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Barney Thomson & The Westminster Christmas Massacre - Episode 15by Douglas Lindsay - 11:02 on 22 December 2009The story so far: The serial killer Trelawny has run amok through both houses of parliament. MPs and Lords beyond counting have been slaughtered at their desks, and the police seem unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it. Prime suspect, Barney Thomson, legendary barbershop renegade, has been released from police custody, and returned to the side of the Prime Minister to once more give him magnificent hair in the run up to the inevitable forthcoming General Election. Meanwhile the world stands on the brink of war, although only the inner cabinet of the British government realise just how close we all are to total annihilation.
0845hrs London, England
Barney Thomson was sitting in the rear of the Prime Ministerial limousine as it carried him and the PM a short way through London. The PM’s principal aide, Bleacher, was also there, scribbling furiously on a note pad. At precisely 0631hrs GMT that morning, Barney had given the PM the kind of haircut they would be talking about on TV shows for the next one hundred and fifty years. A Humphrey Bogart, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The man looked like a lovable rogue, the perfect vote winner, especially when pitched against the Etonian polish of his opposite number.
Barney was staring blankly out the window at the dirty snow piled against the side of the road. Beginning to thaw. Another winter when a couple of inches of snow had brought the country to a standstill. The sooner global warming arrived and turned the south of England into Tuscany, the better all round.
‘I suppose you’re wondering where we’re going?’ said the PM to Barney, who had not engaged the PM in conversation all morning.
Barney looked up. Completely disinterested. Wasn’t sure that he would even care if he was being taken back to his prison cell. The PM, sitting with his back to the direction of travel, jerked a thumb behind him. Barney looked up and saw Buckingham Palace looming large through the grim morning.
‘You ever met the Queen, Barney Thomson?’ asked the Prime Minister pompously.
Barney shook his head. But not in reply; just at the general state of insanity that his life had become. If the Pope was also due to be in attendance, he would not have been surprised.
The PM barked; Bleacher gave Barney a quick glance.
The Queen was leaning forward, staring intently at the Prime Minister. The three men were waiting for her to pronounce, Barney trying not to look at her in a peculiar way. Finally she snapped her fingers.
‘Prime Minister!’ she said. ‘You’ve had your hair done. I was wondering. What is that? Is it a Humphrey Bogart?’
The PM looked rather pleased with himself, and couldn’t stop that incredibly annoying smirk from spreading over his ugly chops.
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘It’s been a momentous few days for my administration, and I thought my hair should be, shall we say, out of the top drawer.’
The Queen sat back and glanced at Barney. She knew all about him from the MI5 file, and wasn’t about to engage the mass murderer in conversation. Bleacher was another man about whom she knew more than anyone might suspect.
‘So,’ she said, tinkling her spoon in her tea cup, ‘my people tell me there’s little doubt America are behind the murders of all the MPs.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said the PM. ‘I realise that there are about sixty million suspects, people who might want MPs dead, but we have definite intel that the Americans are behind this murder spree.’
The Queen shook her head and pursed her lips. Barney recognised the look from those photographs of her watching tribesman dance in a hundred degree heat; or Scotsmen toss the caber in minus five.
‘That can’t be allowed. It’s time we asserted ourselves.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said the PM.
‘You have an invasion force waiting off the eastern seaboard of that young upstart of a country?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
The Queen nodded and looked determined.
‘Well then, Prime Minister. It looks to me like it might be time to lock ‘n load.’
That smirk spread horribly across the PM’s face once again.
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
Sitting in the car on the way back to Downing Street, the PM repeatedly checked his watch. Barney wondered if there was something on television he was afraid to miss. Bleacher knew that he was trying to work out the time on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Maths had never been his strong point.
‘Do we recall the Commons on this, or do we take the opportunity presented to us by them all having scampered home for the holidays?’
He glanced from Bleacher to Barney, a look of expectation on his face.
‘There are so few left,’ said Bleacher, ‘it hardly seems worth it.’
The PM nodded and looked at Barney.
‘Barney?’ he said.
‘What?’ said Barney. He turned from looking out at the wintry cold of mid-morning, and stared harshly at the Prime Minister.
‘How d’you think it’ll play if we launch the invasion without speaking to Parliament?’ said the PM. ‘Of course, it’s a moot point, because how can you launch a surprise invasion when you discuss it in the Commons, live on television first?’
‘It’s stupid,’ said Barney.
‘Exactly,’ said the PM.
‘No,’ said Barney, ‘I mean, the whole thing is stupid. Britain, us, this little island; we may have been this thing once, but it’s a long time ago, a distant memory, another age. We might as well have been a thing in Middle Earth. It’s time to let go. If you take on America, you, we, will be utterly squashed. Hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe, if you annoy them enough, millions of people will get killed. And all because you’re an idiot.’
‘They started it!’ cried the PM, echoing one of the great comic lines of British television history.
‘No, they didn’t,’ said Barney.
‘Well, who did?’
‘I don’t know! For crying out loud, this is insane! Why would the Americans want to undermine your government, when it’s useless anyway, it’s going to lose the next election anyway and they already tell you what to do, and you follow like a pathetic lost sheep?’
Bleacher coughed softly, for all the world like he was Jeeves.
‘Remember to whom you’re speaking, Mr Thomson,’ said Bleacher creepily.
‘I do remember,’ said Barney. ‘I’m speaking to one of the muppets. And one of the dumbass muppets at that.’
1312hrs London, England
Barney was cutting the hair of DCI Frankenstein, which was probably a little odd under the circumstances, but Frankenstein and DS Hewitt had come across Barney alone in an office at Number 10; there had been a chair, a pair of scissors and a comb, and Frankenstein had been looking for a cut before the holidays. Not that he was getting so much as a morning off.
Frankenstein was reading the Mirror - headline Bring It On, with a fatuous PM, grinning like an idiot, talking about the Westminster serial killer. Every now and again Frankenstein cast a suspicious eye in the mirror, as if he expected Barney to suddenly bury the scissors in his head.
‘So what’s going on here?’ asked Frankenstein, his first words since he’d sat down. ‘There seems to be a lot of activity, you know, for three days before Christmas. All the MPs have gone home, they’re safely tucked up in their constituencies, guarded by at least ten officers each. Everything’s winding down, and yet there’s all sorts of stuff going on. Guys in uniform cutting about, men in suits. Diplomats and the like.’
Barney had been standing behind Frankenstein, giving him a beautiful, if predictable, Peter Cushing, his mind completely in neutral.
‘Well,’ he said, brain finally kicking in, ‘as you know I appear to have been taken in to the Prime Minister’s inner circle.’
‘Yes,’ said Frankenstein, ‘funny that. Just after we took you into our inner circle.’
‘Inner circle’s come and go,’ said Barney. ‘Anyway, as such I’m now privy to the most top secret information that there could possibly be in Britain at this very moment.’
Frankenstein held Barney’s gaze in the mirror. DS Hewitt looked up from the Daily Star: Jordan’s Alex and Peter In TV Punch Up. Didn’t take much to keep the wholesale slaughter of MPs from the front page of the Star.
‘But you’re not going to tell us?’ said Hewitt.
Barney glanced over his shoulder.
‘Well, I don’t care. I kept their secrets before and they locked me up. And what with him being in such a hurry to bring me into his inner war cabinet, they seem to have forgotten to get me to sign the Official Secrets Act.’
Frankenstein had lowered the paper and straightened his shoulders.
‘Does this pertain to the investigation?’ he said. ‘Because I’m telling you sunshine, I don’t care about the Official Secrets Act, and I don’t care who told you to say what, or not to say what, or whose dad can beat up someone else’s dad. If you’ve got some knowledge which relates to this investigation and you don’t tell us, you’re flippin’ nicked.’
Barney took a step backwards.
‘Oh, like that’s going to threaten me,’ he said, ‘after a few nights with Three Beards.’
All three of the men in the room shuddered at the thought of a few nights with Three Beards.
‘Whatever,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Just tell us.’
‘They think it’s a coup d’etat by serial killer,’ said Barney, shrugging, and quite happily betraying his masters, who would so readily betray him. ‘Organised by the Americans.’
‘We know that,’ said Frankenstein. ‘It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard from this government, which is in itself, some achievement.’
‘What you don’t know,’ said Barney, and he suddenly thought that he sounded like Hughie Green or something, ‘is that at this moment there is an invasion force of British troops off the coast of Maine, about to launch an attack on American soil.’
Frankenstein and Hewitt both dropped their newspapers at the same time. (On a scientific note, it can be noted that The Mirror and The Star both fall at the same rate because they contain equal amounts of faecal matter.)
‘You’re making that up!’ cried Frankenstein.
‘Like, no way and stuff!’ shouted Hewitt.
Barney smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid not. Go home and kiss your loved ones. We’re all going to die.’
2303hrs London, England
The Prime Minister stood in his usual position, looking down on Downing Street, cold and damp. The time had come. The decision had been made. The Queen had agreed, the Leader of the Opposition had been informed, an interview with Andrew Marr had been set up for the Sunday after Christmas.
British troops were poised, the invasion force was ready to be launched. The chain of command waited for one word from the Prime Minister.
The snow was falling gently, a damp snow, the snow of sleet and slush and air not quite cold enough. The PM shivered and glanced over his shoulder. He had been waiting for the killer Trelawny to turn up at any time, but Trelawny did not seem interested in him for some reason.
And so, choosing this moment to make his final date with destiny, fate and doom, he lifted the phone and put the call through to the Ministry of Defence.
War was at hand, and great men would do great deeds.
To be continued: Wednesday 23rd December 2009
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