The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus

by Douglas Lindsay

  'Nowhere to go,' said Barney.

  Dostoevsky laughed.

  'At last you've woken up to the ultimately bloody consequences of your fate.'

  Barney glanced to the side. Briefly wondered what had happened to the rest of them. At least while this monster was here, the others would be safe. Did he keep him talking until the fog cleared and the morning came?

  'You don't think I brought the fog?' said Dostoevsky, still smiling.

  Despite himself, despite the previous inner calm which had not seemed forced, Barney Thomson felt the first surge of fear, rising from his stomach like a tornado through his insides.

  'Oh, how sweet,' said Dostoevsky, 'you've finally realised you should be afraid.'

  The eyes burrowed into Barney as they had back in the car, and this time Barney knew there was no point in closing his eyes. There was no way to escape the gaze. He just had to straighten up, face what was coming, deal with it as he could.

  The smile dropped. The mask twisted into a sneer.

  'You think you can beat me, Barney Thomson?'

  Barney tried to close his mind to positive and negative thoughts alike. An empty mind.

  'I don't have to,' he said. 'I can just walk away.'

  Dostoevsky snarled, then struck quickly, a swift blow with the right fist. Barney ducked, but the fist whistled straight through his head. He staggered back upright, disconcerted by the feeling of having had a hand pass through his brain. Dostoevsky laughed harshly, maniacally, deliriously. Barney rested his head back against the wooden hull.

  Again a fist flew at him, this time thumping him harshly on the nose, trapping his head against the wood, a brutal blow. His nose broken. His knees buckled, then he straightened up quickly. Stopped himself lifting his hand to his nose.

  'Very brave.' The smile, the sneer vanished. The eyes once more engulfed Barney, so that the searing pain in his nose seemed to vanish. Then slowly Dostoevsky lifted his right hand, pressed it against Barney's neck, a solid grasp of the fingers, and pinned Barney back against the hull of the boat.

  'It's time, Barney Thomson. Time to give up your soul.'

  'I don't owe you anything,' said Barney sternly. Bravely.

  Another laugh. The clenched hand stayed in place around Barney's throat, but again there was a switch in tone.

  'You were lost, Barney. You needed help. You were alone in a shop with a dead body, a body that you had murdered. You, no one else. You didn't even need me for that. And I came to your rescue.'

  'My mother helped me,' said Barney, gritting his teeth. The grip on his throat beginning to tighten. 'My mother, no one else.'

  'Your mother? Your mother with six bodies in her freezer?' The tone turned harsh once more, the fingers squeezed. 'And who do you think was inside your mother? Who is in all evil? I didn't invent this stupid, pathetic little diamond smuggling operation. I didn't decide that one member of this worthless gang of thieves was going to kill all the others, but I am inherent in it all. I am in all evil. I am evil, Barney. You came to me for help and now it's time to pay back. For every crime, there is punishment.'

  Barney stiffened his back, his shoulders, the look in his eye.

  'No I fucking didn't,' he said slowly.

  'Give in to it, Barney, a wondrous eternity awaits you. In Hell.'

  Barney squeezed his eyes shut, tried to dredge something from the pits of his memory. He could never win this with strength.

  His nose throbbed, his arms hung limply by his sides, he could barely breathe. The grip was tightening. He was being toyed with to the end.

  'I have followed you around, Barney Thomson. You have reacted so well in the face of the grim realities of this awful life. I even brought you back when you were taken from me too soon. All those questions about your life to which you cannot find the answers, I am the answer, Barney.'

  'Why now?' said Barney. Did he care, or was he just saying something, anything, to extend the agony?

  'It's been ten years, Barney. Quite long enough, don't you think? The Bank of Hell doesn't like to wait too long before cashing in on its promises.'

  Barney looked into the dark, bottomless eyes of Fyodor Dostoevsky. What was behind the mask? Maybe there was no mask.

  'Too high a price is asked for evil,' said Barney, his voice a barely audible croak, battling against the tightening fist. 'It's beyond our means to pay so much to enter. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket...'

  Barney took a sharp breath as the firm grasp relaxed a fraction. The masked head lay slightly to the side. Fyodor Dostoevsky stared at Barney with a vague look of curiosity. Then suddenly the grip of the fingers relaxed completely, the hand fell, and the latex face of the Russian novelist disintegrated into laughter. And yet, the eyes stayed on Barney the whole time. They kept their grip.

  Barney, still pressed against the hull of the Golden Cavalier III, stared at him. Not knowing which way to think, knowing that there was still nowhere to go and that he remained at his whim.

  The laughter switched off as quickly as it had started, replaced by a look, a strange mixture of suspicion and enthralment.

  'You paraphrase?' he said coldly.

  Barney nodded. All those years pointlessly studying the 19th century Germans and Russians hadn't necessarily been for nothing.

  'Of course, I know you know that stuff,' said Dostoevsky, and he flicked his hand airily in the mist. 'Perhaps you have qualities that I never suspected in the beginning. Maybe I can wait a little longer. Delay the execution. Have a little more......fun.'

  Barney looked at him, a look of contempt that he couldn't keep from his face. He didn't want a stay of anything. He wanted his absurd life resolved.

  'Exactly,' said Dostoevsky, smiling. 'Why would I possibly give you what you want?'

  The eyes flashed. He took a step back, away from Barney.

  'And while we stood, so bold and energised, but five seconds have passed,' he said, and he snapped his fingers. 'Time to get back to work. Bilbo's the word, and slaughter will ensue!'

  'That's not Dostoevsky,' said Barney.

  The man in black put his hand to his own neck this time, the shoulders hunched lower, he seemed to shrink in stature.

  'Who the fuck said I was Dostoevsky?'

  He whipped the mask off and, for the briefest of seconds, a quick flash of horror in the fog, Barney Thomson was looking into the eyes and into the laughing face of his own, dead mother.

  And in the blinking of an eye, she was gone, swallowed up by the mist.

  ***

  The police collective pressed against the brick wall, breathing sharply, trying to control the fear.

  'Bastards,' said Frankenstein eventually. 'They knew the subtext of this thing. We've been going up our own backsides for days trying to work it out, and they knew all along there'd been a fourth person on that boat. Diamond smuggling for fuck's sake.'

  He was angry, angry at everyone, angry at the situation, angry that his life had been taken over by this preposterous killer on the rampage.

  'We need to find this guy in the next two minutes,' he said, then he turned and looked along the line of unwilling lieutenants. 'I remember from this morning another door along here. Maybe an office or something.'

  'Arf,' nodded Igor in agreement.

  'Right. We go inside, get a light on, see if anything's doing, regroup.' He breathed deeply. Had no real gut feeling for what they should do, but had to do something. Another pause, a moment's hesitation, hoping perhaps that someone, anyone, was going to suggest something more constructive. 'Right, come on.'

  He began to inch along the wall, Igor, Proudfoot and Semester in tow.

  'I'm too old for this shit,' said Semester from the back, and then he started to giggle. Frankenstein glanced over his shoulder, ruefully shaking his head. 'Always wanted to say that,' Semester added, still giggling.

  'Thought you said it every night with the wife?' quipped Frankenstein from the head of the queue.

  'And if the woman didn'
t keep renewing my Viagra subscription, I might get away with it.'

  Proudfoot glanced at Igor. 'Don't think we'd get away with talking in class,' she said.

  'Keep it down,' snapped Frankenstein, by way of confirmation.

  'Arf.'

  They crept on, a short stretch of wall that seemed to take much longer than they'd thought. The noises of the others had died away. They seemed once again to be alone in the mist and fog. The killer was out there, somewhere, but they didn't know where. The MI6 gang, one down, and still stumbling around in the dark, looking for clues. And food. The two rescued fisherman, taken from the frying pan and dropped callously into the fire. Barney Thomson lost in the mist

  They reached the door. From the small window beside it, a dim light shone. Frankenstein looked over his shoulder.

  'OK. Deep breath. We charge. If he's in there, it's no big deal. Just any old guy in a mask. We all need to tackle him at once, all four of us, we go for the guy. If we stand there like a bunch of lemons, he'll pick us off.'

  'I am too old for that shit,' said Semester.

  'Too bad,' said Frankenstein. 'I'll buy you a pint after. If you're not dead.'

  'You have confidence you won't be?'

  Frankenstein gave him the look, then turned quickly, sprang up, leant on the handle and pushed the door open, charging in full pelt. The rest of them followed, suddenly on the hoof, hearts pounding. Igor and Proudfoot, Semester at the back.

  They careered in wildly, nearly taking the door from its hinges, and stood rowdily in the middle of the small office, low lit by a tiny lamp at the back of the room, a ragtag army, ready to fight.

  Diamonds

  Cudge Bladestone looked up from behind the cluttered desk. Sweating profusely, clothes dishevelled, eyes manic. Fumbling about with a small bag. He pushed back in his seat, swallowed, demonically stared around the four assorted police officers, pathologists and hunchbacks. The four assorted police officers, pathologists and hunchbacks stared back.

  'What the fuck do you want?' said Bladestone, after a few seconds of Mexican stand-off.

  Frankenstein didn't answer, turned and started to look around the room.

  'Come on,' he said hurriedly, 'look for the stupid mask. Anything.'

  He moved quickly into the other room. Despite the sweaty, guilty exterior of the man at the desk, the prime suspect he'd had pegged for the man behind the Dostoevsky mask was not sitting there looking like someone who had just severed the head of an MI6 agent. He looked like he was as scared as the rest of them.

  A quick look in the other room. Proudfoot followed him, then Frankenstein came back through. Stared angrily at Bladestone.

  'What are you hiding?' he demanded. 'Now!'

  Bladestone's tongue snaked out to lick nervous lips. No words. Frankenstein took another step towards the desk, leant over him.

  Footsteps at the door and everyone turned, hearts at the ready. Barney Thomson stepped uneasily into the light, quickly assessed the situation. Looked at Igor and Detective Sergeant Proudfoot and silently asked the question if they were all right, at the same time waved away the concern on their faces about his bruised and bloodied nose.

  Frankenstein watched Barney for a second, was aware how easily someone could appear from the fog, then turned back to Bladestone, Barney now coming to stand at his shoulder.

  'Show me what's in the bag,' Frankenstein said sternly.

  'Have you got some sort of warrant?' said Bladestone desperately.

  'Careful, Frank,' said Semester from behind, a sudden calm and measured voice in amongst the turmoil and angst. 'You have to be able to get a conviction.'

  Frankenstein tensed, breath coming in a hard exhalation. Bladestone stared at him, eyes relaxing, just a flicker.

  'You police have your rules,' he said. 'Don't you?'

  Voice the colour of a snake. Frankenstein imagined whipping a .44 from his back pocket and blasting Bladestone's head off. Clean off.

  'We're not all the police, are we?' said a voice from the side.

  Everyone looked at Barney. Frankenstein knew what was coming and was glad he hadn't had that plastic deputy badge to hand when enlisting Barney to the force.

  'Fucking barber,' muttered Bladestone, and he clutched the bag more tightly to his chest. Barney had had enough death, murder, deceit and lies. He was no action hero, no tough guy, but he wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible. He wanted normality back, a subdued normality, and not this absurd, death-filled, death-fuelled normality which he now called his own.

  Two steps, round the side of the desk, and he pounced on Bladestone. There was a flurry of arms and legs, but it was never going to take much. Barney didn't need to defeat Bladestone, didn't need to throw him down or get him in a headlock. He just needed to expose the contents of the bag.

  He grabbed at the bag, took a boot in the stomach, another blow to the head, reeled but swung at Bladestone with his right arm at the same time. Caught Bladestone off balance. Pushed himself off the desk, fell towards Bladestone, made another grab.

  The two men crashed together over the back of the chair, one pulled one way with the bag, the other in the opposite direction. The contents sprayed out, arching through the air, sparklingly beautiful, even in the dim light of the small desk lamp.

  Diamonds.

  Bladestone's head cracked off the wall. He crumpled onto the floor. Barney thudded into the wall, then pushed himself away from it, straightening up. Avoided the tangle of Bladestone's legs, looked down at his opponent, who lay on the floor, staring up angrily in defeat.

  Frankenstein picked up one of the small diamonds which had fallen on the desk. Held it up to the light, looked through it. Didn't know what he was looking for, but for the moment, it didn't matter. A diamond was a diamond. Some of the story, if not exactly all of it, was unravelling this night, as the fog and the horrible feeling of demonic premonition had foretold.

  'Where's the guy in the mask?' he said harshly.

  Bladestone's eyes flitted frantically around the five of them, all now gathered above him.

  'I don't know,' said Bladestone bitterly. 'I'm as scared of him as you.'

  'Who said the fuck I was scared?' growled Frankenstein.

  Suddenly the door burst open, thrown back, crashing into the wall. Selma and Deirdre came in, running full pelt.

  'He's coming!' yelled Deirdre.

  The men braced themselves. Barney caught Proudfoot's eye across the room and ran across quickly, through the sudden stramash of people, to put himself between her and whoever was about to come through the door. His mother?

  Frankenstein stood firm, expected the MI6 girls to disappear into the back room. However they immediately crouched down on either side of the open door, primed for action, Selma with a short piece of rope in her right hand.

  Further commotion through the mist, and then Bernard and The Dog With No Name came hurtling through the open door, wailing in terror.

  'Like, oh my gosh!' yelled Bernard. 'The decapitator dude's coming this way! And he's super-mad!'

  Bernard and The Dog With No Name were not stopping to get involved in the action. They burst through the crowd and disappeared into the small back room, which would be little protection at all, if the killer was to find his head.

  They waited. A moment's pause. The briefest of seconds. Time suspended. They stood, braced for the apocalypse.

  The mist parted. The masked figure in black emerged from the murkiness just outside the door, axe raised, feet flying across the ground.

  Frankenstein, first in line, braced himself. Saw the flash of the axe. Noticed, with incredulity, that Selma had thrown an end of the rope across to Deirdre, and the two of them had pulled it taut, about a foot off the ground.

  'Oh, for fuck's s...,' he began.

  The killer burst through the door. Immediately his right leg caught in the rope. Deirdre and Selma held firm. The man in black flew forward, crashing down towards Frankenstein and Igor.

  The detect
ive and the deaf, mute hunchback lashed out at the same time. The killer hurtled towards the ground and, cast sideways, fell harshly against the edge of the desk. Banged his head with a loud thump. His whole upper body jerked awkwardly. The axe fell harmlessly to the floor. He groaned loudly, one leg twitching, a hand lifted defensively to his head. Frankenstein automatically struck out, kicking him brutally in the face so that the masked head snapped backwards, banging once more off the solid wood of the desk. And then Selma and Deirdre, using all their training and experience, leapt upon the killer with the rope, and quickly tied the legs together, tight aching knots. Another piece of rope was produced from Deirdre's pockets, and this one was tightly wound around the killer's midriff, binding his flailing arms to his sides.

  And with that, the masked killer, who had so terrorized the small island community for the previous few days, was perched up against the table, trapped and bound.

  Barney Thomson stared down at the beaten figure that he had presumed to be Satan, and wondered who could possibly lie beneath the mask.

  Everyone remained breathless with the action of the previous few seconds, waiting for something else to happen, some coda to the event. Bladestone looked down at the captured killer, astonished. Then he noticed that everyone else seemed to have been struck by some kind of stupor. One last chance to get away, he thought, some few diamonds still in the torn bag which he clasped to his chest. If he could just get out into the mist, he would have a perfect chance to get away.

  Another short pause, the briefest of hesitations, and then he rose quickly, put his foot on the desk, hoisted himself up, skipped across and jumped down onto the office floor, just three feet from the door and freedom.

  Unfortunately for Bladestone's aspirations, Frankenstein saw him coming all the way. As the man's feet hit the ground, Frankenstein delivered a cutting blow to his ankles which pitched him forward with a crash into the wall on the other side. Another head knock. This time he stayed down and looked groggily back around the room.