Murderers Anonymous (25 page)

'D'you think he might be the killer?'

She shrugged and ran her fingers around the top of the glass. There would have been a time when the action was laced with sexual tension between the two; now it was just something to do for a few seconds. Mulholland stared at her hands.

'No,' she said, shortly. 'But if he was locked up, or appearing on chat shows, or whatever, we wouldn't have to be chasing him now, would we? We might be able to concentrate on the real guy, not some bloke who can't stick a fork into a mushroom without feeling guilt.'

Mulholland's shoulders dropped another micro-inch. That was about the size of it. It'd been a good idea at the time, but now they were lumbered with it. There was someone out there to be caught and their hands were tied.

He became aware of the television playing quietly in the background, a few desperate souls at the bar watching. The early afternoon news, a report on the hunt for this year's serial killer. It drifted through the usual details, including a review of all the murders, an overview of the suspects (total – one), and a rundown of the key police officers involved. Mulholland looked away when he saw his own face on the screen, accompanied by McMenemy's words that his men were on it twenty-four hours a day.

'Macaroon bars.'

He could feel a few pairs of eyes on him from the bar; could imagine the thought processes.

'Macaroon bars. Get your macaroon bars here. Macaroon bars.'

He glanced at Proudfoot, but she hadn't even noticed. Took a quick look up and caught the eye of a woman sitting at the bar, already staring at him. Imagined there was something accusatory in her look, so turned away. Fuck 'em. It was McMenemy's problem. He could spout all he liked, but when he had his force looking for the wrong man, then it might as well have been a thousand of them on the case for twenty-four thousand hours a day, they were still not going to catch the real killer.

'Macaroon bars!' said the macaroon bar salesman, walking through the pub. A little more feeling this time. He carried a full box of macaroon bars, and had been walking the streets and pubs of Glasgow for nearly two hours. 'Macaroon bars, get your macaroon bars here!'

The landlord gave him the once-over, decided not to eject him. These fly-by-night macaroon bar salesmen came and went with the wind; and it was not as if they took any of his crisps and peanut business.

Mulholland couldn't help but hold the gaze of the woman at the bar. Evelyn McLaughlin, as it happened; on the lookout for a certain type of man. He got a strange feeling that something was about to happen; a peculiar and vague sense of foreboding. He stared at her for a little while longer, but her expression was blank, the eyes gave nothing away. Mid-twenties perhaps. Black hair, waxed eyebrows, intensifying the apparent Culloden look which perhaps lay beneath the banality of the stare. Banal and bellicose at the same time; Mulholland never had been much good at working out women.

'Macaroon bars! Get your macaroon bars here!'

He looked around the bar, trying to identify the possible origin of the unease he was feeling. Proudfoot stared into her drink, the customers – Evelyn McLaughlin excepted – drank their pints and watched TV and talked aimlessly of momentous topics, while the macaroon bar salesman plied his trade in ever-increasing, powerless frustration.

'Macaroon bars! Get your macaroon bars here! Macaroon bars!'

Mulholland toyed with his drink, unable to pick the source of his disquiet, finally lifting the near-empty glass to his mouth to finish it off. He became aware of Evelyn McLaughlin approaching, waxed eyebrows in full flow. He warily looked at her as she came to rest beside him.

Proudfoot gave her the time of day, seeing as she had nothing else to think about.

'Macaroon bars! Get your macaroon bars here! Some cunt buy one. Macaroon bars!'

'Here,' said McLaughlin, as the macaroon bar salesman grudgingly gave up the ghost, barely giving enough time for the quality of his advertising campaign to take hold, and made his way out into the street, 'you that polis that's just been on the telly?'

Mulholland looked at her, a quick appraisal to see if there might be a knife or some other implement tucked away in the foliage of her clothing. A tight red dress, nothing much showing except the usual array of fat.

He nodded. A subdued sense of ill feeling all because he was about to be subjected to a volley of verbal abuse from a punter.

'Well, how come you're not out catching that bloody Barney Thomson, then, ya bampot? This you on it twenty-four hour a day, is it? Magic that, i'n't it no? Sitting in a fucking boozer with your bit of skirt and a pint of heavy?'

'It's lager.'

'Lager? Well, that's all right, then, i'n't it, ya polis bastard.'

She placed her hands on her hips and they stared one another out. Proudfoot contemplated the thought of being Mulholland's bit of skirt, and decided she couldn't care less. She's been called worse.

'That all you've got to say for yourself, ya bastard?'

'Just about,' he said.

She snorted. Very, very attractive.

'Anyway,' she went on, 'that's no' why I'm here. I don't really give a shite whether you catch that bloke or not. I mean, I'd be delighted for him to kill most of the people I know, and that.'

'Kind words,' said Mulholland.'

'Aye, right. Anyway, what I'm really here for is to say that me and my mate Elsie have got a bet on about who can shag more folk off the telly by Christmas. That bitch is about six ahead of me, seeing as she shagged the entire Albion Rovers team in the space of a couple of hours. So, seeing as you've just been on the box, I was wondering if you'd like to shag me, or what. I mean, I'm like that, I'm not interested in foreplay or orgasms or any of yon shite. Two seconds' penetration'll do, and you're in my book. We could go into the bog, and I'll be pure like that, and you'll be back here with your miserable bird in less than a minute.'

Mulholland almost smiled; first time in months.

'This is my wife, I'm afraid. Can't do it.'

'Your missus? This soor-faced pudding? I could give you a much better time, even if it was only for two seconds. I bet she hasn't shagged you in about six months.'

Good guess, thought Proudfoot; damn near spot on. She nodded.

'See what I mean? No wonder you're a miserable cunt, married to a pound of mince like this. Come with me, Big Man, and I'll show you a good time. Suck a melon through a straw, me. Throat like a vacuum cleaner.'

Mulholland smiled. 'Put like that, hen, I'm tempted. Twenty-four hours a day, though, that's me. Always on the job. Couldn't even spare you that two seconds.'

'Aye, well, whatever. Think you're full of shite, whatever you say. When you find yon bastard and you've got more time on your hands, then give us a call. Having said that, don't bother if it's after Christmas, 'cause you're an ugly bastard.'

And so the lounge bar überchick made her way back to her Bacardi Breezer, and Mulholland could continue the great weight of thought needed to decide whether or not to get in another round.

'She's got you pegged,' said Proudfoot.

'Watch it, Sergeant.'

The door to the bar swung open, then rocked closed behind the weight of Detective Sergeant Ferguson. He approached Mulholland, eyeing up the vixen in red as he did so.

'Nice bit of stuff at the bar,' he said, arriving at the table.

They viewed him as they might a small child.

'You used to police the Thistle home games decades ago when they were still a decent enough outfit and used to get on the telly, didn't you?' said Mulholland.

'Aye, why?'

'Oh, no reason. What is it that brings you steaming into the bar?'

'The boss is just about to get a round in, if that's why you're here,' said Proudfoot.

'A round? Wouldn't mind a pint, but I think we better get a move on. There's been a sighting of Barney Thomson. Some geezer phoned in to say he'd had his hair cut by the bloke in a wee shop in Greenock.'

Mulholland let out a long sigh and shook his head.

'No news of the real killer, then?' he said.

Proudfoot grabbed her bag and coat. Something to do at last, although she felt no hint of tension or excitement. So what if they'd found Barney Thomson, she thought; as did Mulholland.

Out they went, into the grey gloom of early afternoon. Mulholland could smell the cigarette smoke on his jacket; he could taste the bitter remnants of the lager on his tongue. Beginning to need to go to the toilet. The ordinary scene around them as he got into the passenger seat of Ferguson's car seemed less ordinary today. It was somehow challenged, as if at odds with itself. But really, it was he who was at odds with it, and the weight of the world sat uneasily on his shoulders. There was something not quite right. Some weird Jungian thing going on.

'What's the score, then, Sergeant?' he said.

Ferguson cut up the only Rover 75 sold in the previous six months, and pulled out into the flow of traffic.

'Bloke goes in for a haircut, an Agent Cooper, apparently.'

'That's a little more information than I needed, Sergeant.'

'I'm setting the scene.'

'I know what a sodding barbershop looks like.'

'So, the guy goes in for his Agent Cooper. Not the film version Agent Cooper, but the TV show Agent Cooper.'

'Thought it was the same?' said Proudfoot, already beginning to doze in the back.

'Whatever, I'm just reporting what I was told. I never watched that shite. Anyway, the bloke does a good job. The guy thinks he recognises him, asks him who he is, and he quite happily admits to being Barney Thomson.' Mulholland gave a sideways glance. 'So, he goes home and calls the local Feds. They're a keen lot, and obviously with nothing better to do, so they send one of their plods along to get his napper seen to. So the guy gets his hair cut by Thomson, asks him a few questions, and again he readily admits to who he is. Which, let's face it, ties in with the fact that he was giving himself up all over the shop. So the plod leaves with a stoatir of a haircut – a Mario Van Peebles, no less – and waits outside for the cavalry.'

Ferguson steamed through the traffic, towards the confines of the westbound M8.

'So, have the locals moved in?'

Ferguson snorted.

'Have they bollocks. They're all shitting their breeks, which is fair enough. Waiting for you two, by the sounds of it. They're watching the shop, waiting to see if he makes a move.'

'So he doesn't know they're on to him?'

'Doesn't know shite.'

Mulholland shook his head, then winced and extended his braking foot as Ferguson nearly drove into the back of a green Peugeot.

'What are they going to do,' said Mulholland, once they were back in the clear, shooting up the middle lane of a dual carriageway, 'if he makes a move before we get there? Hide, and see if the Scouts can follow the guy?'

Ferguson shrugged. Had a couple of mates on the force down there. All in it together. Could tell that Mulholland was no longer a team man; if, indeed, he was anything at all.

'Can't blame them, really,' he said. 'That Thomson's a murderous bastard.'

'He's a big poof.'

'He's still a mad bastard.'

'If he's mad, it's only because we won't leave him in peace to cut hair. And all the time we worry about this guy, and go careering off across the country looking for him, the real killer is pishing himself laughing at us wasting our time. There's better things to be doing than this, Sergeant, and the local bloody plods can't even be bothered their backside going in and arresting him.'