Yet that was how it was.
Saturday 23rd April 2005
0818hrs
Another day, another hair re-styling. Barney and the PM were in the bathroom in 10 Downing Street as Barney attended to his hair before a new day on the election trail. There was nothing to be done with his hair, of course, but the vanity of world leaders who believe in their own greatness demands constant attention. Williams and Thackeray, the PM's advisors, had been dispatched. The PM was in melancholic humour, looking at himself in the mirror as Barney fussed around the Prime Ministerial napper, without actually really doing anything. The morning papers had been the usual mix, more credence and interest given to the stories of the day rather than his own grand visions. He'd made three headlines, right enough, a rise on the Pope-dominated early days of the week, but two of them had been derogatory. In particular, the Independent was pissing him off with its constant banging on about green issues. The future of the planet? As if there weren't a hundred bigger issues to talk about. The PM bared his teeth again and looked gloomily at the dead tooth on his lower jaw.
'Apparently people tend to remember things in sevens,' said the PM suddenly, wanting to break the self-imposed despondency of the moment.
Barney bouffed a section of limp looking hair at the back. Didn't reply. Was moderately melancholic himself although not quite in the same gloomy depths as the PM. Happy enough to work in silence, unthinking. Ask any barber what are the best days in a shop, and they'll tell you they're the ones where the customers don't want to talk and the day can be passed in quiet rumination. Apart from those barbers who never shut up and talk about the stupid weather all the time.
'Plus or minus two,' the PM said, when Barney didn't say anything.
Barney caught his eye in the mirror, decided to think about what the man had actually said.
'Sorry?' he said. 'Seven?'
'Yes,' said the PM. 'That's why there are so many things in seven, particularly in the ancient world. Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Wonders of the World, The Seven Commandments, that kind of thing. George Miller came up with the theory in the '50s, even before The Magnificent Seven was released.'
Barney snipped away.
'That's why people can remember the names of the Magnificent Seven, but not the Dirty Dozen or the Four Tops.'
Barney stopped for a second. He looked down at the top of the PM's balding head, and then looked him in the eye.
'It might be time to focus, Prime Minister,' he said. 'Big day ahead,' he added, even though he had no idea what the day ahead held.
The PM breathed deeply and looked at himself in the mirror. Bared his lips, allowed his heart to sink that little bit further at the sight of his teeth, which his advisors wouldn't allow him to have re-whitened mid-campaign, and then he switched back into serious world leader pretend. No time for gloom when you've got a planet to help destroy.
'Press conference with the chancellor this morning,' he said, looking Barney in the eye. 'Don't know why we bother with all the pretence, it's not like everybody doesn't know.'
'What's the problem?' asked Barney.
The PM shrugged. 'Just hate each other.'
'Why?'
The PM stared at himself.
'That's a very good question,' he said, completely switching in to PM-mode, 'and I believe strongly as a politician first and a Prime Minister second, that it is my duty to answer questions asked by ordinary hardworking people. Such as yourself.'
Barney nodded. Oh God, don't start monologuing, he thought, I'm not going to vote for you anyway.
'Well, he hates me because I've got the sweetie jar and I'm not giving it to him,' he said smiling. He liked that analogy, and just wished that he could use it with the press. That bunch of comedians would be all over him, of course, if he said it. Usually only his wife and the Health Secretary and a few others got the benefit of it. 'And why do I hate him? No big reason. Don't like the cut of his Scottish jib. I hate the noise he makes when he eats, and that thing he does when he draws his lower lip in beneath his top one, you know what I'm talking about?'
Barney nodded just to keep him happy.
'And he farts,' muttered the PM darkly. 'Big Scottish farts. Stinky.'
Barney snipped off a piece of hair which, strictly speaking, didn't need to go.
0945hrs
Detective Chief Inspector Grogan and Sergeant Eason, the men investigating the murder of the Prime Minister's previous barber, Ramone MacGregor – who had been killed one week earlier with a chicken – were sitting in the office of the Chief Superintendent, M Jackson McDonald. Grogan, while not actually smoking at that instant, was oozing the stench of cigarettes. Eason had a large tomato ketchup stain on his tie from breakfast. M Jackson McDonald was scratching his beard.
'How do you know that this man came from Conservative Party HQ? It could have been any old crank.'
'We checked the phone records, Sir,' said Eason.
McDonald nodded. That one was too easy, which was a pity. There was no way he was letting them take this any further, but he didn't want it getting too messy, and he didn't want them deciding to do something behind his back.
'Why didn't you wait for him in the pub then?' said M Jackson McDonald sharply. He was about to cover them in bullshit, and so was taking an aggressive stance right from the off, in the usual manner of authority which knows it's in the wrong. 'You turned up and then left without meeting him? That doesn't sound like good police work to me, Chief Inspector. Don't go making waves now just to cover up your own mistake.'
'Making waves?' said Grogan. 'We received a call from Tory HQ relating to a murder investigation. It's perfectly reasonable that we follow it up.'
He was getting annoyed, although he generally got annoyed just at the thought of entering McDonald's office.
'It's probably just some crank call,' said M Jackson McDonald.
'We won't know unless we check it out!' barked Grogan.
M Jackson McDonald straightened his shoulders. To be honest he found Grogan quite intimidating, but he couldn't show it.
'Goddamit, Grogan,' he said, theatrically bringing his fist down onto the desk, a genuine thespian at heart, 'it's taking all our efforts to keep this thing out the press in the first place. Imagine the stink it'll cause if it gets out that part of the investigation into the murder of the PM's barber is taking place at the opposition HQ. Jesus Christ, it'll be the news story of the millennium, even if it does lead to nothing. My bollocks will be roasted.'
Grogan leant forward, in what Eason recognised as his pre-Rottweiller position.
'And what if the killer just so happens to come from Tory Party HQ? We just let him away with it because it'll get in the papers?'
M Jackson McDonald rose to his feet and once more brought the fist of Equity down on the desk. It might have been effective if he hadn't been such a bearded fop.
'You can't go making such judgements from one meaningless phone call! Calm it down, Steven!' he bellowed. 'Or you'll be directing traffic...'
Up the King's Road?
'...up the King's Road!'
Grogan got to his feet and walked quickly to the door.
'I'm not finished,' yelled M Jackson McDonald.
Grogan turned and looked at him, hand on the door.
'I need a smoke,' he said, then he quickly opened the door and walked out.
M Jackson McDonald slammed his fist once more on the desk, looking angrily at the door, while actually being rather relieved that the unpleasant scene was now over. He turned to Eason at the sound of him pushing his chair back and getting to his feet.
'And I need a doughnut,' said Eason, then he too walked out the office, only with a little less drama.
M Jackson McDonald slumped down into the seat and looked at the small report which Grogan had compiled on the investigation so far.
'Aw, shite,' he muttered. 'I need a doughnut and a cigarette 'n' all.'
1017hrs
Barney and his deaf-mute hunchbacked assistan
t Igor were sitting watching the PM on television, eating breakfast. Second breakfast which, properly handled, can be even better than first breakfast. There was a lot of bacon involved. The PM was giving some line about how people should vote for Labour if they valued their achievements, and both Barney and Igor snorted.
'That's just a bizarre thing for any serving government to say,' said Barney.
Igor nodded.
'Not like I care, because one's as bad as the other,' he began, and Igor glanced at Barney over his humph, 'but every single policy the government has is about privatisation and private finance initiatives and giving money to big business and consultants and damn to hell whether it's best for patients or rail passengers or whatever. But the real stuff that they do wrong, the real mismanagement and the real wastes of public money, the opposition can't complain about, as they started it, and they'd do exactly the same stuff if they got in. Load of pish, the whole thing. Complete load of pish.'
'Arf.'
'It'd make you want to go and live in France, if it wasn't for the fact that they're worse.'
'Arf.'
He took another bite of a bacon sandwich and watched another little guarded look in the PM's eyes, as the Chancellor said something else he disagreed with, while at the same time doing that thing with his bottom lip.
1056hrs
Grogan and Eason were leaning on a railing above the Thames, staring down into the grey water. Grogan was smoking his seventeenth cigarette of the day, Eason was eating a cream cheese bagel with bacon, lettuce, honey, marmite, more cream cheese and more bacon. There was already a dollop of cheese on his tie, to add to the ketchup, and another smear on the tip of his nose. Grogan was letting the cheese on his nose go for the time being.
'So, we have a decision to make,' said Grogan.
Eason bit into the bagel, sending more cream cheese squishing out the middle, like cold white lava oozing from a volcanic bakery product.
'Where to go for third breakfast?' he said.
'No.'
'Lunch?'
Grogan blew smoke to the side, tossed the cigarette butt out towards the water, although a slight wind made sure that it never made it that far, and gave Eason the usual look.
'Tory HQ?' said Eason.
'Yes,' said Grogan. 'We need a plan.'
Eason chewed food and wiped his arm across his mouth.
'Why do I hate the sound of that?' he said.
'Because I'm going to sit in the office and do sod all while you have to go undercover and suck up to a bunch of Tory wankers.'
Eason took another huge bite of bagel, and then crammed the rest of it into his mouth, so that his cheeks bulged with food.
'Huck's sake,' he said.
1657hrs
The PM stormed into the office and slammed the door behind him. Williams, Thackeray, Barney and Igor were sitting around the room, having a discussion on Chelsea's impending Premiership triumph, and whether it could just as easily have been Hartlepool or Wigan or Rushden & Diamonds who were in that position if a Russian gazillionaire had pitched up to buy the club. Barney and Igor were being drawn into the PM's inner circle, which didn't seem to bother anyone.
'Did you hear it?' said the PM. 'Did you hear it?
They looked around the room at each other, wondering if he was talking about another one of the Chancellor's farts.
'Liar! He called me a liar!'
'Oh that,' said Williams, and Thackeray nodded and looked back at the notes he was making for the following day's keynote speech. Barney shrugged and turned back to Barber's Monthly, with all the news on the latest scissor technology coming out of the big hairdressing technology industries in Nevada.
'Liar!' repeated the PM. 'He called me a liar! A liar! I mean, do I say that he's the spawn of the undead? But it's going to come to that. Liar! Jesus suffering Christ!'
'Well you are,' said Thackeray matter-of-factly, looking up from his notes.
'What?' said the PM.
'Well, you know, you are a liar. You lie all the time. I write your speeches, and they're full of lies.'
The PM looked a bit taken aback, wasn't sure what to say.
'I mean, it's no big deal. You're a politician, of course you lie. Everyone expects you to lie. Even if you told the truth, everyone would think you were lying anyway, so you might as well just lie in the first place.'
'I think you should lie even more,' added Williams.
'But...' began the PM, but he wasn't sure what to say after that. Thackeray had a point after all. 'Well, there was also his line about the wishy-washy, pussyfooting government.'
Williams and Thackeray stared at him. Neither of them said, 'if the cap fits', but it was implicit in their eyebrows.
'You're saying I'm over-reacting?' said the PM eventually.
'Yes, Sir,' said Williams.
'Sit down and have a doughnut,' said Thackeray.
'Let me tell you about the new combs coming out of the States,' said Barney.
'Arf.'
2213hrs
Saturday night, another day of the campaign behind them all, election day another day nearer. Barney sat alone in a bar just off Marble Arch, nursing a slow beer. Didn't want to drink too much, another early start with the PM's thinning hair the following day. Igor was having dinner with a couple of young American ladies on tour who he'd met on The Mall whilst out for a walk earlier in the day. The PM sat in bed in his pyjamas trying to concentrate on a report on world hunger for the following day. Eason and Grogan worked late, devising a stratagem which would allow Eason entry to Tory Party HQ.
And meanwhile, across the Atlantic, it was mid-afternoon in Virginia, where the real power lay, and where the real decisions which would affect the outcome of the British General Election would be taken. Except, it was a Saturday afternoon, and no one with any interest in it was at their desk.
Sunday 24th April 2005
1345hrs
A quiet Sunday, eleven days before the general election. Anywhere between a four and ten point lead for the government in the opinion polls in all the Sundays, and for all that the politicians and the media might try to make something of every little snippet they could get their hands on, it was dull, dull, dull and there was little that any of them could do about it. If only they'd all known that the Prime Minister's personal barber had been murdered with a chicken just over a week earlier. The leader of the opposition had turned to personal attacks on the Prime Minister's integrity, with his principal speech writers arguing over whether to call the PM a "liar", a "despicable liar", "very naughty and bad" or a "cheatin', lyin', bitch-slappin' muthafukka". The alternative opposition, in its desperation to break away from the 21% point mark in the polls, had finally turned to Iraq, which it had been holding off on for two weeks.
The Prime Minister was sitting on the London Eye with his main assistants Thackeray and Williams. Also along for the ride were his two new assistants, Barney Thomson, the barber, and Igor, the deaf-mute hunchbacked barber's aide, who had originally been brought in to deal with his hair, but were more and more becoming dragged into the PM's inner circle; although more in an agony aunt kind of position rather than in a policy making capacity. The PM had thought that the Eye might give him a different perspective on things. Had also thought that going amongst the public in central London might be a bit of an election coup, but of course everyone had just been hacked off at him for taking up an entire capsule on the Eye, with his security guys on the one before and the one after, and most of the people there had of course been foreign tourists anyway.
The four men in the capsule were waiting for the PM to start any discussion. Thackeray had tried as soon as they'd moved off, but the PM had been distracted and had talked excitedly about the vision which the Eye afforded them and how it was a wonderful corollary for his government and the vision which it had brought to the country. Thackeray had shut up, they had allowed the PM to grandstand for a while, and then he had talked even himself into silence. Now, as they reached the
apex of the loop, a melancholy had descended upon them, as they looked out over London in all its grey, low-rise ordinariness. From up here it looked vast and unremarkable, but had that silent beauty of any of the great cities. Barney glanced at the PM, recognised the feeling of gloom which had begun to dominate his meetings with him. Could tell the man wasn't happy, wasn't enjoying the campaign. Would probably have been more upbeat with more of a fight.
'What d'you think about God?' the PM suddenly threw out into the capsule.
Thackeray and Williams glanced at each other, and immediately decided that this was one which was probably aimed at Barney in any case.
'Arf,' said Igor.
The PM nodded. Even he was beginning to get a handle on Igor's monosyllabic utterances, which contained so much in such a short bark.
'It's absurd, isn't it?' the PM began, looking down at the river. 'Most of the British public don't believe in God, couldn't give a stuff. No one goes to church anymore, the media don't even pay religion lip service. The only aspects of religion that a majority of the country actually care about are The Da Vinci Code and the architecture, but just imagine.' He looked at them intently, demanding attention. 'Just imagine I gave a press conference and said just that, said that I thought the whole God thing was a load of crap. We live in a world of natural selection, with no outside influence whatsoever. God? I mean, please. But can I say that? Just imagine the stink. Jesus, they'd be all over me like a viral infection.' He looked around the four men. None of them had anything to say. Belief in God aside, he wasn't wrong after all.
The Wormwood Code Page 5
