The Barbershop Seven (212 page)

'Keanu,' he said, turning back, and breaking the long silence, 'I have to admit that for a couple of awful minutes there, I had the horrible feeling that it was going to be you under that mask.'

Keanu smiled.

'Cool. But you know, I can dig dressing up in a mask, being someone else 'n' all, but cutting people's heads off...? That's a bad rap, man, I could never do stuff like that.'

Barney nodded. The others drank their coffee. Barney looked at his watch, realised that it was time that they opened the shop for the morning. Another day.

The MI6 collective closed in. Barney and Proudfoot shared a glance.

'Hi there!' said Selma.

'Like, hi guys!' said Bernard, 'coffee and doughnuts! Any going spare? Me and The Dog With No Name just had triple syrup blueberry pancakes, but we wouldn't say no to another bite, would we Dog With No Name?'

The dog barked. Igor held up an empty bag.

'This is Fred,' said Selma, indicating the blond man standing next to them. 'He came in early this morning to replace Fred who died last night. Help clear up the loose ends.'

Everyone looked at the new Fred.

'Hi, friends!' he said. 'This sure is some bad shit that went down. Glad I missed it, I guess. But hey, thanks for all your help in solving this investigation.'

The four on the bench stared at him. This new Fred wasn't a clone of the old one, not facially, but he had clearly been brought up by the same parents, gone to the same school, shopped in the same menswear department and been rodgered up the backside in the same secret service initiation ceremony.

'How many of them are you?' asked Keanu, and not even he was sure if he meant how many Fred's were there in MI6, or how many officers there were in the whole service.

'That's a secret, old buddy,' said Bernard.

'I'm not your...'

'So, you have what you wanted?' asked Barney.

'We sure do,' said Selma. 'We've been following this diamond operation for three years now, from Sierra Leone, via Amsterdam and Dublin, all the way to the jewellery shops of Great Britain. This was the final link in the chain.'

'Then a couple of weeks ago one of our colleagues on the continent jumped the gun and started closing the line up from the middle,' said Deirdre.

'And, like, everyone knows you can't do that,' chipped in Bernard.'

'Andrew the Mild-Mannered Hotel Manager knew that the whole operation was imploding, so he took himself out of the loop, then secretly intercepted the last trawlerful of contraband diamonds. Just too bad what happened to him.'

'Why did he dress up as Dostoevsky?' asked Proudfoot, asking the question that had been on her lips, while wondering what Deirdre had meant by the last remark. 'And why take the two guys prisoner when he was killing everyone else?'

The MI6 collective looked at each other. The Dog With No Name shrugged.

'When you've been in this game as long as we have,' said Deirdre, 'you'll come to realise that not everything has an explanation.'

'Like sure,' said Selma, 'sometimes life is like an episode of a kids TV show. Not everything adds up, not everything makes sense.'

'Arf,' muttered Igor.

'Exactly, my little hunchbacked friend,' said the new Fred.

A few more looks and then everyone turned and stared out to sea, the waves hurrying into shore. A couple of kids had appeared on the rocks to their right, buckets and small nets in hand, and they watched them for a short while. Finally, when one of the kids shouted, 'I've found the Incredible Captain Death's footprint!' it broke the spell, and the strange collection of people started shuffling about, knowing that there was a day to be getting on with.

'Right fellas!' said the new Fred, in an unusually loud voice. 'We need to get going. Gee, guys, like thanks for all your help, it sure was useful.'

'Like, totally,' said Bernard. 'Come on Dog With No Name, let's see if we can rustle up a peanut butter and sun-dried tomato meringue before we go.'

The Dog With No Name barked. Deirdre and Selma and Fred held up a hand of farewell.

'I hate myself for asking this,' said Barney, 'but why has the dog got no name?'

Bernard shrugged.

'Well, the big fella just turned up one day out of nowhere, and I looked at him and tried to think of a name, tried to think of something that would be suitable, but you know, I just didn't have a Scooby.'

He snapped his fingers, and with that the MI6 collective turned on their heels and walked quickly away back towards the football field.

They watched them go, the four people and a dog, speeding away with a youthful rush rather than a swagger.

'What did they mean when they said, too bad what happened to him?' asked Proudfoot.

No one knew. A shake of the head, a shrug of the shoulders.

'They kind of remind me of something but I can't think what it is,' said Keanu.

'Arf.'

Keanu looked round at Igor. Igor was looking at him, eyebrow raised. Keanu smiled.

'You just said that it was time we went and opened up the shop,' said Keanu. 'I got you at last! I am so geeked.'

Igor put his hand on Keanu's shoulder and nodded, then slowly got to his feet and looked at Barney.

'I'll be there in ten or fifteen minutes,' said Barney.

'Arf.'

'See you later, boss,' said Keanu. 'Sergeant,' he added, nodding at Proudfoot.

And then Igor and Keanu walked slowly away, Keanu's hand on Igor's shoulder as he chatted amiably.

Barney and Proudfoot turned back out to the restless, endless sea. Another absurd instance of mass murder in their lives was over, as if it should be commonplace in anyone's life. She checked her watch, glanced along the road. A police car was just coming down the hill from Cardiff Street, and she knew that Frankenstein would be coming to get her. Time, for her at least, to leave the island and get back to what she could salvage of her sanity.

'It doesn't explain your ghosts, does it?' she said to Barney. 'It doesn't explain the message on the wall of the café. What are we missing, Barney Thomson? And that beaut of a broken nose you've got there, you haven't said how you came by that.'

Barney stared at the water. It made sense to him now, but he had no desire to explain it to anyone else, or to drag anyone else into his mess. His demons were for him to deal with. Maybe now, at least, he had some of the answers to the mysteries of his life, even if he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to believe in those answers.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I just want to forget about it for a while.'

'Did you sell your soul to Satan, Barney?'

Barney lowered his eyes, from the sea to the rocks to the grass at his feet. He lifted his hands in a phlegmatic gesture.

Footsteps to their left. Proudfoot looked round. Frankenstein walking quickly towards them across the grass. She squeezed Barney's hand.

'I'm going to have to go,' she said quietly. 'I like you Barney. You're not half as weird as the papers make out, but you know, I just hope that we never, ever meet again.'

He looked at her, smiling. She smiled back, shrugged and then took her hand away and looked up as Frankenstein arrived and stood beside them, although he too was drawn to look out at the sea.

'You ready to leave, Sergeant?' he asked.

She nodded.

'Get you off this stupid joint. Although,' he began, and he waved a hand over the sea, 'now that we've got the nutjob and the darkness has lifted...' and he let the sentence drift off.

'Where is he?' asked Proudfoot.

Frankenstein shook his head. He had managed to get an hour alone with Andrew the hotel manager in the Glasgow police station where he'd been taken in the middle of the night. He had got to the bottom of Andrew's paranoia and greed. He had learned the story of how this disparate crew of ten had come together to form a cabal, each with their own particular finger in the pie. He had learned about diamond smuggling and where the diamonds had been hidden and why the diamonds had been hidden. He had even managed to elicit some names of contacts in the city that they hadn't heard before. An hour of good quality revelations and information.

He had left the room, with two constables guarding Andrew the Mild Mannered Hotel Manager. And when he had returned to the room ten minutes later, Andrew the hotel manager and both of the constable were dead. All strangled.

No one had come in or out. There had been nothing recorded on the CCTV which watched over the room.

For all the fear and emotion which he had felt the previous evening, nothing had scared Frankenstein like this.

'Gone,' he said simply. He coughed, looked unnecessarily at his watch. 'Your man's on his way, Sergeant. Probably just off the boat. I'll take you round.'

He stepped forward in front of Barney and held out his hand.

'Mr Thomson, you're officially de-deputised. Thanks for your help.'

Barney stood and shook his hand. Nothing to say.

'I take it you're not going anywhere. I may have the odd question after I've read the sergeant's notes on your discussion.'

'I'll be here,' said Barney, and he sat back down beside Proudfoot. Where else was he going to be?

'That's a hell of a nose you've got there.'

Barney didn't say anything. Frankenstein lifted a hand and then turned and started walking slowly towards his car. He stopped a few yards away and turned.

'Andrew, he was a talker. Quite happy to admit to all sorts, even things I didn't know about. But you know, it wasn't him who wrote that thing in blood on the wall of the café last night.'

He paused. Barney turned to look at him.

'Who wrote it, Barney Thomson?' said Frankenstein, but he knew he wasn't going to get an answer. And so he didn't wait for the reply, turned and started walking across the grass. 'Come on, Sergeant,' he threw over his shoulder.

Proudfoot looked at Barney, some part of her feeling that she was walking out on him and unfinished business.

They stared at each other, nothing else to be said. And then slowly she rose, took one last look at Barney Thomson and the cold grey sea, and then walked quickly after Frankenstein.

Barney Thomson did not watch her go.

––––––––

T
he haircutting was over for the day, although the Closed sign had not yet been placed on the door. The three amigos stood at the window, looking out at the end of the day, across the white promenade wall to the light fading on the water. Occasionally people would walk slowly by or a car would pass or a seagull would land on the wall and look their way.

The day had progressed slowly. The town had returned to normal. The shop had been busy all day, an endless stream of people coming to chat, men and woman. Theories abounded. If the police had set up a tape recorder in the corner of the room, they would have learned much. Andrew the mild-mannered hotel manager and his alcoholism. Andrew and his rising gambling debt. Why Andrew wasn't married. Andrew's decision to take out all the other members of the smuggling cabal to keep all the money for himself. Andrew's fascination with Russian literature. Andrew's fascination, bordering on obsessive man-love, for Colin Waites and Craig Brown, so that he could not quite bring himself to kill them.

Barney had watched them all come and go, cutting hair, mostly keeping himself out of the conversations. He had no questions about the diamond smuggling case. He didn't care about the diamonds. He wasn't sure that he even cared about the blood on the walls, his endless stream of non-existent visitors and ghosts.

For now, at least, it seemed like more than just the fog had lifted. The winds were fresh, autumn would turn to cold winter, the sea would continue to occasionally rage and rumble. At some stage the evil would be back, but for a while, Barney could cut hair, he could share amiable chats with Keanu and Igor, and he could work late when he felt like it, without fear of strange men with beards knocking on his door and asking for obscure haircuts.

The past, however, was still out there. The reckoning of Barney Thomson was still at hand.

A long silence, none of them thinking beyond the moment. Except perhaps Keanu, who felt rather that the whole event had passed him by, and was mulling over the previous few days, wondering if he had missed his chance to make a breakthrough into the public consciousness. He glanced back at his laptop, which lay untouched on the counter.

'That Fred guy,' he began, softly throwing some words into the relaxed quiet of the afternoon.

'Which one?' asked Barney.

'The one that came off the substitute's bench,' said Keanu. 'The doppelganger. He may have been a complete tube, but you know, he nailed the whole business on the head when he said that there had been some weird shit.'

Barney nodded. Igor popped a small bubble with his Winterfresh PestoMint. The latest seagull came and sat on the wall and looked across at them, head cocked to the side.

'Thought I might write a book about it,' said Keanu. 'I mean, the blog thing never really got going, but a book about the case. That might stand a chance. You know, from an insider.'

Barney nodded again. Knew Keanu well, knew that Keanu would never write a book.

'Good idea,' he said.

'You think?'

'Arf!'

'Only one problem,' said Barney.

The seagull lifted its head, turned and languidly took off away across the rocks and the sea. Igor raised an eyebrow, Keanu turned with interest.

'No one will ever believe it,' said Barney.

Keanu shrugged. 'I don't know,' he said. 'People are usually willing to believe stories about men in masks.'

The streetlights came on; the dark of early evening crept along the road. The seagulls mournfully whirled and cried, and the sea, the endless restless sea, sucked and swelled and tossed and turned.

***

L
ater, after a lazy drink, a relaxing spot of dinner and some amiable chat across the table, the fellowship of the barbershop split up for the evening and each of the men made their own way home.

Barney walked around Kames Bay, across the sand, keeping his shoes away from the gentle waves. The evening was bright, no clouds, some part of a moon, the stars were out. Barney had relaxed into the day, had come down off the high of another misadventure. Knew that he could relax for a while and was determined that he wouldn't even think about what might come in the future for at least a few weeks. Enjoy the peace of a quiet community by the sea. Christmas with Igor and Garrett and the kids. Worry about the future when the future came.