'Look, why d'you not just accept it? Barney left the shop that morning to get a sandwich. He comes back, sees your lot all over the place like a blinking rash, 'cause you'd charged in like you were rounding up the flipping Mafia, and for whatever reason, he legs it. I know how it looks, but if you want my opinion, I doubt he ran because he'd murdered anybody. My Barney was too stupid for that. Too bloody stupid.'
Mulholland sat back, looked at the floor. You were told so many lies in the job; along the way you developed an instinct for the truth. How well the instinct developed led to how good a copper you were. He liked to think he could always tell. Truth or lies.
Agnes Thomson was telling the truth. They were wasting their time.
'So, you haven't heard from Barney since he disappeared?' he asked. Had to.
Agnes drew her breath, shook her head. 'No,' she said, 'I haven't.' If they'd never made the effort to speak when they lived together, why should they now that they didn't?
'You'll let us know if you hear from him?'
She shrugged. The interview was over, she stared at the blank television screen. Almost time to lose herself again. 'Might,' she said. 'Might not.'
Mulholland and Proudfoot stood up. That was about as much as they could expect. Why should she tell them anything?
She looked up at them. The eyes said it all, and the two police officers turned away and saw themselves to the door. When they had gone, she sat alone, staring at the television. Her hand rested beside the remote control, but it was a long time before she pressed the button.
***
'What d'you think?'
Mulholland shrugged. 'We were wasting our time. And from the absence of the press, I think that that lot obviously realised it a lot more quickly than we did.'
They walked on down the stairs in silence. Holdall and MacPherson must have walked these stairs, thought Proudfoot. A shiver scuttled down her back, even in this broad light of day. She tried to think of something else, but kept seeing MacPherson's face. Could feel him.
'Inverness?' she asked, as they emerged into a bleak Glasgow afternoon.
'Not now. Tomorrow morning. We can visit the barber's shop now, check it out. The Death Shop From Hell, or whatever it is the Record's calling it. Tick another wasted interview off our list.'
Mulholland looked away up the street, along the line of cold, grey tenements. This was all there was to police work. Trawling around depressing streets, speaking to pointless, disinterested people with nothing to say and nothing to give you other than disrespect.
'Brilliant,' he muttered under his breath, as he got into the car.
That Whole Life Thing
'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.'
Words hung in the cold air, then disappeared in the mist which evaporated before the Abbot. The monks, slightly over thirty in number, watched the hard dirt bounce on the lid of Brother Saturday's coffin before settling with a cold finality. Three deep around the grave they stood, heads bowed in solemn prayer and sorrow; all but one.
Edward; Ash; Matthew; Jerusalem; Joshua; Pondlife; Ezekiel; Mince; Festus; and so on around the grave they stood. Lost in sadness, unaware that many more of them would die, and that Festus's upcoming gargoyle in the head would be but one death among a great legion of others.
It had been nearly eleven years since they lost one of their number to that fell sergeant, Death. Mammon, the evil succubus of fornication, and the lure of a comfortable life had taken their toll in that time; but not Death. Not since Brother Alexander had fallen from the escarpment around the third floor of the abbey.
The Abbot opened his eyes from one last silent prayer, and then, head low, began the short walk back down the hill to the shelter and slender warmth of the monastery. Two steps behind, an ecclesiastical refugee from the Secret Service, Brother Herman, brown hood drawn up around his head, sunken eyes watching the Abbot's back, long white face. Hooked nose, the beak of some deranged bird of prey, Brother Herman suspected everyone. Whoever it was who had plunged the knife into the neck of Brother Saturday, who had held it there while Saturday had wriggled and squirmed away his final seconds, who had watched the blood flow along the corridor and down the weeping steps, must not now be allowed access to the Abbot.
None shall pass, thought Brother Herman. None shall pass.
As their feet crunched into the frosted snow, the remainder of the assembly stared into the grave. Thoughts of death and murder and God and resurrection and everlasting life. A test of Faith; at a time like this, how many of them truly believed? The snow-covered hills rose around them, reaching to a blue sky, pale in the anaemic light of dawn. And over the hills, in the middle distance, the bitter sea washed upon a barren winter shore.
One by one they paid their last respects and headed off slowly back to the austere grey building that was their home. Breakfast awaited. Two remained behind, burdened with shovelling the hardened dirt over Saturday's coffin. Pale brown wood, soon to be home to God's final act of desecration upon the human body.
They stood with spades at the ready, waiting for the others to return to the monastery before beginning their task; the last kick of the ball in the football match of Saturday's life. The younger man, his face unfolded, thoughts elsewhere. His lips betrayed a knowing smile; an acceptance of fate – what would be done, was done. Tonsured head, hair a little long at the back. Could do with a cut, thought the other man. Older. Face creased with worry, full head of hair, greying with years.
The last monk disappeared from view. They glanced at one another; it was time. The younger one dug his shovel into the waiting pile of dirt. The older man took a look around him – the path leading from the graveyard to the monastery; the surrounding forest, trees white with snow; the low hills, which doomed the monastery to the pit of the glen and the bitter wind which howled through; the distant edge of the freezing waters of Loch Hope – then bent his knee and thrust his shovel into the dirt.
Already their hands were numb with cold, yet aching with an insistent pain. Brother Steven shovelled the dirt without emotion, knowing not the burden of his work. He was content to do as he was bid, even though, being neither the newest monk nor the youngest, he should not have been called upon to perform the task of the gravedigger. For this he had his unquiet tongue to thank.
He glanced at the older man, who was performing his task with grim determination. Not for Brother Steven to know that this man, the latest addition to their complement, had become used to death in all its iniquitous guises.
'So, what brings you here, Brother Jacob?' he asked the older man, continuing to shovel dirt slowly, monotonously.
Barney Thomson, barber, hesitated. A man on the run, a man with a dark past. Secrets to hide. He shovelled. 'Not sure,' he replied eventually. 'Just needed something different, you know?'
Brother Steven nodded, tossed another pile of dirt into the grave. The top of the coffin was now completely obscured. Brother Saturday was gone.
'Got you,' he said. 'It's that whole vicissitude thing. The basic need for something new. We all feel it. It's like Heraclitus says: "Everything flows and nothing stays...You can't step twice into the same river." It's why I'm here.'
Barney stared, Steven shovelled, knowing smile on cold blue lips.
'Aye,' said Barney. 'Right.'
Barney had never heard of Heraclitus. Wondered if he'd played centre-forward for some Greek football team. Doubted it. Had to accept that he had come to a new world, after twenty comfortable years in the barber's shop. Not all conversations would be about football.
'So, what are you running from, Brother Jacob?'
Steven rested on his shovel, looked through the mist which had formed from his words. Barney felt the beating of his heart, but realised that Steven could not possibly know his s
ecrets. None of these monks could know. He tried to sound casual. 'Life,' he said.
Steven laughed and began once again the slow and steady movement of his spade. Barney wondered if he'd said something funny.
'Life, eh?' said Steven, shaking his head. 'Oh, yes. That thing we do.'
Barney felt uncomfortable. A hand on his shoulder. Before he began to shovel he saw a bird of prey in the distance, hovering, searching the snow-covered ground for breakfast. The sparrow-hawk fancied some bacon and lightly scrambled egg, but accepted that he would probably have to settle for a vole or a mouse. If he was lucky.
Could be an eagle, thought Barney, for he did not know birds of prey.
'But the thing about life,' said Steven from behind his shovel, 'is that no matter how far you run, my friend, there's no getting away from it.'
Brother Steven tossed dirt with methodical abandon. Barney Thomson stared into the grave.
We Will All Lie in the Same Grave
Mulholland tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, watching the rain on the windscreen. In the car park at Stirling services. Waiting for Proudfoot; paying for petrol, buying magazines, chocolate, drinks, music and everything else they had to offer. Expecting her to return to the car wearing a new outfit and carrying a flat-packed kitchen unit.
Preoccupied with thoughts of Mrs Mulholland. On hearing that he'd been ordered to travel north on police business, possibly for a few days, she had issued the classic ultimatum: if you go, I won't be here when you get back. Considered herself a police widow. Saw the prospect of becoming a real widow if her husband had to come up against that evil monster, Barney Thomson. Would take this opportunity to stay with her sister in Devon, and not just for a week or two. His tapping on the steering wheel became a tight grip as he thought about what else, besides her sister, might keep Melanie in Devon. But then, would he be that bothered if she never returned? Confused. Jealous and disinterested at the same time.
The car door opened and Proudfoot climbed in, preceded by a cold blast of air, a gallon of rainwater and a bulging bag of merchandise. Closed the door, buckled up.
'What's the matter with your face?' she said.
Mulholland grunted, didn't want to look as if he'd been thinking about his wife. Started the engine.
'You took your time,' he said.
'Just buying a few things,' she said. Started unloading as they pulled out of the service station. 'Everything we'll need for the journey to Inverness.'
'It's only a couple of hours, Sergeant.'
'Might get stuck in the snow.'
'It's pishing down, for God's sake.'
'Not up north. It's a snowfest up there.'
'Bloody hell.'
Onto the roundabout, then back down to the motorway. Driving a blue Mondeo, heating on full, windscreen wipers frenetic. The M9 mobbed with trucks and lorries and people heading north so that they could escape the winter and be somewhere even colder. He settled in the outside lane and his car disappeared beneath the spray from articulated lorries.
'What did you get for all this snow we're going to get stuck in? A couple of sleeping bags? A tent, thermal underwear, socks, a flask of tea and some flares?'
She opened the bag, started lifting out items. He kept his eyes on what little of the road he could see, so that they didn't die before Barney Thomson had the chance to kill them.
'Got a bacon, egg and tomato.'
'A sandwich, eh? That'll keep us warm.'
'A turkey ham and lettuce.'
'Turkey ham? I never understood that as a concept. Is that like some weird bird/pig crossbreed?'
'I'm ignoring you.'
He passed the final monstrous juggernaut in his path and settled into the inside lane, his view now marginally less obscured than it had been. Didn't realise, but had already stopped worrying about Melanie.
'I also got a brie and black grape and an egg and spinach.'
'Bloody hell. How far north d'you think Inverness actually is?'
'You don't have to eat any of them. Got a couple of cans of Coke, an Irn Bru and a bottle of water.'
'If we run out we can always stop at the side of the road and melt some snow on the bonnet.'
'Four packets of crisps, three chocolate bars, this month's Blitz! and a Simply Red tape.'
He laughed, diced with death by holding up his fingers in the sign of the cross.
'Not in this car,' he said. 'This is not an elevator.'
'Piss off!'
'Sergeant.'
Proudfoot gritted her teeth, shut up. Settled back in her seat, cracked open the brie and black grape and a can of Irn Bru, rested the Christmas edition of Blitz! on her knee. A few seconds, then she glanced out the corner of her eye.
'Sandwich, then?'
'As long as you don't think it's a trade.'
She handed him the turkey ham and lettuce, they steamed through the rain towards the Dunblane bypass. They thought their private thoughts. Vague feelings of disquiet at the outside possibility of coming up against the infamous Barber Surgeon. Would they each die a horrible death? Ferguson had told Proudfoot he wasn't sure if he'd be able to identify her body if she'd been reduced to twenty packets of frozen meat. All charm.
The visit to Henderson's the barbers the previous day had been as unhelpful as their entire investigation threatened to be. Three barbers – James Henderson, Arnie Braithwaite and Chip Ripkin – none of whom had had any insight into the disappearance of Barney Thomson. They had plenty of opinions and handy hints on what to do to him should he ever be found – Henderson in particular having several innovative suggestions regarding Barney's scrotum – but nothing that was actually of any help. They'd left after an hour, aware that there was nothing new to be gleaned about Barney Thomson in Glasgow. It was Inverness or nothing; and more likely, Inverness and nothing.
Mulholland had considered stopping off in Perth to speak to the suspect's brother, Allan. Had chosen to make a phone call instead, as he'd thought it might be a waste of time. Suspicions confirmed. Allan and Barbara Thomson had changed their surname, and it hadn't been until Mulholland had threatened to arrive on his doorstep with the full weight of CID that Allan had even admitted knowing Barney. However, he'd had little to concede beyond that – and he had not been lying – and after fifteen minutes' fruitless discussion, the brother had had to retire to share a bottle of £4.95 Chilean Chardonnay – fruity with a hint of lighter fluid – with his wife.
'So, what does Blitz! have to say for itself, then? Usual stuff about how to have an orgasm with a staple gun?'
Proudfoot licked some Irn Bru from her lips, turned back to the cover. He glanced over at the photo of the pale Bic, wearing midnight-maroon lipstick.
'Not that far off,' she said. 'We've got, Jet Ski Sex – 1,001 Great Positions. Tantric Sex – Don't Think About It, Just Do It! Cindy Crawford On Learning To Live With A Big Spot On Your Face. Ukranian Catalogue Hunks – The Best Thirty Quid You'll Ever Spend.'
'You're making those up,' said Mulholland.
'Sadly no. Want to hear the rest?'
'Might learn something.'
'Getting The Most From Your Dildo. How To Spot A Multiple Orgasm. Toothpaste Tube Masturbation – We Test All The Well-Known Brands. Johnny Depp's Armpits – Hairy, Horny & Yours For A Fiver. Men And Sex – Why You Might be Better Off With A Doughnut. That's just about it.'
'A doughnut?'
'I missed one. Why I've Had It With Men – Gretchen Schumacher Tells All.' She shook her head. 'I don't know, what d'you think of Gretchen? Just looks like a stick of rhubarb with nipples to me.'
'A doughnut?'
'All these supermodels are the same these days. The older ones with the boobs are all right, but these new ones. A bunch of wee lassies. Horrible. Most of them look ill.'
She let out a long sigh, opened up the mag to the Johnny Depp article. Mulholland sat in the outside lane again, passing a stream of octogenarian Sunday drivers, defying convention by going out midweek.
'A d
oughnut?'
She ignored him. They drove on in silence.
Time passed, rain fell, cars were overtaken, cars got in the way, cars sped by in the outside lane. For all that he concentrated on the road, or tried to think about his wife or the woman sitting next to him, Joel Mulholland could not help but think about Barney Thomson.
What kind of monster would commit the crimes that he had committed? Could you call such a being a man? Was he not a beast? Or had the mother been the beast, Barney the unwilling abettor?
Whatever his part in it all, the previous two weeks had seen him become more than he had been. Suddenly he'd become an icon. A means to sell newspapers, a wondrous talking point, a hate figure, a pity figure, a monster, a victim. Depended on to whom you talked. If they caught him, Mulholland knew that Thomson would still have his apologists, still have the women queuing up to support him and to propose to him. It was all it took to achieve celebrity in this day and age – grotesque murder.
And how many of those who talked endlessly of the man, genuinely wanted him caught? He served so many purposes on the run. Continued to sell newspapers, a colossal build-up to his eventual capture; if he was never apprehended, then they would have something to write about for the next fifty years; he provided something on which the nation could concentrate its fears, an outlet for the terror it might feel towards this modern age. Barney Thomson had become an Everyman, the manifestation of the population's individual fears. A generic terror, representing dread, panic, loathing, sympathy and, in a desperate few, hope.
Mulholland had to get his mind off it. Knew you couldn't think too much about these kinds of things, couldn't dwell on what you might face in the course of your duties, else you might never go to work.
'A doughnut?' he repeated, some fifteen minutes after the previous time. Ignored her heavy sigh. 'Why not a banana? Why not a tube of Italian sausage or a Toblerone or a black pudding? Why a doughnut?'
She looked at him, dragging herself away from 12 Great Reasons To Have Sex With Your Marriage Counsellor.
The Barbershop Seven Page 24