The Barbershop Seven (97 page)

'Church?' he said without looking up. 'Think you're dreaming.'

'Could mean that this is a manse. They're bound to ask us in and give us a nice bowl of soup.'

Mulholland's mouth hung open, breathing hard, swallowing rainwater.

'Don't give a shit,' he said. 'It can be a minister, a priest or a bloody hockey-mask-wearing psychopath. I'm going in there, I'm sitting down in front of the fire and I'm having a cup of tea. Don't give a shit if it's a manse.'

'That's the spirit,' she said, plodding after him through the loch.

***

A
nother ten minutes and they found themselves standing outside the door of the Old Manse. Shoes sodden, clothes clinging to them, still in the belly of the storm.

'Your shoes are soaking,' she said, looking down at his feet.

'Aye,' he said. 'Should have kept my waders on.'

'Aye,' she said. 'Shouldn't have left them behind that tree either. The river'll be up and away with them.'

'I'd trade them for a cup of tea at the moment.'

The door opened. A man in his slippered feet stood in the way of the light. C&A slacks, a crew-neck jumper his gran must have knitted for him a long time ago, under which could be seen the edge of his dog collar; a shock of black hair, kind face, blue eyes, white teeth. Young and old at the same time.

'The Lord bless you!' he said, a look of horror on his face. 'What a night to be out. Come in, come in. You can't be standing out there, whoever you are.'

Mulholland and Proudfoot dripped into the house and stood in the middle of the hallway, water pouring off them onto the carpet. Hit by a marvellous wave of warmth and the smell of home cooking. Pictures of rivers on the walls, thick patterned carpet, stairs leading up into the heights of the old manse. Low lights and an air of comfort.

'What has happened to you, in God's name?' asked the vicar. Fussing about, without actually doing anything. 'You're not from around here?'

'We were fishing,' said Mulholland. 'Car broke down, and there was no one at the petrol station.'

He could see into the sitting room, where a fire blazed in the hearth. A cup of tea, something – anything – to eat, and a seat beside the fire. Not even thinking of how they were going to get back.

'At the old river way by?' said the minister, pointing in the direction from which they'd just come. 'That's a fine distance, indeed. You must have been walking for an age.'

He gazed at them for another few seconds; soaked to the skin, water dripping, shoes creating massive puddles on the floor. Mulholland wondered where the wife was; the creator, he presumed, of the wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen.

'Look, you can't just stand there, the two of you. You get your shoes off, because if you walk through the house like yon my wife'll have a fit, God bless her. Jings! I'll go up to the bathroom and get a couple of towels and then I'll see about getting you some clothes.'

And off he went, mincing up the stairs, muttering about the weather and the night and the folly of fishing. They watched him go, then went about removing their shoes and socks without spreading water over a radius of three or four miles.

'Nice old guy,' said Proudfoot. Wouldn't have been surprised to have been chased from the front door, minister or not.

'Recognise him?' asked Mulholland, voice a little lower.

She looked up the stairs, although he had now disappeared into the bathroom.

'Don't think so. Should I?'

'Not sure. Just something about him, about the face. Might have seen him before. Maybe on a case, maybe somewhere else, don't know.'

'Everyone looks like someone,' said Proudfoot, getting to the root of most appearance-based relationships. 'Or maybe he appeared on one of those docu-soaps on TV. Everybody else has.'

The minister appeared at the top of the stairs again, clutching a great pile of thick, cushiony towels, behind which he minced back down the stairs. Shoes removed and dumped in a pile on the welcome mat, they watched him come. Wondering what it was that was creating the smell, and hoping they were going to be offered some of it.

'There you go,' said the minister, handing out towels all round. Light pink for Proudfoot, dark blue for Mulholland. Old-fashioned was the Reverend Rolanoytez.

'Now you two get in there in front of that fire and get out of those wet things. I'll go and get the kettle on, then I'll find you some dry clothes to wear. If only mother hadn't gone out tonight, she'd be in her element. Still, she's left me with a fine rabbit stew for myself, and I'm sure there'll be enough to go around.'

'Thanks a lot,' said Mulholland, 'we really appreciate this.'

'Don't be daft, laddie,' said the minister. 'Don't be daft. The Lord smiles upon us all.' And off he minced towards the kitchen. They watched him go, then dripped their way into the sitting room.

A warm room in every way. Red carpet; walls lined with books and hung with old paintings; velvet curtains; fire roaring and the dinner table set for one, with a small candle burning. And they immediately began to strip off with no sense of embarrassment that he might walk in on them. They were freezing and this indeed was a Godsend.

Clothes off and dumped in a heap, and within a minute they were huddled in front of the fire, wrapped in light pink and dark blue, watching the flames and feeling the warmth and life return to their bodies.

Backs to the door, they didn't see the Reverend Rolanoytez make his way along the hall and back up the stairs. Small mincing steps, until he got to the main bedroom. Flicked the switch and in he went in bright light, hardly giving a thought to the two visitors downstairs. Except he had to find them something to wear, something not too incongruous. The younger ones today, he thought wrongly, they'd want something they liked, regardless of the situation.

'What have we got, then?' he said quietly, and began to rake through the two sets of clothes drawers. 'What have we got?'

Then he started to hum a quiet tune as he went about his business.
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart...

Lying on the bed behind him, the real Reverend Rolanoytez and the dear Margaret Rolanoytez said nothing. Had they just been bound and gagged, perhaps they might have tried to make some noise; if they'd dared. But as an extra precaution against the possibility of them alerting the outside world, their throats had been slit, and both lay dead; eyes and mouths open, staring wildly up at the ceiling, faces blue.

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light
.

––––––––

F
or the first time in several years there was a subdued atmosphere at the table for the Murderers Anonymous Christmas dinner. Not since Malky Eight Feet tried to grab Jenny Four Stretchmarks' boobs over pudding in 1993, resulting in a free-for-all fist fight, had there been such lack of good-humoured revelry.

Around the table set for eleven, there were three empty chairs. And like a team with three players sent off before the end of the match, those remaining were merely playing out time until dinner was over. However, the night ahead in this blighted house, with creaks and noises and ghosts in every corner, did not invite anticipation.

Barney was on a roll and had his wish; a seat next to Katie Dillinger with the added bonus that the one on the other side was vacant, Arnie Medlock having not returned.

It was a huge round table, elegantly set by Hertha Berlin. Cutlery all over the place and more glasses than you could have claimed at an Esso garage in the late 80's. Around the table from Medlock's vacant chair sat Bobby Dear, Ellie Winters, a gap for Morty Goldman, Socrates McCartney, Annie Webster, Sammy Gilchrist, Fergus Flaherty and a gap for Billy Hamilton.

They had waited long for the missing men to show – the Three Wise Men, Sammy Gilchrist would call them after tasting the prawn cocktail – but eventually they had started on the repast and now, in subdued humour, the merriment of Bing and Frank having finally failed them, they munched their way through turkey and roast potatoes, wee sausages, stuffing, a bit of bacon, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.

Hertha Berlin appeared as if by magic. Not too concerned whether all her food was eaten, for she knew the handyman would polish off anything that remained. Quite pleased, in her way, that there was not the sort of riotous behaviour she'd been expecting, but was nervous nevertheless.

This crowd gave her a bad feeling and the fact that three of them were missing and out of sight only served to heighten her discomfort.

'Is everything all right for you?' she asked the assembled company, while looking straight at Dillinger. At least Dillinger appeared a solid sort, she thought. Honest. She was not to know that Dillinger had murdered her first four husbands. A knife in the throat every time. The fourth one had cottoned on to the pattern, but too late.

'Aye, thank you, Mrs Berlin, it's fine,' Dillinger said.

Barney watched her lips. Pale, red and full. He could kiss those lips. Right here, right now. Lean the few inches across the table and, if his memory served him correctly, pucker up as if he was drinking a Bud Lite straight from the bottle.

There were a few other nods around the table; a few other comments came to mind, but they all restrained themselves. Except Sammy Gilchrist, released from the presence of Medlock and Goldman, who felt free to air his concerns.

'The prawn cocktail was shite,' he said, 'but the turkey's all right.'

Socrates McCartney laughed; Fergus Flaherty sniggered.

There were one or two embarrassed looks around the table. Hertha Berlin gave Sammy Gilchrist her best
Slow Train to Nuremberg
look, the light grey hairs on her top lip glinting slightly in the candlelight. Gilchrist did not wilt, however. Morty Goldman and Arnie Medlock may well have intimidated him but he could still stand up to an old woman.

Hertha Berlin gave it her best, then quickly marched towards the door when she realised the stare was getting her nowhere. Out she went, and the door closed behind her with a precise, Germanic click.

'That's 'cause I pissed in it,' she muttered under her breath, making her way back to the kitchen.

Back in the dining room there was an awkward silence, filled only by Bing Crosby, sleigh bells ting-ting-tingling away.

'I thought the prawn cocktail was nice,' said Barney to fill the silence. 'A hint of ammonia perhaps, but you get that with fish sometimes.'

'Tasted like pish to me,' said Gilchrist, and the conversation died away once more.

They stared at the table and listened to some pointless line about coffee and pumpkin pie. Good old Bing. The fire crackled; the Christmas tree sparkled in what, to be frank, was becoming an irritating manner; Ellie Winters blew her nose and was caught inspecting the contents of the hankie by a glance from Bobby Dear.

'Doesn't look as if there's going to be much shagging the night,' said Socrates to bridge the gap.

Another few embarrassed looks around the table. Ellie Winters and Annie Webster stared at their thick slices of roast turkey – covered in Hertha Berlin's own special gravy – and thought that just because Dillinger's boyfriend, the seemingly pubescent Hamilton and the mad Goldman had disappeared, didn't mean that there was not love to be made.

So Annie Webster murmured something to Socrates that no one else could hear, just to keep Sammy Gilchrist on his toes, and gradually conversation broke out around the table. Like smallpox. And each of the inmates reached for their glass, wine was drunk, and tongues would be made gradually more loose.

'You think they're all right?' said Dillinger to Barney, strangely the only person to whom she felt like talking.

Despite the Noddy thing, rather than because of it.

'Who?' said Barney, mind not on the job. Had been wondering whether Fergus Flaherty would suit a Victor Mature or a Tyrone Power '45.

'Arnie,' said Dillinger, slightly annoyed. 'And Billy, and that awful little man, Goldman.'

Barney turned to her, a small piece of cauliflower protruding from his mouth. All sex.

'Are you allowed to say that?' he said. 'You think wee Morty's awful?'

She frowned at him to keep his voice down and glanced around the table. No one had noticed, however, all conjoined in the old black magic of love. Or at least, no one appeared to notice.

'He gives me the creeps,' she said, dropping her voice a little farther. 'I mean, I know it does him some good to come to the group, and I'm afraid of what would happen if we kicked him out, but he gives me the creeps all the same. Can't like everyone, I suppose,' she added, forcing a smile as she said it.

Barney nodded. You can't dislike everyone, that had always been more his way of looking at things. Although there had been times in the past when he'd proved that adage wrong.

'I thought he was all right,' said Barney. 'A bit weird, but that doesn't single him out among this mob, does it?'

Careless words and again Dillinger looked round the assembled throng to see if anyone was listening, but once more her look was ignored and the idle chatter of romance shimmered around the table.

'I suppose not,' she said.

And so dinner progressed, on and on, through the turkey and on to Hertha Berlin's Unique Recipe Christmas Pudding with brandy butter, then the coffee and mints and mince pies.

Barney and Katie Dillinger got along fine, in a one-sided kind of a way, with one of the parties looking for love, and the other looking for absolution. Socrates McCartney decided to take up the fight and engaged Sammy Gilchrist in a battle over Annie Webster, using words as weapons, each trying ever harder to outdo the other with witty throwaways, intellectual debate, and lengthy discussions on the relationship between Titian and tubes; Fergus Flaherty and Bobby Dear, free of the mad intentions of Goldman, vied for the hand of Ellie Winters.

And every now and again, Annie Webster and Ellie Winters exchanged a passing glance.

***

'S
o,' said the minister, 'are you two young lovers married?'

Both Proudfoot and Mulholland had their faces buried in rabbit stew. Cooked with onions, garlic and mixed herbs in half a bottle of red wine. Slow-cook for four to six hours. Food of the gods. Drinking red wine with it, despite initial hesitation after the night before. All going down like a dream. Mulholland in his dead man's clothes; a pair of slacks, by God!, a sweater and comfy shoes which almost fitted. He could have been Ronnie Corbett. Proudfoot in her dead woman's clothes could have been June. From
Terry and June
, that is, not mad June Spaghetti, who'd murdered a family of fifteen in Kirkcaldy because they wouldn't let her take a short cut through their back garden.