Murderers Anonymous (33 page)

Barney looked awful. Unshaven, worry lines, whole ISO containers under his eyes, the look of the haunted man. His eyes themselves said it all, never mind the face.

'Fine,' he lied, 'just fine.'

'Surprised to see you up,' said Berlin. 'After the time you lot went to your beds, I thought it'd be lunch-time before I saw any of you.'

'Why are you making breakfast, then?' said Barney, taking a seat at the large kitchen table. Presumed breakfast would be served in the dining room, but for one of the first times in his life, he was glad of human company.

'I'm just feeding my man here. He likes a big breakfast. Got to keep him well fed for all his duties, you know. You'll be wanting something yourself, I expect,' she said.

The smell finally penetrated. Barney was the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

'I'm starving,' he said.

'Right. D'you want your food in here or will you be eating in the big room?'

'Oh, here's fine,' he said. 'I don't really feel part of that mob.'

The handyman raised his eyebrows and took another large bite from his breakfast roll. Hertha Berlin plundered the fridge for more food to heap into the frying pan. Every part of her bustled between fridge and cooker; the frying pan popped and sizzled.

'Aye, well, I'm not surprised. Right funny-looking lot, if you ask me. I said that last night, did I no'?'

'Sure,' said the handyman, spitting a small piece of sausage onto the table, 'sure you did, honey.'

Hertha Berlin started piling food into another roll.

'No' that we haven't had some strange folks staying here in the past. They Southern Baptists, they were a right weird bunch. And they devil worshippers from up Coldstream way, they were a queer lot. What kind of group are you, anyway?' she said, laying the roll in front of Barney.

Just in time, Barney remembered the code, and the word
murderers
did not pass his lips.

'We're barbers,' he said, uttering the unsurprising first thing that came into his head. 'Barbers.'

Hertha Berlin bustled, the handyman raised his eyebrows as he polished off his second roll and settled back to wait for this third. Would have to get on with a bit of plumbing soon, however.

Barney dived into his sandwich and decided he'd better change the subject.

'Either of you walking about at one o'clock this morning?' he said, a little more casually than he felt.

Looked at the table in discomfort as he said it, so missed the glance that passed between the two.

'We live in the houses at the bottom of the road, barber fella,' said the handyman. 'You heard someone at one in the morning, must've been one of your other barber folk.'

Barney nodded. Stared at the table. Fuck.

It had been the minister. He could feel it. The minister who infiltrated his dreams had followed him down here, and in this house full of killers he would be the obvious first victim. That was what the dream meant. He would die horribly. In fact, that was what the past two years had been pointing to. All this death and visceral carnage to which he'd been subjected must have had a point; and this was it. He would die, and die in a grotesque manner; his soul condemned forever to damnation; the very essence of his being cast asunder to wail for eternity in the belly of infernal Hades; destined for all time to suffer the persecution of the damned in the fiery pit of Erebus. His soul would be a bloody carcass on which the dogs of war would feast; his heart would be torn from his chest, ingurgitated by the beasts of fury, then spat out onto the playing fields of retribution; he would ride the black horses of the apocalypse and be tossed from his mount, head first into the crematorium of shattered illusion, where his very qi would be raped and plundered and tossed to the winds of abomination.

'This is a bloody good roll,' he said, to break his chain of thought.

'Damned fine,' said the handyman. 'Damned fine.'

***

An hour later, still early morning, still nothing much stirring the house bar the staff and the lost soul of Barney Thomson. He pulled the zip along his bag and prepared to head out into the cold of morning and the twenty-minute walk to the nearest bus station; and the projected five-hour wait, as this was the Borders and decent public transport was something that happened to other regions of the country.

He needed to get out, that was all; didn't care about the wait.

Put on his jacket, lifted the bag, out of the room and the door closed behind him. Minced along the corridor, head down, dejected. About to walk into the rest of his life. No hope of romance, no hope of anything different. For all the crap and the drama and the murder and the adventure of the last couple of years, here he was, going back to barbery and abject poverty of spirit. Nothing changed.

And anyway, why should he expect anything more? How many sad lives out there were blighted by disappointment? Millions of them. Absolute millions. Why should he be any different? He was just a guy. A bloke. A wee man. A shmuck. A duffus. He was the kind of guy John Steinbeck used to write about. He was Garth out of
Wayne's World
. He was nothing. He could be in an Ingmar Bergman movie. He was Woody Allen without the jokes.

A door opened behind him, but he walked on. Didn't care who it was. Probably Medlock, sex all over his face, with a comforting word in Barney's ear.
Never mind, mate
, he could hear him say,
she was never going to be yours anyway. I'm way more interesting and I can shag like a bulldozer.

'Barney?'

The word stopped him like a bullet in the back of the head. That soft voice, delicate and succulent, smooth as a non-stick pan. And slowly he turned, throat dry, expectation suddenly pumped up from the deflation of less than three seconds previously.

Katie Dillinger stood at her door, still attired for the night. Looking a little rough, but gorgeous with it. Up all night with Arnie, he presumed, and the hope began to fade again before another word was said.

'Where are you going?'

Barney shrugged. 'Don't know,' he said. As eloquent as if he were sitting next to Larry Bellows.

She stepped into the corridor. Wearing dark green cotton pyjamas. Dishevelled. A bit of a gap had opened up between the buttons, so that Barney had the merest glimpse of the smooth curve of a breast. Tried not to look. Swallowed. Shook his head. Stared at the carpet. Could see breasts in the carpet just as much.

'You don't have to go,' she said. 'I know you feel a bit out of it, but today should be a good day. You can get to know us all a bit better. Should be all right.'

He looked her in the eye. Already knew that the decision was made for him.

'Just ... I don't know,' he said. 'Just feel like I should leave.'

She stepped towards him. The gap in the pyjamas closed and Barney's swift look was too slow to catch another glimpse, so he stared at the floor again.

Bare feet across the carpet. She stood in front of him, put her hand to his chin. Lifted his head so that their eyes engaged.

'I want you, Barney,' he heard her say. 'I want your huge cock to fill me up like a marrow.'

'What?' said Barney.

'I want you to stay, Barney,' she said. 'You'll have a good day then go back up with us tomorrow.'

Barney did not trust himself to speak. Best just to nod in silence as her hand fell away and he lost the electricity of her touch.

'All right,' he said. Utterly capitulating. Nothing to go on but a look and a touch. For all he knew Arnie could have been snoozing quietly in her bed as they spoke.

She smiled and backed off.

'I'm glad,' she says. 'I'll see you at breakfast?'

Barney nodded and watched her retreat to her room. He stood in the corridor and looked around at the grey light of day and wondered. Found himself staring at a painting of a woman, grey beyond her years, sitting slouched in a rocking chair, before a great hearth; eyes staring at him with contempt.
You're all the same
, she said to him.
You haven't got a single principle that doesn't take second place to the contents of your pants
.

'Fuck off,' mumbled Barney at the carpet, and walked slowly back up the corridor to his room.

Tempers were becoming frayed. Angry words exchanged, fists clenched, jaws protruded and, in some cases, bottom lips stuck out. It was ever the way at their annual Christmas get-together, and Dillinger had often pondered the wisdom of including the session in their weekend event.

Discuss:
The Morality of Murder
.

It was why they were all there, after all, the only thing that bound these people, the only thing they truly had in common. So why not get down to the nitty-gritty, cut the bullshit of exaggerated storytelling, and discuss what it was all about? It was Christmas, so they could have free rein to admit that they'd enjoyed what they'd done, and that they'd do it again if they had the opportunity. An extension of what they did week in, week out, but the circumstances, the surroundings and the time of year combined to let tongues and minds roam free.

Of course, it was not the subject matter that really set the tone of tension. It was the testosterone and oestrogen flowing in great fluid quantities. Gallons of the stuff, swishing about inside each of them, as they jostled for position with members of the opposite sex.

There'd been one year when there had been equal numbers, and apart from the fact that none of the men had wanted to go anywhere near Peggy Penknife, the Paisley Penis Punisher, there had been limited discussion, a nod and a glance at the convention of present exchange, and then off they'd all gone to each other's bedrooms for some fearsome lovemaking.

This year was altogether more complex, however. Eight men, three women. A recipe for treachery, jealousy, lies, deceit, bedlam, uproar and possibly even murder; given the company. Rather nice to be one of the women, thought Dillinger, but as the leader of the dysfunctional bunch, she knew to not let things get out of hand.

So, it was Arnie Medlock and Barney Thomson, looking to make a move on Dillinger; and she knew which one she'd be going for that night. Sammy Gilchrist and Billy Hamilton were shaping up for a fight over Annie Webster. And Ellie Winters had the attention of Morty Goldman, Fergus Flaherty and Bobby Dear; the last of whom actually wouldn't have had a chance if he'd been the only bloke in a room full of eight million slabbering women.

All of which left Socrates, the wild card. Yet to show his hand. Or any other part of his body.

The discussion was nearing some sort of peak of intellectual debate; the very zenith of the brilliant criminal mind. Billy Hamilton and Sammy Gilchrist, vying for the mind and body of Annie Webster; who, if truth be told, would have had them both at the same time, and would then have killed them. Seeing as that was her thing. Though she hadn't confessed to so much in the meetings. A girl with intimacy issues.

'Away you and shite in a poke,' said Hamilton.

'Shite in a poke?' snapped Gilchrist, pointing a finger. 'I'll shite you in a poke!'

Both perched on the end of their seats; the others watched distractedly. Kind of enjoyable, the whole show, but they had their own arguments in which to become embroiled.

'What does that actually mean?' said Hamilton. 'You're just full of it, Big Man. Full of shite. And I'll tell you this. I've had enough of you and your bloody moral high ground. The bloke brought a ridiculous law suit so he deserved to die. All that shite. You're just a murdering, low-life, brain-dead scumbag, same as the rest of us.'