The Last King Of Holyrood
Barney stepped into the room, then stood with the door open, staring at the scene before him. Of the seven people already there, only one turned to look at him.
He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting of the First Minister's office. Sterility? Or perhaps overindulgent wallpaper and unnecessarily plush carpeting. The odd Van Gogh on the walls, a throwaway painting the bloke had knocked up one evening, in between the ear thing and quaffing endless bottles of petroleum-grade Bergerac. Probably a picture of the First Minister meeting Her Majesty, genuflecting just enough not to get his head removed. A photograph of the regulation wife and two children. Perhaps a Zulu shield he'd picked up on a trip to South Africa, when he'd been trying to pretend he was some sort of world statesman.
However ... one wall was completely taken up with a mural, a magnificent painting of breadth and vision. A modern day sermon-on-the-mount, a throng at the foot of a hill, with Jesse Longfellow-Moses standing above them, his arms outstretched, beseeching them to follow his example, to live as he would have them live. A painting of breathtaking hubris, from the artist as well as the subject. JLM's face was warm and giving and magnificent, as if radiating God's light. And the faces of the crowd reflected that glory, as they gazed upwards in loving admiration.
The mural dominated the room, the rest of which almost conformed to the plan. Barney was still staring at it, awestruck, when the one person to notice him entering the room came and stood beside him.
'Close the door,' said the man, who was dressed with absurd cool. Sharp, dark suit, black tie, and £5000 shades, paid for by the taxpayer.
Barney dragged his eyes away from those of the painting of JLM, looked at the man, shook his head to get his mind back into the real world – if this was the real world – let the words finally sink in, said, 'Oh, aye, sure,' and closed the door.
'You're Barney Thomson, the barber,' said the man.
Barney nodded. As far as he could remember.
'The First Minister's waiting.'
Man In Dark Suit walked away from him and Barney's gaze followed his path to the huge, absurdly shaped windows which looked out over the white meringue of the Dynamic Earth building, with the sweeping hill of Arthur's Seat rising up behind. Standing at the window, his back to the room, was the First Minister himself, hands clasped behind him. Barney stared at the greying hair of the back of his head for a few seconds, then looked around the room at the rest of the entourage.
There were two women sitting at a desk, opposite the mural. They were both straight-backed, smartly dressed in a similar style to Barney, wore impossibly chic spectacles, and were punching away at laptops, engrossed enough not to have noticed Barney enter. Above the desk at which they sat was the regulation picture of JLM and Her Majesty, and only the best photographic technicians would have been able to tell that the picture had been digitally altered to show Her Majesty looking almost in awe of her new lieutenant.
Beside the desk, sitting in the corner on a comfy chair, was another woman, wearing a dog collar, reading the Bible. She was young, attractive, and Barney had trouble taking his eyes off her. When he did, he looked at the man who was standing before the mural, studying it intently. He might have been standing there for several hours, so intense was the look of concentration on his face. He too was a man of God.
The only other person in the room was standing at the window, mincing around a tailor's dummy. Arse out, knees together, lips pursed, hands fussing, nose in the air, he puttered around the dummy, tutting constantly. The mannequin was garbed in rich, blue silk and, rather than the usual crash-test face, its head wore a mask of JLM.
Barney shivered and walked forward. He had no idea from where he had awoken, but it felt like he'd now walked onto the set of some weird motion picture event. A government as depicted by Terry Gilliam.
JLM's desk was suitably grandiose, and an utter shambles of paper. Everything from Top Secret Foreign & Commonwealth Office files to brochures for Alaskan cruises and skiing holidays in the Italian Alps. It was a mess, as if every morning JLM opened up his mail, had a quick check through, then dumped it in a pile, waiting for a secretary who never came to clear it away. Under the pile were three phones, one of which was old fashioned and a virulent red colour, and Barney wondered to whom it might be a direct connection. The Kremlin? The UN? Pizza delivery? Swedish massage parlour? Westminster?
Ah, thought Barney. The 'W' word. Maybe his brain wasn't as dysfunctional as he'd thought.
Man In Dark Suit leant in towards the First Minister and whispered something in his ear. JLM turned immediately. He gazed upon Barney with curiosity for less time than it took him to assess a political opponent, then he broke into a huge smile and walked round the desk, warm hand of friendship extended.
'Mr Thomson, Mr Thomson,' he said, shaking Barney's hand vigorously. 'Can I call you Barney?'
I suspect, thought Barney, given the set-up here, you could call me anything you damn well please.
'Aye,' said Barney. 'First Minister,' he added.
'Wonderful, wonderful,' said JLM. 'Tremendous. Really marvellous.'
He finally released Barney's hand and stood staring at him, looking deep into the eyes, the smile never leaving his face.
'Lovely,' he said, after a while. 'How d'you feel? You've been through a lot,' he added, as if Barney was supposed to know exactly what that was.
'I'm all right,' said Barney. 'Not really sure what it is I've actually been through.'
JLM laughed, the big booming laugh he had first cultivated to draw attention to himself, but which now escaped from the barrel of his chest under almost any circumstance. When that had died down to manageable levels, he stepped forward and clasped Barney by the shoulder.
'Mr Weirdlove didn't fill you in on all the details, then?' he asked, smiling, then continued talking over Barney when he tried to reply. 'I'll get someone to take you through it later. Hope you remember how to cut hair, eh?' he asked. And the smile was still there, but this time Barney knew enough to know that there was a bit of an edge to the voice.
'No bother,' said Barney, not feeling anything like as confident as he was attempting to imply.
'Good, good, don't have to get one of the lads to give you a pair of concrete slippers and drop you off the Forth Bridge then,' said JLM, still laughing.
'Aye,' said Barney, because he had no idea what else to say.
JLM gave Barney's shoulders a squeeze, then looked around the room. Still the only one of the others to be paying them any attention was Man In Dark Suit.
'Right,' said JLM, 'let me introduce you to a few people. You've already met The Amazing Mr X?' he said, turning back to Man In Dark Suit.
Barney nodded and looked at Man In Dark Suit. He wanted to say, you're kidding me, right? He thought better of it, however. The Amazing Mr X might zap him with a destructor ray.
'Aye,' said Barney. 'Should that be The for short?'
'X,' grunted The Amazing Mr X, and JLM smiled.
'Security,' said JLM, 'got to have it these days. The Amazing Mr X is ex-SAS. Beautiful bloke, really lovely, really sensitive, but kill you as soon as look at you. Tremendous chap. Really lovely. A bit heavy-handed sometimes, but seriously, you need that these days when you're a world leader.'
Barney nodded. Perhaps he was on another planet.
'Come on,' said JLM, 'I'll introduce you to the rest of the team. One short at the moment, I'm afraid. Veronica Walters, my PA, blagged the big one in a car crash last month, and I still haven't been able to replace her. It's all been a bit of a shambles since we moved in. Shocking surprise, as you can imagine. Terrible shame, she was a lovely girl. Really lovely. Very dear and sweet.'
Well, thought Barney, that explains the desk; but how could the First Minister not get a replacement? JLM led him towards the crash-test dummy. The dresser, who had been continually dancing around his latest creation, finally stopped at the approach of his master.
'Barney,' said JLM, 'I'd
like you to meet Veron Veron, my dresser. Really super person, absolutely super. Smashing chap.'
Veron Veron held out a languid hand. Barney wasn't sure if he was supposed to shake it, kiss it or caress it, so he grabbed it roughly, gave it a quick shookle and took three steps back.
'Pleasure,' said Barney.
'I'm sure,' said Veron Veron, and he smiled ingratiatingly, waited to see if the boss intended to pronounce further and then buzzed back to his dressing.
'Lovely,' said JLM. 'Look, I'd better quickly run you through the others. I've got a ten-forty at the television studio, so you'll need to give me a bit of a tidy up before I go. My hair's been an absolute disaster since Phillipe's closed down.'
'Smashing,' said Barney, picking up the groove.
'Right,' said JLM, 'the two women at the desk are Dr Farrow, my physician, and Dr Blackadder, who's a bit of a psychiatrist. Between you and me,' he said, lowering his voice, 'I have the odd couch session myself, but really she's here to write psychological profiles on all those other wankers in the cabinet and on the benches.'
'Good,' said Barney. That, at least, made sense.
'Then there's my two spiritual advisors. The Reverend Blake, who's in the chair, and Father Michael. Bit of an odd one, to be frank,' said JLM, the voice lowering again, 'spends most of the day studying the mural. Very strange.'
'You're a religious man, then?' said Barney.
'Christ, no!' ejaculated JLM, 'absolute load of pants. I mean, it's ridiculous. Most of the voters never set foot in a church, most of them couldn't give a bloody toss about religion, but you still have to be seen to be spiritual as a politician, or the press dump enormous amounts of faeces on you from the highest mountain. Bloody shambles. And, of course, you know what it's like, can't have one without the other, so I've got two of them here. And the study group's recommending I draft in a Muslim, and I've just got to do it. Who knows where it'll end.'
'Aye,' said Barney.
'Right, smashing,' said JLM, 'that's the team you're going to be part of. Hope you like them.'
'Lovely,' said Barney.
'Champion,' said JLM.
'Excellent,' said Barney.
'Smashing,' said JLM. 'Absolutely champion. Right, let's get to it. I've got a seat set up in the bathroom. Saves getting the mess in here. You're happy with a Sinatra '62?'
'Should be,' said Barney.
'Think I'll suit it?' asked JLM, then walked off before Barney could answer.
Barney walked after JLM towards a door, which he could now see lay right in the middle of the mural. He looked down at his hands and held them before him, flexing the fingers. How long had it been since he'd cut anyone's hair? He had no idea. He had no idea how long it was since he'd done anything.
As he followed JLM into the bathroom, The Amazing Mr X suddenly appeared between him and the First Minister and one of the two women at the desk finally looked up, glanced over her impossibly chic spectacles at Barney, studied him for a few seconds until the door was closed, then turned back to her psychological profile of Winona Wanderlip.
The Parliament Sits In The Land
Melanie Honeyfoot's private secretary was sufficiently concerned about her boss's absence to start trying to contact her as early as eight-thirty. She was generally never later than eight o'clock, and on a day when she was due in private with the First Minister at nine-thirty, it was usual that she would be in even earlier to prepare. So by 0821, Charlotte Williams had had enough of answering questions from people curious as to Honeyfoot's whereabouts, and had decided to go round to her apartment in Leith.
She walked briskly from the office, past curious glances, out of the building, grabbed a taxi that had just turned onto Canongate, then sat in traffic for twenty minutes, thinking that she was going to look very stupid if Honeyfoot had turned up at work two seconds after she'd left.
When she arrived she asked the taxi to wait, then stood outside the building for a minute, the glorious warm sun on her back, pressing the buzzer intermittently, reluctant to actually let herself in with the key that Honeyfoot had given her two years previously. It was one of the modern apartment blocks down by the docks, in between an area of dereliction and another exclusive housing development. Eventually she bit the bullet and her bottom lip and let herself in. Up the stairs, third floor, rang the bell and knocked a few times. Finally, feeling very nervous, she put the key in the lock, explanations of why Honeyfoot was not answering the door galloping through her head.
She could've spent the night at someone else's house. Worse, there could be someone else here, and they could still be at it. So carried away with the absurd concupiscence of lovemaking that they paid no attention to the phone or the door.
She pushed the door open, walked in and was immediately aware of the silence and the loud click that her shoes made on the parquet. She stopped, she listened, and at last her sixth sense kicked in, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck press against the collar of her plain white blouse.
And now she knew. She walked straight for the bedroom, but slowly, vomit rising in her stomach. Didn't want to find what she was going to find. From doubt and concern that she was making a fool of herself, to the sure and certain knowledge that she was about to find Honeyfoot dead.
The bedroom door was closed. She hesitated. She stared at the handle. Suddenly she worried about fingerprints. Maybe hers would be the only other prints found on the premises. And she pulled the cuff of her blouse down over her fingers, gingerly turned the handle, and pushed the door open.
The extraordinary heat hit her first of all, from nothing more than the sun beating in through large south-east facing windows, on a balmy late summer's morning. She walked in and shivered, despite the heat. She felt cold; she felt death. She looked at the bed. She could almost sense the body of Melanie Honeyfoot lying there, dead through unnatural causes.
But the bed was empty. The duvet had been pulled neatly up to the pillows, and folded back. Almost as if it hadn't been slept in. She stood just inside the door and looked at the room. Trying to fathom the difference between what she could see and what she could sense.
Then the level-headed woman inside her, the person that saw rational explanation in everything, dismissed the strange intuition that had haunted her for a few seconds. The analytical triumphed over the deceit of imagination, and she walked quickly into the room to check for any sign of where Honeyfoot might have gone. And already she was thinking that the most likely explanation was that she'd been at someone else's house the night before and had been held up on the way to work. More than likely, thought Charlotte Williams, by the time she got back to the office, Honeyfoot would already be there, and very displeased at Williams's absence.
And so, after a quick check of each room of the apartment – a check which revealed nothing that she did not already know about her employer – and a minute's reflection while looking into the dark waters of Leith docks, Charlotte Williams locked the door behind her and ran back downstairs to the waiting taxi.
***
'You see,' said JLM, who was already in full flow, 'the people just don't understand what it's like to be me. The pressures, the tensions.'
Barney nodded. The bathroom was spacious and bright, with large windows looking out over Queensberry House and the buildings on up the Royal Mile, and more mirrors than your average Hollywood narcissist has in his/her entire mansion. He had been studying the First Minister's hair carefully for some five minutes and had yet to make a positive move. He felt a bit like a man sitting behind the wheel of a car after having been banned from driving for thirty years. He knew he used to do this, but wasn't exactly sure how to start.
'You all right back there,' asked JLM, 'you don't seem to be doing much?'
'Aye,' said Barney, 'I'm fine. A Sinatra '62, you said?'
'Yeah,' said JLM, 'I loved Sinatra. My kind of guy. Lovely. And deep. Very deep. Champion bloke. I see a lot of myself in the man. And he had great hair too, you can't argue that. Even
when it wasn't his own, you know what I'm saying?' and he laughed.
Part of the problem, Barney was thinking, was that JLM pretty much already had a Sinatra '62. The line about it getting out of hand since Phillipe's had closed down was absurd; more than likely that Phillipe's had closed three days earlier. And so, as his mind worked its way out of the sludge in which it had been immersed since he had awoken that morning, the obvious fact dawned on Barney that he was cutting the hair of a man who was unnaturally obsessed with self-image. He was the First Minister, he would constantly be on television and in parliament, and making public appearances, visiting schools and hospitals. Of course he was going to notice every hair that was two-thirds of a millimetre too long. Especially when he was as dedicated to the promotion of his own image as JLM clearly was, what with portraits of himself ornamenting every wall.
And all at once, having understood the psychology of the man before him – something that all good barbers instinctively do – Barney knew where to start the cut, and what was required of him. He lifted the electric razor, he hooked on a no. 3 head, flicked the switch so that he felt the reassuring buzz of the razor in his hand, then moved smoothly onto JLM's neck.
'They say Sinatra had extraordinary nasal hair,' said Barney casually, getting back into the old barber routine, but not quite yet managing anything approaching insight. JLM chose to ignore him, as he studied himself in the mirror.
The door opened, and Barney noticed the flash of anger cross JLM's face that there had been no knock, an anger that died when Parker Weirdlove walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. The Amazing Mr X's hand flashed to the inside of his jacket, then relaxed.
'Good morning, sir,' said Weirdlove.
'Parker,' said JLM.
Weirdlove stood behind them, glanced at the folder he was carrying, then engaged JLM's eyes in the mirror.
The Barbershop Seven Page 84
