The Long Midnight Of Barney Thomson

by Douglas Lindsay

  The afternoon was drawing to a pleasant conclusion, the customers beginning to dwindle away, when the door opened and one last client, his collar pulled up against the driving rain, came rushing into the shop. It was Bill, Barney's dominoes partner; Barney's Nemesis.

  He caught sight of him in the mirror as he walked through the door. They hadn't spoken since the funeral, and with all that had happened, Barney had quite forgotten about worrying whether or not Bill would go to the police. From the fact that they hadn't turned up on his doorstep jangling handcuffs and waving a search warrant, he'd presumed that he'd never made the call.

  However, this was quite a bit out of his way, so he surely hadn't just come for a haircut. He must want to talk.

  They looked at each other in the mirror. Bill nodded at Barney, Barney nodded at Bill. Bill sat down and waited his turn, steely determination in his eye. Bill the Cat.

  Barney returned to his haircut, mildly perturbed, yet strangely confident. It was a simple and requested US Marine job, for a chap who'd said he was going hillwalking in Africa. Barney had been quickly knocking it off, but now that he hoped Bill would go to one of the others, he'd slowed down. No other customer awaited, Bill was next in line.

  'So, whereabouts are you going walking, young man?' he asked, neatly executing an ear-bypass manoeuvre.

  'Kiliminjaro,' said Malcolm Harrison. The new Cool.

  'Oh, aye, that's near Cape Town,' said Barney, using his new found confidence and knowledge to its fullest.

  Harrison paused briefly before answering, unsure exactly whether to tell a man from the Barber Death Shop From Hell with a pair of scissors in his hands, that he was talking mince.

  'Well, it's on the same continent.' Maybe sarcasm wasn't wise, he reflected. 'It's in northern Tanzania.'

  'Oh, aye. Near that, what d'you call it, Zimbabwe, is it?'

  The man smiled weakly, hoping Barney would shut up.

  'You know, my friend, I was reading a book about Alexander the Great the other day,' said Barney casually.

  'Oh, aye?' said Harrison, reflecting on the fact that any barber in the world would have been able to give him this haircut and he really needn't have subjected himself to this to get it.

  'Apparently,' said Barney, electric razor poised and running in mid-air, ready to swoop, 'he was a total arse bandit. He spent all his time conquering other countries, so that he wouldn't have to stay at home and get married.' The razor dived down and bit hard, doing that razor thing. 'Amazing, eh?'

  African Explorer mumbled something in reply. Vaguely remembered Wullie telling him something like that about five years previously. He knew, however, to keep his mouth shut and that Barney would be unlikely to go on. So he thought.

  At that moment, however, James finished with his customer. The man rose, glumly handed over the required cash and gave a baleful look in the direction of the mirror. James turned to Bill.

  'Hello, Bill. Bit out of your way?'

  'Thought I'd pop by. You all right, James. I'm surprised you're here.'

  'You know how it is. The show must go on and all that. Wullie would've wanted it that way.'

  Bill nodded, thinking that that was one of the most ridiculous things he'd ever heard in his life.

  'Well, I'm sorry about Wullie. It's a terrible business.'

  James nodded, trying hard to think about something else.

  'Aye, well, would you like to step up to the big chair, Bill?'

  Bill shook his head, smiled apologetically. 'If you don't mind, James, I'm just going to wait for Barney. Heard he was cutting hair like Kenny Dalglish taking the ball past five defenders.'

  James shrugged, didn't really mind. Barney smiled at the compliment. Assuming that it was a compliment, as he'd never heard of Kenny Dalglish.

  Resigning himself to his fate, he hurried through the rest of the US Marine and sent the guy packing. And such was his relief at escaping earlier than he'd been expecting, Malcolm Harrison handed over an unusually large tip and ran out of the shop.

  Barney pocketed the loot, turned with trepidation to Bill. He nodded at him, Bill took the few short steps along the long walk to the doom of the barber's chair.

  Barney pondered the situation, decided he should play it cool. Innocent, appalled at what had happened. Confident that Bill was unlikely to loosely throw accusations in the shop.

  Swishing the cape with a matadorial flourish, he placed it around Bill's neck and, resisting the temptation to throttle him with it, tucked a towel benignly in behind.

  'What'll it be then, Bill, my friend?'

  Bill was staring off into some far distance, shook his head to bring himself back. Looked at Barney in the mirror. 'What? Oh right. A Jimmy Stewart please, if you don't mind, Barney.'

  'Right enough,' said Barney. 'No bother.' And neither would it be. The legendary and straightforward Jimmy Stewart, a staple of any barber's repertoire for the past sixty years.

  Bill felt a little uncomfortable. He had come because he wanted to question Barney to his face. He wasn't sure what sort of set-up he'd expected in the shop, but now that he'd found James there, sitting forlornly beside them, he realised that there was no way he could talk about Wullie and Chris.

  After he'd heard that Chris too was missing, he'd been on the verge of going to the police there and then. But something had stayed his hand; had made him want to see Barney. Then the reports that had started appearing in the paper on Monday night had just been incredible. He couldn't believe those stories of Chris, but then neither could he believe them of Barney, the man he'd set out to suspect from the first.

  Perhaps that was always the case with serial killers. It wasn't as if they wore their chainsaw on their sleeve. Presumably, whoever it turned out to be, there would be people who would be shocked by their identity, thinking them all along to be normal citizens.

  A shiver jerked down his spine at the touch of cold steel on his neck.

  'Game of dominoes the night, Barney?'

  Barney hesitated. Didn't want to get into any conversations about what had happened, which he obviously would if they went to the pub; but then, he had to find out if Bill suspected him of anything and whether or not he intended going to the police.

  He was about to accept when another thought struck him. It might be better if he agreed to meet him alone, down some dark alley somewhere. A dark and dangerous rendezvous. Dismissed the thought straight away. How could he arrange that here?

  The thought that he could kill all of them flitted through his head, but he managed to dismiss it before he set out on the road of giving it serious consideration.

  No, it was going to have to be dominoes in a crowded pub, and if he didn't like what Bill said, he could take it from there. The Domino Killer. That had a ring to it.

  'Why not? See if I can make up for last week,' he said, then laughed.

  'Not much chance of that,' said Bill smiling, and to anyone watching it might have seemed like there was nothing amiss.

  25

  The Queen of Diamonds

  Holdall sat in his office, feet on his desk. Idly tossing cards at the bin which lay three yards away. The floor was covered in them, while a solitary card sat in the centre of the wicker basket. The queen of diamonds; and if he wasn't mistaken, she was laughing at him.

  It was Wednesday evening. The day had dragged interminably, as had the two which had preceded it. He had his ideas of where they should be going with this case and most of them led in the direction of Barney Thomson. He'd been trying to make a few discreet inquiries regarding the man, but it was proving difficult to find anyone who knew anything about him. Barney Thomson, the barber with no personality. A cipher. The task was made ever harder by Robertson making sure he constantly had trivial and useless tasks to take care of.

  He knew fine well that Robertson didn't want him coming up with anything which might lead to the crime being solved. He was a credit-freak, needed it all to himself. Didn't care if Holdall spent his time going after the wrong m
an.

  What they needed to do was find the body of Chris Porter. If all his years of detective work had given him any nose for a crime, the whole fridge business at Porter's flat had been a set-up, and a lousy set-up at that. But where exactly were they supposed to start searching for Porter's body? His idea was to keep a strict watch on Barney Thomson, the only lead that they had, but that would've involved plenty of man hours, something which required Robertson's agreement. Knew there was no way he was going to get it. Bloody-mindedly didn't want it.

  The two of spades thudded off the back wall, plummeted into the basket. He held his arms aloft in mock appreciation of the crowd's applause, was still accepting their plaudits when MacPherson walked into the room.

  'Just had a cohesive thought?' said MacPherson, smiling.

  'Sod off, Stuart.' Lowered his hands, resumed aimlessly chucking the cards across the office. The five of clubs whizzed past the bin, flew in a wild arc, landed about four yards off target. 'Still here? Won't Mrs MacPherson be looking for you?'

  'Late night shopping at M&S.'

  'Thought that was Thursday nights just before Christmas?'

  'And Wednesday nights just before the middle of March.'

  Holdall grunted, narrowly missed with the two of diamonds. 'I wondered why I couldn't get hold of Jean when I tried earlier.' The king of clubs doubled back on itself, landed beside his chair.

  'I've got something of interest,' said MacPherson.

  'Oh, aye? Rangers managed to sign that big German full back?'

  'No, sir. It's about Barney Thomson's mother.'

  Holdall stopped, the three of hearts poised at his fingertips. 'What? The Rangers have signed Barney Thomson's mother?'

  'No, sir. She's dead.'

  Holdall released the card and it dipped narrowly short of the target. 'They definitely don't want to sign her, then. Maybe the Celtic might want her. They need a full back.' The five of clubs veered dangerously to the left, and had it been sharper of edge would have had the head off an hibiscus.

  'Chief Inspector…'

  Holdall stopped in mid toss, looked at MacPherson, laid his cards on the table, albeit not in any metaphorical sense.

  'Very well, Sergeant, what is it you're trying to tell me?'

  'Well, it seems that Mrs. Cemolina Thomson died last – '

  'Cemolina?'

  'Aye, sir, I know. Anyway, she died last week. Thursday night. Buried her on Monday. It sounded a bit far-fetched, but Jenkins did say that the packages had been handled by an old woman. So I did some checking.'

  Holdall had a stab of guilt. MacPherson worked while he tossed cards into a bucket.

  'And?'

  'It ties up. I spoke to her doctor. Says she was long down the road to senility, but he thought her harmless enough. Didn't have a problem with her staying at home. Attentive son. She stayed in a flat in Springburn.'

  Holdall turned away from MacPherson. The ace of hearts left his fingers and flew straight towards the centre of the bin. Veered wildly at the last second, missed by several feet. Next the ace of clubs missed right and his cards had been exhausted

  'So what are we saying here? That this Cemolina Thomson…I can't believe that anyone is called Cemolina…that this woman is our killer. She dies, and so the son, Barney, has to dispose of the bodies?'

  'There's more.'

  'Oh, aye? Looking for promotion?'

  'Yeah. Checked out a few things. Seemed she'd been placing an advert in a lonely hearts column. Mature woman, mid-80s, all that shite.'

  'You're kidding?'

  'Straight up. Skilled in Eastern lovemaking.'

  'Cool. Was she a looker?'

  MacPherson grimaced. 'She was eighty-five.'

  'Aye, fine.'

  'Anyway, checked her PO box, there were a couple of replies in there. Could be that's how she got the men back to her flat.'

  'Jesus. There are some sick people out there.'

  'Wanting to sleep with an eighty year-old bird isn't as sick as lopping someone's napper off and mailing it to their mother.'

  'Fair point. What about the girl, though? Louise MacDonald.'

  MacPherson shrugged.

  'Who knows? Maybe she answered the advert 'n all.'

  Holdall looked at the carpet, lost his thoughts in its plain weave. A young lesbian with a desire for an eighty-five year old woman. Was it so strange any more in these times of Gothic darkness?

  Looked up, as MacPherson was not finished.

  'And I also found out she was a member of some old women's group. You know these things where they bugger off around the country to eat scones.'

  'And?'

  'So far this year they've visited the salmon ladder at Pitlochry, Edinburgh castle, a distillery in Kingussie,' raised an eyebrow, 'Largs, for whatever it is the old yins do in Largs, some gardens in Aberdeen, and Ayr.'

  Holdall let out a low whistle. The towns where the body parts had been posted from.

  'Bloody hell, MacPherson. You're full of surprises. How long'd it take you to find all this out?'

  'Few hours.'

  Holdall stared. What had he done for the last few hours? Had had a cup of tea and a Mars bar; checked that night's TV schedule; tossed cards at a bin. It was about time that he got his hunger back.

  'Good work, Stuart,' he said. Meant it.

  'Thank you, sir.'

  'Right. So what have we got? This old woman attracts young blokes back to her flat. Kills them somehow, chops up the bodies. Goes off on one of her day trips and mails a well-wrapped part of the body back to the family. Sounds plausible. But where do Wullie Henderson and Chris Porter come into it? They died, assuming that Porter is dead, either side of the mother, if she died on Thursday night.'

  'Maybe Thomson killed Henderson completely independently of his mother…'

  'But Jenkins said that the old woman had left traces of whatever the hell it was on Henderson's body parts as well.'

  'Then maybe she just happened to kill Henderson as her next victim, and never got around to sending a bit of him off in the post. Whatever, one of them did for Henderson, and then Porter finds out about it and Thomson has to see him off 'n all. And then he hatched the plan to incriminate Porter. Or maybe he just bumped off Porter in order to incriminate him. Let's face it sir, if that's it, it's worked like a dancer.'

  Holdall sat back, rubbed his chin. He liked it. It was all circumstantial, but it had a good feel to it. An honest feel about it, which Chris Porter running off to London leaving a hand cooking in a pot didn't have.

  'Stuart, I'm impressed. I like this, and we've got to go with it, regardless of what that eejit Robertson says. We need to do some more checking on this mother, and I think we should have another word with Mr. Thomson in the next day or two.'

  'Aye, sir.'

  MacPherson smiled determinedly, walked out of the office. Holdall got off his chair to pick up the cards. Thank God for that. They had something to go on, at last, and a decent working hypothesis. No point in taking it to McMenemy yet, because he was as bad as Robertson, but in a couple of days they might have made enough inroads into the thing to be able to go public. Or they might have made complete idiots of themselves.

  He winced at the thought, sat back in his seat and watched as the ace of spades flew straight into the centre of the bin. Then bounced out and landed four feet away in the base of a plant.

  *

  Bill and Barney were involved in another life and death struggle on the dominoes pitch. They'd both been putting so much concentration into it because neither man wanted to talk about what they were both there to talk about. So, apart from a brief argument about who should buy the first round, hardly a word had been exchanged.

  Finally, after a few intricate stratagems involving double fours and threes, Bill had wrapped up his third game in a row. A little silent resentment from Barney and it was time to talk.

  They sipped solemnly on their beers, waiting for the other to start. Barney had no wish to encourage him; Bill,
the Great Diplomat, once again had no idea where to begin.

  'So, Barney,' he said eventually, the art of subtlety still a mystery to him, 'any idea what's happened to Chris?'

  Barney took a long draw from his pint this time.

  'No, I don't. Or as much as you, at any rate, given what I've read in the papers. And if you're here to imply anything else, then you might as well get on with it.'

  Bill held aloft a conciliatory hand. He had no desire to get straight into any argument but at the same time he saw no reason for delicacy. It was just over a week since they'd sat in the same bar and Barney had told him how much he hated Wullie and Chris.

  'You really think that Chris killed Wullie, Barney? They were mates. Chris couldn't have killed anybody.'

  'And I could?'

  Bill shook his head, wondered again about Barney being so aggressively defensive.

  'Calm down, Barney. Whatever happened, it's obvious that someone killed Wullie, and I'm just saying that it's right odd that it should be Chris of all people. Such a nice lad, and the two of them getting on so well and all that.'

  Barney hesitated. Perhaps he had been overdoing it a little. He nodded. He was going to have to get into the persona of someone who hadn't killed his two work colleagues and disposed of six other bodies, and be convincing about it. The police had left him alone for the moment but it didn't mean they wouldn't be back. And if he couldn't convince Bill, he certainly wasn't going to be able to convince that bastard MacPherson.

  'You're right, Bill. I know you're not accusing me of anything. It's just been an awful week, what with they two dying, and my mother 'n all.'

  Bill nodded. Was feeling guilty enough about accusing Barney that the words didn't register. This man was his oldest friend after all. He had to stop so lightly accusing him of murder. Or worse, as it was now. It went a lot further than that, if the papers were anything to go by. There was some psychopath on the loose, and whoever it was, it surely wasn't going to be his old dominoes partner. But then surely it wasn't Chris either.