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The PM breathed deeply and looked at himself in the mirror. Bared his lips,
allowed his heart to sink that little bit further at the sight of his teeth, which his
advisors wouldn't allow him to have re-whitened mid-campaign, and then he
switched back into serious world leader pretend. No time for gloom when you've got
a planet to help destroy.
'Press conference with the chancellor this morning,' he said, looking Barney
in the eye. 'Don't know why we bother with all the pretence, it's not like everybody
doesn't know.'
'What's the problem?' asked Barney.
The PM shrugged. 'Just hate each other.'
'Why?'
The PM stared at himself.
'That's a very good question,' he said, completely switching in to PM-mode,
'and I believe strongly as a politician first and a Prime Minister second, that it is my
duty to answer questions asked by ordinary hardworking people. Such as yourself.'
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Barney nodded. Oh God, don't start monologuing, he thought, I'm not going to
vote for you anyway.
'Well, he hates me because I've got the sweetie jar and I'm not giving it to
him,' he said smiling. He liked that analogy, and just wished that he could use it with
the press. That bunch of comedians would be all over him, of course, if he said it.
Usually only his wife and the Health Secretary and a few others got the benefit of it.
'And why do I hate him? No big reason. Don't like the cut of his Scottish jib. I hate the
noise he makes when he eats, and that thing he does when he draws his lower lip in
beneath his top one, you know what I'm talking about?'
Barney nodded just to keep him happy.
'And he farts,' muttered the PM darkly. 'Big Scottish farts. Stinky.'
Barney snipped off a piece of hair which, strictly speaking, didn't need to go.
0945hrs
Detective Chief Inspector Grogan and Sergeant Eason, the men investigating the
murder of the Prime Minister's previous barber, Ramone MacGregor  who had
been killed one week earlier with a chicken  were sitting in the office of the Chief
Superintendent, M Jackson McDonald. Grogan, while not actually smoking at that
instant, was oozing the stench of cigarettes. Eason had a large tomato ketchup stain
on his tie from breakfast. M Jackson McDonald was scratching his beard.
'How do you know that this man came from Conservative Party HQ? It could
have been any old crank.'
'We checked the phone records, Sir,' said Eason.
McDonald nodded. That one was too easy, which was a pity. There was no
way he was letting them take this any further, but he didn't want it getting too
messy, and he didn't want them deciding to do something behind his back.
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'Why didn't you wait for him in the pub then?' said M Jackson McDonald
sharply. He was about to cover them in bullshit, and so was taking an aggressive
stance right from the off, in the usual manner of authority which knows it's in the
wrong. 'You turned up and then left without meeting him? That doesn't sound like
good police work to me, Chief Inspector. Don't go making waves now just to cover
up your own mistake.'
'Making waves?' said Grogan. 'We received a call from Tory HQ relating to a
murder investigation. It's perfectly reasonable that we follow it up.'
He was getting annoyed, although he generally got annoyed just at the
thought of entering McDonald's office.
'It's probably just some crank call,' said M Jackson McDonald.
'We won't know unless we check it out!' barked Grogan.
M Jackson McDonald straightened his shoulders. To be honest he found
Grogan quite intimidating, but he couldn't show it.
'Goddamit, Grogan,' he said, theatrically bringing his fist down onto the desk,
a genuine thespian at heart, 'it's taking all our efforts to keep this thing out the press
in the first place. Imagine the stink it'll cause if it gets out that part of the
investigation into the murder of the PM's barber is taking place at the opposition
HQ. Jesus Christ, it'll be the news story of the millennium, even if it does lead to
nothing. My bollocks will be roasted.'
Grogan leant forward, in what Eason recognised as his pre-Rottweiller
position.
'And what if the killer just so happens to come from Tory Party HQ? We just
let him away with it because it'll get in the papers?'
M Jackson McDonald rose to his feet and once more brought the fist of Equity
down on the desk. It might have been effective if he hadn't been such a bearded fop.
'You can't go making such judgements from one meaningless phone call!
Calm it down, Steven!' he bellowed. 'Or you'll be directing traffic...'
Up the King's Road?
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'...up the King's Road!'
Grogan got to his feet and walked quickly to the door.
'I'm not finished,' yelled M Jackson McDonald.
Grogan turned and looked at him, hand on the door.
'I need a smoke,' he said, then he quickly opened the door and walked out.
M Jackson McDonald slammed his fist once more on the desk, looking angrily
at the door, while actually being rather relieved that the unpleasant scene was now
over. He turned to Eason at the sound of him pushing his chair back and getting to
his feet.
'And I need a doughnut,' said Eason, then he too walked out the office, only
with a little less drama.
M Jackson McDonald slumped down into the seat and looked at the small
report which Grogan had compiled on the investigation so far.
'Aw, shite,' he muttered. 'I need a doughnut and a cigarette 'n' all.'
1017hrs
Barney and his deaf-mute hunchbacked assistant Igor were sitting watching the PM
on television, eating breakfast. Second breakfast which, properly handled, can be
even better than first breakfast. There was a lot of bacon involved. The PM was
giving some line about how people should vote for Labour if they valued their
achievements, and both Barney and Igor snorted.
'That's just a bizarre thing for any serving government to say,' said Barney.
Igor nodded.
'Not like I care, because one's as bad as the other,' he began, and Igor glanced
at Barney over his humph, 'but every single policy the government has is about
privatisation and private finance initiatives and giving money to big business and
consultants and damn to hell whether it's best for patients or rail passengers or
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whatever. But the real stuff that they do wrong, the real mismanagement and the
real wastes of public money, the opposition can't complain about, as they started it,
and they'd do exactly the same stuff if they got in. Load of pish, the whole thing.
Complete load of pish.'
'Arf.'
'It'd make you want to go and live in France, if it wasn't for the fact that
they're worse.'
'Arf.'
He took another bite of a bacon sandwich and watched another little guarded
look in the PM's eyes, as the Chancellor said something else he disagreed with, while
at the same time doing that thing with his bottom lip.
1056hrs
Grogan and Eason were leaning on a railing above the Thames, staring down into
the grey water. Grogan was smoking his seventeenth cigarette of the day, Eason was
eating a cream cheese bagel with bacon, lettuce, honey, marmite, more cream cheese
and more bacon. There was already a dollop of cheese on his tie, to add to the
ketchup, and another smear on the tip of his nose. Grogan was letting the cheese on
his nose go for the time being.
'So, we have a decision to make,' said Grogan.
Eason bit into the bagel, sending more cream cheese squishing out the
middle, like cold white lava oozing from a volcanic bakery product.
'Where to go for third breakfast?' he said.
'No.'
'Lunch?'
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Grogan blew smoke to the side, tossed the cigarette butt out towards the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]