The Barbershop Seven (206 page)

And so, rather than blindly throwing himself at the old guy, Kratzenburg made the sensible, but ultimately futile decision to run away. He made the first move to turn, and that was as far as he got. The killer descended on him.

He swung the axe, blade turned away, at his legs, tripping him up and sending him into the stones on his face. Kratzenburg stumbled on the beach, turned his head in fear. Just in time to see the final swing of the executioner's cleaver. His eyes showed shock. The axe descended.

Kratzenburg's head flew to the side in a high arc, almost as if it had been severed with a nine iron. Somewhere in the mist, out of sight, the others heard it land heavily on the stones.

The killer stood over Proudfoot and Frankenstein, blood dripping from the axe, the weapon still held to the side. Then suddenly he seemed to relax; his body language became dismissive. He didn't need to kill anyone else here. To his right, Barney Thomson crawled into view across the stones, feeling that somehow he should be the one who was there facing this demon.

The killer surveyed the three of them, the eyes gloating behind the mask. He smiled. He winked at Barney.

'Barney,' he said, and then, as suddenly as he had arrived, he ran past them and disappeared back into the thick mist, heading up onto the road.

He was gone.

Silence.

The mist ebbed and flowed around them, swirling in nebulous patterns, sweeping in from the sea, turning this way, sweeping down and up, swallowing them.

Barney crawled over to be beside the others, both of them dazed, horrified.

'You all right?' he said, directing the question at Proudfoot, the only one who had not felt the full force of the killer's wrath.

She nodded. Couldn't speak. It had been a long time since she had witnessed something that horrible. Frankenstein, more used to drunks and thugs and gangs of youths, could not find his mouth either.

For Barney Thomson, however, this felt like his life. This was real, constantly surrounded by bloody death, bloody murder. The old new Barney was back. Stripped of fear, embraced by a charismatic nonchalance that drove women wild. If his continuing life, the horror and the blood, was the work of Satan, well Satan could come and get him. He was ready.

'The old guy seemed to know you?' said Frankenstein, pulling himself up. 'Who was it?'

'I don't know,' said Barney. 'It wasn't an old guy though. The face, the hair, it was a mask. A Dostoevsky mask. Fyodor Dostoevsky,' he added, just in case anyone had thought he'd meant Agnes Dostoevsky.

Frankenstein and Proudfoot looked curiously at Barney.

'What?' she said.

'Where the fuck do you get a Dostoevsky mask?' said Frankenstein dismissively. 'And how the fuck would you even know what he looks like? What the fuck is that? A Dostoevsky mask?'

Barney looked from one to the other. To him it was obvious. Crime and punishment. This, however, did not seem like a good time to get into Russian literature and any correlation with his own life.

'I don't know,' he said. 'Come on, we should get back into town.'

He looked down at the stricken, headless body of Sergeant Kratzenburg.

'The big man's going to have to wait. There's likely worse than this going to happen here tonight. We stick close, all the way round. Close enough that you can see the other two at all times. If you lose one of them, call out the instant it happens. The instant. And we cut across the back road into town. We cool?'

Proudfoot nodded.

'We're cool,' said Frankenstein, curious and a little wary of Barney's sudden determination.

As they started to walk up the beach, Frankenstein put his hand on Barney's shoulder.

'I made you my deputy,' he said, awkward censure in his voice, 'not my fucking boss.'

––––––––

I
gor had found his way round to the boatyard. He moved more quickly than other men in this dark time of no light and thick fog, his senses more attuned to his outside world. He had walked along the front and investigated the pier. Nothing to be found there, except the creepy and uncomfortable calm of all piers in a thick fog. Then he had come along Crichton Street, past the unoccupied police station, round past the football field, a field which he knew was there but which, the barest of edges aside, he could not see.

He did not pass another single person on his way, at least, none of which he was aware. Perhaps someone had passed him on the other side of the street, out of sight, the sound of footsteps muffled in the fog. But Igor walked on, driven only by curiosity about what was out there. Fearless.

He knew that the three murders which had been committed in the town had all happened in the sanctity of peoples' homes, the inviolable had been breached, and maybe that was what was going to happen again tonight. But the murderer had to get from house to house, had to move around somehow. A car, a bike, padded footsteps dragged through the night.

Even though Millport was small, it wasn't so tiny that he was guaranteed to stumble across anyone who might be out, especially not in this weather. But Igor had a nose for it, a sense that he would inevitably find what he went looking for. And all his senses told him that this strange mystery, which had started with the disappearance of a fishing trawler, would in some way involve the boatyard and the last remnants of seafaring on the island.

He stopped at the entrance to the yard, felt out the door. Listened in the night for any sound from within. So still, so cloaked was the evening, that even the clang of the chains, the constant sound of any boatyard, had been silenced.

Nothing.

He wondered about old Bladestone, a man with whom he had only exchanged grudging acknowledgements in the past, despite him being a regular in the shop from the days long before Barney's arrival.

Igor opened the door slowly, the hinges unavoidably creaking in the night. He cursed slightly under his breath. No sound could he make. Any advantage he had would be lost.

The door opened as little as possible. He squeezed through the gap. Instinctively wanted to close the gate over, the obsessive-compulsive inherent in him, but he fought the urge.

Knowing that the floor of the boatyard was littered with anchors and wooden beams and masts, he edged along the wall until he got to the first shed, and then turned and moved along the shed wall until he got to the end of that. Stopped there to get his bearings, to try and get a feel for the place.

The fog was no less dense inside the yard. He could see the dark outline of a hull a few feet in front of him. Did not know the yard well enough to recognise it.

Phht!

A stumble. A dull sound in the night. Followed by a curse and another small trip. Igor's heart raced. He pressed himself back against the wall. Head working. It couldn't be Bladestone, he would know his yard well enough not to trip.

He tensed, arms up, waiting to defend himself against what was coming his way. Could sense two figures before he could see them. Was tempted to shout out, perhaps make them run away. But he knew he had to deal with this now, right here, given that the opportunity was falling into his lap.

The figures approached. Igor inched away from the wall, giving himself more room. He eased himself into a tae-kwon-do position, ready for action, the hump of his hunchback exaggeratedly protruding above his shoulders. Held his breath.

They emerged from the mist, leaning forward, walking faster than they ought to have been given the total lack of visibility. Igor tensed.

Bernard and the Dog With No Name jumped, each one letting out a yelp.

'Arf!' hissed Igor.

Bernard settled down, standing in front of Igor, the Dog With No Name snuggled into his leg.

'Like, Igor, pal, you scared me, man!'

I'm not your pal, hissed Igor in reply, although, as ever, all that came out and all that Bernard heard was 'Arf!'

'Like sure, man, but what are you doing here? We're looking for clues, aren't we Dog With No Name, old buddy? But it's so foggy, like, we can't see a thing!'

Igor was torn between believing they were looking for clues, and wondering whether they played a more sinister part in all of this than it seemed on the surface. They were MI6 after all, and Igor had never trusted MI6. Yet, while they may have been acting suspiciously snooping around the boatyard late in the evening on a foggy and dark night, so was he.

'Arf,' he hissed quietly, indicating for them to fall in behind him.

'Like, sure, pal,' said Bernard, and he and the Dog With No Name filed in next to Igor against the wall of the shed and began to inch their way along.

'Like, Igor old buddy,' said Bernard a few seconds later, 'you didn't bring any food with you on this expedition, did you? We're starved!'

***

B
arney, Frankenstein and Proudfoot came into town down the back road, coming onto the road at Kames Bay. Walking quickly, Frankenstein in the front, Proudfoot behind him, Barney at the back. They passed The Deadman's Café, saw the dim lights inside, realised it was still open. Frankenstein stopped, turned to the others.

'Anyone use a coffee?' he said. 'Myself, I need intravenous caffeine.'

Barney didn't wait for Proudfoot's answer, opened the door and ushered the other two inside. They walked quickly in from the cold, closing the door behind them. They stood inside and surveyed the surroundings. Deserted. Lights on, door unlocked, but the heating was off, the premises not much warmer than the cold, dark night outside. No customers, no one behind the counter.

'Alice?' said Barney.

Nothing.

He looked at the other two, their faces both showing the resignation and acknowledgement that here was another potential grim finding. The feeling of doom hung in the air, an air of portentous death that no sixth sense could miss.

'Alice?' Barney called, a little louder this time.

'You still need that coffee?' he said.

Frankenstein exhaled a pent-up breath, followed by a low curse.

'Fuck,' he said. 'This is all we need. Alice!' he called more loudly, then added, 'Who the fuck is Alice, anyway? The owner or the woman who does nights?'

'Both,' said Barney.

Frankenstein placed his hand firmly on the counter top and vaulted over it, landing awkwardly on the other side. Barney, more familiar with the place and now fully possessing the old nonchalance that had so deserted him the previous few days, lifted the counter top to the right and walked behind. Frankenstein gave him a look, then they both pushed through to the back of the shop.

Barney, in front, stopped suddenly, Frankenstein having to step quickly to the side to avoid walking into him. They saw the words written on the kitchen wall in blood before they saw the decapitated body.

Barney stepped back, two steps, hit the wall, couldn't go any further, although he did not leave the kitchen.

A soul for a soul, Barney Thomson!

The words were written in fresh dripping blood, each word beneath the other, Thomson written along the wall just above the work surface. Next to it, on the kitchen top beside the chopping board and an opened box of raw chopped onion, was the head of Alice Witherington, perfectly sliced at the neck. Placed so as to be the full stop in the giant exclamation mark

Her body lay on the floor. A pool of blood. Alice Witherington, who had spent so many happy nights in the den of thieves above the Incidental Mermaid, who had spent the last few days living in justifiable fear.

Frankenstein had moved on from his own personal fears. It was time for anger and determination. He walked forward, ran a finger rudely through the blood on the wall. Still fresh, still damp. Rubbed his forefinger and thumb together.

'Recent,' he said. 'The last ten minutes.'

'Should I come in there?' said Proudfoot from the café.

'No,' said Barney quickly. 'We'll be out in a second.'

'Shout out if you see anyone with an axe,' said Frankenstein acerbically, and could hear Proudfoot's exasperated groan from outside.

'So, Barney Thomson,' said Frankenstein, voice low, 'is this all about you? Murder follows you around?'

Barney said nothing. Murder did follow him around, but he didn't want to think for a second that all this blood was on his hands. He couldn't live with that.

Maybe that was the intention.

'Couldn't you go and live in England and have some of that lot murdered?'

Barney laughed, an ugly grunt of a laugh, in keeping with the ugly bloody scene in which they were standing.

'Deputy Thomson, consultant to the police service, this is as if they knew you were coming this way. It's done for your benefit. Where are we heading now? The boatyard maybe? Does that make sense? The whole town is between us and there. Are we going to find a murder in every establishment we pass? What d'you think, Deputy? What is your Dostoevsky up to?'

Barney had no answer. He had heard a rumour of the clandestine Incidental Mermaid club, but had no idea of why it existed and was completely unaware of what connection there might be between it and him.

'The faster we get there, the better,' he said, and turned quickly from the kitchen. Proudfoot was sitting at a table on the other side of the counter, her head in her hand, pale, beautiful, wondering how she had managed to walk into such a situation again. Why her? Why her, every time? Except that she kept on running into Barney Thomson.

Barney walked to the door, opened it once more back out to the mist and the lonely, desolate evening.

'We need to go,' he said to Proudfoot. 'I'm sorry, I know you need a break. We need to, and we can't leave you here.'

She gazed into his eyes, believed him, wanted to believe that he meant her no harm and that none of this was truly his fault.

'Who wants your soul, Barney?' said Frankenstein. 'You make a pact with Satan?'

Barney looked at him, stopped still in the doorway.

'Not that I know,' he said. 'But maybe we all have.'

He walked quickly out into the night, Proudfoot and Frankenstein behind him. Proudfoot at the back, trailing in the others' angry wake. She looked down and saw, in the dim light of the shop, the marks from Frankenstein's shoe, where he had stepped in the trail of blood that had been left from the decapitation of Alice Witherington.