The Long Midnight Of Barney Thomson (10 page)

He walked up the road to where his car was parked, giving a small prayer that it had been returned that morning, and reversed it back down the road so that it was directly outside the door. Opened the boot, took another few furtive looks over his shoulder, went back into the shop.

He looked around once again in the near dark, the light from the street throwing strange shadows into the corners; a final check to make sure that everything was normal; turned his attention to the plastic bags. First of all he attempted to lift the body onto his shoulder, a task at which he completely failed. Resigned himself to dragging it along the floor. Lifted the bags firmly at one end, making sure to grab the body through the plastic so as not to tear it, and started walking backwards out of the shop, into the murk and the drizzle, pulling the dead weight.

'Oh, hello there, Barney, how are you?'

For about the fifteenth time in an hour Barney's heart pushed vigourously against the restraining tissue around it.

He looked up. Charlie Johnstone, one of the shop's regulars. Shit, shit, shit. Why hadn't he checked the road again before he'd dragged the body out? Too impetuous.

He lowered the body to the ground, stood to look at Charlie. Fully expected him to say at any second, 'Here, is that not Wullie inside those bags there?'

'Oh, eh, hello Charlie. How's it going?'

Potential crisis point. Charlie stopped to chat.

'Ach, not so bad, not so bad. Mind you, these headaches I've been getting are an absolute nightmare, so they are. They're killing me. And Betty, Betty, well, you don't want to ask about her.' Shook his head a few times and then continued before Barney had the chance not to ask about Betty. 'Awful trouble with yon trapped nerve in her shoulder, so she has. Awful trouble. Aye, and she had a bit of bother with her eye, you know, her cataract, but I suppose we've been lucky really, and I shouldn't complain...'

Barney felt compelled to interrupt, even if it meant drawing attention to what he was dragging from the shop. The longer he stood there, the more chance there would be for a police car to drive by; a police car with a corpse detector.

'Look, I'm sorry Charlie, but I'm in a bit of a hurry here.'

'Oh, aye, aye. Sorry about that.'

He looked down, saw for the first time what Barney was dragging out of the shop. A look of curiosity passed fleetingly across his face. Applied his hands to his sides, widening his stance.

'Here, that looks like a bloody big thing, so it does. D'you want a hand with that?'

Barney shook his head. Groaned inside. 'Eh, no, no, it's fine, I'm all right, thanks.'

He bent to lift the sack, making sure to grab hold of the body again, while Charlie watched. There was little concealing the act now, so he decided to get on with it and hope that an arm, or some other appendage, did not spring free. As he did so, he began to think of another eventuality. What to do with Charlie if he realised what was going on. There were still plenty of pairs of scissors in the shop.

He pulled the sack to the edge of the pavement, laid it behind the car. Stared at it, wondering if he was going to be able to lift it up over the high edge of the boot. Charlie bustled over.

'Here, let me help you with that. Looks bloody heavy, whatever it is.'

Barney shrugged, felt the tightness in his chest. He had to accept the offer, began to make mental preparations for taking care of Charlie, should the need arise. For how could he fail to realise what it was that he was lifting into the boot? Maybe he should just go back into the shop and return with a pair of scissors, embed them in some suitable part of Charlie's body and then bundle his corpse into the boot as well.

Closed his eyes, breathed deeply. Felt the tremble all over his body. Hands shook.

He looked into the boot. Never. There was never enough room to put two bodies in there. The back seat then. He cast an eye over his shoulder to see if there was anyone abroad who might see what was going on.

Charlie studied the black bags, gently kicked them. Used to play wing-half for Queen's Park. Long time ago. God, thought Barney, surely he must realise that this is Wullie, or a body of some description. He must.

'Look, just a minute Charlie,' said Barney, taking another look up the road, 'I've got to get something from the shop. I'll just be a second.'

He walked quickly back through the door, lifted the first pair of scissors which came to hand at his own workplace, then returned to the street. Half expected to find Charlie kneeling beside the bags, tearing them apart to reveal Wullie's dead face, contorted in perpetual wonder. Barney prepared to wield the scissors.

However, Charlie stood alone, staring up the street, idly whistling some aimless tune. Might have been Verdi, might have been Manic Street Preachers, might have been Bob Dylan. Barney slipped the scissors into his pocket. There was no need to do anything stupid yet.

Charlie turned to him and smiled. 'Wullie's not in the shop is he, letting us two do all the work?'

Barney swallowed, tried to smile, didn't answer.

'Right then, you ready Charlie?'

'Aye, aye.'

The two men grabbed the ends of the bags and, with some effort, managed to lift them up, shovelling them over the edge of the car and into the boot. The bags at Charlie's end started to tear but the body slumped down into the boot before anything was revealed. It came to rest with the feet at Barney's side still protruding over the edge, and he had to bend the legs to fit the whole thing in – the body already less pliable than he thought it would be.

They were both breathing hard as Barney quickly closed the boot to prevent Charlie looking at the bags any further.

'Bloody hell, Barn, what was that thing? Jings, it felt like a body or something.'

Barney coughed loudly, attempting to cover up the involuntary splutter. Automatically his hand drifted into his pocket, his fingers fell on the cold steel of the scissors. Cold, cold steel.

'Oh, it's eh, it's just some rubbish, you know, that we've collected, and I'm taking it to the dump.'

Charlie smiled and nodded. Simple Charlie. Used to play wing-half for Queen's Park.

'Rubbish? Bloody heavy rubbish, Barney. I don't know what kind of rubbish you collect in that shop.' Gave Barney a wink and a nudge. 'Sure you haven't been having arguments with Wullie or Chris, eh?'

Barney tightened his grip on the scissors. 'Don't be daft,' he said, attempting a smile. 'It's just, well you know, stuff.'

Charlie winked extravagantly again. 'Aye, right. Stuff. Your secret's safe with me, son.'

Barney nodded, grimaced slightly. Thought: God Barney, the guy's joking, he doesn't realise anything. But the hand in his pocket was ready to strike. He looked up the road, the coast was clear. The opportunity was there. Wait. Just wait to see of he said anything else.

'Thanks for your help, Charlie. I've really got to be going now.'

Charlie had the collar of his jacket pulled high up over his neck, so that was one point of entry removed. The eye socket, that would be a sure-fire place to do it.

'Aye, aye, all right. I'll be seeing you, Barney,' and with a wave he walked off towards the main street. Barney watched him go, his whole body aching with relief.

'Here, Barney,' said Charlie from the end of the street, 'Wullie's not in the shop, is he, I was needing to speak to him?'

Barney didn't answer. He couldn't. He stood and stared, feeling the rain on his face. Charlie waited a second for the reply, and when he didn't get it, he waved and disappeared around the corner.

Barney groaned, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Charlie hadn't realised anything. There had been no hint of suspicion about him. Nothing.

As he walked back into the shop to return the scissors, the phone started ringing again. He gave a little jump. Whoever it was, he was in no mood to talk. He quickly left the shop and locked the door behind him. There was a lot of thinking to be done.

*

He drove home as calmly as he could. He was not relaxed, however; his steering was wayward, his gear changes were edgy, and his avoidance of old people crossing the road, at best, uncertain. His thoughts were consumed with what he was going to do with the body. And as he drove the short distance home, he resolved to tell Agnes. He would have to. He needed someone to talk to, and if he could trust anyone, surely it was her. And perhaps she might even have body disposal experience that he was unaware of, he reasoned to himself.

He arrived home, parked the car outside, left the bloody booty of his misfortune congealing in the back and tramped upstairs. When he walked into the sitting room, his dinner was waiting patiently and cold on the table, while Agnes watched television.

He removed his jacket and stood in the centre of the room, his clothes soiled with blood, a look of grim desperation on his face. A chainsaw would not have looked out of place in his hands.

'There you are. Where've you been? Your dinner's been ready for ages,' said Agnes, without looking round. Blane and Liberty were getting married and everyone was waiting for Sobriety to object.

He stood for a second before answering, waiting to see if she would turn to look at him, something which under normal circumstances he would've known she would never do.

It rose within him, a pressure cooker waiting to explode, until he could keep it in no longer. 'I've killed Wullie,' he blurted out.

Agnes gasped. It wasn't Sobriety who'd objected. It was Bleach.

'Yes, dear,' she said finally, after coming to terms with the fact that Bleach was pregnant by Blane, when everyone had believed that she'd been artificially inseminated with Rock's semen.

'Are you not listening to me? I've killed Wullie!' His voice had become a desperate plea for help.

'Oh, aye, dear? What did you do that for?'

He took a step nearer to her. She wasn't looking at him, but maybe she was listening at last. 'I didn't mean to. It was an accident. I swear to God, I didn't mean to.'

Agnes briefly turned and looked at him. 'Don't worry, dear, I'm sure he'll have forgotten all about it in the morning.'

Barney dropped to his knees, put his hands to his face. Finally, the magnitude of what had happened was coming to him, the idiocy of what he'd done. He had killed a man. Maybe not intentionally, but he had killed him, and now he was plotting to dispose of the body. Whatever trouble he'd been in when he'd started had now increased a hundred fold.

Why had he not just phoned the police and explained what had happened? Nobody would have suspected him of murder, why should they have? He was known as a reasonable man. Just because he'd been about to lose his job was no reason for him to kill anyone.

He started sobbing, loud retches coming from deep within, his chest heaving and the tears tumbling down his face. He bent over, putting his forehead to the floor, started banging his hands on the carpet. With no force, however, just a quiet, pathetic gesture of desperation. The first time he had cried since the death of his father.

'Shh!' Agnes waved a desultory hand, as she turned the volume of the television up with the other. Lance and Billy Bob were arguing over which one of them had first refusal on Flame.

Barney quietened down, but remained on the floor, sobbing softly, his head in his hands. Then slowly, a small voice began to come to him, a small instinctive voice nudging at his subconscious. The small voice which everyone hears whenever there is a problem which they cannot resolve. 'Go to your mum,' it was saying. 'Go to your mum.'

Maybe that was right, maybe that was the thing to do. She'd been almost gung-ho about killing the two of them, perhaps she would know what to do now. It seemed ridiculous, but he needed help, advice at the very least, and it wasn't as if he had too many options. He would go to see his mother.

He struggled to his feet, looking sadly at the back of Agnes's head, then trudged into the bedroom. He changed his clothes and put the blood stained ones into a plastic bag, which he secreted at the bottom of the wardrobe. He walked back into the sitting room, a sense of purpose having crept unawares back into his stride.

'I'm going to my mother's.'

'Yes, dear.'

And as Barney walked from the house, Charity and Monogamy were trying to pick a dress for Cerease to wear to the christening of Cream and Hamper's daughter, Tupperware
.

10

Forgive Me, Mother,

For I Have Sinned

There is a time of definition in the life of every man when the pieces fall together or events take place to shape the future. It might happen suddenly or it might be a gradual process, a build up of things over weeks or months. Sometimes when it occurs he will be unaware that it is doing so, until one day he looks back and realises that his life has altered completely, for better or worse. It could be that he has fallen in love. It could be that some outside event changes his whole attitude to life, so that he views everything from a different perspective, and then indeed is life new. It could be that someone dies, creating a hole in his life that cannot be filled. It could be a new job, or a new car, or a new interest of any kind. Or it could be that he accidentally stabs his boss to death with a pair of scissors.

Barney's life was changing, he knew it was happening, and there was nothing he could do about it. He tried telling himself that this was what he'd wanted, that he had planned to kill Wullie anyway, but deep down he knew there was no way that he'd have been able to do it, had not fate forced his hand. And now he prepared to turn to his mother. Forty-six years old and still the same solution to his problems as he had had forty-four years previously when he'd broken a toy or spilled tomato ketchup on his bib.

He was still contemplating the fickle hand he'd been dealt when he walked into his mother's house. He called out to announce his arrival, a shout which was, as usual, greeted by silence. He could hear the television playing in the sitting room and imagined she would be engrossed in some dreadful quiz show.