The Barbershop Seven (77 page)

'Not sure, sir,' he said, while thinking that if he was ordered back to Glasgow now, he was heading to Oban and catching the first boat to some remote island where crime was a thing of the future.

McMenemy nodded and clasped his hands in front of him. He knew how to read one of his officers, and he could read Joel Mulholland. Maybe this would indeed be to push him too far.

'You'll have seen the newspapers, heard what's been happening in Glasgow these past couple of nights.'

Mulholland stared at his boss, trying to think. Besides the blatant act of not caring, there remained the semblance of integrity and the need to at least give some sort of an answer. So he tried to think if he'd heard anything of the news or of anything mentioned at work in the previous few days, but there was nothing there. The way Cunningham had spoken implied that there were things going on that he should know about, but he'd barely ever paid her any attention anyway, and the previous day hadn't been any different.

McMenemy had waited long enough for an answer. He cleared his throat, opened the drawer at his right hand and took out a remote control for a video and television. He indicated to Mulholland that he should turn around to watch the TV just behind; then fumbled with the buttons to get the whole thing rolling.

Mulholland turned and watched as the screen jumped to life and the creaky closed circuit video footage rolled. A man stood at the counter of a police station, engaged in muted conversation with the desk sergeant; a policeman whose body language suggested some apathy.

They watched for a couple of minutes, until the man turned away from the desk and walked out of the police station, the sergeant hardly even noticing where he'd gone. McMenemy shut the television down and waited for Mulholland to turn and face him, and it was some time before he dragged himself back around from the blank screen.

What had just gone through his head? Even he did not know. Not even a jumping of his heart when he'd first seen the man, so dead was his mind to everything that had gone before.

'Recognise him?' asked McMenemy.

Mulholland breathed deeply. The old man hadn't so much as toyed with his pipe since he'd walked in but he could smell it all the same. It was in the fabric of the room. And when he did eventually decide to go, or was kicked ruthlessly into touch, it'd take years for his successor to rid the place of his smell.

'Barney Thomson,' he said. 'Good old Barney. What was that all about?'

'Decided to hand himself in,' said McMenemy.

'Right. Got him at last,' said Mulholland, wondering why the man couldn't just have walked away and started a new life when he'd had the chance.

'Not as such,' said McMenemy. 'The desk sergeant let him go, didn't get an address. Apparently he tried to offer himself up to a small station in Partick later the same day, but they're being hush-hush about it. Embarrassed as hell, same as us.'

Mulholland laughed. Bloody typical. The Glasgow polis at their finest.

'Looked like Sergeant Mullen, to me. He had his reasons, I suppose,' he said and McMenemy shrugged.

'These things happen. There hasn't been a crackpot lunatic within a hundred miles of Glasgow who hasn't handed himself over in the last ten months, claiming to be Thomson. There's even been a book.
Fifty-Seven Ways to Make the Police Think You're Barney Thomson
. Quite funny actually, though I wouldn't say that in public. So, of course, when the real thing turns up, our man was so pissed off about all the other idiots that he let him go. A constable spotted him on the tape a couple of days later. You're about the only man here who's seen him in real life. You can confirm it's him, can you?'

'Looks like him.'

'Exactly. And we let him go. If the press ever find out they'll have my testicles on toast, so it's mouths shut. Of course, I've had Mullen's testicles on toast, but there's no way I'm standing for any of that business with my own testicles. Which is all the more likely in view of what's happened this week.'

Mulholland raised his eyebrows. Here we go again drifted through his head.

'He's at it again,' said McMenemy. 'There've been another couple of murders in the city. West End as usual. The bloody city's shitting its pants again. I can't believe it. Bloody nightmare. Why me? Why can't the bastard go and plague some other district of Glasgow for once, or Edinburgh, even? There're plenty of people in Edinburgh he could kill.'

Mulholland smiled. Good old Barney; a fool for anything.

'What makes you think it's him?' he said. Smiled, but inside he was laughing. They were just back where they'd been the previous year, when every crime, no matter how absurd, was blamed on Barney Thomson.

'Good God, it has all the hallmarks of the man. He's known to have been in the area for a few days, and all of a sudden there are bloody murders all over the place. It follows the man around, and eventually you have to stop thinking that it's all coincidence. The man is a killer.'

The smile had not left Mulholland's face. Time to use it.

'Bollocks,' he said.

'I beg your pardon.'

'Bollocks. Barney Thomson never actually murdered anyone in his life. He accidentally killed his work colleagues, and that's the end of it. He's no more of a murderer than you or me, Superintendent. He's nothing. He couldn't hurt a bloody fly, even if he wanted to. Why can't you just leave the man alone?'

'Chief Inspector!'

Mulholland shook his head, then relaxed back into his seat. Had said what he had to say. If the old fool wanted his officers to spend their time chasing shadows and ghosts and false reputations, then that was fine by him. As long as he was not one of those officers.

'Your condition appears to be even worse than I was led to believe, Chief Inspector. Barney Thomson is the most feared criminal of the last hundred years. I had hoped the prospect of going after him once again might get your juices flowing, but I fear I may be wrong. He escaped you once, and if you still had it in you, and it appears that you may not have, I would have thought you would be determined to bring him once more to justice.'

McMenemy stared deeply into his eyes again, then stood up and turned to look out into the gloom of late morning. The streetlights were on, cars were streaming past on the road outside, pedestrians frittered by, many in fear of the killer who once again stalked the streets.

He still intended sending Mulholland out on the case; the previous few words more intended as shock tactics.

Mulholland watched the old man's back. Barney Thomson. Death did seem to follow the man around, but he was no killer. And the man had saved his life, no question about that. If it hadn't been for Barney Thomson, he wouldn't have been sitting there.

It had seemed like a good thing at the time.

Not that he was about to tell McMenemy that he had chosen to let Barney go. This past half-year of introspection had given him a strange sense of perspective, but not so strange as to allow him to happily confess to such an indiscretion. On the one hand, it'd been the right thing to do. On the other, there was no chance on Planet Earth that McMenemy would see it that way.

'For what can I take your silence?' said McMenemy without turning. 'These are troubled times, Chief Inspector. The people of Glasgow are living in terror. Good and honest men cannot walk the streets for fear that they might be struck down by this Satan of the West End. We, the citizens of this great city, stand as one, petrified to the point of dilatoriness, frozen in inertia, waiting for some hero of the hour to come forward and seize the day, to reclaim the city for the common man, from this vampire of justice. Barney Thomson sucks the very lifeblood from us all, Chief Inspector, and we are all haunted by him. He has left this station bereft of qualified officers and I, indeed we all, are desperately in want of one fine man to emerge from the swamp of inactivity, the fen of fecklessness and the quagmire of trepidation to lead us to the New Jerusalem of salvation, where men and women can walk along the avenues of hope, with heads held upon high and in the great and certain knowledge that they will live to see the next day dawn, that they will watch their children grow old, and see their dreams become the corporeality of hope, the very verisimilitude of the redemption of the soul.'

Mulholland nodded.

'I think I missed some of that,' he said. 'Could you repeat it?'

McMenemy turned. Unused to such flippancy when he waxed as the poet of the force. Preferred a little more awe in his officers. Mulholland might just about be too much of a loose cannon. However, he knew that loose cannons are often the only ones capable of hitting the target. Certainly they were in the world of cliché and soundbite which he inhabited.

'You think this is funny, Chief Inspector?' he said.

'No,' replied Mulholland. 'No, I don't.'

'What, then? You're not saying much for yourself.'

Mulholland hesitated, but the truth bubbled below the surface.

'Go on, Chief Inspector, might as well spit it out. Say what you're thinking.'

'Two things,' said Mulholland quickly, and such was his lack of spirit these days that his heart was not even in his mouth as he said it. 'Firstly, Barney Thomson is absolutely, definitely, no questions asked, sure as a fucking dog is a dog and mince is mince, not the killer. Maybe he's back in Glasgow, and maybe he's not, but there's not a malicious bone in his body. He's weak, he's a bit slow, he's nothing special, but he certainly isn't a killer. Just not a chance. Not a chance.'

McMenemy nodded. 'Very well,' he said. 'You seem quite concerned. Perhaps then you would care to find the real killer, if you so stoutly believe that Thomson is innocent? Anyway, you have something else to say.'

'You talk the biggest load of shite of anyone I've ever met in the force.'

McMenemy looked down from his position at the window. He considered this for some time, during which he took his seat once more behind the desk. Not for a second did he take his eyes from Mulholland, who did not retreat from the stare. All sorts of male hormones were flying. This was the stuff of cinema.

'Of course,' said McMenemy after a while, 'you're right. How'd you think I got to be chief superintendent?'

'Ah.'

McMenemy stared at his detective and wondered if he was right to be doing what he was about to do. Instinct was what it was all about, however, and once he'd had it. He'd had it in spades, and that was really why he'd got to where he was. And right now his instinct said to go with Mulholland.

'Son,' he said, 'you can try and wind me up as much as you like, but you're on the case. And if you refuse, I'll send you back to Sutherland. I hear that monastery's started up again. Right?'

Mulholland looked across the chasm.

'Right,' he said.

Right.

And Mulholland's eyes sank down to the carpet, and even though he may not in actuality have been heading back to Sutherland and the terrors of the year before, that was where his mind now took him, as it dragged him kicking and screaming back into the miserable past.

––––––––

B
arney wrapped up his fourteenth cut of the day. Leyman Blizzard had just finished his third. It was a dull day down the Clyde, as it was in the centre of Glasgow. Dull but mild. There were a lot of frogs in Greenock, and the spiders were large for the time of year. And the people, generally, unhappy.

Two Jimmy Stewarts and an Anakin Skywalker for Leyman; he'd botched the latter horrendously, but in doing so had made the lad look much less of an idiot. And four Claudio Reynas, a David Ginola World Cup '98, a double chicken burger with cheese, a Cary Grant (Dyan Cannon retro), a J.R. Ewing, two Frank McGarveys, a lamb biryani, a Cardassian Forehead Transmogrifier, and two Des Lynams for Barney.

The final Claudio Reyna handed over his cash. A crisp, shiny ten-pound note for a £4.50 haircut. Barney headed towards the till.

'Keep the change, mate,' said the bloke, pulling on his Nike Rain Protection System.

Barney raised an eyebrow.

'You sure, my friend? That's a big tip.'

Manny Jackson gave Barney a long look. Knew there was something familiar about him, but couldn't quite place it. This barber had an honest face, mind, and that meant a lot to Manny. That, and he'd just given him a magnificent haircut. Deserved every bit of the tip.

'No bother, mate,' he said, glancing at himself in the mirror. The wife was going to be delighted. And the girlfriend. And her girlfriend would probably like it as well. (Yes, a man who admired honesty, Manny Jackson.) This haircut would keep him going for a month. 'Worth every penny,' he added.

Barney shrugged. Not in the mood to be appreciated.

'Thanks a lot,' was all he said.

Manny Jackson delivered a parting smile, then walked out into the drab, sullen December day. And immediately, as had happened to every one of Barney's dream haircuts that day, his hair was pummelled by the wind coming in off the Clyde, and the style utterly laid waste. (And as so often happens in life, the best-laid plans and most fevered dreams of Manny Jackson would also be brutally laid waste, when late that very day he would meet his death at the hands of Mrs Jackson, who for too long had suffered in silence the fate of the betrayed wife. The concerned reader need not fear for her plight, however, as she was destined to find a jury only too willing to be convinced by her pleadings of justification.)

Barney turned to Leyman Blizzard, who was slowly working his way through the Mirror. Headline:
Thomson Expected to Reduce Global Population by 50% in Next Twenty Years
.

'Nice of the lad, I suppose,' he ventured, devoid of enthusiasm.

Blizzard nodded and looked over the picture of four semi-naked women and the article on how four semi-naked women can be good for your sex life.

'Big tipper?' he asked.

'Five fifty,' said Barney, and Blizzard let out a low whistle.

'Magic,' he said, then tried to return to reading the paper, while Barney went about the meticulous business of sweeping up the hairs from another hirsutological triumph.