The Barbershop Seven (183 page)

Gainsborough pointed towards the white Land Rover, sitting outside the police station, quarter of a mile along the road. Frankenstein followed his gaze.

'I walked,' said Gainsborough, unnecessarily.

Proudfoot smiled and started walking along the road towards town, the two SOCOs following.

'God's sake,' muttered Frankenstein as he fell into line behind Gainsborough.

'Nice day for a walk,' said Proudfoot, looking out over the blue sea to the island of Little Cumbrae.

'Nice day to find a dead body in a fishing boat at the arse end of the fucking Clyde,' muttered Frankenstein.

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A
s with all small towns up and down the coast of Scotland, there had once been a thriving fishing fleet working out of Millport. However, in time it had dwindled and died, until finally the last trawler had gone out of business and the fishermen had moved on. Then, in the previous year, Ally Deuchar, a local man trained in the arts of crisis loans and job centre applications, had managed to acquire for himself a business plan, a grant from Ayrshire Enterprise and a fishing boat, and had started making short trips out of Millport searching for whatever fish he could find off the coast of Ayrshire and Argyll.

It was a small business, but after initially thinking of the whole enterprise as some sort of scam to acquire business grants, he had discovered a love of the sea and a talent for finding fish when others couldn't. Then one episode of watching Rick Stein charge about Britain meeting people who make garlic toffee and honeyed mince had persuaded him that there was a niche market for the iconoclastic fisherman. He had begun to sell himself as some sort of localised Jamie Oliver to the rich business widows in Helensburgh and to the hotels on Loch Fyne and on down the coast. He still worked out of Millport but had begun to think that maybe it was time to move to somewhere that was a bit more of a hub. Had also begun to think of a bigger boat and more crew.

And now Ally Deuchar was dead.

His girlfriend, Seattle Henderson, discovered the news when Rusty Brown burst into Mapes toy shop and bicycle hire, full of renewed enthusiasm for an extravagant tale, and said, 'Have you heard the news?'

Seattle Henderson, preparing the shop for another sleepy November day, looked up from a small display of Top Trumps cards.

'I know,' she said.

Rusty stopped in his tracks, suddenly realising who he was speaking to, and deciding that the new post-Barney tale that he'd begun telling – of the giant eight-foot lizard which had been discovered on board, dismembered limbs strewn around the cabin, the monster having choked on the head of one of the crew – probably wouldn't be appropriate.

'You know?' he said weakly.

'Yeah,' said Seattle Henderson, 'Britney's pregnant again. I mean, like, what is she doing?'

Rusty Brown wasn't the quickest.

'Britney...?'

'Duh,' said Seattle.

'Not that,' said Rusty Brown. 'The Bitter Wind.'

The enthusiasm had completely gone from his voice. Despite the telling off from Barney, he had carried on expanding the story where he saw fit. But now he was about to tell an innocent young child of a girl that her boyfriend, her true love, was dead.

'The Bitter Wind?' said Seattle. 'The trawler?'

'Aye,' said Rusty Brown.

Cap in hand again, a solemn look on his face, he took a further few strides into the shop, almost knocking over the Lord Of The Rings crossbow, which had been propped against a pillar, un-bought, for five years now.

'She's been found at sea. Deserted.'

Seattle Henderson stopped wiping the dust off the Buzz and Woody models which had gone un-bought for eight years now.

'You mean, like the Marie Celeste?' she asked.

'Mary,' said Rusty Brown.

'Whatever,' she said, looking away from him and returning to the dust.

'Well, the ship wasn't completely deserted. There was one of the crew on board. Dead. I'm not sure which one,' he lied.

Seattle Henderson brushed away at the dust on Woody's brown waistcoat.

'So Ally's missing, maybe dead?' she asked.

'Aye.'

'I mean,' she said, looking up again, 'how many times did I say to him that the whole fishing thing was stupid? How many times? He's such a muppet.'

Rusty took a step or two back.

'I expect he'll turn up,' she continued, turning and placing Woody high up on a shelf. 'If he doesn't, it'll free me up to have a go at Dougie, 'cause he's going to be right pissed off at Britney for getting up the duff.'

'Ah, I thought you meant Britney, you know, the Britney.'

'Naw, wee Britney from up the road.'

Rusty Brown nodded sagely. Here he was, the storyteller, getting told the news.

'She's pregnant?' he said. 'Hardly seems old enough.'

'Duh,' said Seattle, 'she's like fifteen. Like, how old did you think you had to be?'

Rusty Brown felt safe to put his flat cap back in place. He waited for Seattle Henderson to look at him, realised it wasn't going to happen, and then turned and walked slowly out of the shop.

Colin Waites' ex-wife lived in Gourock, and so was not within Rusty Brown's sphere of influence. Craig Brown had a dark and somewhat mysterious background, which did not include anyone who would need to be immediately informed of his disappearance.

Rusty Brown could return to telling elaborate tales to dispassionate parties.

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E
arly afternoon. The man from the Largs & Millport Chronicle had arrived. No one from the Glasgow press seemed interested yet. There was a man from the Evening Times on his way, but he had been waylaid at the Holy Friar just after the Largs turnoff on the Beith road. The others were for now working from a brief report that had gone out on Reuters, a report which had stuck to the facts, made the story sound as uninteresting as possible, and had failed to mention murder, decapitation or haddock wars.

Barney Thomson stood at the white promenade wall and looked along at the pier. He'd come out for a walk, fresh sea air, a quiet morning in the shop. He'd had one customer – an elaborate but ultimately unfulfilling Simon Le Bon Rio – while his creative assistant, Keanu, had been quiet all day. Every now and again the lad had gone out to try to find out more details on the Bitter Wind, but had come up with little other than absurd gossip, much of which he had presented to Barney as truth.

Now it was Barney's turn to take a stroll along the promenade. Igor was having lunch with his intended, the town lawyer Garrett Carmichael. Keanu was writing up the latest wild speculation for his blog, in the hope that something major would happen and he might become some sort of a thing, while holding down the fort in case there were any haircutting emergencies.

The crowd on the pier was dwindling. What with it being another slow day in Millport in November, a small assembly had gathered to watch the police investigation. Gainsborough had initially cordoned off the entire pier, but eventually his friends in the audience – and he had known virtually everyone there – had persuaded him to move the rope closer and closer, until the crowd had been within about ten feet of the boat. In the end it had more or less turned into a spectator sport. Like watching CSI live.

Frankenstein had watched the throng encroach, but was of the opinion that if a crime had been committed here, then there was a good chance that the perpetrator would be back to take a look.

However, police investigation doesn't really reward long-term viewing, so after the spectators began to realise that no murderers were going to be uncovered that day on the pier, and that a murder might not even have been committed, the crowd had dropped off, back to whatever mundane aspect of life it was which held them on this sleepy November day.

Barney walked past the small clock tower at the pier entrance. He nodded at a couple of old guys who wandered by – Barney knew all the men on the island, not so many of the women.

'Nothing to see,' said old Tom Brady.

'Took the body away two hours ago,' said old Tom Ramsay. 'By now it'll have been sliced apart like the Rangers defence against Juventus in 1995.' He giggled.

'Away you and shite,' said Brady. 'Rangers defence in '95. At least we were in the Champions' League, what were you in? The Idiots' League? The Losers' League?'

'I've had enough of your pish.'

'My pish? What about your pish? Enough to flood the Loire valley...'

The cut and thrust of radical argument drifted off into the day as they disappeared from the pier. Barney smiled and walked on to the edge of the cordoned-off area. There were only three people left standing now, two still fascinated by events, one leaning against a pole, making notes in a small book.

There were two men working on the boat that Barney could see. One on deck, rummaging carefully through nets, the other bent down inside the cabin, his back turned. Barney watched them for a second and then approached the man with the notebook.

The swell had started to get up and the sea was becoming a little boisterous beneath the pier, sucking noises and the sound of water being drawn between wood.

'What's the latest?' asked Barney.

The notebook guy gave Barney the once over, a classical head to foot glance, taking everything in.

'You're the town barber?' he asked.

Barney didn't even begin to wonder.

'Barney Thomson,' he said, extending his hand, knowing that this wasn't a guy whose hair he'd cut in the past.

'William Deco,' said the notebook guy.

'Your friends call you Art?' ventured Barney.

'Tell me about it,' he replied grimly. 'Might as well have Art stamped on my forehead.'

'What's with the notebook?'

'Largs & Millport Chronicle.'

'William Deco,' said Barney, nodding. 'Of course. I read you every week.'

'You're the one.'

'Always presumed that it was a made-up name. Wondered why you didn't just call yourself Arthur Deco or Artimus Deco.'

'I come from a long line of Decos,' said Deco.

'Your family left Spain in 1646?'

'It was '54 to be precise. We did all right in this country until Charles Rennie Macintosh.'

The guy rummaging through the nets finally stood up and stretched. Looked out to sea, then started wandering around the deck poking at things with a small stick.

'You can't have many abandoned fishing boats to report,' said Barney.

'First one,' said Deco, 'and I've been on the job for thirty-three years.'

'Thirty-three years working for the Largs & Millport Chronicle?'

'Used to think I was going to be someone. The Herald. The Scotsman. Commentary on Good Morning Scotland. Maybe even make the London Times or Newsweek. Used to imagine my by-line in the Herald Tribune, being read and ignored by people on aeroplanes and in big international chain hotels.'

He paused; he let out a heavy sigh, filled with all the weariness of the years.

'Suppose I was right. I am someone. I'm someone who's been writing for the Largs & Millport Chronicle for thirty-three years.'

'You've got your story at last,' said Barney.

'Maybe,' said Deco, 'maybe not.'

'What's the latest?' asked Barney again, having first ventured the question seemingly hours earlier.

'They took the body away zipped up in a bag. None of us saw it. Word is there was no obvious cause of death. These two comedians have been on the boat gathering evidence. They're what we call Scenes of Crime Officers, although everyone just calls them CSI now 'cause of the TV show.'

Barney was familiar with the work of Scenes of Crime Officers, but he wasn't immediately going to fill a reporter in on his background.

'There are two other police here at the moment. They've gone off with the local plod to talk to people, find things out. Two crew members missing, all three of them lived on the island. The trawler was discovered by three old guys out on a yacht. They came in with the boat, gave statements and they're gone. At least they'll have a tale to tell at dinner for the next few weeks.'

Deco paused and looked through his notebook, seeing if there was anything else of note. Face a blank, then a small nod.

'The boat only usually went out for one night at a time, got that from a guy who was standing where you are right now, but it had been gone three nights this time. They'd reported in that they'd be away longer, but no one knows why. Least, no one who I've spoken to yet.'

Barney looked back along the front of the town, Stuart Street quiet in the early afternoon sun. Along the promenade, the Garrison building, newly refurbished and gleaming, past Newton Beach and the crocodile rock, and beyond to Kames Bay, where he could see his house, sitting in amongst the neat row of large Victorian homes at the east end of the town. The seagulls dipped and swooped and cried, the sea showed increasing signs of life.

'When do you have to file?' asked Barney.

'Three days,' said Deco.

'Plenty of time for things to develop.'

Deco muttered something low and dismal.

'Maybe your editor will want to bring out a special Millport Trawler Mystery edition,' said Barney.

Deco wrote something else down in his notebook, as if Barney had just given him an idea, the pages turned away so that Barney couldn't see what he was writing.

'I am the editor,' said Deco darkly.

Barney smiled, turned away from the Bitter Wind and began walking slowly back down the pier.

***

D
etective Chief Inspector Frankenstein had removed himself from the hands-on investigation and ridden off on a bike. Wanted to get a feel for the town and the island, as he suspected that he was about to be spending the next few days, if not weeks, mired in the place. Nothing concrete yet to say there had even been a crime committed, but he had a feeling.

They'd been told on arrival that riding a bike round the island was what everyone did. He'd scoffed, he'd muttered, he'd stared darkly along the road...and then he'd hired a bike from Mapes and set off on the ten and a half mile island circumference tour. Kames Bay, Farland Point, the Aquarium and Keppel Pier, the lion rock, the wishing well, the sailing club, the ferry ramp... For all that he moaned and curmudgeoned his way through life, he was a good detective. Took it all in.