The Barbershop Seven (246 page)

Monk was unaware of the lead car, the car containing Barney Thomson, Thomas Bethlehem and two of the most dangerous women to walk the face of God's Earth.

The hosts of the meeting, which was to be held in a small house overlooking a small loch in central Scotland, were already in place.

'Stirling cut off,' muttered Monk to herself, noticing the Audi veering away to its left.

She felt oddly nervous, could not place the source of her discomfort. Wondered what she would do if it turned out that the Archbishop was just heading off to the hills for a few days. At what point was she going to confront him and ask him exactly what he was up to?

She kept her eyes on the lights of the Audi up ahead and tried to switch off the concern. What would happen would happen, and she'd need to deal with it when it came.

***

A
s they drove on, one of the men in the lead car was getting a sense of where they were going, and it wasn't just the driver. Barney Thomson watched the dark countryside go by, no snow up here, as they cut off the M9 at Stirling and headed out towards Callander. He had been out this way before, seemingly centuries earlier, almost in another life. There seemed an inevitability about his life, that in some way it was coming full circle. This wasn't quite where it had all started, that would have been in the dingy little barbershop in Partick, but this place held dark memories, a place that still haunted him after all these years.

There were several towns they could be going to, several hotels at which they might stop, but he knew it would be none of them. They were heading out past Callander, on the road to Loch Lubnaig.

He didn't know who was controlling all this, and he was positive it wasn't Thomas Bethlehem, but of the two women who were travelling with him, one of them he felt sure was a brutal, sadistic and entirely cold-hearted killer, while the other ... . well, the other was much, much more unpleasant.

'Where are we going?' asked Bethlehem suddenly. He had been staring blankly out of the window, letting the dreary night speed by, lost in thought. There had been no conversation since the car journey had started. 'What was wrong with the hotel in Glasgow?'

Sweetlips glanced at him, gave a small shrug. Barney noticed a rare look of puzzlement. Sweetlips knew no better than Bethlehem.

'I chose it,' said Bergerac, not looking at Bethlehem. 'A neutral venue in an out of the way facility.'

'Facility?' said Bethlehem. 'We hanging out with the military?'

'It's a hut,' replied Bergerac tersely.

Bethlehem shrugged. Immune to the tone. Looked back out of the window at the dark grey of evening. Barney felt drawn to look at Bergerac. He stared at the pale, smooth skin of her beautiful cheeks, the perfect red of her lips. Could not take his eyes from her. And even though she wasn't looking at him, he could tell that she knew he was staring. He wanted to look away, but it was as though she had him in some kind of mind lock, and the beauty that held his gaze was terrible.

Suddenly Barney felt himself being drawn down a dark tunnel, his mind hurtling through black space. He closed his eyes, but he was still in the same place, travelling at a thousand miles an hour, the dark black of his life flashing past.

The vision closed in. Barney was standing in the barber's shop in Partick, where he had plied his trade for over twenty years. It had been a decade and a lifetime since he'd left, but he remembered every corner, every pair of scissors, every nick out of every chair, every scuff mark on the floor, every unsold can of Brylcreem that had sat sadly on a shelf for fifteen years.

He felt something on his chest and looked down. His shirt was covered in some strange red substance that looked like blood, but couldn't be. How could his shirt be suddenly covered in blood? And then he noticed what was lying on the floor at his feet.

A body. The body of Wullie Henderson, his old boss, a pair of scissors buried in his stomach. Wullie was dead, by Barney's hand.

He looked around the shop, glanced at the time. 5:07pm. It was dark outside, the blinds were drawn. Barney could feel a growing sense of panic, but not at being suddenly thrust into the netherworld of his past. The panic came from knowing that he was going to have to do something about the body lying at his feet, and quickly too.

He staggered away from the body, his mind racing, his heart thumping. What did you do with a dead body? He had no idea. How was he supposed to know what to do in these circumstances?

Phoning the police made sense, but he knew that they wouldn't believe he hadn't meant to kill Wullie. Phoning the police would be the equivalent of going down to the travel agents to book a ten year holiday in a prison of his choice. Phoning the police would be insane.

He needed help, but he had no one to ask. Even if he did, how could he drag anyone into this mess of his own doing?

'Barney,' said a voice away to his right. A calm, reassuring voice.

He turned. There was a woman sitting in the corner. Long brown hair, her legs crossed. Beautiful lips, pale skin. Up until now Barney had remembered everything, had a sense of déjà vu about proceedings. But not this. This was new.

'Who are you?' he asked. 'The police?'

She smiled, a warm reassuring smile.

'Not the police, Barney. The police won't help you, will they? I can help.'

Barney stared at her. He couldn't remember this at all.

'How can you help?' he asked. 'Take the body away?'

'Oh no, you have to do that yourself. But I can give you advice, make sure things go a little more smoothly than they might otherwise.' She smiled again. The look on her face became a little more wicked. 'Turn heads,' she added.

Barney could feel his throat dry, his breath catching. He looked over his shoulder, wondered if there was anyone outside. Turned back to the woman in the corner. She was now sitting at a desk, a parchment in front of her, a pen lying at its side.

'All you have to do is sign this,' she said, indicating the parchment.

Barney walked over and glanced down at the piece of paper. It was blank. He looked fearfully up into the eyes of the woman.

'What am I signing?' he asked.

'Do you want my help or not?' she asked, the voice suddenly with a bitter edge.

Barney looked down at the blood on his shirt, turned back and stared at the body of Wullie Henderson on the floor.

'I have nothing to give,' said Barney, turning back.

The woman had become harder. The beauty was fading.

'We all have something to give, Barney Thomson,' she said, and this time the voice sounded much deeper, much more menacing, and suddenly Barney knew. His soul. He was trading his soul in order to get out of this mess, to get out of the tricky problem created by accidentally stabbing his boss in the chest with a pair of scissors.

It's hard to get a grasp on eternity as a concept, especially when faced with the difficulties of the present.

He lifted the pen, held it over the paper for a second, and then began to scrawl his name. There was no ink. He stopped and looked at her, curious, despairing. He just wanted this to be over with.

She leaned over, took the pen, and gently pressed the nib against Barney's chest. The pen immediately began to draw up the blood.

'You can sign using the blood of your victim,' she said, holding the pen back to him. 'Fitting, don't you think?'

Barney took the pen, stared at the drop of red blood hanging on the nib, then leaned forward and slowly signed his name. He glanced up at the woman. She was gone. The parchment signed, she had instantly disappeared. As had the desk, the parchment and the pen from Barney's hand.

He turned and looked at the body, glanced back over his shoulder. He felt sure that there had been something there a second ago, but the memory of it was completely gone.

'Come on,' said the voice in his head, 'you have to get a move on. Now, here's where you start.'

The voice rattled out instructions, and Barney Thomson got to work clearing up the detritus of the first instance of accidental murder in his life.

Barney shuddered and opened his eyes. Stared straight at Bergerac, who was now sitting with her head resting back on the chair, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open. It looked like she might be about to start snoring, but it was impossible to imagine Taylor Bergerac snoring.

Barney took his eyes from her and looked out of the window. The dark forest flew by, as they headed away from Callander, having passed quickly through.

He looked at his own dim reflection in the window. The scene from the shop, the memory that he did not actually remember, now stamped on his brain.

The voice, he remembered it well. The common sense and clear-cut decision making that had come from nowhere. At the time he'd had no idea how on Earth he had managed to acquire it, but now he knew. Now he knew that all those things the man in the Fyodor Dostoevsky mask had told him two years previously had been true.

The voice had come at a terrible cost.

––––––––

I
t was almost time for the formal signing of the papers; centuries of mistrust and suspicion about to be swept away in one dramatic gesture. It was a moment to be written in the history books, a moment that could so easily have been accompanied by the most splendid pageantry; however, all the interested parties had agreed that for this ever-increasingly secular society, low key was best.

When the formal announcement was made to Parliament and the public, there would be outrage, no question. There would be old legislation brought out and quoted and re-quoted. There would be arguments in the Lords and in the Commons and in the press and on the streets, in village halls and churches and in pubs. People would argue and fight, because that's what people did. In reality, however, they'd be no more interested than they were in that week's reality TV show, be it dancing, surviving, singing or living in a house.

The men and women sitting around the table, however, had to believe that this was more important than
Celebrity Get Me To The Toilet!

There were ten people sitting round the table in their little factions. Noticeably, the largest contingent was from the marketing agency, the people who would try selling the new religious product to Britain, and the rest of the Anglican world.

The implication was obvious; it didn't really matter what decisions the meeting would come to, it was how they were sold that was important.

Given that of the four marketing people, one of them was there to make serious mischief, one was there to commit murder, and one of them was Barney Thomson, it seemed inevitable that there would be a certain underachievement in their performance.

The Anglican Church delegation of three was headed by rogue archbishop, Middlesex, acting without the knowledge of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but with the support of the Prime Minister and of many bishops in England and around the world.

The hosts of the meeting were another three-man team, representing the Catholic church in Rome. The Archbishop of Argyll, the unacknowledged Head of the Church in the UK, his principal private secretary, the man who had so far been conducting the negotiations on his behalf, and a representative from the Vatican, Bishop Carlonni.

The factions were getting themselves together. Argyll's PPS had just delivered the tea and biscuits to the table. Bethlehem was standing at the window, looking down on the dark waters of Loch Lubnaig. He'd been a little surprised by the location, but recognised that these were delicate matters and that secrecy and the utmost discretion were required.

'Perhaps we should call the meeting to order, gentlemen,' said Argyll.

Bethlehem turned and nodded, and took his place at the table, sitting in between Harlequin Sweetlips and Taylor Bergerac. Barney Thomson was on the other side of Bergerac, aware that his insides were empty, and that he had been gripped by an overwhelming and crushing weight of gloom.

'A pleasure to meet you at last,' said Argyll, looking at Middlesex with anything but pleasure. 'You can assure the meeting that you are here on the right authority?'

Middlesex nodded.

'Yes, I have the paperwork in place. I am here by the wishes of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And while you know that we do not yet have full parliamentary approval, we can assure you that this will be directly forthcoming, pursuant to a successful outcome to this meeting.'

'And Her Majesty the Queen?' asked Argyll.

Middlesex stared at the table and when he raised his head his eyes held a look of malicious intent.

'She will do as she is told, as always.'

'Good,' said Argyll.

He looked around the room, could not stop his eyes lingering on Sweetlips and Bergerac, even though he tried not to. Finally he turned to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem held his gaze. Sweetlips had been his principal negotiator on the contract. Bergerac had somehow inveigled herself along, and if he was honest, he had paid Barney Thomson to come because the man had worried him, and he thought it better to keep him in his sights.

'There seem to be a lot of you,' said Argyll.

'You are about to tell the Anglican church and all its members that they are to be re-united with Rome and once more come under the umbrella of the Vatican. We would have an easier time selling sand in Egypt. I thought it necessary.'

Argyll grunted.

'There will be a storm in a media tea cup, and all sorts of people who are not stakeholders in the situation, but who want to shout their mouths off, will do so. Eventually, however, time will pass, the Anglican church will re-align itself completely behind us, and things will fall into place. These are secular times. The time has come for the Christian church to regroup, to put down new roots and new foundations, so that it might once again begin to grow.'

'A time for old alliances to be renewed,' said Bethlehem.

Argyll raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Middlesex nodded.

Argyll's PPS pushed three copies of a thick document across the table towards Middlesex. One of Middlesex's party reached out and placed the documents in front of Middlesex.