'Fuck's sake,' muttered the leader of the opposition beneath the noise, 'I only asked him a fucking question about beetles.'
***
Kathy Spiderman left First Minister's questions early. Not because she thought it was the most ridiculous, over-the-top, absurdist nonsense that she'd heard JLM come out with in some months – although it was – but because she had been summoned by the same type of note that had earlier summoned Barney Thomson. And, in a strange coincidence, it had also summoned her to the same little conference room on the top floor of Queensberry House, with large windows and a lovely view out over the sun-roasted bottom end of the Royal Mile.
She opened the door to be greeted by the sight of someone leaning on the window ledge, one of the two windows opened wide, allowing in a gorgeous zephyr to douse the humidity.
'Awright?' said Spiderman. 'What's this?
The person at the window glanced round; although Spiderman had already recognised her from the rear view.
'Just catching the breeze.'
Spiderman stood by the door and looked out the window. What were any of them doing inside on a day like this? What was the point in any job when you couldn't just blow it off and make the most of the few glorious days that God gave you? It was one of the reasons why, despite the general appeal of power and the ability to control others' lives, Kathy Spiderman had already made the decision to stand down at the next parliament. Already kicking herself that she'd stood for re-election a year earlier, and hadn't opted out like the twenty-one others; the ones who'd realised that they were wasting their time.
She walked forward, took her place at the window, leant on the ledge and looked down. She could smell the warmth, and it took her to summer holidays when she was young, playing in the streets all day until her mum shouted for her when the sun was still low in the sky. Hopscotch and football and hide and seek and whatever was the big event at the time, whatever that summer demanded they imitate.
'It's beautiful,' she said, still curious as to why she'd been called up here, but this was better than having to listen to Jesse Longfellow-Moses give the parliament details of his latest vision.
'Yeah.'
She turned and looked at the person who had called her; faced flushed with the sun, as if she had been here a while, elbows on the ledge, holding a cup of water in both hands.
'You want a drink?' she asked.
Spiderman looked at the clean, clear liquid, imagined diving into it, submerging, becoming enrobed in still water, the cold touching her skin, removing the discomfort of the day.
'Aye,' she said, and the drink was put into her hands.
She didn't hesitate. Cup straight to her mouth, didn't see it coming. The poison was so fast-acting that she did not even have time to pass the drink back before it took effect. The cup slipped from her hands. She turned and stared, mouth open, gasping for clean air.
'Wh...' was forced from the back of her mouth, and then she slumped forward, so that her midriff was resting on the window ledge. Her weight nearly took her over, but after a wobble or two, she came to rest, arms dangling over the side, feet still on the floor.
The location of the axis made it easy for her feet to be lifted up. Spiderman's killer hesitated, enjoying the first moments of her death. A few seconds and she would splatter onto the Canongate. Let the Undertaker clear that one up.
The killer put her hand on Spiderman's belt. Then she heard a sudden swish of movement behind her. Started to turn, her hair catching the sunlight, like some shampoo ad überchick. Whomp! and she collapsed in a heap at the feet of Kathy Spiderman, bludgeoned crudely over the head with a heavy duty stapler. The weight of her, sliding down the inert legs, caused Spiderman's corpse to fall back into the room, tumbling over her killer's body, where it came to rest, their heads beside one another, so that it seemed that they were almost in intimate conversation.
Like Smith and Jones.
A Little Light Lunch Music
Barney Thomson took a late lunch in the parliament restaurant, having given JLM's napper a final brush up and polish just before he'd departed for questions. So it was, that as JLM graced the chamber with his magnanimity and courage, Barney was beckoned from his solitary lunch of piquant of asparagus on a mutton of beef, with peaches en croute and the chef's delight of liquorice crème anglaise, blended delightfully with a spicy Argentinean red, mellow on the throat, but unnecessarily vulgar on the stomach and downright vicious on the bottom, with hints of berry fruits and non-biological warfare, to share lunch with the Three Musketeers, boldly going where no one had gone before to solve all of Scotland's fiscal difficulties.
It was Herr Vogts's doing, as he had really wanted to ask Barney a few questions about men's hairstyling. Weirdlove hadn't been too impressed, Eaglehawk only mildly curious.
Barney walked over in response to the beckoning finger, plate in one hand, savage glass of wine in the other, and took his place at the fourth seat. The others were sharing a bottle of a rumbustious German white, for use as an accompaniment to meat dishes, as a drink on its own, for mixing cement, or for a hundred other practical uses around the building site; and they were eating a variety of things off the chef's menu, which involved compotes and nages and God knows what else.
'You can be our D'Artagnan,' said Vogts, smiling.
Barney laughed.
Weirdlove thought the analogy stupid.
I want to be D'Artagnan, thought Eaglehawk.
'Well, I think I'm older than the three of you, but if that's how you want to think of me,' said Barney.
'You're only as old as the woman you feel, eh?' said Vogts laughing.
'Old ones are the best,' said Barney.
'Jokes are only as old as the woman who laughs at them,' said Eaglehawk, who would try and compete with Vogts's Groucho routine every now and again, but always ended up sounding like Zeppo. The poor bastard. No one laughed.
'You can take an idiot to water, but you can't make it think,' said Weirdlove caustically, and the other three gave him a quick glance and wondered at which of them the jibe had been aimed.
Weirdlove had known from the start of the day that there was something going on between Eaglehawk and Vogts. He had left them alone the night before, expecting that they would go their separate ways soon after, but it was immediately apparent to him that that had not been the case. He had consequently been suspicious all day.
'What did you do to Jesse's hair today, Barn?' said Eaglehawk, jokingly, deciding to ignore Weirdlove. 'He looked like a criminal.'
Barney shrugged. 'Inevitable,' he said. 'If the man's going to get his hair seen to eight times a day, and he's going to bob around like a ferret while he's in the chair, accidents are bound to happen.'
'And you can't say that the criminal look does not suit him,' said Vogts.
'I wouldn't speak those words too loudly, Herr Vogts,' said Weirdlove, lowering his voice.
Herr Vogts gave his new chum Eaglehawk a knowing smile and stuck a ravaged and toffee-ised carrot into his mouth.
'So,' said Barney, coming to the end of his meal, while just about coming to terms with the feral monstrosity of the wine, 'what can I help you with? Looking for some layman's input into your duplicitous shenanigans over the Euro, presuming you're all experts here?'
'Actually, I just wanted to ask you if you could give me a Gerd Müller, '74,' said Vogts.
For some reason that he could not explain, Barney knew exactly what a Gerd Müller '74 was going to look like. About to agree to it, when Weirdlove launched in.
'Yes, Mr Thomson,' he said, 'perhaps you could give us a layman's view of Scotland joining the Euro independent of Westminster. It'd be very interesting.'
'Well,' said Barney, after draining his glass, and giving it the required two seconds' thought, 'let me see...'
He looked round the table. No JLM here to offend. Didn't think it bothered him if he rubbed any of these men up the wrong way.
'Financially, it'll probably do you good. I say that
from a position of complete ignorance, but trading wise, I can't see that it's a bad thing. From the public's point of view, you've got to get the press on your side, the tabloids as well as the business papers. Don't get the tabloids, then you're just going to get ridiculed. Having said all that, ethically and politically the way you're doing it is outrageous. A terrible affront to the voting public. Jesse is a mile up his own arse, not content with being principal politician in a pointless little country on the outskirts of Europe. But you three? I don't know what the story is with any of you.'
Vogts smiled ruefully. We've certainly all got our own reasons, he thought. Eaglehawk regarded Barney with suspicion, reading into his words the implication that he, he himself, James T Eaglehawk, was also up his own arse. Weirdlove gave Barney the sort of look he'd given him when he'd spoken to JLM in the same manner, destructo-rays pinging out across the table.
'Ah,' said a sweet voice behind Barney, 'a lovely little conspiracy of four, all men together.'
Barney turned, recognising the voice, smiled at her. Rebecca Blackadder, dressed in black, still wearing the unnecessarily cool spectacles that JLM demanded of her. Vogts smiled also, what with her being a beautiful woman 'n' all. Eaglehawk regarded her with the contempt in which he held most women with whom he wasn't having sex. Weirdlove breathed deeply. Didn't entirely trust Rebecca Blackadder, even if he sometimes manipulated her into doing his bidding.
'Sorting the world out,' said Vogts.
'I bet you are,' she replied. 'Well, you won't need Barney for that, will you?' And she looked expectantly round the others.
'True enough,' said Weirdlove, without tone, without humour, 'he's said quite enough. We should be getting on. Come on, gentlemen.'
He rose, turned and left without so much as another glance at the doctor. Eaglehawk nodded at Blackadder and Barney and followed Weirdlove from the restaurant.
'I'm only here to make sure Mr Weirdlove does not disappear up his own rectal passage,' said Vogts smiling, then with a nod and a wink, he too was gone.
'Don't mind if I sit down?' said Blackadder, after watching them leave the room.
'Sure,' said Barney. An absolute pleasure.
'What was that all about?' she asked, stirring her coffee.
'Nothing much,' said Barney. 'Just great men, doing great things.'
'In historical events,' said Blackadder, 'great men – so-called – are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connexion with the event itself.'
'Very good,' said Barney. 'Tolstoy?'
'Totally,' she said, taking a surreptitious sip of coffee.
'Very nice. You must ...'
There was a noise at the door, and they looked up to see three police officers standing in the entrance. Barney looked at Blackadder, caught the merest hint of worry before it was removed quickly from her face.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' said the plain clothes officer of the three, to the few who remained in the restaurant by this time, 'can I ask you all to please remain in your seats. There's been a reported incident in the building, and we need everyone to stay where they are for the time being. Someone will be along to speak to you soon. Thank you for your co-operation.'
A be-suited civil servant with a pole up his bottom rose from his seat to toddle off and protest about how busy he was, and couldn't he be an exception? Barney looked back at Blackadder, raised the merest hint of an eyebrow.
'Another minister, do we think?'
She nodded.
'Yeah,' she said, 'I was going to say. I heard someone mention it before I came in. Apparently Kathy Spiderman's been reported missing, although no one knows what's happened to her.'
'Oh,' said Barney. And he fiddled with his cutlery, scraping the last remnants of food from his plate. And you didn't think that another one of these clowns going missing was worthy of a mention? He looked up at her, to see what was going on inside the head, but the face was as inscrutable as ever. 'She was Justice, was she?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'Whatever that was supposed to mean.'
Barney nodded. How many left? How many more would die before he had actually discovered anything worthwhile for Solomon and Kent? But then, it wasn't his business. Why should he feel this weight of expectation?
'How many of them are left now?' he asked. 'Cabinet ministers?'
Blackadder stared at the ceiling, as if she had to think about it.
'Five,' she said, lowering her eyes, 'including JLM, of course. And assuming that Spiderman's really gone, and she's not just sitting in some cubicle somewhere crying because someone's hurt her feelings.'
'Right,' said Barney, trying to sound casual. Assuming that undercover detectives usually sound casual as they go about their business. 'Who're the other four?'
Blackadder gave a little knowing nod – Barney assumed, again, that it was the nod of someone who knew the person she was speaking to was in the employ of Federal agents – and started counting them off on her fingers.
The two uniformed police officers had taken up position at the door; the plain clothes character had gone off somewhere to beat someone up.
That's just an unfair generalisation.
'Benderhook,' she began, 'JLM's deputy. An all right kind of a guy if you want, say, a punchbag in your living room, or someone to rest your feet on while you're watching telly, but otherwise he's a complete woose.'
'A perfect politician.'
'Exactly. There's Trudger McIntyre, Environment & Rural Development. Just the most inept of men you could imagine. No idea about politics whatsoever. Only got the job because JLM shagged his wife once, McIntyre knows about it, and blackmailed himself into the post.'
'Fine behaviour,' said Barney.
'Totally. Malcolm Malcolm III of the Clan Malcolm, Health. Bit of an idiot, but heart in the right place, all that stuff. Very interesting family history of mental problems, which he shows signs of inheriting, but I haven't spilled the beans on that one just yet.'
'Except to me.'
'I can trust you,' she said, and you know, thought Barney, there might just have been a wee bit of an edge to the voice. 'Which leaves Wanderlip, who's as much of a bane to JLM as anyone is going to be. Minister for everything else. Bit of a nippy sweetie.'
Barney nodded. Didn't know any of them, but then, why would he?
'Of course, there's the two who've just been promoted in because of the first two deaths, and then there'll be three more promoted in,' she said. 'And so it goes on.'
'Who'll be next?' said Barney suddenly. That was what really mattered now. That was what always mattered; whose neck was next in line?
'Could be any one of them,' said Blackadder, the shrug in the tone as much as her shoulders.
'You, em,' said Barney, unsure if he was getting into very obvious routine questioning territory, 'must have done profiles on all the victims for JLM.'
'Yeah,' she replied.
'Anything there to connect them?' he asked.
'What?' she replied. 'The Cabinet thing isn't enough? The fact that every few days they all used to sit down in the same room together isn't, like, a connection?'
'Well,' said Barney, a little on the defensive, 'you know, sometimes you draw obvious conclusions, and sometimes those obvious conclusions are wrong. That's all.'
Blackadder nodded, gave him an appreciative look.
'You're right,' she said. Then she paused, toyed with her spoon, ran her finger along the edge of her coffee cup, said, 'You seem interested. In these murders.'
Barney did the casual thing, which he almost had to a tee.
'Isn't everyone?' he said. 'The cabinet's getting murdered one by one. Jesus, it's huge!'
'And yet,' said Blackadder, 'no one in the country gives a shit.'
And that was about the size of it. Barney held her gaze for a minute, then looked away. Drifted lazily around the few groups who were now marooned in the restaurant. One or two in hushed conversation; a group of three men who were talking
about the Rangers-Feyenoord game that night; a couple discussing whether Scotland were ever going to beat England at Twickenham again; four women debating the merits of vibrators with revolving peas inside them, you know the type. These were people who worked in the parliament and even they didn't care that another member of the senior-most committee in government had gone AWOL.
It seemed to make sense, suddenly. Whoever was carrying out these crimes wasn't doing it for political motive. Why bother? Why do something this bad, for this little effect? So, if it wasn't political, it was personal. A grudge. Maybe against the cabinet as a whole, or perhaps for every death, there was a different reason.
'Come to dinner with me tonight,' said Blackadder suddenly, breaking into his rare insight. 'I know a place, outside the city.'
Barney looked deep into the dark eyes. Go out of the city. That was a strange thought. Despite all the murder and chaos so close by, he felt strangely safe and protected in the city. But then, she was a psychologist. Maybe she knew; maybe that was why she wanted him to go with her for the evening.
'All right,' he said. Heart beating just a little bit faster at the thought of a night out with her alone. The added imperilment of uncertainty. 'That'll be nice.'
'Yeah,' she said, smiling wickedly, 'it will.'
And After All, What Is A Lie? 'Tis But The Truth In Masquerade
JLM was staring intently into the mirror, regarding his hair with grave uncertainty. He was back in his office en suite; Weirdlove was not in attendance, still cosseted with Vogts and Eaglehawk; The Amazing Mr X was at his station by the window, B-52 at the ready; Barney was poised behind JLM, waiting with an almost total lack of enthusiasm for his boss's pronouncement.
'It's too short!' JLM ejaculated eventually. 'Too damn short, Barn!'
'That's 'cause you jumped about like a jack-in-the-box while I was cutting your hair this morning,' said Barney. 'If you're going to live by the sword,' he added, 'you're going to get a shite haircut.'
JLM hurrumphed. He was going to have to speak to the press, again, and for all the cabinet ministers that were dropping like flies, frankly he just knew they were going to ask him about his hair.
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 98