The Face Of Death (Barney Thomson) (6 page)

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A
few hours later, and cold morning had already turned to cold afternoon. Barney looked in the mirror. He was sitting in the room which he was due to vacate some time in the next hour or so – the housemaid had already been round once and would be back soon, badgering to get the sheets changed and the toilet paper recharged – studying his hair.

It was a competent job, nothing more than that. Adequate. No imagination had been invested in the cut, and little skill, but still, it was not in any way a shocker. It wasn't the work of a complete ham-fisted balloon with a pair of scissors, as he had first suspected he might receive when he'd walked into McGowan & Son. So, although it was within the wit of any barber to cut beneath their ability, the idea that it might have been Luke McGowan who visited the
Heaven's Gate
cuts on the four students seemed unlikely. It needn't necessarily be the case that the man who had cut the students' hair was the same man who had committed the murders, but it seemed likely. So, Barney was prepared to strike McGowan from the picture. Which left approximately five million other people in Scotland as suspects.

Barney wasn't really cut out to be a detective.

He had still to make up his mind if he was going to follow the hunch that had come to him like an angel before the shepherds at breakfast. He had made up his mind about one thing, however. The brown dye that had been put in his hair, and had slowly turned orange so that he looked like, well, an idiot, had to go. He had two choices. He either bought some dyeing agent from the local store and went about the business himself, or he went back to see McGowan, and this time accepted no less than the best.

He should have done it himself, but something was dragging him back to that shop. Either a weird kind of cosmic thing or, more likely, just the fact that it was any old barber shop and he hankered for the old days of only a few months previously, when he would have spent eight hours of his life at the chair, every working day of the year. While suddenly being presented with freedom and no responsibility, the things that so many might crave in this complicated world, he was finding himself unnerved and alone, in need of comfort and a rock to cling to. The local barber shop was the only rock he could think of.

So he finally walked downstairs to check out of the hotel, paying the bill in cash, thereby leaving himself barely enough money to see him through the rest of the week. He had made the decision to head for Inverness, get a small job wherever he could, keep his head down, get a room and live an anonymous existence until he could think of where he wanted to be in life.

He crossed the road and walked the few hundred yards to the barbershop, and this time he did not hesitate at the door. He intended getting his hair sorted, then he would walk out of Strathpeffer the way he had arrived, back down to the A835 and he would start walking the sixteen miles to Inverness. Maybe he would thumb a lift, and maybe he wouldn't bother.

He pushed the door open. The usual suspects turned and looked at him as he entered. This time, however, there was a man in the chair, the ubiquitous Detective Sergeant McLeod. Barney hesitated when he saw him, but the best way to guarantee suspicion at this stage would've been for him to turn his back. So he did his best to continue smoothly into the shop and took his place on the small row of seats opposite the barber chairs.

There were general nods between the men, although Igor, who was sweeping God knows what at the rear of the shop, viewed Barney with the greatest suspicion, wondering if he had come to ask for the return of the hair he'd had cut the day before. Well, thought Igor, you're not getting it.

'Arf,' he muttered under his breath.

'Oh, aye?' said Luke McGowan, looking at Barney in the mirror, having turned back to continue with McLeod's cut – a 15-Point Buckminsterfullerene, no less – 'what's all this?'

Barney indicated his hair with his eyes.

'Turned out ugly,' he said. 'That dye you used was a bit past it, eh?'

McGowan stopped and turned to look at him properly. He grunted an acknowledgement that Barney did indeed look like an idiot, then he resumed McLeod's cut, his scissors clicking sweetly in the quiet of the shop.

'So,' McGowan began, having been interrupted by Barney's arrival, 'the thing about the Impressionists was that none of them could actually paint. Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Michel Platini, Kelly LeBrock, Joie De Vivre, Christophe Lambert, none of them. It was all faked.'

'That right?' said McLeod. 'Who painted all those pictures then?'

'That's the thing,' said McGowan, 'that none of these bum fluffs who pay millions for the paintings actually know.'

He stopped talking while he stuck his tongue between his teeth as he attempted a particularly delicate operation around the left ear. McLeod was waiting with curiosity, his eyes stuck on McGowan's protruding tongue. Barney listened with raised eyebrow, Igor swept slowly, wishing he could contradict.

'It was,' said McGowan, knowing he had his audience reeled in, 'a wee fella in Glasgow by the name of Archie Potts. That's why all the paintings look the same.'

'That right?' said McLeod.

'Oh, aye,' said McGowan. 'And he also wrote
Ride of the Valkyries
,
Wuthering Heights
and the script for
Carry On Up The Khyber
. Very talented bloke. Could make a cake with the best of them as well, so they said.'

McLeod nodded, thinking that you learn something new every day. Barney said nothing. Neither did Igor.

Meanwhile a woman was running along the street outside, approaching very quickly, her breath coming in great heaving pants – which, as a wee aside, also describes her underwear – frantically looking for the local law enforcement.
Have you seen McLeod?
she would ask of anyone she passed, and gradually she was taking the magical mystery tour in the direction of the barbershop.

And so, as Luke McGowan was on the point of talking even more complete and utter drivel, the likes of which Barney would have been proud had he done it himself, the door to the shop was flung open, and Margaret Hutchinson, she of the heaving pants, stood breathlessly in the doorway, hardly able to speak, panic on her face, and the slightest sign of sick on her beige coat.

'Margaret,' said McLeod, 'what's happened?'

'Sergeant,' she said, gasping, 'it's the vicar.'

McLeod stood immediately, tearing the cape from around his neck – a bit of a Batman in reverse sort of affair. His hair, sadly, was only half complete, but sometimes when you're in law enforcement you just have to accept that you're going to look like a clown. That was why Superman was prepared to do the thing with his y-fronts on top of his leggings.

'What about him?' said McLeod.

'He's dead!' wailed Mrs Hutchinson. 'Murdered!' she ejaculated, at an even higher pitch.

'God!' said McLeod. 'Did you find the body?'

'Aye!' said the wailing woman. 'Just now. I'm in shock. Shock!'

McLeod put his arms around and hugged her tightly, bringing her head into his chest and touching her hair.

'Don't worry, Margaret,' he said. 'Leave this to me.'

She tried to say something, but only another great sob came from the back of her throat. The other three men in the shop stood and watched the little drama, thinking
, oh for goodness sake!
It wasn't as if any of them hadn't seen their fair share of dead bodies.

'When did you discover the body?' asked McLeod.

'Just now!' she wailed. 'Just now! I went round with Benjamin's shopping.'

McLeod pulled her away from his chest so that he could look her in the eye.

'I know you're in shock,' he said, 'but are you sure he was dead?'

'I don't know,' she blubbered. 'There was blood!'

'Did you establish time and cause of death? Was the murder weapon evident? Had there been a struggle? Do you think his killer left any DNA samples? What about fingerprints?'

She looked at him much as you would.

'Come on,' said Luke McGowan, grabbing his coat from the wall, 'the killer might still be there. Call it into Inverness and let's get round there. Come on, Igor!'

'Arf!' responded Igor eagerly.

'Right,' said McLeod. And in this moment of brief panic, when all that was required was a certain cool-headed rationale, an equanimity of spirit to mollify the situation, a serene tranquillity to ease the mind of the belaboured Mrs Hutchinson, mixed with a tranquil sang-froid, establishing control and putting the minds of the public at ease, Detective Sergeant McLeod was ably demonstrating why he was destined never to go any higher in law enforcement. He wasn't afraid of coming across the vicar's killer, not in the least; but he was absolutely crap in a crisis. 'Right,' he said again. 'You come with us,' he said to Barney, having no idea who he was, but thinking that collecting a group of able-bodied men might be the job.

Barney thought of objecting, but strangely didn't. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Right you are.'

Luke McGowan charged from the shop, Igor following behind. Barney looked at Mrs Hutchinson, wondering what was to become of her, but McLeod had a plan.

'Right, Margaret,' he said, 'you stay here and, eh, you know, cut anyone's hair if they come in.'

She looked mildly panicked at the suggestion – more at being left alone than having to cut anyone's hair, because after all, she was one of over three thousand townsfolk who were more able hairdressers than McGowan – but before she could voice an objection, McLeod had pushed Barney out of the door in front of him, and was already charging off in the direction of his car to radio in the news of the vicar's death.

The door closed behind him, and Margaret Hutchinson stood in the quiet of the shop, surrounded by dirty walls and a sepulchral stillness that she could call her own. She turned round, her breaths still coming jerkily, and looked at the photos of the stars and their hair, and the two tatty old barber chairs, and the cuttings from the head of Detective Sergeant McLeod.

The door opened.

Her heart leapt like a wounded bull into her mouth – she had actually had a wounded bull leap into her mouth on one occasion, and it'd been bloody painful. She swivelled on a sixpence and looked at the door. A young man stood there, looking confident and cool, but not in the least serial killer-ish. She put her hand to her heart – which was back where it belonged – and tried to calm down enough to speak.

'Can I get a haircut?' said the man.

'I suppose,' said Margaret Hutchinson. 'What would you like?'

'Oh,' he said, 'I was looking for a Zhang Chunqiao '76.'

Mrs Hutchinson breathed deeply and began to remove her coat. A glass of water and a few minutes chat before kicking off the cut, and she might be all right. The Zhang Chunqiao '76 was fairly straightforward.

'No problem,' she said. And the young fellow removed his coat and took his place in the chair by the mirror.

'So,' said Mrs Hutchinson, quickly taking on the necessary persona, 'you're a follower of Chinese politics? To be perfectly honest, I always thought that that Wang Hongwen was a bit of a bellend.'

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C
row and Cameron had not been long in Edinburgh. They found out what they needed to know, stopped for a quick sandwich, and sped back up the A9 at an average of somewhere approaching 140mph. Crow was booked twice for speeding, but other than that it was a smooth drive.

So, with the police radio on in the car, listening with detached curiosity to the workings of the Northern Constabulary, they were already almost back in Strathpeffer when the call came through from McLeod, looking for assistance at the house of the dead minister.

'Just in time,' said Crow, heading up the hill at Kinnahaird.

'Not for the fella who's dead,' said Cameron.

Crow did not reply, but kicked the car down into second and gunned the accelerator, on their way past a field of sheep.

*

M
cLeod ran into the vicar's house, followed by McGowan, Igor and a strangely disinterested Barney. Here we go, he was thinking, another murder scene.

Into the sitting room, and immediately it was evident that the Reverend Wilson had been dead for some time. His body was slumped into the settee, his face was blue, and a great deal of blood had dried on his face and across his dressing gown. Just as the blood on the wall above the television, where the face of death had been crudely drawn, had dried dull and lacklustre. McLeod stopped and quickly assessed the room, the vague panic and indecisiveness in his head slowing down, now that he mistakenly thought he wasn't going to have to fight any serial killers.

'Don't touch anything,' he said, looking round at the others and doing a calming thing with his hands. Already regretting getting them to come along. Guaranteed one of them would touch something and he'd get his backside booted all over the shop by the Chief Constable and a variety of ranks in between.

Wasn't about to touch anything
, thought Barney.
And implicate myself in murder?
thought McGowan.
I heard this guy had a cool selection of 11
^th
Century Californian lithographs
, thought Igor.
I might just have a quick look around before the SOCOs get here
.

There was a knock at the front door, there were a pair of contrasting footfalls, and then the sitting room door swung open. Presuming the reinforcements from Dingwall had arrived, McLeod turned round to be confronted by Earl Strachcaln and his wife, come to pay a visit to the Reverend Wilson on a matter of some embarrassment to the Earl.

Strathcaln stared at the curious scene, the four men and the vicar's corpse, his wife standing beside him dressed in tight-fitting blue, an unwilling visitor.

'Bugger me up the arse with a lollipop,' said Strathcaln. 'What's this?'

'He's dead, Jim,' said McLeod. 'Murdered last night, by the looks of it.'