The Barbershop Seven (184 page)

He reached the far side of the island from the town of Millport, where there is a small obelisk set off the road, just above the rocky shoreline. There were four bikes already leaning against the grey stone, the riders sitting on the grass, looking north up the Clyde estuary, towards Wemyss Bay and beyond. A large dog lay on the grass beside them, stretched out, sleeping. Frankenstein slowed his bike, deciding it was time to get some local knowledge. Or visitor's knowledge.

He laid the bike down on the grass verge and stopped for a second. The day was still beautiful, seagulls spiralling through a sky which had clung on to the astonishing blue which had so captivated Keanu MacPherson. In the distance, the mountains of Argyll were stark in the clear light. He could see the Rothesay ferry heading back to the mainland; a small cargo vessel to his left making swift progress towards the Irish Sea.

He caught the eye of a couple of the cyclists and nodded.

'All right, friend?' said one of them.

Frankenstein grunted in reply. Looked away, smelled the breeze. The Rothesay ferry didn't seem to be moving. Even allowing for perspective. What do I know about perspective, he thought.

'You visiting the island?' asked Frankenstein.

The one who'd already spoken turned and nodded.

'Like, kind of a work team bonding session. You police?'

Frankenstein cursed, an undistinguishable single syllable that still managed to sound incredibly vulgar.

'You're probably here for the Mary Celeste,' said one of the two women, without turning.

Frankenstein nodded. Some police officer. Five seconds' conversation and they had him pegged, and he still didn't have a clue. Work team bonding session?

'What work?' he asked gruffly. He usually needed Sergeant Proudfoot with him to ameliorate his complete lack of social skills.

'MI6,' said the guy who had yet to say anything.

The four of them looked out to sea. No further comment. Frankenstein gave them the once over.

'You came all the way up here from London?' he asked.

'Based in Edinburgh,' said two of them at once. Synchronised lying.

'Bullshit,' said Frankenstein. 'What are MI6 doing in Edinburgh? Isn't that MI5's job?' For some reason, he felt stupid.

'Like you don't think they have foreign nationals in Edinburgh?' said the other woman.

That was why I felt stupid, he thought. He grumbled and found himself looking at some indistinct spot on the water at which they were all staring.

'So,' he went on, thinking that he might as well try to achieve what he had stopped here for, regardless of how annoyed these people were making him, 'are you really here team building, or are you investigating the trawler?'

Another pause. Frankenstein was disarmed by these people, which he hated. He really ought to just get back on his bike. He noticed a family of swans mincing through the water not too far from the shore. Felt small.

'Maybe,' said one of them.

'Could be.'

'We're so secretive, even we don't know what we're doing most of the time.'

'Of course,' said the fourth monkey, 'we've been on the island for three days, so that would have been showing a remarkable amount of prescience, don't you think?'

Frankenstein lifted his bike and clumsily swung his leg over the bar. Three days? If it was true, maybe they would have something to tell him. Not that he was about to ask.

'MI6,' he grumbled under his breath, when he was a good few yards along the road. 'They're probably advertising executives.' As he rode off he heard one of them say, 'Pass the corn chips.'

And once he was out of earshot, the four people lying on the grass by the small obelisk could go back to discussing the international diamond smuggling operation that had brought them to the west coast of Scotland in the first place.

––––––––

A
few more people arrived in the town during the day. Some police, some media, some curiosity seekers. There wasn't much to do and less to find out. The police took a small shop unit along the front and set up an incident room. It had once been a short-lived antique French furniture store, but there hadn't been much call for antique French furniture in Millport, and after a couple of months the place had folded and the owner had legged it with what was left of the local enterprise money he'd pocketed. Now the police were in. The antique French furniture had already been removed, the windows were dirty, the floor covered in dust. Spiders looked down from corners.

The police incident room was next door to the barbershop, separated by two feet of one hundred and thirty-five year-old stone wall.

The men of the barber shop were idle once again. A long winter beckoned. Barney stood at the window, looking out over the sea. Igor brushed slowly at the floor around the chairs, although no hair had fallen for more than an hour. Keanu had fallen into torpor. The sun had dipped behind the Arran hills and darkness was on its way.

'Going to be stormy tonight,' said Barney from nowhere. 'You can feel it. Once darkness comes.'

Igor leant on his brush and looked outside. Keanu glanced up from his laptop, at which he had been staring with ever more glazed eyes, and looked out at the darkening skies.

'Looks pretty clear,' he said.

Silence. Walls too heavy and thick to get even a trace of the activity next door, which wasn't exactly frenetic in any case. The hands of the clock on the wall moved silently. A car drove past in hushed tranquillity.

Barney looked out the window. Seemed to spend his life doing just that. Didn't mind. The others followed his gaze now, Igor leaning on his brush, Keanu, head resting on fist. The sky seemed to darken as they watched. Clouds were gathering from somewhere, the first of the day.

'This is kind of weird,' said Keanu eventually.

'Arf?' asked Igor. Barney didn't turn.

'You know, like, we're sitting here looking out of a window at absolutely nothing. I mean, nothing at all. And yet, it's like, really cool. I'm so chilled. It's like some weird, transcendental drug. I'm tripping on silence and introspection. What is that all about?'

Igor smiled and looked back at the window. A cyclist passed the shop front, panniers stuffed full of shopping; the local road sweeper, Morgan Rembrandt. He threw a wave at the shop as he went, without turning. Barney and Igor nodded in reply. The rear wheel disappeared out of sight.

A seagull landed on the white promenade wall opposite. Cocked its head to the side, squawked. Seemed to look into the shop.

The door opened. Garrett Carmichael, the lawyer. Auburn hair, newly in curls. Lips full, eyes sparkling. Brown suit, knee-length skirt, pale blouse, two buttons undone. Pearls around her neck. Barney and Keanu stared, smiled. She wasn't for them.

'Hi guys,' she said. 'Another busy one?'

'November,' said Barney casually.

Igor leant on his brush. She kissed him on the cheek, stole another quick kiss on the lips. He blushed. A year and a half in. He still blushed.

Garrett Carmichael sat down on the old bench which ran the length of the shop and laid her bag beside her.

'I've had the same kind of day. It's like the place is shutting down early. Usually not this bad until January.'

'You hear about the boat mystery?' said Keanu.

'All about it,' she said. 'Read your blog. Cool.'

'Thanks!'

'You nailed the colour of the sky.'

Keanu nodded and looked mildly sheepish. Barney smiled.

'I'm off home to get the kids,' she said. 'Can I drag Igor away from you?'

'Of course,' said Barney. Probably for the next six months, he thought. But the place wouldn't be the same without the wee fella, so he wouldn't want it even if she tried.

She stood up. Igor muddled into the back room to get his coat. Keanu let himself stare at her for a while. Wished there were more women on the island like Garrett Carmichael.

'Why don't you close for the day?' she said. Looked at the clock. Almost five.

Barney shrugged.

'You're getting a reputation,' she said. 'Sad lonely Barney, spends all his time in the shop, waiting for customers that don't come.'

He gave her a look.

'Well, OK, I made that up. But you know, won't be long, people will start talking.'

Igor appeared back in the shop. She smiled.

'Had a guy in here for a cut past seven last night,' said Barney, annoyed that he felt the need to defend himself. Maybe she was right. Barney the loner. Barney the loser.

'One of the old guys who felt sorry for you?' she said, smiling. Playing a game, wondering if it was really getting to him.

Igor pulled on his coat, waved at Keanu. Keanu saluted.

'A fisherman,' said Barney. 'Old guy right enough. Said he was just stopping off for supplies.'

He hadn't thought about it all day. Just saying it now, though, it sounded strange.

'A fisherman?' she asked. 'From a trawler?'

'That's what he said,' replied Barney. Felt the shiver work its way down his spine. He'd believed him. Why not? Maybe it had just been some old guy with a story to spin. But what difference did it make? The guy had blagged a free haircut. No big deal. Why the shiver? 'Said he was heading off again last night.'

'In that fog?' said Carmichael. 'Sounds pretty weird. D'you tell the police?'

Barney turned and looked at her, as if at last fully engaging the conversation.

'They haven't been in here.'

'They're next door.'

'What am I going to tell them? It was some old guy, it wasn't any of our three from the boat.'

'Barney,' she said, tone starting to drift into the one she used with her kids, 'one guy's dead, two missing, and you get a mysterious fisherman on a dark and foggy night, looking for a haircut at seven o'clock in the evening.'

'Seven-thirty,' said Barney, mind wandering back to the night before. She was right. Why hadn't he thought to go to the police?

There'd been something about the old guy that had made him want to file the thought of him away, to relegate him to some dark recess of his mind and leave the thought to stagnate.

'Seven-thirty,' she repeated. 'Whatever. When you found out about the Bitter Wind this morning, didn't it set some little bell ringing? Are you scared of the police or something?'

Barney looked at the floor, rummaging through his head, trying to work out what it had been that had stopped him from making the connection.

'I don't know,' he said eventually, looking up. 'I didn't make the call, that's all. Just a guy getting a haircut.'

She puffed out her cheeks and shrugged. Glanced at Igor, who was feeling a little excluded.

'You'll go to them now, though,' she said.

Barney held his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. 'Sure.'

'Men are such muppets sometimes,' she said, giving her bag an unnecessary hoik over the shoulder.

'Arf,' said Igor, with raised eyebrow.

'Yes,' she said, 'you 'n' all.'

She opened the door, Igor in tow, and turned back to the others.

'See you, guys. Go to the police.'

Keanu saluted again. Barney nodded.

'Did the old guy give a name at all?' she said, leaning on the door frame. Igor hovered at the exit.

'No name,' said Barney, shaking his head, 'though he said the boat was called the Albatross. Seemed an odd name for a boat.'

She stepped forward, Igor giving her room. Igor was eager to leave.

'I thought the albatross was bad luck for that lot,' continued Barney.

'Isn't it like, if you see an albatross your boat explodes?' ventured Keanu from the sidelines.

'Something like that,' said Barney.

'Or you get eaten by a giant sea serpent.'

'There's only ever been one boat called the Albatross around here,' said Carmichael, cutting through the banter.

Barney shrugged. 'Makes sense. You know the old guy then?'

'The Albatross was a trawler working out of Millport,' she said. Her tone was peculiar and the light-heartedness that Barney had felt from his short exchange with Keanu left him.

'And he moved to Ullapool,' said Barney. What was it that was making his stomach crawl?

The silence from outside seemed to creep into the shop. Keanu leant forward, getting the vibe. Igor shivered under his hump and stared at the ground. He knew what was coming.

'The Albatross was captained by a man called Judah Bennington. He worked out of Millport, but he'd had a couple of bad years around here and he decided to move to Ullapool. Three days after he left, his boat was found deserted at sea. All hands missing. Except for a small dog.'

'When?' said Barney.

'Over a hundred years ago,' she said. '1895 or thereabouts.'

Barney shrugged, a movement which suggested he was much more relaxed than he actually felt.

'Must be another Albatross,' he said.

'Come on,' said Igor, shuffling towards the door, 'we should go.' Although, sadly, it came out as arf!

Carmichael nodded, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself. Feeling the chill of a darkening late afternoon in November.

'There's usually an explanation,' said Barney.

Carmichael smiled weakly and held the door open for Igor, who threw a farewell hand at the others and walked out into the dusk. She exchanged a glance with Barney and then headed out into the cold.

Barney watched them go and then turned to look at Keanu, who was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.

'Pretty creepy, man' he said.

Barney looked at the clock and decided that it was time to shut up shop for the night. Not yet five, but what did it matter? And he could see the police in the morning. What exactly was he going to tell them now that would make any sense?

'There'll be something,' he said. 'Nothing's ever truly interesting in life. Always something mundane.'

Keanu nodded and drummed his fingers on top of his laptop. Thinking of how this might read on the blog, although he was slowly realising, like an overwhelming majority of bloggers, that he was wasting his time.

'Like a guy in a mask,' said Barney without conviction.

'We've all seen Scooby Doo,' said Keanu.