The Barbershop Seven (240 page)

***

'Y
ou're going to tell me why we're finally storming St. Paul's Cathedral?' asked Monk.

Frankenstein lowered his window, looked along the queue of traffic, shouted, 'Come on to fuck!', beeped his horn, rolled his window up again because the snow had started to fall and was coming in, studied the traffic in the oncoming lane, decided there was no point in pulling any sort of authority stunt because there was just plain nowhere to go, and sat back.

Monk was feeling reasonably mellow. Curious about what they were doing, and enjoying Frankenstein being in a terrible mood. It always allowed her to sit back on the sidelines and make better assessments of whatever situation they were in. She sipped at her coffee then finished off her Danish.

'Tasty Danish,' she said.

Frankenstein nodded, without particularly looking at her.

'You going to tell me the story?' she said.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, jabbed at the horn, to add to the general bedlamic cacophony that was engulfing that exact snowy white spot of Trafalgar Square.

'Your story yesterday afternoon,' he said, 'you know, what you said. About Satan. At the time I just thought you were being a fucking fruitcake. Off your head with the trauma and all that.'

'Thanks,' she said.

'Don't mention it. Thought you'd flipped your trolley and were in need of extended hospitalisation.'

'Okay,' she said.

'Frontal fucking lobotomy case ... '

'But now?' she said, trying to advance the conversation beyond a series of base insults.

Frankenstein humphed, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Looked over his shoulder, checking there was no one from The Sun in the back seat.
Off His Rocker! Senior Policeman Pins Crimes On Man With Pointy Tale and Horns!

'Did some legwork yesterday evening, with you having your night off,' he began, and she ignored the way he'd put it. 'When I say legwork, I obviously mean that in the modern sense.'

'You spent eight hours on the internet?'

'Ten. Got looking at lots of biblical shit, got into old texts ... '

'You read the Bible?' she asked, amused and surprised.

'We've all read the Bible on this job,' he said. 'I was reading older shit than that. The Apocrypha, shit like that. Old shit.'

'You're not going to tell me you read it in the original Aramaic?' she asked with a smile.

'Got onto message boards, looked into the background of our friend Barney Thomson, dragged up some old police files from Scotland at three in the morning, which didn't make me popular.'

'And?' she asked.

He paused, stared dead-eyed up the road at the long queue.

'I began to get a bit spooked. Wondered if maybe there was something in it. You know, the end of days, final judgement, all that malarkey. And then I started wondering if maybe it all tied in with this Archbishop business. Thought we should go and speak to him.'

She stared at him, surprised and for the first time that day, a little scared. How could DCI Frankenstein ever get spooked? And just how spooked had he been that he felt the need to mention it?

Monk gasped as Frankenstein saw a gap in the on-coming traffic and suddenly skidded out into that lane and started driving insanely on the wrong side of the road.

'You speak to Strumpet about this?' asked Monk, to take her mind off the insanity of the driving.

'Nah,' said Frankenstein, calmly finding a slot to fit into further up the road before he could be swiped by a large black diplomatic BMW. 'He'd have gone mental. The guy's still vacillating over what to do with the fingerprints. Look, there's some weird shit going on and someone tried to kill my sergeant, and I just want to get to the bottom of it.'

She looked at him, the gruff face, the chewing gum being viciously chewed and regularly and grossly being stuck out on his tongue.

'I appreciate that,' she said.

'Don't,' he said gruffly, in case she might think him nice in any way.

Slowly the traffic began to move as the giant American SUV with seventeen coffee cup holders which had been stuck in six inches of snow up ahead was set free.

Monk sat back, smiled to herself. This was weird, and maybe she should have been spooked, yet above it all she still had the good feeling left behind by the late night visitor about whom she had completely forgotten.

***

L
ast time into Orwell's office, Barney Thomson standing before him, shrugging his shoulders, just like the old times, back in the days when he'd been a shoulder-shrugging man. Now, however, it was due to cool indifference rather than a general bemusement at what others were talking about.

'Barney, look around you,' said Orwell. 'The place is falling apart. The staff are dropping like flies, suddenly there's no new business coming in, the whole thing is a disaster. Bethlehem's back tonight and he's finished. Really, it's just going to be me and those who are willing to stand with me. And then we can start building something here, using the excellent client base which we already possess. But we'll need good minds to replace those we've lost, and you're the best marketing mind I've met in years, Barn. Sure you're raw, but that'll pass. The basic building blocks, the unfettered talent, it's there, man. You had it cracked the minute you walked in the door. It's that whole barber thing, man. You understand people, and that's why you can do this. You know what people will buy and why they'll buy it and what makes them buy it. You've just got this awesome barber aura around you, this thing that says you understand the very essence of the human id, you know the kernel, you dig the dichotomy of human existence. You're totally with every aspect of this, because of the barber milieu. You're like some sort of a thing, you're a dude, a cat, a rollercoaster man, but on a rollercoaster that's always going, you know, really straight and fast.'

'That would be a train,' said Barney, to show that he hadn't fallen asleep.

'See,' said Orwell, without showing the slightest bit of humour, 'you're funny, you're sharp, you're acerbic, clear-headed, quick-thinking. The world of marketing is crying out for men like you, not just this company. You and me, Barn, we could do great things. Think about it, Barn, once we gain overall control of the corporation, we could change the name to Orwell & Thomson, do a big stock market flotation, take over one of those even bigger office towers they're building half a mile further down the river. And we're not starting from scratch with a new company, we're booting Bethlehem and we're in. Total fucking regeneration, man. Jesus, we could open an office in New York. The Americans would love you, 'cause you've got that thing that none of them have over there. You know, they love that whole British acerbity gig, and you've got it totally nailed. You could be huge in New York, or LA even. Christ, LA, man! You'd have them eating out of the palm of your hand. Can't you see it, Barn? Orwell & Thomson, of London, New York and Los Angeles. God, that could be so awesome. We could each have one of those big LA mansions, big parties, loads of women, they love the English out there.'

'I'm Scottish,' said Barney.

'Exactly,' said Orwell, 'even better. You've got that William Wallace vibe. They cream their knickers for that over there these days. Jesus, man, the ancestors of their entire country left Scotland in 1746, for Christ's sake. They'd buy into you like they buy into Japanese fucking gadgets. Jeez, Barn, there's nothing stopping you. There's nothing stopping us.'

'I'm going back to Millport,' said Barney.

'Don't do this to me, Barn!'

'I'm going back to my little shop. Two barbers, two chairs, one little guy sweeping up. That's all.'

'Barn, God, Barn, this is insane. I need you tonight, Barn. The meeting, the voting structure. Don't you see, now that Waugh's dead, we've got a great shout. You, me and whoever I can put in as Head of MAD. We can fuck Bethlehem out the old window.'

Barney looked down at him, Orwell leaning forward across the desk, the strain of the day showing on his face.

'You looked tired,' said Barney. 'You should get some sleep before your man returns.'

Orwell settled back, finally defeated in his attempts to lure Barney to stay. The argument had been going on for fifteen minutes, and one of the reasons why he respected Barney so much was because he knew he wouldn't change his mind. The reason he wanted him to stay was exactly the reason why he wouldn't. Time to give up, and time to start thinking about who to get to replace him in the meeting.

'You have to leave today?' he asked.

'Don't see the point in staying,' said Barney. 'Sorry it didn't work out.'

'Yeah,' said Orwell.

Barney stepped forward. Orwell stood up and the two men shook hands, and then Barney turned and walked from his office, closing the door behind him. Orwell slumped down into his seat and stared at the closed door. There were doors closing all over the place for him. He turned to his PC, checked his e-mail. Eleven messages since he'd been talking to Barney, but none of any consequence to the day's events, and none from Taylor Bergerac.

He was beginning to lose sight of her big gesture.

––––––––

T
he man had a small moustache and square shoulders which he wore with pride. He looked down from the extra half inch they gave him.

'The Archbishop is busy,' said Yigael Simon. 'The Archbishop will be busy later on this afternoon, and then again tomorrow. As some like to say around here, the Archbishop will be busy until the end of days. If you'd like to leave your card I can try to squeeze you in later in the year.'

Frankenstein closed his eyes and turned away. It was his method of anger management. Long gone were the days when an outraged officer could vent that anger on the suspect or interviewee.

'We need to speak to the Archbishop today,' said Monk.

'Good cop, bad cop?' said Simon glibly. Frankenstein caught the explosion in his throat. 'How nice, if a little clichéd,' Simon added.

'There's no good or bad, we merely need to speak to the Archbishop in relation to an investigation which we are currently conducting.'

'You're surely not suggesting that the Archbishop is guilty of a crime.'

'No ... ' began Monk, but that was as far as she managed to get.

'Listen, Hitler,' said Frankenstein, and Monk disappeared inside her jacket. 'The man's fingerprints are all over at least three murder weapons. If you'd like that little snippet of information released to the press in the next ten minutes, then keep on talking the way your are. Otherwise, give your man a call, tell him we're here, and show us the fuck through.'

Simon raised an eyebrow.

***

T
hey had been ushered into a small, dark office. Shelves of old books, set in between old paintings. A large dusty desk. It looked as though someone had worked there sixty or seventy years previously.

The paintings, unsurprisingly, were all biblical. Old, dark pictures, which had never been restored and took close examination to even see what story they were telling. Frankenstein was depressed into submission by the place and had spent the fifty minutes since they'd been dumped there by Simon, sitting with his head in his hands, muttering. Monk couldn't hear what he was saying, just caught the occasional expletive.

For some reason, she loved the room. It felt warm and safe and smelled of the old books. It was a room in the house of an old uncle that you only occasionally visited as a child, a room you would sneak off to, to explore. A room of an uncle she'd never had.

'You should take a look at these,' she said suddenly, her voice crisp and fresh in the warm, muggy room. Frankenstein stirred.

'Can't be bothered getting up,' muttered Frankenstein in reply. 'Just more weird religious shit, I expect.'

'It's all,' she began, and then she hesitated. She shook her head, moved on to the next painting. 'It's all the final judgement, you know. Jesus coming down and splitting everyone into teams.'

Frankenstein glanced up, looked quickly around the room. He could make out a few of the paintings.

'All of them?' he asked. 'All of these are about the same thing? The judgement of the human race?'

'Yep,' she said. 'Pretty weird. It's like it's the Final Judgement room.'

'And this is where they leave their visitors for extended periods?'

'Maybe we're in here for good. Maybe by coming here we've chosen to be judged,' said Monk. She looked at the door, then turned to the nearest bookshelf and took down a thin volume.

'Notes on Mark's Gospel and the End of Days ... ' she said, her voice trailing off.

'Fuck's sake,' said Frankenstein.

He rose quickly and walked to the door. Getting freaked. Suddenly haunted by his surroundings, as he was haunted by the insanity of this case, and as he had been haunted by what had happened to the last serial killer he had come across, two years ago in the town of Millport.

As he put his hand to the door knob, the door opened and a man he recognised from television, dressed as an Archbishop, opened the door and stared him in the face. Middlesex looked as though he was surprised to find Frankenstein directly on the other side of the door.

They stared at each other in silence for a short while, then Middlesex closed the door behind him, walked quickly through the small office and sat down behind the solitary large desk. He clasped his hands in front of him and stared at the two police officers, one standing with an old book in her hands, one standing by the door looking as though he thought he should be somewhere else.

'What is it?' said Middlesex brusquely. 'I have an important day.'

Monk had, for some reason, been expecting someone more godly. A quiet, reserved man, perhaps, someone with the weight of God on his shoulders. Instead, she had been given a politician.

'This isn't your office,' she said.

Middlesex glowered at her, glanced at Frankenstein, waiting to hear his part in proceedings.

'If everyone in the Metropolitan Police Force is as insightful as you, Sergeant Monk, it's a wonder that there's so much crime in the city.'