The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  'Very well,' he said cautiously.

  'Lovely,' she said, with lyrical sarcasm. She stood up. 'Right,' she said, 'you can have your blood and leave. James, you can just leave. Barney, thank you, I appreciate your help, and I'm sure you'll want to stay until Mr Jacobs has his pound of flesh, but once he leaves, so can you.'

  Barney nodded guardedly.

  'Igor,' she said, turning round, and then she hesitated. 'I'm still going to go up and sit and watch the children, but you can stay if you like. I'd like you to stay. You can be the guard against old bloodsucker here coming back.'

  'Arf!' said Igor.

  'Lovely,' she said again, and then she walked to the cupboard to get a beaker into which to drain some blood.

  It's a funny old life.

  Where Are They Now?

  The door closed behind them and Barney Thomson and Simon Jacobs walked quickly away from Garrett Carmichael's house. Jacobs had his cup of blood; Randolph had already been summarily dispatched; Carmichael was spending quality time with her children, now that they were fast asleep; Igor was guarding the tea and biscuits; and Barney Thomson wasn't exactly sure what he was going to do for the rest of the evening, although he was beginning to feel a bit peckish. However, he wasn't entirely convinced that he ought to leave Jacobs to his own devices. Which, strangely, was exactly how Jacobs was feeling about Barney Thomson, and explained why he was about to make what seemed on the surface to be a strange proposition.

  'Would you join our fellowship, Mr Thomson?' he asked out of the blue, just as Barney was taking a look out to sea and enjoying the chill breeze.

  Barney raised an eyebrow and studied Jacobs' face for any sign of sarcasm or some sort of twisted humour.

  'Now why would you ask me that?' he asked.

  'I'm a logical man, Mr Thomson. You may have been my adversary up until this point, but you are clearly a man of some quality. A vacancy has arisen and I feel you are the appropriate man to fill it. After tonight there will be no requirement for the secrecy of the past.'

  'Jonah Harrison?' asked Barney.

  'That position has already been filled. This is a slightly more recent matter, although not due to any fatality.'

  'Go on.'

  Jacobs directed Barney up Hill Street, intent on visiting Lawton's house to search for the Grail. Confident that Barney would be curious enough about the whole business to enlist.

  'I had a slight disagreement with Father Roosevelt this evening, the cleric at the cathedral. I doubt he will be in attendance.'

  'You nailed him?'

  Jacobs threw Barney a glance, did not immediately reply.

  'He may require some hospital treatment,' he said after a few steps, 'but nothing that won't heal with time.'

  Barney smiled. Thugs are as thugs do, no matter who they're working for or what class they come from or which side of the right/wrong fence they think they belong to.

  'And what's the big event?' asked Barney.

  Jacobs genuinely considering telling Barney, even though none of the brotherhood knew apart from him and Ephesian. However, he remained cautious on this matter and shook his head.

  'You are either in or out, Mr Thomson,' he said. 'Join us and be part of history, or walk away and wake up tomorrow morning to read about it in the papers.'

  You're going to miss the early editions, thought Barney, but decided against out and out flippancy at this stage.

  'Where are we going now?' he asked instead.

  'To search for something, the exact nature of which I will reveal as soon as you commit to the cause.'

  'Very intriguing,' said Barney. 'All right, I'm in.'

  'Good,' said Jacobs. Another two of his problems squared away in one go. Roosevelt replaced, Barney Thomson struck off the list of antagonisers. He would now just be another bloke standing around the table in awe of what would be unfolding before him. 'We are going to the house of Augustus Lawton to search for the Holy Grail.'

  'Ah,' said Barney. 'Cool. You don't have the Grail then?'

  'Not yet,' replied Jacobs.

  Barney checked his watch. Almost ten-thirty. No wonder he was hungry. The evening had whizzed by.

  'When's your ceremony supposed to take place?'

  'Midnight,' replied Jacobs.

  Barney let out a low whistle.

  'Cutting it fine.'

  Jacobs checked the time, although he already knew.

  'I should call Mr Ephesian,' he said. 'Excuse me.'

  And he took the mobile from his pocket and made the call, wondering if Ephesian would even answer. Barney turned and looked back at the sea, through the houses at the end of the street, breathed in the sea air and wondered if he was about to spend the rest of the evening with a series of old men whose hair he had cut in the previous three days.

  ***

  Many others amongst the combatants of the story had drifted off into quiet, small town oblivion for the night.

  Ruth Harrison was back where she belonged, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, squeezing spots, applying make-up, imagining that the Reverend Dreyfus might have a change of heart and be round to see her the following morning clutching a large bouquet and a box of Terry's All Gold.

  Tony Angelotti was standing beside the post box at the top of the town, staring at the stars, wondering when Luigi Linguini was going to make another call, so that he could tell him that he had uncovered absolutely nothing at the cathedral. Luigi Linguini, however, was in hiding and was not yet due to emerge for another hour or two. Tony was wasting his time, something which he was finally beginning to realise. Wondering vaguely if his colleague had been murdered.

  Luigi, however, was currently huddled up, cramped, hungry and very, very keen on finding a bathroom.

  Father Roosevelt had recovered from his head-butting and was sitting in his kitchen, a bag of frozen peas on his face and a glass of medicinal whisky in his paws. He had thought of going to Lawton's place to remove the Grail, but couldn't face leaving the house. Imagined that Jacobs would be waiting for him, wherever he went, to inflict further pain. Nevertheless, he had Faith that the Grail would not be found.

  Augustus Lawton remained in his hospital bed, a small machine blipping beside him. No visitors, no get well soon cards, no flowers. An eternity in true purgatory for stealing the Holy Grail.

  2Tone was hanging with a couple of buds watching High Society on DVD for the eighteenth time. High Society is the new Lock Stock; Bing Crosby is the new Vinnie Jones.

  Marion and Nella were arguing over whether to watch a repeat of Where The Heart Is, or Big Brother – Uncut!

  Many of the other players in the piece were girding their loins for the big event of the evening, the ultimate meeting of the organisation of the Prieure de Millport. Few of them, however, realised the significance of what was about to take place. All they knew was that they had been called to an extraordinary meeting and that each of them had to bring along the sacred item which they had kept in their freezers since the first day they'd become a member of the society. With the exception of Ephesian and Jacobs, however, none of them had any idea of the momentous and earth-shattering event that they were about to witness.

  Nothing less than the re-birth of the direct lineage of Jesus Christ himself.

  All in a day's work for Barney Thomson. If he could help Jacobs find the Holy Grail, of course, without which the evening was going to redefine damp squib for the new millennium.

  The Pain Of The Silent Phone

  Barney smiled as he watched Jacobs jangle the huge set of keys, before finding the correct one for Lawton's front door.

  'In a position to do that with every house on the island?'

  Jacobs didn't reply. Unhappy about allowing Barney so much access to his working methods, but he knew that tomorrow the day would dawn differently from any day of the previous two thousand years. The Prieure's work would be over and their secrets and working methods would no longer interest anyone.

  Jacobs opened the door, stepped insid
e and turned on the hall light. Barney followed, closing the door behind him.

  The house was large, Victorian and lived in by a single man. Clutter and dust everywhere. The stairs, which led directly up from the front door, were lined with piles of books and clothes and miscellaneous junk on nearly every step.

  Barney took it all in. Jacobs saw none of it, concentrating on possible places where Roosevelt might have hidden the Grail.

  'What does it look like?' asked Barney.

  'The Grail?' said Jacobs. 'No idea. Haven't seen it. A wooden cup apparently.'

  Barney idly looked at piles of rubbish, lifted things up and looked underneath, then followed Jacobs into the dining room.

  'How do you know it's wooden if you haven't seen it?'

  Jacobs started moving around the room, looking in cupboards, a cursory search.

  'Mr Ephesian has seen it.'

  'You'd think it'd be gold,' said Barney. 'Encrusted with jewels. Isn't part of all this malarkey that he was the king of Israel?'

  'Whatever,' said Jacobs, disinterestedly. 'But then, he worked as a carpenter. Who knows?'

  'The whole yin-yang thing again,' said Barney. 'On one hand, king, on the other, helping people put up their Ikea furniture.'

  'Exactly.'

  Jacobs stretched to look on top of a series of cabinets, his hands coming down caked in dust and cobwebs.

  'You know for sure it's here somewhere?' asked Barney.

  'No,' said Jacobs, 'we don't. I'm guessing.'

  Barney let the pile of clothes he'd been looking under topple over. Straightened up, studied Jacobs' back.

  'You want to explain that?' he said.

  Jacobs breathed heavily and turned. Acting like he was tired of the questioning, but he knew Barney was right to ask.

  'The Grail was kept hidden in the cathedral. Lawton discovered its whereabouts and took it for himself. He brought it back here. Father Roosevelt knew he had taken it and, for his own purposes, decided that he did not want the ceremony to take place. He came round here. He put Lawton in a coma. Now we have to find the Grail.'

  'Surely he would have taken it with him?'

  'You have to understand the minds of men, Mr Thomson,' he said, suddenly sounding like some master criminal. Barney took a seat on the arm of the chair.

  'Enlighten me,' he said.

  'Father Roosevelt is a very limited man. He had just burst Lawton's head open, something which one must presume would have shocked him. He finds himself standing over an unconscious man, blood everywhere. He panics. What to do with the Grail? The Holy Grail. He's a man of God, he can't destroy it, yet he knows he can't take it back to the cathedral or we'll get it. He can't take it back to his house, because if we work out it's him who attacked Lawton, we'll come looking for it. Maybe he thinks Lawton is dead, maybe he thinks this is the last place anyone is going to think of looking for the Grail. He hides it here.'

  'In plain sight?'

  'Very possibly.'

  Barney nodded and pursed his lips.

  'That's some convoluted thinking there,' he said.

  'On the contrary,' said Jacobs. 'Very simple, to accompany a simple man such as Father Roosevelt.' He checked his watch, felt an increase in the nerves that he was doing so well to hide. 'And we have a little over an hour to find it. We should get a move on.'

  ***

  The Brotherhood of the Prieure de Millport began arriving in ones and twos shortly after eleven o'clock in the evening, each with their large or small package in hand. They were each surprised, however, to be greeted upon their arrival by a member of the entourage of Ping Phat, rather than the expected Jacobs. They were then ushered into the dining room, to wait until the appointed hour and to meet the legendary Phat himself, who took the opportunity to revert to Yoda-ism and to regale the members of the society with tales of eastern business shenanigans.

  First to arrive was Romeo McGhee, frozen hand in a bag in tow, but having managed to shake off the close attentions of Chardonnay Deluth. The latter had been as difficult as he'd been expecting, and in fact he'd had to sign a paper which she'd hurriedly drawn up on some £12.99 legal document software, attesting that he would share equally all money which came their way as a result of his involvement with the Prieure. Carried away with his new status in life, he was already beginning to think of ditching Deluth and felt sure any lawyer worth their weight in mince would be able to make exactly that of the stupid document.

  He was immediately out of his depth, as Ping Phat began to elaborate on a story of share dealing in Shanghai, but he nodded and said cool and smiled enough to get by.

  Next in line was Philip Luciens, the paramedic, clutching a much bigger package than McGhee, and who was also quickly subsumed into the conversation on the Shanghai stock exchange. By eleven-twenty, the old buffers Matthew 'Rusty' Brown and Simon 'Ginger' Rogers had also made an appearance and the gathering was well underway.

  Upstairs, keeping away from it all, imagining events to be out of control and heading towards disaster, Bartholomew Ephesian stood in the darkness of his bedroom, looking down over the sweep of hill to the dark sea below. Wondering if this was the end to all his dreams.

  He checked his watch for the thirty-eighth time since eleven o'clock, looked round at the bedside table. There is nothing more painful than a phone which does not ring.

  Without the Grail there would be no ceremony, not tonight, not ever. Perhaps they could postpone this evening, unearth the Grail, and go ahead at some later date, but would he still be Grand Master after this shambles? Ping Phat, for all the smiles and Asian formality, was a formidable man who would not stand for things going wrong.

  He looked at his watch again, he glanced round at the phone. His stomach curled and twisted with nerves. Bartholomew Ephesian's world was falling apart.

  Honty Grython And The Moly Pail

  'It's not exactly the great Grail quest that they talk about in books, is it?' said Barney.

  Jacobs looked up quickly from a kitchen cupboard, his face red. With midnight approaching, Barney had grown more and more forlorn and hungry, accepting that they were on a wild goose chase. Searching for a needle in a haystack, when there probably weren't any needles or wild geese in the haystack in the first place. Jacobs, on the other hand, had swung dramatically in the opposite direction, his searching becoming ever more fevered.

  'No fighting or dragons or beautiful women. Just scrabbling round a filthy old house, looking under year-old newspapers.'

  Jacobs tried to control his temper.

  'This is not a lost cause, Mr Thomson,' he growled. 'Don't sit there making glib comments. Look for the bloody thing!'

  Barney had had enough. Curious enough about the business to hang on for a little longer, rather than go home and do the hunter-gatherer thing in Miranda Donaldson's fridge, having forgotten in any case that her front door would already be bolted; not quite curious enough to get back down on his hands and knees.

  'Think I'll have a cup of tea,' he said. 'Would you like one?'

  Jacobs snarled, then started tossing things out of kitchen cupboards. Barney smiled, filled the kettle. Checked the fridge for milk, which there was, smelled it and set it up on the counter.

  'Mugs, mugs,' he muttered to himself, looking around. The kitchen had gradually fallen into ever increasing disrepair, under the onslaught of Jacobs' pursuit. He found them behind a discarded breadbin.

  'Glasgow Rangers or Wallace & Gromit?' he asked, the sentence trailing off with a sudden realisation.

  'Fuck's sake,' muttered Jacobs in response, standing up and looking at Barney like he was going to strangle him.

  'Wait a minute,' said Barney.

  'What?'

  Barney put the Rangers cup down on the kitchen worktop and held the odd-shaped Wallace & Gromit in both hands.

  'It's a wooden mug,' said Barney, not taking his eyes off it.

  'What?' said Jacobs, clearly annoyed.

  'The mug, it's wooden.'

  'It's a
stupid mug, for crying out loud!' barked Jacobs.

  'Look!' said Barney, and for the first time engaged Jacobs' eyes, instantly quelling the man's rampant ill-humour.

  'What?' Jacobs repeated, but this time more inquisitively.

  'Look at it,' said Barney. 'It's been painted to look like a regular mug, it's got this Wallace & Gromit sticker on it, wherever the guy got that from, but who makes wooden mugs in this day and age?'

  Jacobs slowly took the cup out of Barney's hands. He studied it for a second and then looked at Barney. They held each others' gaze and then Jacobs quickly swivelled, removed the sticker, turned on a tap and held the cup under running water. A couple of seconds and then slowly the paint began to come off, revealing the bare, two thousand year old wood beneath.

  Jacobs had no immediate feeling of awe at holding the cup of Christ, such was his enormous relief. He looked round at Barney, checked the clock as he went. Quarter to midnight. Ephesian was going to be in bits.

  'Take this and finish washing it down,' he said, 'I'm going to call Ephesian.'

  Barney saluted and said, 'Yes, boss.'

  Jacobs no longer minded the flippancy. They were almost there. He dried his hands and pulled the phone out of his pocket.

  ***

  Back at the ranch the collective had gathered. As time had worn on, the font of stories that was the rotund and Yoda-like Ping Phat had dried up, as he had grown ever more concerned that nothing seemed to be happening. He had no idea where Jacobs had gone having not seen him now for almost five hours. And after his initiation into the Brotherhood by Ephesian, and the slow climb back up the steep stairs, he had seen nothing of him either.

  Ping Phat was once again standing at the window, although unlike Ephesian directly above him, he was unable to look out into the dark as the lights were on behind him.

  And, as with the conversation of their unexpected host, the chatter from the collective had slowly dried up.