The Wormwood Code Read online

  He wanted to place a call to George right now and discuss the plans to invade Iran.

  'Any of them mention my teeth?' he asked.

  Williams rolled his eyes. Thackeray glanced at the front pages, although he knew there was nothing there to see.

  'You only get personally headlined in the Telegraph, in connection with the pensions issue.'

  'Pensions,' the PM said, muttering darkly. He turned and looked from one of his men to the other. 'Suppose the serial killer made more front pages than I did?'

  Thackeray nodded.

  'That's what grabs the news, isn't it? That's why George has got the right idea, sending his troops in all over the place. Murder, death and fear, that's what people want to read about. Maybe I'd get more press if I sent all those troops back to Ireland.'

  'No!' said Thackeray and Williams together.

  'I suppose,' said the PM. 'Peace in our time, and all that. Any chance of a doughnut?'

  0856hrs

  The cleaner knocked on the door again. The 'Do Not Disturb' sign had been up for three days now, the room had been paid for until the end of May and yet she had a bad feeling. She'd been getting the shivers every time she walked past the room, and even though she had been told by management that it was none of her business, and that the sign meant what it said, the strange mixture of curiosity and fear had taken hold of her imagination. It ran in the family, down through the women in her mother's side. Some sort of psychic ability, which most of them had tried to ignore in recent generations. But she couldn't deny that it was there, she couldn't deny the feelings of unease which she felt each time she passed a place of sadness or despair. And she had a feeling about this bedroom.

  She knocked again, and then finally, her hands shaking, looking nervously up and down the corridor, she took the key from her pocket and put it in the lock. She tentatively opened the door and stuck her head round to look into the room.

  A small room, large double bed taking up most of the space. TV in the corner, playing one of those awful makeover shows; Changing Rooms In The Toilet or Newsnight In The Garden. An armchair positioned in front of the TV, its back turned to the door. She could just see the top of a blue woollen hat, and a pale hand resting on the arm of the chair. She swallowed, knew already that the person was dead.

  'Hello?' she said nervously. 'Hello. Are you all right?'

  The corpse of Ramone MacGregor was silent.

  The cleaner, Juniper Lopez, had all the symptoms of near panic – racing heart, dry mouth, cold sweat, shivers, shakes, the hairs on her head standing to attention, everything – yet felt herself more and more drawn into the room. She had no thought of turning round and getting help, even though she now knew she had seen enough to alert hotel management.

  'Mr?' she asked, stepping slowly forwards. She swallowed again, but her mouth and throat were dry, harsh.

  Deep breath, doing everything to conquer the fear which gripped her, a fear so much greater than any of the myriad phobias which plagued her life. Spiders, flying, confined spaces, crowds, open spaces, chips served with pasta. She edged nearer to the chair, moving away to the side, pressed against the bed, as far away as she could. Stopped again, another deep breath, steeled herself, closed her eyes, and then she walked quickly round, turned about a yard in front of the chair. She hesitated, and then finally she opened her eyes and looked down at the body of Ramone MacGregor.

  0859hrs

  Barney Thomson trudged along the road, hands thrust deep in his pockets, head bowed to the grey morning drizzle. Igor walked beside him, Donkey to Barney's Shrek. They were on their way for their first meeting with the Prime Minister. No big deal. Politically perhaps he was the most important person Barney had ever met, but that was like saying that someone was the most important maker of jelly that he'd ever met. Who cared?

  Barney turned his head sharply at the sound of a scream, a distant sound, yet one so full of terror and fear, so piercing and ominous and loud, he stared up the length of the street for half a minute, as the noise from almost two blocks away filled the dull morning air. Igor gazed at him quizzically, following his look. He heard nothing, yet he felt the sense of fear and horror and dread. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the terrible noise abruptly ended, and the city seemed to return to normal. The cars, the motorbikes, the chatter of pedestrians. Barney stood still for another few minutes, his head slightly cocked to the side, listening, as if he expected something else to happen. Yet London was as it is, and by the time he looked at his watch and realised that he was going to be late for his first meeting with the Prime Minister, he had trouble remembering exactly what had been so blood-curdling about the scream in the first place, and whether or not that was what he'd actually heard.

  'We should get going,' said Barney.

  'Arf,' said Igor.

  And with that, Barney Thomson, barber, and Igor, barber's assistant, turned and walked on through the crowd, Igor clutching his broom as they went.

  0923hrs

  Barney snipped away at the very ends of the hair. Nothing worth taking off. He could've got his razor out and scalped the man, but that hadn't been asked for. It was more of a styling job, which to be honest, wasn't entirely his thing, but he wasn't going to come all this way, to be in the employment of one of the country's top 10,000 most important people, not to do what he was told.

  They were in the Prime Minister's bathroom, a small affair just off the main office. It had been redecorated under Major, an expensive job given out to the highest bidder, and was consequently still in excellent condition. Williams and Thackeray, the eternal duo, stood at the back, hoping to engage the PM during the course of the cut; however he was off on another of his tangents. Igor also lurked at the back, a slightly uncomfortable presence for the others, waiting with his broom for a bit of mess to clear up.

  'I know all about you,' said the PM, catching Barney's eye in the mirror.

  Barney nodded.

  'I know all about you too,' he replied. Didn't everybody?

  The PM smiled. Always nice to have that kind of acknowledgement.

  'I feel like I have the hand of history on my head,' said the PM.

  'You sound like an idiot,' said Barney. Actually, he never said that one, he just thought it. Didn't quite yet have the measure of the man enough to know whether he could get away with that sort of comment. This was the man, after all, who dropped bombs on innocent civilians at the drop of an American hat.

  'You have lived through the most extraordinary of times,' said the PM, making Barney sound like he was in his early hundreds and could remember the Boer War.

  Barney snipped at a rogue lengthy hair, which Ramone must have missed before his unfortunate end, then continued on his more mundane way around the back of the head. There was a sound at the door, and Janine the secretary appeared, looking very pale, to whisper something in Williams' ear. Williams listened, swallowed, nodded and ushered her away from the bathroom. The PM had witnessed the short scene in the mirror and raised his eyebrows at Williams. The PM was experienced enough to know that you didn't turn round mid-haircut. That had happened to him once before, and he'd had to fake a heart problem in order to get out of the public eye until he could get it repaired.

  'What's the score, Dan Dan?' he asked.

  Williams looked pale himself. There was a lot of blood being drained out of faces, and it was a good thing that none of it was leaking onto the carpet. Barney glanced in the mirror, saw the look in Williams' eyes and stopped the cut. Here was something, he thought. He recognised the look. Death had come to call. It followed him everywhere, as sure as thunder followed lightning, as sure as a headache followed a night of grape and grain.

  Williams looked at the PM, who turned round, now that Barney had stopped the cut. Williams couldn't say it straight away, glanced at Thackeray, ended up looking at Barney, as he seemed the one with the most authority in the room.

  'Who's dead?' asked Barney.

  Williams swallowed. The PM looked
at Barney, then back to Williams.

  'Someone's dead?' he asked. 'Bloody hell, something else to keep us off the front pages. Who is it now? Probably flippin' Camilla, that would really finish us off.'

  'Ramone,' said Williams, his voice breaking as he spoke. He cleared his throat, said 'Ramone' again a little more clearly. Barney nodded. That made sense. He hadn't heard the name of the previous hairdresser, but it was pretty obvious from the PM's napper that he had been getting his hair cut by someone called Ramone for the last few years.

  'Arf,' said Igor.

  The PM glanced at him, then at Barney.

  'You knew Ramone?' he asked. 'You know, you being barbers?'

  Barney shook his head, then he looked at Williams and said, 'Cause of death? Timing, suspects, arrests, anything out of the ordinary?'

  Williams, Thackeray and the Prime Minister stared at Barney curiously, wondering suddenly if the sense of assurance which the new barber carried came from the fact that he worked for MI6. Or MI5. Or the CIA. The PM looked at Williams and nodded.

  'Yes,' he said, 'any of that stuff. I feel it's vitally important at this stage to have all the facts, with fully documented, verifiable evidence to support them.'

  'Found in a hotel room, not far from here. He'd been dead a couple of days.'

  Williams hesitated. The PM glanced at Barney, as if the barber was in charge and might be able to hurry Williams up a little. He looked at his watch, his curiosity mixing with his desire to get his hair finished before the press conference that morning.

  'He'd had his stomach cut open and stuffed with a chicken. The chicken's head had been cut off and thrust down his throat.'

  The PM blanched. Thackeray suddenly felt the vomit rise from his stomach, and seeing as he was in the bathroom, he didn't have far to go anyway. He dived for the toilet, as Barney rolled his eyes and looked at Igor.

  Same old, same old, thought Barney. This kind of murder was always all show and no tell.

  'Arf!' exclaimed Igor.

  1857hrs

  The day had been spent in mass cover up. It wasn't as if the PM had had anything to do with his barber's grotesque death, for he certainly hadn't, and neither, as far as he knew, had anyone else in his party or organisation, but he couldn't let the story get out. Not at this stage, possibly not ever. And so the right words about national security had been said, Williams had been admonished for relating the story in front of Barney and Igor, and the number of people who knew about it was in the process of being kept to the absolute minimum. Health and crime and squabbles over immigration had seen the day trudge by in the usual two-weeks-to-go banality. Soundbites and counter-soundbites, with nothing new to be said. Big lead in the polls, and it wasn't as if anyone doubted who was going to win.

  There was a knock at the study door, and the PM immediately sat down behind his desk, feeling guilty that he'd almost been caught idly staring out the window yet again. Found it so hard to concentrate these days.

  The door opened and Thackeray stuck his head round, without actually coming in, just in time to see the PM stumble back into his seat.

  'There's a new Pope, Sir,' he said.

  'Thank God,' said the PM, without irony. 'One more day of that on the front pages and we can get on with the real business. Some awful Italian, I expect, is it?'

  'German,' said Thackeray.

  'You're kidding me!' exclaimed the PM. 'I thought that lot all reformed in the 17th Century?'

  '16th Century, Sir, and that's a little simplistic.'

  The PM shook his head and stared at his desk.

  'German,' he said under his breath.

  'Sorry about earlier,' said Thackeray. 'In the bathroom.'

  The PM looked up and nodded. Seemed to notice Thackeray for the first time, and wondered perhaps if he'd been crying.

  'Go home, Hugo,' he said.

  'Thank you, Sir,' said Thackeray, and then he stepped away from the office, closed the door and went back to work for another four hours.

  1141hrs

  The end of another mundane old election day, and another mundane day which had brought murder once more into the life of Barney Thomson. He looked at his watch, took the last sip of his second glass of Chilean chardonnay; full length, yet showing undercurrents of pears, apples, gooseberries and Barbara Windsor. He looked around the bar, noticed that it had thinned out a little since the last time he'd lifted his head from his ruminations and looked across the table at his companion.

  'Time to go,' said Barney. 'We have a seven o'clock with our new boss.'

  'Arf,' came the reply, and Barney Thomson and Igor rose slowly from their table and headed for the exit.

  As they left, there were seven other tables in the establishment occupied. Just under half of them were taken by people who were there to keep an eye on the two newcomers in the city. And, as Barney and Igor stepped out of the wine bar, three men and a woman surreptitiously rose from their seats just a little behind, whilst another man spoke quietly into his watch.

  'The barber and the deaf-mute hunchback have left the building,' he said, before relaxing and delving once more into his Californian merlot.

  The stalking of Barney and Igor had begun.

  Wednesday 20th April 2005

  0647hrs

  The Prime Minister was already up, sitting at the side table in his office eating toast and eggs, drinking coffee, even though he knew with every cup that his teeth became more and more stained. (It was on seeing him sitting in just such a position that Thackeray had come up with the execrable idea for the PM/Chancellor breakfast party political broadcast, about which the PM was still kicking himself. He'd already heard rumours that black market copies of the video were selling for $50 a time in the porn shops in Amsterdam. Chirac was said to have literally pissed himself laughing when he'd first seen it and had been giving him dirty phone calls ever since.)

  Between every mouthful of toast and egg, he would stop and sigh heavily. Breakfast turned to ash in his mouth. In his head he made a list of the good and the bad of being Prime Minister.

  Good: you got to be a world statesman and affect the future of the planet; you got to travel first class; you had your own close protection team; you got to eat lots of nice food; you never had to actually do anything for yourself, not even wipe your own bottom if you didn't want to; you got to beat up on small countries which couldn't stand up to you and your big brother; you got to drive around in flash cars.

  Bad: everybody thought you were a complete arsehole; when you ran for re-election you had to visit schools and appear on GMTV, both with Gordon Brown, and sometimes both on the same morning. Then you had to go to flippin' Leeds to meet "Real People" and had to be interviewed by that bastard Paxman for the bloody BBC.

  Why?

  He thrust another piece of egg into his mouth and stared disconsolately at the array of morning papers which Thackeray had brought in ten minutes previously. The man had wanted to spend half an hour running through them, as if the PM was incapable of reading, but he had dispatched him quickly. He needed to be alone. This morning he had been beaten 7-0 by the Pope in terms of newspaper headlines, but that was to be expected. He had given up on the day for headlines, as soon as the news of the Pontiff's appointment had been made. However, it was for one day only, and on Thursday – after the packed programme he had today – he could expect to be beating the Pope by a similar margin. He looked at the Sun. From Hitler Youth to Papa Ratzi.

  The true genius of the British journalistic press at work.

  *

  Detective Chief Inspector Grogan and Detective Sergeant Eason stared at the dead, unplucked beheaded chicken, which had been found in the gouged-out stomach of the PM's personal hair stylist Ramone. They had been looking at it for most of the night; neither of them had slept in nearly thirty-six hours. Grogan liked to stare at clues for as long as was required, in the belief that eventually the truth would come to him, by epiphany, downright obviousness, or by some other more supernatural means. He nev
er cared where it came from, but it usually came.

  'You thinking what I'm thinking?' said Grogan, then laughed at his own little election-related joke.

  Eason had been imagining he was James Bond, lying naked in one of those Japanese mountain spas, being pleasured by seven or eight Japanese girl agents, while the snow monkeys looked on.

  'I doubt it,' he said.

  'Two weeks before the election and the Prime Minister's personal barber gets murdered with a chicken,' said Grogan. 'It's no coincidence.'

  Eason looked away from the chicken for the first time in four hours. He stared at Grogan, whose eyes remained locked on the decapitated poultry.

  'Sir?' he said.

  Grogan answered with a raised eyebrow, without looking at him.

  'We've been sitting here all night looking at the last chicken at Sainsbury's,' said Eason, 'and all you've come up with is, it's no coincidence?'

  Grogan did not reply.

  'Can I go and get breakfast now?' asked Eason.

  'Contribute,' said Grogan. 'Then you can go and get breakfast. Or lunch, or dinner, depending on when it is you actually think of something.'

  Eason stared at him, not in the least incredulous, because that was what he'd been expecting.

  'Look at the chicken,' said Grogan.

  Eason stared for another couple of seconds, then turned back and looked at the chicken.

  The clock ticked. Eason's stomach rumbled loudly. Grogan clucked his tongue, unconsciously getting inside the mind of a chicken. Outside, the horn of a London bus blared, as a black BMW cut him up on the inside.