The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  'What did she say?'

  'Well, nothing, but I could tell. Totally into it. Four women. She loved it.'

  'And who were they?'

  'Who?'

  'What d'you mean who? These four mythical women that your wife was so delighted for you to sleep with that she joined in?'

  'Just a bunch of women, you know. Women.'

  'Just a bunch of women? Four women off the street? Four women you met in a bar? Four women you got out a Malaysian catalogue? Your cousins? Robert Palmer's backing band? The Bangles? All Saints? Who?'

  'Just a bunch of women.'

  'You're full of crap.'

  'They were just women. I didn't get their names. I was snaking four birds at once and you think I gave a shite about what their names were?'

  'So where d'you meet them?'

  'In town.'

  'In town? So, you were just walking down Argyll Street and you and Aud stumbled across four compliant women who all wanted to go to bed with both of you?'

  'Aye.'

  'On Argyll Street?'

  'What? Well, all right, not Argyll Street. Some street.'

  'Sauchiehall Street? Renfield Street? Walt Disney Street?'

  'Piss off, Mulholland.'

  'How often have you given evidence in court, Sergeant?'

  'What are you saying?'

  'You're making it up.'

  'No way.'

  'You're totally making it up.'

  'Shite.'

  'You're talking pish. You always talk pish when it comes to sex. Every time. You could talk pish for Nike, you. You're full of it. I can just see the advert for the new line of Nike sportswear for talking pish in, with you standing on some Brazilian beach, cheesy music in the background, and talking the biggest load of pish anyone's ever heard.'

  'Ok, so it wasn't four.'

  'How many?'

  'Three.'

  'How many?'

  'It was three.'

  'How many?'

  'I'm telling you, it was three.'

  'How many?'

  'All right, it might've been two, but Aud was there 'n all, so that makes three.'

  'Bollocks. How many?'

  'Christ's sake, all right. It was two of them, and Aud doesn't know anything about it.'

  'You are full of shite, Ferguson. Who were they?'

  'Just a couple of birds.'

  'Whores?'

  'Naw!'

  'You sure?'

  'Naw! You think I can't score without paying for it?'

  'Pay for it? I bet you nicked them and did a deal.'

  Silence.

  'There were still two of them, and it still counts.'

  'You are a sad bastard, Sergeant.'

  No reply. They got to the twelfth floor, walked with silent footfalls along the hall to the graffitied door. A cold wind blew in through the broken window at the end of the landing. A dog had left its calling card on the floor; a toy car with all the tyres removed waited patiently near by.

  'You've got to get a grip, Ferguson. One of your superiors finds out about that kind of thing, you're fucked.'

  'You're my superior.'

  'Aye, well lucky for you I don't care. You ready?'

  'Aye.'

  Detective Chief Inspector Joel Mulholland knocked on the door. Somewhere inside, a glass was dropped on the floor.

  ***

  'Get out of my face, you numpty-heided eejit!'

  Ferguson pushed the man in the chest, forcing him back against the wall. Didn't get out of his face. An ugly face it was too; pockmarked, like wet cement that had been attended to by a child on a pogo stick. Lips like thin broken biscuits, moustache the neatly clipped hair of a German woman shot-putter's armpits.

  'Numpty-heided eejit, Billy? Can you not do better than that? Is that as rude as that miniscule little napper of yours can think of?'

  Billy McGuire gritted his teeth and stared at the ground. Ignored the hand still pushing at his chest, drifting to his neck.

  'Come on, wee Billy, you know where the Big Man is. We all know you know, you know we know, just save us all the time and tell us.'

  McGuire said nothing. Lips were sealed. Not any criminal code of conduct, however. If he remained silent, he'd get hassle from the police and possibly convicted of a minor offence or two. If he opened his mouth, he'd get his lips and nose nailed to the floor. He was constantly reminded of the fate of Wee Matt the Helmet, whose flaccid penis had been squeezed into the jaws of a double hole punch. These were not men to wrong.

  'Sod it, Sergeant,' said Mulholland. 'Bring him in, see what we can do. No point in hanging around here.'

  Ferguson grabbed McGuire by the collar and led him to the front door. Out onto the landing and then the slow trudge down the stairs, strange smells drifting up to meet them. They both knew this was just another pointless arrest. McGuire wouldn't talk. This day would see them no nearer the heart of the drugs racket they'd been chasing for the previous three months. Going through the motions.

  'See that shite on the telly on Saturday night?' said Ferguson.

  'What shite was that?' asked Mulholland. 'The shite where some bampot brags about having sex with twenty-five birds, when in fact all he did was pull his pudding to some soft-core crap on Channel 5?'

  Unabashed. 'The Rangers. Load of pish. See all they bloody foreigners. If you're going to sign shite, you might as well sign Scottish shite. Just 'cause some eejit's got a name like Marco Fetuccini or Gianluca Spaghetti, doesn't mean they can kick a ball. Load of pish.'

  Mulholland trudged down another flight of stairs. Thinking about the weekend. Another series of arguments; irrelevant, vapid and senseless. Just like the irrelevant, vapid senseless day which he was enduring now. Feeling sorry for himself. Imagined it was justifiably so.

  'Didn't see it,' he said eventually.

  'Can't even beat Dundee,' said Ferguson. 'Absolute shite. Bloody St Johnstone at the top of the league. What a joke. We used to be one of the best countries in Europe, for Christ's sake. We used to win things. Now we're lucky if we can beat one of they mince sides from Latvia, with a name like Locomotive Tallinn, or Rice Krispies 1640.'

  'Tallinn's in Estonia,' said Billy McGuire.

  'You shut your face,' barked Ferguson. 'What do you know about football anyway? Fucking muppet.'

  'Fitba',' said McGuire, 'wherein is nothing but beastly fury, and extreme violence, whereof proceedeth hurt, and consequently rancour and malice do remain with them that be wounded.'

  Ferguson stopped. Mulholland, a few steps ahead, turned back.

  'What?' said Ferguson.

  'Thomas Elyot,' said McGuire.

  'Thomas Elyot?'

  'Aye.'

  'Listen, Wee Man, you think I give a shite about Thomas Elyot? I'll give you Thomas Elyot, you bastard. Any more of that and I'll stick Thomas Elyot up your arse. Now shut it.'

  ***

  They arrived at the station, pushing McGuire in front of them as they went. Ferguson walked in without a thought in his head. Work was work. Mulholland's heart sank every time he walked through the door. Dreamed of the day he could clear out his desk for the last time. Retire. Spend every day with Melanie.

  Some dream.

  'Book him, Sergeant. And if he quotes any more literature, you can kick his head in.'

  'Stoatir.'

  Mulholland went to walk past the front desk. Up the stairs to his office, his intention. Cup of coffee, a few minutes to relax. It was still early, the day lying ahead of him like a huge rotting animal in the middle of the road. The customary dead cow of a Monday morning.

  'Chief Inspector?'

  Mulholland stopped and turned.

  'Sergeant?'

  Sergeant Watson, the ugliest man ever to front a desk in a police station in northern Europe. Cheekbones like slabs of meat, Brobdingnagian nose, garrulous moustache wandering at outrageous tangents across his face; a face which had seen its share of excitement. Lips like slugs.

  'M wants to see you,' he said. />
  Mulholland stared at the nose. The few minutes to relax had just disappeared.

  'When?'

  'Now.'

  'One word, Sergeant,' said Mulholland, mood plummeting further. 'Rhinoplasty.'

  'Fuck you, Chief Inspector,' said Watson.

  And Mulholland headed up the stairs, humour on a rollercoaster which was permanently on a downward drop. Crap job, crap marriage, crap life. Looking for someone to take it out on. Better not make it the Superintendent, but once he was finished with him he could kick the shit out of McGuire.

  He walked through CID, the usual bustle of activity. Phones ringing, people talking, paper piled high on desks. In the midst of it all, an oasis of calm; one of the sergeants with a magazine open in front of her. Cup of coffee in her right hand, left hand drumming out a beat on the desk. Reading an article entitled Why Men Are Crap At Sex, although he couldn't see it. Instant resentment. Why should she get to do what he was being prevented from doing? He stopped beside her desk.

  'Nothing to do, Sergeant?' he asked.

  Detective Sergeant Proudfoot raised her eyes. Mulholland was nothing to do with her. Had, on the occasion of station girls' nights, placed him in her top three list of guys on the force she'd take to bed, but it didn't mean she had to listen to him.

  'It's getting done,' she said.

  He stared, shook his head, finally walked off. It was like being a schoolteacher sometimes, he thought. Without the endless summer holidays. Bloody Erin Proudfoot; no good for the force, no good for its reputation. Ferguson might be a bigoted Philistine with fewer brain cells than sex organs, but at least he got the job done.

  Worse than that, of course, he was attracted to Proudfoot. Thought she was lovely. Far more attractive than the bitter Melanie Mulholland, twisted wretch of his home life.

  He stopped outside the Superintendent's office. Breathed in, let out a long sigh. What kind of mood would he be in today? How ridiculous was his Bernard Lee impersonation going to be? How many times would he use the phrase national security when talking about shoplifting from Woolworths in Partick?

  Christ, there must be more than this, he thought, as he opened the door and walked into the tepid cauldron of pointless imagination.

  ***

  Late on a Monday night, the monastery slept. Long before the death of Brother Festus, it began. While Joel Mulholland staggered home from the pub to an unhappy marriage; while Erin Proudfoot sat alone, crying her way through Fried Green Tomatoes...; while the monks lay secure in their beds, and while shepherds watched their flocks, one sheep was led astray and put to the sword.

  A particularly gruesome death, this one, the first at the monastery. The blood pulsed from the severed artery for some minutes, ran along the cold stone corridor. Reached the worn, grooved steps in such volume that the first trickle grew and swelled until it became a miniature, ensanguined cascade, the warm red liquid tumbling gaily down the stairwell, turning it into a cruel and bloody parody of the Reichenbach Falls. And all the while, Brother Saturday lay with eyes open, body limp, becoming colder, the sensation still there although the first stroke of the knife had killed him.

  The killer watched the blood flow, taking some pleasure in the cardinal flourish, the rich harvest of his revenge. His second victim, this, his second plunge of the knife into the velvet crush of human flesh, and the fevered excitement which he'd felt the first time, so many years earlier, was much greater now that he was so close to the object of his desire. The sweat still beaded on his lip, the hairs still rose excitedly on the back of his neck, the purple vein pulsed in his forehead; and the buzz electrified his body. He was not yet some high-roller of the serial killer brigade, in this for the heart-thumping indulgence of it all, and he was not yet ready to change his modus operandi; to dance with some other form of death. His motive was revenge, and the gratification would not be in the deed, but the outcome.

  But all that would change.

  Twelve men must die. Ten remained, although only three of those ten were known to him. He had come to the end of his search, and yet the rest remained hidden. It might well be time to take a greater vengeance than that which he had first anticipated. But he had yet to make any firm decision.

  Lifting the body by the legs, he began to drag it backwards along the corridor. He reached the stairs and started to clump silently down. The body limply hugged the decline until the head arrived and then slowly, step by step, the skull thudded onto the hard stone, and the face of Brother Saturday contorted into a grotesque and disturbing smile.

  A Load Of Balzac

  Tuesday morning. Another lousy day. Mulholland sat before his Superintendent for the second day in a row, listening to nothing at all. The rain against the window, maybe; the beating of his heart. There was a disgusting taste in his mouth and his head throbbed extravagantly; the result of four hours of gin during a futile night in the pub with Ferguson.

  Detective Chief Superintendent McMenemy closed the file he'd been reading and looked up. Engaged Mulholland's eyes for a while without speaking. The usual routine.

  'Late night?' he said eventually.

  'Aye,' said Mulholland, a hoarse croak.

  'Understand you had a little too much to drink.'

  Mulholland laughed and nodded. Brilliant. How had he managed to work that one out?

  'Gin,' he said.

  'Girl's drink. Can't you drink whisky, laddie?' McMenemy grumbled, Mulholland gritted his teeth.

  McMenemy, the man who would be M, sat back in his chair and stared across the great gulf of the desk. Mulholland held his gaze. There was no way the old man had brought him up here to tell him off for his drinking. More likely some pointless rebuke for all the time spent on the drugs thing with little to show for it.

  'Have you been speaking to Ian Woods much?' McMenemy said.

  Mulholland shrugged. This was different, he thought, immediately feeling uncomfortable.

  'Woods? Had a few drinks the other night. All he wanted to talk about was the Barney Thomson business. Blaming Thomson for every crime being committed in Scotland, thinks everyone else is blaming him for not catching him yet.'

  'Mmm,' said M. 'How d'you think he's holding up?'

  Mulholland hesitated. Beginning to see the minefield into which he was being led. Couldn't say Woods was doing a brilliant job, because he just plain wasn't, but wouldn't do to denounce him either.

  'All right, I think,' he replied. 'Thomson just seems to have vanished.'

  'Exactly,' said M. 'He hasn't found him. The press are whipping themselves into a frenzy. You seen today's Record?'

  Mulholland shook his head. M lifted the paper from beside the desk and tossed it across. Lock Your Doors, As Barber Goes On 20 City Crime Spree. After that he threw across the Sun. Police Flounder as Vicious Murderer Kills Two More. Then he finished with the Scotsman. Barney Thomson Shagged My Mum, Claims Medical Student.

  'It's getting ridiculous,' said McMenemy. 'Entire bloody country's living in fear.'

  'It's a load of mince,' said Mulholland.

  'I know that. You know it. The fucking press know it, but they love this stuff, and we need to put a stop to it, and the only way we'll do that is by catching him.'

  Mulholland nodded, said nothing. Knew what was coming.

  'I'm taking Woods off the case and I want you to head up the investigation. We need results on this.'

  Mulholland nodded. Remained taciturn. This kind of thing was always ugly in a station.

  'It'll be hard on him,' said M, 'but there's no place for sentimentality. We need it cleared up before Christmas.'

  'Right,' said Mulholland, deciding he ought to contribute. 'Ferguson and I'll get on it this morning. Go over everything Woods has done, see what he might've missed.'

  God, he thought, shut up. For all that Woods was the Albion Rovers of criminal investigation, he wasn't going to have missed anything.

  'I'm splitting you and Sergeant Ferguson up on this one. We don't want to lose sight of the progress
you've made on the drugs thing. He'll stay on that, and I'll give him Constable Flaherty.'

  Michelle Flaherty? Jesus, Ferguson was going to be wetting himself.

  'You'll be working with Sergeant Proudfoot.'

  Mulholland nodded. Kept the wry smile off his face. That was all he needed. A bloody dozy, layabout woman to nursemaid through the investigation.

  'Right,' said McMenemy, 'I don't like to put undue pressure on anyone, but you've got ten days, Chief Inspector. Ten days.'

  ***

  Detective Sergeant Erin Proudfoot spooned another sugar into her tea, then slowly stirred. She had almost come to the end of the article she was reading in a two-month-old Blitz! – How To Spot A Millennium Lounge Room Lizard. Had met enough of them to not need to read a magazine article on how to spot one. Still, it was slightly more informative than 51 Ways To Have Great Sex in A Helicopter.

  The frenetic bustle of the station on a Tuesday morning continued around her, following a typical Glasgow Monday night. Six stabbings, two rapes, fourteen break-ins, thirteen car thefts, one defeat for Partick Thistle. She had been allocated one of the less serious stabbings and was waiting for the woman in question to be brought in for questioning. Senga-Ann Paterson, seventeen. Rejected by her boyfriend, the father of her two children, a rejection she'd dealt with by stabbing him in the testicles with a knitting needle. When he'd been hospitalised the previous evening, the police had released her because there was no one else to look after the children, and they weren't sure the boyfriend would be pressing charges. One operation, and one removed testicle later, there was no doubt. She was being brought in.

  Besides that, Proudfoot had four calls to make, following up an alleged insurance fraud, plus fourteen reports to complete from ongoing investigations. Her in-tray was piled high.

  She turned the pages of the magazine. Past the adverts for generic perfume that would help express your individuality, and wafer-thin sanitary towels. Stopped at the picture of a stick-like figure with blonde hair and legs which went all the way up: headline, Gretchen Schumacher – The New Eastern Uberchick On Why She Prefers Men To Strudel. Shook her head, tossed the magazine onto her desk. Another five minutes gone. Lifted the phone and dialled the number for Lloyds insurance in London.