The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  Barney laughed, shook his head. With the words, the feeling went. Back on his own two feet, but still troubled.

  'We're closed on Monday, by the way, eh?' he said. 'Christmas Eve?'

  'Monday?' said Blizzard, mock exasperation. 'Bloody hell, son, you've only been here five minutes and already you're wanting days off to go out shagging?'

  And the warm smile returned and the old man laughed wickedly into his beard. 'Aye, course we're closed. Merry Christmas, son. See you in the boozer when you get back. Ho fucking ho, eh?'

  Barney turned to go, stopped and looked back at the old man. A father figure, created almost overnight. The father he'd never had. And he was swept up by feelings of warmth and sadness and regret, and he knew not from where any of them came. It was almost as if this scene was a waking dream, a brief connection with his nightmare, and it was gone. 'Thanks, Leyman,' he said.

  'Aye, son, now away and bugger off. I don't need nursing.'

  'Merry Christmas.'

  'Load of shite, son, but the same to you.'

  Barney smiled again, turned and was gone. Blizzard watched him go, shook his head, then lifted the paper. Giant Octopus Eats Mum of Five.

  And strangely enough, Barney closed the door behind him and bent his head into the wind at just exactly the moment when Detective Sergeant Best, the recipient of the Mario Van Peebles – watching over the shop and waiting for reinforcements – was forced to answer the call of nature.

  ***

  Just after midday. Another day into December, another degree off the temperature, but still the day was grey and mild and bleak and nothing. The sort of day for sitting in a pub drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Although sometimes it could seem like every day is for that, no matter what the weather, no matter what there is in life.

  It's like that. You've got to have something to look forward to, or you might as well spend your time looking at the dregs in a glass, or staring at a silent fishing line, or parked in front of crap TV. There has to be some focus; and when you're a policeman, you've got a huge murder case in front of you, and you're still not focused, you're losing the point.

  Mulholland had had the brass section from Stop the Cavalry playing in his head all day. Dah-de-dah-de-dum-dum ... dah-de-dah-de-dum ... And on it went and he had given up trying to get rid of it. He tapped the beat out softly on the side of his glass with his wedding ring; drained the dregs of his second pint of lager. Sort of staring at Proudfoot's hands, sort of thinking of how those hands had ventured to several of the most intimate parts of his body, sort of thinking about getting another round in, sort of thinking about the case.

  He knew he'd not given much lead to the investigation, but then how was he supposed to lead when the direction in which he'd been ordered was so hopelessly off the mark? Did M seriously believe that they should be after Barney Thomson? Maybe M himself was the serial killer, that might have explained it. Maybe he should indeed be after Barney Thomson, but just didn't want to accept it because he'd had him in his grasp the previous year and had decided to let him go.

  He shook his head, rubbed his forehead. He ought to just get out, leave it to someone who could do a better job. He was wasting everybody's time. He presumed there must be some young go-getter left on the force who would like to run with it, and was resenting Mulholland for having been brought back.

  There are always issues, that's the thing. Everyone has their own issues. M had his, whatever they were, in looking for Barney; he himself had his own in not looking for him. Whoever else was brought into the investigation would have their own angle. Everyone has an angle.

  'You think I did the right thing?' he said into the space which had been devoid of conversation for some ten minutes. 'Letting him go?'

  'You're speaking, then?' said Proudfoot, dragged from her own melancholia. 'Thought the next time you opened your mouth it would be to offer up the next round.'

  'Driving,' he said.

  'Oh, aye, where're we going, then?'

  Their eyes engaged, and when he couldn't think of a reply she looked back into her drink and watched the bubbles rise slowly to the surface. Her mood a combination of being sucked into his gloom and the realisation that she did not want what she'd asked for this past year. She didn't want to be back in the saddle after all, she didn't want to have to be spending her Saturday evening on suspect-watch, she didn't want any of it; and so now she had no clue what she wanted.

  Mulholland? Did she want back into the turbulence of that? Fighting one minute, wanting to get married the next. Except there was no fight left in either of them.

  'Probably not,' she said finally answering his question. 'Seemed like a good idea at the time, but it just means we're having to look for him now.'

  'D'you think he might be the killer?'

  She shrugged and ran her fingers around the top of the glass. There would have been a time when the action was laced with sexual tension between the two; now it was just something to do for a few seconds. Mulholland stared at her hands.

  'No,' she said, shortly. 'But if he was locked up, or appearing on chat shows, or whatever, we wouldn't have to be chasing him now, would we? We might be able to concentrate on the real guy, not some bloke who can't stick a fork into a mushroom without feeling guilt.'

  Mulholland's shoulders dropped another micro-inch. That was about the size of it. It'd been a good idea at the time, but now they were lumbered with it. There was someone out there to be caught and their hands were tied.

  He became aware of the television playing quietly in the background, a few desperate souls at the bar watching. The early afternoon news, a report on the hunt for this year's serial killer. It drifted through the usual details, including a review of all the murders, an overview of the suspects (total – one), and a rundown of the key police officers involved. Mulholland looked away when he saw his own face on the screen, accompanied by McMenemy's words that his men were on it twenty-four hours a day.

  'Macaroon bars.'

  He could feel a few pairs of eyes on him from the bar; could imagine the thought processes.

  'Macaroon bars. Get your macaroon bars here. Macaroon bars.'

  He glanced at Proudfoot, but she hadn't even noticed. Took a quick look up and caught the eye of a woman sitting at the bar, already staring at him. Imagined there was something accusatory in her look, so turned away. Fuck 'em. It was McMenemy's problem. He could spout all he liked, but when he had his force looking for the wrong man, then it might as well have been a thousand of them on the case for twenty-four thousand hours a day, they were still not going to catch the real killer.

  'Macaroon bars!' said the macaroon bar salesman, walking through the pub. A little more feeling this time. He carried a full box of macaroon bars, and had been walking the streets and pubs of Glasgow for nearly two hours. 'Macaroon bars, get your macaroon bars here!'

  The landlord gave him the once-over, decided not to eject him. These fly-by-night macaroon bar salesmen came and went with the wind; and it was not as if they took any of his crisps and peanut business.

  Mulholland couldn't help but hold the gaze of the woman at the bar. Evelyn McLaughlin, as it happened; on the lookout for a certain type of man. He got a strange feeling that something was about to happen; a peculiar and vague sense of foreboding. He stared at her for a little while longer, but her expression was blank, the eyes gave nothing away. Mid-twenties perhaps. Black hair, waxed eyebrows, intensifying the apparent Culloden look which perhaps lay beneath the banality of the stare. Banal and bellicose at the same time; Mulholland never had been much good at working out women.

  'Macaroon bars! Get your macaroon bars here!'

  He looked around the bar, trying to identify the possible origin of the unease he was feeling. Proudfoot stared into her drink, the customers – Evelyn McLaughlin excepted – drank their pints and watched TV and talked aimlessly of momentous topics, while the macaroon bar salesman plied his trade in ever-increasing, powerless frustration.

  'Maca
roon bars! Get your macaroon bars here! Macaroon bars!'

  Mulholland toyed with his drink, unable to pick the source of his disquiet, finally lifting the near-empty glass to his mouth to finish it off. He became aware of Evelyn McLaughlin approaching, waxed eyebrows in full flow. He warily looked at her as she came to rest beside him.

  Proudfoot gave her the time of day, seeing as she had nothing else to think about.

  'Macaroon bars! Get your macaroon bars here! Some cunt buy one. Macaroon bars!'

  'Here,' said McLaughlin, as the macaroon bar salesman grudgingly gave up the ghost, barely giving enough time for the quality of his advertising campaign to take hold, and made his way out into the street, 'you that polis that's just been on the telly?'

  Mulholland looked at her, a quick appraisal to see if there might be a knife or some other implement tucked away in the foliage of her clothing. A tight red dress, nothing much showing except the usual array of fat.

  He nodded. A subdued sense of ill feeling all because he was about to be subjected to a volley of verbal abuse from a punter.

  'Well, how come you're not out catching that bloody Barney Thomson, then, ya bampot? This you on it twenty-four hour a day, is it? Magic that, i'n't it no? Sitting in a fucking boozer with your bit of skirt and a pint of heavy?'

  'It's lager.'

  'Lager? Well, that's all right, then, i'n't it, ya polis bastard.'

  She placed her hands on her hips and they stared one another out. Proudfoot contemplated the thought of being Mulholland's bit of skirt, and decided she couldn't care less. She's been called worse.

  'That all you've got to say for yourself, ya bastard?'

  'Just about,' he said.

  She snorted. Very, very attractive.

  'Anyway,' she went on, 'that's no' why I'm here. I don't really give a shite whether you catch that bloke or not. I mean, I'd be delighted for him to kill most of the people I know, and that.'

  'Kind words,' said Mulholland.'

  'Aye, right. Anyway, what I'm really here for is to say that me and my mate Elsie have got a bet on about who can shag more folk off the telly by Christmas. That bitch is about six ahead of me, seeing as she shagged the entire Albion Rovers team in the space of a couple of hours. So, seeing as you've just been on the box, I was wondering if you'd like to shag me, or what. I mean, I'm like that, I'm not interested in foreplay or orgasms or any of yon shite. Two seconds' penetration'll do, and you're in my book. We could go into the bog, and I'll be pure like that, and you'll be back here with your miserable bird in less than a minute.'

  Mulholland almost smiled; first time in months.

  'This is my wife, I'm afraid. Can't do it.'

  'Your missus? This soor-faced pudding? I could give you a much better time, even if it was only for two seconds. I bet she hasn't shagged you in about six months.'

  Good guess, thought Proudfoot; damn near spot on. She nodded.

  'See what I mean? No wonder you're a miserable cunt, married to a pound of mince like this. Come with me, Big Man, and I'll show you a good time. Suck a melon through a straw, me. Throat like a vacuum cleaner.'

  Mulholland smiled. 'Put like that, hen, I'm tempted. Twenty-four hours a day, though, that's me. Always on the job. Couldn't even spare you that two seconds.'

  'Aye, well, whatever. Think you're full of shite, whatever you say. When you find yon bastard and you've got more time on your hands, then give us a call. Having said that, don't bother if it's after Christmas, 'cause you're an ugly bastard.'

  And so the lounge bar überchick made her way back to her Bacardi Breezer, and Mulholland could continue the great weight of thought needed to decide whether or not to get in another round.

  'She's got you pegged,' said Proudfoot.

  'Watch it, Sergeant.'

  The door to the bar swung open, then rocked closed behind the weight of Detective Sergeant Ferguson. He approached Mulholland, eyeing up the vixen in red as he did so.

  'Nice bit of stuff at the bar,' he said, arriving at the table.

  They viewed him as they might a small child.

  'You used to police the Thistle home games decades ago when they were still a decent enough outfit and used to get on the telly, didn't you?' said Mulholland.

  'Aye, why?'

  'Oh, no reason. What is it that brings you steaming into the bar?'

  'The boss is just about to get a round in, if that's why you're here,' said Proudfoot.

  'A round? Wouldn't mind a pint, but I think we better get a move on. There's been a sighting of Barney Thomson. Some geezer phoned in to say he'd had his hair cut by the bloke in a wee shop in Greenock.'

  Mulholland let out a long sigh and shook his head.

  'No news of the real killer, then?' he said.

  Proudfoot grabbed her bag and coat. Something to do at last, although she felt no hint of tension or excitement. So what if they'd found Barney Thomson, she thought; as did Mulholland.

  Out they went, into the grey gloom of early afternoon. Mulholland could smell the cigarette smoke on his jacket; he could taste the bitter remnants of the lager on his tongue. Beginning to need to go to the toilet. The ordinary scene around them as he got into the passenger seat of Ferguson's car seemed less ordinary today. It was somehow challenged, as if at odds with itself. But really, it was he who was at odds with it, and the weight of the world sat uneasily on his shoulders. There was something not quite right. Some weird Jungian thing going on.

  'What's the score, then, Sergeant?' he said.

  Ferguson cut up the only Rover 75 sold in the previous six months, and pulled out into the flow of traffic.

  'Bloke goes in for a haircut, an Agent Cooper, apparently.'

  'That's a little more information than I needed, Sergeant.'

  'I'm setting the scene.'

  'I know what a sodding barbershop looks like.'

  'So, the guy goes in for his Agent Cooper. Not the film version Agent Cooper, but the TV show Agent Cooper.'

  'Thought it was the same?' said Proudfoot, already beginning to doze in the back.

  'Whatever, I'm just reporting what I was told. I never watched that shite. Anyway, the bloke does a good job. The guy thinks he recognises him, asks him who he is, and he quite happily admits to being Barney Thomson.' Mulholland gave a sideways glance. 'So, he goes home and calls the local Feds. They're a keen lot, and obviously with nothing better to do, so they send one of their plods along to get his napper seen to. So the guy gets his hair cut by Thomson, asks him a few questions, and again he readily admits to who he is. Which, let's face it, ties in with the fact that he was giving himself up all over the shop. So the plod leaves with a stoatir of a haircut – a Mario Van Peebles, no less – and waits outside for the cavalry.'

  Ferguson steamed through the traffic, towards the confines of the westbound M8.

  'So, have the locals moved in?'

  Ferguson snorted.

  'Have they bollocks. They're all shitting their breeks, which is fair enough. Waiting for you two, by the sounds of it. They're watching the shop, waiting to see if he makes a move.'

  'So he doesn't know they're on to him?'

  'Doesn't know shite.'

  Mulholland shook his head, then winced and extended his braking foot as Ferguson nearly drove into the back of a green Peugeot.

  'What are they going to do,' said Mulholland, once they were back in the clear, shooting up the middle lane of a dual carriageway, 'if he makes a move before we get there? Hide, and see if the Scouts can follow the guy?'

  Ferguson shrugged. Had a couple of mates on the force down there. All in it together. Could tell that Mulholland was no longer a team man; if, indeed, he was anything at all.

  'Can't blame them, really,' he said. 'That Thomson's a murderous bastard.'

  'He's a big poof.'

  'He's still a mad bastard.'

  'If he's mad, it's only because we won't leave him in peace to cut hair. And all the time we worry about this guy, and go careering off across the
country looking for him, the real killer is pishing himself laughing at us wasting our time. There's better things to be doing than this, Sergeant, and the local bloody plods can't even be bothered their backside going in and arresting him.'

  'What about you!' said Ferguson, as he headed slowly up the slip road onto the motorway. 'You were sitting in the pub.'

  'Shut up, Sergeant. I get enough lip from this one,' he said, indicating the back of the car.

  They both glanced behind. Proudfoot's head was resting uncomfortably against the rear window. She slept, the smile of the curiously perturbed on her face.

  They turned back and Ferguson accelerated into the midst of the flow. And off they went in search of Barney Thomson, to the exact little barbershop on the edge of Greenock where he had been working this past week; and which he had walked out of some half-hour earlier.

  Been Going Down This Road So Long

  The car pulled into the side of the road. Apart from the twenty or so grown men and women secreted in inadequate hiding places or attempting to blend in with the crowd, it was a perfectly normal afternoon scene. A grey day, the suggestion of rain, cars coming and going, pedestrians doing their thing. Walking for example.

  Ferguson had had the heat up higher than necessary, the music down low. Proudfoot had slept soundly; Mulholland had stared dumbly at the passing grey day, contemplating his bank account. Could he afford to jack in the job and spend his days fishing? A life on the riverbank, watching the water trundle by, bugs buzzing above the water and fish nibbling at the surface, had got to be worth the trade-off of having no money coming in.

  He could take a pay-off from the Feds; eat the fish he caught; go out all day and so use few utilities. No mates, family all gone to the big football terrace in the sky, so no phone calls. He could live on buttons.

  But then there was the issue – and it was an issue – of Proudfoot. Could he bring himself to leave her again? Ought he not really to ask her to come with him? They could argue on a permanent basis. They could wind each other up. They could enrage each other, and press all the wrong buttons. All that, coupled with fantastic sex.