The Barbershop Seven (157 page)

'I just put it in with these roses,' she said, the fifth time she'd mentioned putting it in with the roses. 'I really have no idea why I did it and it's not like I know what I'm going to do with the thing, is it? It's not like I'm this expert in anything, you know.'

'And what was in the bag?' asked Barney for the fifth time.

'I'll show you,' she said, and she bustled across the lawn. Barney and Igor exchanged a glance and walked after her.

She came to the rose patch at the back of the garden, up against the wall which separated her territory from that of Mr Margoyles, the local wine drinker. Walking behind, Barney could see the disturbed earth in the midst of the roses and wondered what exactly she had been thinking. Obviously she hadn't been concerned about the thing defrosting; obviously she hadn't been concerned about it being discovered either, or else why hide it in the middle of your garden under obviously disturbed earth?

She lifted the small trowel which she had left lying handily at the edge of the lawn.

'Arf,' muttered Igor, and she turned and smiled at him. She may have benefited from Igor's empathy but it was a one way street. She never had any idea what he actually meant by any of his
arfs
.

She put the trowel into the earth expecting to hit the soft package straight away, as she had not buried it deeply. She scooped out some earth, surprised that it wasn't there. Inserted the trowel once more but again nothing. She shovelled in again, this time more quickly, then another few times, expanding her scope of works. In her sudden panic, she almost started digging into the soil with her hands but she stopped herself on behalf of her fingernails.

She turned round to look at Barney and Igor, her face showing everything. She didn't need to say it. Being a woman, she said it anyway.

'It's gone!' she gasped.

Barney walked over and bent down beside the small patch of ground. He wasn't about to go digging his hands in either but he knew there was little point. The hiding of the item in the first place had obviously been so rudimentary that there would be little trouble in finding it had it still been there.

'What was it?' asked Barney, looking at her.

Ruth Harrison stood up, a growing look of panic on her face. She stared at Barney. She turned to Igor for some reassurance. Igor grimaced at her but it really didn't help from the relaxation point of view. She turned back to Barney. She swallowed. She looked big-eyed and lost.

'Arf,' said Igor.

––––––––

R
omeo McGhee opened up the fridge door, took out a Miller, popped the cap, took a long first drink, belched, dragged the sleeve of his Eminem sweat-shirt across his mouth, farted with a cock of the leg, took another drink, forced a small burp which wasn't really worth the effort, checked the fridge for cheese – there wasn't any – closed the door and then turned round.

'They are so putty in my hands,' he said. 'Putty. What are you smiling at?'

'Still laughing about the outer space thing.'

'Move on, girlfriend,' he said, genuinely shameless. 'We are so about to kick arse.'

'You don't want to offer me a beer, then?'

He humphed a little, passed her the one from which he'd already drunk and then returned to the fridge. Planked himself down at the table.

'What's the plan?' she asked.

Romeo McGhee glanced round at the freezer, then turned back, the beer bottle surgically attached to his lips.

'You know there's this weird thing in town?' he said.

'The Brotherhood?' she said. 'Yeah, so? It's just a joke. The Masons or something, isn't it? Who gives a shit?'

'Yeah, yeah,' said Romeo, 'whatever. No one really knows what it is but we all know it goes on. They skulk around the lot of them and we all think it's a joke and they think that that's what we think, so they don't care. They cover it up with talk of card games and charity and rolling up their bleedin' trouser legs and all that shit but there's weirder stuff than that goes on up at the big house. Fuckin' weirder stuff than that.'

'Such as?'

'Well my old man was well involved, wasn't he? And when he died, old Ephesian was round here the first day, you know what I'm saying? Soon as my old geezer had pegged it, the guy was round here like a flash. Which is what he just did with Ruthie across the garden. So, I'm thinking, it might just be for the same reason. He had something to collect from my house. And you know, I left him alone with my dad's stuff and he walked out carrying a bag. I thought it was all the old Masons shit, didn't really care. Left him to it. Now, old Ruthie didn't let him away with it so easily. She goes and finds what it is that Jonah had stashed away and what Ephesian's looking for. She doesn't give it to him and she hides it.'

He was smiling. Chardonnay Deluth stared back at him, getting quite sucked into the conspiracy.

'Unfortunately for the old Ruthmeister, I'm watching through my little bag of tricks up there. She leaves, I go and dig it up and now the thing that Ephisimo is looking for t'ain't in Rutheramma's freezer, it's in mine. And he can send as many of his henchmen round to the Ruthsmeller Pursuivant's house as he likes but he ain't finding shit.'

Drained his beer in one long gulp, belched massively and smiled knowingly across the table.

'I'm impressed,' she said, because she was the sort of girl who would be impressed by that kind of talk.

'Course you are, darlin'.'

'And now,' she said, 'you're going to tell me what it is that Jonah had in his freezer. Aren't you?'

He smiled again. Looked a bit cheeky. She loved it, because she was strangely besotted with Romeo McGhee. Most other people would have been taking a baseball bat to his head.

He stood up, opened the freezer door, lifted out the small bag and placed it on the table.

Chardonnay Deluth stared at it, not entirely sure what she was looking at. She lifted the bag, turned it over in her fingers, suddenly realised what it was. Others might have dropped it in horror but a huge smile came to her face. She looked at McGhee with wonder, the smile on his face increased ten fold.

'A human hand,' she said. 'Fuck me.'

He took another beer from the fridge and turned back.

'I could do that,' he said, smiling.

***

B
arney Thomson walked along the sea front. Had just passed the Crocodile Rock – the crocodile shaped rock that has been painted as a red, white and black crocodile since 1903, and which provided Elton John and Bernie Taupin much inspiration after a holiday to Millport in 1971 – and was promenading by Newton beach, looking out to sea, enjoying the smell of the air, the breeze in his face. A couple of dogs about, their owners in their wake, not many other people abroad. Just before six, late afternoon turning to early evening, the last hour of daylight soon to be lost under a layer of dark, low cloud.

He had left Igor and Ruth Harrison to it. Didn't think that Jacobs and the absurd Randolph would be back soon but had armed Ruth with his mobile number in case they returned even more heavy-handed than before. Thought, however, that there would be a night's reflection on their part before they hit upon another plan. He knew she'd be safe in Igor's arms, which was where he thought she would end up, and was literally where she already was, now that Barney was ten minutes away.

Barney smiled at the thought of Igor and a woman. Any woman. Good on the lad. Short, hunched, mute, deaf and downright ugly but there's nothing to get in the way of a beautiful personality.

Pondered briefly the human hand in Ruth's freezer but just didn't want to think about it. More death and murder and dismemberment. And so he allowed his thoughts to drift to Garrett Carmichael even though he knew she wasn't for him. Just not fated, in some way. Perhaps Agnes, his long-gone ex-wife had been his fate. A dull twenty-year marriage, that was all he could expect. There had been a couple of women in his brief sojourn in Edinburgh but he'd never really known what he'd wanted.

So much of human action is based on trying to achieve something new, because it seems so empty to sit on what you have. Yet where do you stop when it comes to relationships? With everything else, there's always another challenge. There's always another mountain; if not higher, then more remote or less well climbed or more dangerous. There's always another sea or ocean to circumnavigate or to row across or to dive to the bottom of. There's always another jungle to explore – or at least there will be for about another twenty years - another lost city to spend decades searching for. But with relationships, you so quickly come to the crunch and once you've made the commitment there's no moving on. Ever. Not without hurt and heartache and losing your insides. How much had he hurt Agnes?

'Thinking about women, eh?' said a voice.

Barney, sucked through a straw from melancholic reflections, looked round. An old fella sitting on a bench, eating a cheese sandwich, bottle of Strongbow at his side, watching the waves in amongst the boats. Barney had given him a
Justin Timberlake Superbowl XXXVIII
cut that morning.

'Aye,' he said, smiling ruefully. 'You guys all given some special psychic implant when you hit old geezerdom?'

Justin Timberlake indicated the sea with his cheese sandwich.

'We're all wise in the ways of the souls of men, who live by the sea,' he said.

Barney nodded.

'You know who said that?'

'Nope.'

'I just did,' said Timberlake laughing, and he took another bite of sandwich. Barney shook his head.

'Feels like I've come into a town of Aristotles and Nietzsches,' he said.

'Nietzsche was an arsehole,' said Timberlake.

'Aye,' said Barney. Everyone thinks that.

'You'll be going out with Garrett for dinner tonight then?'

Barney shrugged. I expect, he thought, that he knows what I had for my lunch too.

'Aye,' he said.

'She's not for you, though, you know that. Then you've got the whole mid-life crisis thing, which isn't really a mid-life crisis, it's beyond mid-life. Really, you're not too far from old geezerdom yourself.'

He laughed quietly, took the last of his cheese sandwich.

'That makes me feel better,' said Barney.

Swig of cider and the old fella indicated the sea again.

'With the exception of a good woman, all a mid-life crisis amounts to is the realisation that whenever you get what you want in life, you find out that you didn't really want it after all. You know who said that?'

Barney smiled.

'René Descartes?' he asked, playing the game.

'One of mine,' said Timberlake with that cheeky smile.

Barney smiled and began to walk off. Old men talking mince, everywhere he went. Timberlake allowed him a pace or two.

'Get by that and you'll be fine,' he said. Barney stopped but didn't turn. 'There's always suicide of course. The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort; with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night.'

Barney turned, smile gone, the weight of melancholy returning much more heavily than before.

'Nietzsche,' he said flatly.

'Aye,' said Timberlake. He drained the cider and winked. Barney stared at him for a second and then turned and walked on.

Suicide? It wasn't that bad. Not yet, at any rate.

––––––––

T
ony and Luigi were sitting in the bar of the George Hotel by the old pier at the bottom of Cardiff Street. Strategy to discuss, although Luigi was wishing he had strategy to discuss with a strategist, rather than with a monkey. There had been nothing obvious in the cathedral, which was as much as could be expected, but there must have been a clue somewhere. What they needed to do, Luigi thought, was take a bulldozer to the place.

'This is a nice wine,' said Tony, holding up the glass and checking it for length. 'Can't beat a good Italian.'

Luigi shook his head.

'My mother's piss tastes better than this shit,' he said. 'You're such a moron. You've been out of Italy two stinkin' minutes and you're more misty-eyed than Pavarotti.'

'This is a good wine,' protested Tony.

Luigi lifted his glass, swished it around, sniffed at it contemptuously, then took a substantial taste.

'Smell it,' he said.

Tony smelled it.

'You getting that?' asked Luigi.

'What?'

'Horse shit, that's what this smells of. Stinkin' horse shit. You'd think you hadn't seen Italy in years the way you go on. We were there yesterday morning for Chrissake's, and with any luck we'll be there again tomorrow night. Get a grip of yourself. This is Britain. You think we export any decent wine to this lot? Are you kidding me? Why waste it on an entire nation of tasteless morons? These people eat French fries with pasta for crying out loud! Taste it again and when you do it, think of the wine we shared with the cardinal on Saturday evening.'

Tony took another sip of low-grade exported petroleum extract that passed for wine in Safeways.

'Jesus,' he said. 'This is terrible.'

'Thank you. I wouldn't use this shit in my bolognaise sauce.'

'Me neither.'

Luigi mouthed Tony's reply, mocking him.

'Bolognaise sauce. You never made a stinkin' bolognaise sauce in your life.'

'Oh yeah? Well, what about that time I nearly died eating your stupid bolognaise sauce. I was sick for a week. I was sick like a dog. I was so sick I thought my stomach was going to come out through my fuckin' eyeballs.'

'That wasn't bolognaise sauce, that was dog food made out of uncooked chicken offal. You're such a stinkin' idi—'

'Fuckin' Eye-ties,' said a voice from across the bar. Strong Glasgow accent, not so rare in these parts anymore.

Tony and Luigi looked round. There was a lad at the bar. Big, lumbering, meat and two veg short of a main course. Holding a pint, staring at the two emissaries from the Vatican with scorn. Mid-20s, denim jacket, ripped jeans, a suspect
Ewan MacGregor Trainspotting
cut, executed by an inexperienced hairdresser called Wendolene. Had been christened Donald Gallagher by his unsuspecting parents but had been known as Donaldinho for a number of years, by his own insistence.