The Barbershop Seven (210 page)

'Who was Gram Crichton?' said Frankenstein.

Waites stared at the ground. The others were becoming restless. They could sense it too. The lurking menace, the foreboding evil. Frankenstein took a step forward, held Waites' arms.

'Who was Gram Crichton?'

'We picked him up in Ireland,' said Waites, his voice beginning to break. It didn't matter who Gram Crichton was or why they had picked him up. All he could see was the look on Crichton's face as his head spiralled through the air.

Craig Brown stared into the fog.

'We were smuggling diamonds,' said Waites eventually.

Frankenstein stared at him, mouth open. Beside him Selma gave a little squeal of excitement. Frankenstein turned sharply.

'You bastards knew about this all along?'

'We're MI6, my friend,' said Fred. 'We know everything.'

Frankenstein stepped closer, away from Waites, getting into Fred's face.

'And you couldn't share that information, you bastard?'

'You were investigating the murders,' said Fred. 'We left you to it. We did our part, you did yours, and now the two investigations have come together. We can share clues!'

Frankenstein felt his blood pressure shooting, the anger pinballing around inside his head far outweighing any feelings of trepidation and impending death. He stabbed his finger into Fred's chest.

'Stick your fucking clues up your stupid arse,' he said, teeth bared.

Fred nodded, mind already working. Memo to Vauxhall Bridge: add DCI Frankenstein to the list.

Igor felt it first. He turned quickly. The others noticed the movement. Eyes, heads followed the look, a frightened stare towards the row of boats, albeit boats which were still obscured by the fog.

Brown looked up for the first time since coming into the assembled group, his face engulfed by terror. He was back.

No time to move. None of them.

The killer was upon them, axe held high above his head, charging into their midst, brutality in mind. The group split asunder. The killer headed straight for Fred of MI6.

'You don't frighten me!' said Fred boldly, standing tall, braced to tackle his masked assailant head on.

The killer swung the axe, a beautiful parabolic swipe, cutting through the mist and then cutting through Fred's neck with ease and grace and panache. Fred's body collapsed instantly, his head toppling off with some force, a few feet from his body.

'Like, wow, Fred!' yelped Bernard. 'Are you all right, buddy?'

Selma and Deirdre took one look at Fred's scuppered body and turned and legged it into the mist. Which is what the others had already done, Barney Thomson included. Fred was gone. There was nothing to be done to help him now.

The killer stood over Bernard. He bent forward, the contempt on his face evident despite the latex.

'Fucking MI6,' he muttered, and then he himself turned and ran headlong into the mist.

The small gathering had completely dispersed. All that remained of the circle outside the door of the boatyard workshop was the crumpled and decapitated body of Fred of MI6, blood spilling out into a pool on the ground. Bernard stood over him, the Dog With No Name nuzzled in beside his leg.

––––––––

C
olin Waites grabbed Craig Brown by the arm and pulled him away. No idea where they were heading, they stumbled across the gate at the exit of the boatyard, out into the small lane leading on to the main road round the island. Confused, frightened, disorientated and hurting. But away from the boatyard, and safe.

Selma and Deirdre ran around wildly, not knowing where they were going, scared and bewildered. It just wasn't like Fred to get his head cut off like that. It would not be long, after a few frantic seconds of bumping into boats and tripping over masts, before they would have gone a full short circle, and would be back beside Bernard and the Dog With No Name and Fred, in his state of bloody woe.

The police contingent, Dr Trio Semester and Igor in tow, rushed to the side in convoy, running into a brick wall, and staying pressed up against it, breathing hard, listening for any further commotion in the fog.

Barney Thomson dashed out of the way, no idea in which direction he'd run. Tripped over something metal, fell against the side of a wooden boat, straightened himself up. Looked around into the heart of the mist. Heart thumping, but the composure was still there. Tense but not afraid. He could hear stumbling, no voices. A flight through the mist, someone moving swiftly between the boats. A few frantic seconds, and then everything had died down.

Silence.

He became aware of the sound of his breathing and made the conscious effort to slow it down, to take slow deep breaths. Clenched and unclenched his fists. Channelled the tension, let the cold sweat pass.

The message on the wall of the café had been there for a reason. This whole thing, whatever it was, seemed to be as much about him. The killer was out there for him, to toy with him. Maybe he and the killer were entwined in a way that he had yet to work out. His ghosts had not been arriving over a long period, building to this conclusion. Whatever unsettled feelings he might have had before this past week, there had been no dark mirrors of the soul into which he could gloomily stare, until precisely the evening, perhaps even precisely the time, that the crew of the trawler
Bitter Wind
had been laid waste.

And so, with his mind working to some sort of inevitable conclusion, he was neither surprised nor frightened when a tall figure began to appear through the mist, although he still found himself pressing back against the wooden hull of the
Golden Cavalier III
, as if he might be able to merge into the boat and make himself invisible.

The man in black emerged fully from the mist and stood before Barney. Two feet between them, the rubber Dostoevsky mask curled into a smile.

Barney considered his options. The classic fight or flight? But that wasn't why the two of them were standing here. There would be no fight, and flight was clearly pointless. It would be the third option in the adrenaline-fuelled, testosterone-laden situation. Dialogue.

'Not running, Barney?' said Dostoevsky.

Recognised the voice. The same as the old man who had come in for a haircut and sat in the front of the DCI's car. An older version, he now realised, of the young guy who had come in looking for a Bruce Willis.

'Nowhere to go,' said Barney.

Dostoevsky laughed.

'At last you've woken up to the ultimately bloody consequences of your fate.'

Barney glanced to the side. Briefly wondered what had happened to the rest of them. At least while this monster was here, the others would be safe. Did he keep him talking until the fog cleared and the morning came?

'You don't think I brought the fog?' said Dostoevsky, still smiling.

Despite himself, despite the previous inner calm which had not seemed forced, Barney Thomson felt the first surge of fear, rising from his stomach like a tornado through his insides.

'Oh, how sweet,' said Dostoevsky, 'you've finally realised you should be afraid.'

The eyes burrowed into Barney as they had back in the car, and this time Barney knew there was no point in closing his eyes. There was no way to escape the gaze. He just had to straighten up, face what was coming, deal with it as he could.

The smile dropped. The mask twisted into a sneer.

'You think you can beat me, Barney Thomson?'

Barney tried to close his mind to positive and negative thoughts alike. An empty mind.

'I don't have to,' he said. 'I can just walk away.'

Dostoevsky snarled, then struck quickly, a swift blow with the right fist. Barney ducked, but the fist whistled straight through his head. He staggered back upright, disconcerted by the feeling of having had a hand pass through his brain. Dostoevsky laughed harshly, maniacally, deliriously. Barney rested his head back against the wooden hull.

Again a fist flew at him, this time thumping him harshly on the nose, trapping his head against the wood, a brutal blow. His nose broken. His knees buckled, then he straightened up quickly. Stopped himself lifting his hand to his nose.

'Very brave.' The smile, the sneer vanished. The eyes once more engulfed Barney, so that the searing pain in his nose seemed to vanish. Then slowly Dostoevsky lifted his right hand, pressed it against Barney's neck, a solid grasp of the fingers, and pinned Barney back against the hull of the boat.

'It's time, Barney Thomson. Time to give up your soul.'

'I don't owe you anything,' said Barney sternly. Bravely.

Another laugh. The clenched hand stayed in place around Barney's throat, but again there was a switch in tone.

'You were lost, Barney. You needed help. You were alone in a shop with a dead body, a body that you had murdered. You, no one else. You didn't even need me for that. And I came to your rescue.'

'My mother helped me,' said Barney, gritting his teeth. The grip on his throat beginning to tighten. 'My mother, no one else.'

'Your mother? Your mother with six bodies in her freezer?' The tone turned harsh once more, the fingers squeezed. 'And who do you think was inside your mother? Who is in all evil? I didn't invent this stupid, pathetic little diamond smuggling operation. I didn't decide that one member of this worthless gang of thieves was going to kill all the others, but I am inherent in it all. I am in all evil. I
am
evil, Barney. You came to me for help and now it's time to pay back. For every crime, there is punishment.'

Barney stiffened his back, his shoulders, the look in his eye.

'No I fucking didn't,' he said slowly.

'Give in to it, Barney, a wondrous eternity awaits you. In Hell.'

Barney squeezed his eyes shut, tried to dredge something from the pits of his memory. He could never win this with strength.

His nose throbbed, his arms hung limply by his sides, he could barely breathe. The grip was tightening. He was being toyed with to the end.

'I have followed you around, Barney Thomson. You have reacted so well in the face of the grim realities of this awful life. I even brought you back when you were taken from me too soon. All those questions about your life to which you cannot find the answers, I am the answer, Barney.'

'Why now?' said Barney. Did he care, or was he just saying something, anything, to extend the agony?

'It's been ten years, Barney. Quite long enough, don't you think? The Bank of Hell doesn't like to wait too long before cashing in on its promises.'

Barney looked into the dark, bottomless eyes of Fyodor Dostoevsky. What was behind the mask? Maybe there was no mask.

'Too high a price is asked for evil,' said Barney, his voice a barely audible croak, battling against the tightening fist. 'It's beyond our means to pay so much to enter. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket...'

Barney took a sharp breath as the firm grasp relaxed a fraction. The masked head lay slightly to the side. Fyodor Dostoevsky stared at Barney with a vague look of curiosity. Then suddenly the grip of the fingers relaxed completely, the hand fell, and the latex face of the Russian novelist disintegrated into laughter. And yet, the eyes stayed on Barney the whole time. They kept their grip.

Barney, still pressed against the hull of the
Golden Cavalier III
, stared at him. Not knowing which way to think, knowing that there was still nowhere to go and that he remained at his whim.

The laughter switched off as quickly as it had started, replaced by a look, a strange mixture of suspicion and enthralment.

'You paraphrase?' he said coldly.

Barney nodded. All those years pointlessly studying the 19th century Germans and Russians hadn't necessarily been for nothing.

'Of course, I know you know that stuff,' said Dostoevsky, and he flicked his hand airily in the mist. 'Perhaps you have qualities that I never suspected in the beginning. Maybe I can wait a little longer. Delay the execution. Have a little more......fun.'

Barney looked at him, a look of contempt that he couldn't keep from his face. He didn't want a stay of anything. He wanted his absurd life resolved.

'Exactly,' said Dostoevsky, smiling. 'Why would I possibly give you what you want?'

The eyes flashed. He took a step back, away from Barney.

'And while we stood, so bold and energised, but five seconds have passed,' he said, and he snapped his fingers. 'Time to get back to work. Bilbo's the word, and slaughter will ensue!'

'That's not Dostoevsky,' said Barney.

The man in black put his hand to his own neck this time, the shoulders hunched lower, he seemed to shrink in stature.

'Who the fuck said I was Dostoevsky?'

He whipped the mask off and, for the briefest of seconds, a quick flash of horror in the fog, Barney Thomson was looking into the eyes and into the laughing face of his own, dead mother.

And in the blinking of an eye, she was gone, swallowed up by the mist.

***

T
he police collective pressed against the brick wall, breathing sharply, trying to control the fear.

'Bastards,' said Frankenstein eventually. 'They knew the subtext of this thing. We've been going up our own backsides for days trying to work it out, and they knew all along there'd been a fourth person on that boat. Diamond smuggling for fuck's sake.'

He was angry, angry at everyone, angry at the situation, angry that his life had been taken over by this preposterous killer on the rampage.

'We need to find this guy in the next two minutes,' he said, then he turned and looked along the line of unwilling lieutenants. 'I remember from this morning another door along here. Maybe an office or something.'

'Arf,' nodded Igor in agreement.

'Right. We go inside, get a light on, see if anything's doing, regroup.' He breathed deeply. Had no real gut feeling for what they should do, but had to do something. Another pause, a moment's hesitation, hoping perhaps that someone, anyone, was going to suggest something more constructive. 'Right, come on.'

He began to inch along the wall, Igor, Proudfoot and Semester in tow.