JLM was in his inner sanctum, where he could sit, like Jean-Luc Picard, and dispense management wisdom to the lucky few who got to enter. Barney was sitting by the window of the expensive and warmly decorated little room, having spent the previous ten minutes agreeing with everything that JLM had been saying.
Vogts was shown in by The Amazing Mr X, who closed the door behind them, and took up position where he could view all avenues of entry and egress, thermonuclear handgun at the ready.
'The sun is shining,' said Vogts, smiling. 'I thought I was in continental Europe.'
JLM laughed. He was about to quip, that's what my government has done for this country, when Vogts added, 'At least until I saw the rubbish on the streets and all the young girls pushing prams, eh?'
'Yes,' said JLM, with a little less enthusiasm. 'X, any idea what's happened to Mr Weirdlove?'
The Amazing Mr X turned sharply at hearing his letter.
'Weirdlove?' he said. As JLM's personal bodyguard he took no interest in anyone other than the First Minister. He glanced quickly around the room, making sure Weirdlove wasn't in attendance, then had a quick but pointless swatch at Holyrood Road three floors below. 'Don't know,' he said.
'Sit down, sit down,' said JLM to Herr Vogts. 'Everything to your satisfaction so far on your visit?'
'More or less,' said Vogts, 'although can I just say that there's not been enough women, alcohol or loud pointless singing. This is a bizarre way to run a government.'
'Can I organise a coffee or something for you? said JLM, attempting to hold up his end of the conversation.
'Or something sounds good,' said Vogts. 'Can I get a beer? A German beer, not the coloured water that you drink in this country.'
'X,' said JLM, 'can you locate Herr Vogts a German beer, please?'
The Amazing Mr X looked concerned.
'I'm not actually allowed to leave your side, sir,' he said, as if he was barking orders on a parade ground.
'Do you come with me when I take a shit?' asked JLM carefully. 'Or when I go to bed with my wife? I don't think so. X, you are authorised to do things other than stand at my shoulder holding onto my wiener. Now, go find a beer.'
Reluctantly, The Amazing Mr X left his post.
'You'll remember Barn Thomson?' said JLM, indicating Barney.
'Oh yes,' said Vogts, 'the barber.'
'Financial wunderkind,' said JLM.
'I didn't get that impression,' said Vogts.
'Lovely, lovely,' said JLM. 'Now, you'll be spending most of the next few days with Mr Weirdlove, my principal political advisor. And there's one other I'd like to be involved in the consultations. I trust you've had useful discussion with your people in Berlin as to how we can solve our little problem?'
'I have had several very constructive meetings,' said Vogts.
'Good, good,' said JLM.
'On one occasion,' said Vogts, 'we constructed a ten-foot tower out of beer mats, until that idiot Voeller nudged it accidentally. Hasn't been able to hold his beer since the botched vasectomy.'
'Yes,' said JLM, 'that wasn't quite what I meant.'
Barney sat looking from one to the other with vague amusement. His mind, however, was strangely on the cabinet murders, if that's what they were. How he could glean information to help solve them, and how he could possibly extricate himself from this ridiculous position.
The door burst open and in strode Parker Weirdlove, looking a little dishevelled around the chops, having run along the corridor. Didn't like to be late for anything, even if it was only JLM.
'Gentlemen!' he barked, as he marched in. 'Just had a few things to which to attend.'
'Such as?' said JLM.
'Herr Vogts,' said Weirdlove, nodding at the guest.
Vogts returned the greeting with a casual wave of the hand.
'Mr Weirdlove,' he chimed, 'you look as if you've been making big love!'
Weirdlove smiled uncomfortably, nodding at JLM and Barney. Looked embarrassed. Having been in such a rush, he hadn't had time to mentally prep himself for Vogts.
'Well,' he said, 'I don't think so, Herr Vogts.'
'Don't be embarrassed,' said Vogts. 'We have a saying in Germany. In government, there is more than one way to fuck the country. Clever, no?'
JLM laughed that big booming laugh of his. Weirdlove smiled and wondered how he was going to get out of the next few days. Barney hadn't been listening.
The door opened without a knock and in walked James Eaglehawk, the new Minister for Finance. The initial idea of bringing him in on the Euro plan to undermine Wanderlip had now been overtaken, but his was still the kind of devious, duplicitous and positively venal mind that was required for the project. Sharp-suited and sharp-chinned, he stood before the throng.
'First Minister, sir,' he said.
'Lovely,' said JLM, 'glad you could make it, James. Herr Vogts, this is James Eaglehawk, our new Finance Minister.'
'A pleasure,' said Vogts, taking Eaglehawk's outstretched hand. 'You have a name of many birds.'
'Yes,' said Eaglehawk, with supreme cool.
'I once knew an English girl called Greattits, but I think that was more a statement on her physical attributes than her actual name.'
'The same could be said about my name,' said Eaglehawk, with effortless panache. 'I swoop like the eagle on unsuspecting prey, I hover above the ground and know every inch of my territory like the hawk. I am a hunter, and the hunted are my prey.'
'Splendid,' said JLM, in an effort to cut him off.
'The beasts of the forest are my victims,' said Eaglehawk, continuing despite JLM's best intentions.
'It's the breasts and the forest that are my victims,' said Vogts, 'and I think we know what kind of forests we're talking about.'
'Enough!' said JLM. 'Gentlemen, I have other business. I'll leave you here to begin the formulation of the plan. Remember these three things: complete discretion, precise execution, and no bollocks. Got that? Champion.'
JLM rose from his chair, regarded the room with a generous smile and clasped his hands together in a roguish manner, as if he was about to go out and give a wench a good slap on the arse.
Barney watched him with the same bemusement with which he was currently watching everything. Would not be surprised if he was about to be left alone in a room with Weirdlove, Vogts and Eaglehawk to discus Scottish fiscal matters. Might as well have the future of the country's economy in the hands of someone who had no idea where to even begin.
'Barney!' said JLM. 'Come on, I've got a very important meeting with a mademoiselle from the Canadian government, and I'm looking for a Christopher Lambert Highlander III.'
'Hah!' said Vogts, as Barney rose. 'I knew you were the barber.'
'Of course I'm the effing barber,' said Barney dryly, as he walked past.
'Need to speak to you later about a little law suit, Parker,' said JLM quickly, having just been caught in the middle of another lie. Then he marched out, leading Barney from the room. Just as The Amazing Mr X galumphed in, carrying a Stella Artois...
***
'You see,' said JLM a few minutes later, once more at the whim of Barney's can of mousse and dashing blow drier, 'you can trust some of your people some of the time, but not all of them all of the time, you know what I'm saying? That's why I've got the three of them in there formulating policy. Over the next couple of days I'll take each of them to the side and have a wee chat, make them think they have my ear, that they're my man on the inside. Play them off against each other, find out who's really on my side.'
'Is that what you do with the cabinet?' said Barney, with cool.
JLM snorted.
'Well, I suppose I used to, but they're just so pointless now it's not worth my time. I'm the government, not them.'
'Someone thinks them important enough to murder,' said Barney. Very smooth and entirely natural introduction, he thought. Maybe this detective business wasn't so difficult.
JLM shook his head.
'You're right,
' he said. 'Can't understand it myself. Why kill something that's so insignificant that it hardly matters that it even exists? I do think it's more likely, however, that they're not dead and that they're collecting somewhere, intent on pulling some stunt, marching back to Edinburgh to take over the parliament. If they're not dead, I've got a good mind to arrest the three of them. What d'you think?'
'At the very least,' said Barney. 'In fact, if you reinstated the death penalty for treason, assuming they're not already dead, you could have them killed.'
'Very good, Barn,' said JLM, catching his eye in the mirror and nodding. 'What d'you think X?'
The Amazing Mr X, who was standing at the back of the bathroom, one eye on the window, one on the door, had been thinking about women again. However, he didn't want to be seen not to be listening to everything the boss said.
'Delicious,' he said.
'Yes,' said JLM. 'Delicious. A very good way to describe it.'
There was a knock at the door. The Amazing Mr X went through several body contortions in an effort to get himself into position to receive an attack.
'Come in,' said JLM, who didn't always share his bodyguard's flair for the dramatic.
The door opened, and Rebecca Blackadder stuck her head into the First Minister's boudoir.
'Edmund!' said JLM, looking at her in the mirror. 'What a treat. Is there anything I can do for you?'
'Building security are here, sir, I think you'd better come out.'
'Goodness me, Ed, I've got an important meeting in half an hour, and I need the right hair. What is it?'
'Nelly Stratton, First Minister,' said Blackadder.
'Christ,' he muttered under his breath. 'What does the nebby wee cow want now?'
Blackadder looked at The Amazing Mr X, exchanged a glance with Barney, stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
'She's been reported missing, sir. Same set-up as McLaven. No sign of a body, but blood on the carpet.'
JLM let out a long sigh and turned round. The Amazing Mr X looked a little concerned. Barney raised an eyebrow; there goes another one, he thought, and he wasn't progressing very far with his investigation. Maybe it wasn't so easy to be a detective after all.
'Jesus,' said JLM. 'For crying out loud. You sure she's not just gone for a pint, or something?'
'Blood on the carpet,' Blackadder repeated.
'Maybe she was shaving,' quipped JLM.
'Your hair looks lovely, sir,' said Blackadder. 'I think you should come out.'
'You're right,' said JLM, glancing around at the mirror. 'My hair does look lovely. Thanks, Barn.'
And finally JLM rose and walked to the door, out to face another little crisis in his government.
***
As what counted for panic once again embraced the parliament building, the killer of the nebby wee cow sat back and relaxed with a hot cup of joe. At first she'd thought she might hang around and wait for building security after she'd made the call; ensure that they found the body before whoever it was who was cleaning up after her. And then she'd thought, sod it. I'm the killer, I should be in charge, I'll do it my way. I'll start toying with the idiot.
And so, after she had stabbed Stratton in the neck with one delightfully fluent ping of the knife, she'd removed the right shoe of the Minister for Parliamentary Business, then carefully cut off her big toe and placed it in a small polythene bag and into her coat pocket. Then she had bound the foot and put it back into the shoe. Then she'd left the scene of the crime, a small ancillary room on the top floor of the Assembly Building, returned to her office and placed the call to building security. More than likely, she thought, the body would be gone by the time they got there. Highly unlikely, however, that the ad hoc undertaker would notice that Mrs Stratton was not complete.
She sipped her coffee, munched on a fig roll, and pondered the variety of naughty things that one could do with a severed toe.
The Comedians
Finally the media had something decent into which to get their teeth. Rather than the vague disappearance of a couple of cabinet ministers, they now had two more vanishing in the parliament building itself, leaving blood on the carpet at that. The Executive Cull Picks Up Pace, boomed BBC Scotland at six-thirty. Arch Diver & Nebby Wee Cow the latest to go missing, said Scotland Today. Government in Crisis, thundered Newsnight Scotland, with the appropriate graphic displaying the exponential curve of the presumed slaughter of the cabinet. Disney to sue First Minister at refusal to let his children watch Jungle Book, said Channel 5. Britney's underwear in new love triangle, said Sky News.
For a few hours only, the media were more interested in the death of the very minor celebrities of the cabinet, than they were in JLM and Hookergate or Disneygate or World Cup 2014gate. By the following morning, the disappearance of McLaven and Stratton would not be front page in many of the newspapers, but they dominated the television for a few hours.
Barney was back in the very comfortable cell of his room, watching the television reaction to the latest news, when there was a knock at the door. Much as there was every night. It seemed to Barney like he was the new thing in town. What are you doing tonight? I'm going to see the freak, Barney Thomson. He didn't immediately leap up, only vaguely interested in who it might be. Some other messenger of his past, more than likely, with another explanation as to who he was and where he'd come from. Actually son, you came up the Clyde on a banana boat. As a matter of fact, you're a holographic image. It's a wonder what the people at Lego are doing these days. Apparently they made you out of bits of body that other people didn't need. You're a low-cal, decaffeinated zombie, fully back to life but with none of the slime.
He wearily walked to the door, sort of hoping that it would be Alison Blake returned to quash the rumours of her indifference. It would give him something to do, if nothing else.
Solomon and Kent were waiting outside, hanging around like a couple of blokes who didn't know what to do with themselves, looking up and down the corridor.
'Solomon and Kent,' said Solomon.
'I remember,' said Barney. 'I only saw you this morning. I thought you were going to give me a few days?'
'That was before the roof caved in,' said Solomon.
Barney nodded. True enough. There'd been a one hundred percent increase in the death rate. If it continued at this pace they'd all be gone by the day after tomorrow. And where would the country be then? Well, actually...
He stood back and ushered them in, nodding at Sergeant Kent as they passed.
'By the way,' said Solomon, 'who did you tell people we were? They're looking at us like we're cowboys.'
'Jehovahs,' said Barney, closing the door.
'Jesus Christ,' said Solomon. 'Couldn't you have said we were serial killers?'
Barney walked over to the drinks cabinet. Cracked open a Bud, turned to the others.
'Get you anything?'
Kent shook his head.
'You got any unblended malt in that thing?' said Solomon, expecting the answer no.
'Seven different types,' said Barney.
Of course there are, stupid, thought Solomon. This is where the taxpayer's money is going to, after all.
'I'll take a Glen Ord if you've got it,' he said.
Barney checked, nodded, cracked open the small bottle of Glen Ord, poured it and passed over the glass.
'What's the big secret with you guy's being police?' asked Barney. 'Four cabinet ministers have disappeared. The place is swarming with you lot.'
'Not us,' said Kent.
'Did I say you could speak?' said Solomon, going straight into his Bill & Ben routine with Kent. 'Look, this whole thing with you, nobody on the force actually knows about. We're investigating the murder of Veronica Walters. That's our thing. The boss just thought that since you were on the inside, you might be able to make a few enquiries. So, we're kind of a liaison. We're not technically involved in the cabinet murder investigation. We have access to what they know through the boss; we'll pass on t
o him anything that you can come up with.'
'The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing?' said Barney, settling back in his comfy chair.
'Yeah, but the dick knows everything,' said Solomon, 'and that's what matters.'
Barney smiled.
'Never let it be said that a man's brains aren't in his dick,' said Kent.
'Shurrup,' said Solomon.
'All right,' said Barney, 'what d'you want me to do? Seriously. I'm just a guy. I'm not a detective, I can't manipulate people, I'm not particularly adept at the deductive process. With the exception of Longfellow-Moses I don't know anyone in the cabinet. I may be on the inside, but I'm probably on the inside of the wrong box.'
Kent started to say something, but was silenced by a raised hand from his superior, so he slumped down onto the sofa that Barney's women usually sat in, plonked his feet on the coffee table and shoved his hands in his pockets. Puffed his cheeks out so that he looked like a baboon and let out a long whistle of air.
Solomon watched the display with contempt, took a swift wee shot of Glen Ord, then turned to Barney.
'We're at a loose end here. There's four of these comedians gone missing and we've no idea. Now security's been stepped up in the last day, pretty tight in the parliament buildings. I'm not saying that no one could get in, but whatever was done to McLaven and Stratton was more than likely committed by someone who works in the building. Which begins to narrow it down, because the two we had before today went missing outside the building. So, you following me?'
'Like a dog,' said Barney.
'Good,' said Solomon. 'We've got one thousand, three hundred and twenty-three people working in the complex who aren't dead yet. We have to work on the assumption, until something better comes along, that it's one of them who's committing the murders. Right, where do we go from there? Why would anyone want all the members of the cabinet dead?'
'Apart from the obvious,' chipped in Kent.
'Ignore the monkey,' said Solomon, 'because even the obvious doesn't apply. The First Minister has totally removed power from his ministers. They've maybe still got one Hell of a lot of paper to push around, but when it comes to real responsibility and power in the decision making process, zip! Why should anyone have a grudge against any of them, when none of them have made a decision in the past year?'
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