The Barbershop Seven (115 page)

'Jesus Christ,' said Nelly Stratton, 'change the record.'

'What are
we
here for?' said Trudger McIntyre, softly, the first time he'd spoken, and they looked at him as one.

'What d'you mean?' asked Wanderlip.

'What do you do all day, Winona?' he asked. 'Plot? We're here to look after the problems affecting the Scottish people. While we're doing that, what's wrong with him promoting Scotland on the world stage?'

'Different class,' said Wally McLaven. 'To be fair to the lad McIntyre, he's got a point.'

Wanderlip looked at the two of them, then at the rest of the company, her mouth open in some amazement. She held Stratton's gaze for a second to see if she was going to get any support, but there was none forthcoming.

'Hello!' she said, with exaggeration, 'what has this man done in the past two and a half years? He's put so many restrictions on our individual powers that we can't do anything without him okaying it. For God's sake Wally, when was the last time you took a shit and didn't have to sign the toilet paper out of the stationery cupboard?'

'Jesus Christ,' said Nelly Stratton, 'every analogy wi' you has tae involve the stationery cupboard.'

Wanderlip slung some contempt her way.

'To be fair to the lad, Winnie,' said McLaven, whose judgement could be swayed by even the least persuasive argument, 'she does have a point. There's nothing happens in this building without JLM's name being on a piece of paper. I always thought it was good, solid, hands-on leadership. Really, though, there's the whole control-freak thing going on.'

'Thank you,' said Wanderlip, appalled that it had taken so long for McLaven to realise the obvious.

'Aye,' said Malcolm Malcolm III of the Clan Malcolm, 'but maybe it's because he's the most competent of the lot of us, and needs to be on top of everything.'

'Oh, for God's sake, Malcolm,' said Wanderlip, 'you can think like that if you want to, but I refuse. The man is out of control. He's got his own bloody barber now, did you hear that?'

'Aye, aye,' said McLaven, 'but to be fair to the lad, they say he does an excellent Dean Martin '57.'

'Stop it!' Wanderlip suddenly screamed, and McLaven ducked. 'Who cares? The point is, surely, that he is out of control. We have to do something about it. We have to think of something.'

'Go on, then,' said Peggy Filiben, from underneath McLaven's wandering hand. She too had, up until now, been silent. 'What's your plan?'

Wanderlip glanced to her left, checked out the look in Filiben's eyes. Then she gazed around the room. There had been voices raised in favour of JLM, but that was just from people who were afraid of him, and people too lacking in confidence to stand out from the crowd.

'We need someone to step forward. We need to act as a team, but we also need a leader to stand up to the man. Not just for our own good, but for the good of the people of Scotland.'

She looked sternly around the team. A hard look into every eye, thinking herself capable of reading the thoughts behind those eyes. Who would be brave enough, who would be spineless, and who, possibly, would be straight on the cell phone to JLM. Because, for all the discord in the ranks, she knew she'd taken a chance by inviting them all to the meeting. And part of her wanted JLM to know what she was up to, to hurry the thing up, bring their disagreement to a swift conclusion, because she felt she would ultimately triumph.

'Why don't
you
do it?' said Nelly Stratton. 'All mouth, nae trousers, as my mother used to say.'

'They'll see me coming a mile off,' said Wanderlip, not even looking at Stratton as she replied. Justifying herself to the others, not her accuser. 'We need someone to blindside them, someone they're not expecting.'

'I'll do it,' said the quiet, seductive voice. 'You're right. We need to stop him, before he bankrupts the whole country.'

Wanderlip looked to her left. She studied the eyes of Peggy Filiben, she saw the steel behind the outrageous good looks. It's always the women, she thought. Always. Men can talk a good game. They can act hard, but it's only ever the women who have the real balls to stand up to people.

As soon as Filiben had spoken, McLaven had withdrawn his hand. Something about a woman with real balls that makes you not want to grope her high up on the thigh.

'Good,' said Wanderlip. 'One day, the people of Scotland will thank you.'

'We'll see,' said Filiben, and the room dropped into a long silence.

***

A
s Wanderlip had suspected might happen, within five minutes of the emergency and clandestine cabinet meeting breaking up, JLM's phone rang and he was given the news that the cabinet as a whole, and Peggy Filiben in particular, were to mount a challenge to his authority as First Minister. JLM thanked the caller, slipped the phone into his pocket, walked up the length of the private jet which was taking him and his entourage back to Edinburgh from Brussels at the end of a productive day, and settled into deep conversation with two or three of his closest circle.

––––––––

P
eggy Filiben waved to the driver, smiled and stepped down from the bus, then started walking quickly along Grenville, where it splits off the Dunbar road. It was late in the evening, and the sun had given way to a humid night. The street was deserted, the closed doors and closed curtains of houses besieging the inhabitants in their private suburban melancholy. The bus driver watched Filiben for a couple of seconds, glanced in his rear view mirror, saw that the blue Hyundi which had been following him most of the way out of the city centre had parked a few car lengths behind, then he pulled out into the road and drove on, quickly crunching his way through the gears. As he turned the corner into Blythswood, another glance in his mirror and he noticed that the Hyundi had once again moved off, then it was out of sight and he had forgotten about it.

Filiben believed in using public transport. She didn't like the concept of private medicine or private financing of public projects. She was a good woman, a good socialist, honest, brave and forthright. And the media loved her, because she was gorgeous, and it allowed them to be fabulously patronising, which is one of the many things they enjoy. A Scottish tabloid had even offered her a couple of hundred thousand pounds to appear in their weekly magazine in her underwear. 'In immaculate taste, darlin',' the editor had said. Filiben had declined, and had marked them down for suitable retribution when she had the opportunity. Not that she was vindictive, but she hated it when people took politics lightly, and she herself had had to battle her good looks throughout her career.

And now she had just committed herself to the biggest gamble of that career. She didn't aspire to high office herself, having long held the conviction that more could be achieved from the cabinet minister positions than from the ceremonial post at the head. Indeed, if JLM had shown a little more respect for the Executive and the Parliament, she probably wouldn't have had any trouble with him jetting off around the world, playing the statesman.

She realised that Wanderlip was in it for herself, that she would use Filiben as the stalking horse, then should it get anywhere and JLM be ousted, she would move in and attempt to attain the leadership. But that was as it may be; she believed wholeheartedly that Wanderlip would be a vastly superior leader to JLM. A leader who would listen to her troops; who would trust others to do their given jobs; who would care more for her people than for her own career. She would be everything that JLM was not.

Peggy Filiben stopped at the side of the kerb. Looked left then right. The blue Hyundi was coming along the road behind her and she stayed at the edge of the kerb waiting for it to pass. As it approached, accelerating quickly, the smooth engine purring quietly through second and into third, she noticed the driver was wearing dark glasses and a woollen hat; a little odd for the hours of darkness on a sultry evening.

Her eyes flicked away, her head filled with random thoughts; of Winona Wanderlip and Jesse Longfellow-Moses, hair dye and anal implants and what to do on cold and wet Sundays in January.

She caught the movement towards her in the corner of her eye. Didn't even have time to turn. A flash of blue, the Hyundi careered off the road, bouncing on the kerb, so that when it struck her, the full force of it caught her at the top of her thighs. Approximately the same area that had felt the full warmth of Wally McLaven's massage.

The driver straightened the Hyundi on impact, Filiben was blatted aside like a balloon, and her head hit the ground travelling at 17.8mph. It was that which killed her.

The Hyundi sped on up the road, engine smooth and placid, the only sound having been the dull thud of impact, turned the corner in the opposite direction from the bus, and was on its way. And throughout it all, not a curtain twitched.

Peggy Filiben's body might have lain there undiscovered for some time. However, despite the killer's determination that this murder would go unseen, despite the precautions and due circumspection, there had still been someone there to bear witness. And as Filiben's body lay limp and spiritless on the pavement, another car approached along the road, and pulled up beside the corpse.

––––––––

B
arney Thomson, and the rest of the team, had been back in the country for a little more than three hours. He'd returned to his room, as he thought he should, but after another hour of staring at the walls and mundane methodology artworks, thin and crispy carpets and docudramas on the TV, he'd headed out onto the streets of Edinburgh for the first time since his mother had taken him there at the age of seven. It had changed, as far as he could remember, in the previous forty-three years. Not that Barney knew he was fifty; or felt fifty; or looked fifty, for that matter.

Quickly found himself in the World's End at the corner of High Street and St. Mary's, with the tourists and the curious, ordered a bottle of American beer and a packet of peanuts, ensconced himself alone at a table in the corner, and watched the punters come and go, high tide low tide, the bar filling up, thinning out, and filling up again.

Strangely, after an hour or so, well into his third beer, he was quite happy. Enjoying the solitude and quiet of a noisy bar, watching the people of Scotland, as Winona Wanderlip called them, as well as the visitors of the world, savouring the cold taste of beer as it hit the back of his throat, and the haggis and chips which had just been delivered to his table. Still no nearer discovering the truth about his past and how he'd come to be in the employ of Jesse Longfellow-Moses, but it wasn't as if his life was horrendous. He was settling into it, going with the flow and not seeking the facts, in the belief that the facts would eventually find him.

He was feeling decidedly languid when the chair opposite him was pulled out from the table, and he smelled and recognised the expensive fragrance without immediately looking up from his plate.

'Edmund,' he said.

'Barney,' said Rebecca Blackadder, with a wry smile. She could ask people all she liked not to call her Edmund, but it never made any difference. It was the penalty she paid for having a cool name.

'Been looking for you,' she said.

'Been here all along,' he replied.

She took a sip from her gin and tonic and smiled again. Finally he looked at her, caught the movement of her lips across her teeth, the relaxation of the smile, the warmth and beauty in the eyes.

'How many bars have you been in?' he asked.

'Seventeen,' she said. 'Had a drink in every one.'

He nodded. Didn't say anything; didn't look at her. Smiled a little.

'Also looked in three pizza joints and four brothels.'

He gave her a quick glance.

'And did you eat pizza and shag some women?' he said.

'Some of the above,' she replied.

'Why are you here?' he asked quickly, looking at her this time, his voice losing the flippancy of two seconds earlier.

'Doctor's orders,' she said.

'Right,' he replied. 'And is the doctor going to tell me who I am?' And he shovelled some haggis into his mouth. It was delicious; spicy and crisp.

'You're supposed to work it out for yourself,' she said. 'I could tell you any old shit, and your brain would work its way round to creating memories to back that up.'

'If I died two and a half years ago,' he said sharply, 'how the Hell am I supposed to work out why I'm not dead anymore?'

She nodded, black hair moving across her forehead. Sometimes the untrained person could cut through the bullshit of the professional. In fact, she frequently had cause to reflect, it happened on a regular basis.

She leant back against the chair, looked at his plate. The smell of his meal nagged away at her stomach, but she'd already eaten. And Barney wasn't waiting for her to join him. Not that this was Barney Thomson as the world had known him before. She didn't approve of him being here, of his very existence on the planet; but it wasn't his fault.

'Genetics,' she said.

'Ah,' said Barney. 'Go on.'

'You remember the Dolly the sheep thing?' she asked.

'Not really. Did they mix a human and a sheep?' he asked. 'They must've had difficulty finding the guy for that experiment. They put an advert in the paper.
Man Wanted To Shag Sheep. Previous Experience Preferred, But Training Will Be Given
. After a couple of days they only had thirty-three thousand applications.'

She was laughing. Barney Thomson made her laugh. And she was a woman. No one had ever been able to say that before.

'Not quite,' she said. 'Dolly the sheep was cloned from cells of a parent sheep. Advanced stuff, even now, but that was it, pure and simple.'

She hesitated. Barney ate his dinner.

'I'm listening,' he said.

'It's pretty controversial. But, you know how these things are. The stuff that was reported wasn't the half of it. There's another laboratory outside the city, doing all sorts of things the public knows nothing about. Even more cutting edge, even more frightening.'