The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  Socrates finished off his pint with a spider-be-gone flourish.

  'Right there,' he said, 'you've hit the nail on the head. Women. It's always women. No bloke's ever going to have the neck to call me out, even if they're scared. No bloke's going to let his bird call me out if they're in the house. So it's aye women on their own who give us a call. Think about it,' he said, tapping the side of his napper, 'it's the biggest phobia in Britain. There are about a gazillion spiders out there, and most of them find their way into someone's house at some stage. It's perfect. And, of course, the best bit is that these birds are usually so grateful that I've rid them of their pest that they give us a shag.'

  Socrates smiled. Winters smiled too, shaking her head.

  'You're serious?'

  'Aye, hen, it's brilliant. The perfect job. I get paid good cash, and I get laid at least twice a day. Brilliant. Mind you ...' he said, rising to head off to the bar.

  'What?'

  'Spiders give us the willies. The bath ones are all right, 'cause you just stick a glass over the bastard. But see garden sheds, I fucking hate them. Another vodka, hen?'

  Winters smiled, a move which enhanced the small, pale hairs along her top lip.

  'Aye,' she said. 'Another vodka. No ice.'

  'Right, hen,' said Socrates, and off he went. The hunter-gatherer.

  The Hammer smiled too. Socrates was all right. In his way. Now it was time to talk his own brand of bullshit.

  Dillinger was politely listening to Billy Hamilton's thesis on how Britain and Ireland could have won the Ryder Cup in 1987, and maybe another few times as well, without the addition of the European players. Not even sure what sport the Ryder Cup was, Dillinger, but was nodding in all the right places.

  Galbraith leant over her, completely ignored Billy Hamilton. He could have crushed wee Billy like a paper cube. Didn't care if he annoyed him.

  'Sandy Lyle, brilliant player, brilliant. Faldo couldn't lick his shoes, even now,' were Hamilton's last few words on the subject.

  'Here, Katie, can I have a word?' said The Hammer.

  Billy Hamilton attempted to give him a Robert de Niro, but with the foosty moustache and insipid eyes, it was more of a Terry-Thomas.

  'Sure,' said Dillinger, delighted to escape. 'Sorry, Billy, I'll be back in a minute.'

  'Aye, right,' said Hamilton, and his moustache wilted.

  The Hammer and Dillinger wandered over to the bar, away from the crowd. To their right Arnie Medlock and Sammy Gilchrist exploded in near-violent argument over the nature of Wordman's Theorem, but they ignored it and leant against the sodden bar. Brushed away the beer and the peanuts, and the detritus of urine from unwashed fingers.

  'What's up?' she said.

  The Hammer nodded, lips clenched. Looked her in the eye.

  'Got a few things to do this weekend,' he said.

  Dillinger's eyebrows plunged together.

  'What are you saying?'

  He shrugged, lifted his pint and waved it around a little.

  'This and that. Stuff, you know. And the bastard is us going on Saturday and coming back on Monday. Just can't get the day off work.'

  'It's Christmas Eve!'

  'You know what it's like at that place.'

  'So you're not coming?'

  He stared at her. Expressionless.

  'Pretty much,' he said.

  'Paul?' she said, a little pained. She could be cool, she could achieve her air of aloofness, she could be judgemental, but she still had feelings same as every other human, and a lot of those feelings were for The Hammer. A good man; brutal, perhaps, but always a good bet on the weekend away in case tempers frayed and the true nature of some of their crowd emerged. 'I thought, well you know ...' she said, and let the sentence drift off.

  The Hammer shrugged again. Stay firm, he thought.

  'Just got things to do, you know. Sorry, love, but that's the way it goes.'

  'What are you doing, then?' asked Dillinger. Could tell there was something else going on in there. None of this lot ever told the truth.

  The Hammer could no longer look her in the eye. Quickly downed the rest of his pint. He didn't owe her anything. He had vague feelings for her, but he could afford to lose them. And, of course, if the worst came to the worst, he could always just kill her. It wasn't like he hadn't done it before.

  Drained the glass, rested it in a pool of sludge. Arnie Medlock drunkenly yelled something about Wagner's antagonistic interdependence with Nietzsche; someone obscurely put George Harrison's Behind That Locked Door on the juke-box; across the bar punches were thrown in a discussion on Paul McStay's overall contribution, or lack of it, to Scottish football; outside a car smashed into a lamppost; overhead, a plane, destined to crash into the side of a Spanish mountain after a near-miss with an Air Afrique 737 flown by the pilot's brother-in-law, roared quietly through the night sky.

  'Got to go, babe,' he said. Put a small piece of paper in her hand. 'Here's my name for the Christmas draw. You'd better give it to someone else.' Cheekily leant forward and kissed her on the lips, didn't look her in the eye, and was gone. The Incredible Captain Bullshit, that was how he'd been known at university. Until the incident with his ex-girlfriend, after which he'd became the Incredible Captain Bloodbath.

  Katie Dillinger watched him go. Curious and moderately hurt. Looks like me and Arnie Medlock this weekend, she thought.

  She turned and surveyed her merry men and women. Arguing, chatting, flirting, pointing, shouting, talking, posing. A flawed bunch who she would lead away for a weekend in an isolated house in the Borders; and as she surveyed them, a shiver ran up her back and suddenly she felt a cold draught of dread and a vision of blood and of a slashed throat came to her, and was gone in the time it took to lift her glass and nervously swallow the remnants of her fifth vodka tonic of the night.

  ***

  Number three. Or number two, as the police would think, for it would be some time before they realised that Wee Corky Nae Nuts had been murdered by the same man.

  The killer was keeping better count, however. For the moment. Seven was his intended number. A good number, seven. Seven seals.

  The same thing for supper every night now for two months. Home from the pub, then Spam fritters, chips and mushy peas. The pleasure of it was beginning to wear off. He had only been able to finish them these past couple of nights owing to the wine with which he'd been washing it down. A New Zealand chardonnay. Strangely it didn't recommend on the label that you should drink it with Spam fritters, so he was thinking of writing to the vineyard and getting them to change the wording. A light, fruity wine with excellent length, firm thighs and a hairy arse, with overtones of strawberries, lime and mince. Delicious as an aperitif, or as an accompaniment to fish, chicken, salad, Spam fritters, chips and mushy peas. Buy it or we'll break your legs.

  He swallowed the remainder of the bottle and headed on out into the night. It had turned a little colder, and there was light December rain in the air. A jacket, certainly, but he still didn't need a jumper. Might not even have needed the jacket in fact, if he hadn't required somewhere to conceal the knife.

  Not sure yet of his intended victim. Might be male, might be female. You just never knew until it happened.

  He was moderately disturbed by himself, since this psychotic urge had been reawakened. Sometimes, however, you just had to follow through on your urges. And so he caught a lonely bus to a different part of the city, and on this dank night he would see another lonely figure plying a desolate trade and, with a smile upon his face, he would move in for the kill.

  ***

  And in the small hours of the morning, as the killer made his way home on an even lonelier bus, and as the body of Jason Ballater lay slumped in a bloody mess against the wall of a public WC; and as the rain fell softly against the bedroom windows of the city; and as the night wept for the departed and all the souls who would lose the fight for life, Barney Thomson awoke from a nightmare, the prayers for his own soul still ringin
g in his head, the spectre of death still standing at his shoulder, his heart thumping, pains across his chest, drenched in sweat.

  And That's All From Caesar's Palace

  Feet up, eyes closed.

  If it had been a warm, sunny day, the air filled with luxurious summer smells, the occasional bug buzzing by, and if some bikini-clad überchick had been running at his beck and call, fetching cold beers and endless packets of Doritos, while performing a vast array of indescribably erotic things to his body, then it would have been high up in the top ten list of things to do when you were dead.

  But it was Scotland in December, so you took what you could get. It was not too cold, he had a cup of tea and a ham, cucumber and mustard sandwich, and he was on his own; which, while not as good as hanging out with a bikini-clad überchick, was way up on being with some cretinous idiot who'd irritated the ham sandwich out of him.

  Which just about classified everyone Detective Chief Inspector Joel Mulholland knew these days, such ill-humour had he been in these recent months.

  The river rolled by, water splashing against rocks and rounding up twigs and leaves to sweep them downstream; a variety of fish loafed about, avoiding the meagre fare on offer at the end of Mulholland's line; a zither of wind rustled what leaves remained on the trees; clouds occasionally obscured the sun, before passing on their way. Somewhere overhead a plane headed west, carrying on board, by some strange coincidence, Mulholland's ex-wife, although he was not to know. It was some seven months since they'd had any direct contact, all communication between them now being conducted through, on the one hand Weir, Hermiston, Jekyll & Silver, and on the other Goodchap, Neugent, Turkey & Bratwurst.

  Generally there are two or three ways you can go when nearly thirty people under your protection are murdered, and you get to view most of the mutilated bodies along the way. There's the way where you throw yourself back into your work, doing whatever minor tasks the superintendent will let you near. There's the way where you go completely off your head, wander around the streets, naked bar the pair of underpants on your head, singing the first eight verses of Old Shep. Or you can go quietly insane, get transferred to some sleepy backwater, and spend your days fishing and doing paperwork on whatever local youth has chosen to fall into the river the night before, after drinking too much gooseberry wine at his Uncle Andy's fiftieth birthday party.

  Sergeant Erin Proudfoot had opted for the first on the list. It was the only way for her, and she had been rewarded with every trivial task coming the way of Maryhill police station for ten months; from the theft of some old granny's thimble collection, to missing cats and stray libidos, she'd seen it all.

  Mulholland had tottered between the other two. A few months of intense romance with Proudfoot and then, with the breaking of any other day, but a day on which reality had finally kicked in, he'd gone gently off his head. Over thirty men dead, a police officer downed among them, he'd had to view the sort of carnage at which Genghis Khan would have winced. He had taken it out on Proudfoot – love by any other name – and when at last he had edged towards quiet insanity, he'd been posted, at his request, to the requisite sleepy town in Argyll, to fish and sleep and eat and occasionally solve some innocent crime. (Not that major crime didn't happen in Argyll, it was just that none of it was put the way of Joel Mulholland.)

  So they had gone their separate ways, these two, but they had this in common. They were both in counselling, and would be for some time to come; unless destiny played its hand, as it has a tendency to do.

  Not that Mulholland gave much thought to counselling as he felt a gentle pull on his fishing line; in fact, he didn't think about much at all. The past was there to be dredged up four or five hours a week by Dr Murz, and not at any other time. And if he was required to face that past in order to return to normality, then, he occasionally opined to the doctor, who needed normality?

  The tug on the fishing line came a little harder. Might have something, he thought, as he tried to rouse himself from the waking dream; a dream which, as usual, had dark edges and strange, evil creatures poised to enter at any moment, should he let his guard down. Eyes slowly opened; a man stood in front of him, fingers wet from where he'd been tugging the line.

  Mulholland stared for some time. Nothing worse than being interrupted when you're in the middle of nothing. The other man looked around at the trees and the river and the blue sky; there was a light smell of wood burning in the air, and despite the mildness, the promise of a crisp early evening.

  'Very tree-ie around here,' said Constable Hardwood.

  Mulholland closed his eyes, trying to drift back into the world of non-demons he had just left.

  'Arboreal, Constable,' he said. 'The word is arboreal.'

  'Aye,' said Hardwood. 'And there's a lot of trees 'n' all. Reminds me of a place my dad used to take me fishing when I was a lad.'

  'Oh aye,' said Mulholland, eyes firmly closed, his netherworld receding all the time. 'Where was that?'

  'About fifty yards along the river there,' said Hardwood, pointing.

  'Har-de-har-har, Constable. You want to tell me what I can do for you?'

  Hardwood smiled at the closed eyes. There'd been a time, not long after Mulholland arrived, when he'd been in awe of the man. There'd been a glint of madness in his eye and stories were legion of the affair at the monastery, as if he himself might have had something to do with all the murders. But over time Hardwood and the rest of the station had come to realise that Mulholland was merely shell-shocked, not mad. Harmless in his way. Although you could never be completely sure; that's what Sergeant Dawkins said.

  'You're wanted,' said Hardwood.

  'I'm fishing.'

  Hardwood nodded and stared around at the trees. Didn't know the name of any of them. They were green, and in the winter the leaves come off; that was the limit of his knowledge. Trees weren't his thing. Constable Lauder said that Mulholland had threatened him with a knife not long after he'd arrived, but no one really believed it. And if it had been true, then so be it, because if anyone deserved to be threatened with a knife...

  'It's important,' said Hardwood.

  'Don't care,' said Mulholland, eyes firmly shut.

  Hardwood nodded again. Beginning to wonder what to do next. On the one hand he had the perhaps not psychopathic but at least a bit strange Joel Mulholland; while on the other he had Superintendent Cunningham, a woman who ate men's testicles for breakfast. And lunch.

  Tough call. He balked.

  'You're still here, Constable,' said Mulholland, eyes closed, the taste of ham, cucumber and mustard in his mouth.

  'Aye.'

  'What could you possibly want now that I've sent you on your way?'

  Hardwood didn't move. He'd known Mulholland would be like this; and he'd been told to get him under any circumstances.

  'You really are needed, sir,' he said, knowing that it wasn't enough. He would need more than that to persuade the shell-shocked victim from his fishing perch.

  'Don't give a hoot, son,' said Mulholland. 'Go back and tell Geraldine that she can stick her head up her arse. You can help her to stick her head up her arse if you want; you have my authority.'

  The fishing line was tugged again; a sharp pull. Mulholland snapped. Eyes open, he sat up, filled with the instant rage to which he had been prone for months. Did not even try to contain it.

  'Bloody hell, Constable, I told you to fuck off! It's my day off, I've got nothing to go in for, so would you just get out of my face? Leave me in peace and tell Geraldine she can go and piss in her shoes. I'll see her in the morning.'

  'That wasn't me, sir,' said Hardwood dryly.

  'What?'

  There was another tug at the line, Hardwood nowhere near it. As ever with his explosions of anger, Mulholland felt instant regret; and as ever, it ruined the sound basis for his argument and put him a couple of goals behind.

  It was time, he thought, leaning forward and rubbing his forehead, that Murz started earning her money. H
e didn't need counselling a few hours a week, it should be all day every day for the next twenty years. And so he ignored the jumping line.

  'Sorry, Constable, that was bad.'

  'That's all right, sir,' said Hardwood.

  'So what's the score, then? Why's Geraldine so keen to see me? Wanting into my pants?' said Mulholland glibly, as he hauled himself from his seat and began to wind in his third fish of the day; three fish he would never get the chance to eat.

  'Likes 'em younger than you, sir,' said Hardwood and Mulholland laughed.

  'Right, Constable. About your age, by any chance?'

  Hardwood smiled, Mulholland shook his head. So it went, and he began to get his equipment together, fishing posted to the back of his mind.

  Soon he would be dispatched back to Glasgow, to be once more commissioned to follow the trail of Barney Thomson; and to be once more landed in the dark heart of a murderer's lair, to taste the putrid flesh.

  'Whatever it's going to be,' said Mulholland, 'I'll bet it's a load of pants.'

  'Aye,' said Hardwood, knowing no more than Mulholland. 'No doubt.'

  The Clothes-Horse Of Senility

  Barney stepped back and looked at the hair from a different angle. It was not going well. In fact, it was downright ugly. There had been more successful invasions of Russia in the previous two hundred years than this. It was time for retrospection, perhaps even damage limitation.

  The Tyrolean Überhosen was one of the most complex haircuts ever to have emerged from Austria, and only three or four barbers outside the general Anschluss area had ever been able to master it. And for all his greatness, for all his communication with the gods of barbery, for all the angels fluttering their wings at his shoulder, and for all the elves weaving necromancy into the very fabric of his comb and scissors, rendering household plastic and steel into wondrous instruments of sortilege and legerdemain, transforming him from the journeyman barber of his past to the thaumaturgist of the present, turning water to wine by the agency of the theurgical jewels of his workmanship, Barney Thomson wasn't one of those three or four; and he was making an arse of it.