The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  Barney swept. Didn't feel like talking. Whatever good may have come out of the evening had instantly been taken away by the night. Another night, another nightmare. Different this time; more evil, more truth. More real.

  'Ten or eleven,' he said eventually. 'I think there were a couple of folk missing, but that's the way it goes. I thought it'd be monthly or weekly, maybe, but they have these blinking things every two or three nights sometimes. Most of these folk are desperate, apparently. All seems a bit strange.'

  Blizzard nodded. A collection of murderers sitting in the same room? Strange?

  'Did you tell your story, then? Any of the bastards believe you?'

  Barney stopped sweeping and looked at the old man. The thought of last night gave him a moderately good feeling in among the weight of dread. But how much should he say to old Blizzard, for he did not want to put a curse upon it?

  'Told a bit of my story. If I'd told it all, I'd still be there. They were mostly sceptical, you know, and I suppose I can't blame them. There was one woman seemed all right, mind. I think she might have thought I was telling the truth.'

  'Sounds like you want to shag her,' said Blizzard.

  'What?'

  'You've got a sudden light in your voice when you mentioned her. So what's the score? Good-looking? Big tits?'

  Barney swept the floor. Feeling embarrassed and very uneasy talking about it, although he didn't know why. Because he was still married perhaps? But then, she was good looking, she did have magnificent tits, and he did want to shag her.

  'I don't know, do I?' he said from behind the brush. 'I don't know anything about tits.'

  The old man laughed. 'Away with you lad, you're full of it. There's no' a man jack of us who hasn't spent several years of his life manhandling God's greatest gift.'

  Barney stared at him. He tried to remember the last time he'd even so much as seen Agnes's breasts, and it seemed so long ago that it might even have been lost in the mists of the late seventies. Like the Starsky and Hutch episode where Hutch nearly died; he couldn't remember much about it, but he'd know it if he saw it again.

  Hutch. He'd wanted to be Hutch when he was younger. He'd already been in his twenties himself, with his life going nowhere, and he'd fancied the thought of being some action hero, thumping down backside first onto the top of beat-up old Fords, solving crimes and chatting up women with a reasonable degree of panache. And like so many others in life, he'd done nothing about it, except drift his way through barbery, wasting the best years of his life.

  Then finally, a year ago, he'd been given his chance to start that new life and do whatever he'd wanted. And what had he ended up doing? Returning to the West of Scotland to live in a tiny flat overlooking the Clyde, and to work in a barber's shop ...

  'Haw, son! You're daydreaming,' said Blizzard to the glazed eyes. 'Hello! Hello!'

  Barney returned, but the feeling of melancholy remained; to walk hand in hand with the feeling of dread.

  'Aye, sorry, just thinking about something.'

  'So what's the score, then, son? Is she nice? That's easy enough to answer, is it no'?'

  Katie Dillinger. There had definitely been a connection there, he'd been sure of it. It had been a long time, but he could still recognise it. He'd caught her staring at him, even when one of the others had been doing the talking. Could have been because he'd been new, but you never could tell. And she'd even touched his shoulder before he'd left. Brought a shiver. And of course, she'd invited him to come along to the pub that evening with them.

  'She was lovely,' he said. 'Seemed quite interested in me, you know. I mean, it might just have been because it was my first night and she's the leader of the group. I'm not sure.' He shrugged and returned to the slow sweep. Something told him that it was too late for those kinds of thoughts.

  'So,' said Blizzard, rustling the paper, 'are you going to shag her, or what?'

  Barney looked up, head shaking. How on earth was he supposed to know? If a woman approached him, butt naked and proclaiming loudly, 'Take me, Barney, take me, and fill me with your manhood!', he'd still hesitate and wonder if there wasn't some other interpretation to be placed on her actions.

  'Not sure,' he said. Then he leant on the brush and decided to open up to Blizzard. If nothing else, it'd take his mind off the hand at his shoulder, the knife hanging over his head. 'But I'd like to, you know. I have to admit it. And she's asked me down the pub the night.'

  Blizzard perked up. 'Just the two of you? You'll be shagging by midnight, son, no doubt about it. Friday night out on the piss, stop for a kebab on the way home, then it's pants off and away you go. Magic, son. Good on you.'

  'Afraid not, Leyman,' said Barney. 'Most of the crowd's going. You never know, though, eh? Might get in there, I might not.'

  'Aye, aye,' said Blizzard, looking back at the paper – headline: Thomson Ate Too Much GM Food as Child, New Claim – 'aye, aye.'

  Barney looked at him for a few more seconds. The shop door opened and the first customer for nearly forty minutes walked in. The torpor of a Friday afternoon. They both looked at him, as Angus Collins removed his Adidas Cold Exclusion Cloaking Device. Collins stopped and looked from one to the other.

  'Any chance of a Two-Point Saturated Ukrainian?'

  Barney shrugged. Blizzard looked blank.

  'Over to you, son,' he said, and delved back into the paper.

  And Barney, filled with a strange mixture of expectation and gloom, went about his business.

  There The Trail Ran Cold

  McMenemy stared from his office window at the three youths below. Hanging out on the street corner. Loitering with intent to something or other. Specifically outside the police station to see if anyone would come and do something about it. Which they wouldn't.

  They guzzled Mad Dog, they hurled abuse and appropriate hand gestures at passing motorists, they verbally assaulted the occasional passing woman.

  The police wouldn't touch them. Not when there was a serial killer to be caught; and people still driving at thirty-five in a thirty zone.

  Mulholland waited. Staring dolefully at the desk in front, hands clasped, a couple of fingers tapping gently against the back of those hands. He hummed a tune. Was expecting to be told off for not yet having apprehended the killer, be it Barney Thomson or otherwise.

  He'd had a long day doing the rounds of Cindy Wellman's work colleagues and friends. Knew a lot more about her as a person, but nothing at all about what had led to her murder. Out with friends, but had parted company while still in the centre of town, to make her own way home. There the trail ran cold, except for a sighting of her being followed by a man whom they would now like to interview.

  He couldn't concentrate on any of it. His head was filled with that obscure sludge which had been there for nearly a year now. Everything much of a muchness – something like the state of the Scottish football squad. A quagmire of mediocrity, nothing rising to the surface.

  Barney Thomson, fishing, the Thistle, Tom Forsyth's goal in the '73 Cup Final, Melanie, Proudfoot, Cindy Wellman's right leg, Michael Palin in Brazil, Scalextric, they shoot horses, don't they?

  'How's it going?' asked M abruptly. Still with his back turned, still staring at the three youths; one of whom was unzipping his fly, preparing to put on a show for an approaching female of the species.

  Mulholland shrugged, a gesture that was naturally lost on the boss. Didn't really care how it was going.

  'There doesn't appear to be a connection between the three victims. Still digging, of course, might get somewhere, but I don't think so. Got a possible sighting of someone seen with Cindy Wellman just before she must have been killed. It's a bit vague, but the computer geeks are putting a picture together. We'll see what they come up with.'

  M grunted. Youth Culture 2001 placed his willie into the public domain, while passing compliant female prepared to laugh at him.

  'Look anything like Barney Thomson?' asked M.

  'Couldn't look less like him
if it was a picture of a dog,' said Mulholland.

  M grunted again. 'Don't know about that. Seems to me there's always been something canine about Barney Thomson.'

  'Aye, he's a poodle.'

  'Something primal; something zoomorphic; something bestial, animalcular and therianthropic. He is filled with some sort of basic instinct. A need for blood, a need to sup on the very essence of the human pneuma, a need for the destruction of the quiddity of kinship that transcends our perception.'

  'Or an old Labrador who's lost his eyesight and the use of his legs.'

  'Perhaps you should try to get the graphics people to include more of the features of Barney Thomson in the computer image.'

  Mulholland finally paid some attention to what the boss was saying. Shook his head, which was again lost on M.

  'It's not Barney Thomson, sir.'

  'How do you know?' said M sharply, turning around at last; and consequently missing the action, as the passing woman turned back on the still-leering youths, kicked one of them brutally in the testicles, head-butted another – a precision hit – and punched the last one in his Adam's apple, rendering him breathless and close to death for some ten to fifteen minutes, before going on her way.

  'The man seen walking after Cindy Wellman looked nothing like him.'

  'But you don't know that it was this man who killed her,' said M quickly, waving an emphasising finger.

  Mulholland made a Referee! gesture. See! cried his spirit, you can still get worked up about something.

  'So what? The point surely is to speak to the last person seen with her, whether he's the murderer or not. We have to find the guy. What's the point in telling everyone it's Barney Thomson, when it wasn't him seen following her, and it probably wasn't him who killed her?'

  M leant forward, knuckles white, resting on the desktop. A bulldog face.

  'What's the point? I'll give you the blasted point, Chief Inspector. Everyone in Glasgow knows that Barney Thomson is a deranged killer, and that he's on the loose. And now what? You want me to tell them that there's another killer as well, and there's double the chance of them getting skinned alive or hacked up piece by piece? There'd be panic. Bloody panic.'

  Mulholland's mouth was slightly open. You couldn't drive a bus in, but the man was aghast. McMenemy was mad, completely mad.

  'You listen to me, Chief Inspector,' said M, beginning to foam slightly at the corners. 'You just listen to me. For the purposes of this case, for the purposes of the public and most of all for the purposes of your investigation, you are looking for Barney Thomson. No one else. You got that? I couldn't give a shit if there's another killer out there. I don't want any computer graphics or photofits or descriptions or anything of that sort released to the public, implicating anyone other than Barney Thomson. He is clearly, unequivocally, without a shadow of a doubt, our serial killer. You go after him, Chief Inspector. Him and nobody else.'

  Mulholland continued to stare. Toppling over onto the side of incredulity. And so, a few things came to mind. What happened when Barney was in custody and the murders continued? How many members of the public would be duped by the real serial killer, because they were on the lookout for Barney?

  He voiced none of it.

  'Right,' he said, letting out a sigh. 'Right.'

  M slowly sat down, never taking his eyes off Mulholland.

  'There's a lot riding on this, Chief Inspector. I've brought you back because I thought you could do me a job. Don't let me down.'

  Mulholland said nothing. Tasked with bringing the wrong man to justice. He might as well nip out into the street and arrest the first person he saw. Of course, the first person he saw would be a young lad clutching what was left of his genitals.

  'You are going to have to enter the belly of the beast, 127,' said M, and Mulholland began to switch off. 'You must show bravery, stout-heartedness, daring and bravado. You must place your head in the jaws of the lion, and you must not display pusillanimity.'

  Yeah, yeah, yeah... And so, as M continued, Mulholland began to slide back down into his nest of sludge, and the only coherent thought he could truly manage was that he wished he were no longer there. And in his head he was standing on a riverbank, wrist flicking, fish jumping at the flies he projected across the water.

  Nine O'Clock In The Evening And I Can't Go To Bed

  Jade Weapon stood over the German agent, the steel toe of her red, thigh-length leather boot pressed up against Horst Schwimmer's trembling love-knob. The large machine gun she held in her right hand, which nestled against the inside of her even larger, yet firm, breast, was aimed at Schwimmer's forehead. A forehead beaded with sweat. Yet, as he looked up at her, nervous and expecting to die, he couldn't help but notice her enormous nipples straining against the thin fabric of her Lycra vest.

  'Tell me where the formula is hidden or you eat lead,' said Weapon, in the east European monotone she used to cover up her middle-class, suburban upbringing.

  'Gotten Himmel,' said Schwimmer. 'Vorsprung durch technik. Franz Beckenbauer, bratwurst, Helmut Kohl.'

  With an instantaneous splash of red, Weapon opened fire, pumping fifteen rounds into Schwimmer's face in less than two seconds. His head exploded like a pumpkin. But hey, that's the way it goes.

  ***

  Erin Proudfoot laid the book down for a second and took her first sip from the mug of tea which had been going cold on the small table next to her for nearly fifteen minutes. Glanced at the clock. Not even nine. The rest of the evening stretched out before her like a great mound of compost. Then bed, and another night of waking sleep, until another bloody day would dawn.

  Another night sitting in on her own, drowning in misery. That was her. Should have been down the Bloated Fish, or whatever Friday night dive should happen along, watching her prey, the pointless stalk she'd had on for the previous five months. But Detective Sergeant Anderson, the other poor sap who, along with Crammond, had been dragged into the painful operation, had wanted to change for Saturday night and she'd agreed. Agreed without thinking twice.

  For she had no idea of what it would lead to, this forthcoming Saturday night, which would turn into a long, long Sunday.

  Thank God for Jade Weapon, she thought. However, there were only two more books to read in the series – Jade Does Dallas and Fast Train to Nowhere – and then she was finished. Who knew what excitement she'd be able to introduce into her life then?

  She took another swallow of tepid tea, screwed her face up, did her best to ignore the feelings of depression and loneliness, and delved back into the novel.

  Some days your head gets obliterated into a pulp by fifteen rounds from a semi-automatic. And some days it doesn't.

  ***

  Another night at the Bloated Fish. Friday, a good crowd in. Not too many of the Murderers Anonymous group, most of them with other matters to take care of before going away for the weekend.

  Arnie Medlock, in all his pomp. Katie Dillinger, lips soft and red, hair golden, teeth white like a new pair of M&S pants; a bit of the Georgia out of Ally McBeal about her, attractive yet insipid. Billy Hamilton, having turned up on the off-chance that Annie Webster would be there, and being sorely disappointed. (DS Anderson sat outside Webster's flat all night, fell asleep, and missed her when she left, then missed her again when she returned three hours later.) Billy would have to make do with Ellie Winters, a woman of some mystery. Socrates McCartney, in all his new-found, loose-tongued liberalism, chatting to Arnie Medlock, although the chatter concealed a certain amount of contempt. And lastly, Barney Thomson, sitting beside Katie Dillinger, toying with his pint of lager. Talking to a woman in an almost intimate situation, for the first time in over three hundred and fifty years. Or thereabouts.

  Arnie Medlock kept a close watch, but suspected that Barney was all sour looks and no bottle. He wouldn't be any hassle; even though he could hear Dillinger enticing Barney to come with them for the weekend. I could crush Thomson like a digestive biscuit, he thought to himself, even though
he had Socrates muttering about the size of spiders in Bearsden in his left ear.

  'I don't know,' said Barney. 'I don't really feel like I'm one of you, you know.'

  'Come on, Barney,' said Dillinger, running her finger around the top of her wine glass, an act which had Barney twitching in his seat, and which Medlock caught out of the corner of his eye. 'It's the perfect chance to get to know everyone. I won't lie to you. You see, I didn't think we'd be able to fit you in, but we have a vacancy. One of our number's dropped out, last-minute job. Don't know what the lad's up to,' she said, covering up all those feelings of rejection and annoyance which she'd done her best to ignore for the past couple of days. She would, of course, never see Paul The Hammer Galbraith again.

  The wine glass began to sing. Somewhere distant, Barney was aware of Socrates talking about beetles and Medlock saying that when he was in Africa they'd had beetles bigger than dogs; while on his other side, Billy Hamilton talked about Northern Exposure, telling Ellie Winters that he dreamed of Rob Morrow every second or third night, but not in an erotic way, while Winters yawned. The pub was full. Elvis's Blue Christmas filled the air.

  'What's the score, again?' said Barney, giving himself more time. His natural inclination was to say no, after all.

  He had two options: one, spend a weekend in an old house, where every guest is a murderer, or, two, don't.

  Tricky.

  'We meet here at four o'clock tomorrow, and we've got a minibus hired to take us down. Get there in time for dinner, hang out, have a few drinks, then bed. On Sunday, we do what we want in the morning; play golf, go for a walk, lie in bed, whatever. Then usually there's a discussion in the early afternoon, then exchange presents, back into dinner and drinking. Everyone gets drunk, we all have a brilliant time. And the minibus comes and picks us up on Monday afternoon. What do you think?'

  Barney nodded, took a small swig from his pint. Didn't want to have lager breath.

  'And besides,' said Dillinger, realising she'd trapped her man, 'you have to come. We need someone to replace The Hammer in the exchange of presents.'