The Barbershop Seven (175 page)

'The good guys aren't going to want to kill her, are they?' said Hoagy mockingly. 'You're a stupidhead!'

'Am not!'

'Stupidhead, stupidhead!'

––––––––

'M
y husband was part of the brotherhood that has existed on this island for nearly a hundred and fifty years. The
Prieure de Millport
they call themselves.'

Barney took a sip of wine. Randolph looked on from the corner, eyes as wide as Gollum.

'I don't know, I suppose it's a secret society like any other, that's what I always thought. They only ever have twelve members at one time, and whenever a member dies, they take an age carefully selecting the replacement.'

She took a deep breath, drank some wine. Barney sat in silence giving her the space to talk. Upstairs the children bounced around the bedroom.

'The members have to swear on their lives and the lives of their family that they will never divulge the society's secret. I always used to tease Ian about it. I mean, I didn't really know what he was doing when he went off on a Tuesday evening. Anyway, he was as good as his word, never told me a thing. There was a bit of talk around the village, but not much. Most people have always just left them to it, really.'

Another pause, another sip of wine, another slight cringe as a great thump came from the bedroom. She glanced aloft and smiled ruefully at Barney.

'My mother's right, isn't she? I don't need to go to work every day, not really.'

'You don't have to justify yourself,' said Barney softly.

She smiled again, took her eyes away from his. Lifted the wine glass, didn't take a sip this time, placed it back on the table.

'Then Ian found out he had cancer. It didn't take long. I don't know, five months in all. Quite lucky, I suppose. Better than being dragged out for years and years like some people.'

'When was that?'

'It started when I was six months pregnant,' she said, and she paused again. Barney was quiet. 'So at least he got to see Ella for a few weeks.'

'I'm sorry,' he heard himself saying.

'The last couple of weeks he was pretty out of it. Drugged up, had the occasional moment of clarity. He told me everything a few days before he died. He had about half an hour when he'd just been drugged, he felt a bit better but the side effects hadn't kicked in.'

She breathed deeply, swallowed, held back the tears. Barney put his hand across the table and she reached out for it, as she transported herself unwillingly back to the small room in the Victoria in Glasgow. Randolph glanced up, then immediately dropped his eyes.

'It's the Holy Grail,' she said, smiling awkwardly. 'That's what this is all about. The stupid Holy Grail, can you believe it?'

'The cup?' asked Barney.

She shook her head.

'No. Well, yes, partly. The chalice that caught the blood of Christ. Apparently it's hidden in the cathedral.'

'In Millport?'

'Go figure,' she said, shrugging her shoulders. 'Has to be somewhere.'

Barney let out a low whistle.

'I'm super sceptical about that, if I'm honest.'

'I know,' she said. 'So was I. Always have been.'

Barney turned and looked at Randolph.

'You know about this?' he asked. 'You one of the brothers?'

Randolph shook his head. Barney turned back to Carmichael.

'Who else is there?' he asked.

'I'm not sure. Ian didn't tell me that. There are rumours about the town. I'm pretty sure Jonah was one of them.'

That was not entirely unexpected, thought Barney, given Ephesian's interest in the widow.

'Anyway, the chalice is only part of it. There's something else. He told me about the chalice first, by the time he got around to the rest of it, he was becoming garbled. Couldn't tell how much of it was true, by their standards at any rate, and how much was hallucination. It wasn't like I was searching Ephesian or his freak servant out to discuss details.'

Barney glanced round at Randolph, wondering how much of this he already knew, wondering if he should have ejected him. However, it seemed sensible to retain him on the premises for the time being until he had some idea of what was happening.

'There've been books about it recently, in the last twenty years or so. I've read them all since Ian died. None of them mention Millport, though. The story of Christ's life and death.'

Another hesitation, this time because she didn't believe what she was about to say. Barney left her to it. Took a sip of wine, waited to see what was coming. All to the background of the general mayhem upstairs. Two kids and no immediate parental authority. How wars start.

'You know, it's that thing where Mary Magdalene was Christ's wife. They had children. When Joseph fled to France with the Grail, as the legend goes, he also took Jesus' wife and weans.'

'Family ticket,' said Barney glibly.

'Exactly. So, to really shorten two thousand years of history, there were descendants of Jesus back then, and there still are now, two millennia later.'

'A direct lineage to Christ?'

'Aye.'

'Fan-tastic,' said Barney. 'There's no one not going to buy into that when he makes his debut on Parkinson or Letterman.'

'Well, whatever, but you can see the problem, you can see why it's a secret. Jesus is supposed to be divine, son of God and all that. If it turns out he was an average guy, wife, kids, mortgage, game of darts down the Horseshoe on a Friday night, it punctures a whole bunch of religious beliefs, doesn't it? Kind of conforms to my theory of the Garrett, but I expect you don't want to go there.'

'Let's stick to the facts,' said Barney.

'Aye, well, that's about it, without a whole bunch of unnecessary details.'

'So who is it, then? The descendant of Christ. Is he on Millport? Is it Ephesian? Ephesian is the descendant of God? That would explain his attitude.'

'I don't think it's him, but this is the point. Jesus wasn't the son of God, he was just a guy.'

Barney turned once again to Randolph, who was watching Carmichael, taking it all in.

'So, what's happening tonight then?' asked Barney, looking back to Carmichael.

'Don't know,' she said.

'Why should they want you dead?'

'Don't know,' she said.

'Why should they want your blood?'

'No idea.'

'So why did you say you thought they might want you dead?'

She shrugged.

'I never thought they knew that Ian had told me what he did, but who knows? I know at least Jacobs, and maybe Ephesian, went to see him in the last few days.' The image of her dying husband came back to her and she paused. Let herself see him lying there for a few seconds, remembered taking her new baby into the hospital to see her father, lying in some strange world that only he inhabited. A dying man and a new baby. Both of them inscrutable, both of them seeing things and understanding things like no one else can.

'So I don't know,' she said eventually. 'If they know that I know, they might well want me dead.'

Barney watched her for a while. Studied her, evaluated whether or not she was telling him everything that she could, decided she was. Turned back to Randolph after a short while.

'You got anything to say?' he asked.

Randolph didn't even look up. Shook his head.

'You know none of this?' said Barney.

'Why would he?' said Carmichael. 'He's nothing to them. Ephesian just throws sticks for James to run after.'

Randolph continued to stare at the floor. Confidence shattered. Garrett Carmichael was not wrong. He never knew anything worthwhile. And when Ephesian threw a stick, he ran after it.

'Mummy!' came the cry from upstairs, accompanied by uncontrollable wailing. 'Mummy! Hoagy said I'm a zombie!'

'I did not! She's lying!'

'I'm not a zombie!'

'I didn't say that!'

'He did!'

More tears from the bottomless well.

Garrett Carmichael laid her hands on the table and engaged both of the men in the room.

'I'm away to turn out the light. If, in my absence, anyone arrives at the door asking to kill me, tell them I'm unavailable.'

She smiled in a certain way and rose from the table.

Barney watched her go, and then took another drink of wine when she was finally out of view and he could hear her wading into the morass of her two children. Turned to look at Randolph, but he was too occupied with his own failings and foibles.

Life, he thought, is like a dodgy stomach after a big dinner. It never throws up exactly what you think it will.

The doorbell rang.

Barney laughed and looked at Randolph.

'The next assassin,' he said, and rose from the table.

Randolph waited until Barney was gone from the kitchen before looking up. As he slowly recovered his composure, he was beginning to wonder whether he should have said everything he had. Ephesian, if he should find out, would be furious, although it would be Jacobs he would have to answer to.

Barney opened the door.

'Arf.'

Barney smiled and opened up for Igor to enter, then stuck his head out of the door and checked along the street for anyone nefarious, before retreating from the cold. Igor was standing in the kitchen doorway looking suspiciously at Randolph. Barney walked through and put his hand on Igor's shoulder.

'Thought you might make an appearance,' he said.

Igor nodded. He may have made himself available to the likes of Ruth Harrison and Gently Ferguson, but he was in love with Garrett Carmichael, and at some stage over the previous three days Barney had managed to work that out.

'Today on the news,' said Barney, 'on the orders of Ephesian, Randolph here was going to try to kill Garrett by use of some cheese, but has failed. Meanwhile, there's a secret society on this very island protecting the descendants of Christ, and tonight they will be carrying out some weird ritual which will involve blood. Garrett's blood, so they were thinking, but we're not going to let that happen.'

Igor, with his muppet-like face and hunchback contorting in an exaggerated manner, looked shocked. He turned and snarled at Randolph. Barney once again placed his hand on Igor's shoulder.

'It's all right, Igor, she's safe. We're here, we can look after her until they've finished whatever it is they're up to tonight. And I don't think we have to worry about heid-the-ba' here anyway. The only problem will be if that psychopath Jacobs shows up, but we can deal with that if we have...'

The doorbell rang. Once. Somehow managed to sound ominous, as if the inner workings of the bell knew that it was Jacobs outside, come to collect the blood of the unwilling victim.

'Oh for crying out loud,' came the voice from upstairs, 'did you lot hand out party invitations. I'm trying to get the kids to sleep.'

Barney and Igor exchanged a glance. Barney was unconcerned, but the mute hunchback of the two of them could be a little thin-skinned sometimes when it came to women, and took it personally.

Barney trudged along the corridor and opened the door. Sure enough, there in the pale, creeping flesh, stood Jacobs, all brooding malice. As the day had progressed and Ephesian had retreated more and more into his dark, impenetrable shell, Jacobs had sunk further and further into bleak malevolence.

'Why am I not surprised?' he muttered darkly.

'I could say the same thing, cowboy,' said Barney.

Jacobs stared cruelly into Barney's eyes and then looked over his shoulder. From where he stood he could make out the outer reaches of Igor's hump.

'The gallant crime-fighting double act has moved on,' he said caustically. 'Aren't there any other women you need to protect?'

'I don't know,' said Barney. 'Are there any other women whose blood you want to use in some weird ceremony this evening?'

The anger flashed across Jacobs' face. He stared back over Barney's shoulder, mind racing, trying to work out how Barney could already know such detail.

Igor? Could Igor know that much?

'Randolph!' he suddenly exploded, and then with two quick strides he pushed passed Barney and stormed into the house. Barney, for his part, allowed him access as he wanted him in there. An identifiable enemy like this was better within.

Jacobs stormed into the kitchen.

'Randolph!' he shouted again.

Randolph cowered in the corner. Barney appeared in the kitchen. Jacobs turned and looked bitterly behind him. Igor stared at the intruder.

'Where is she?' barked Jacobs.

'Arf,' muttered Igor, threateningly.
Keep your stinkin' hands off her
, he wanted to say, something which he managed to communicate reasonably well, even to a man such as Jacobs.

Jacobs scowled at Igor and Barney in turn, then looked round at Randolph.

'Where is she?' he repeated.

'Upstairs,' said Randolph, eyes attached to the floor. 'Putting the kids to bed.'

Barney moved across the door, blocking the way. Jacobs glared at him and then pulled out a seat at the table.

'I'll wait,' he said.

More angry glances were thrown around the room, and then slowly the tension settled and the combatants relaxed into the temporary lull of a bizarre situation. Jacobs had come round to murder Garrett Carmichael, and was sitting in the kitchen waiting for her to appear, with two men who knew that that was what he wanted to do and were intent on not letting him do it. It was absurd, and Barney was of a mind to open up a discussion about it. However, he chose instead to stand by the door and wait to see what moves Jacobs intended to make.

Footsteps behind him and he stood back to let Carmichael enter the room, confident that there were plenty of things to be said before anyone tried to do anything stupid.

Carmichael looked around the room, taking in each of the men in turn.

'Well, isn't this nice?' she said, acerbically.

'We need to talk, Mrs Carmichael,' said Jacobs.

'Whatever,' she said. 'But make it fast. I'm pissed off. The kids are pissing me off, my mother's pissed me off. I had an all right day at work, then I've been home for five minutes and my confidence is shattered, I feel like a crap mum and a crap person and a crap lawyer and I could kill someone. And looking around this room there appear to be four stupid men as candidates, so make it fast and then fuck off.'