The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  This is stupid, thought Mulholland. It was all wonderfully contrived, but the policeman in him was completely wasted.

  Why not? he now thought, at last giving in to Proudfoot's emotion. Why not be stupid? He still had another couple of hours to back out. Still had another couple of hours to get lost in the woods.

  'Let's do it,' he said. Heart of light and stone.

  'You sure?' asked Proudfoot.

  'Of course not,' he said, starting to laugh.

  The smile spread across her face; tears fell. And the smile spread across the face of the Reverend Rolanoytez's killer. For he knew who would return with them from the big house.

  He just knew.

  Lesbians Roasting On An Open Fire

  Post-dinner, the mood for the evening was set. Small groups had dispersed around the house, and the usual Christmas spirit had completely gone. Still no Arnie Medlock, Morty Goldman or Billy Hamilton. Annie Webster and Ellie Winters had finally and firmly nailed their colours to the mast. Ending more speculation than usually surrounds the election of a pope or the draw for the first round of the Champion's League, they had chosen to eschew the host of men, who had gathered to slobber at their doors, and were snuggling down together in front of the dwindling fire.

  And so the men had gone their ways, suitably chastened and abandoned in all their masculine impotence. Mince without potatoes. They could have reacted by swarming around Katie Dillinger, but they had been warned off by the look on her face – she was clearly upset by the missing three, which was even worse than her being annoyed – and by the presence at her side of Barney Thomson. The evil Barney Thomson. For all these men had heard about the man; they knew what he'd done in the past, and they were beginning to think that maybe it had been his doing that so many of their number had fallen away. Perhaps he was taking them out, one by one. And so none would cross him, and none would get in the way of his attempted conquest of Dillinger.

  Fergus Flaherty the Fernhill Flutist and Socrates McCartney were at the snooker table. Bobby Dear was watching them intently, waiting to play the winner. Developing a strategy.

  Sammy Gilchrist was sitting in the lounge, pretending to read a book, keeping his eyes on Ellie Winters and Annie Webster. He'd heard about this kind of thing – of course he had – but he'd never actually seen it done. Wondering if they were going to get stuck in or whether they'd save it for the privacy of their room later on.

  Barney and Katie Dillinger sat side by side on a huge sofa, staring at the dying fire; and in Barney's case, trying not to stare at the Webster/Winters combo.

  'This is a disaster,' said Dillinger, breaking ten minutes of silence.

  Barney slowly nodded. He didn't feel it so badly, but he could see it for what it was. If only he'd known, he could have spent the weekend sitting in the pub with old Leyman, talking about Elvis. Yet he was next to the woman and this evening had brought them closer. This still had potential.

  If he could spend the night in the company of someone else, then he would grasp the opportunity. The walls had eyes, darkness had come, and once the lights went out who knew what walked the floors and skulked in secret passageways? And he knew that his nightmare awaited him, for when he finally closed his eyes.

  He placed his hand on top of hers, squeezed slightly.

  'Don't worry about it. They'll be fine,' he said. Didn't believe a word of it. Everyone in his life got murdered.

  She let out a short, bitter little laugh.

  'God, I don't know,' she said, but did not remove her hand from his. 'It's the same every year. There are tensions and doubts and anger. Always. But I usually manage to keep it in check. Or Arnie usually manages to keep it in check. Or The Hammer, but God knows what he's up to. I suppose it was bound to go wrong some time. But if one of this lot have done something to Arnie ...' and she let the sentence drift off.

  'Arnie can take care of himself,' said Barney, not doubting for even a second that Arnie had already been turned into dog food.

  'I'm scared for him,' she said. 'Really scared.'

  Barney swooped.

  He placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her towards him. It seemed so natural, although he had not had such intimacy with a woman in decades. And Dillinger gave in to the comfort and leaned towards him, resting against his chest.

  Bing Crosby was joined by the Andrews Sisters for some mindless piece of Christmas twaddle, and the two unhappy couples snuggled down in front of the fire.

  Sammy Gilchrist watched and wondered and waited.

  ***

  They struggled on through the rain. Had done a lot of walking and they were both tired, but the meal and fresh clothes had revived them. And now they had waterproof jackets and an umbrella each, and so the relentless downpour did not seem so bad.

  'Do you feel swept along by the tide?' asked Proudfoot, to break a long silence.

  Mulholland considered his reply. They notice every word, every nuance, he said to himself. Be very careful.

  'Aye, I suppose,' is all he could manage. 'And this. Going to a house which is occupied by a known murderer to ask for witnesses to our wedding. How stupid is that? How's it going to look with our lot if Annie pops up and volunteers?'

  Proudfoot nodded and stared at the sodden ground. Couldn't the minister just have lifted the phone and brought in a couple of his parishioners? Still, she hadn't liked to say. It was their wedding, after all; it seemed reasonable that they should do some of the work, some of the asking. Perhaps the minister had been worried that someone from his congregation would report him to the Out of Hours Church Use Police.

  'Don't care,' she said. 'I'm pretty sure I'm not going back, so what can they do to me? And they can't bring it out in the open because, to be honest, a lot of the stuff we've been up to in the last five months is illegal. I hope she does volunteer. God, who knows, maybe the bloke she killed asked for it. She's seemed nice enough to me these last few months.'

  'Aye, but look at your judgement. You're marrying me.'

  Proudfoot laughed and took him more tightly by the arm. Did not notice the tension in response.

  'I've never had any judgement,' she said. 'That's why I joined the police.'

  'Ah. The perfect officer.'

  She laughed again and at the same moment saw the lights ahead through the trees. The house awaited them. More warmth and more comfort. She hoped. Never knew what sort of crowd they might encounter on a weekend away. Particularly when one of them was Annie Webster.

  Immediately felt the possibility of embarrassing rejection. Turning up at someone else's party at nine-thirty on a Sunday night with an absurd request. Who the hell was going to want to come out on a night such as this?

  Nervously aware of the tightrope of indecision along which her husband-to-be was walking.

  'And I always thought you were in the zone,' he said, to take his mind off the inevitable. 'At least, when you weren't reading crap magazines and listening to pish music.'

  'No, not me. I don't think I've ever been in the zone,' she said.

  'Me neither,' said Mulholland. 'Unless it was when I scored a hat-trick for the Cubs against the 150th when I was nine. Certainly haven't been in the zone since I joined the polis.'

  The house approached; inching its way towards them through the trees. Until, suddenly it seemed, it was there before them, huge and grey and sombre in the night, at the end of the long driveway. And they walked past where they'd spent the previous night, an age ago, and began the trudge down the driveway. Slowing down as they went, as neither particularly relished the thought of turning up at the house of a stranger. They were enjoying the walk, and maybe there was a feeling that what they were about to do would change things completely, and not just because they would be married.

  'Maybe,' said Proudfoot, 'I hit the zone when I slept with every member of the first and second rugby fifteens in one weekend when I was in the sixth year. I was pretty hot back then.'

  They walked on. Mulholland cast a sideways glance. Just t
he sort of information you want to receive on your wedding day. Such shredded emotions as his couldn't really compute the information quickly enough, however.

  'Oh,' was all he said.

  'I made that up,' she said after a while.

  'Oh.'

  'Honest.'

  'That's good. I don't really think that's a zone, anyway. It's more of a planetary system than a zone. Still, you must have been very proud.'

  'I didn't actually do it. I said that. I made it up.'

  'Right.'

  Their travels brought them to the front door; and out of the rain under the shelter of the porch, where Barney and his fellows had stood the previous evening. So close to this nest of vipers, this grand house of criminality, that had they been in any sort of zone themselves they might have sensed it. Evil lurked within. But they had both left their police zone a long way behind.

  'You still love me?' she asked, as Mulholland rang the bell.

  Love? The question came winging its cherub's way towards him. Who mentioned love? A jokey question, but you know what women are like, he thought. Laced with meaning.

  Did he love her? Is that what this was all about? Charging through the night in the pouring rain to get married at midnight in the company of strangers. If not love, then what was it? Would I die for her? he wondered, for that was a way to judge. Would I give anything for her to be happy? Is she more important to me than life itself; and Partick Thistle?

  He looked into her eyes, pale and grey in the dim light.

  ***

  Not much else to say. Dillinger and Barney snuggled up on the couch, unsure of the horrors that awaited them in the night. She knew Arnie – at least, she thought she knew Arnie – she knew he would not just leave them. Something had happened to him, and if Arnie wasn't safe from one of their crowd, then neither were any of them.

  She didn't know Barney, but she could tell a good and honest man by his face. She would stay with him tonight. If something romantic happened, then it happened, but she was not giving it thought. She needed succour and Barney was her man.

  The doorbell rang, the grating bell slotting nicely in between Suzy Snowflake and The Snowman. Dillinger started slightly at the noise and sat up. Looked at her watch. Barney sat up with her, while the others in the room ignored it. Webster and Winters were becoming ever more comfortable; Sammy Gilchrist ever more engrossed.

  'God,' she said, 'who do you think this is going to be?'

  Barney shrugged. 'Probably some of the old housekeeper's mates. Come to drag her out on a Sunday night. Some big Germanic gang of goosestepping lunatics, off to invade somewhere for the evening. See if they can hang onto it longer than they hung onto Poland.'

  'I've got a bad feeling about this,' she said, ignoring him. 'Something's not right. I'm going to get it.'

  'Just leave it,' said Barney. 'It'll be for the ...'

  And he didn't bother completing the sentence, for she was already scuttling through the lounge and out into the hall. He shrugged and slouched back down into the sofa. Thought he was unconcerned, but from nowhere the hairs began to rise on the back of his neck. Suddenly the one-eyed sheep, hung by its neck, swinging in the wind, came into his head. Sitting with Dillinger, he had managed to push it from his mind, but now it was back. The hanging sheep, the shuffling from behind, the presence of Death at his shoulder. The prayer for his soul. It all awaited him; and he felt the cold.

  How immune he had become to it all, these last two years. Before all this had started, if he had found himself staying in a creepy old house with a group of convicted or unconvicted murderers, some of whom had gone missing, he would've been running. Now it almost seemed mundane. But the feeling of doom that had suddenly crept upon him was something to concentrate his mind. He'd had it for a few weeks now, and it was nothing to do with his current situation. Yet perhaps where he was, who he was with, would be the promulgator of events that were the making of the dream.

  He stood and looked round at the door, knowing that someone would be brought into the house. Didn't know who, didn't know what effect it would have upon him, just knew that they would play a part in the unfolding of his future.

  His heart beat no faster, for he had become impervious to moments of tension. And perhaps it was time for him to leave this life, for he had no lust for it any longer. Not that he'd ever had, but at least before he'd been stuck in his rut. Now, freed from that and emancipated in the world to do anything he chose, he had found that freedom was not for him either; yet the thought of returning to his rut was impossible. Not after he had seen what lay outside. Couldn't stand freedom, couldn't face the oppression of normal life.

  But it was the dread of what came next, that undiscovered country, which ailed him. Once again he felt the hand at his shoulder, and he looked towards the door as it slowly swung open.

  Four people walked into the room, Barney's mouth opened a little, and at last his heart skipped and jumped and picked up a little pace. Dillinger, followed by a man and a woman, with Hertha Berlin bringing up the rear offering tea and Christmas cake to the weary travellers.

  Mulholland and Proudfoot quickly took in the room with the well-practised eye of the detective. The Christmas tree, the vanishing fire, the lesbians on the floor, the crazed and demented Sammy Gilchrist, lusting after the two lesbians on the floor. And the well-known, ever so popular, everybody's favourite serial killer, Barney Thomson, showing all his bottom teeth. Not the magnificent sparklingly white teeth of a dreadful chewing-gum advert, but white all the same. Good teeth. Hadn't had to visit the dentist in seventeen years.

  'Bugger me! Barney?' said Mulholland. 'Barney flippin' Thomson. What the fuck are you doing here?'

  Barney stared into the eyes of the law. They'd let him go once, but now that there was a new series of murders in the city and he was once more a suspect, would they be so forgiving? Assumed they must have come looking for him, and was therefore confused by the question. But they were here now, and so was he with his band of happy thieves. The last thing he could do, whether he actually liked many of these people or not, was tell them the nature of their group.

  The glum Barney was as confused as ever when put on the spot. And so he said the first thing that came into his head.

  'Don't know,' he muttered.

  Don't Suppose It Can Get Any Weirder Than It Already Is

  Annie and Ellie were overcome by ardour. Two women, a tender passion. Lips meeting in soft caress; pale cheeks glowing by the fading light of the fire. They didn't even notice the arrival of the newcomers. Hands held lightly against cheeks, fingers running against the firm outline of a breast.

  Jade Weapon opened fire with her World War II Bren gun, riddling the screaming lesbians full of lead. The blood poured from them and soaked swiftly into the carpet as their voices screamed in tortured agony. If there was one thing Jade Weapon hated more than men, it was lesbians.

  Proudfoot looked quizzically at them. Annie Webster, in the midst of another woman. Hadn't betrayed any signs of that kind of behaviour in the previous five months. Not that it changed anything. Proudfoot shrugged, then turned back to Barney Thomson, a man she thought she'd never see again. Mulholland stared at Sammy Gilchrist, but his mind was not switched on and he thought nothing of him.

  Yet Gilchrist wilted under the gaze and could spot the police a mile off. Took the executive decision to walk casually from the room; then stood barely out of sight behind the door into the snooker room, so that he could hear everything. Including the quiet sucking noises from the amorous couple.

  'So would you like some tea or not?' asked Hertha Berlin.

  They were plucked from their respective contemplations. Still full up from the vast meal they'd had fed to them; but a cup of tea on a wet night is always welcome.

  'That'd be nice,' said Mulholland.

  'Cake?'

  'Sure. Anything would be nice.'

  'Right you are,' said Berlin, and off she went, making her way to the kitchen. Where the handyman ate his
supper, his fifth meal of the day.

  The door closed once more on the small group. Dum-de-dum, the usual stuff from the CD player. We three kings of Orient are ... dum-de-dum-de-dum ... On sang Bing, in his relentless search for Christmas cheer. Bless him. The fire died slowly, the happy couple smooched, Sammy Gilchrist lurked in the snooker room, where Fergus Flaherty and Socrates McCartney continued to muddle their endless way through a four-and-a-half-hour frame of snooker while Bobby Dear awaited his turn; the clinking of balls drifting through to the lounge.

  'You know each other, then?' asked Dillinger.

  'Aye,' said Barney, hoping that Mulholland wouldn't explain the situation.

  'Aye,' said Mulholland, 'we've had dealings in the past. Small world, Barney.'

  'Aye,' Barney said again. Didn't like to venture anything further.

  Polis, thought Dillinger. Written all over them in letters a gazillion miles high. And she'd just let them into the house without so much as a word. However, there was something a bit different about them. Somehow it was obvious that the edge had gone.

  'What's the set-up here?' asked Proudfoot. Wouldn't have taken even a moderate detective to know that there was something behind this odd collection of people.

  Barney hesitated. Never had been much good at handling the police, and certainly not when they'd just been thrust upon him.

  Dillinger shrugged. 'We're AA,' she said. 'Bearsden branch.' Then realized as the words were coming out of her mouth that there were signs of alcohol consumption all around the room. 'This is our Christmas weekend away. Just a bit of fun. Have the odd drink. Group policy, and we can all keep an eye on each other. Seems to work.'