The Long Midnight Of Barney Thomson (Barney Thomson #1)

by Douglas Lindsay

  He shrugged and stared at the floor. 'I just met this girl, Mum, you know. She was really nice. Anyway, I spent the night with her, nothing happened! And then we went away for the day yesterday. Millport.' Ah, Millport, thought Holdall. Land of Fantasy. Or was he confusing it with California? 'I tried phoning but, honest I did, Mum, but you weren't in. Then I ended up spending the night last night 'n all.' He turned to Holdall. 'How, am I in trouble?' he said.

  Holdall shook his head and laid his hand on the lad's shoulder. 'No, son, you're not in trouble.' He smiled and began to walk past him. Stopped, looked the boy in the eye. 'Was she a babe?'

  Stuart Hutchinson – The Hutch to his friends – looked surprised, then the smile broke onto his face.

  'She's a wee stoatir,' he said.

  Holdall grinned and turned to the mother. 'We'll see ourselves out, thank you, Mrs. Hutchinson.'

  He walked from the sitting room with MacPherson at his heels and as they opened the front door they could hear the woman begin to berate her son in earnest now that they'd gone. They stood out in the light rain for a second, looking at the dank and depressing street before them. Lost in thought.

  'This is a lousy job, Sergeant,' said Holdall, beginning to trudge towards the car.

  'Bloody right it is,' replied MacPherson, following on, his stride nevertheless the more purposeful.

  They got into the car and MacPherson studied the list he was carrying with him.

  'Just one more to go, sir. A William Henderson. The barber.'

  Holdall winced at the thought that this one might prove to be more serious than the others, started the engine and drove off into the gloom.

  12

  Interview With

  A Barber

  Big Billy McGoldrick was in danger of getting his ear cut off, so animated was he becoming in the discussion; constantly trying to turn his head to look at Chris.

  'But why,' he said, 'why is it that our teams can't beat anyone in Europe? Christ, we lose to them all these days. Teams we'd have pumped the pants offa twenty years ago. All they wee pish teams. Now we're the wee pish teams.'

  Chris studied the back of McGoldrick's head, executed a couple of smooth moves, the scissors sizzling in his fingers, then straightened up, catching his eye in the mirror.

  'Cause, and this is what I keep trying to tell you, they play cultured football, not like our kick and rush game. With us it's all heads down and last one in the penalty area's a big poof.'

  McGoldrick shook his head, narrowly avoiding a scissor in the ear. 'Aye, all very well, but why can't we play cultured football, if they can do it? It's places like Turkey and Latvia for Christ's sake, we're talking about here, not Brazil.'

  'Because the fans wouldn't stand for it. Nobody in Scotland wants to see cultured football, do they?'

  'Are you saying that I don't like cultured football?' McGoldrick said, straightening his shoulders and slightly raising his head, changing forever the course of the growth of his hair.

  'Who does in Scotland?' said Chris, already beginning to make the necessary adjustments. 'I mean, look. Do any of us really want to see our team come out and fanny about in the midfield like a bunch of Jessies? It's not the Scottish mentality. If the Thistle haven't scored after about ten minutes, we're all baying like dogs for them to blooter the ball up the park as hard as possible. That's what Scottish football's all about.'

  McGoldrick looked doubtful, but Chris was flowing, the barber in his element.

  'It's typical of the generally aggressive nature of Scottish behavioural patterns. It's like if two blokes get into a fight in a pub. What do they do? Do they glass each other, or do they pass the ball about in midfield?'

  McGoldrick held up his hand and made to reply, but Barney switched off, tried not to listen to the rest. He was in the middle of a haircut and had already committed two or three too many stinkers today; didn't want to do any more.

  He was attempting to embrace denial but it wasn't easy. Combined with worry about what Cemolina would do with the corpse and worry about what he would say to the police when they finally showed up, as he was expecting the inevitable, his head was a mess. Much the same as most of the customers he'd dealt with this black day.

  Moira had phoned the shop that morning to say there was still no sign of Wullie, and had asked Chris if he knew of anywhere he might have gone. If Chris was worried about Wullie's disappearance, he wasn't showing, telling himself that Wullie had probably just gone off somewhere, got drunk, and fallen in with some woman. He would stagger home later that day, an apologetic look on his face and a stream of spectacular excuses pushing each other out of the way in order to be first to get to his mouth.

  Barney surveyed the task in which he was currently embroiled, and wondered about how hideously wrong it had already gone. The man had asked for a Charlton Heston '86, always a tricky proposition, but especially so since Barney's hands were shaking; involuntary spasms, sporadic bursts. Barney had been tempted to suggest that his customers take out ear insurance before they sat down. Thought, however, that if he had nothing to do but sit and brood he would feel even worse.

  Of the customers that had come in looking for Wullie, some had immediately departed on finding him not there and the rest had mostly gone to Chris. There were a couple who'd reluctantly agreed to be prey to Barney's fickle hand, being rewarded with hair which received a fright every time it looked in a mirror.

  It had been a long morning, and Barney was in the middle of his Charlton Heston, when he finally got what he'd been expecting. Two men walked into the shop, their coats buttoned up against the rain. They looked miserable and unhappy, but it wasn't the usual misery of men coming to get their hair cut. They stood for a few seconds looking at the barbers and then one of them walked forward, his hands fishing around in his pockets. Finally he produced his card, holding it up between Chris and Barney.

  'Chief Inspector Holdall, Maryhill. I wonder if I could have a word with you two gentlemen?'

  'Is it about Wullie?' asked Chris. The police, instant worry. Same for Barney, but for different reasons.

  'Yes, it's about Mr Henderson.' Holdall waved a hand at Barney and Chris, moved to sit down. 'The two of you finish what you're doing, and we'll speak to you then. It shouldn't take too long.'

  They sat down at the end of the queue. The two customers ahead of them looked nervous at the closeness of the law and shuffled as much as they could towards the other end of the long bench. Finally the strain became too much for one of them and he stiffly rose and walked quickly from the shop. MacPherson looked suspiciously after him. He'd arrested people for less, but Holdall quelled his enthusiasm with a wave of the hand. Whatever reason the man had to remove himself from the presence of the police, it wasn't their problem. If they chased every idiot who looked suspicious… and he let the thought run away.

  Barney, meanwhile, was considering doing the same thing, but managed to talk himself out of it. Instead, he attempted to concentrate on the haircut which he was committing. Fortunately, in a Charlton Heston '86, there's more blow-drying and brushing to be done than scissor work. Consequently, after he laid down the scissors, the very instruments of death from the previous evening, he found that his hands stopped shaking, and the work with the hair-dryer became altogether more straightforward. So much so, that to his dismay, he finished his job off before Chris. Thought: bugger. He'd be first to interview, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  The customer seemed reasonably content with his thatch – he knew a girl in his local who went mad for men with Charlton Heston '86 haircuts – and after thrusting an extra couple of pounds into Barney's hand, walked suspiciously past the police and out of the shop. Barney swallowed hard, tried to compose himself the best he could, and turned to face his tormentors. Couldn't open his mouth, not yet trusting his vocal cords, but stood in front of them looking like a stuffed fish.

  Holdall and MacPherson walked towards him.

  'Is there somewhere we can talk?' said H
oldall, doing his best to keep the disinterest from his voice.

  Barney waved his hand towards the door at the back of the shop, in off the alcove, behind the fifth seat – a place of mystery for the customers who never got to see what went on within – and he led them into the room. It was not large; used mostly as a store room, although there were a couple of chairs so the barbers could nip out and take a break should the work allow. There was a large window in the back of the room, with bars across, looking out onto a grim and tiny courtyard, where the rain fell on dirty and cracked stones. Barney looked through the bars, considered that this could be his fate, and turned to the policemen after they had closed the door.

  MacPherson produced his notebook, prepared to start. Holdall pulled out one of the seats and prepared to look bored. The shop and this back room depressed him and he was beginning to think that he couldn't blame one of the barbers for wanting to run away from it.

  'Mr Thomson or Mr Porter?' asked MacPherson.

  'Thomson,' muttered Barney, still not entirely trusting himself to open his mouth.

  'Why don't you take a seat, Mr Thomson?'

  'I prefer to stand, thanks.' Barbers were used to standing.

  'Very well.'

  MacPherson studied his notes. Barney tried to prepare himself to do his best to hide his guilt. This was just routine, he said to himself, routine. They had to speak to him; he was the last person who would say he saw Wullie. It didn't mean they suspected anything.

  'Mr Thomson, this is just a routine missing persons inquiry. Moira Henderson has reported her husband missing since late yesterday afternoon. Now, she told us that you were the last person she knows to have spoken to him. Is that correct?'

  Barney considered his answer, as he would do after every question; all the better to avoid self-incrimination.

  'Aye, aye, that's right. He, eh, left here about quarter past five, as far as I can remember.'

  'And did he say where he was going?'

  Another pause. 'No, no, he didn't. He just said something about going to the shops, but he didn't say which shops, you know. He asked me to lock up, then he left. That's all really, I think.'

  MacPherson made a couple of scribbles in his notebook, lifted his head to look at Barney.

  'He didn't mention going anywhere else, or going away or anything?'

  'No, no, nothing like that.'

  'And was it normal for Mr. Henderson to go to the shops after work?'

  Barney shrugged, almost too hastily. Held it back, looked non-committal. 'I don't know. I didn't really know what he did outside the shop, you know, we weren't really friends.'

  MacPherson raised his eyebrow, looked at Barney in such a way as to make him feel extremely uncomfortable. Barney tried to think of what he had just said and how it might have been incriminating.

  'You were not really friends, Mr Thomson?' MacPherson's voice was low and hard, Holdall looked up with some interest. What was he doing, he wondered. 'Surely you mean, you are not friends? Or d'you suspect something might have happened to Mr Henderson which you're not telling us about?'

  Barney let a laugh ejaculate from some unknown region of his throat, an attempted dismissive, apologetic laugh, which unfortunately sounded as if he had just murdered someone and been caught with the scissors in his hands.

  'Aye, aye, of course. We are not friends. That's what I meant. Slip of the tongue. You know how it is, eh?'

  MacPherson slowly lifted an eyebrow. Mr Spock never looked so cool. 'How what is, Mr Thomson?'

  Holdall watched his sergeant with some fascination. MacPherson was taking the piss out of the barber, trying to make him as uncomfortable as possible. He shrugged. Why not? It was one of the few pleasures left to the police; to put people to as much discomfort and unease as they could. And, he had to admit, there was no better exponent of the art than MacPherson.

  'Oh, you know, nothing. You know how it is when you get interviewed by the polis. You always get worried, even when you haven't accidentally stabbed someone with a pair of scissors,' – what are you saying! – 'which of course I haven't, and well, you know, and you, eh, know how it is.' He finally shut up, stood with a stupid grin on his face.

  Holdall watched with wonder, found himself almost bursting out laughing. MacPherson was a genius. Here was some poor sap who had nothing whatsoever to do with the guy disappearing and the sergeant had him acting like he was in the dock on a multiple murder charge.

  MacPherson stared thoughtfully at him; tapped his pen on the notebook. Brilliant, thought Holdall, brilliant.

  'And where was your colleague, Mr Porter, when Mr Henderson left the shop?'

  Barney relaxed. An easy one, thank God. 'He'd gone home early, at about three o'clock, because we were so quiet. Wullie sent him home.'

  'And does that happen often?'

  Another easy one. Holdall smiled. Another calm before the storm, if he wasn't much mistaken. Relax them, then grab them by the balls. Terrific fun.

  'No, no,' said Barney, easily. 'I don't know what happened yesterday. Just a quiet day, I suppose.'

  'So, how many customers were there in the shop?'

  Jings, this is a dawdle, thought Barney, an absolute dawdle. 'Oh, I don't know. Maybe fifteen all day. Not many.'

  MacPherson nodded, scratched behind his ear with the pen. Time to crank it up again. Holdall knew what was coming, enjoyed the show.

  'And do you and Mr Henderson get along all right, seeing as you're not really friends?'

  Shit, what did he say now? He could hardly lie, because they could easily find him out from Chris. The truth it would have to be, however incriminating.

  'No, I don't suppose we did get…do, do get along very well.'

  'Why is that Mr Thomson? Everyone else we've spoken to seems to think he's a nice enough guy. What's so different about you?'

  Everybody else they've spoken to! Who the hell could that be? Holdall almost guffawed. This was wonderful. The Godfather, Part II of police interviews. Hard, powerful, but cracking entertainment. Wait until the lads down the station heard about it. MacPherson was a genius.

  'Eh, I, eh, don't really know. Just a personality clash, I suppose. Different generations, interested in different things, you know. Something like that.'

  MacPherson nodded, looked doubtful.

  'I don't like football,' muttered Barney in his defence. Quite the wrong thing to say to MacPherson, who looked at Barney as if he suspected him of being a master criminal.

  Barney heard his heart beating faster and faster, hoped they would be done with him soon. What else could they have to ask him, after all?

  'We understand that Mr. Henderson is about to ask you to leave the shop. Had he done that yet, Mr. Thomson?'

  Barney's mouth opened slightly, the return of the stuffed fish look, hook in upper lip.

  Oh God! Answer that! They must have spoken to Wullie's father. Bloody hell, if they knew that, maybe they'd suspect him of anything. Maybe they'd already spoken to Charlie Johnstone. Maybe they were about to arrest him…

  A thought struck him, uncomfortable, unpleasant. Why were two detectives doing a routine missing persons inquiry? Surely it should be a couple of uniforms. They must already suspect something. Shit, shit, shit. What was he going to say? Only one thing to do. Deny everything!

  'Jings, I'm sorry to look shocked, you know, but I hadn't heard that, no. They were going to sack me? Who told you that?'

  He looked hopefully at the sergeant, wondering if his acting had been of sufficient merit. MacPherson studied his notebook, raised his eyes.

  'We understand from Mr Henderson's father, a Mr James Henderson, that he intended to tell you yesterday.'

  Barney shook his head, mumbled a denial, stared at the floor; a child with crumbs around his lips denying having broken into the biscuit tin.

  MacPherson raised the eyebrow once more, then scribbled something else in the notebook. Decided to put Barney out of his misery. Certainly he was acting a little suspiciously, but th
en so would anyone if you treated them the right way. They were looking for a serial killer, not some boring old barber who wet his pants the minute the police hoved into view.

  'I don't think there's anything else for the moment, Mr Thomson. We may want to speak to you again, however. You're not thinking of going anywhere, are you?'

  Barney stared at him, eyes wide. No, he hadn't been thinking of going anywhere, but now that he'd mentioned it. It was obvious. That'd be the easiest way out. Run away! Disappear up to the Highlands or down to England. Or France even. Just get out of Glasgow.

  'No, I'm not going anywhere.'

  'Right then, Mr Thomson. When you go out, will you ask your colleague to come in here, please?'

  Barney nodded, tried not to show the smile of relief which itched to burst free all over his face. Nodded at Holdall, walked back into the shop.

  'Brilliant, Sergeant,' said Holdall smiling, when the door was closed, 'you took the piss out of that guy something rotten.'

  MacPherson looked quizzically at him. 'What d'you mean, sir?'

  Holdall didn't answer and stared disconsolately at the floor.

  Barney walked back into the shop, relief smothering him. For all their questions, the police obviously didn't suspect him of anything. And why should they? He was also comforted by the thought of running away from it all; imagined a variety of exotic locations. America would be a good one; didn't think they played football there.

  Chris was half way through a regulation short back and sides, and almost finished a half-hearted discussion on how Partick Thistle could best go about winning the league. He looked at Barney as he came through the door.

  'They'd like a word with you now, Chris,' he said.

  'Aye, ok.'

  'D'you want me to finish that off?'

  The customer's strangled cry of no! was cut off by Chris's acceptance, and Barney, with new lightness in his heart, new vigour, went about his business with a whistle on his lips and a nimbleness in his fingers. Suddenly he was a man transformed, in all his relief almost able to forget his troubles. He polished off the haircut to general satisfaction and had started on another before Chris emerged back into the shop, a worried look on his face, the police close behind.