Curse Of The Clown Read online

  ‘You’re going off for two nights in a luxury hotel,’ said Monk, and she and Barney shared a look.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Keanu, ‘but they stayed in a luxury hotel in The Hangover.’

  Barney quickly downed the rest of his tea, laid the mug on the counter and said, ‘Right, troops, let’s be heading off. We’ll be a little early for the boat, but we’d best go just in case... there’s traffic.’

  Monk smiled, similarly downed her tea, nodded at Garrett Carmichael, town lawyer and Igor’s partner, and said, ‘Gentlemen, it is time for you to set off on your great journey. Be bold and strong, fear not the demons that stand in your path, be true to yourself and true to what you believe, and above all else, know this: your supper will be on the table when you get back on Sunday.’

  Barney laughed, bowed his head formally, Igor said, ‘Arf!’ in appreciation, and Keanu said, ‘That was awesome.’

  ‘You’ve got your phones in case of emergencies?’ said Garrett.

  Two ‘checks’ and an ‘arf’ in response.

  ‘Credit cards?’

  Same again.

  ‘ID, in case there are problems of an unidentifiable, and frankly impossible-to-imagine-at-this-point, nature?’

  Monk laughed. The men gave a thumbs up.

  ‘Change of underwear in case you fall in the water?’ said Monk.

  ‘Come on, troops,’ said Barney, shaking his head, ‘time we hit the road and left the ladies to their weekend. What’s first on your list?’ he asked, taking his coat off the peg.

  The woman looked at each other, silently elected Garrett to answer, then she said, ‘Yoni massage, then a male strip club, then we’ll probably order in sushi and champagne ...’

  ‘Might have to get it flown in by helicopter ...’

  ‘Yep, and then we’ll sit and watch porn all night while getting riotously drunk and talking about boys. You?’

  ‘I’ll probably just go to my room, read for a bit, order some gruel from room service and get an early night.’

  ‘Speak for yourself!’ said Keanu.

  ‘Arf!’

  ‘Come on,’ said Barney, nodding at Monk, ‘we should head.’

  And so, with appropriate gestures and acts of affection between the couples that need not be detailed here, the chaps parted company with the womenfolk, got into the car and headed off on their first great adventure together. Tears were shed, promises made, goodbyes tossed lightly into the wind, and then the 2013 BMW 320D drove slowly off along the road.

  Monk and Garrett watched the car until its lights were in the distance, and then they crossed the street, leant on the promenade wall and looked out over the bay, as darkness fell across the land from the east. A cold sea, the tide in, the water agitated, waves splitting on the rocks beneath them.

  With the men gone, the forced good humour could also leave, and a familiar melancholy settled upon them. The sadness of the sea, the sadness of any parting, the worry induced by the arrival on the crime scene in Scotland of the Koiffing Klown. The Klown, at least, had not made the newspapers, as the police had not reported details of the note.

  ‘Any update on the Klown?’ asked Garrett after a while.

  She was beginning to feel cold, beginning to think it was time to get on with the evening’s events (none of which would involve yoni massage, male strippers, sushi, champagne or porn).

  ‘It’s gone quiet,’ said Monk. ‘Or rather, it’s stayed quiet. Spoke to DCI Solomon this morning. They’ve made zero progress, there’ve been no more events or crimes or murders or whatever that could be attached to this guy, so basically there’s nothing.’

  ‘Did you mention the convention to him? Did he know about it?’

  ‘Yes and no. He didn’t sound thrilled, I’ll give him that, but then I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who gets thrilled about much. Not sure what he’ll do. I mean, there’s nothing to connect the murder last week to the convention, other than the affected garbage of the word Koiffing. So, he either waits to see if anything happens, or he gets everybody panicking for potentially no reason whatsoever.’

  ‘You think everyone would panic?’

  ‘You tell a bunch of men they might get their dicks cut off? What d’you think?’

  Garrett laughed, and some of the tension, though not too much, eased away from them.

  ‘What d’you suppose he’ll do, this Solomon?’

  ‘I think he’ll persuade himself that nothing needs to be done, and then at the last minute he’ll go along, or he’ll send one of his people – depends I guess if he has an obliging sergeant – maybe as an undercover delegate, something like that. Or just a delegate. I don’t know if you have to be in the barber trade to go to one of these things, or whether there are people who go just for the sheer hedonistic joy of being around barber shit for a weekend.’

  ‘That sounds plausible,’ said Garrett.

  A gull floated above them in the wind, hovered for a moment, and then descended and settled on the promenade wall not far from them. They turned to look at it, and the gull, in turn, cocked its head to the side and stared at them.

  ‘Hey, Mr Gull,’ said Monk, her voice heavy with resignation. She was just going to have to accept that she was worried about this weekend, and hope that it didn’t take too long to pass. ‘Don’t have anything for you, I’m afraid.’

  The gull straightened its head, then moved an inch or two closer to them on the wall.

  ‘It’s not happening, chipper,’ said Monk. ‘You’ll have to wait for the fish ‘n’ chip shop to open, then you can go on the pilfer.’

  ‘I don’t think there’ll be too many people eating their fish supper outside tonight,’ said Garrett.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Monk, addressing the gull. ‘She’s right. You’re screwed. Go and catch a fish, you lazy asshole.’

  The gull bent his neck back, let out a loud keow to the world, perhaps alerting all the other gulls to the disappointing human intelligence that there were unlikely to be free fish suppers on the evening’s menu, and then it took to the wing, rising quickly into the wind.

  ‘Well,’ said Garrett, ‘it’s almost dark, so regardless of the actual time, that does mean it’s OK to have a gin and tonic, right?’

  ‘Never too early,’ said Monk. ‘Come on.’

  And they turned and headed along the road towards the first stop of the evening.

  ‘HOW’S THE WRITING GOING?’ asked Barney.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Keanu.

  They had avoided the congestive nightmare of the M8 through Glasgow by crossing the Erskine bridge, skirting round the edge of the city, and taking the back roads to Drymen, before heading towards the M9.

  ‘Crime novels not working out for you?’

  ‘I’m trying,’ said Keanu.

  Having written, and self-published, fifteen novels and essay collections, Keanu had finally bitten the bullet and decided to go for the most popular genre of novel currently in all the world, even though prior to that he’d never read a crime novel, and didn’t watch TV detective shows.

  The Fatal Beauty of Magdalena DeLouche was currently sitting at number four hundred and seventy-nine thousand, three hundred and twenty-six in the Amazon chart, having sold forty-nine copies. There were three five-star reviews, one of which had been put there by Monk, one by Garrett Carmichael, and one other by an unnamed customer. Keanu presumed, though he never said, that it had been Barney.

  There had also been a one-star review from a police procedural traditionalist who’d objected to the introduction of a dinosaur.

  ‘You’re writing a follow-up?’

  ‘Not to Magdalena DeLouche.’

  ‘Inspector Slaughter isn’t going to become a series?’

  ‘Nah. I was thinking...’ and then the words drifted away, and he ended the sentence with a hand tossed to the side.

  ‘Out with it,’ said Barney.

  They were driving through the dark, the lights of an occasional car in the opposite direction picking out the rele
ntless and inevitable drizzle. Igor, in the back seat, had fallen asleep within minutes of leaving Largs.

  ‘You know I went to those crime fiction conventions this year, right? Bloody Scotland and Bute Noir.’

  ‘Thought they were right up your new street?’

  ‘I was trying, you know. I read some crime novels, I watched some shows, I tried to get into the whole thing, I really did. And there are all these people hanging out, and there’s a great atmosphere, and everything like that, but... I’m just not one of them, you know?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘You know who I am? I’m the non-zombie in a zombie movie. Every other person’s been infected, but all I’ve done is covered myself in my mate’s blood, bent my head to the side, and started wandering aimlessly around muttering about eating flesh. Totally faking it. All these people at these conventions, they’re looking at me like, you’re no’ a fucking zombie! They can tell. They know I pinched the plot for The Fatal Beauty of Magdalena DeLouche from an old episode of Law And Order: Castlemilk.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Barney. ‘Did you really do that?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Keanu, ‘but it did give me an idea. Anyway, I hung out with these people, and I tried, but really... it’s not worth it.’

  ‘You sounded reasonably happy when you got back?’

  ‘You know me, relentlessly upbeat. But I’m writing my new crime novel, and I’m just like, I’m not sure I want to do this. I’m not sure I want to fake kill anyone. I don’t really want to work out how someone horribly died. I don’t want to read other people’s fake murder stories. I don’t want to read real murder stories.’ A beat. ‘I guess I don’t want to be a crime zombie.’

  ‘Yeah, fair enough,’ said Barney. ‘Crime novels can be pretty depressing, and life’s depressing enough as it is.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘So, what will you do instead?’

  ‘I’ll transition smoothly to literary novels I think. No one buys them, but they’re much easier to write. First of all, though, get this crime novel done and see where we are.’

  ‘Nice. What’s it called?’

  ‘Bring Me The Flayed Corpse Of Mountebank Stump.’

  ‘Decent,’ said Barney, as a car flashed by, splashing through a puddle.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Keanu. ‘Can we put the six o’clock news on? You never know, maybe someone found the answer.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Everything.’

  Barney gestured to go ahead, Keanu hit the on switch, and the radio fizzed into life to the chimes of Big Ben at the start of the news on Radio Four.

  ‘‘We will drink the blood of our enemies,’ says President Trump, as he declares war on Democrats,’ said the newsreader, over the first bong of the chimes. ‘‘It won’t be the best blood,’ Trump continued, ‘but when we shit it out the other end, it’ll be the best shit.’’ Bong! ‘In other news, Britain reveals new empire-building strategy with war declaration against tiny, unarmed island nation, Tuvalu. ‘It’s fifty-fifty, but we’ll give it a go,’ says Raab.’ Bong! ‘Long-Bailey in ‘thousand years of opposition’ promise. ‘It’s what Jeremy would have wanted,’ says Labour soapboxer.’ Bong! ‘World due to end at seven-thirty on Thursday, claim scientists, though unclear whether morning or evening... Queen’s brain to stay on throne,’ Bong! ‘connected to the Internet after death, in latest attempt to delay Charles’s succession... Pope tells literally everyone to just ‘fuck off.’’ Bong! ‘Beatles to release new record, based on the sound of a hummed tune left in a jar by John Lennon in 1957... Number of people living on the street doubles,’ Bong! ‘as Tories introduce new heart tax. ‘I don’t have one,’ says goblin-queen, Priti Patel, ‘but I don’t see why any other bastard should get off scot-free.’’

  Barney stabbed the off button.

  For a while they drove on in silence, and then, as the M9 hoved into view ahead, Keanu said, ‘Aye, fair enough.’

  8

  The Interchangeable Detective

  Solomon sat in the reception area of the Comrie Hydro. He was comfortable in his inconspicuousness, but his inconspicuousness was mainly because no one paid much attention to anyone anymore. Everyone was too self-obsessed, everyone too attached to their phones. Twenty years ago you had to make an effort to blend in. Now you went anywhere, held a phone in your hand, and you became any old Average Joe.

  With the exception that there were very few children, there was little to indicate that the people turning up at the hotel in their ones and two and threes and fours were delegates at that month’s biggest barbershop convention in the north. Ordinary looking men and women, nothing to distinguish them from non-combatant members of the public.

  The hotel was fully booked by the convention for the weekend, as Solomon had learned when he’d tried to get a room. He’d considered ‘being a dick about it’, as he’d said to DS Lane, but had decided to request they let him know if a room became available through cancellation, while at the same time booking in at a B&B on the edge of town.

  Anyone looking at him closely, would notice that his phone wasn’t actually turned on. He hated phones. He hated social media. He hated reading the news in bite-sized chunks. In fact, he just hated the news. He hated holding a large flat screen to his ear, but he hated the alternatives of using earphones or using FaceTime just as much. He hated that even e-mails could now find him everywhere. He hated playing games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds, but more than that, he hated people who played games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds. At home, when nobody was watching you to see how much of a sad sack you were, fine. But in public, so that people looking over your shoulder or passing you in the street could recognise the depth of your brainless addiction? For people such as those, Solomon had nothing but contempt.

  The sooner society went down in a blazing fireball...

  He was expecting nothing at this point, of course. No one was going to enter in a clown costume, no one was going to stride through the foyer displaying serial killer tendencies, whatever they may have been. There were no ex-serial killers on the loose, that he needed to keep an eye out for, just as there were no outstanding barbershop cases in Scotland. There had been a fight in a shop in Aberdeen the previous month, where queue etiquette had broken down on a particularly busy Saturday afternoon, but that was the only barber-related incident reported in months.

  The revolving door of the entrance moved again, and he saw the hunchback first.

  ‘Jesus,’ he muttered, then he found himself somehow unsurprised that the hunchback was followed through the door by Barney Thomson, and then a younger man. Solomon watched them for a moment, then bowed his head. Had anyone been watching him, and no one was, they would have noted that this time he did actually turn on his phone.

  He looked at the weather, the most inoffensive thing he could think to do on a Police Scotland-issued iPhone.

  BARNEY CLICKED THE phone off and tossed it onto the bed. Monk always made him smile. He’d reported in, she’d reported from her kitchen where she and Garrett were being sidetracked from making dinner by drinking wine, eating cheese and solving the climate crisis, and now their respective evenings lay before them. For Barney, the convention introductory dinner at eight in the main dining room. He wasn’t sure of the set-up, and could only hope there wouldn’t be too many speeches.

  He had forty-five minutes before he had agreed to meet the others in the lobby, and now he found himself standing at the window, looking out on the garden at the back of the hotel. There was an area illuminated by ornate orange lights around the paths, but beyond the garden, the hills and forests of Perthshire were swallowed by the rain and the darkness.

  He hadn’t looked at the weather forecast, but hoped it would be clear for Saturday. The idea of spending the entire weekend stuck in a hotel with several hundred other barbers sounded horrendous. He’d go out either way, but a nice day for walking in the hills would be preferable.

  There was a knock at the door, and he w
ondered what Keanu had thought of or had forgotten. As he put his fingers on the handle, he realised this was unlikely to be Keanu. There were other forces at play this weekend, no matter how much he strove to not think about them.

  It wasn’t as though Millport had been a safety blanket to him all these years, as plenty of bad things had found him there, but there was something about leaving it. Leaving the island was like stepping into the line of fire. Bad things happened out here, and it was never going to take too long for them to find him.

  ‘DCI Solomon,’ he said, opening the door, barely waiting to see his visitor before welcoming him. ‘The sergeant wondered if you might come along.’

  ‘Barney,’ said Solomon. ‘You haven’t changed.’

  ‘You neither,’ said Barney, as the two men stood on the threshold.

  ‘Don’t lie,’ said Solomon, ‘I’m an ageing, corpulent, fat fuck. Are you just going to leave me standing out here like a fucking Mormon, by the way?’

  Barney laughed, then stood back and ushered him into the room. Solomon entered, Barney closing the door behind him.

  Solomon automatically walked to the window and looked down on the orange lights of the garden, hands thrust in his pockets.

  ‘How’ve you been?’ he asked, as Barney came and stood beside him.

  ‘Well enough,’ he said. ‘Seen a few too many murderers since we last met, but I suspect you have too.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ said Solomon gruffly, ‘what’s your excuse?’

  ‘Fate,’ said Barney automatically, and Solomon grunted.

  ‘I spoke to a DCI Frankenstein a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Yeah? How’s he doing? Haven’t seen him in a while.’

  ‘Really? Sounded like you two had more or less started up a business together, the way he was talking.’