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Barney Thomson & The Westminster Christmas Massacre - Episode 13by Douglas Lindsay - 10:09 on 18 December 2009The story so far: The killer Trelawny has followed the Prime Minister and his entourage to Denmark, brutally murdering seventeen British MPs in the process. The PM does not care about the MPs, but is peeved that attention is being drawn from his plan to Save the Galaxy. Barney Thomson remains in police custody accused, at the very least, of being in league with Trelawny. Meanwhile the British attack force sits off the coast of Maine, waiting to launch an invasion of the American mainland.
0717hrs CET Copenhagen, Denmark
‘You will have noticed,’ said the PM, ‘that all this started to go wrong when Barney Thomson got taken into custody.’
‘Prime Minister?’ said Bleacher.
They were in the back of car on the way to the last big day of the climate change summit. The PM was armed with his Churchill speech, ready to shake the foundations of the human race and create a brave new world based on his own vision.
‘Me, you know, my image and public profile. I was doing great, everyone was talking about how fantastic I am, I was crushing that Etonian tube in my iron fist, I was closing in the polls... It was one win after another. And you know why? I mean, apart from my natural charisma and the inherent truth behind my every word?’
‘Tell me, Prime Minister,’ said Bleacher, who was looking over the PM’s speech and cringing at every word.
‘The hair, man, for God’s sake, the hair. I have been sweeping all before me like I’m Alexander the bloody Great, and it was thanks to Barney Thomson. Now look at me. Look at me!’
Bleacher looked at the PM.
‘I look like Simon Cowell’s underpants.’
‘Prime Minister?’
‘Whatever,’ said the PM. ‘Look, how long before I’m up in front of the delegates?’
Bleacher looked at his watch.
‘Not for another four hours.’
The PM grumbled into his chin.
‘Good, there’s time then. If I’m about to save the planet single-handed, I’ll need to do it with quality hair. Get me Barney Thomson.’
Bleacher looked dully across the car.
‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ he said.
0631hrs GMT London, England
The door to the small room opened. The body in the corner did not stir. The room was cold and smelled of human waste; like so many rooms in the dark building in the middle of London.
The small woman who had opened the door did not enter. She stood in the doorway, the light at her back, barely able to make out the prone figure in the corner.
‘Mr Thomson, the Prime Minister needs you in Copenhagen. Bit of a haircutting emergency. You need to be at RAF Brize Norton in forty-five minutes. You have a few minutes to have a shower, then the helicopter will be waiting for you.’
The body in the corner did not move.
*
Twenty minutes later Barney Thomson stood at a small desk signing himself out of the facility. Three Beards, crack MI5 interrogator, had not wanted to let Barney out of her sight, and had volunteered for the assignment to be handcuffed to him on the way to Copenhagen.
The small woman behind the desk took the clipboard back from Barney and checked his signature.
‘Thank you, Mr Thomson, that’s lovely.’
Barney barely lifted his head in acknowledgment.
‘One more thing, Mr Thomson,’ she said, as Three Beards was just about to drag him away to his waiting helicopter. ‘We hope you’ve enjoyed your stay with us today, and we were wondering if you could fill in our customer satisfaction survey before you go.’
The dull, grey sockets of Barney’s eyes lifted up towards the small woman.
‘You’ve got a chance to win a free trip on Eurostar to a European capital of your choice. Although, of course,’ she added with a giggle, ‘that really only means Paris or Brussels.’
Barney dropped his eyes, Three Beards tugged on his wrist, and they walked off down the corridor, Barney’s muscles crying out at the movement.
1009hrs CET Copenhagen, Denmark
Barney Thomson, heretical barbershop superstar, was standing behind the Prime Minister, listening to the full flow of Prime Ministerial rubbish, when the door opened and in walked DCI Frankenstein and DS Hewitt. They hesitated for a second in the doorway, and then closed the door behind them as they surveyed the slightly bizarre scene.
The PM was sitting in front of a mirror, studying his hair. Barney Thomson was behind him, his left wrist still handcuffed to Three Beards. Dotted around the room were Blaine the Cabinet Secretary, Lucy the PM’s Diary Secretary, and Prime Ministerial uber-aide, Bleacher. Everyone looked at everyone else in silence for a few moments.
‘Barney,’ said Frankenstein, eventually, ‘you look terrible.’
In return, Barney looked right through Frankenstein and Frankenstein felt the chill of the stare crawl up his spine. Finally, after years of horror and accusation and death, Barney had been broken.
‘Are you really going to cut the Prime Minister’s hair with one hand cuffed to Three Beards?’ asked Frankenstein, with a lightness of tone.
Hewitt looked at Three Beards with awe, having never met her before. Suddenly, as he studied her face, it was obvious.
‘Like, you’re Three Beards?’ said Hewitt. ‘How cool is that?’
‘What do you two want?’ barked the PM, who was not happy about the interruption to his forthcoming magnificent hairstyle, which he would use to help take over the world.
‘Need to talk about Trelawny, Sir,’ said Frankenstein.
The PM snorted.
‘I don’t know how many times we have to tell you that we don’t know who he is, Chief Inspector. Listen, you, woman, can you remove those blasted cuffs from Thomson, I need for him to have both hands free?’
Three Beards eyed Barney suspiciously, but she received nothing in reply. Barney was gone. She placed the key in the small lock and released Barney’s wrist.
‘Don’t even think about going anywhere,’ she said to Barney. Barney did not look at her.
‘Ten minutes, Prime Minister,’ said Lucy the Diary Secretary.
The PM barked in response.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Thomson, I realise things have been a bit rough for you, but you know, if you’re going to go around murdering people in their sleep or, at the very least, allying yourself with murderers and villains, well, bad stuff is going to happen to you.’
The PM looked at Barney in the mirror, but Barney’s eyes were lowered. This slightly disconcerted the PM, who continued talking to cover his discomfort.
‘So, we come at last to the great speech of our times. I don’t think it’s too great an overstatement to say that my entire premiership and indeed, the entire future of mankind, rests on my shoulders this morning. Get it right and the world is saved. Get ignored, and we’re doomed. We’ve come through a lot together, you and I, Barney Thomson, and now I must ask of you one last great sacrifice. Give me hair to meet the moment, hair that will inspire, hair that will make the planet fall in behind me as I lead them to a great and brave new world.’
Barney picked up a pair of scissors and a comb. The thought did not even occur to him to bury the scissors in the PM’s head, if for no other reason than to stop him talking gargantuan amounts of pish.
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Barney.
‘The ultimate speech haircut,’ said the PM.
Barney finally looked him in the eye in the mirror.
‘What would that be?’ he asked.
The PM looked as though he was slightly embarrassed to say it, as if we was trying to get Barney to recognise what he was talking about by telepathy.
‘You know, what’s the most famous speech ever given in the history of the world?’
‘Martin Luther?’ suggested Hewitt from the back, ‘you know, the whole I have a dream thing.’
‘No,’ said the PM derisively. ‘What would I look like with a Martin Luther?’
‘Like, Kennedy in Berlin?’ said Hewitt.
‘Bigger than that,’ said the PM. ‘Barney did me a Kennedy a couple of weeks ago, and it was great cut, I’ll give you that, but this is bigger than Kennedy in Berlin. This has to be something that travels down through the ages, is still relevant to people two thousand years from now. I have the words, now I just need the hair.’
‘You want,’ said Barney, the voice still the colour of a grey day in Milton Keynes, ‘a Jesus of Nazareth Sermon on the Mount?’
The PM looked slightly abashed at the obvious comparison he was drawing, but he at least had the courage of his hubris, straightened his shoulders and looked Barney in the eye.
‘Blessed are those who seek to save the planet, Barney Thomson,’ said the PM. ‘And blessed are those who cut the hair of the great leaders of our times.’
Without a flicker or a twitch, Barney got to work.
Behind them, Bleacher, Blaine and Lucy the Diary Secretary all flickered. And all twitched.
‘Prime Minister,’ said DCI Frankenstein, ‘our investigation has led us to believe that the killer of the seventeen MPs here in Copenhagen, Denmark, the night before last, without doubt came from the party who accompanied you over here from Number 10. We need to account for everyone who travelled with you, stick them all on a plane back to the UK, and question them thoroughly on their return.’
The PM caught Frankenstein’s eye in the mirror.
‘Do what you like, Chief Inspector, as long as it does not interfere with my running of the world.’
2256hrs GMT London, England
Back in London and the future of the planet safe for another few months, the Prime Minister stood at his Downing Street window looking down on the snowy pavement. He had allowed himself to be distracted by the opportunity to save Planet Earth, but now that he was back, he had to address the other issue which had occupied him most of December. The attempt by the American authorities to overthrow his government using the unique ploy of coup d’etat by serial killer.
The British invasion force sat off the coast of Maine, waiting to be unleashed in its full fury. War was at hand, and all it would take was one phone call from him.
However, he had decided to give it one last weekend before making the momentous decision, One last chance for his people, and his peoples’ people, to come up with an alternative hypothesis for the motive behind Trelawny’s murder spree.
And as the killer Trelawny laid low, and the only man so far accused of the murders, Barney Thomson, lay huddled in a cold cell back in the heart of London, the PM had a late night drink of rum and contemplated the future of the planet that he himself had helped save that morning.
To be continued: Monday 21st December 2009
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