The Barbershop Seven (205 page)

Barney leant forward, ran his hand through his hair. Took his hand away from her, put his face in his palms. Searching for the other Barney Thomson, the one who had been laconic and indefatigable for the previous three or four years. Where was he? Had the Devil taken him back?

Suddenly there was a noise to the right of the boat. There had been nothing but the grim silence of a dense fog, the gentle purr of the motorboat cutting dully through the mist. Now there was a mutter of another boat, closing quickly, though not yet visible through the fog.

A laugh, a low cackle. Maybe not all that different from the Joker in Batman, but in the tense, claustrophobia of the fog, enough even to get to Frankenstein.

'Gun it, Sergeant!' he shouted, and Kratzenburg leant on the lever, forcing everyone back, as the nose of the small police launch leapt in the air and the boat shot forward into the black of the night.

They looked to their right, the angry sound of the engine now drowning out any other sound.

'Did we lose him?' shouted the sergeant, looking anxiously ahead, believing he was still some way short of the island, but not trusting anything in this grim night.

'I can't tell!' Frankenstein yelled back at him. 'Any sign?' he shouted at Proudfoot and Barney, who both stood holding on to a railing, searching the fog. However, out here, out in the middle of the channel, the fog was just as dense as it had been on shore.

'Impossible to say!' Proudfoot yelled back at him.

'Keep going!' shouted Frankenstein, 'keep this up. No point in slowing yet.'

The boat sped through the mist, now shooting towards the island of Cumbrae at a fantastic pace, across flat calm waters. Kratzenburg looked ahead, the others stared around the boat into the darkness, waiting. Tensed, coiled, full of fear and adrenalin, waiting to react.

'We're getting close, sir!' yelled Kratzenburg shortly. 'We're going to have to slow, can't risk this speed any longer.'

'OK, OK!' shouted Frankenstein, making the slow down gesture with his hands.

Instantly Kratzenburg cut the speed. A slight lurch, and then the boat was easing its way in towards the shore. A shore that they could not yet see.

The fog clawed the boat, enveloped it. They waited for the hull to strike a rock, to suddenly jerk onto the land. They were all poised, standing straight, holding onto the sides and the metal bar which ran across its centre between the two rows of seats.

'We just ran away from the killer, right?' said Proudfoot. Felt the need for conversation, anything to break the silence which was as damningly horrible as the fog.

Frankenstein didn't respond. Searched the mist directly in front of him. The thought came to him that perhaps it had been someone from the press. A stuntman sent by the Sun to make fun of the police. At least, he decided, they wouldn't have been able to get any decent photos of the police on the run.

With a wrenching jolt the small boat thudded into a rock, the hull scraping along it, before coming to a dead stop a second later as it ran hard onto a rocky beach. The engine died. The four on board were all braced for it, but when it came it was with such suddenness that it still caught them by surprise, still threw them all sideways, forwards, onto the floor.

Proudfoot banged her head on the side of the boat, an ugly sound, an instant dull pain. Kratzenburg badly bruised his back, being spun round and hitting the wheel. Barney pitched forward, banging into the back of Frankenstein, who fell awkwardly to the side, thumping rudely onto the floor. A moment of moaning, unpleasant discomfort.

'We all OK?' shouted Frankenstein, although there was no need for the shout. Now that the sound of the engine had gone, they had been pitched into silence, as suddenly as they had been pitched onto the island.

Proudfoot groaned, listlessly leaning against the side of the boat. Barney and Kratzenburg muttered affirmatives, Barney immediately moving to Proudfoot's side, putting his arm round her waist.

'Come on,' he said, 'we should get off.'

Frankenstein leaped over the side of the boat onto the stony beach, Kratzenburg next. Then they helped Proudfoot off, before Barney was last onto the island.

They stood, the four of them, still surrounded by mist, at the edge of the sea, listening to the almost imperceptible sound of the gentle waves crawling up onto the stones.

'Are you all right, Sergeant?' asked Frankenstein.

'A good crack of the head,' she said, rubbing her temple, 'but I'm OK.'

'Good. Come on, we should get up onto the road. Shouldn't take us too long to walk into town.'

'I should get back to Ardrossan, sir,' said Kratzenburg.

The others stopped. Frankenstein stared into the depths of the mist.

'You can't go back out in that, Sergeant,' he said. 'And you don't know how badly damaged the boat will be after hitting the rocks. Leave it until morning.'

Kratzenburg hesitated. Wanted to get back to Ardrossan for mostly romantic reasons, the greatest driver of them all. Didn't like the thought of a night in Millport. The murderer that lurked in the midst of the town.

'Are you worried about what we heard out there, sir?' he said.

Frankenstein twitched. Didn't want to say. Now that they were on land, now that they were away from the menace, it seemed absurd that he had yelled Gun it, Sergeant! like they were in some Hollywood action movie. Regardless of what it was that had made that noise, he now felt stupid. He didn't think Proudfoot would later mock him to others for it, but Kratzenburg was someone he didn't know. Why shouldn't he make fun of the DCI back at the station?

'I had a thought about that noise, sir,' said Kratzenburg.

Frankenstein stared at the rocks beneath his feet.

'I know, Sergeant,' he said. 'I had the same thought. Someone out to make fools of the police. More than likely the press.'

Kratzenburg nodded, looked to the others for confirmation.

'How did he find us in the mist?' said Barney.

'They have better equipment than us, Mr Thomson,' said Frankenstein. 'And if we're really unlucky, they'll have had sophisticated camera equipment that can take pictures through a miserable as Hell, dense fog. We...I...am going to look bloody stupid.'

They all turned and looked in the direction of the sea. None of them could feel it, not one amongst the four. The suspicion of imminent danger. The beat in the fog.

'So,' said Frankenstein, 'when the guy suddenly comes running up that beach out of the fog in the next few seconds, we shouldn't run away.'

'We should trip him up and pull his mask off,' said Proudfoot, straight-faced.

'Exactamundo,' said Frankenstein.

They faced the sea and awaited their fate.

'I should just give the boat a quick once-over, Sir, make sure it's OK, then I can head back out.'

'All right,' said Frankenstein, 'come on. Thomson, you make sure the sergeant's OK, and don't drift off anywhere, I don't want to lose the pair of you.'

'We'll look for the guy in the mask,' said Barney glibly.

Frankenstein grunted. He and Kratzenburg moved through the mist to the boat, which was hardly visible, even though they had barely walked five yards up the beach.

And then, despite the jokes, despite the belief that they had been spooked by the press, despite the half-laughing testaments to their intentions towards the guy in the mask, when the low cackle of laughter which had tormented them out on the water, suddenly came again, it took them all by surprise, immersed them all in instant dread. Even the sceptical Kratzenburg felt the leap of the heart, the zing of the skin.

'Right, Sergeant,' Frankenstein said to him, 'no running.'

The two men braced themselves, and Barney Thomson found himself standing firm, ushering Proudfoot behind him.

––––––––

T
he town slept early. Barely after nine, but there was a great sense, a collective will, to put the evening to rest, get it behind them. They knew that something ill was afoot, and they wanted to snuggle down under a warm duvet, fall asleep and wake up the following morning with the fog gone, clear blue skies and a light chop to the waves. And hopefully, some climactic event would have occurred and the town would awake to find answers and the police packing up their things to head home.

Igor stood at the bedroom window of the house he now shared with the town lawyer, Garrett Carmichael, and her two children. He stared out into the dense fog, unable to see the other side of the street, never mind the sea. Could sense the feeling of ill-ease and restless evil which had come sweeping across the town with the late afternoon fog, and which now cloaked it in fear and dreadful anticipation.

There was a noise behind him as Carmichael came into the room, pyjamas on, ready for bed. She watched him for a few seconds, concerned. She was beautiful, an attraction to all the men in the town. And she was all Igor's, her heart swept away by the boldness and romanticism that lay hidden behind the bane of his baleful exterior.

'Come to bed, Igor,' she said. 'I know something's happening out there, but it doesn't involve us. We need to sleep it off.'

'Arf,' said Igor darkly.

There would be no sleep for Igor. They both knew it. The town could hide its head all that it wanted to, could hide behind thin bedwear and hope that they would not be the ones selected to be dragged screaming from that bed, but that was not Igor's path. He could not hide from this, not when it involved his friend, Barney Thomson.

She came and stood beside him, her arm on his shoulder. A clichéd scene from a thousand movies, the woman spending the possible last few moments with her man before he goes off to war. She was full of spunk herself, and would have gone too, but for the two children who lay sleeping in the next room. Their father already dead from illness, she would not put herself at such risk. Had already begun to think privately to herself, thoughts she had yet to share with Igor, that maybe it was time they moved away from Millport, if this place was suddenly as cursed as it appeared.

'Arf,' Igor said again.

She nodded. Like Barney, she was completely in tune with Igor's grunts and noises, the only sounds he could make.

She kissed him on the cheek, squeezed him harder, then stepped back. Knew that he had to get on with it and she wasn't about to make things harder by being dramatic.

'Put on a coat,' she heard herself say.

Igor smiled crookedly, pressed her hand and then walked slowly from the bedroom. Down the stairs, put on his jacket, opened the door, stepped out into the cold. Closed the door behind him and stood still on the pavement. Let the fog claw at him, soak into his face and his hands, soak his clothes. A damp, drenching fog. Down here, he could still not see the other side of the road.

No sound. No wind, no cars, no people, no sea. The town was sleeping. Or dead.

Making his decision, Igor turned to his right and walked slowly in the direction of the pier.

***

T
hey waited, knowing that the killer could see them, even if they could not see him. And then, in a rush of fog and a fevered crunch of stones, he appeared from the sea.

No Trawler Fiend this. An old man, dressed all in black, an axe held high above his right shoulder, his left arm bent across his chest. Longish hair down his neck, a long, thin beard.

They may not have been seriously expecting an eight-foot lizard, but they weren't expecting some old grandpa either. And in the adrenaline-fuelled rush of it all, in the heart of the thick fog, they could see no mask, just an old man with a weapon.

He stopped his headlong rush a few yards short. He stood poised, axe raised.

'Fuck me!' yelled Frankenstein, astonished. A thousand thoughts pouring through his head in an instant, one fantastic moment of shock-induced clarity.

'Come on then!' he shouted, immediately after his previous exhortation, stepping forward.

Kratzenburg fell in beside him, the two forming a wall, almost as if Barney and Proudfoot were to be protected.

The old man seemed to hesitate, but the gentle laugh which crawled out from the rubber lips displayed an enjoyment of the kill rather than reluctance.

The laugh died. Frankenstein and Kratzenburg seemed to hesitate too, as if it might be wrong to attack an old man, regardless of the axe, regardless of the fact that here was obviously the Millport murderer. Suddenly, from behind, they heard the rapid crunch of footsteps.

Barney had found his mojo.

He burst between the two of them, running straight for the old man, his plan no more than to dodge the swipe of the axe and to grab his legs, bring him down. Barney, alone among them, while not knowing the identity of the man beneath the mask, knew that he was no old soul.

He met him full on, but as he did so, the killer swung his left arm down in a quick and sudden movement, catching Barney full on the chest, a vicious, swift, crunching blow, sending him reeling, flying. He was tossed backwards, spiralling into the air, several feet off the ground, and came to a crunching fall, so far away that he was lost in the mist. He thudded into the ground, dazed and battered, barely able to tell the direction from which the noise was now coming.

Frankenstein, empowered by this show of strength from the enemy, stepped forward. He never even got as close as Barney, as another swing from the arm, a low uppercut, caught Frankenstein in the chest and sent him flying straight backwards, back to where Proudfoot was standing, helpless.

Kratzenburg dithered, given necessary pause by the expeditious way in which Barney Thomson and Frankenstein had been summarily dispatched. His hesitation made no difference however. The old fella had his eye on him.

As he made his first step towards him, Kratzenburg suddenly had a thought of the guys in the red jerseys who you always knew were going to get killed at the start of the old Star Trek, the guys who were sent down to the planet surface with Kirk and Spock entirely so they could die in the first five minutes.

'Shit,' thought Kratzenburg, realising that he was the newcomer to the investigation, the officer who was not really part of it, 'I'm dead.'