Murderers Anonymous (8 page)

'Fair point. Anyway, I'm all of those people, all of them. I've got about three regular customers left and one of them's so short-sighted the daft bastard can't see what a mess I'm making of his head. I don't know you from Adam, son. I just know your name, and you might be that bloody murdering eejit who disappeared up in the Highlands, 'cause they say he could cut a mean hair or two, I don't know, but you look to me like a hell of a barber. I'll up your wages if I can, and help you out with the Jimmy Stewarts, and I'll leave the rest to you. You're the boss. How about it?'

Barney looked over at Leyman Blizzard. The expression on his face betrayed his astonishment. How many years in Henderson's had he searched in vain for such recognition? How many times in the distant past at that shop had he completed some masterpiece, only to see his work ignored, his genius disregarded, so that eventually his confidence had gone and he had become the bitter pursuivant of mediocrity? And now, after just three haircuts, there was a man willing to reward him for doing a good job. It was as if he had found the father figure he had been missing all these years.

'I'd like that very much, Mr Blizzard,' he said. 'That'd be brilliant.'

'Stoatir,' said the old man. 'And you can call me Leyman.'

They exchanged a glance. A special bond had been created. It was if he were Skywalker to Leyman Blizzard's Yoda. That is, if Yoda had been absolutely shite at cutting hair.

'Here,' said the lad, having found his tongue with the denunciation of Steve Archibald, 'is your name Barney Thomson?'

Barney nodded, now flowing smoothly through the Elvis
Girls, Girls, Girls
.

'Aye, it is,' he said.

'Bit of a coincidence that. I mean, you being a barber 'n' all?'

Barney Thomson looked down at the lad and took a moment. He turned to Leyman Blizzard, looked around the small barber's shop which had become his new home – the two chairs, the small bench, yesterday's newspapers and five-month-old Sunday Post supplements, and no concessions to Christmas but for the picture of a former Spice Girl, naked but for a discreetly placed bit of tinsel, on the cover of the Mirror – had a glance out of the large windows of the shopfront at the miserable December rain sweeping in off the Clyde, then looked once more at his customer. A shiver eased its way down his spine. All this time stranded in some sort of pointless emasculation, thinking that his only real choice was to hand himself in and face the vicious music of public scorn, when it had proved the simplest thing in the world to walk back into the old ways. The simplest thing in the world. He was back doing what he always loved; he had the same name; he had changed in all sorts of ways, but still he was the same man; and yet he might as well have been someone completely different.

'Not really,' he said. 'Actually I'm the real Barney Thomson.'

The lad caught his eye in the mirror to see if he was being serious, then smiled.

'Aye, right,' he said, 'I bet you say that to all the birds.'

Jade Weapon opened fire with her submachine-gun, riddling the bathroom door with holes and pumping the Russian agent, cowering behind, full of hot lead.

'Come on, Malcolm. Do you really want to be in there all day?'

'I want to be in here for the rest of my life. Why don't you just leave me alone? I want to get some sleep.'

'Your mum and dad are really worried. You don't want to do that to them, do you?'

'I've made your favourite, Malcolm! Mince!'

'I hate mince!'

Detective Sergeant Erin Proudfoot turned round to Malcolm Reid's mother and waved at her to keep quiet. Matters were at a delicate stage. At any moment, he could flush his sister's pet hamster, Huey, down the toilet. This was no time to be talking of mince.

Proudfoot looked at her watch. She had been here for nearly half an hour. Called out to a domestic; could have been anything. Assault; battery; arson; noisy neighbours; murder, even; or it could have been a noxious fourteen-year-old, locked in the bathroom, threatening to flush his sister's only pet down the toilet if he didn't get to go to Big Angus's party that Friday night. Had turned out to be the last on the list.

It was never like this on
Cagney & Lacey
, she thought. Well, maybe in one episode.

What would Jade Weapon, star of the erotic crime thrillers with which she had been filling her spare time at the office, do? Kill someone; sleep with someone else; cause mayhem and damage and be home in time for g&t and three-in-a-bed sex. But Jade Weapon never had to deal with people like this. The mundane, real world.

'Look, Malcolm, it's not about the hamster. Just let Huey go and then we can talk some more,' she said. Mrs Reid gripped her by the arm as she said it. Can't believe I'm saying this crap, thought Proudfoot.

'Naw!' he shouted, and there was an edge to his voice. Margaret Reid gasped. She knew the tone. The same tone he'd used just before he'd tipped his sister's maggot collection into a fish-pond.

'He's getting serious,' she said frantically.

Proudfoot glanced over her shoulder. Delivered her best
Back off or I'll arrest you for being a bloody idiot
look.

Margaret Reid recognised it, for she had in the past been arrested for being a bloody idiot, and backed off.

'I'm not going anywhere till she says it's all right for me to go to the party. Big Angus gives brilliant parties. She's got one more minute or the hamster gets it. I'm serious.'

One minute or the hamster gets it
. Fuck me, thought Proudfoot. It's come to this. I know what Jade Weapon would do, she thought. She'd boot the door in, kick the stupid little bampot's head in, then ram the damned hamster up his backside.

'Come on, Malcolm. It's not even about Big Angus's party, is it?'

She could almost see him thinking through the bathroom door.

'What d'you mean?'

Fine. So maybe it wasn't about Big Angus's party. It didn't mean she actually had a clue what it was about. But then, not in a million years could she have cared.

It had been a long year for Erin Proudfoot, since she and Joel Mulholland had set the notorious Barney Thomson free, and had then engaged in the angry hostilities of romance. A bloody case, the mental scars of which had dominated the few months of their desperate, passionate, bitter relationship, when everything from marriage to suicide had been considered.

Six months now since Mulholland had imploded and disappeared up the west coast somewhere – not a card or a letter – leaving her behind in solitary meltdown. Still she saw her psychiatrist four times a week; still her psychiatrist told the superintendent not to put her anywhere near real criminal activity; and still he lied to her about it, and she imagined she was in better mental health than she was. Occasionally she pondered Mulholland's whereabouts, but she'd made no effort to go after him.

She knew he'd gone a little – or completely – insane himself. She'd heard tell, but just rumour and gossip around the station. But whatever feeling had been there was now gone.

And so there had been a couple of flings in the interim, but her scars had brought to her an intensity that her lovers could not handle. Buxton had been one, another of the CID sergeants. A few evenings, then one night, and she'd scratched his back so that the sheets had been soaked with blood; and that had been that. Then there'd been the idiot she'd met outside the Disney shop in the St Enoch's centre. He'd thought he was picking her up, while all the time it had been the other way round. Again he'd been quick to her bed, but when her nails had been unleashed and she'd cried 'Havoc!' and let rip the dogs of war, he'd crumbled and cracked and off he'd gone, tail between his legs to mourn the death of femininity.

'It's about your parents, Malcolm. I know that.'

'What d'you mean?' said the mother. 'What d'you mean?'

Proudfoot looked at her and shrugged. 'He's a teenager,' she said.

'Might be,' came the small voice from the bathroom.

The mother gave Proudfoot a concerned glance, then looked pleadingly at the blue bathroom door.

'We love you, son, we really do.'

'How can you, Maw, you called me Malcolm? I mean, what kind of name is Malcolm? It's a crap name.'

'That was your father,' she said.

Proudfoot rolled her eyes.
Beam me up, Mr Worf, and take me away from here forever.

'It's a name of kings, Malcolm,' said Proudfoot. 'A name of kings.'

There was hefty pause from within. The wheels were in motion; smoke appeared from under the bathroom door.

'Who?' he said eventually. 'What kings were called Malcolm?'

She held her head in her hands. If I had a gun, she started to think, but she had been told four times a week for the past year to fight those thoughts. You won't rid Sutherland from your mind by killing people yourself, she was continually being told. Maybe, she thought; maybe not.

'Malcolm I, Malcolm II, Malcolm III. They were all called Malcolm.'

'Who were they?' he asked. His mother looked at Proudfoot as if she was mad, and she was not far off. 'I mean, what country were they kings of?'

'Scotland, Malcolm, they were kings of Scotland. A long time ago, maybe, but that's the pedigree of the name your parents gave you.'

'Pedigree? You mean, like the dog food?' said Malcolm.

Proudfoot stared at the floor. Imagined the headlines.
Crazed Police Sergeant Sets Hamster Free as Mother and Son Die in Hail of Bullets.

'It's a beautiful name, Malcolm. An ancient, regal, royal name of kings.'

No immediate riposte. She could hear him thinking. The good and the bad of emerging from his hideout running through his mind. And then, after the pause, the inevitable.

The lock clicked, the door to the bathroom slowly swung open, and Malcolm Reid stood framed in the sunlight which streamed through the bathroom window. It highlighted wisps of hair around his head; it almost looked as if he had a halo; he was dressed in a long white bathrobe; on his face was the fustiest of fusty little goatees.

He stood with his arms spread at his side, the palms of his hands facing forward; staring at his mother.

'Is that right, Maw?' he said. 'Is that right? Did you name me after the kings?'

'Where's Huey?' she said in response, as he emerged farther from the light, and the halo faded.

'He's under my bed,' he said. 'I was making it all up. I never even had him in there. Was I really named after a king, Maw?'

'You little bastard!'

Time to go, thought Proudfoot, and she was already on her way down the stairs. If there was going to be a domestic assault, she could let it happen; then if someone got called out to it, it wouldn't be her, because they didn't let her near anything physical.

'You were named after your Uncle Malcolm, and he was a bloody eejit 'n' all!' she heard Margaret Reid cry as she reached the bottom step, and with more words of anger in the air, she was at the front door and out into the street.

She stood for a second looking up at the high, grey clouds, the sun poking through in inappropriate places. Took a moment, had a few thoughts. One day at a time, one pointless crime at a time. Crime? Not even that. When was the last time she'd been allowed anywhere near a crime?