God turned to Barney, although every now and again He cast a disdainful look back at Bergerac.
'Here's how it works. You, some guy, whoever, let's call him the customer, does a deal with me or this idiot. We shake on it. That's the deal. The customer shakes hands with the Devil, or he accepts the Hand of God, that's him cast in stone. So, the next day the customer wakes up and doesn't remember a thing. He'll get in life what it was he wanted, and then when the time comes, either me or Captain Connivance here will pitch up and reintroduce him to the original deal he made.'
Barney was watching God, letting the sound of His voice wash over him. He could just sit there all day.
'Tell me about your deal,' said God, looking at Barney. 'He must've reminded you about it by now.'
'We don't have time for th—'
God silenced Bergerac with the palm of His extended hand.
'You know, I killed my boss in —,' began Barney.
'I know that part,' said God, although there was no tone to His voice. 'I'm looking for the actual pact with the Devil.'
Barney shook his head and stared at the carpet. Bergerac muttered and turned her back.
'Apparently some guy pitched up and I signed a piece of paper, and ... '
'I knew it!' shouted God. 'You sneaky sonofabitch!'
'Ah, fuck you, you self-righteous bastard,' said Bergerac.
'What?' said Barney. Suddenly he just wanted this to be over. He wanted to be going where he was going, or he wanted to get a cup of coffee and go back to the room and sit with Monk.
'Well, of course I'm self-righteous, you heathen, I'm God!'
'What?' shouted Barney. 'Would you just tell me what's going on?'
He looked at God, and then at Bergerac. Bergerac had turned, her face flaming bitter red, the eyes scarlet and glaring.
'You've been duped,' said God. 'The memory of the deal with Satan, she implanted that in your head. No one signs anything in this business. We still deal in handshakes in our game. If you'd shaken her hand just then ... ' and he ran His finger across His neck. 'Man, I nearly missed it, the oldest trick in the book.'
'So why didn't you implant a dream where I shook your hand?' said Barney, looking at the flaming face of doom.
Bergerac pouted, shook her head, looked embarrassed.
'It's not ethical,' she muttered. 'You're allowed to try to dupe, but you have to stay within the rules. Crap.'
'So, all that stuff about you controlling my life and bringing me back from the dead?' asked Barney, standing up. Annoyed suddenly, and not just from the safety of having God standing next to him.
'Hell, I made all that shit up,' said Bergerac. 'You're just some sad loser who kept having weird shit happen to him. I kinda latched on to you because it was fun.'
Barney closed his eyes. His head dropped. Just as his life had started to make some sort of sense. A strange and inexplicable perverted sense, but it had seemed to have order.
He opened his eyes. Bergerac was gone. He turned, a thought that he would suddenly be alone, but God was still standing next to him.
The two men stared at each other for a few moments. Finally God shrugged.
'Don't listen to her,' said God, 'she's full of crap.'
Barney smiled ruefully, looked over his shoulder, expecting her to be back, to be behind him, to be everywhere.
'What now?' he asked, turning back to God.
'You get the cup of coffee you came along here for, you take it back to the room, and you sit with Monk until she wakes up.'
'That's it?'
'In the morning you get back to Millport, by tomorrow afternoon you can be cutting hair and Monk can be sitting on a bench looking across the sea to the mountains on Arran.'
Barney felt his breath catch in his throat. Just the thought of that normality. The island, the sea air, the cry of the gulls, the sound of the waves, the mountains across the water.
Barney Thomson looked down. God was holding His hand out towards him. Barney looked curiously into His eyes.
'What's the deal?' he asked.
'There's no deal,' said God smiling. 'I just wanted to shake your hand.'
Barney smiled and took the Hand of God. God patted him on the shoulder, lowered His hand and mock saluted.
'I'm on my way, Bud. Take care of yourself, and look after Monk. She deserves it.'
Barney nodded. God turned and began to walk away and then suddenly He wasn't there anymore. Barney stared at the space where He'd been, still feeling the warmth of His presence. Under other circumstances he might have been expecting the imminent return of Taylor Bergerac, but he knew she wouldn't be back.
He glanced over his shoulder, then walked slowly to the coffee machine and began to read through the fifteen different available options to see if he could find a plain, ordinary coffee in amongst the lattes and the cappuccinos and the machiatos.
***
There were two reasons why Barney had been released so quickly from custody by the police. One was the intervention of a higher power, as Barney might have supposed. The other was that Barney had confessed to the murder of a person whose body was not found by the police.
Barney and Monk had left the small hut and had called in the local police. They had then waited by the side of the road nearby, Monk bruised and bloodied, lying in Barney's arms.
The police had arrived, they had interviewed the two survivors, and they had taken Barney's statement. However, they were curious as to his confession to killing Harlequin Sweetlips, as in the hut where the murders had taken place there were only four bodies. Thomas Bethlehem and the three representatives of the prematurely destabilised breakaway Anglican movement. There was no knife, there was no Harlequin Sweetlips. Wherever she was, she had not lain dead in the room.
Harlequin Sweetlips, the woman that they had all supposed to be Margie Crane, was gone.
Epilogue
The executives from Exron were very impressed with the presentation on behalf of Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane. The fact that none of those currently representing the marketing company had been there when the deal had originally been settled, while disturbing at first, now seemed of little importance. It was clear that this was a quality piece of work.
The new senior executive at the firm, Jolanda Heartspring, was doing a fine job. One item remaining, she knew she had them well and truly hooked.
'So, finally we come to the Exron condom,' said Heartspring, and the executives from the latest toiletries operation on the planet all leaned forward.
'We're going,' Heartspring continued, 'for the FBS Condom from Exron. We'll have a guy and a girl lying in bed, really really jejune, post-coital bliss. You know, two people who've just had the shag of their lives. Then the hook line comes up; FBS Condoms from Exron. For that once in a lifetime experience, every night of your lives.'
There were nods and smiles along the row of panty-men.
'FBS?' said one of the bum-fluffs, curiously.
Heartspring smiled cheekily. She knew she had them.
'We never say,' she said. 'Never. However, we let it out as one of those urban myth type things, you know. Just let it grow around the country. It's never official, but everyone knows. Every time they see a billboard or a TV ad or a magazine, they'll know. But they'll feel like they've got a piece of knowledge that no one else has. It's going to be beautiful.'
The panty-men were sucked in. They leaned forward even further.
'Tell us,' said one of them.
'Yes,' said another. 'Tell us.'
Heartspring took a pace forward. The room waited expectantly. There was a hushed silence. The crowd was tense. Overhead a plane continued to circle, held in a never ending waiting pattern for Heathrow. A couple of tourist boats plied an unsatisfactory trade along the river. Cars zipped along Westferry, too fast in the rain.
Heartspring nodded, let the smile come and go from her face. Her eyes widened. The smile returned. The name meant nothing, the green eyes, the blonde hair, it all meant nothing
. What mattered was what was inside, and the person who had been Margie Crane, the person who had become Harlequin Sweetlips, was now standing before expectant executives of Exron finally in control of the company she had helped create. And when she spoke, she spoke slowly and confidently, the words enunciated like George Clooney in From Dusk 'Til Dawn.
'Fucking Brilliant Shag.'
The room erupted in enthusiasm.
And it would not be until the moment of her death when she would be re-introduced to her malevolent benefactor, that Margie Crane would realise the cost at which she had managed to attain everything she'd ever wanted.
***
Barney Thomson lowered the handle, pushed the door open and walked into the small shop. The single barber, currently cutting the hair of old man McGuire, looked round, as did McGuire, old man Fraser on the bench, and the small hunchbacked figure stooped over a broom, sweeping up at the back of the shop. They looked at Barney, and then at the woman standing behind him, a heavy bandage across her nose.
'Oh my God!' said Keanu. 'Barney. Oh my God! Didn't expect you back so soon.'
It had been eight days. It had flitted past on Millport, where nothing had happened. It felt strangely like a lifetime away for Barney.
Barney shrugged.
'Couldn't stay away,' he said.
'Holy crap,' said Keanu, 'this is awesome. It's been quiet as a grave around here without you.'
He walked forward and shook Barney warmly by the hand. He looked at Monk, standing just behind Barney. It was impossible to tell how she felt about being thrust into this male company, as the bandage obscured much of her face.
'Hi,' said Keanu, extending his hand.
She took his hand, smiled through the bandage.
'Hi,' she said. 'You must be Keanu.'
Keanu's smile broadened. He looked at Barney with respect, pleased that he'd been talking about him, assuming the best.
'So you're here to stay?' he asked.
Barney glanced over his shoulder at her, a warm look, then turned away and left them to it. He walked to the back of the shop, where Igor was still standing staring at him, surprised that he had come back.
'I thought I'd lost you,' said Igor, although as ever this sadly came out as, 'Arf.'
Barney stood before his friend and nodded.
'You didn't think I was going to leave you in charge of this place for too long now, did you?' he said.
Igor smiled in his peculiar way. Barney put his hand on Igor's shoulder.
'I'm back, my friend.'
Still holding onto him, he turned and the two men surveyed the small scene. Keanu and Monk getting acquainted. A customer in the chair, another one waiting. Outside the seagulls circled and cried, the sea breeze blew, the waves restlessly controlled the bay, clouds flitted across a grey sky.
'And this time,' said Barney, 'I'm not going anywhere for a long time.'
'Arf,' said Igor.
Old man Fraser finally looked up from the bench.
'Very touching,' he said. 'You bugger off on holiday without a word of warning, and then when you finally get back to work you stand around for an hour and a half talking winsome pish. I'm ninety-one you know. If you don't cut my hair soon I'm going to die.'
Barney Thomson laughed, smiled, took off his jacket, threw it casually onto a peg, and then walked over to the barber's chair where his scissors and razors and brushes and combs lay neatly arranged where he'd left them the week before.
###
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Also by Douglas Lindsay
Novels
Lost in Juarez
The Unburied Dead (DS Thomas Hutton #1)
A Plague Of Crows (DS Thomas Hutton #2)
We Are The Hanged Man (DCI Jericho #1)
Barney Thomson Novellas
The End of Days
The Face Of Death
Barney Thomson, Zombie Killer
Short stories
The Case Of The Glass Stained Widow (DCI Jericho)
Santa's Christmas Eve Blues
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The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 193
