'Well, all right, maybe fire isn't so bad a word.'
There was a swift swish of arm against pycnidium blue duvet and Honeyfoot was looking at a 7.62mm calibre handgun with silencer attachment. She attempted the word 'what', but there came nothing but a strange little ejaculation of air.
The last thing she saw was the smile of her killer. All transpired so quickly, she didn't have time to move. Or think. Or react in any way. Just die.
Doof.
A sterile thud, and man that was all she wrote for Melanie Honeyfoot.
The blood soaked into the sheets and into the duvet cover, so that it began to look less like pycnidium blue and a bit more like hacienda maroon. And, as Honeyfoot's killer blew purposelessly over the top of the silencer and rose smoothly from the bed, the clock clicked round to 0640 and Good Morning Scotland blurted on, with talk of a warm front, sunny blue skies and an Indian summer.
Then Shall The Dust Return To The Earth As It Was: And The Spirit Shall Return Unto God Who Gave It
Sometimes when the sun hits you first thing in the morning, bursting in through open curtains and creeping slowly across the floor, the warmth on your face is glorious. A delicious sensation that conjures up myriad remembrances; of warm summer days lying in fields, the buzz of insects and white clouds lazily drifting behind trees; of ice cream in the garden and adults drinking tea; of sandy beaches and laughing children and cold seas trundling facetiously up the sand; of long cycles along country lanes, the crunch of tyres on gravel, the bike juddering in your hands; of lying on grass-covered hills, the burble of a nearby stream mingling with the distant din of a jet, inching across the blue sky.
And sometimes it just plain bites you on the arse.
Barney Thomson sat up quickly in bed, the sun harsh on his face. He looked around the room and did not recognise it. Nothing. Not the maroon carpet, nor the walls painted cream to pick out the simple floral design on the floor, nor the rich furnishings, nor the clothes folded neatly over the back of a chair.
He let his head fall back onto his pillow and pulled the light, summer duvet over his face. Lying covered up, with his head enshrouded, somehow seemed more natural and the ugly sensation with which he had woken began to fade. And in his shroud he tried to remember where he was, but nothing would come, his brain shooting in a hundred directions at once.
The knocking at the door came again, and he realised it was that which had brought him so sharply from his dreamless slumber and not the sun. He pulled the cover quickly from his face and stared at the door. Deep mahogany, solid and stern.
'Come in,' he said, and he barely recognised his own voice or even the words that came out.
The door opened and a young woman walked in, carrying a tray of breakfast materials. She smiled, her teeth were extraordinarily white, and she was dressed in dark blue. Neatly cut trousers and a top with a high, Chinese buttoned neckline. The outfit was edged with very fine red and gold, and had a beautiful presence of its own, of uniformity and of lavish, unnecessary expense.
'Nice to see you're awake, Mr Thomson,' she said, standing properly before him, after laying the tray on a large round table. 'We weren't sure what you would like to eat, so there's a selection.'
He didn't reply. She was partly blocking the sun so that it was hitting the back of her head and creating a halo effect around her bobbed blonde hair. She was beautiful. Pale. Almost celestial. And Barney Thomson suddenly wondered if he was dead.
'There's bacon,' she began again, feeling a little disconcerted by the silence, 'three types of sausage, scrambled eggs made the American way, toast, strawberry jam and marmalade, tea, coffee, milk and two breakfast cereals.' She paused, but still Barney stared at her, wondering. 'We can get you anything else should you require it, please don't hesitate to ask.'
He released his tight grip on the duvet and rested his hands on his chest. Suddenly he felt very hungry, the smell of the bacon crawling under his skin, much as it does.
'Bacon will be just fine,' he said. 'And toast.'
She smiled again and began to walk from the room, her movements balletic, her strides little hops from one foot to the next, until she stopped at the door.
'Mr Weirdlove will be along in about an hour, if you could be ready then,' she said.
Barney nodded, no doubt the look on his face belying his general immersion in confusion.
'Where am I?' he asked.
She smiled again.
'Mr Weirdlove will explain everything,' she said.
And she was gone.
Barney looked at the door for a while. Then the feeling of confusion was surpassed by the sweeps of hunger and he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and gingerly made his way to the breakfast table.
***
The next time there was a knock at the door, Barney was anew. He had eaten everything on the table, he'd had a long, glorious shower under stinging hot water, and he had dressed in the only clothes he could find in the room. An outfit not unlike that of the ambrosial creature who had delivered his breakfast.
He'd looked in the mirror, and wasn't entirely sure who was looking back. He was Barney Thomson, barber, that much was there. But the rest, what there must have been of his life, seemed distant and detached, as if the memories belonged to someone else. And so he had plunged into his breakfast, temporarily blanking his mind to the past.
He couldn't see much out of the window. A cobbled courtyard, renovated Victorian buildings across the way, walls of blue and roofs of red. He had wondered about the door and what might lie without, but something had stayed his hand so that he had not even bothered trying. The room was strange to him, but it was comfortable and reassuring and he didn't feel the urge to leave.
He'd turned on the television and watched BBC Breakfast for a while. Riots in Northern Ireland, murder in Jerusalem, the UN frantically withdrawing from another African hotspot as the machetes began to swing, economic meltdown, tension on the Kashmiri border, financial scandal and sexual excursions surrounding this quadriennium's US president. Nothing new there then.
'Come in,' he said, at the insistent knock, and the door opened. This time it was a man in his 30's, a small briefcase clutched under his arm. Blonde hair – bit of a Will Paton No Way Out – very sleek dark suit, plain tie. Parker Weirdlove.
'Good, you're ready,' he said quickly, standing at the door. 'Come on.'
Barney rose from the breakfast table, where he had been finishing off the cold remnants of the tray.
'You going to tell me what's going on?' he asked, unconsciously increasing the speed of his movements at the tone of his visitor's voice.
'I doubt it,' said Weirdlove. 'I tend not to get involved in minutiae. I'll get someone else to fill you in.'
'That's not really acceptable,' said Barney, as they walked out the door and began to stride quickly along a short hall of thick carpets and lavish artwork.
Weirdlove stopped under a painting of a distinguished looking man in his late 40s.
'Do you even have the slightest idea where you are?' he asked sharply.
'No,' said Barney, 'I don't.'
'Exactly,' said Weirdlove, 'so what are you going to do about it?' And he turned and walked on.
Barney raised an eyebrow. Well, being woken by a stunningly attractive woman carrying a stunningly attractive breakfast, featuring the main food groups of bacon, eggs, coffee and toast, wasn't exactly the same as having your toenails ripped off and your testicles cremated. So he made the only decision that was really open to him, and starting walking quickly along the corridor.
'Where are we going?' he asked.
'To see the First Minister,' said Weirdlove.
'Don't get it,' said Barney.
'Jesse Longfellow-Moses,' said Weirdlove.
They came to a short flight of stairs, down which Parker Weirdlove practically ran, then suddenly they were outside into the warmth of a glorious September morning. A quick walk through a small courtyard and then they were out onto the Canongate, th
e bottom end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile, and charging downhill.
'First Minister of what?' asked Barney.
'The Scottish Parliament,' said Weirdlove.
'Right,' said Barney. The concept of First Minister came back to him, but he had never heard of Jesse Longfellow-Moses. 'Should I know him?' he asked.
Weirdlove stopped suddenly, beside a small flight of steps. He fished something from his pocket and handed it to Barney. It was a pass to the Scottish Parliament buildings, already embellished with Barney's picture and signature.
'Don't lose it,' said Weirdlove. Then he turned, walked up the steps and swept into the foyer, Barney in his wake, at a gentle trot. Weirdlove showed his pass with a quick flick of his wrist, Barney followed suit, then they were through security and Weirdlove was walking up a flight of steps two at a time, up into the Assembly building, nodding at the occasional dark-suited civil servant who passed them by in the opposite direction.
'You've been out the loop awhile,' he said, 'so you're excused. But there are a few do's and don'ts, so pay attention. You listening?'
'Aye,' said Barney, wondering which loop it was he'd been out of.
'You call him First Minister,' said Weirdlove, his voice crisp and neat like a butt-naked skelp. 'Don't look him in the eye. Agree with everything he says. Do everything he asks. Speak when you're spoken to. Don't pick your nose, don't scratch your arse, don't adjust your genitals, don't pick food out your teeth, wax out your ear or gunge out your toenails. Don't breathe on him. Don't mention his wife. Don't mention policy. If he asks your opinion on something, give him his opinion, not yours. Don't talk about the weather. And never,' said Weirdlove, stopping abruptly under another portrait of Jesse Longfellow-Moses, so that Barney nearly walked into the back of him, 'never use the 'W' word.'
He stared with an unnerving intensity into Barney's eyes, daring him to ask what the 'W' word was. Barney nodded.
'Right,' he said.
Another look of conflagration from Weirdlove, then he turned quickly and pushed open a set of luxurious double doors, nearly taking out the Minister for Parliamentary Business as he did so.
'Morning, Nelly,' he barked at her, and she scowled and went on her way.
'Nelly Stratton,' said Weirdlove, turning up a set of carpeted stairs, under yet another beaming and very flattering portrait of Longfellow-Moses. 'Minister for Parliamentary Business. Nebby wee cow.'
Barney said nothing. Coming to terms with being in the seat of power, such as it was. And wondering about the man in all the portraits.
'You get all that, Mr Thomson?' asked Weirdlove.
'Aye,' said Barney. 'Nelly Stratton.'
'Not that, you idiot,' said Weirdlove. 'The instructions?'
'Aye,' said Barney, 'aye, I think so.'
'Good.'
At the top of this flight of stairs, Weirdlove stopped again, this time outside a door, at the end of another long corridor lined with more portraits of the esteemed leader. A security man sat at a desk, but he had already returned to reading his newspaper after catching sight of Weirdlove.
'We're here,' said Weirdlove. 'You ready?'
'Aye,' said Barney. 'Pumped.'
'Tone!' barked Weirdlove. 'Right, all the equipment you need is in there. The First Minister likes a Frank Sinatra '62. Get to work.'
'Sinatra,' Barney repeated.
'You familiar with it?'
'Absolutely.'
'You'd better be.'
And with that, Parker Weirdlove walked quickly away back downstairs, other fish to fry, other ministers to pop on the barbie.
Barney Thomson watched him go, then turned and looked at the door. It was a regulation affair; wood, plain, gold-coloured knob. And who knew what lay behind? Awash with confusion, head and body seemingly immersed in sludge, feeling like an antelope about to go to a lion party disguised as a wildebeest, he took a deep breath and opened the door.
The Edge Of Jealousy
'You heard what he's done now?'
There were two of them in the room. Winona Wanderlip and Wally McLaven. She was the Minister for Enterprise, also burdened with the jobs of Minister for Science and Minister for Scottish Soup, or something or other. McLaven was Minister for Tourism, Culture & Sport.
Wanderlip was sitting at the desk, leaning back, her wrists resting on the edge of the wood, her fingers tapping. Loud staccato clicks from her long fingernails, except for the dull tap of the left hand ring finger, where she had bitten the nail down to the wire. McLaven was standing at the window, his back to her, staring blankly up Holyrood Road.
'Go on,' he said. Disinterested. He knew what she was like. Longfellow-Moses couldn't take a shit without her complaining about the toilet paper he used. Of course, the fact that JLM had his toilet paper delivered directly from Harrod's Water Closet Accessories Department, with every sheet individually stamped with his initials in gold leaf, and that he employed someone to actually do the wiping for him, meant that she had a point. Sometimes, though, he just couldn't be bothered listening to her. It was like having another wife.
'He's snubbed Graham again,' she said, crisply. 'He's coming up here next week to deliver the speech to the CBI, and JLM's not going. The man's an utter arse.'
'Look, Winnie, to be fair to the lad, Longfellow-Moses,' said McLaven, 'your man Graham'll deliver exactly the same speech he gave last year.'
'That's not the point,' she snapped. She hated being called Winnie. She had replaced her finger tapping with the incessant single tap of her right index finger. Her lips were thin and angry, she was breathing heavily through her nose. McLaven turned round, because he found her incredibly attractive when she was mad.
'Don't smile like that,' she said, at the cheeky look on his face.
'That Morse code you're tapping out there, Winnie?' he asked. 'Death to Longfellow, Death to Longfellow.'
She stopped tapping.
'It's not funny, Wally,' she said. 'Something's got to be done about him. He's just a guy, not some bloody God-king.'
'You should've stood against him,' said McLaven, shaking his head, speaking the line that he always gave her.
JLM had been elected party leader in the middle of the previous parliamentary term, after the resignation of his predecessor, who'd been caught engaging in sexual activity with a melon. Wanderlip had started a campaign against him, but had withdrawn from the leadership race due to a sharp dose of political expediency.
'That's old news,' she said, then she stood up quickly and waved a finger at him, as if she'd only just realised something. 'That's it, isn't it? Isn't it?'
McLaven shrugged.
'To be fair to you, Winnie, I don't know what you're talking about.'
She walked round from behind the desk, her arms bent, her hands cupping a pair of invisible grapefruit. Her blouse was tight, made tighter by the movement of her arms, and McLaven looked at her breasts.
'It's not old news, is it?' she said. 'It was thirty months ago. Thirty months. That's, like, not even three years.'
'God, Winnie, you so went to university.'
'It's nothing,' she continued, ignoring the sarcasm, 'but look what he's done. Just thirty months, and in that time he's turned himself into this thing, this dictator. It'd be bad enough if he'd been in power for years, decades, but this. We forget so quickly, Wally, don't you see? It seems like he's been there forever, we think he's got the popular support of the people, but he hasn't.'
He looked at her. He didn't say he won an election last year, because he didn't need to.
'Less than forty percent turn-out,' she said in response to his thought. 'What the Hell is that? Did you know he's got his own private hairdresser starting work today? Excuse me? How many people has he got up there in that inner circle now? How many? All on the government payroll, all being paid for by the people of Scotland. What the Hell is that? He's got his nice new shiny building to play with, and he's building up his staff to go along with it. It's shocking!'
McLaven nodded.
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'You know, Winnie,' he said, 'your breasts are just different class. Have you had, like, surgery or anything?'
She raised a finger at him, but didn't rise to the bait of the cheeky smile – the smile that had once fooled so many referees.
'It's serious, Wally,' she said. 'The guy's out of control. It's time we started doing something.'
'On you go, then,' he said, almost managing to look her in the eye. 'What's stopping you?'
'Christ, you know I can't,' she said. 'There's too much history. Everyone would think I was only doing it because I wanted his job.'
'You do want his job,' he said.
'It's bigger than that,' she said hurriedly. 'We've got to do this for the good of the country.'
'Aye,' said Wally. 'Aye.'
'But it can't be me,' she said, returning to the seat behind her desk. Wally watched her for a few seconds then turned away again – now that her breasts had calmed down – and looked back out at the early morning heat haze on top of the leaf-shaped windows that garnished the roof of the low central building of the parliament.
'We need it to come from someone who was part of his team. An insider.'
'I hope you're not about to ask me,' said McLaven without turning.
'Don't be ridiculous,' she said, 'someone serious. No, Melanie's the one. Melanie.'
'Speak to her then,' said McLaven, disinterested.
'I will,' said Wanderlip. 'She's just not in yet today. Don't know where she's got to.'
'Out shagging, I expect,' said McLaven, although he didn't believe it. He just had an in-built bloke's need to say the word shagging every so often.
'God,' said Wanderlip, 'it's nine o'clock in the morning.'
McLaven grunted.
'No, I'll just have to wait until she gets in,' said Wanderlip, stroking her chin. 'In fact, it might be best for me to engineer a little disagreement between her and Jesse before I make my approach. Make her more susceptible to persuasion.'
McLaven glanced over her shoulder, but she was no longer talking to him. She was plotting aloud to no one but herself. He watched her for a few seconds, watched the wheels turning, then looked away again, out into the warmth of a bright late summer's morning. The type of morning that reminded him of Italia '90, when he and the lads had been so close to soccer glory. Defeat to Costa Rica, and playing like a complete bunch of women against Brazil aside, of course.
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 83