The End of Days (A Barney Thomson Novella)

By Douglas Lindsay

December 2009. MPs are being murdered in revenge attacks for the expenses scandal, and Westminster is in a state of turmoil. With the government on the verge of collapse, the last Labour Prime Minister — desperately clinging to power — decides there is only one way to reclaim the government's authority. Relying on dubious intelligence, he instructs the Army to make plans to launch an invasion of the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. As humanity stands on the brink of war, it may well be that we have reached the End of Days.

The world of men is at a crossroads: will it be annihilated, or will it survive and be allowed to evolve naturally into a beer-drinking sloth species with no appendages? Ultimately, when the blood stops flowing and the last money-grabbing MP has been stabbed in the head, the fate of us all and of Planet Earth itself, will rest in the hands of one man: renegade barbershop legend, Barney Thomson.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Long Midnight Publishing
• Release date: Jun 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386430957

Book preview

Tuesday 1st December 2009

0617hrs  London, England

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The Prime Minister stared moodily at the headlines as he shuffled through the collected morning's newspapers. He could barely think at this time in the morning, let alone make decisions. Fortunately, he had Bleacher for that; the highest paid ministerial aide in British political history.

'Bloody Dubai,' he muttered, tossing the FT petulantly onto the floor. 'I knew it was going to crash. I said that, didn't I?'

'Yes, Prime Minister,' said Bleacher, who was at that moment red penning the PM's follow-up speech to the Afghan troop announcement, which he would deliver to a hopefully uncritical audience of five year-old children at a primary school in Kent later that morning.

'I don't get it,' said the PM. 'How can everyone be in debt? I mean, everyone? It doesn't make sense. Who is it that they actually owe all that money to?'

'Banks. That's who people usually owe money to.'

'But all the banks are in debt. God, I just don't get economics.'

Bleacher raised an eyebrow, but didn't look up.

'And look. They've been going on at me about more troops, more troops. I announce more troops, and what do we get on the front pages? Spanish eggs. Some gumph about marriage, kidnap plots against Man U players, and now this Iranian thing. Holy crap.'

'They are their own masters, Prime Minister, we know that.'

The PM grunted. His chin slouched further down towards his chest.

'Look, how's it going setting up the meeting with Obama in Copenhagen? I don't want any of that scrabbling around the bloody kitchens like we had in New York.'

Bleacher took a deep breath. He had exhausted every favour he'd had to call in with the Americans while scrabbling around the kitchens of New York.

'I'm on it,' he said. 'Currently, though, he's due to be there ten days before you, so it might be difficult.'

'And I suppose he might not make it after that car accident he had in the middle of the night,' said the PM, staring out at a dark and frosty early morning in December.

'That was Tiger Woods, Sir.'

The PM abruptly got up and walked to the window. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood, head bowed, looking down on the street below. From where he stood he could see seven police officers. His pose reminded Bleacher of Richard Nixon.

'Bloody Dubai,' said the PM again. 'I saved the world, saved the markets. The economy had started to turn round. Give it until June and we'd be sitting pretty, don't you think? Take that Etonian idiot and crush him in my iron fist.'

'Yes, Prime Minister.'

'Now bloody Dubai. If this sets off another chain reaction. Jesus.'

He turned round and looked down at Bleacher, who was huddled over a coffee table, frantically turning the sharply worded script into the blandest statement he could find. Five year-old children deserved bland.

'We need to seize the day. We're fighting back in the polls; now we need to grab that momentum, get the public on my side. What d'you think?'

Bleacher finally laid the pen down on the table and looked up at the PM. The man looked tired and old; bags under his eyes, sagging jowls, greying teeth, greying hair, his one good eye showing dull and lifeless in the dim light of the small desk lamp.

'Sure,' said Bleacher. 'What d'you want to do? We could probably get you on I'm A Celebrity.'

The PM's brow furrowed.

'Well, the press would ridicule me, but it might play well with the voters. Have you polled that?'

'Of course,' said Bleacher.

'And?'

'Not so great. About on a par with getting a decent haircut.'

The PM snorted and turned away. Bleacher waited a second, then bent his head again to the speech.

'Too late for Strictly or X-Factor I suppose,' muttered the PM.

'Yes. And you can't dance and you can't sing.'

'Well, I can't bloody well eat insects' testicles, but it didn't stop you polling on I'm A Celebrity.'

'What d'you think they served for dinner at CHOGM last week?'

The PM grunted again. His head dropped a little lower. He felt so close. After two years of being buffeted and harangued and held up to the opprobrium of the nation, finally it seemed like he had turned a corner. Perhaps it was just because everyone had become fed up with beating up on the school wimp, perhaps it was just the rollercoaster momentum of politics. Whatever it was, it was time to drive home his advantage. Start to draw ahead in the polls, and have the media talking about the inevitability of his winning the general election.

Maybe they could even get into a position to call a snap election and surprise everyone.

'Might as well go for the haircut,' he said decisively. 'Get me the best barber in the country.'

Bleacher looked up sharply. A good haircut isn't going to turn you into a statesman, he thought.

'That would be Barney Thomson,' said Bleacher.

The PM turned sharply. 'Barney Thomson?' he said keenly. 'You mean, the renegade barbershop legend?'

'Well, I just see him more as a barber.'

'He did Blair's hair at the last election. And he did the First Minister in Scotland a while back. He has form. Get him down here.'

Bleacher finally rose from the small, leather-covered settee, clutching the re-written speech in his right hand.

'Are you sure, Prime Minister? There's one sure thing about that man. Wherever he goes, death, murder, slaughter, blood, horror, mutilation and genocidal abomination are sure to follow.'

The PM shoved his hands in his pockets and looked sternly at Bleacher.

'As long as he gives me a good haircut, he can murder whoever the Hell he likes...'

'Yes, Prime Minister.'

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1107hrs  Millport, Scotland

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It was another cold and windy day on the Clyde, and the faded Victorian buildings of the seafront of the town of Millport looked bleak and desperate and sad. The wind rattled the Christmas lights, a few old women huddled along Shore Street, heads bowed to the weather. Seagulls circled above the town, although the days of the fishing fleet working out of the small harbour were long since gone, and now the gulls waited for cast-off fish suppers and the paltry remnants of litter in the streets.

Contrary to what the Prime Minister had implied, Barney Thomson had never murdered anyone in his life; although it had been his misfortune to come across serial killers with the kind of regularity that most people encounter warts or pigeons or falling leaves in autumn. Had he been a detective or a police psychologist or a Scenes of Crime Officer, then this might have been understandable. Working in the hairdressing business, however, it was at best strange, and at worst, downright devilish.

It was a quiet day in the barbershop. Igor, Barney's deaf, mute hunchbacked assistant, was sweeping up at the back, although there wasn't actually anything to sweep. Barney was cutting the hair of only his second customer of the day, old Rusty Brown, a man in search of a Juan Manuel Fangio '57 and some early winter conversation.

'So did you see Strictly?' he said to Barney.

Igor glanced up from the other side of his brush. He was deaf and yet he heard everything.

'Don't watch it,' said Barney.

'Oh, you're an X-Factor man then?' said Rusty, nodding his head and putting his right ear in the most heinous jeopardy.

'Nope,' said Barney. 'Don't watch that either.'

Rusty Brown looked a little perplexed.

'You must be one of these fellas that's only interested in I'm A Celebrity, eh? Can't abide that myself. I mean, I watch it 'cause of all they lassies with big tits, but it's not for me.'

'Never seen it,' said Barney.

Rusty just plain turned round in the chair and stared at Barney. Barney Thomson, only by the smallest of margins, avoided stabbing him in the eye with a pair of Mizutani Acro Stellite MZ9543's. (An early Christmas present to himself, and a snip at £540.00).

'Hang on a second,' said Rusty Brown. 'You mean, you don't watch Strictly, X-Factor or Celebrity? That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard in my entire puff. Holy Declaration of Arbroath, but what do you do with yourself, laddie?'

Barney gestured gently for Rusty Brown to turn round, and then continued with the haircut.

He glanced over at Igor and smiled ruefully; Igor grimaced and made a movement with the brush to imply that he might whack Rusty Brown over the head with it. Although, it wasn't as if Igor didn't wish that Barney did more with his life, especially since Igor had moved in with the widow Carmichael and Barney had lost his drinking buddy to happy domesticity. But Barney was as he was, a man who observed life as it took its toll on others; a man who cut hair, ate dinner, and who sat at a window and watched the waves crash onto the rocks, watched the clouds drift across the hills of Arran.

'I don't know,' said Barney eventually. 'Just watch life, I suppose.'

'Ah,' said Rusty Brown, 'David Attenborough. Well, you can't go wrong with him.'

Igor grumbled in the corner, making a noise that sounded suspiciously like arf. Barney smiled and began to work his special barbershop magic around Rusty Brown's right ear.

He stopped suddenly, something making him look out of the window. A speck in the distance, coming from the south, appearing over the mainland. The others followed his gaze. They couldn't hear it yet, but they could see that it was a helicopter, heading towards Millport.

Barney watched, the speck growing larger as the helicopter approached the island. It could have been any old helicopter on any old mission. But he knew it wasn't; he knew it would be for him. They were coming for him.

He turned and looked at Igor and Igor rolled his eyes.

'Arf,' said Igor.

'Yep,' said Barney, 'here we go again.'

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2203hrs  London, England

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The old man threw back his seventh whisky of the evening. It irritably burned its way down his throat, then the acid in his stomach angrily cried out at him and screamed up his gut. Someone nearby in the building was playing a Bing Crosby Christmas album, and the mournful strains of I'll be Home For Christmas came drifting along the corridor.

It had been a bad year for MPs, everyone knew. They had all, to a man and woman, been rumbled, like so many Winnie The Poohs with their hands in Rabbit's honey pot. Yet few had had as bad a time as Sir Leon Worthington-Worthington. Called out for claiming expenses on a second home in Monte Carlo; derided by the media for allowing the taxpayer to foot the bill for a fortnight's skiing in the Alps with his mistress; his wife finding out about his mistress; being made to pay back over £200,000 in erroneous and fanciful expenses, and currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud

Reviews for The End of Days (A Barney Thomson Novella)

[Sheena Gurbakhash · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Totally barmy! Barney Thomson is a treat. Why have I never come across this before.