He stopped to take a breath. He was coming to the crunch, and they all knew what was going to happen next.
'And sure enough, the horse won,' he said eventually, confounding all expectations. 'I had a hundred and forty grand, I paid back all the bampot moneylenders, and I was sitting pretty. Life was a bed of roses. I was made, you know. Blinking made. Started calling myself Socrates in honour of that fine beast. I could've shagged that horse, no question.'
A few puzzled looks around the room, the temporary pause in the narrative finally filled by the inevitable question, voiced by The Hammer.
'What's the score, then, Big Man? I thought you were going to say the horse lost and you killed your mate?'
Socrates shook his head, and stared ruefully at each member of the group in turn. Now that it came to it, he was quite enjoying being the centre of attention. He'd got them hooked. A natural storyteller. He could be on Radio 4. Book at Bedtime, with Socrates McCartney.
'I made an arse of it,' he said. 'I mean, I only needed about thirty grand to be going on with. I could've paid for the wedding, booked the honeymoon, and put a down payment on a decent enough house, you know. But I had too much cash, I couldn't handle it all. I was twenty-two and I couldn't cope. I freaked, no other word for it. Booked myself a first-class ticket to Las Vegas and went and stayed in some posh gaffe. For two weeks I played all the big casinos, shagged hundreds of birds, did all sorts of drugs, totally went for it, you know. Right in there. The big time. Best two weeks of my life. Blew the lot. I mean, after a week, I might even have been ahead of the game, I'm no' sure, but by the end I'd blown the lot. And of course, I'd walked out on the work without a word, thinking I was some sort of big shot with no need for a job. And I didn't tell wee Agnes where I was going. So I gets back to Bridgeton, and what do I have? Fuck all. I've lost all my money, I've no job, I've nothing. I have to tell Agnes, of course, and you can't blame the lassie, she's fucked off.'
'What exactly did you tell her?' asked The Hammer.
'The works. I just went for it. Told her everything. The money, the gambling, the shagging, the drugs.'
'And?'
'She dumped me. Told me to sling my hook, and buggered off with my wee mate Billy Milk Teeth.'
'You can't blame the lassie,' said Katie Dillinger.
'Oh, aye, I didn't. I'm no' saying that. To be fair to the girl she did the right thing. I'm no' saying any different. Not at all. Billy was a decent enough lad, I wasn't blaming him either.'
'So what happened?' asked Dillinger.
'She sent her three brothers round to do me in and I killed them.'
'Oh.'
'I mean, I didn't mean to. It wasn't as if I was blaming them for what happened. It wasn't as if I gave a shite. But they turned up to kick my head in and I lost my rag. Went a bit off my napper. Started smacking them about a bit, and ended up wellying the living shite out of them all. Felt bad about it, you know, when it was all over. I'm a bit of a philosopher, like I said, and I've thought about it long and hard. Rage, you see, is just like any other human need. Once it's sated, well, it's done, isn't it? It's all a matter of control. It's like when you're gasping for sex and you hitch up with some stankmonster just for the sake of it; but as soon as you've emptied your sacs you look at her and wonder what you were doing. Or when you're hungry and eat any old mince just to fill your belly. It might leave a bad taste in the mouth, and you can't believe you were so hungry that you needed to eat some shite like that, but you did. Same with rage. After I'd done it, I was a bit embarrassed. Felt really guilty. Even phoned the polis.'
He stopped and looked around the room; slowly shrugged. They were all staring at him; some with wonder, some with sympathy. But they were all killers here, and none of them stared in judgement. That was not their game.
'That's it, really. Don't know what else to say. Got some amount of years in the slammer. Can't even remember how many the old bastard of a judge sent me down for. Anyway, got out a couple of year ago. Thought I was OK at first, but I have to admit I still feel rage. I think the jail's made it worse. Can't be sure. They probably shouldn't have let me out, but you're no' going to say no, are you? So when I heard about youse lot I thought I'd give it a go. And youse've been a big help to me. I mean, it was a bit intimidating at first, what with being in Bearsden, but I think I fit in.'
There were several nods around the room. One or two of the company thought he fitted in like a forest fire in the Amazon, but they nodded anyway in case he decided to kill them.
'So why do you keep the nickname?' asked Dillinger. 'Doesn't it always remind you of what happened?'
Socrates shrugged.
'It's a really cool name. Birds love it. Course, most of the birds I hang out with have never heard of the fitba' player, and they're too thick to know about the Greek bastard, but it still makes me sound all exotic and foreign, you know.'
'Don't you think you'd be better off just being yourself?'
Socrates McCartney stared at Katie Dillinger. He rested his back against the chair, and for the first time in his entire life considered that question. Was it not just better to be yourself? It was a question he'd heard asked within this group before, but he never thought that it applied to him. But of course it did, and now this baring of his soul, this outing of his past and telling of his secrets, was forcing him to think about it. Was it better to be yourself, laid naked and bare to the world, hidden behind no sophistry and no tricks, than to put up a front, a brick wall of deceit and subterfuge?
'Nah,' he said, after giving it due thought, 'I'm a total arsehole in real life.'
And that, a few relevant details concerning the present day and the continuing juxtaposition of rage against relaxation aside, was the story of Socrates McCartney.
A New Beginning
Late afternoon, the seventeenth day in December. A robin or a bell or a ball behind the door on the advent calendar; a dark chocolate turned white. Still mild and grey, no sign of winter. As Socrates McCartney told all, Barney Thomson stood on a pavement, staring across a busy road at a small barber's shop.
He didn't know how long he stood there. People came and went around him; some bumped him, some told him to move, most passed on by and noticed nothing. Grey lives on a grey day, no one with time for anyone else. This was life in the new millennium. But Barney felt the beating of his heart and an unexpected dryness at the back of his throat. A barber's shop.
It was now almost a year since he'd picked up a pair of scissors in anger. He had carried them around with him all this time, but he had been traumatised; no question of that. The shock of the unremitting murder and mutilation had had its effect, and it was many months since he had even thought of barbery, never mind attempted to practice it.
Yet here he was, standing no more than fifteen yards from a shop. He could smell it; the shampoo, the hair oil, the warm air from the dryer, the hair itself. Dirty sometimes, clean others, but never odourless. And he stared at the small sign in the window, which he'd passed by an eternity ago. Help Wanted. Experience Preferred.
Help to do what? Sweep up; make tea; wash hair; or cut hair? He didn't know, but whatever it was, it was working in a barber's shop. Back where he belonged, in that land of giants.
His head was a swirl of his past and his future. The years in Henderson's before he'd accidentally killed his two colleagues; the few days haircutting at the monastery, before he'd become implicated in another serial killer's murders. Great haircuts he had given, disasters for which he was to blame. For every magnificent Lloyd George '23, there had been a Deep Impact or an Ally McCoist (World Cup '98). He had given haircuts with which a king would have been content, yet he had also dealt enough stinkers to fill several series of Ally McBeal law suits. And he knew not what his life held for him, for every decision he made he found thrown back in his face.
He would walk the Earth; yet he could not face it. He would hand himself in; yet the police would not take him. He would go and see his wife; yet she had moved, l
eaving no forwarding address. What remained?
And so he stood looking across at the small shop that perhaps held his salvation. He didn't know what had led him to Greenock. Just looking around for somewhere cheap to stay; had seen an advert in the paper; thought he might as well give it a go beside the cold Clyde. And now, settled in his bedsit above a baker's, he had wandered up the street and almost immediately stumbled across the advert in the shop window. Help Wanted. It could be his very own motto. And no doubt fate was playing its hand.
There was a gap in the traffic and he took the plunge. Across the road, didn't stop to think, straight into the shop. Knew he would not be kept waiting, for he had yet to see anyone come or go in all the time he'd been watching.
He closed the door behind him and took a moment to breathe in the surroundings. A small thin room. Two barber's chairs against one wall, fronted by the requisite sinks and individual mirrors; an inconsiderable bench along the other. A couple of sad pictures on the walls. Greenock in olden days, when the Clyde had bustled with activity; a lone dog on a deserted street.
'Haircut?' said the old man, not bothering to rise from his seat. Expecting nothing. Hadn't had to cut anyone's hair since ten o'clock that morning.
'Help wanted,' said Barney.
The old man nodded. An interesting face, something ancient and grey about it, but with an uncommon vigour to him. In his seventies, maybe. Life in those old eyes, and a face that had seen much. Grey beard, grey hair and thin; very thin.
'What can you do?' said the man. Gave Barney a long look, and there may have been the light of recognition in his eyes. Someone who might actually know me for who I am, thought Barney, but the thought did little to excite him.
'I've cut a bit of hair in my time,' he said.
The old man nodded.
'Aye, I can see that, son,' he said. 'You've got the look. What's your name?'
Barney hesitated. What if he did recognise him? Maybe he didn't want to hand himself in after all. Maybe he wanted to be free to work in a small barber's shop in Greenock.
Now, there was ambition.
'Thomson,' he said. 'Barney Thomson.'
A slight smile came to the old man's face; but the look in his eyes was warm.
'The murderer bloke?' he asked.
Barney shrugged. 'Aye, I suppose.'
The old man stood up and laughed.
'Aye, sure you are, son,' he said, extending his hand.
'The name's Blizzard. Leyman Blizzard.' Barney took his hand. A firm grip, cool fingers. A man to trust. 'I reckon you're full of shite, son, but you've got the job. We'll see what you can do. Can't promise much in the way of wages, mind, no' unless business picks up a bit.'
Barney looked around the shop again. Spit and sawdust. Needed money spent on it, but money came from customers.
'How d'you manage to stay open?' he asked.
Blizzard shrugged.
'No' many overheads, you know. As you can probably tell.'
Barney looked around and wondered why exactly it was that the old man needed help; except for the painting and decorating. Needed the company maybe, and if that was all it was, then perhaps it'd be ideal. For there was no doubt that he was in need of it himself.
'Could do with a bit of paint,' said Barney.
Blizzard threw a hand into the air in a gesture of hopelessness, and for the first time Barney noticed his fingers. Bent and gnarled. He wondered how he could possibly cut hair at all.
'Which chair's mine?' he asked, after realising he was staring at the old man's hands.
Blizzard shrugged. 'The one nearest the window, if you like. I couldn't give a shite myself.'
Barney was already standing beside that chair, and he looked at it and rested his hand on the crudely covered suede headrest. Magic or fate or some benign conjuration. Maybe it was evil sorcery. He had come in from the cold, and not only had the police turned him away, he had walked into a barber's shop, had been given a job cutting hair and had been presented with the window seat. It was as if a higher force was at work. Yet nothing had made him come to Greenock; nothing had made him walk up this street. That was all of his own accord. So, it could all just have been luck.
The door to the shop opened. A customer. Magnetically attracted by Barney, he thought, in this new contrived reality of his. He itched to once more lift the scissors in anger, but he deferred to his boss.
'What'll it be, mate?' asked Blizzard, as the man – Jamie Spencer, twenty-seven; going prematurely bald; married with two girlfriends; financial analyst, whatever that meant; already the worse for wear for too much alcohol; nose tending to redness; could run a hundred metres in under twenty-five seconds – closed the door behind him.
'Can you do me a Lutheran, Three at the Back, Cloistered Short Back and Sides?'
Blizzard looked at him, mouth slightly open, showing white teeth and a bit of drool.
'That's a fucking haircut?' he said.
'Aye, I can do that,' said Barney. 'Sit yourself down there, mate.'
Of course, the last time he'd done that cut he'd made a total hash of it; but a bit of concentration and a steady nerve would see him through.
Jamie Spencer eased himself into the chair nearest the window; Leyman Blizzard gave Barney the nod. Smiled to himself, the old man, at this sudden interruption and being immediately relegated in his own shop. But he was not wont to care.
Barney flexed his scissor fingers and prepared for his first haircut in nearly a year. Back in the saddle. Suddenly, from nowhere, thrust onto the stage. Once more at the helm. Returned to the Starship Enterprise, like Spock in the first movie. Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again. Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park. The coelacanth.
He was back.
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living
Statistically most murders take place after the hours of darkness; or, at least, they do in the netherworld of Barney Thomson.
Not that Barney would automatically be implicated in the murder that took place that evening – though there would be some who suspected – some eight hours after the end of the extraordinary biweekly meeting of Bearsden Murderers Anonymous; but inevitably, there would be a coming together. It was his destiny.
Jacob Wellingborough, an average man. Fourteen years in the plumbing trade; married with three children; a part-time mistress whom he saw on an occasional basis; holidays twice a year, once with the family in Spain, once with his mates in the Lake District; new car every second year; season ticket at Ibrox; half-hour drive to work; satellite TV, News of the World, Surprise, Surprise and Club International. An ordinary man.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
So some people think; one man in particular, as far as this story goes. Someone who could not bear the ordinary; who could not countenance the mundane; who quailed at those who might disdain originality; who could not see the merits of an ordinary life. And so he sat at home each night battling with those demons which told him to challenge that ordinariness; told himself that life need not be exceptional to be worth living; that life could go on without catechism and analysis.
How many years had he denied the truth and the inevitability of his nature? How many times had he sat with friends, talking through his weakness and the demons that drove him away; and now the demon that had reignited the evil within him, less than a year after his return? The demon that had been the naked, flaming torch to his blistering desire for revenge upon the world? Even the honest hearts of Murderers Anonymous had not been able to help. Because, for all his time in confession and self-revelation, he had never admitted to anyone what had driven him to murder in the first place; what had pushed him to the edge, then tipped him over into the abyss.
And so Wee Magnus McCorkindale had had to die. And now many others would follow, though their crimes might have been insignificant.
Jacob Wellingborough walked out of the pub, said goodbye to Davie Three Legs, Charro and Baldy McGovern. Monday night, Christmas quiz night at the Pea &
Korma, another second-place finish behind the Govan Guzzlers (none of whom were from Govan, and all of whom had sipped lemonade quietly throughout the night). A ten minute walk to the house. Sometimes he took the car because there were never police around that area, but tonight he'd decided to walk. One of the last decisions he'd ever take.
He was thinking of a variety of things. Fives the next night; couldn't believe he had let Baldy say that Clark Gable had won an Oscar for Gone with the Wind; Janice at the weekend, if he could get away from Margaret and the kids; struggling to get the particular doll Miriam wanted for her Christmas; couple of awkward calls in the morning; his mind rambled on. Turned when he heard the footsteps behind him. A bit surprised when he saw who it was; stopped and waited. Fatally.
'How you doing, mate, didn't expect to see you?' he said.
The killer smiled; fingers twitched on the knife held in his hot right hand, thrust inside his jacket pocket.
'Just been seeing some mates.'
'Right. Excellent,' said Wellingborough.
And so they started walking along together, side by side, with nothing to say. Wellingborough felt uncomfortable.
The killer was a little nervous; this would be the first cold one in some time. McCorkindale had been in the heat of the moment. And it was wrong – at least he had the conscience to know that.
'Do you know what the capital of Djibouti is?' said Wellingborough to break the awkward silence.
'Djibouti? Don't even know where it is.'
'East Africa. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't know what its capital was, you know. Should've guessed, I suppose. Djibouti's also the name of the capital, you see. No imagination these people.'
'That's funny,' said the killer.
'How come?' said Wellingborough, turning to face his nemesis.
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