutes for Jonah to come and tell her what little accident had befallen him, before, unusually for her, some sixth sense had kicked in.
'Jonah!' she called. 'You all right, love?'
Nothing. After all, the dead don't speak.
'Jonah!'
Scowling at the thought of having to leave the bathroom an hour earlier than intended, but feeling the first blight of nerves at what she was going to find, she hesitantly walked along the upper landing until she could see the bottom of the stairs. She stopped in her stride; her mouth dropped open. Suddenly confronted by the sight of the giant bulk of her husband piled high in a heap of dead blubber, her heart thumped, her throat turned dry.
'Aw, Christ,' she muttered. She began to walk gingerly down the stairs, getting more circumspect as she approached the corpse. She stopped just short of him, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Her head spun. Opened her eyes again before she fainted, got to the bottom of the stairs, stepped over the gigantic weight of Jonah's thighs and knelt down beside his head. Gingerly she placed her fingers under his nose to check for breath, although she already knew that there would be none. Yet the stillness of the air drew a small gasp from her and she sat back against the wall, shuffling an extra foot or two away from him.
'Christ, Jonah,' she said. 'If you hadn't spent so bloody long sitting at the computer, you wouldn't have been in such a rush.'
Not now, not ever in her life, would it occur to her that if she'd allowed him entry into the bathroom he wouldn't have died.
She heard a noise and looked upstairs. Heavy footsteps along the hall. Hurried yet laboured, away from the stairs towards the bathroom. The bathroom door closed. There was silence.
A moment and then her heart suddenly started thrashing wildly. She stood, looked nervously up.
'Is anybody there?'
She waited. Nothing.
'Hello?'
Neck straining, the sound of her heart in her ears, beginning to panic. Deep breath, last look at Jonah, then she turned and ran towards the front door and out into the small cul-de-sac which led off the road down into Kames Bay.
***
'Nature or nurture?' asked Bartholomew Ephesian.
'Nature,' said Barney quickly.
Ephesian stared at himself in the mirror. Barney glanced out to sea. He'd been in the shop for twenty minutes and already he was at home, already it was like he'd worked here all his life. The shop felt familiar, the view of the cold, grey ominous sea felt familiar, the edgy waves, ill at ease with the day, felt familiar. He could stand at this window all day, transfixed. And he would work here every day. Cold, disturbing seas in the winter, occasional warm, hazy flat calms in the summer.
Ephesian had arrived soon after his son had left and had said he would discuss the deal while Barney gave him a haircut. Almost as if he only wanted to sell the premises to someone who was a competent hairdresser. He had requested a straightforward Alec Guiness, taken his seat with not even the formality of a handshake, and set about asking a series of quick-fire questions determined to get to the bottom of Barney's id. Deciding whether or not Barney was worthy of buying something from him. That he had yet to look Barney directly in the eye, Barney assumed was part of the game. He did not yet have a handle on the man's personality, but could recognise the jeopardy inherent in him. Igor did not like Bartholomew Ephesian and had found something to do in the backroom which would take however long Ephesian remained out front.
'Frankenstein or Dracula. More likely?'
'Dracula,' said Barney.
'More dangerous?'
'Dracula,' said Barney.
'More intrinsic?
'Dracula.'
'Godfather I or II?'
'I.'
'Madonna or Britney?'
'You're kidding me?' said Barney.
'There is no such thing as low culture, Mr Thomson,' came the quick reply. 'We must embrace human life in all its manifestations.'
'Madonna,' said Barney, without much enthusiasm.
'Italy or Switzerland?'
'I need parameters.'
'There aren't any.'
'Italy.'
'John or Paul?'
'George.'
'You're going to kill someone. Hands on or off?'
'Bullet in the back of the head from two feet.'
Not that he'd been thinking about it, although there were obviously occasions standing behind a seditious customer when exploding the head would be the option of choice.
'Nice,' said Ephesian. 'China or Taiwan?'
'China.'
'China or Tibet?'
'Tibet.'
'Red or brown?'
Barney tried to attract his gaze in the mirror but Ephesian looked steadfastly into the dark wells of his own eyes.
'Red,' said Barney.
Ephesian paused. Barney felt the slight twitch in the head, although the face remained expressionless. Mind on the job. He stood back to check he'd nailed the sides. The Alec Guiness, despite the obvious pitfalls, was a walk in the park, but a good barber always keeps his eye on the napper.
'The Turin Shroud. Fact or fake?'
Barney gave this one some thought.
'Fake,' he said after the gap.
'Why?'
A departure. Had been waiting for the question where he would have to explain the answer.
'For belief that the Shroud is genuine, that the chemical reaction which created it was actually able to take place, implies faith. I have none.'
'You believe that the sun will rise in the morning?'
'Not on the east coast of Scotland I don't,' said Barney, smiling, to counter.
Ephesian ignored the smile. He had been able to smile and laugh as a child, but years of being battered by life as an adult had stripped him of even that social ability.
'Everyone has faith, Mr Thomson.'
Barney put his scissors in his top pocket – ignoring the story he'd read in the previous month's Barbopolitan, where a barber in Redundant Falls, North Dakota, had stabbed himself in the heart – and ran a final comb through Ephesian's hair.
'Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ,' said Ephesian.
Barney smiled again. 'Have haircut, will quote,' he said.
'We are each nothing without faith,' said Ephesian. 'You believe that the sun will rise in the morning?' he asked again.
Barney didn't answer. Slipped the comb into his pocket beside the scissors.
The door to the shop opened and a middle-aged man entered. He hesitated, avoided looking Ephesian in the eye, although he needn't have bothered, then took his seat. There were no magazines to pick up, so he looked out of the window at the grey sea and placed his hands uncomfortably on his knees. Most people in Millpor
t did not like to be in the presence of Bartholomew Ephesian any more than they had to.
'Can I see to the next customer?' asked Barney.
Ephesian examined his hair in the mirror for perfection, found it, and gestured with his eyebrows for Barney to remove the cape.
Still studying himself in the mirror, he rose, accepted Barney's help to put on his jacket, then finally turned to face him.
'An adequate job,' he said, looking at Barney's shirt. 'You can have the shop. I'll have my solicitor finalise the papers this evening. We should be able to sign in the next couple of days.'
They shook on it and then Ephesian turned and walked briskly from the small shop. The door closed and immediately the atmosphere lifted, so that it seemed as if the room had been exorcised of some presence, a demon, which the others had not previously really been aware of. Barney looked out to sea, felt an unusual chill as he looked across the troubled bay, then turned round to face his first customer in the latest establishment which he was to grace in his career. The door at the rear of the shop opened and Igor appeared, broom in hand.
'You're on,' said Barney to the customer.
The man, looking every inch very, very shaggy around the head, removed his jacket and took his place in the big chair.
'What'll it be?' asked Barney, trying to guess, and deciding this would be a man who'd ask for something frivolous. A Barney Rubble or a Batfink.
'I'll have a Tony Blair, please.'
Right enough.
The Full Robbie Range
Police Constable Thaddæus Gainsborough, the sole representative of the Millport constabulary, answered Ruth Harrison's call in under five minutes, arriving a few seconds before the ambulance. Gainsborough checked out Jonah's body to establish death and began a rudimentary attempt at reviving him. He was soon interrupted by the paramedic Luciens, who muttered, 'Oh, you're doing that all wrong,' took over, and made an equally futile attempt at resuscitation. Gainsborough left him to it, directed Ruth Harrison away from the sight of her husband's prone body and took her across the street to Brenda The Muppet's house. He placed the two of them together, squirmed with discomfiture at the initial outpouring of grief from both women, then left them to their cups of tea and grandma-soft biscuits. He returned to the house to complete a thorough check of the premises, establishing that there was no one else present. The noise must have been the wind, he would later say to Ruth, and Ruth would believe him and forget about the footsteps on the hallway and forget that the wind never wears shoes.
Then Gainsborough and Luciens tried to move Jonah's body to the ambulance, something they were completely unable to achieve until they called in the assistance of a couple of neighbours. Eventually Jonah Harrison left his house for the final time and Luciens made a joke about it being just as well that they'd had the ambulance's suspension looked at recently. Ruth Harrison stood across the road watching him go, a cup of PG Tips in her right hand, her left hand dabbing at the corner of her eyes, taking away tears which weren't quite crocodile but which were at the very least fairly large lizard. And then she stumped up the courage to return to her house. Declining Brenda The Muppet's offer of company, she walked back in through the front door and stood in the hallway feeling the stillness and silence, which was so much more than it had ever been when Jonah had just been down at the pub.
***
Five o'clock, late afternoon mincing coldly into early evening. The rain had started just after four, coming sullenly in from the sea and smearing the window, so that the view which so beguiled Barney was veiled. Nevertheless, he was still standing at the window, watching the grey day become black early evening, dark well before its time, with Igor standing beside him leaning on his brush, when the door to the shop opened and a woman entered.
Barney had had a reasonably solid afternoon. Four haircuts, not including Ephesian at the start of his stint. The Tony Blair had been followed by a regulation short back and sides, a Brendan Fraser and a mullet, by God!
Igor glanced at the woman and grimaced. She smiled at him. He abruptly turned away, trailing his brush behind him and retreated to the back of the shop. She watched him go and then turned to Barney. She extended her hand and smiled. A natural smile, not something you'd get on the back of a packet of breakfast cereal.
'Hi, Garrett Carmichael,' she said.
Barney took her hand and said, 'You're called Garrett?'
'Yeah. You'll get used to it. I'm Mr Ephesian's solicitor. One of them at any rate. Thought I'd come in and say hello.'
It's her mouth, thought Barney. A perfect mouth. Everything else is sweet but the mouth is perfection. Full lips but not Hollywood-bloated, no lipstick, beautiful.
'You're looking at my lips,' she said.
'Aye,' said Barney, and he looked her in the eye. 'Sorry.'
'That's all right,' she said. 'I haven't had them done.'
'I know,' said Barney.
'I like popping caviar on them,' she said. 'And between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. Great sensation, don't you think?'
'Aye,' said Barney, slightly entranced, although knowing that this was not a woman for him.
The door opened behind him, popping the moment like a fish egg on your tongue, and a lumpen old man entered.
'Mrs Carmichael,' said the man, then he looked at Barney with suspicion. 'Stranger,' he said, 'you the new barber?'
'Aye,' said Barney.
'Can you do a 'Robbie Williams Somethin' Stupid'?'
'I can do the full Robbie range,' said Barney, 'although that one's a little five years ago.'
'I'm eighty-seven.'
'Take your point.'
'Cool,' said the old geezer, and he sat down. Barney looked at the clock above the mirror, then decided that he didn't care about the time anyway. It was his shop, or at least it was about to be, and he could work whatever hours he felt like. He nodded at Garrett Carmichael, then started going about his business. Cape round the old fella – he was already aware of the exorbitant average age of his customers – picked up a razor, clipped on a number four head and paused.
'Where are you staying?' asked Garrett Carmichael, having settled onto the bench behind him.
Barney didn't turn. Where was he staying? The door at the back of the shop opened and Igor emerged, coat on and buttoned up to the neck. He glanced at Carmichael then looked at Barney.
'Igor,' said the customer. Igor caught his eye and acknowledged him. 'New coat?' said the old guy. 'It's a good fit.'
Igor ignored him or didn't hear him, looked quickly again at Barney and was gone out the door, which opened and closed in comforting silence. Barney watched him go, then turned back to the head in front of him.
Where was he staying? He rarely knew the answer to that.
'Maybe try the hotel along the road.'
'My mother's got a room,' said Carmichael. 'Sea view, en suite, five minutes' walk.'
He hesitated. Finally turned and glanced at her, then quickly turned back and flicked the switch on the razor, letting it plunge down onto the old fella's neck, like a host of swooping nazgul descending upon a meadow of sleeping hobbits.
'Aye, all right,' he said quickly, over the buzz of the razor.
'Cool,' she said. 'I'll wait, take you over there when you're done. She's doing steak pie tonight.'
'I'll find somewhere else to eat. It's a bit short notice.'
'I already told her you're coming.'
He paused with the razor, took a pace back to examine what he'd done so far, then laid it down on the counter and lifted the scissors and comb.
'You know what I like?' said the customer. 'I like leaving my falsers in the freezer for twenty minutes, then slipping them in and drinking a glass of neat Lagavulin. Oh aye.'
Barney caught the man's eye, until he was distracted by Garrett Carmichael's face in the mirror and those great lips smiling at the image of a pair of false teeth tucked in beside the ice cream.
***
James Randolph sat in his small house
down by the boatyard, looking out over the Clyde to Bute and the clouded hills of Arran. He was on-line, idly trudging through Google, putting in death and murder. A new kind of murder? Not a hope in hell. How could he, a man of so limited imagination, come up with a new kind of murder? It was just another of Ephesian's games.
A new kind of murder. The phrase played in Randolph's head, a mantra to his lack of wit. And he searched Google for any old kind of murder, from real life or literature. For all his hubris and bombast, Ephesian could not know of every murder that had been committed in the last hundred years, in real life and in fiction.
A new kind of murder. And yet, that wasn't the most interesting part of it. The victim, that was the interesting thing. Why Ephesian should want this particular person dead, Randolph had no idea whatsoever.
He rested his chin in the palm of his hand and looked out at the channel, where one of the nuclear submarines out of Faslane was slowly inching its way out past Bute on its way to the Irish Sea, and his mind drifted with the vessel until a new kind of murder became a playfully repetitive tune in his head.
Force Of Nature
The table had been set for five. Barney viewed it with some suspicion but was automatically drawn to the window to look out at the water. It was an old house at the west end of the town. Up Cardiff Street from Shore Road, take a left down the hill to the playing field and the small park, then along to near the end of the older houses. Three along, as the weird old hand of fate should have it, from James Randolph.
Barney turned at the flurry of too many clothes behind him, as Miranda Donaldson, Garrett Carmichael's mother, bustled into the room, a five year-old boy at her heels, a younger girl in Garrett's arms. Barney was suddenly confronted by an entire family. With the exception of Mr Carmichael. He felt like a sheep walking into a wolf convention.
Stay cool, Barn, he thought. Don't let the children phase you.
'Hello,' he said.
'I'll be looking for £90 a week, an extra £3.50 a night if you want a hot meal. I can do you a packed lunch for £2.50, but only if you give me plenty of notice. I'll be looking for the first month up front and prompt payment in the future.'
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 113
