The Barbershop Seven (196 page)

Keanu opened the shop door and stood on the step, looking out at the massed collective, creating the diversion that Barney and Igor needed in order to escape the flaming torch mob. He had no idea what he was going to say. Back of the mind thinking about Zeppo and what it was that he'd invented which had earned him his millions.

'Where's the serial killer and his deranged, deformed sidekick?' bellowed a voice from the throng, as they began to close in.

Keanu breathed deeply. This was it. His fifteen minutes. He'd tried the blog and not many people were reading. He'd applied for Big Brother and not got close. He'd auditioned for Pop Idol and been embarrassed. He'd written his screenplay and been ignored by Scottish Screen and quickly rejected by the BBC. But what really mattered more than anything else, more than talent or ability or confidence or balls, was luck. Here he was, in front of the nation's media, a curious public beside them, and it bore no relation to anything that he himself had achieved. A mysterious trawler, a brutal murder.

Luck.

'They'll be out in a minute,' he said. Which was true. If they weren't already out. Just not out front. 'They're prepping,' he added.

'And who are you?' came a voice from the back.

'Like, my name is Keanu MacPherson,' said Keanu, holding the palm of his hand up in the classic alien spaceman greeting. 'Agent MacPherson,' he added suddenly, having just thought of something cool.

The questions quickly rose to a great clamour. Agent? Agent of what? Death? FBI? God? MI5? Serious Crime Squad? Avon?

Keanu spent some time trying to quieten the crowd, as if he was refusing to answer until he was given some space. In fact, he had no idea what to say next. Agent?

The door next to the barbershop opened and DCI Frankenstein appeared, flanked by a couple of officers. A quick glance amongst the throng and he spotted the television cameras. Couldn't be too heavy-handed then. Keep it simple.

He had a commanding presence. Quickly the noise settled down, the tumult was extinguished, as they waited for the leading investigating officer to make a statement. The cars which were backed along the road, due to the fact that the crowd were spilled all over it, stopped beeping their horns. An uneasy silence descended.

Frankenstein suddenly felt very powerful. Maybe I don't have to say anything, he thought. Might be best, given that what comes out will inevitably be expletive-laced, which doesn't make anyone look good on TV. So he lifted his arms and signalled the opposite pavement, in a slow but dramatic movement. He repeated the gesture, and then, as the crowd started to file back he waved to the queue of cars to start moving along the road, which hurried the exodus to the other side of the street. The crowd spread out along the promenade and the public element of it at least, took the hint that the police were here and that nothing much else was going to happen, and started to disperse. It was dark and none of the day trippers really wanted to spend the night in Millport. It was time to get the boat back to the mainland.

The journalists hovered with intent, but they were getting to the stage of needing to write their stories up, and for all the silencing aspect of the police presence, there was still a great story that required little embellishment. Not that embellishment would be a stranger to the following morning's papers.

Frankenstein stood with his arms folded, watching as slowly even the reporters started to drift away, already scribbling in their notebooks. Proudfoot had come to the door to stand at his shoulder. She leant on the doorframe and watched the last of the swarm buzz quietly away into the night. And so, in a matter of a couple of minutes, the pavement across the road was as good as deserted.

'That was very impressive,' she said.

'Thank you.'

'I mean, that was like Moses or something. I don't want to give you a big head or anything, but that was just about the coolest thing I've ever seen.'

'You're taking the piss now.'

'No really, if that was in a movie, you'd be played by Paul Newman.'

'Fuck off, Sergeant.'

'I mean, usually, you're more of a Paul Giamatti.'

'I said fuck off.'

She smiled, took a last look at the dispersing multitude, and then turned back inside. Frankenstein looked along the road, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction, then he caught the eye of Keanu, still standing at the door.

'What the fuck are you looking at?' he said.

'That was my fifteen minutes,' said Keanu. 'We only get the one chance, and that was mine.'

'And I just pished all over it.'

'Like, yeah, you did.'

Frankenstein, feeling unusually empathetic, shrugged.

'They'll be back. You'll get another chance. And this time,' he said, 'you'll have time to come up with a better story than being Agent MacPherson.'

MacPherson looked a little sheepish and tried his best to hold Frankenstein's gaze.

'You heard that?'

Frankenstein looked at him for a while, shook his head, and turned back inside the incident room, muttering agent as he went. The two police constables who had flanked Frankenstein throughout, checked once more along the road, making sure that there were no journalists or members of the public going to attempt a pincer movement of some sort, then they followed the boss back inside.

Keanu MacPherson stared out to sea. The Marman clamp. A heavy duty, round metal clamp. That was Zeppo's gold at the end of his rainbow. The Marx Brothers never made any movies about that.

––––––––

B
arney didn't head home. Knew enough about this kind of thing to realise that the journalistic throng would have found out where he lived and would more than likely move on from the shop, at some point in the evening, to lingering outside his house. The wolves were gathering.

He headed west, although that wasn't quite as dramatic a statement as it can be if you live in New York or Shanghai. On Cumbrae, there just weren't too many places to go, and although an obvious destination for him would have been the boat back to the mainland, he had no urge whatsoever to leave the island. He wasn't exactly sinking into some eastern philosophical way of thinking that everything was happening for a reason, and that it would all soon be explained. Nevertheless, his past was not so much catching up with him, it had left him behind and was waiting to ambush him around every corner. He had no desire to run and nowhere to go.

He walked out along West Bay Road. Reached the old Stewart Hotel, the first of the hotels out that way, and turned quickly into the driveway. He hadn't stayed here before, no need, but he was a regular for fish and chips and a pint of cider. That was what he needed now, although he realised that sitting in the dining room would attract someone's attention.

He walked into the hotel, stopped for a second to listen to the sound of the bar and the restaurant. A quiet night, but he had seen enough people through the window to know that he'd rather avoid having to go in. Andrew, the owner, portly, blond, balding, affable, appeared from the kitchen carrying three plates of beef and ale pie.

'Mr Thomson!' he said. 'Had a feeling we'd see you. Don't know why.'

'Have you got a room?' asked Barney quietly.

Andrew stopped for a second, nodded, and then walked quickly through to the restaurant. 'I'll be thirty seconds,' he threw over his shoulder.

Barney relaxed slightly and turned away. Stood idly, looking at the pictures on the lobby walls. The pose of many a man made to wait in a hotel. Millport Bay on a summer's day. A hare. A photograph of Millport from 1905, looking not entirely dissimilar to Millport 21st century.

Andrew appeared. Barney got sucked from his indistinct ruminations.

'Right, Mr Thomson, just let me get a couple of things. If you want to go upstairs, in case any more people come in. I'll get the key. You want a toothbrush, toothpaste?'

Barney nodded, feeling very grateful, then he turned and walked slowly up the stairs. A little surprised that there was still a room available, given the number of the press and police who had descended. Where were they all staying?

It was the largest hotel on the island, two old Victorian residences joined together. Upstairs there was a small landing, four doors off, a short corridor leading to a few more rooms, another flight of stairs to more rooms in the converted attic. Carpet of deep red, pictures of the sea on the walls.

Andrew appeared, clutching a key, a small bag and a newspaper under his arm. Barney's eyes went straight to the paper.

He stood back while the man opened the door to one of the large front rooms, big windows and a wonderful view out over the sea to Little Cumbrae. And the nuclear power station.

They walked into the room, Andrew closed the door behind them without turning on the light. The room was dark, shadows and orange light from the street lights outside.

'Why didn't you just leave the island?' said Andrew.

Barney walked to the window and looked across the road and the grass, out to sea.

'Ghosts,' he said. 'All sorts of ghosts. It doesn't matter where you are. They don't care if you're in Millport, in Scotland, on a plane, on a boat. What's the point of moving?'

Andrew didn't say anything. Barney stared out the window. Half expected to turn round and find that Andrew had vanished into the night. That would be in keeping with the rest of what was happening to him.

'How did you know I'd be coming?' he asked.

'Just had a feeling,' said Andrew, his voice low in the dark. 'And then I saw this, and I knew for certain.'

The bedside light clicked on behind him and Barney turned. A small lamp, he didn't need to squint into the light. Andrew was holding forward a copy of a newspaper. The Largs & Millport Chronicle, “Special Murder Edition.” There were only two paragraphs of writing on the front page, as the bulk of it was made up with the banner, sensationalist headline. Death Comes To Millport: Barbershop Murder-Junky Walks Amongst Us!

Barney looked at the headline for a full minute. He'd had headlines like this before, but most of them had washed over him. He'd been on the run, he'd been hiding, he hadn't needed to care. Now he'd finally made a life for himself in a small town, and everyone was going to know about it.

'There are sixteen pages,' said Andrew.

'All adverts as usual, I hope,' said Barney.

'No adverts, just large print.'

Barney smiled ruefully. Andrew realised that he was still holding the newspaper up, as if there were people in the audience who hadn't seen the cover, so he folded it up, laid it down on the bed and walked to the door.

'I presume you don't want to eat in the restaurant?'

Barney shook his head.

'I'll bring up fish & chips and a drink for you.'

It was a statement rather than an offer, and he immediately opened the door, walked out and closed it softly behind him. Barney stood for a second and then turned off the small bedside light, pulled up a comfy chair and sat at the window to look out at the early evening.

***

L
ater, as he sat at the small table eating his dinner, Barney looked through the newspaper. William Deco had done a thorough research job, working against a frantic deadline, to get his story out there before all the dailies the following morning. Barney might almost have been impressed, if it hadn't been for the fact that there was a sixteen-page newspaper special devoted just to him.

Barney Rising: How It All Started, And The Genesis Of A Perfect Executioner; Blame It On The Parent; The Massacre Of The Monks; Death Becomes Him; Bloodfest Barber And The Trail Of Annihilation; Dead No More! The Undead Zombie Barber Walks Again!; Cabinet Carnage, Who Was Really To Blame?; If You See This Man, Don't Let Him Near You With A Pair Of Scissors; Barbershop Murder Addict Signs Mad Hungarian Hunchback To Death Squad.

Barney started reading a couple of the articles as he ate his dinner. However, for all of the man's thorough research, very little of what he read even remotely approximated to the truth, and he quickly tired of it. And so, not long after he'd finished eating, and even though it was not late, he laid the newspaper down, turned off the light, slouched down in the window chair, and allowed the tiredness, which had built up through the stress of the day, to wash over him and cover him in a deep, deep sleep.

––––––––

B
ernard and the Dog With No Name waited by the makeshift trawler out by Farland Point, eating snacks and hoping that the killer would arrive. They talked lightly of food they had eaten, sandwiches they had made, restaurants they had demolished and snacks they had invented, such as the peanut butter and onion jelly brioche. They looked at the sea and felt cold and glad that they'd been able to get the fire going. And they waited for the killer, part of them hoping that he would turn up, so that they could get on with solving the case, part of them hoping that there would be no Trawler Fiend and no Incredible Captain Death, because the concept of a Trawler Fiend or an Incredible Captain Death who chopped the heads off old ladies was not a comforting one.

They waited and they waited. But they waited in vain.

Meanwhile Fred, Selma and Deirdre were back at the small apartment they had appropriated for the duration of their investigation, having outrageously wild three-in-a-bed sex.

***

D
etective Chief Inspector Frank Frankenstein stood at the window of the police incident room, looking out at the dark of night, across the white promenade wall, to the lights on the mainland. Glanced over his shoulder, took in the fact that the room had mostly been cleared. The bulk of the extra police squad had returned to the mainland. Only a couple of constables were left, the guys who would man the cell for the night. Proudfoot was also still there, sitting in a corner, trawling through old Barney Thomson files. She still hadn't discussed him with Frankenstein, and remained unaware that the two had had a chat by the graveyard.

'Walk with me, Sergeant,' said Frankenstein suddenly.

Proudfoot looked up from the PC, took a moment, sensed that there was something coming in this chat, and shut the computer down.