'All right, Spaceman. I think maybe we should get back to the subject in hand.'
Proudfoot looked at Mulholland. Saw the vague embarrassment and allowed herself to laugh. First time in months. Light relief. No thought for the nature of the crime they were investigating, for it seemed as if that was taking place in some parallel universe.
Spaceman held up his hands. Despite the fact that he hadn't even been trying, Mulholland had got him talking, and now he was prepared to discuss anything. Tongue loosened, he'd got the woman to lighten up, and now that she was smiling Spaceman could see that she was all right. Nice-looking bit of stuff. If he could nail her, he thought, it'd be a good one to tell his mates. Not that he could tell Jason.
'All right,' he said. 'He was a poof.'
The smile died on Proudfoot's face. Not at the information, but at the return to formality; the return to the other universe where people got murdered.
Mulholland straightened up. Eyes open. Mind almost kicked into gear.
'Ballater was gay?'
'Aye,' said Spaceman. 'He was on the game.'
'You serious? He was married. He was thirty-three, he wasn't some spotty youth with no money. He was on the game?'
Christ, he thought. Does no one lead a normal life any more?
'That was wee Jason, I'm afraid. Confused, you know. Decent upbringing on the one hand, had a good set of values and all that stuff. Then on the other hand, he was a raging bum artist. He did it for a bit of extra cash when he was a lad, and never really lost the habit. Didn't do it that often these days, you know. Knew it was wrong, 'n' all that, but he couldn't kick it.'
'And his wife?'
'Doesn't know a thing. I knew he was doing it, 'cause he'd give us a call and ask us to cover for him. You know. I didn't really approve, but seeing as I felt a bit guilty 'cause I used tae shag his missus on a Saturday when he was at the fitba', I used to do it for him.'
'And Tuesday night?'
Spaceman shrugged. 'Same as usual. Gave us a call at work. Said he was going down the Pink Flamingo. That was his wee code word for when he was hitting the streets. Anyway, there you are.'
Mulholland settled back in his chair. Sometimes, just when you weren't looking for it, a breakthrough hit you smack in the face. Something that had seemed dead-end and random suddenly had meaning to it, and various different avenues opened up in front of you.
'You know anyone else from that side of his life?'
Spaceman reeled. 'Arse bandits? You kidding me? I didn't want to know any of that mob, mate. No chance.'
Mulholland rubbed his forehead. Stakes had been raised. There was some serious work to be done, and none of it would have anything to do with Barney Thomson. As long as he could get McMenemy to see that.
He looked at Proudfoot, but she had swum back into her reserve, and her eyes were once more rooted to the table, her fingers tapping out the beat. Perhaps she was even less likely to be of use than he himself, he thought.
McMenemy had made a mistake ordering him to do it, and he had made a mistake asking Proudfoot.
'I also shagged his aunt, by the way. D'you want to know all about that?'
And The Beast Enters Once More The Fray
The tall man coughed. It was a gentle, high-pitched cough. Sounded like a girl. He looked around the room, smiling at the others as best he could. The scar between his nose and his top lip hindered him in this. As ever.
The weekly meeting of the crowd, after the extraordinary general meeting called by Socrates McCartney three days earlier. Bloody show-off, Sammy Gilchrist had thought. And here he was now, with his own evil and his own desire to return to ways of old.
'For those of you who don't know me,' he began, as he always began, even though they all knew him well, even those who had yet to hear his tale, 'my name's Sammy. A few years ago I murdered some total bastard, and I have to admit, as I stand before you all, I want to do it again. Not to the same bastard, of course. Another bastard.'
He broke off and noticed the few knowing nods around the group. As far as they knew, of all of them, Billy Hamilton's designs on Mark Eason included, Gilchrist's was the greatest need to repeat his crime. Gilchrist was the one most haunted by the past, and now haunted by the present. The whims and tastes and growing frustrations of Morty Goldman were unknown to them, for when Morty spoke, he never spoke the truth.
'Has she been in touch again?' asked Katie Dillinger.
Sammy Gilchrist scoffed, a noise like a pig's grunt.
'Not her,' he said. 'It's never bloody her, is it? It's always Julian bastarding Cruikshank. That's Julian bastarding Cruikshank of Bastard, Bastard, Bastard, Cruikshank and Bastard, for those of you who don't know. I mean, I hate that guy. No top lip, a moustache that's even more stupid than Wee Billy's here, and those suits that you know cost more than your house. But it's a rational hate, all the same. I can see both sides. The bloke's only doing his job, you know. If it wasn't him it would be some other bastarding lawyer, so that doesn't bother me so much. Really it doesn't, despite the suits and the moustache. It's that bastarding woman that pisses me off.'
'Your ex-wife?' asked Annie Webster. She had never heard Sammy Gilchrist's story, had only heard tell of it from others. She knew there was an ex-wife lurking in the background.
'No, no, not her,' he said. 'She's all right. I mean, I can't blame her for what she did. It was my own fault, you know? But I'm sort of ambivalent towards her now. If I see her again, fine. If I don't, fine. You know? If it wasn't for Priscilla, I'd probably never give her a second's thought.'
'Who's Priscilla?' asked Webster. 'That the woman you want to kill?'
'No, no, that's my daughter, you know. Wee Priscilla. Going to be a golfer, I think. A golfer.'
'I'm confused,' said Webster.
'Tell Annie your story,' said Dillinger.
'Do I have to?'
'It's good to get it out, Sammy,' she said. 'You know that.'
'What's the point?' he said. 'You know whenever I tell it, it just gets my back up and I want to get out there and kill the bastarding bastard all over again.'
'But that's not what it's about, Sammy. We're all here for you, and you're here for us. When you let yourself down, then you let us all down. Tell your story and maybe we can help you. If not ...'
'You all know the bastarding story.'
They locked eyes. She could talk for twenty minutes, thought Dillinger, and she wouldn't get anywhere. Every time she spoke to him, she knew he was getting closer. There were many of those here who she knew she had saved from the act of murder. In fact, since she'd started the group she'd never really lost a member – so she thought, although she had her suspicions – but of all of them, Sammy Gilchrist was the closest. Closer than Billy Hamilton, with his pointless jealousies, closer than Annie Webster, with her intimacy issues, closer, for the moment, than Morty Goldman and his taste for fine meats, and closer than she herself, and she twitched at the thought.
'I don't,' said Annie Webster. 'I'd like to hear it.'
Sammy Gilchrist stared at her, and received a warm stare in reply. Billy Hamilton noticed it too, and wondered if Gilchrist was thinking the same thing that he'd thought when he'd told his story for Annie Webster. And so his mind wandered, and he wondered if maybe he shouldn't just eliminate Gilchrist from the equation, so that when he made his move at the Christmas weekend there would be no unnecessary competition.
'Aye, all right, love,' said Gilchrist.
Love! thought Billy Hamilton, and his eyes never left Annie Webster for the duration of the story, and not once did her eyes leave Sammy Gilchrist. Just a Murderers Anonymous prostitute, he'd come to think, moving from one hardened killer to the next, glorying in the danger.
'It was about ten year ago. I'd been married for about three year. No big deal, you know. We were getting on all right. The odd fight, and all that, but nothing major, and things were about as good as they're going to get. Had a lovely wee girl, just about a year old; I did have to trav
el through to Edinburgh every day for the work, which was a bit shitey, but that was about it. Used to go and watch the Thistle every now and again, you know the score. An ordinary life.
'So one night me and Janice, that's the wife, are sitting in a restaurant with the bairn. One of these family places with plenty of weans in, and our wee one, Priscilla, tucking into a plate of macaroni. The name's a bit of a nightmare, but the missus was a big Elvis fan. So I was sort of glad we didn't have a boy. Anyway, there was a wee lassie behind us, about ten or eleven, who caught sight of the bairn, and Priscilla starts up with that goofy smile she had. She's miserable as shite now, of course, but she can hit a three-iron further than I can. So she starts smiling at the lassie, and this wee lassie smiles back. Priscilla was looking as cute as you like; a wee stunner, you know, absolutely magic, and this wee lassie was obviously besotted with her.
'Anyway, we bugger off and they bugger off, not a word is exchanged. And that's that, you know.'
He looked around the room. They all, Webster excepted, knew what was coming; but they were engrossed just the same. The next part never ceased to amaze. Only Billy Hamilton was distracted. Only Billy Hamilton did not stare at Sammy Gilchrist, although his thoughts were all for him.
'So, jump about a year. We're back in the same place. First time since the last, you know. Sure enough, sitting at the same table as before are this wee lassie and her father. No mum, but there's another bairn this time. Really young, you know, maybe just a couple of months old. Didn't really remember them myself, but Janice recognised them. Course, this time Priscilla wasn't bothering her arse. She was two by then, so she was already getting to be bitter and cynical about the hand she'd been dealt. So there's no smiling going on, but the other wee lassie looks happy enough.
'So I wasn't bothering my backside, but this other bastarding bloke comes up and starts chatting away and all that, you know. Nice as ninepence, seemed like a reasonable bloke. The bastard ends up sitting having a drink and all that, and the wife is quite taken with his latest wean and she exchanges names and phone numbers and all the rest of it, and there you are. A pleasant evening had by all, so you might think. Aye, well right.
'The bastard never phones, of course, and we never phone him 'cause we don't really give a shite. We forget about him, and then, a couple of months later, we get absolutely, sure as eggs is sodding eggs, bastarding shafted up the arse something rotten. A pole-axe up the jacksy. You know what it was?'
He stared at Annie Webster; Billy Hamilton fizzed. So she showed an interest in everyone's story? She put herself about, sold her favours so easily. A week ago he'd thought she might be the one for him. Now what? She was a whore, nothing more. A tuppence-ha'penny bitch; spread 'em and bed 'em. Billy Hamilton viciously rubbed the palms of his hands.
'It was a letter from some big-shot lawyer. Julian Cruikshank to be precise. It was a law suit. This bastarding eejit was suing me and the missus. Well, in fact, he wasn't suing me and the missus, he was suing Priscilla. It seems like the previous time we had dinner, their wee girl had been so besotted with our baby that she'd decided she wanted one of her own. So she went off shagging. She was ten years old, and she went out to get whatever she could find. Got pregnant within a couple of months to some fifteen-year-old hackbut who'd been on the brain transplant waiting list since birth. She didn't know what she was doing – Christ, she was ten years old. However, the minute they find out she's up the duff, the bloke decides it's all our fault since it was seeing Priscilla that made their wean want a baby in the first place. So he sues her. Priscilla. Sure as you like, can't bastarding believe it, he sues our two-year-old girl for undue influence, and for inciting his stupid little shit of a daughter into getting herself up the duff. Absolutely bloody incredible. What a litigious society we live in, eh? Can you believe it, Annie, love?'
She shook her head, and their eyes looked across the few yards of floor and became one.
'That's just weird,' she said.
Billy Hamilton's nostrils flared.
'I mean, to be fair to his missus at the time, she thought he was an absolute Spamhead. She was mad about the whole bloody thing, apparently. And it turned out that ever since they'd learned about their wean, he'd brought her to the same restaurant every night waiting for us to return. Which was why the missus wasn't there, 'cause she thought he was a moron.
'Anyway, some things are stupid, and some things are unbelievably, incredibly, bastarding stupid. That the bastard sued at all was the stupid part. The incredible bit of it was that he won. The court ordered that Priscilla, the now three-year-old Priscilla, had to support this other baby, who was two years younger than her, until she was sixteen. And pay over a hundred thousand pounds' worth of damages to the father for emotional distress.'
'You're kidding!' said Annie Webster.
Tart! Billy Hamilton wanted to scream.
'If I was, love,' said Sammy Gilchrist, 'I wouldn't be here now. So, you know, I did what any father would have done. I knew the bloke was the driving force behind it all, and that the missus probably wouldn't pursue it if he wasn't around. So, I killed the bastard. Took a day off work, waited for him to emerge from his house in the morning, then knifed the guy in the back, as he deserved.
'So that was that. It was broad daylight, a reasonably busy street. I was caught, slammed in the nick, and the bloke's bastarding wife screwed us for everything we had. Janice was broke, so she buggered off with Priscilla to stay with some cousin in Canada. Divorced me in the nick, married her cousin's ex-wife, one of these weird lesbian things, which I'm not even going to try to understand, and now I see Priscilla about once a year. The only decent thing about it was that the judge could see the sense of my actions, and gave me a pretty skimpy sentence. Got out after a few year, and now here I am. Sad, alone, miserable as a bastarding donkey.'
'You poor thing,' said Webster. 'You poor thing.'
'Aye, well, that may be. Anyway, our lawyers suggested we sued him back. Can't even remember what it was he said we should sue him for, but you know what they're like. Self-perpetuating bastards the lot of them. Turn everything to their favour, to give themselves as much work as possible. He said we should sue the father, the mother, the judge, the jury, and the owner of the restaurant. But I wasn't going for all that crap. I just wanted to get out there and get an old-fashioned revenge. You know ...'
The door behind him slowly opened, and he took his eyes off Annie Webster for the first time in ten minutes and turned and looked as Barney Thomson made his first entrance into the Bearsden chapter of Murderers Anonymous.
Barney stood and stared, feeling nervous. Sammy Gilchrist stared back, as did the others. Billy Hamilton, the self-self-self of Billy Hamilton, wondered if this was the Feds come to bust him. But the man before them clearly did not possess the thuggish confidence of the average copper.
'Barney?' said Dillinger. 'Barney Thomson?'
'Aye,' said Barney. 'That's me.'
Glances were thrown around the room. Not Oh jings, we have a feverish, rabid serial killer in our midst glances, however. More of a Here we go again, another Barney Thomson sort of a glance, seeing this was the third Barney Thomson they'd had visit them in a year. The hardest looks, however, were reserved for Dillinger, as she would have sanctioned the visit.
'Glad you could make it, Barney,' she said. 'Why don't you come in and take a seat. Sammy's telling his story.'
'Aye,' said Barney. 'Aye, right, no bother.'
And so Barney entered the very midst of the group and took a seat between young Billy Hamilton and Fergus Flaherty the Fernhill Flutist. They all looked suspiciously at him, all except for Annie Webster, who embraced him with a huge smile, realising that this might be her chance to associate with a legend. Or even sleep with a legend.
Barney was embarrassed and wondered, even in his nervousness, if she fancied him. There was a bit of the Sean Connery about him, these days, after all. Billy Hamilton decided that he'd probably kill Barney at some point, althoug
h he did not yet know if it would be before or after Sammy Gilchrist.
'Where was I?' asked Sammy Gilchrist, not best pleased by the interruption; not when it was another Barney Thomson. He looked at Annie Webster for a reply, but she was too busy staring at the legend across the semicircle.
Sammy grated his teeth.
'The law suit,' said Katie Dillinger. She'd handled worse than the likes of Sammy Gilchrist in a mildly bothered mood.
'Aye,' said Gilchrist, becoming the second of the coterie to look Barney over with a professional eye. 'The law suit. Christ, I don't know what happened at the time, maybe I should just have sued the bastard. But you know what it's like these days. You can't open a newspaper without seeing the story of some eejit suing some other eejit. A bird suing her ex-husband; a bloke with a bad haircut suing the barber.' Barney winced, decided to avoid eye contact with Sammy Gilchrist. 'Some polis who witnessed a crime suing the chief constable for post-traumatic stress disorder. Surgeons suing health authorities 'cause they're scared of blood, pilots suing airlines 'cause they're scared of flying, priests suing the Church 'cause they can't have sex. There was even one where some heid-the-ba' crashed his motor 'cause he didn't take his cardboard sun protector off the windscreen, then sued because it didn't say you had to on the back of it. It's just bloody stupid, the whole thing. So I thought, well, bugger that, I'm not suing any bastard. It just seemed more honest to knife the guy. No arsing about, just a good old-fashioned stabbing. No shite, no law suits, no ridiculous claims for staggering amounts of cash. Honest.' He delivered the last word with a stab of the finger. Not often that murder could be called honest, but in his case he felt it justified.
It took some of the others back. How honest had they themselves been? And none of them thought of prior misdeeds more than Annie Webster, who was no longer looking at Sammy Gilchrist, or the legend that was Barney Thomson. Instead she stared at the floor and thought of Chester Mackay, among others, and of her miserable past.
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 62