The Barbershop Seven (223 page)

'Anyone else not in yet?' he asked.

'Everyone else accounted for,' said Marcos. 'Sergeant Monk checked a while ago, Thomson didn't come up because he's new, and to be perfectly honest, I forgot about him.' She paused, then added, 'You think he might be dead?'

Orwell let out a long sigh. It was a possibility. And then what was he going to do? It'd be damned hard for a completely new barber to pick up a Hugh Jackman at some indeterminate midway point. He could always find a new Head of TV Contracts, but the hair thing, that was an altogether more serious matter.

'Fuck it,' he said, 'the guy was picking up a good rep too. This bimbo who nailed Fitzgerald, you think she might've stiffed Barn?'

The door opened. Barney Thomson, armed with swipe card and looking fresh from a lie in, walked into reception and looked from Marcos to Orwell, as they gave him the stare.

'You're not dead then?' said Orwell.

'Well, who knows?' said Barney. 'Maybe I am. Having a nice chat?'

'You're late,' said Orwell.

Barney immediately started walking towards the lift which would take him up to the top floor. Pressed the button and turned back to Orwell as he waited.

'Imelda informed me that there were no clients before ten-thirty, and nor were there likely to be with the usual round of pan-office meetings in the morning. I said I'd be in just after ten and agreed that she'd page me if I was needed before then, should one of your lot have had some sort of hair emergency. I have no idea how a hair emergency would manifest itself, and being a barber with a pager sounds the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life, but it seems reasonably in keeping with the rest of the office.'

Orwell slung a zinger at Marcos.

''Melda?'

She did a thing with her mouth and had the decency to look moderately sheepish.

'Sorry,' she said. 'Yeah, we talked at COP yesterday. My memory just totalled.'

'Jesus, 'Melda,' said Orwell, 'we could've been launching a three thousand person manhunt here.'

'For him?'

He waved his hands and walked after Barney as the lift arrived.

'Forget about it, 'Melda. We soldier forth,' he said, and she had forgotten about it by the time he'd finished his sentence, and had returned to checking out the shoes in the mirror.

'Hold the phone, Batman!' he said, and gave a little leap into the elevator. 'You up for finishing off the Hugh Jackman?'

'Aye,' said Barney, 'if you think it's at all appropriate.'

***

T
hirty-three minutes later, and the haircut which had started nearly twenty-one hours previously was finally being brought to a successful conclusion. Jack Beckett, head of Accounts, was being made to wait.

Orwell and Barney were having a good chat about the biz, Orwell running a variety of ideas for current projects past him and relishing his feedback. He trusted Barney; at first it had come out of the fact that Barney had liked most of his ideas, but then, the more they had talked, Barney's own ideas had started to emerge, and they were a damn sight more switched on than a lot of the comedians who worked there. Already they had worked their way through the new Watkinson's Sword razor with six blades – Sword Sex; the campaign on behalf of Rod Stewart as he started his new career as a TV evangelist; and the billboard to sell napalm to a sceptical Highland market for heather burning –
Napalm. It'll Take Your Breath Away!

'Am I getting paid for any of this?' asked Barney, doing a final turn with a pair of tongs. There's a lot of tong work in a Hugh Jackman.

'Don't remember negotiating anything before we started,' said Orwell, with an impish smile. However, he was already hatching a plan to move Barney from the barbershop to the shop floor, as it were. Barney was wasted with a pair of scissors, he thought, no matter how exceptional he was.

Barney produced a final can of product, spraying it liberally in the general vicinity of Orwell's head. It was, in fact, a complete placebo, but it always induced that little extra bit of satisfaction in the customer, the belief that something dramatic was being done to them.

'We nearly done?'

'Aye,' said Barney.

'Total,' said Orwell. 'Right, last one. Exron, you know the corrupt energy guys?'

'Think I've heard of them,' said Barney.

'They're branching out into women's toiletries, logical next step. We've nailed the deodorant commercial, but they're also looking to introduce a variety of other products including water retention tablets. Big, big business. Most chicks retain water like an upturned umbrella, you know what I'm saying?'

'You're right,' said Barney.

'So, we have to push the envelope here and come up with a product name and a slogan to accompany the billboard. For this one they're not really pushing the Exron effect, you know, they just realise it's a burgeoning market. Needs to be tapped.'

'Sure,' said Barney already giving it some thought, as he completed the final act of fluffing for best possible effect.

He stood back. Orwell stopped thinking about work for five seconds to study himself in the mirror, then Barney stepped forward and removed the cape from around his neck.

'Outstanding,' said Orwell. 'You are totally the man.'

'Thanks,' said Barney.

'I feel like I should give you a tip, you know, but that's just not the kind of principles we're looking to apply here. You understand, right?'

'Totally,' said Barney, getting with the vibe.

'Cool,' said Orwell standing up.

A final check in the mirror, then he walked to the window, having already established that he could afford fifteen seconds to look down on the Thames. A few boats, the water dull, dull grey, the colour of the skies and so much more. The seconds ticked off in his head. He felt his brain refresh with every one, then he turned away from the view across London and back to Barney.

'I'm out of here,' he said. 'Any thoughts?'

'Water retention?' asked Barney, just checking in case Orwell had already moved on to marketing the hole in the ozone layer as a freedom zone from the prison cell of atmospheric allotropic oxygen.

'Sure,' said Orwell. 'What d'you think I meant?'

'
Niagara Falls
,' said Barney.

A quizzical look crossed Orwell's face, and then he smiled broadly.

'
Niagara Falls
,' he said. 'That is a quality name, my good man. Hook line?'

Barney hesitated, then he too looked out at the colourless day.

'
Niagara Falls
,' he began, immediately sounding like Bergerac or Lovejoy. '
Take two, head for the bathroom and watch your feet deflate
... '

Orwell laughed, conversation over and already he was on his way. Slapped Barney on the back as he walked past, shaking his head, the smile still on his face.

'You're good, bud, you are good.'

And he was out of the door, leaving it open, and heading back to his office to do some further quality work on the Exron portfolio.

Barney watched him go, looked back at the river as it pottered its way down from the centre of the metropolis, then lifted the phone and put a call through to Jack Beckett, summoning the man for what would be the greatest ever haircut on God's earth.

––––––––

B
arney had just finished a regulation Wayne Rooney on a tattooed muppet from the post room, who had managed to squeeze himself in before all the bright young things from upstairs. Wayne had just exited stage left and Barney was expecting Bertram W. Dixon from Accounts to come in, when he looked up from his hair sweeping at the sound of two sets of footfalls.

He glanced at them both, not sure who he should be more interested in seeing. The woman he had been thinking about too much for the past twenty-four hours, or the policeman he had last seen in Millport, a couple of years and several lifetimes previously.

'Why am I not surprised?' he said, straightening up. Although, as a matter of fact, he was.

'What is it with you?' said Frankenstein.

Monk stared at Barney. Barney smiled quizzically at the question, looked between the two of them.

'It wasn't me,' he said. Half-joking. Unsure if they were here to accuse him of anything.

Frankenstein hadn't been sure how he intended to play his first meeting with Barney Thomson in London, but the words fell out of his mouth before he'd had a chance to really think about them.

'Then maybe you'd like to explain why the minute someone gets murdered anywhere in the world, you're in the vicinity?' said Frankenstein.

Barney stopped the movement of the brush, which he had unconsciously started up again. He straightened his shoulders. The curious smile died away. He stared at Monk. Felt like he knew her a lot better than he ought to know someone with whom he'd had a five-minute conversation. Looked at her like she was a friend, someone to help him out of an awkward situation, rather than one of the police officers on a murder enquiry.

'I don't know,' he said. 'It doesn't make any sense.'

'It does if you killed him,' said Frankenstein.

Barney laid down the broom, sat back against the countertop which ran underneath the mirror. Monk looked at the reflection of the back of Barney's head. She felt flushed. How the hell was she supposed to be objective feeling like this?

'Are you here to take me in?' asked Barney.

'Of course not,' said Frankenstein. 'I trusted you last time, but after that, you were supposed to stay on the stupid little island, grow old, and never go near trouble ever again. Then you show up in London, cut a guy's hair and that night he's murdered. Holy crap, why are you here?'

Barney stared at Frankenstein, then allowed his eyes to drift to Monk.

'The seagull came back,' said Barney slowly, with a shrug. He turned and looked down at the mesmerising grey river. Constantly drawn to water. Monk followed his gaze. Frankenstein glanced at her; the two of them shared a look.

'What seagull?' asked Monk.

Barney turned at the sound of her voice. Could he be surprised by any of this? Was this not just the reason he had been brought down here? Hadn't he acknowledged, the second he'd walked out of the shop, that he was walking away from the quiet solitude of small town life and into the brutal city, and that murder would not be far behind?

'The pathologist says the murder was committed by a woman,' said Frankenstein and Monk glanced at him, unable to hide her surprise, 'so we're not here to bring you in. I'd just like to know why you're here, and I was hoping for something that didn't involve seagulls.'

Barney breathed out a heavy sigh. He had known since the start. It was time for his final reckoning. He often wondered if the conversation he had had with the Devil two years previously had been real, imagined, dreamed. But he knew, however, he knew that what had been said then would come true, that some day he would be back.

Frankenstein backed away to the door.

'I'm going to speak to some people, see what everyone else has to say about Barney Thomson,' he said. 'You're going to tell Sergeant Monk what it was you were doing the evening before last and exactly why you pitched up at this dumb-ass marketing company the day before one of their senior members of staff got a wine glass in the eye.'

Frankenstein glanced at Monk, then turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind him.

Barney Thomson and Detective Sergeant Monk watched him go, watched the door close, stared at the door for a few seconds.

She turned and looked at him. Barney held her gaze. Did he wish that they had met under other circumstances? In what other circumstances would he have been likely to meet her?

'So I'm not under arrest?' he said softly.

***

T
he day muddled by, much as days do. London was as London does. A suspicious package on the Northern Line at Tottenham Court Road caused chaos for a couple of hours. Turned out to be a lunch box; no bombs, just a new Acne-Reducing Low-Fat Philadelphia sandwich with cucumber. On rye. So, there were a few thousand people even more cheesed off than they would otherwise have been, including by chance a couple of the junior guys from BF&C; and life went on.

Orwell consulted Bethlehem by phone about bringing Barney Thomson into the true fold of the company, a possibility about which Bethlehem was lukewarm – a reasonable enough concern, seeing as he was wanting to sign Messi or Kaka, whereas Barney was the guy who did Roberto Carlos' hair.

So, in order to impress upon Bethlehem the need to sign up the untried rookie, Orwell organised a small gathering in his office to discuss another of the new Exron products. (Bethlehem had wanted him to go through Waugh in MAD. However, Orwell had an intense personal dislike for the man, sensing in him a rival for the head of the company, should Bethlehem ever be ousted.)

Orwell, Barney Thomson, Piers Hemingway and John Wodehouse met to discuss another innovative bathroom product from the people who had once brought you all the electricity you could ever need for 2 cents a day. Orwell was aware that Barney had spent a long time with the police sergeant, but had put that down to the sergeant grilling the most obvious man in the building; the hairdresser, the man who heard all the gossip. The meeting began ten minutes after Detective Sergeant Monk had left Barney Thomson for the day, and so Barney walked out of his new hairdressing home with still just the one haircut under his belt, and a lot of desperate, disappointed customers.

The meeting was captured, unknown to the others, on speakerphone for Bethlehem to get a taste of Barney in the groove. Orwell was confident that Barney would come through and he was not disappointed. Bethlehem heard the following, as the meeting unfolded:

Orwell: Right, people, glad we're all here. John, Piers, this is Barn who, I can tell from your great hair, you've already met. He's just going to sit in on this one for a short time, see which way the ball bounces once it lands on the green.

Hemingway: Sure.

Orwell: Right, gentlemen, another of the great little products from the guys at Exron, as they attempt to conquer the toiletries market. This afternoon we have a product with the working title, Wet Dream Begone.