The Barbershop Seven

by Douglas Lindsay

  They stood, the four of them, still surrounded by mist, at the edge of the sea, listening to the almost imperceptible sound of the gentle waves crawling up onto the stones.

  'Are you all right, Sergeant?' asked Frankenstein.

  'A good crack of the head,' she said, rubbing her temple, 'but I'm OK.'

  'Good. Come on, we should get up onto the road. Shouldn't take us too long to walk into town.'

  'I should get back to Ardrossan, sir,' said Kratzenburg.

  The others stopped. Frankenstein stared into the depths of the mist.

  'You can't go back out in that, Sergeant,' he said. 'And you don't know how badly damaged the boat will be after hitting the rocks. Leave it until morning.'

  Kratzenburg hesitated. Wanted to get back to Ardrossan for mostly romantic reasons, the greatest driver of them all. Didn't like the thought of a night in Millport. The murderer that lurked in the midst of the town.

  'Are you worried about what we heard out there, sir?' he said.

  Frankenstein twitched. Didn't want to say. Now that they were on land, now that they were away from the menace, it seemed absurd that he had yelled Gun it, Sergeant! like they were in some Hollywood action movie. Regardless of what it was that had made that noise, he now felt stupid. He didn't think Proudfoot would later mock him to others for it, but Kratzenburg was someone he didn't know. Why shouldn't he make fun of the DCI back at the station?

  'I had a thought about that noise, sir,' said Kratzenburg.

  Frankenstein stared at the rocks beneath his feet.

  'I know, Sergeant,' he said. 'I had the same thought. Someone out to make fools of the police. More than likely the press.'

  Kratzenburg nodded, looked to the others for confirmation.

  'How did he find us in the mist?' said Barney.

  'They have better equipment than us, Mr Thomson,' said Frankenstein. 'And if we're really unlucky, they'll have had sophisticated camera equipment that can take pictures through a miserable as Hell, dense fog. We...I...am going to look bloody stupid.'

  They all turned and looked in the direction of the sea. None of them could feel it, not one amongst the four. The suspicion of imminent danger. The beat in the fog.

  'So,' said Frankenstein, 'when the guy suddenly comes running up that beach out of the fog in the next few seconds, we shouldn't run away.'

  'We should trip him up and pull his mask off,' said Proudfoot, straight-faced.

  'Exactamundo,' said Frankenstein.

  They faced the sea and awaited their fate.

  'I should just give the boat a quick once-over, Sir, make sure it's OK, then I can head back out.'

  'All right,' said Frankenstein, 'come on. Thomson, you make sure the sergeant's OK, and don't drift off anywhere, I don't want to lose the pair of you.'

  'We'll look for the guy in the mask,' said Barney glibly.

  Frankenstein grunted. He and Kratzenburg moved through the mist to the boat, which was hardly visible, even though they had barely walked five yards up the beach.

  And then, despite the jokes, despite the belief that they had been spooked by the press, despite the half-laughing testaments to their intentions towards the guy in the mask, when the low cackle of laughter which had tormented them out on the water, suddenly came again, it took them all by surprise, immersed them all in instant dread. Even the sceptical Kratzenburg felt the leap of the heart, the zing of the skin.

  'Right, Sergeant,' Frankenstein said to him, 'no running.'

  The two men braced themselves, and Barney Thomson found himself standing firm, ushering Proudfoot behind him.

  Heads Up!

  The town slept early. Barely after nine, but there was a great sense, a collective will, to put the evening to rest, get it behind them. They knew that something ill was afoot, and they wanted to snuggle down under a warm duvet, fall asleep and wake up the following morning with the fog gone, clear blue skies and a light chop to the waves. And hopefully, some climactic event would have occurred and the town would awake to find answers and the police packing up their things to head home.

  Igor stood at the bedroom window of the house he now shared with the town lawyer, Garrett Carmichael, and her two children. He stared out into the dense fog, unable to see the other side of the street, never mind the sea. Could sense the feeling of ill-ease and restless evil which had come sweeping across the town with the late afternoon fog, and which now cloaked it in fear and dreadful anticipation.

  There was a noise behind him as Carmichael came into the room, pyjamas on, ready for bed. She watched him for a few seconds, concerned. She was beautiful, an attraction to all the men in the town. And she was all Igor's, her heart swept away by the boldness and romanticism that lay hidden behind the bane of his baleful exterior.

  'Come to bed, Igor,' she said. 'I know something's happening out there, but it doesn't involve us. We need to sleep it off.'

  'Arf,' said Igor darkly.

  There would be no sleep for Igor. They both knew it. The town could hide its head all that it wanted to, could hide behind thin bedwear and hope that they would not be the ones selected to be dragged screaming from that bed, but that was not Igor's path. He could not hide from this, not when it involved his friend, Barney Thomson.

  She came and stood beside him, her arm on his shoulder. A clichéd scene from a thousand movies, the woman spending the possible last few moments with her man before he goes off to war. She was full of spunk herself, and would have gone too, but for the two children who lay sleeping in the next room. Their father already dead from illness, she would not put herself at such risk. Had already begun to think privately to herself, thoughts she had yet to share with Igor, that maybe it was time they moved away from Millport, if this place was suddenly as cursed as it appeared.

  'Arf,' Igor said again.

  She nodded. Like Barney, she was completely in tune with Igor's grunts and noises, the only sounds he could make.

  She kissed him on the cheek, squeezed him harder, then stepped back. Knew that he had to get on with it and she wasn't about to make things harder by being dramatic.

  'Put on a coat,' she heard herself say.

  Igor smiled crookedly, pressed her hand and then walked slowly from the bedroom. Down the stairs, put on his jacket, opened the door, stepped out into the cold. Closed the door behind him and stood still on the pavement. Let the fog claw at him, soak into his face and his hands, soak his clothes. A damp, drenching fog. Down here, he could still not see the other side of the road.

  No sound. No wind, no cars, no people, no sea. The town was sleeping. Or dead.

  Making his decision, Igor turned to his right and walked slowly in the direction of the pier.

  ***

  They waited, knowing that the killer could see them, even if they could not see him. And then, in a rush of fog and a fevered crunch of stones, he appeared from the sea.

  No Trawler Fiend this. An old man, dressed all in black, an axe held high above his right shoulder, his left arm bent across his chest. Longish hair down his neck, a long, thin beard.

  They may not have been seriously expecting an eight-foot lizard, but they weren't expecting some old grandpa either. And in the adrenaline-fuelled rush of it all, in the heart of the thick fog, they could see no mask, just an old man with a weapon.

  He stopped his headlong rush a few yards short. He stood poised, axe raised.

  'Fuck me!' yelled Frankenstein, astonished. A thousand thoughts pouring through his head in an instant, one fantastic moment of shock-induced clarity.

  'Come on then!' he shouted, immediately after his previous exhortation, stepping forward.

  Kratzenburg fell in beside him, the two forming a wall, almost as if Barney and Proudfoot were to be protected.

  The old man seemed to hesitate, but the gentle laugh which crawled out from the rubber lips displayed an enjoyment of the kill rather than reluctance.

  The laugh died. Frankenstein and Kratzenburg seemed to hesitate too, as if it might be
wrong to attack an old man, regardless of the axe, regardless of the fact that here was obviously the Millport murderer. Suddenly, from behind, they heard the rapid crunch of footsteps.

  Barney had found his mojo.

  He burst between the two of them, running straight for the old man, his plan no more than to dodge the swipe of the axe and to grab his legs, bring him down. Barney, alone among them, while not knowing the identity of the man beneath the mask, knew that he was no old soul.

  He met him full on, but as he did so, the killer swung his left arm down in a quick and sudden movement, catching Barney full on the chest, a vicious, swift, crunching blow, sending him reeling, flying. He was tossed backwards, spiralling into the air, several feet off the ground, and came to a crunching fall, so far away that he was lost in the mist. He thudded into the ground, dazed and battered, barely able to tell the direction from which the noise was now coming.

  Frankenstein, empowered by this show of strength from the enemy, stepped forward. He never even got as close as Barney, as another swing from the arm, a low uppercut, caught Frankenstein in the chest and sent him flying straight backwards, back to where Proudfoot was standing, helpless.

  Kratzenburg dithered, given necessary pause by the expeditious way in which Barney Thomson and Frankenstein had been summarily dispatched. His hesitation made no difference however. The old fella had his eye on him.

  As he made his first step towards him, Kratzenburg suddenly had a thought of the guys in the red jerseys who you always knew were going to get killed at the start of the old Star Trek, the guys who were sent down to the planet surface with Kirk and Spock entirely so they could die in the first five minutes.

  'Shit,' thought Kratzenburg, realising that he was the newcomer to the investigation, the officer who was not really part of it, 'I'm dead.'

  And so, rather than blindly throwing himself at the old guy, Kratzenburg made the sensible, but ultimately futile decision to run away. He made the first move to turn, and that was as far as he got. The killer descended on him.

  He swung the axe, blade turned away, at his legs, tripping him up and sending him into the stones on his face. Kratzenburg stumbled on the beach, turned his head in fear. Just in time to see the final swing of the executioner's cleaver. His eyes showed shock. The axe descended.

  Kratzenburg's head flew to the side in a high arc, almost as if it had been severed with a nine iron. Somewhere in the mist, out of sight, the others heard it land heavily on the stones.

  The killer stood over Proudfoot and Frankenstein, blood dripping from the axe, the weapon still held to the side. Then suddenly he seemed to relax; his body language became dismissive. He didn't need to kill anyone else here. To his right, Barney Thomson crawled into view across the stones, feeling that somehow he should be the one who was there facing this demon.

  The killer surveyed the three of them, the eyes gloating behind the mask. He smiled. He winked at Barney.

  'Barney,' he said, and then, as suddenly as he had arrived, he ran past them and disappeared back into the thick mist, heading up onto the road.

  He was gone.

  Silence.

  The mist ebbed and flowed around them, swirling in nebulous patterns, sweeping in from the sea, turning this way, sweeping down and up, swallowing them.

  Barney crawled over to be beside the others, both of them dazed, horrified.

  'You all right?' he said, directing the question at Proudfoot, the only one who had not felt the full force of the killer's wrath.

  She nodded. Couldn't speak. It had been a long time since she had witnessed something that horrible. Frankenstein, more used to drunks and thugs and gangs of youths, could not find his mouth either.

  For Barney Thomson, however, this felt like his life. This was real, constantly surrounded by bloody death, bloody murder. The old new Barney was back. Stripped of fear, embraced by a charismatic nonchalance that drove women wild. If his continuing life, the horror and the blood, was the work of Satan, well Satan could come and get him. He was ready.

  'The old guy seemed to know you?' said Frankenstein, pulling himself up. 'Who was it?'

  'I don't know,' said Barney. 'It wasn't an old guy though. The face, the hair, it was a mask. A Dostoevsky mask. Fyodor Dostoevsky,' he added, just in case anyone had thought he'd meant Agnes Dostoevsky.

  Frankenstein and Proudfoot looked curiously at Barney.

  'What?' she said.

  'Where the fuck do you get a Dostoevsky mask?' said Frankenstein dismissively. 'And how the fuck would you even know what he looks like? What the fuck is that? A Dostoevsky mask?'

  Barney looked from one to the other. To him it was obvious. Crime and punishment. This, however, did not seem like a good time to get into Russian literature and any correlation with his own life.

  'I don't know,' he said. 'Come on, we should get back into town.'

  He looked down at the stricken, headless body of Sergeant Kratzenburg.

  'The big man's going to have to wait. There's likely worse than this going to happen here tonight. We stick close, all the way round. Close enough that you can see the other two at all times. If you lose one of them, call out the instant it happens. The instant. And we cut across the back road into town. We cool?'

  Proudfoot nodded.

  'We're cool,' said Frankenstein, curious and a little wary of Barney's sudden determination.

  As they started to walk up the beach, Frankenstein put his hand on Barney's shoulder.

  'I made you my deputy,' he said, awkward censure in his voice, 'not my fucking boss.'

  A Soul For A Soul...

  Igor had found his way round to the boatyard. He moved more quickly than other men in this dark time of no light and thick fog, his senses more attuned to his outside world. He had walked along the front and investigated the pier. Nothing to be found there, except the creepy and uncomfortable calm of all piers in a thick fog. Then he had come along Crichton Street, past the unoccupied police station, round past the football field, a field which he knew was there but which, the barest of edges aside, he could not see.

  He did not pass another single person on his way, at least, none of which he was aware. Perhaps someone had passed him on the other side of the street, out of sight, the sound of footsteps muffled in the fog. But Igor walked on, driven only by curiosity about what was out there. Fearless.

  He knew that the three murders which had been committed in the town had all happened in the sanctity of peoples' homes, the inviolable had been breached, and maybe that was what was going to happen again tonight. But the murderer had to get from house to house, had to move around somehow. A car, a bike, padded footsteps dragged through the night.

  Even though Millport was small, it wasn't so tiny that he was guaranteed to stumble across anyone who might be out, especially not in this weather. But Igor had a nose for it, a sense that he would inevitably find what he went looking for. And all his senses told him that this strange mystery, which had started with the disappearance of a fishing trawler, would in some way involve the boatyard and the last remnants of seafaring on the island.

  He stopped at the entrance to the yard, felt out the door. Listened in the night for any sound from within. So still, so cloaked was the evening, that even the clang of the chains, the constant sound of any boatyard, had been silenced.

  Nothing.

  He wondered about old Bladestone, a man with whom he had only exchanged grudging acknowledgements in the past, despite him being a regular in the shop from the days long before Barney's arrival.

  Igor opened the door slowly, the hinges unavoidably creaking in the night. He cursed slightly under his breath. No sound could he make. Any advantage he had would be lost.

  The door opened as little as possible. He squeezed through the gap. Instinctively wanted to close the gate over, the obsessive-compulsive inherent in him, but he fought the urge.

  Knowing that the floor of the boatyard was littered with anchors and wooden beams and masts, he edged alo
ng the wall until he got to the first shed, and then turned and moved along the shed wall until he got to the end of that. Stopped there to get his bearings, to try and get a feel for the place.

  The fog was no less dense inside the yard. He could see the dark outline of a hull a few feet in front of him. Did not know the yard well enough to recognise it.

  Phht!

  A stumble. A dull sound in the night. Followed by a curse and another small trip. Igor's heart raced. He pressed himself back against the wall. Head working. It couldn't be Bladestone, he would know his yard well enough not to trip.

  He tensed, arms up, waiting to defend himself against what was coming his way. Could sense two figures before he could see them. Was tempted to shout out, perhaps make them run away. But he knew he had to deal with this now, right here, given that the opportunity was falling into his lap.

  The figures approached. Igor inched away from the wall, giving himself more room. He eased himself into a tae-kwon-do position, ready for action, the hump of his hunchback exaggeratedly protruding above his shoulders. Held his breath.

  They emerged from the mist, leaning forward, walking faster than they ought to have been given the total lack of visibility. Igor tensed.

  Bernard and the Dog With No Name jumped, each one letting out a yelp.

  'Arf!' hissed Igor.

  Bernard settled down, standing in front of Igor, the Dog With No Name snuggled into his leg.

  'Like, Igor, pal, you scared me, man!'

  I'm not your pal, hissed Igor in reply, although, as ever, all that came out and all that Bernard heard was 'Arf!'

  'Like sure, man, but what are you doing here? We're looking for clues, aren't we Dog With No Name, old buddy? But it's so foggy, like, we can't see a thing!'

  Igor was torn between believing they were looking for clues, and wondering whether they played a more sinister part in all of this than it seemed on the surface. They were MI6 after all, and Igor had never trusted MI6. Yet, while they may have been acting suspiciously snooping around the boatyard late in the evening on a foggy and dark night, so was he.