Macbeth

1

The shiny raindrop fell from the sky, through the darkness, towards the shivering lights of the port below. Cold gusting north-westerlies drove the raindrop over the dried-up riverbed that divided the town lengthwise and the disused railway line that divided it diagonally. The four quadrants of the town were numbered clockwise; beyond that they had no name. No name the inhabitants remembered anyway. And if you met those same inhabitants a long way from home and asked them where they came from they were likely to maintain they couldn’t remember the name of the town either.

The raindrop went from shiny to grey as it penetrated the soot and poison that lay like a constant lid of mist over the town despite the fact that in recent years the factories had closed one after the other. Despite the fact that the unemployed could no longer afford to light their stoves. In spite of the capricious but stormy wind and the incessant rain that some claimed hadn’t started to fall until the Second World War had been ended by two atom bombs a quarter of a century ago. In other words, around the time Kenneth was installed as police commissioner. From his office on the top floor of police HQ Chief Commissioner Kenneth had then misruled the town with an iron fist for twenty-five years, irrespective of who the mayor was and what he was or wasn’t doing, or what the powers-that-be were saying or not saying over in Capitol, as the country’s second-largest and once most important industrial centre sank into a quagmire of corruption, bankruptcies, crime and chaos. Six months ago Chief Commissioner Kenneth had fallen from a chair in his summer house. Three weeks later, he was dead. The funeral had been paid for by the town — a council decision made long ago that Kenneth himself had incidentally engineered. After a funeral worthy of a dictator the council and mayor had brought in Duncan, a broad-browed bishop’s son and the head of Organised Crime in Capitol, as the new chief commissioner. And hope had been kindled amongst the city’s inhabitants. It had been a surprising appointment because Duncan didn’t come from the old school of politically pragmatic officers, but from the new generation of well educated police administrators who supported reforms, transparency, modernisation and the fight against corruption — which the majority of the town’s elected get-rich-quick politicians did not.

And the inhabitants’ hope that they now had an upright, honest and visionary chief commissioner who could drag the town up from the quagmire had been nourished by Duncan’s replacement of the old guard at the top with his own hand-picked officers. Young, untarnished idealists who really wanted the town to become a better place to live.

The wind carried the raindrop over District 4 West and the town’s highest point, the radio tower on top of the studio where the lone, morally indignant voice of Walt Kite expressed the hope, leaving no ‘r’ unrolled, that they finally had a saviour. While Kenneth had been alive Kite had been the sole person with the courage to openly criticise the chief commissioner and accuse him of some of the crimes he had committed. This evening Kite reported that the town council would do what it could to rescind the powers that Kenneth had forced through making the police commissioner the real authority in town. Paradoxically this would mean that his successor, Duncan the good democrat, would struggle to drive through the reforms he, rightly, wanted. Kite also added that in the imminent mayoral elections it was ‘Tourtell, the sitting and therefore fattest mayor in the country, versus no one. Absolutely no one. For who can compete against the turtle, Tourtell, with his shell of folky joviality and unsullied morality, which all criticism bounces off?’

In District 4 East the raindrop passed over the Obelisk, a twenty-storey glass hotel and casino that stood up like an illuminated index finger from the brownish-black four-storey wretchedness that constituted the rest of the town. It was a contradiction to many that the less industry and more unemployment there was, the more popular it had become amongst the inhabitants to gamble away money they didn’t have at the town’s two casinos.

‘The town that stopped giving and started taking,’ Kite trilled over the radio waves. ‘First of all we abandoned industry, then the railway so that no one could get away. Then we started selling drugs to our citizens, supplying them from where they used to buy train tickets, so that we could rob them at our convenience. I would never have believed I would say I missed the profit-sucking masters of industry, but at least they worked in respectable trades. Unlike the three other businesses where people can still get rich: casinos, drugs and politics.’

In District 3 the rain-laden wind swept across police HQ, Inverness Casino and streets where the rain had driven most people indoors, although some still hurried around searching or escaping. Across the central station, where trains no longer arrived and departed but which was populated by ghosts and itinerants. The ghosts of those — and their successors — who had once built this town with self-belief, a work ethic, God and their technology. The itinerants at the twenty-four hour dope market for brew; a ticket to heaven and certain hell. In District 2 the wind whistled in the chimneys of the town’s two biggest, though recently closed, factories: Graven and Estex. They had both manufactured a metal alloy, but what it consisted of not even those who had operated the furnaces could say for sure, only that the Koreans had started making the same alloy cheaper. Perhaps it was the town’s climate that made the decay visible or perhaps it was imagination; perhaps it was just the certainty of bankruptcy and ruin that made the silent, dead factories stand there like what Kite called ‘capitalism’s plundered cathedrals in a town of drop-outs and disbelief’.

The rain drifted to the south-east, across streets of smashed street lamps where jackals on the lookout huddled against walls, sheltering from the sky’s endless precipitation while their prey hurried towards light and greater safety. In a recent interview Kite had asked Chief Commissioner Duncan why the risk of being robbed was six times higher here than in Capitol, and Duncan had answered that he was glad to finally get an easy question: it was because the unemployment rate was six times higher and the number of drug users ten times greater.

At the docks stood graffiti-covered containers and run-down freighters with captains who had met the port’s corrupt representatives in deserted spots and given them brown envelopes to ensure quicker entry permits and mooring slots, sums the shipping companies would log in their miscellaneous-expenses accounts swearing they would never undertake work that would lead them to this town again.

One of these ships was the MS Leningrad, a Soviet vessel losing so much rust from its hull in the rain it looked as if it was bleeding into the harbour.

The raindrop fell into a cone of light from a lamp on the roof of one two-storey timber building with a storeroom, an office and a closed boxing club, continued down between the wall and a rusting hulk and landed on a bull’s horn. It followed the horn down to the motorbike helmet it was joined to, ran off the helmet down the back of a leather jacket embroidered with NORSE RIDERS in Gothic letters. And to the seat of a red Indian Chief motorbike and finally into the hub of its slowly revolving rear wheel where, as it was hurled out again, it ceased to be a drop and became part of the polluted water of the town, of everything.

Behind the red motorbike followed eleven others. They passed under one of the lamps on the wall of an unilluminated two-storey port building.

The light from the lamp fell through the window of a shipping office on the first floor, onto a hand resting on a poster: MS GLAMIS SEEKS GALLEY HAND. The fingers were long and slim like a concert pianist’s and the nails well manicured. Even though the face was in shadow, preventing you from seeing the intense blue eyes, the resolute chin, the thin, miserly lips and nose shaped like an aggressive beak, the scar shone like a white shooting star, running diagonally from the jaw to the forehead.

‘They’re here,’ Inspector Duff said, hoping his men in the Narcotics Unit couldn’t hear the involuntary vibrato in his voice. He had assumed the Norse Riders would send three to four, maximum five, men to get the dope. But he counted twelve motorbikes in the procession slowly emerging from the darkness. The two at the back each had a pillion rider. Fourteen men to his nine. And there was every reason to believe the Norse Riders were armed. Heavily armed. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the sight of superior numbers that had produced the tremor in his vocal cords. It was that Duff had achieved his dearest wish. It was that he was leading the convoy; finally he was within striking distance.

The man hadn’t shown himself for months, but only one person owned that helmet and the red Indian Chief motorbike. Rumour had it the bike was one of fifty the New York Police Department had manufactured in total secrecy in 1955. The steel of the curved scabbard attached to its side shone.

Sweno.

Some claimed he was dead, others that he had fled the country, that he had changed his identity, cut off his blond plaits and was sitting on a terrazza in Argentina enjoying his old age and pencil-thin cigarillos.

But here he was. The leader of the gang and the cop-killer who, along with his sergeant, had started up the Norse Riders some time after the Second World War. They had picked rootless young men, most of them from dilapidated factory-worker houses along the sewage-fouled river, and trained them, disciplined them, brainwashed them until they were an army of fearless soldiers Sweno could use for his own purposes. To gain control of the town, to monopolise the growing dope market. And for a while it had looked as if Sweno would succeed, certainly Kenneth and police HQ hadn’t stopped him; rather the opposite, Sweno had bought in all the help he needed. It was the competition. Hecate’s home-made dope, brew, was much better, cheaper and always readily available on the market. But if the anonymous tip-off Duff had received was right, this consignment was big enough to solve the Norse Riders’ supply problems for some time. Duff had hoped, but not quite believed, what he read in the brief typewritten lines addressed to him was true. It was simply too much of a gift horse. The sort of gift that — if handled correctly — could send the head of the Narco Unit further up the ladder. Chief Commissioner Duncan still hadn’t filled all the important positions at police HQ with his own people. There was, for example, the Gang Unit, where Kenneth’s old rogue Inspector Cawdor had managed to hang on to his seat as they still had no concrete evidence of corruption, but that could only be a question of time. And Duff was one of Duncan’s men. When there were signs that Duncan might be appointed chief commissioner Duff had rung him in Capitol and clearly, if somewhat pompously, stated that if the council didn’t make Duncan the new commissioner, and chose one of Kenneth’s henchmen instead, Duff would resign. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that Duncan had suspected a personal motive behind this unconditional declaration of loyalty, but so what? Duff had a genuine desire to support Duncan’s plan for an honest police force that primarily served the people, he really did. But he also wanted an office at HQ as close to heaven as possible. Who wouldn’t? And he wanted to cut off the head of the man out there.

Sweno.

He was the means and the end.

Duff looked at his watch. The time tallied with what was in the letter, to the minute. He rested the tips of his fingers on the inside of his wrist. To feel his pulse. He was no longer hoping, he was about to become a believer.

‘Are there many of them, Duff?’ a voice whispered.

‘More than enough for great honour, Seyton. And one of them’s so big, when he falls, it’ll be heard all over the country.’

Duff cleaned the condensation off the window. Ten nervous, sweaty police officers in a small room. Men who didn’t usually get this type of assignment. As head of the Narco Unit it was Duff alone who had taken the decision not to show the letter to other officers; he was using only men from his unit for this raid. The tradition of corruption and leaks was too long for him to risk it. At least that is what he would tell Duncan if asked. But there wouldn’t be much cavilling. Not if they could seize the drugs and catch thirteen Norse Riders red-handed.

Thirteen, yes. Not fourteen. One of them would be left lying on the battlefield. If the chance came along.

Duff clenched his teeth.

‘You said there’d only be four or five,’ said Seyton, who had joined him at the window.

‘Worried, Seyton?’

‘No, but you should be, Duff. You’ve got nine men in this room and I’m the only one with experience of a stake-out.’ He said this without raising his voice. He was a lean, sinewy, bald man. Duff wasn’t sure how long he had been in the police, only that he had been in the force when Kenneth was chief commissioner. Duff had tried to get rid of Seyton. Not because he had anything concrete on him; there was just something about him, something Duff couldn’t put his finger on, that made him feel a strong antipathy.

‘Why didn’t you bring in the SWAT team, Duff?’

‘The fewer involved the better.’

‘The fewer you have to share the honours with. Because unless I’m very much mistaken that’s either the ghost of Sweno or the man himself.’ Seyton nodded towards the Indian Chief motorbike, which had stopped by the gangway of MS Leningrad.

‘Did you say Sweno?’ said a nervous voice from the darkness behind them.

‘Yes, and there’s at least a dozen of them,’ Seyton said loudly without taking his eyes off Duff. ‘Minimum.’

‘Oh shit,’ mumbled a second voice.

‘Shouldn’t we ring Macbeth?’ asked a third.

‘Do you hear?’ Seyton said. ‘Even your own men want SWAT to take over.’

‘Shut up!’ Duff hissed. He turned and pointed a finger at the poster on the wall. ‘It says here MS Glamis is sailing to Capitol on Friday at 0600 hours and is looking for galley staff. You said you wanted to take part in this assignment, but you hereby have my blessing to apply for employment there instead. The money and the food are supposed to be better. A show of hands?’

Duff peered into the darkness, at the faceless, unmoving figures. Tried to interpret the silence. Already regretting that he had challenged them. What if some of them actually did put up their hands? Usually he avoided putting himself in situations where he was dependent on others, but now he needed every single one of the men in front of him. His wife said he preferred to operate solo because he didn’t like people. There could have been something in that, but the truth was probably the reverse. People didn’t like him. Not that everyone actively disliked him, although some did; there was something about his personality that put people off. He just didn’t know what. He knew his appearance and confidence attracted a certain kind of woman, and he was polite, knowledgeable and more intelligent than most people he knew.

‘No one? Really? Good, so let’s do what we planned, but with a few minor adjustments. Seyton goes to the right with his three men when we come out and covers the rear half of them. I go to the left with my three men. While you, Sivart, sprint off to the left, out of the light, and run in an arc in the darkness until you’re behind the Norse Riders. Position yourself on the gangway so that no one can escape into the boat. All understood?’

Seyton cleared his throat. ‘Sivart’s the youngest and—’

‘—fastest,’ Duff interrupted. ‘I didn’t ask for objections, I asked if my instructions were understood.’ He scanned the blank faces in front of him. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He turned back to the window.

A short bow-legged man with a white captain’s hat waddled down the gangway in the pouring rain. Stopped by the man on the red motorbike. The rider hadn’t removed his helmet, he had just flipped up the visor, nor had he switched off his engine. He sat with his legs splayed obscenely astride the saddle and listened to the captain. From under the helmet protruded two blond plaits, which hung down over the Norse Rider logo.

Duff took a deep breath. Checked his gun.

The worst was that Macbeth had rung. He had been given the same tip-off via an anonymous phone call and offered Duff the SWAT team. But Duff had turned down his offer, saying all they had to do was pick up a lorry, and had asked Macbeth to keep the tip-off quiet.

At a signal from the man in the Viking helmet one of the other bikers moved forward, and Duff saw the sergeant’s stripes on the upper arm of his leather jacket when the rider opened a briefcase in front of the ship’s captain. The captain nodded, raised his hand, and a second later iron screamed against iron, and light appeared in the crane swinging over its arm from the quayside.

‘We’re almost there,’ Duff said. His voice was firmer now. ‘We’ll wait until the dope and the money have changed hands, then we’ll go in.’

Silent nods in the semi-darkness. They had gone through the plans in painstaking detail, but they had imagined a maximum of five couriers. Could Sweno have been tipped off about a possible intervention by the police? Was that why they had turned up in such strength? No. If so, they would have called it all off.

‘Can you smell it?’ Seyton whispered beside him.

‘Smell what?’

‘Their fear.’ Seyton had closed his eyes and his nostrils were quivering. Duff stared into the rainy night. Would he have accepted Macbeth’s offer of the SWAT team now? Duff stroked his face with his long fingers, down the diagonal scar. There was nothing to think about now; he had to do this, he’d always had to do this. Sweno was here now, and Macbeth and SWAT were in their beds asleep.

Macbeth yawned as he lay on his back. He listened to the rain drumming down. Felt stiff and turned onto his side.

A white-haired man lifted up the tarpaulin and crept inside. Sat shivering and cursing in the darkness.

‘Wet, Banquo?’ Macbeth asked, placing the palms of his hands on the rough roofing felt beneath him.

‘It’s a bugger for a gout-ridden old man like me to have to live in this piss-hole of a town. I should grab my pension and move into the country. Get myself a little house in Fife or thereabouts, sit on a veranda where the sun shines, bees hum and birds sing.’

‘Instead of being on a roof in a container port in the middle of the night? You’ve got to be joking?’

They chuckled.

Banquo switched on a penlight. ‘This is what I wanted to show you.’

Macbeth held the light and shone it on the drawing Banquo passed him.

‘There’s your Gatling gun. Beautiful job, isn’t she?’

‘It’s not the appearance that’s the problem, Banquo.’

‘Show it to Duncan then. Explain that SWAT needs it. Now.’

Macbeth sighed. ‘He doesn’t want it.’

‘Tell him we’ll lose as long as Hecate and the Norse Riders have heavier weaponry than us. Explain to him what a Gatling can do. Explain what two can do!’

‘Duncan won’t agree to any escalation of arms, Banquo. And I think he’s right. Since he’s been the commissioner there have been fewer shooting incidents.’

‘This town is still being depopulated by crime.’

‘It’s a start. Duncan has a plan. And he wants to do what’s right.’

‘Yes, yes, I don’t disagree. Duncan’s a good man.’ Banquo groaned. ‘Naive though. And with this weapon we could clear up and—’

They were interrupted by a tap on the tarpaulin. ‘They’ve started unloading, sir.’ Slight lisp. It was SWAT’s young new sharpshooter, Olafson. Along with the other equally young officer Angus, there were only four of them present, but Macbeth knew that all twenty-five SWAT officers would have said yes to sitting here and freezing with them without a moment’s hesitation.

Macbeth switched off the light, handed it back to Banquo and slid the drawing inside his black SWAT leather jacket. Then he pulled away the tarpaulin and wriggled on his stomach to the edge of the roof.

Banquo crawled up beside him.

In front of them in the floodlights, over the deck of MS Leningrad, hovered a prehistoric-looking military-green lorry.

‘A ZIS-5,’ Banquo whispered.

‘From the war?’

‘Yep. The S stands for Stalin. What do you reckon?’

‘I reckon the Norse Riders have more men than Duff counted on. Sweno’s obviously worried.’

‘Do you think he suspects the police have been tipped off?’

‘He wouldn’t have come if he did. He’s afraid of Hecate. He knows Hecate has bigger ears and eyes than us.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘We wait and watch. Duff might be able to pull this off on his own. In which case, we don’t go in.’

‘Do you mean to say you’ve dragged these kids out here in the middle of the night to sit and watch ?’

Macbeth chortled. ‘It was voluntary, and I did say it might be boring.’

Banquo shook his head. ‘You’ve got too much free time, Macbeth. You should get yourself a family.’

Macbeth raised his hands. His smile lit up the beard on his broad dark face. ‘You and the boys are my family, Banquo. What else do I need?’

Olafson and Angus chuckled happily behind them.

‘When’s the boy going to grow up?’ Banquo mumbled in desperation and wiped water off the sights of his Remington 700 rifle.

Bonus had the town at his feet. The glass pane in front of him went from floor to ceiling, and without the low cloud cover he would have had a view of absolutely the whole town. He held out his champagne glass, and one of the two young boys in riding jodhpurs and white gloves rushed over and recharged it. He should drink less, he knew that. The champagne was expensive, but it wasn’t him paying. The doctor had said a man of his age should begin to think about his lifestyle. But it was so good. Yes, it was as simple as that. It was so good. Just like oysters and crawfish tails. The soft, deep chair. And the young boys. Not that he had access to them. On the other hand, he hadn’t asked.

He had been picked up from reception at the Obelisk and taken to the penthouse suite on the top floor with a view of the harbour on one side and the central station, Workers’ Square and Inverness Casino on the other. Bonus had been received by the great man with the soft cheeks, the friendly smile, the dark wavy hair and the cold eyes. The man who was called Hecate. Or the Invisible Hand. Invisible, as very few people had ever seen him. The Hand, as most people in the town over the last ten years had been affected in some way or other by his activities. That is, his product. A synthetic drug he manufactured himself called brew. Which, according to Bonus’ rough estimate, had made Hecate one of the town’s four richest men.

Hecate turned away from the telescope on the stand by the window. ‘It’s difficult to see clearly in this rain,’ he said, pulling at the braces of his own jodhpurs, and took a pipe from the tweed jacket hanging over the back of the chair. If he’d known that they would turn out dressed as an English hunting party he would have chosen something other than a boring everyday suit, Bonus thought.

‘But the crane’s working, so that means they’re unloading. Are they feeding you properly, Bonus?’

‘Excellent food,’ Bonus said, sipping his champagne. ‘But I have to confess I’m a little unsure what it is we’re celebrating. And why I’m entitled to be here.’

Hecate laughed and raised his walking stick, pointing to the window. ‘We’re celebrating the view, my dear flounder. As a seabed fish you’ve only seen the belly of the world.’

Bonus smiled. It would never have occurred to him to object to the way Hecate addressed him. The great man had too much power to do good things for him. And less good.

‘The world is more beautiful from up here,’ Hecate continued. ‘Not more real but more beautiful. And then we’re celebrating this, of course.’ The stick pointed to the harbour.

‘And this is?’

‘The biggest single stash ever smuggled in, dear Bonus. Four and a half tons of pure amphetamine. Sweno has invested everything the club owns plus a little more. What you see below is a man who has put all his eggs in one basket.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Because he’s desperate, of course. He can see that the Riders’ mediocre Turkish product is outclassed by my brew. But with such a large quantity of quality speed from the Soviets, bulk discount and reduced transport costs will makes it competitive in price and quality per kilo.’ Hecate rested the stick on the thick wall-to-wall carpet and caressed its gilt handle. ‘Well calculated by Sweno, and if he succeeds it’s enough to upset the balance of power in this town. So here’s to our worthy competitor.’

He raised his glass, and Bonus obediently followed suit. But as Hecate was about to put it to his lips he studied the glass with a raised eyebrow, pointed to something and handed the glass back to one of the boys, who immediately cleaned it with his glove.

‘Unfortunately for Sweno,’ Hecate continued, ‘it’s difficult to obtain such a large order from a completely new source without someone in the same line of business catching wind of it. And unfortunately it seems this “someone” may have passed on to the police an anonymous, though reliable, tip-off about where and when.’

‘Such as you?’

Hecate smirked. Took the glass, turned his broad bottom towards Bonus and leaned down to the telescope. ‘They’re lowering the lorry now.’

Bonus got up and went over to the window. ‘Tell me, why didn’t you launch an attack on Sweno instead of watching from the sidelines? You would have got rid of your sole competitor and acquired four and a half tons of quality amphetamine at a stroke. And you could have sold it on the street for how many millions?’

Hecate sipped from his glass without raising his eye from the telescope. ‘Krug,’ he said. ‘They say it’s the best champagne. So it’s the only one I drink. But who knows? If I’d been served something else I might have acquired a taste for it and switched brands.’

‘You don’t want the market to try anything else but your brew?’

‘My religion is capitalism and the free market my creed. But it’s everyone’s right to follow their nature and fight for a monopoly and world domination. And society’s duty to oppose us. We’re just playing our roles, Bonus.’

‘Amen to that.’

‘Shh! Now they’re handing over the money.’ Hecate rubbed his hands. ‘Showtime...’

Duff stood by the front door with his fingers around the handle listening to his breathing while trying to get eye contact with his men. They were standing in a line on the narrow staircase right behind him. Busy with their thoughts. Releasing the safety catch. A last word of advice to the man next to them. A last prayer.

‘The suitcase has been handed over,’ Seyton called down from the first floor.

‘Now!’ Duff shouted, wrenching open the door and hugging the wall.

The men pushed past him into the darkness. Duff followed. Felt the rain on his head. Saw figures moving. Saw a couple of motorbikes left unmanned. Raised the megaphone to his mouth.

‘Police! Stay where you are with your hands in the air! I repeat, this is the police. Stay where—’

The first shot smashed the glass in the door behind him, the second caught the inside leg of his trousers. Then came a sound like when his kids made popcorn on a Saturday night. Automatic weapons. Fuck.

‘Fire!’ Duff screamed, throwing down the megaphone. He dived onto his stomach, tried to raise his gun in front of him and realised he had landed in a puddle.

‘Don’t,’ whispered a voice beside him. Duff looked up. It was Seyton. He stood stationary with his rifle hanging down by his side. Was he sabotaging the action? Was he...?

‘They’ve got Sivart,’ Seyton whispered.

Duff blinked filthy water from his eyes and kept looking, a Norse Rider in his sights. But the man was sitting calmly on his motorbike with his gun pointed at them, not shooting. What the hell was going on?

‘Nobody move a fuckin’ finger now and this’ll be fine.’

The deep voice came from outside the circle of light and needed no megaphone. Duff saw first the abandoned Indian Chief. Then saw the two figures in the darkness merge into one. The horns sticking up from the helmet of the taller of the two. The figure he held in front of him was a head shorter. With every prospect of being another head shorter. The blade of the sabre glinted as Sweno held it to young Sivart’s throat.

‘What will happen now—’ Sweno’s bass voice rumbled from out of the visor opening ‘—is that we’ll take our stuff with us and go. Nice and quietly. Two of my men will stay and make sure none of you does anything stupid. Like trying to come after us. Got that?’

Duff hunched up and was about to stand.

‘If I were you I’d stay in the puddle, Duff,’ Seyton whispered. ‘You’ve screwed this up enough as it is.’

Duff took a deep breath. Let it out. Drew another. Shit, shit, shit.

‘Well?’ said Banquo, training the binoculars on the protagonists on the quayside.

‘Looks like we’ll have to activate the young ones after all,’ Macbeth said. ‘But not quite yet. We’ll let Sweno and his men leave the scene first.’

‘What? We’re going to let them get away with the lorry and all the stash?’

‘I didn’t say that, dear Banquo. But if we start anything now we’ll have a bloodbath down there. Angus?’

‘Sir?’ came the quick response from the lad with the deep blue eyes and the long blond hair unlikely to have been allowed by any other team leader but Macbeth. His emotions were written over all his open face. Angus and Olafson had the training, now they just needed some more experience. Angus especially needed to toughen up. During his job interview Angus had explained that he had dropped out of training to become a priest when he saw there was no god; people could only save themselves and one another, so he wanted to become a policeman instead. That had been good enough for Macbeth; he liked the fearless attitude, the boy dealing with the consequences of his beliefs. But Angus also needed to learn how to master his feelings and realise that in SWAT they became practical men of action, the long, and rough, arm of the law. Others could take care of reflection.

‘Go down the back, fetch the car and be ready by the door.’

‘Right,’ Angus said, got up and was gone.

‘Olafson?’

‘Yes?’

Macbeth glanced at him. The constant slack jaw, the lisping, the semi-closed eyes and his grades at police college meant that when Olafson had come to Macbeth, begging to be moved to SWAT, he had had his doubts. But the lad had wanted the move, and Macbeth decided to give him a chance, as he himself had been given a chance. Macbeth needed a sharpshooter, and even if Olafson was not spectacularly talented in theoretical subjects, he was a highly gifted marksman.

‘At the last shooting test you beat the twenty-year-old record held by him over there.’ Macbeth nodded to Banquo. ‘Congratulations, that’s a damn fine achievement. You know what it means right here and now?’

‘Er... no, sir.’

‘Good, because it means absolutely nothing. What you have to do here is watch and listen to Inspector Banquo and learn. You won’t save the day today. That’s for later. Understand?’

Olafson’s slack jaw and lower lip were working but were clearly unable to produce a sound, so he just nodded.

Macbeth laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Bit nervous?’

‘Bit, sir.’

‘That’s normal. Try to relax. And one more thing, Olafson.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t mess up.’

‘What’s happening?’ Bonus asked.

‘I know what’s going to happen,’ Hecate said, straightening his back and swinging his telescope away from the quay. ‘So I don’t need this.’ He sat down beside Bonus. Bonus had noticed that he often did that. Sat down beside you instead of opposite. As though he didn’t like you looking straight at him.

‘They’ve got Sweno and the amphetamine?’

‘On the contrary. Sweno’s seized one of Duff’s men.’

‘What? Aren’t you worried?’

‘I never bet on one horse, Bonus. And I’m more worried about the bigger picture. What do you think of Chief Commissioner Duncan?’

‘His promise that you’ll be arrested?’

‘That doesn’t concern me at all, but he’s removed many of my former associates in the police and that’s already created problems in the markets. Come on, you’re a good judge of character. You’ve seen him, heard him. Is he as incorruptible as they say?’

Bonus shrugged. ‘Everyone has a price.’

‘You’re right there, but the price is not always money. Not everyone is as simple as you.’

Bonus ignored the insult by not perceiving it as such. ‘To know how Duncan can be bribed you have to know what he wants.’

‘Duncan wants to serve the herd,’ Hecate said. ‘Earn the town’s love. Have a statue erected he didn’t order himself.’

‘Tricky. It’s easier to bribe greedy vermin like us than pillars of society like Duncan.’

‘You’re right as far as bribery is concerned,’ Hecate said. ‘And wrong with respect to pillars of society and vermin.’

‘Oh?’

‘The foundation of capitalism, dear Bonus. The individual’s attempt to get rich enriches the herd. It’s mechanics pure and simple and happens without us seeing or thinking about it. You and I are pillars of society, not deluded idealists like Duncan.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘The moral philosopher Adam Hand thought so.’

‘Producing and selling drugs serves society?’

‘Anyone who supplies a demand helps to build society. People like Duncan who want to regulate and limit are unnatural and in the long run harmful to us all. So how can Duncan, for the good of the town, be rendered harmless? What’s his weakness? What can we use? Sex, dope, family secrets?’

‘Thank you for your confidence, Hecate, but I really don’t know.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Hecate, gently tapping his stick on the carpet as he observed one of the boys remove the wire from the cork of a new bottle of champagne. ‘You see, I’ve begun to suspect Duncan has only one weak point.’

‘And that is?’

‘The length of his life.’

Bonus recoiled in his chair. ‘I really hope you haven’t invited me here to ask me to...’

‘Not at all, my dear flounder. You’ll be allowed to lie still in the mud.’

Bonus heaved a sigh of relief as he watched the boy struggle with the cork.

‘But,’ Hecate said, ‘you have the gifts of ruthlessness, disloyalty and influence that give you power over the people I need to have power over. I hope I can rely on you when help is needed. I hope you can be my invisible hand.’

There was a loud bang.

‘There we are!’ Bonus laughed, patting the boy on the back as he tried to get as much of the unrestrained champagne into the glasses.

Duff lay still on the tarmac. Beside him his men stood equally still watching the Norse Riders, less than ten metres away, preparing to leave. Sivart and Sweno stood in the darkness outside the cone of light, but Duff could see the young officer’s body shaking and Sweno’s sabre blade, which rested against Sivart’s throat. Duff could see that the least pressure or movement would pierce the skin, the artery and drain the man’s blood in seconds. And Duff could feel his own panic when he considered the consequences. Not only the consequences of having one of his men’s blood on his hands and record, but the consequences of his privately orchestrated actions failing miserably just as the chief commissioner was about to appoint a head of Organised Crime. Sweno nodded to one of the Norse Riders, who dismounted from his motorbike, stood behind Sivart and pointed a gun at his head. Sweno pulled down his visor, stepped into the light, spoke to the man with the sergeant’s stripes on his leather jacket, straddled his bike, saluted with two fingers to his helmet and rode off down the quayside. Duff had to control himself not to loose off a shot at him. The sergeant gave some orders and a second later the motorbikes growled off into the night. Only two unmanned motorbikes were left after the others had followed Sweno and the sergeant.

Duff told himself not to give way to panic, told himself to think. Breathe, think. Four men in Norse Rider regalia were left on the quay. One stood behind Sivart in the shadows. One stood in the light keeping the police covered with an assault rifle, an AK-47. Two men, presumably the pillion riders, got into the lorry. Duff heard the continuous strained whine as the ignition key was turned and for a second he hoped that the old iron monster wouldn’t start. Cursed as the first low growl rose to a loud rumbling rattle. The lorry moved off.

‘We’ll give them ten minutes,’ shouted the man with the AK-47. ‘Think of something pleasant in the meantime.’

Duff stared at the lorry’s rear lights slowly fading into the darkness. Something pleasant? A mere four and a half tons of drugs heading away from him, along with what would have been the biggest mass arrest this side of the war. It didn’t help that they knew Sweno and his people had been there right in front of them if they couldn’t tell the judge and jury they had seen their faces and not just fourteen sodding helmets. Something pleasant ? Duff closed his eyes.

Sweno.

He’d had him here in the palm of his hand. Shit, shit, shit!

Duff listened. Listened for something, anything. But all that could be heard was the meaningless whisper of the rain.

‘Banquo’s got the guy holding the lad in his sights,’ Macbeth said. ‘Have you got the other one, Olafson?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You have to shoot at the same time, OK. Fire on the count of three. Banquo?’

‘I need more light on the target. Or younger eyes. I might hit the boy as it is.’

‘My target has lots of light,’ Olafson whispered. ‘We can swap.’

‘If we miss and our lad is killed, we’d prefer it if it was Banquo who missed. Banquo, what’s the maximum speed of a fully loaded Stalin lorry, do you reckon?’

‘Hm. Sixty maybe.’

‘Good, but time’s getting short to achieve all our objectives. So we’d better do a bit of improvising.’

‘Are you going to try your daggers?’ Banquo asked Macbeth.

‘From this distance? Thanks for your confidence. No, you’ll soon see, old man. As in see.’

Banquo looked up from his binoculars and discovered that Macbeth had stood up and grabbed the pole on to which the light on the roof was bolted. The veins in Macbeth’s powerful neck stood out and his teeth shone in either a grimace or a grin, Banquo couldn’t decide which. The pole was screwed down to withstand the feisty north-westerlies that blew for eight of the year’s twelve months, but Banquo had seen Macbeth lift cars out of snowdrifts before now.

‘Three,’ Macbeth groaned.

The first screws popped out of their sockets.

‘Two.’

The pole came loose and with a jerk tore the cable away from the wall below.

‘One.’

Macbeth pointed the light at the gangway.

‘Now.’

It sounded like two whiplashes. Duff opened his eyes in time to see the man with the automatic weapon topple forward and hit the ground helmet first. Where Sivart stood there was now light, and Duff could see him clearly and also the man behind him. He was no longer holding a gun to Sivart’s head but resting his chin on Sivart’s shoulder. And in the light Duff also saw the hole in the visor. Then, like a jellyfish, he slid down Sivart’s back to the ground.

Duff turned.

‘Up here, Duff!’

He shaded his eyes. A peal of laughter rang out behind the dazzling light and the shadow of a gigantic man fell over the quay.

But the laughter was enough.

It was Macbeth. Of course it was Macbeth.

2

A seagull swept in over Fife through the silence and moonlight under a cloud-free night sky. Below, the river shone like silver. On the west of the river — like an immense fortress wall — a steep black mountain rose to the sky. Just short of the top a monastic order had once erected a large cross, but as it had been put up on the Fife side the silhouette appeared to be upside down to the residents of the town. From the side of the mountain — like a drawbridge over the fortress moat — jutted an impressive iron bridge. Three hundred and sixty metres long and ninety metres high at its tallest point. Kenneth Bridge, or the new bridge as most people called it. The old bridge was by comparison a modest but more aesthetically pleasing construction further down the river, and it meant a detour. In the middle of the new bridge towered an unlovely marble monument in the shape of a man, meant to represent former Chief Commissioner Kenneth, erected at his own orders. The statue stood inside the town boundary by a centimetre as no other county would give the rogue’s posthumous reputation a centimetre of land for free. Even though the sculptor had complied with Kenneth’s order to emphasise his visionary status by creating a characteristic horizon-searching pose, not even the most benevolent of artists could have refrained from drawing attention to the chief commissioner’s unusually voluminous neck and chin area.

The seagull flapped its wings to gain height, hoping for better fishing on the coast across the mountain, even though that meant crossing the weather divide. From good to bad. For those wishing to travel the same way there was a two-kilometre-long narrow black hole from the new bridge through the mountain. A mountain and a partition many appeared to appreciate — neighbouring counties referred to the tunnel as a rectum with an anal orifice at each end. And indeed as the seagull passed over the mountain peak it was like flying from a world of quiet harmony into a freezing-cold filthy shower falling onto the foul-smelling town beneath. And as if to show its contempt the seagull shat, then continued to swerve between the gusts of wind.

The seagull shit hit the roof of a shelter, below which an emaciated trembling boy crept onto a bench. Although the sign beside the shelter indicated it was a bus stop the boy wasn’t sure. So many bus routes had been stopped over the last couple of years. Because of the decreasing population, the mayor said, the fathead. But the boy had to get to the central station for brew; the speed he had bought from some bikers was just crap, icing sugar and potato flour rather than amphetamine.

The oily wet tarmac glinted beneath the few street lamps that still worked, and the rain lay in puddles on the potholed road leading out of town. It had been quiet, not a car to be seen, only rain. But now he heard a sound like a low gurgle.

He raised his head. Pulled on the string of his eyepatch, which had slipped over from his empty eye cavity and now covered the remaining eye. Perhaps he could hitch a lift to the centre?

But no, the sound came from the wrong direction.

He drew up his knees again.

The gurgle rose to a roar. He couldn’t be bothered to move, besides he was already drenched, so he just covered his head with his arms. The lorry passed, sending a cascade of filthy water into the bus shelter.

He lay there thinking about life until he realised it was wiser not to.

The sound of another vehicle. This time?

He struggled upright and looked out. But no, it was coming from the town too. Also at great speed. He stared into the lights as they approached. And the thought came into his head: one step into the road and all his problems were solved.

The van passed him without going into any of the potholes. Black Ford Transit. Cops, three of them. Great. You don’t want a lift with them.

‘There it is, ahead of us,’ Banquo said. ‘Step on it, Angus!’

‘How do you know it’s them?’ Olafson asked, leaning forward between the front seats of the SWAT Transit.

‘Diesel smoke,’ Banquo said. ‘My God, no wonder there’s an oil crisis in Russia. Get right behind them so that they can see us in their rear-view mirror, Angus.’

Angus maintained his speed until they reached the black exhaust. Banquo rolled down his window and steadied his rifle on the wing mirror. Coughed. ‘And now alongside, Angus!’

Angus pulled out and accelerated. The Transit drew alongside the snorting, groaning lorry.

A puff of smoke came from the lorry window. The mirror under Banquo’s rifle barrel broke with a crack.

‘Yes, they’ve seen us,’ Banquo said. ‘Get behind them again.’

The rain stopped suddenly and everything around them became even darker. They had driven into the tunnel. The tarmac and the hewn black walls seemed to swallow the lights of the headlamps; all they could see was the lorry’s rear lights.

‘What shall we do?’ Angus asked. ‘The bridge at the other end, and if they pass the middle...’

‘I know,’ Banquo said, lifting his rifle. The town stopped by the statue, their area of jurisdiction stopped, the chase stopped. In theory of course they could carry on, it had happened before: enthusiastic officers, rarely in the Narco Unit though, had arrested smugglers on the wrong side of the boundary. And every time they’d had a nice fat juicy case thrown out of court and had to face censure for gross misjudgement in the course of duty. Banquo’s Remington 700 recoiled.

‘Bull’s eye,’ he said.

The lorry began to swerve in the tunnel; bits of rubber flew off the rear wheel.

‘Now you’ll feel what a heavy steering wheel is really like,’ Banquo said and took aim at the other rear tyre. ‘Bit more distance, Angus, in case they go straight into the tunnel wall.’

‘Banquo!’ came a voice from the back seat.

‘Olafson?’ Banquo said, slowly pressing the trigger.

‘Car coming.’

‘Whoops.’

Banquo lifted his cheek off the rifle as Angus braked.

In front of them the ZIS-5 veered from side to side, alternately showing and cutting off the headlights of the oncoming car. Banquo heard the horn, the desperate hooting of a saloon car that saw a lorry bearing down on it and knew it was too late to do anything.

‘Jesus...’ Olafson said in a lisped whisper.

The sound of the horn rose in volume and frequency.

Then a flash of light.

Banquo automatically glanced to the side.

Caught a glimpse of the back seat in the car, the cheek of a sleeping child, resting against the window.

Then it was gone, and the dying tone of the horn sounded like the disappointed groan of cheated spectators.

‘Faster,’ Banquo said. ‘We’ll be on the bridge in no time.’

Angus jammed his foot down, and they were back in the cloud of exhaust.

‘Steady,’ Banquo said while aiming. ‘Steady...’

At that moment the tarpaulin on the back of the lorry was pulled aside, and the Transit’s headlamps lit up a flatbed piled with plastic bags containing a white substance. The window at the back of the driver’s cab had been smashed. And from the top of a gap between the kilo bags pointed a rifle.

‘Angus...’

A brief explosion. Banquo caught sight of a muzzle flash, then the windscreen whitened and fell in on them.

‘Angus!’

Angus had taken the point and swung the wheel sharply to the right. And then to the left. The tyres screamed and the bullets whined as the fire-spitting muzzle tried to track their manoeuvres.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Banquo shrieked and fired at the other tyre, but the bullet just drew sparks from the wing.

And suddenly the rain was back. They were on the bridge.

‘Get him with the shotgun, Olafson,’ Banquo yelled. ‘Now!’

The rain pelted through the hole where the windscreen had been, and Banquo moved so that Olafson could lay the double-barrelled gun on the back of his seat. The barrel protruded above Banquo’s shoulder, but disappeared again at the sound of a thud like a hammer on meat. Banquo turned to where Olafson sat slumped with his head tipped forward and a hole in his jacket at chest height. Grey upholstery filling fluffed up when the next bullet went right through Banquo’s seat and into the seat beside Olafson. The guy on the lorry had got his eye in now. Banquo took the shotgun from Olafson’s hands and in one swift movement swung it forward and fired. There was a white explosion on the back of the lorry. Banquo let go of the shotgun and raised his rifle. It was impossible for the guy on the lorry to see through the thick white cloud of powder, but from the darkness rose the floodlit white marble statue of Kenneth, like an unwelcome apparition. Banquo aimed at the rear wheel and pulled the trigger. Bull’s eye.

The lorry careered from side to side, one front wheel mounted the pavement, a rear wheel hit the kerb, and the side of the ZIS-5 struck the steel-reinforced fence. The scream of metal forced along metal drowned the vehicles’ engines. But, incredibly, the driver in front managed to get the heavy lorry back on the road.

‘Don’t cross the bloody boundary, please!’ Banquo yelled.

The last remnant of rubber had been stripped from the lorry’s rear wheel rims and a fountain of sparks stood out against the night sky. The ZIS-5 went into a skid, the driver tried desperately to counter it, but this time he had no chance. The lorry veered across the road and skidded along the tarmac. It was practically at the boundary when the wheels gained purchase again and steered the lorry off the road. Twelve tons of Soviet military engineering hit Chief Commissioner Kenneth right under the belt, tore him off the plinth and dragged the statue plus ten metres or so of steel fencing along before tipping over the edge. Angus had managed to stop the Transit, and in the sudden silence Banquo observed Kenneth falling through the moonlight and slowly rotating around his own chin. Behind him came the ZIS-5, bonnet first, with a tail of white powder like some damned amphetamine comet.

‘My God...’ the policeman whispered.

It felt like an eternity before everything hit the water and coloured it white for an instant, and the sound reached Banquo with a slight time delay.

Then the silence returned.

Sean stamped his feet on the ground outside the club house, staring out through the gate. Scratched the NORSE RIDERS TILL I DIE tattoo on his forehead. He hadn’t been so nervous since he was in the hospital delivery room. Wasn’t it just typical that he and Colin had drawn the short straw and had to stand guard on the night when excitement was at fever pitch? They hadn’t been allowed to string along and collect the dope or go to the party either.

‘Missus wants to call the kid after me,’ said Sean, mostly to himself.

‘Congrats,’ said Colin in a monotone, pulling at his walrus moustache. The rain ran down his shiny pate.

‘Ta,’ said Sean. Actually he hadn’t wanted either. A tattoo that would stamp him for life or a kid he knew would do the same. Freedom. That was the idea of a motorbike, wasn’t it? But the club and then Betty had changed his notion of freedom. You can only truly be free when you belong, when you feel real solidarity.

‘There they are,’ Sean said. ‘Looks like everything’s gone well, eh?’

‘Two guys missing,’ Colin said, spitting out his cigarette and opening the high gate with barbed wire on top.

The first bike stopped by them. The bass rumbled from behind the horn helmet. ‘We were ambushed by the cops, so the twins will come a bit later.’

‘Right, boss,’ Colin said.

The bikes roared through the gate one after the other. One of the guys gave a thumbs up. Good, the dope was safe, the club saved. Sean breathed out with relief. The bikes rolled across the yard past the shed-like single-storey timber house with the Norse Rider logo painted on the wall and disappeared into the big garage. The table was laid in the shed; Sweno had decided that the deal should be celebrated with a piss-up. And after a few minutes Sean heard the music turned up inside and the first shouts of celebration.

‘We’re rich.’ Sean laughed. ‘Do you know where they’re taking the dope?’

Colin said nothing, just rolled his eyes.

He didn’t know. Nobody did. Only Sweno. And those in the lorry, of course. It was best like that.

‘Here come the twins,’ Sean said, opening the gate again.

The motorbikes came slowly, almost hesitantly, up the hill towards them.

‘Hi, João, what happ—?’ Sean began, but the bikes continued through the gate.

He watched them as they stopped in the middle of the yard as though considering leaving their bikes there. Then they nudged one another, nodded to the open garage door and drove in.

‘Did you see João’s visor?’ Sean said. ‘It had a hole in it.’

Colin sighed heavily.

‘I’m not kidding!’ Sean said. ‘Right in the middle. I’ll go and see what really happened down on the quay.’

‘Hey, Sean...’

But Sean was off, ran across the yard and entered the garage. The twins had dismounted. Both stood with their backs to him, still wearing their helmets. One twin by the door leading straight from the garage into the club’s function room held the door ajar, as though not wanting to show himself but seeing what the party was like first. João, Sean’s best mate, stood by his bike. He had removed the magazine from his ugly-looking AK-47 and seemed to be counting how many bullets he had left. Sean patted him on the back. That must have been quite a shock because he spun round with a vengeance.

‘What happened to your visor, João? Stone chip, was it?’

João didn’t answer, just appeared to be busy inserting the magazine back into his AK-47. He was strangely clumsy. The other strange thing was that he seemed... taller. As though it wasn’t João standing there, but...

‘Fuck!’ Sean shouted, took a step back and reached for his belt. He had realised what the hole in the visor was and that he wasn’t going to see his best pal again. Sean pulled out his gun, released the safety catch and was about to point it at the man still struggling with the AK-47 when something struck him in the shoulder. He automatically swung the gun in the direction from which the blow had come. But there was no one there. Only the guy in the Norse Rider jacket standing over by the door. At that moment his hand seemed to wither and Sean dropped his gun to the floor.

‘Not a peep,’ a voice said behind him.

Sean turned again.

The AK was pointing at him, and in the reflection of the holed visor he saw a dagger sticking out of his shoulder.

Duff put the barrel of the AK to the tattoo on the guy’s forehead. Looked into his gawping, ugly features. His finger squeezed the trigger, just a fraction... He heard the hiss of his own breathing inside the helmet and his heart pounding beneath the somewhat too tight leather jacket.

‘Duff,’ Macbeth said from the club-room doorway. ‘Easy now.’

Duff squeezed the trigger a fraction more.

‘Stop that,’ Macbeth said. ‘It’s our turn to use a hostage.’

Duff let go of the trigger.

The man’s face was as white as a sheet. From fear or loss of blood. Both probably. His voice shook. ‘We don’t save—’

Duff hit him across the tattoo with the gun barrel. Leaving a stripe that for a moment shone white like a copy of Duff’s own trademark. Then it filled with blood.

‘You shut up, son, and everything’ll be fine,’ said Macbeth, who had joined them. He grabbed the young man’s long hair, pulled his head back and put the blade of his second dagger to his throat. Pushed him forward to the club-room door. ‘Ready?’

‘Remember Sweno’s mine,’ Duff said, making sure the curved magazine sat properly in the weapon, and strode after Macbeth and the Norse Rider.

Macbeth kicked open the door and went in with the hostage in front and Duff hard on his heels. Grinning and loud-mouthed, the Norse Riders were sitting at a long table in the large, open but already smoke-filled club-room. All of them with their backs to the wall facing the three doors that led from the room. Probably a club rule. Duff estimated there were twenty of them. The music was on loud. The Stones. ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’.

‘Police!’ Duff shouted. ‘No one move or my colleague will cut the throat of this fine young man.’

Time seemed to come to an abrupt halt, and Duff saw the man at the end of the table raise his head as if in slow motion. A ruddy porcine face with visible nostrils and plaits so tight they pulled the eyes into two narrow hate-filled straight lines. From the corner of his mouth hung a long thin cigarillo. Sweno.

‘We don’t save hostages,’ he said.

The young man lost consciousness and fell.

In the next two seconds everything in the room froze and all you could hear was the Rolling Stones.

Until Sweno took a drag of his cigarillo. ‘Take them,’ he said.

Duff registered at least three of the Norse Riders react at the same time and pulled the trigger of his AK-47. Held it there. Spraying chunks of lead with a diameter of 7.62 millimetres, which smashed bottles, raked the table, lashed the wall, carved flesh and stopped Mick Jagger between two gasses. Beside him Macbeth had reached for the two Glocks he had removed from the Norse Rider bodies on the quay. Along with their jackets, helmets and bikes. In Duff’s hands, his gun felt warm and soft like a woman. Darkness fell gradually as lamps were shot to pieces. And when Duff finally let go of the trigger, dust and feathers hovered in the air, and one lamp swung to and fro from the ceiling sending shadows scurrying up the walls like fleeing ghosts.

3

‘I looked around, and in the semi-darkness Norse Rider guys were strewn across the floor face down,’ Macbeth said. ‘Blood, broken glass and empty shell cases.’

‘Jesus!’ Angus shouted with a slur over the lively babble at the Bricklayers Arms, the SWAT’s local behind the central station. The glazed blue eyes looked at Macbeth with what seemed to be adoration. ‘You just swept them off the face of the earth! Holy Jesus! Cheers!’

‘Now, now, careful with your language, you priest-in-waiting,’ Macbeth said, but when many of the eighteen SWAT officers in attendance raised their beer mugs to him, he eventually smiled, shaking his head, and then raised his glass too. Took a long draught and looked at Olafson, who was holding a heavy Bricklayers Arms pint mug in his left hand.

‘Does it hurt, Olafson?’

‘It’s all the better for knowing that one of them has a sore shoulder as well,’ Olafson lisped and shyly straightened the sling when the others burst into loud laughter.

‘The ones who actually got things rolling were Banquo and Olafson here,’ Macbeth said. ‘I was just holding the light like some bloody photographer’s assistant for these two artists.’

‘Keep going,’ Angus said. ‘You and Duff had all the Norse Riders on the floor. What happened then?’ He flicked his blond hair behind his ears.

Macbeth gazed at the expectant faces around the table and exchanged glances with Banquo before continuing. ‘Some of them screamed they were surrendering. The dust settled and the music system was shot to pieces, so it was finally quiet but still dark, and the situation was rather unclear. Duff and I started checking them out from our end of the room. There were no fatalities, but a number of them required medical attention, you might say. Duff shouted that he couldn’t find Sweno.’ Macbeth ran a finger through the condensation on the outside of his glass. ‘I spotted a door behind the end of the table where Sweno had been sitting. At that moment we heard motorbikes starting up. So we left the others and charged out into the yard. And there we saw three motorbikes on their way out of the gate, one of them was red, Sweno’s. And the guard, a bald guy with a moustache, jumped on his bike and followed. Duff was furious, wanted to give chase, but I said there were a few badly injured guys inside...’

‘Did you think that would stop Duff?’ a voice whispered. ‘Bastards lying around bleeding when he could catch Sweno?’

Macbeth turned. The voice in question was sitting alone in the next booth, his face hidden in the shadow beneath the dart club’s trophy cupboard.

‘Did you think Duff would consider a few ordinary people’s lives when a heroic exploit was within reach?’ A beer mug was raised in the shadows. ‘After all there are careers to consider.’

Macbeth’s table had gone quiet.

Banquo coughed. ‘To hell with careers. We in SWAT don’t let defenceless people just die, Seyton. We don’t know what you in Narco do.’

Seyton leaned forward and the light fell on his face. ‘None of us in Narco quite know what we’re doing either, that’s the problem with a boss like Duff. But don’t let me interrupt your story, Macbeth. Did you go back in and tend their wounds?’

‘Sweno’s a murderer who would kill again if he had the chance,’ Macbeth said without letting go of Seyton’s eyes. ‘And Duff was worried they would escape across the bridge.’

‘I was afraid they’d get across the bridge, as the lorry had tried to do,’ Duff said. ‘So we jumped back on our bikes. We rode them as hard as we could. Plus a bit more. One miscalculated bend on the wet tarmac...’ Duff pushed the golden half-eaten crème brûlée across Lyon’s damask cloth, took the bottle of champagne from the cooler and refilled the other three’s glasses. ‘After the first hairpin bend at the bottom of the valley I saw the rear lights of four bikes and pressed on. In my mirror I saw Macbeth was still following.’

Duff cast a furtive glance at Chief Commissioner Duncan to see if his account was being well received. His gentle, friendly smile was hard to interpret. Duncan still hadn’t directly commented on the night’s stake-out, but wasn’t the fact that he had come to this little celebration an acknowledgement in itself? Perhaps, but the chief commissioner’s silence unsettled Duff. He felt more secure with the pale redhead leader of the Anti-Corruption Unit, Inspector Lennox, who with his customary enthusiasm leaned across the table swallowing every word. And the head of the Forensic Unit, Caithness, whose big green eyes told him she believed every scrap and crumb.

Duff put down the bottle. ‘On the stretch leading to the tunnel we were side by side and the lights ahead were growing. As though they had slowed down. I could see the horns on Sweno’s helmet. Then something unexpected happened.’

Duncan moved his champagne next to his red wine glass, which Duff didn’t know whether to interpret as tension or just impatience. ‘Two of the bikes turned off straight after the bus shelter, by the exit road to Forres, while the other two continued towards the tunnel. We were seconds away from the junction and I had to make a decision...’

Duff emphasised the word decision. Of course he could have said make a choice. But choosing was just something any idiot might be forced to do while making a decision is pro-active, it requires a mental process and character, it is taken by a leader. The kind of leader the chief commissioner needed when he appointed the head of the newly established Organised Crime Unit. The OCU was a grand merging of the Narco Unit and the Gang Unit, and a logical fusion as all the drug dealing in town was now split between Hecate and the Norse Riders, who had swallowed the other gangs. The question was who would lead the unit, Duff or Cawdor, the experienced leader of the Gang Unit, who had a suspiciously large fully paid-off house on the west side of town. The problem was that Cawdor had a supporting cast on the town council and among Kenneth’s old conspirators at police HQ, and even though everyone knew Duncan was prepared to stick his neck out to get rid of the various Cawdors he also had to show some political nous so as not to lose control at HQ. What was clear was that one of Cawdor or Duff would emerge as the winner and the other would be left without a unit.

‘I signalled to Macbeth that we should follow the Forres pair.’

‘Really?’ said Lennox. ‘Then the other two would cross the county boundary.’

‘Yes, and that was the dilemma. Sweno’s a sly fox. Was he sending two men to Forres as decoys while he drove to the boundary as he’s the only Norse Rider we’ve got anything on? Or was he counting on us thinking that was what he was thinking and he would therefore do the opposite?’

‘Have we?’ Lennox asked.

‘Have we what?’ Duff asked, trying to conceal his irritation at being interrupted.

‘Got anything on Sweno? The Stoke Massacre is time-barred, as far as I know.’

‘The two post office robberies in District 1 five years ago,’ Duff said impatiently. ‘We’ve got Sweno’s fingerprints and everything.’

‘And the other Norse Riders?’

‘Zilch. And we didn’t get anything tonight either because they were all wearing helmets. Anyway, when we turned off for Forres we saw the helmet—’

‘What’s the Stoke Massacre?’ Caithness asked.

Duff groaned.

‘You probably weren’t born then,’ Duncan said in a friendly voice. ‘It happened in Capitol straight after the war. Sweno’s brother was about to be arrested for desertion and was stupid enough to draw a weapon. The two arresting policemen, who had both spent the war in the trenches, shot holes in him. Sweno avenged his brother several months later in Stoke. He went into the local police station and shot down four officers, among them one very pregnant woman. Sweno disappeared off our radar, and when he reappeared the case was time-barred. Please, Duff, continue.’

‘Thank you. I thought they weren’t aware we were so close on their tails that we could see Sweno’s helmet when he turned off for Forres and the old bridge. We caught them up only a couple of kilometres or so later. That is, Macbeth fired two shots in the air when they were still a good way in front, and they stopped. So we stopped too. We had left the valley behind us, so it wasn’t raining. Good visibility, moonlight, fifty to sixty metres between us. I had my AK-47 and ordered them to get off their bikes, walk five steps towards us and kneel down on the tarmac with their hands behind their heads. They did as we said, we got off our bikes and walked towards them.’

Duff closed his eyes.

He could see them now.

They were kneeling.

Duff’s leather gear creaked as he walked towards them, and a drop of water hung in his peripheral vision from the edge of his open visor. Soon it would fall. Soon.

‘There was probably a distance of ten to fifteen strides between us when Sweno pulled out a gun,’ Macbeth said. ‘Duff reacted at once. He fired. Hitting Sweno three times in the chest. He was dead before his helmet hit the ground. But in the meantime the second man had drawn his gun and aimed at Duff. Fortunately though he never managed to pull the trigger.’

‘Holy shit!’ Angus shouted. ‘You shot him, did you?’

Macbeth leaned back. ‘I got him with a dagger.’

Banquo studied his superior officer.

‘Impressive,’ whispered Seyton from the shadows. ‘On the other hand, Duff reacted quicker than you when Sweno went for his gun? I’d have bet you’d be quicker, Macbeth.’

‘But there you’re wrong,’ Macbeth said. What was Seyton doing, what was he after? ‘Just like Duff,’ Macbeth said, lifting his beer mug to his mouth.

‘I made a mistake,’ Duff said, signalling to the head waiter for another bottle of champagne. ‘Not about shooting, of course. But choosing which bikes to follow.’

The head waiter came to the table and quietly informed them that unfortunately they would have to close, and it was illegal to sell alcohol after midnight. Unless the chief commissioner...

‘Thank you, but no,’ said Duncan, who was a master of the art of smiling roguishly while raising his eyebrows in reproof. ‘We’ll keep to the law.’

The waiter took his leave.

‘Making the wrong choice can happen to the best of us,’ Duncan said. ‘When did you realise? When you removed his helmet?’

Duff shook his head. ‘Immediately before, when I knelt down beside the body and happened to glance at his bike. It wasn’t Sweno’s bike, the sabre wasn’t there. And the Riders don’t swap bikes.’

‘But they swap helmets?’

Duff shrugged. ‘I should have known. After all, Macbeth and I had just employed the same trick ourselves. Sweno swapped his helmet, and they slowed down enough for us to see his helmet was on one of the Riders going to Forres. He himself went through the tunnel, over the bridge and escaped.’

‘Smart thinking, no doubt about it,’ Duncan said. ‘Shame his people weren’t as smart.’

‘What do you mean?’ Duff asked, looking down at the leather folder with the bill the waiter had placed before him.

‘Why pull guns on the police when they know — as you yourself said — we have no evidence against anyone except Sweno? They could have just allowed themselves to be arrested and left the police station as free men a few hours later.’

Duff shrugged. ‘Perhaps they didn’t believe we were policemen. Perhaps they thought we were Hecate’s men and we were going to kill them.’

‘Or as the chief commissioner says,’ Lennox said, ‘they’re stupid.’

Duncan scratched his chin. ‘How many Norse Riders did we lock up?’

‘Six,’ Duff said. ‘When we returned to the club house it was mainly the seriously injured who were still there.’

‘I didn’t think gangs like the Norse Riders left their injured for the enemy.’

‘They knew they would get medical aid faster. They’re being treated now, but we’re expecting to get more in custody tomorrow. And then they’ll be questioned about Sweno. However much pain they’re in. We’ll find him, sir.’

‘Fine. Four and a half tons of amphetamine. That’s a lot,’ said Duncan.

‘It is indeed.’ Duff smiled.

‘So much that you almost have to ask yourself why you didn’t inform me about the stake-out beforehand.’

‘Time,’ Duff replied quickly. He had weighed up the pros and cons of how to answer the inevitable question. ‘There wasn’t enough time between receiving the tip-off and going into action. As head of the unit I had to assess procedural regulations against the risk of not preventing four and a half tons of amphetamines from reaching the youths in this town.’

Duff met Duncan’s eyes, which were contemplating him. The chief commissioner’s index finger stroked the point of his chin to and fro. Then he moistened his lips.

‘There’s a lot of blood too. A lot of damage to the bridge. The fish in the river are probably already junkies. And Sweno’s still on the loose.’

Duff cursed inwardly. The hypocritical, arrogant fool must be capable of seeing the bigger picture.

‘But,’ said the chief commissioner, ‘six Norse Riders are in custody. And even if we do feel a little more invigorated than usual when eating fish over the next few weeks, better that than the dope ending up in our young people. Or—’ Duncan grabbed his champagne glass ‘—in Seized Goods.’

Lennox and Caithness laughed. It was well known that the HQ warehouse was still unaccountably losing goods.

‘So,’ Duncan said, raising his glass, ‘good police work, Duff.’

Duff blinked twice. His heart beat quickly and lightly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, draining his glass.

Duncan snatched the leather folder. ‘This is on me.’ He took the bill, held it at arm’s length and squinted. ‘Although I can’t see if I’ve been given the right bill.’

‘Who has!’ Lennox said with a stiff smile when no one laughed.

‘Let me,’ Caithness said, taking the bill and putting on her horn-rimmed granny glasses, which Duff knew she didn’t need but wore because she thought they added a couple of years to her age and detracted from her appearance. Duncan had been brave to give Caithness the Forensic Unit. Not because anyone doubted her professional competence — she had been the best cadet at her police college and had also studied chemistry and physics — but she was younger than any of the other unit heads, single and simply too good-looking for suspicion of ulterior motives not to creep in. The candle flames made the water in her laughing eyes behind the glasses, the moisture of her full red lips and the wetness of her shining white teeth sparkle. Duff closed his eyes. The gleaming shine of the tarmac, the sound of tyres on the wet road. The spattering sound. The blood that had splashed to the floor when the man had pulled the dagger from his neck. It was a like a hand squeezing Duff’s chest, and he opened his eyes with a gasp.

‘Everything OK?’ Lennox held a carafe of water over Duff’s glass, and the dregs splashed in. ‘Drink, Duff, so that you can dilute the champagne. You have to drive now.’

‘No question of that,’ Duncan said. ‘I don’t want my heroes arrested for drunk driving or killed on the road. My driver wouldn’t object to a little detour.’

‘Thank you,’ Duff said. ‘But Fife’s—’

‘—more or less on my way home,’ Duncan said. ‘And it’s Mrs Duff and your two wonderful children who should thank me.’

‘Excuse me,’ Duff said, pushing his chair back and standing up.

‘A stupendous police officer,’ Lennox said as he watched Duff stagger towards the toilet door at the back of the room.

‘Duff?’ Duncan queried.

‘Him too, but I was thinking about Macbeth. His results are impressive, his men love him, and even though he worked under Kenneth, we in the Anti-Corruption Unit know he’s rock solid. It’s a pity he doesn’t have the formal qualifications necessary for a higher management post.’

‘There’s no requirement to have anything higher than police college. Look at Kenneth.’

‘Yes, but Macbeth still isn’t one of us.’

‘Us?’

‘Well,’ Lennox lifted his champagne glass with a wry smile, ‘you’ve chosen heads who — whether we like it or not — are seen as belonging to the elite. We all come from the western side of town or Capitol, have an education or a respectable family name. Macbeth is seen more as someone from the broader ranks of the populace, if you know what I mean.’

‘I do. Listen, I’m a bit worried about Duff’s unsteadiness on his feet. Could you...?’

Fortunately the toilet was empty.

Duff did up his flies, stood by one of the sinks, turned on a tap and splashed water over his face. He heard the door go behind him.

‘Duncan asked me to check how you were,’ Lennox said.

‘Mm. What do you think he thought?’

‘Thought about what?’

Duff grabbed a paper and dried his face. ‘About... how things went.’

‘He probably thinks what we all think: you did a good job.’

Duff nodded.

Lennox chuckled. ‘You really do want the Organised Crime job, don’t you.’

Duff turned off the tap and soaped his hands while looking at the head of Anti-Corruption in the mirror.

‘You mean I’m a climber?’

‘Nothing wrong with climbing the ladder.’ Lennox smirked. ‘It’s just amusing to see how you position yourself.’

‘I’m qualified, Lennox. So isn’t it simply my duty to this town and my and your children’s future to do what I can for Organised Crime? Or should I leave the biggest unit to Cawdor? A person we both know must have both dirty and bloody hands to have survived under Kenneth for as long as he did.’

‘Aha,’ Lennox said. ‘It’s duty that drives you? Not personal ambition at all. Well, St Duff, let me hold the door open for you.’ Lennox performed a deep bow. ‘I presume you will refuse the salary increase and other concomitant privileges.’

‘The salary, honour and fame are irrelevant to me,’ Duff said. ‘But society rewards those who contribute. Showing contempt for the salary would be like showing contempt for society.’ He studied his face in the mirror. How can you see when a person is lying? Is it possible when the person in question has succeeded in convincing himself that what he says is the truth? How long would it take him to convince himself that it was the truth, the version he and Macbeth had arranged to give of how they had killed the two men on the road?

‘Have you finished washing your hands now, Duff? I think Duncan wants to go home.’

The SWAT men took their leave of each other outside the Bricklayers Arms. ‘Loyalty, fraternity,’ Macbeth said in a loud voice.

The others answered him in slurred, to varying degrees, unison: ‘Baptised in fire, united in blood.’

Then they walked away in every direction of the compass. Macbeth and Banquo to the west, past a street musician who was howling rather than singing ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ and through the deserted run-down concourses and corridors of the central station. A strangely warm wind picked up through the passages and swept litter between the once beautiful Doric pillars crumbling after years of pollution and lack of maintenance.

‘Now,’ Banquo said. ‘Are you going to tell me what really happened?’

‘You tell me about the lorry and Kenneth,’ Macbeth said. ‘Ninety-metre free fall!’ His laughter resounded beneath the brick ceiling.

Banquo smiled. ‘Come on, Macbeth. What happened out there on the country road?’

‘Did they say anything about how long they would have to close the bridge for repairs?’

‘You might be able to lie to them, but not to me.’

‘We got them, Banquo. Do you need to know any more?’

‘Do I?’ Banquo waved away the stench from the stairs down to the toilets, where a woman of indeterminate age was standing bent over with her hair hanging down in front of her face as she clung to the handrail.

‘No.’

‘All right,’ Banquo said.

Macbeth stopped and crouched down by a young boy sitting by the wall with a begging cup in front of him. The boy raised his head. He had a black patch over one eye and the other stared out from a doped-up state, a dream. Macbeth put a banknote in his cup and a hand on his shoulder. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked softly.

‘Macbeth,’ the boy said. ‘As you can see.’

‘You can do it,’ Macbeth said. ‘Always remember that. You can stop.’

The boy’s voice slurred and slid from vowel to vowel. ‘And how do you know that?’

‘Believe me, it’s been done before.’ Macbeth stood up, and the boy called a tremulous ‘God bless you, Macbeth’ after them.

They went into the concourse in the eastern part of the station, where there was a conspicuous silence, like in a church. The druggies who weren’t sitting, lying or standing by the walls or on the benches were staggering around in a kind of slow dance, like astronauts in an alien atmosphere, a different gravitational field. Some stared suspiciously at the two police officers, but most just ignored them. As though they had X-ray eyes that had long-ago established that these two had nothing to sell. Most were so emaciated and ravaged it was hard to know exactly how long they had been alive. Or how long they had left.

‘You’re never tempted to start again?’ Banquo asked.

‘No.’

‘Most ex-junkies dream of a last shot.’

‘Not me. Let’s get out of here.’

They walked to the steps in front of the west exit, stopped before they came to where the roof no longer sheltered them from the rain. Beside them, on black rails on a low plinth, stood what appeared in the darkness to be a prehistoric monster. Bertha, a hundred and ten years old, the first locomotive in the country, the very symbol of the optimism about the future that had once held sway. The broad, majestic, gently graded steps led down to the dark, deserted Workers’ Square, where once there had been hustle and bustle, market stalls and travellers hurrying to and fro, but which was now ghostly, a square where the wind whistled and whined. At one end lights glittered in a venerable brick building which had at one time housed the offices of the National Railway Network but had fallen into disuse after the railway was abandoned, until it had been bought and renovated to become the most glamorous and elegant building the town had to offer: Inverness Casino. Banquo had been inside only once and immediately knew it was not his kind of place. Or, to be more precise, he wasn’t their kind of customer. He was probably the Obelisk type, where customers were not so well dressed, the drinks were not so expensive and the prostitutes not so beautiful nor so discreet.

‘Goodnight, Banquo.’

‘Goodnight, Macbeth. Sleep well.’

Banquo saw a light shiver go through his friend’s body, then Macbeth’s white teeth shone in the darkness. ‘Say hello to Fleance from me and tell him his father has done a great job tonight. What I wouldn’t have given to see Kenneth in free fall from his own bridge...’

Banquo heard his friend’s low chuckle as he disappeared into the darkness and rain on Workers’ Square, but when his own laughter had faded too an unease spread through him. Macbeth wasn’t only a friend and a colleague, he was like a son, a Moses in a basket whom Banquo loved almost as much as Fleance. So that was why Banquo waited until he saw Macbeth reappear on the other side of the square and walk into the light by the entrance to the casino, from which a tall woman with flowing flame-red hair in a long red dress emerged and hugged him, as though a phantom had warned her that her beloved was on his way.

Lady.

Perhaps she had caught wind of this evening’s events. A woman like Lady wouldn’t have got to where she was without informants who told her what she needed to know about everything that moved beneath the surface of this town.

They still had their arms around each other. She was a beautiful woman and might well have been even more beautiful once. No one seemed to know Lady’s age, but it was definitely a good deal more than Macbeth’s thirty-three years. But maybe it was true what they said: true love conquers all.

Or maybe not.

The older policeman turned and set off north.

In Fife the chief commissioner’s chauffeur turned off onto the gravel lane as instructed. The gravel crunched under the car tyres.

‘You can stop here. I’ll walk the rest of the way,’ Duff said.

The chauffeur braked. In the ensuing silence they could hear the grasshoppers and the sough of the deciduous trees.

‘You don’t want to wake them,’ Duncan said, looking down the lane, where a small white farmhouse lay bathed in moonlight. ‘And I agree. Let our dear ones sleep in ignorance and safe assurance. A lovely little place you’ve got here.’

‘Thank you. And sorry about the detour.’

‘We all have to take detours in life, Duff. The next time you get a tip-off, as with the Norse Riders, you make a detour towards me. OK?’

‘OK.’

Duncan’s index finger moved to and fro across his chin. ‘Our aim is to make this town a better place for everyone, Duff. But that means all the positive powers have to work together and think of the community’s best interests, not only their own.’

‘Of course. And I’d just like to say I’m willing to do any job so long as it serves the force and the town, sir.’

Duncan smiled. ‘In which case it’s me who should thank you, Duff. Ah, one last thing...’

‘Yes?’

‘You say fourteen Norse Riders including Sweno himself were more than you’d anticipated and it would have been more discreet of them to have just sent a couple of men to drive the lorry away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has it struck you that Sweno might also have been tipped off? He might have suspected you’d be there. So your fear of a leak was perhaps not unfounded. Goodnight, Duff.’

‘Goodnight.’

Duff walked down to his house breathing in the smell of the earth and grass where the dew had already fallen. He had considered this possibility and now Duncan had articulated it. A leak. An informant. And he, Duff, would find the leak. He would find him the very next day.

Macbeth lay on his side with his eyes closed. Behind him he heard her regular breathing and from down in the casino the bass line of the music, like muffled heartbeats. The Inverness stayed open all night, but it was now late even for crazed gamblers and thirsty drinkers. In the corridor overnight guests walked past and unlocked their rooms. Some alone, some with a spouse. Some with other company. This wasn’t something Lady paid too much attention to as long as the women who frequented the casino complied with her unwritten rules of always being discreet, always well groomed, always sober, always infection-free and always, but always, attractive. Lady had once, not long after they had got together, asked why he didn’t look at them. And laughed when he had answered it was because he only had eyes for her. It was only later she understood he meant that quite literally. He didn’t need to turn round to see her, her features were seared into his retinas; all he had to do — wherever he was — was close his eyes and she was there. There hadn’t been anyone before Lady. Well, there had been women who made his pulse race and there were definitely women’s hearts that had beaten faster because of him. But he had never been intimate with them. And of course there was one who had scarred his heart. When Lady had realised and had, laughing, asked him if she had been sent a genuine virgin, he told her his story. The story that hitherto only two people in the world had known. And then she had told him hers.

The suite’s silk sheet felt heavy and expensive on his naked body. Like a fever, hot and cold at the same time. He could hear from her breathing that she was awake.

‘What is it?’ she whispered sleepily.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just can’t sleep.’

She snuggled up to him, and her hand stroked his chest and shoulders. Occasionally, like now, they breathed in rhythm. As though they were one and the same organism, like Siamese twins sharing lungs — that was exactly how it felt the time they had exchanged their stories, and he knew he was no longer alone.

Her hand slid down his upper arm, over the tattoos, down to his lower arm, where she caressed his scars. He had told her about them too. And about Lorreal. They quite simply kept no secrets from each other. They weren’t secrets, but there were grim details he had begged her to spare him. She loved him, that was all that was important, that was all he had to know about her. He turned onto his back. Her hand stroked his stomach, stopped and waited. She was the queen. And her vassal obediently stood up under the silk material.

When Duff crept into bed beside his wife, listened to her regular breathing and felt the heat from her back, it was as though the memories of the night’s events had already begun to recede. This place had that effect on him, it always had. They had met while he was a student. She came from an affluent family on the western side of town, and even though her parents had been initially sceptical, after a while they accepted the hard-working ambitious young man. And Duff came from a respectable family, in his father-in-law’s opinion. The rest followed almost automatically. Marriage, children, a house in Fife, where the children could grow up without inhaling the town’s toxic air, career, everyday grind. A lot of everyday grind with long days and promotion beckoning. And time flies by. That’s the way it is. She was a good woman and wife, it wasn’t that. Clever, caring and loyal. And what about him — wasn’t he a good husband? Didn’t he provide for them, save money for the children’s education, build a cabin by the lake? Yes, neither she nor her father had much to complain about. He was the way he was, he couldn’t help that. Anyway, there was a lot to say for having a home, having a family: it gave you peace. It had its own pace of life, its own agenda, and it didn’t care much about what was on the outside. Not really. And he needed that perception of reality — or the lack of it — he had to have it. Now and then.

‘You came home then—’ she mumbled.

‘To you and the kids,’ he said.

‘—in the night,’ she added.

He lay listening to the silence between them. Trying to decide whether it was good or bad. Then she laid a tender hand on his shoulder. Pressed her fingertips carefully against his tired muscles where he knew they would soothe.

Closed his eyes.

And he saw it again.

The raindrop hanging from the edge of his visor. The man kneeling in front of him. Not moving. The helmet with the horns. Duff wanted to say something to him, but he couldn’t. Instead he lifted the gun to his shoulder. Couldn’t the man at least move? The raindrop would soon fall.

‘Duff,’ Macbeth said behind him. ‘Duff, don’t...’

The drop fell.

Duff fired. Fired again. Fired again.

Three shots.

The man kneeling in front of him fell sideways.

The silence afterwards was deafening. He squatted down beside the dead man and removed his helmet. It was like having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over him when he saw it wasn’t Sweno. The young man’s eyes were closed; he looked like he was sleeping peacefully where he lay.

Duff turned, glanced at Macbeth. Felt the tears filling his eyes, still unable to speak, just shook his head. Macbeth nodded in response and removed the other’s helmet. Also a young man. Duff felt something pushing up into his throat and wrapped his hands around his face. Over his sobs he heard the man’s pleas reverberate like gulls’ cries across the uninhabited plains. ‘No, don’t! I haven’t seen anything! I won’t tell anyone! Please, no jury will believe me anyway. I under—’

The voice was cut off. Duff heard a body smack against the tarmac, a low gurgle, then everything went quiet.

He turned. Only now did he notice the other man was wearing white clothes. They were soaking up the blood running from the hole in his neck.

Macbeth stood behind the man, a dagger in his hand. His chest was heaving. ‘Now,’ he said gruffly. Cleared his throat. ‘Now I’ve paid my debt to you, Duff.’

Duff pressed his fingertips against the place where he knew they didn’t soothe. He held his other hand over the man’s mouth to muffle his screams and forced him down onto the hospital bed. The man pulled desperately at the handcuffs shackling him to the bed head. From the daylight flooding in through the window Duff could clearly see the network of fine blood vessels around the big pupils, black with shock, in his wide-open eyes under the NORSE RIDER TILL I DIE tattoo on his forehead. Duff’s forefinger and index finger went red where they pressed under the bandage into the shoulder wound, making squelching noises.

Any job, Duff thought, as long as it serves the force and the town.

And repeated the question: ‘Who’s your police informant?’

He took his hand away from the wound. The man stopped screaming. Duff took his hand off his mouth. The man didn’t answer.

Duff ripped off the bandage and pressed all his fingers into the wound.

He knew he would get an answer, it was just a question of time. There is only so much a man can take before he gives in, before he breaks every tattooed oath and does everything — absolutely everything — he thought he would never do. For eternal loyalty is inhuman and betrayal is human.

4

It took twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes after Duff had walked into the hospital and poked his fingers into the shoulder wound of the man with the tattoo on his forehead, until he left, amazed, with enough information about whom, where and when for the relevant person to find it impossible to deny unless he was innocent. Amazed because — now things had got so bad that they had a mole in their midst — it was almost too good to be true.

It took thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes after Duff had got in his car, driven through the trickle of rain falling onto the town like an old man piddling, parked outside the main police station, received a gracious nod from the chief commissioner’s anteroom lady to let him know he could pass, until he was sitting in front of Duncan and articulated the one word. Cawdor. And the chief commissioner leaned across his desk, asked Duff if he was sure, after all this was the head of the Gang Unit they were talking about — sat back, drew a hand over his face and for the first time Duff heard Duncan swear.

It took forty minutes.

Forty minutes from when Duncan had announced that Cawdor had a day off, lifted the phone and ordered Macbeth to arrest him, until eight SWAT men surrounded Cawdor’s house, which lay on a big plot of land overlooking the sea so far to the west that refuse was still collected and the homeless removed, and Mayor Tourtell was his closest neighbour. The SWAT team parked some distance away and crept up to the house, two men from each direction.

Macbeth and Banquo sat on the pavement with their backs against the high wall to the south of the house, beside the gates. Cawdor — like most of his neighbours — had cemented glass shards into the top of the wall, but SWAT had mats to overcome hindrances of that kind. The raid followed the usual procedure, the teams reporting via walkie-talkies when they were in their pre-arranged positions. Macbeth glanced across the street to where a boy of six or seven had been throwing a ball against a garage wall when they arrived. Now he stopped and stared at them with his mouth open. Macbeth put a finger to his lips, and the boy nodded back somnambulantly. The same expression as the white-clad young man kneeling on the tarmac the previous night, Macbeth reflected.

‘Wake up.’ It was Banquo whispering in his ear.

‘What?’

‘All the teams are in position.’

Macbeth breathed in and out a couple of times. Had to shut out other things from his mind now, had to get in the zone. He pressed the talk button: ‘Fifty seconds to going in. North? Over.’

Angus’s voice with that unctuous priest-like chanting tone: ‘All OK. Can’t see any movement inside. Over.’

‘West? Over.’

‘All OK.’ That was the replacement’s voice, Seyton. Monotone, calm. ‘Hang on, the sitting-room curtain twitched. Over.’

‘OK,’ Macbeth said. He didn’t even need to think; this was part of the what-if procedure they drilled day in, day out. ‘We may have been seen, folks. Let’s cut the countdown and go in. Three, two, one... go!’

And there it was, the zone. The zone was like a room where you closed the door behind you and nothing else but the mission, you and your men existed.

They got to their feet, and as Banquo threw the mat over the glass on the wall Macbeth noticed the boy with the ball wave slowly, robotically, with his free hand.

Within seconds they were over the wall and sprinting through the garden, and Macbeth had this feeling he could sense everything around him. He could hear a branch creak in the wind, could see a crow take off from the ridge of the neighbour’s roof, could smell a rotting apple in the grass. They ran up the steps, and Banquo used the butt of his gun to smash the window beside the front door, slipped his hand through and unlocked the door from the inside. As they entered they heard glass breaking elsewhere in the house. Eight against one. When Macbeth asked Duncan if there was any reason to think Cawdor would put up resistance Duncan had answered that wasn’t why he wanted a full-scale arrest.

‘It’s to send a signal, Macbeth. We don’t treat our own more leniently. Quite the contrary. Smash glass, kick in doors, make a lot of noise and lead Cawdor out in handcuffs through the front entrance so that everyone can see and tell others.’

Macbeth went in first. Pressing an assault rifle to his shoulder as his gaze swept the hall. Stood with his back to the wall beside the sitting-room door. His eyes gradually adapted to the darkness after the sharp sunlight outside. All the curtains in the house appeared to be drawn. Banquo came up to his side and carried on into the sitting room.

As Macbeth pushed off from the wall to follow him, it happened.

The attacker came swiftly and silently from the darkness shrouding one of the two staircases, hit Macbeth in the chest and sent him flying backwards.

Macbeth felt hot air on his throat, but managed to get his gun barrel between him and the dog and knock its snout to the side so that the big teeth sank into his shoulder instead. He screamed with pain as an immense snarling head tore at skin and flesh. Macbeth tried to hit out, but his free hand was caught in his rifle strap. ‘Banquo!’ Cawdor wasn’t supposed to have a dog. They always checked before operations of this kind. But this was definitely a dog, and it was strong. The dog shoved the gun barrel to the side. It was going for his throat. He would soon have his carotid artery severed.

‘Banq—’

The dog went stiff. Macbeth turned his head and stared into dulled canine eyes. Then its body went limp and slumped on top of him. Macbeth pushed it off and looked up.

Seyton was standing over him holding out a hand.

‘Thank you,’ Macbeth said, getting to his feet without help. ‘Where’s Banquo?’

‘He and Cawdor are inside,’ Seyton answered, motioning towards the sitting room.

Macbeth went to the sitting-room door. They had opened the curtains, and in the bright light from behind he saw only Banquo’s back as he stared up at the ceiling. Above him hovered an angel with a halo of sunshine and his head bowed as if in a plea for forgiveness.

It took an hour.

An hour from the moment Macbeth had said, ‘Go!’ until Duncan had gathered all the departmental and unit leaders together in the large conference room at HQ.

Duncan stood up on the podium and looked down at some papers; Duff knew he had written some words there the way he wanted them to be said but that he would ad-lib according to the moment and the situation. Not because the chief commissioner was a loose cannon, far from it. Duff knew he had the words under control, he was as much a man of heart as he was of mind, a man who spoke how he felt and vice versa. A man who understood himself and therefore others too, Duff thought. A leader. Someone people would follow. Someone Duff wished he was, or could be.

‘You all know what happened,’ Duncan said in a low, solemn voice, yet it carried as though he had shouted. ‘I just wanted to brief you fully before the press conference this afternoon. One of our most trusted officers, Inspector Cawdor, had a serious charge of corruption levelled against him. And at the present moment it appears this suspicion was justified. In the light of his close connection with the Norse Riders — against whom we launched a successful operation yesterday — there was clearly a risk that he, given the situation, might try to destroy evidence or flee. For that reason, at ten o’clock this morning I gave the order for SWAT to arrest Inspector Cawdor with immediate effect.’

Duff had hoped his name would be mentioned, but he was also aware that Duncan wouldn’t divulge any details. For if there is one thing you learn in the police it is that rules are rules, even when unwritten. So he was surprised when Duncan looked up and said, ‘Inspector Macbeth, would you be so kind as to come up here and briefly summarise the arrest?’

Duff turned and watched his colleague stride up between the lines of chairs to the podium. Obviously he had been caught by surprise as well. The chief commissioner didn’t normally delegate in these contexts; he would usually say his piece, make it short and to the point and conclude the meeting so that everyone could get back to their job of making the town a better place to live.

Macbeth looked ill at ease. He was still wearing his black SWAT uniform, but the zip at the neck was undone far enough for them to see the bright white bandage on his right shoulder.

‘Well,’ he began.

Not exactly an elegant start, but then no one expected the head of SWAT to be a wordsmith. Macbeth checked his watch as though he had an appointment. Everyone in the room knew why: it is the instinctive reaction of police officers who have been ordered to report back and feel unsure of themselves. They check their watches as though the obligatory time references for past events are written there or the watch face will jog their memory.

‘At ten fifty-three,’ Macbeth said and coughed twice, ‘SWAT raided Inspector Cawdor’s home. A terrace door was open, but there was no sign of a break-in or violence, or that anyone had been there before us. Apart from a dog. Nor any signs that anyone other than Cawdor himself had done it...’ Now Macbeth stopped looking at his watch and addressed the gathering. ‘A chair was knocked over by the terrace door. I’m not going to anticipate the SOCOs’ conclusions, but it looked as if Cawdor didn’t just step off the chair when he hanged himself, he jumped, and when he swung back kicked the chair across the room. That tallies with the way the deceased’s excrement was scattered across the floor. The body was cold. Suicide seems the obvious cause of death, and one of the guys asked if we could skip the procedures and cut the man down as Cawdor had been a police officer all his life. I said no...’

Duff noticed Macbeth’s dramatic pause. As if to allow the audience to listen to his silence. It was a trick Duff might use himself, a method had definitely seen Duncan use, but he hadn’t imagined that the pragmatic Macbeth would have it in his repertoire. And perhaps he didn’t, because he was studying his watch again.

‘Ten fifty-nine.’

Macbeth looked up and pulled his sleeve over the watch in a gesture to suggest he had finished.

‘So Cawdor’s still hanging there. Not for any investigative purpose, but because he was a corrupt policeman.’

It was so quiet in the room that Duff could hear the rain lashing against the window high up the wall. Macbeth turned to Duncan and gave a cursory nod. Then he left the podium and went back to his seat.

Duncan waited until Macbeth had sat down before saying, ‘Thank you, Macbeth. That won’t form part of the press conference, but I think it’s a suitable conclusion to this internal briefing. Remember that a condemnation of all that is weak and bad in us can also be seen as an optimistic tribute to all that is strong and good. So back to your good work, folks.’

The young nurse stood by the door and watched the patient take off his top. He had pulled his long black hair behind his head as the doctor unwound the blood stained bandage from his left shoulder. All she knew about the patient was that he was a police officer. And muscular.

‘Oh my goodness,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ll have to give you a few stitches. And you’ll need a tetanus injection, we always do that with dog bites. But first a little anaesthetic. Maria, can you...?

‘No,’ said the patient, staring stiffly at the wall.

‘Sorry?’

‘No anaesthetic.’

A silence ensued.

‘No anaesthetic?’

‘No anaesthetic.’

The doctor was about to say something about pain when she caught sight of the scars on his forearms. Old scars. But the type of scar she had seen all too often after she moved to this town.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘No anaesthetic.’

Duff leaned back in his office chair and pressed the receiver to his ear.

‘It’s me, love. What are you all doing?’

‘Emily’s gone swimming with friends. Ewan has got toothache. I’ll take him to the dentist.’

‘OK. Love, I’m working late today.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I may have to stay over here.’

‘Why’s that?’ she repeated. Her voice didn’t reveal any annoyance or frustration. It just sounded as if this was information she would like, perhaps to explain his absence to the children. Not because she needed him. Not because...

‘It’ll soon be on the news,’ he said. ‘Cawdor has committed suicide.’

‘Oh dear. Who’s Cawdor?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘No.’

‘The head of the Gang Unit. He was a strong candidate for the Organised Crime post.’

Silence.

She had never taken much interest in his work. Her world was Fife, the children and — at least when he was at home — her husband. Which was great for him. In the sense that he didn’t have to involve them in the grimness of his work. On the other hand, her lack of interest in his ambition meant she didn’t always show much understanding for what the job demanded of his time. For his sacrifice. For... what he needed, for goodness’ sake.

‘The head of Organised Crime, who will be number three in the chain of command at HQ, after Duncan and Deputy Commissioner Malcolm. So, yes, this is a big deal, and it means I have to be here. Probably for the next few days, too.’

‘Just tell me you’ll be here for the pre-birthday.’

The pre-birthday. Oh, hell! It was a tradition they had, the day before the child’s real birthday it was just the four of them, meat broth and Mum and Dad’s presents. Had he really forgotten Ewan’s birthday? Perhaps the date had slipped his mind with all the events of the last few days, but he had gone out to buy what Ewan said he wanted after Duff told him how the undercover officers worked in the Narco Unit — sometimes they donned a disguise so that they wouldn’t be recognised. In the drawer in front of Duff there was a nicely wrapped gift box containing a false beard and glue, fake glasses and a green woolly hat, all adult sizes so that he could assure Ewan it was exactly what Daddy and the others in the Narco Unit wore.

A light flashed on his telephone. An internal call. He had an inkling who it might be.

‘Just a mo, love.’

He pressed the button below the light. ‘Yes?’

‘Duff? Duncan here. It’s about the press conference this afternoon.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘I’d like to show we haven’t been rendered impotent by what’s happened and we’re thinking about the future, so I’m going to announce the name of the acting head of Organised Crime.’

‘Organised Crime? Er... already?’

‘I’d have done it at the end of the month anyway, but as the Gang Unit no longer has a leader it’s expedient to appoint an acting head straight away. Can you come up to my office?’

‘Of course.’

Duncan rang off. Duff sat staring at the extinguished light. It was unusual for the chief commissioner to ring personally; it was always his secretary or one of his assistants who called meetings. Acting head. Who would probably take over the post when the formalities — application phase, appointment board’s deliberations and so on — were at an end. His gaze picked up another light. He had completely forgotten his wife was on hold.

‘Love, something’s happened. I’ve got to run.’

‘Oh? Nothing awful, I hope.’

‘No,’ Duff laughed. ‘Nothing awful. Not at all. I think you should switch on the radio news this afternoon and listen to what they say about the new appointment for Organised Crime.’

‘Oh?’

‘Kiss on the neck.’ They hadn’t used this term of endearment for years. Duff rang off and ran — he couldn’t stop himself — out of his office and up the stairs to the top floor. Up, up, up, higher and higher.

The secretary told Duff to go straight in. ‘They’re waiting for you.’ She smiled. Smiled? She never smiled.

Around the circular oak table in the chief commissioner’s large, airy but soberly furnished office sat four people, not counting Duncan. Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm, prematurely grey and bespectacled. He had studied philosophy and economics at the university in Capitol, spoke accordingly and was seen by many as a strange bird in HQ. He was an old friend of Duncan’s, who claimed he had brought him in because they needed his broad range of management skills. Others said it was because Duncan needed Malcolm’s unqualified ‘Yes’ vote at management meetings. Beside Malcolm, Lennox leaned forward, as keen as ever, albino-pale. His section, the Anti-Corruption Unit, had been established during Duncan’s reorganisation. There had been a brief discussion as to whether anti should be in the title, some arguing that they didn’t say the Anti-Narcotics Unit or the Anti-Homicide Unit. Yet under Kenneth the Narcotics Unit had been known as the corruption unit in local parlance. On the other side of Duncan sat an assistant taking minutes of the meeting, and beside her, Inspector Caithness.

As Duncan didn’t allow smoking in his office there were no ashtrays on the table with cigarette ends to tell Duff roughly how long they had been sitting there, but he registered that some of the notepads on the table had coffee stains and some of the cups were nearly empty. And the open, gentle, almost relaxed atmosphere suggested they had reached a conclusion.

‘Thank you for coming so quickly, Duff,’ Duncan said, showing him to the last vacant chair with an open palm. ‘Let me get straight to the point. We’re pushing forward the merging of your Narcotics Unit with the Gang Unit to become the Organised Crime Unit. This is our first crisis since I took over the chair of—’ Duff looked in the direction Duncan was nodding, to the desk. The chief commissioner’s chair was high-backed and large, but didn’t exactly look comfortable. Bit too straight. No soft upholstery. It was a chair to Duff’s taste ‘—so I feel it’s important we show some vim.’

‘Sounds sensible,’ Duff said. And regretted it at once. The remark made it seem as if he had been brought in to assess top management’s reasoning. ‘I mean, I’m sure you’re right.’

There was a moment’s silence around the table. Had he gone too far the other way, suggesting that he didn’t have opinions of his own?

‘We have to be absolutely one hundred per cent certain that the person is not corrupt,’ Duncan said.

‘Of course,’ Duff said.

‘Not only because we can’t afford any similar scandals such as this one with Cawdor, but because we need someone who can help us to catch the really big fish. And I’m not talking Sweno but Hecate.’

Hecate. The silence in the room after articulating the name spoke volumes.

Duff straightened up in his chair. This was indeed a big mission. But it was clear this was what the job demanded: slaying the dragon. And it was magnificent. For it started here. Life as a different, better man.

‘You led this successful attack on the Norse Riders,’ Duncan said.

‘I didn’t do it on my own, sir,’ Duff said. It paid dividends to show a bit of humility, and especially in situations where it wasn’t required; it was precisely then you could afford to be humble.

‘Indeed,’ Duncan said. ‘Macbeth helped you. Quite a lot, I understand. What’s your general impression of him?’

‘Impression, sir?’

‘Yes, you were in the same year at police college. He’s undoubtedly done a good job with SWAT, and everyone there is enthusiastic about his leadership qualities. But of course SWAT is a very specialised unit. You know him, and that’s why we’d like to hear whether you believe Macbeth could be the man for the job.’

Duff had to swallow twice before he could get his vocal cords to produce a sound. ‘If Macbeth could be the man to lead the Organised Crime Unit, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

Duff needed a couple of seconds. He placed a hand over his mouth, lowered his eyebrows and forehead and hoped this made him look like a deep thinker — not a deeply disappointed man.

‘Well, Duff?’

‘It’s one thing leading men in a raid on a house, shooting criminals and saving hostages,’ Duff said. ‘And Macbeth’s good at that without any doubt. Leading an organised crime unit requires slightly different qualifications.’

‘We agree,’ Duncan said. ‘It requires slightly different and not completely different qualifications. Leading is leading. What about the man’s character? Is he trustworthy?’

Duff squeezed his top lip between thumb and first finger. Macbeth. Bloody Macbeth! What should he say? This promotion belonged to him, Duff, and not some guy who could equally well have ended up as a juggler or knife thrower in a travelling circus! He focused his gaze on the painting on the wall behind the desk. Marching, loyalty, leadership and solidarity. He could see them in his mind’s eye on the country road: Macbeth, himself, the two dead men. The rain washing the blood away.

‘Yes,’ Duff said. ‘Macbeth is trustworthy. But above all he’s a craftsman. That was perhaps clear from his performance on the podium today.’

‘Agreed,’ Duncan said. ‘That was why I got him up there, to see how he would tackle it. Around the table we agreed unanimously that what he demonstrated today was an excellent example of a practitioner’s respect for established reporting routines, but also a true leader’s ability to enthuse and inspire. Cawdor’s still hanging there because he was a corrupt policeman.’

Muted laughter around the table at Duncan’s imitation of Macbeth’s rough working-class dialect.

‘If he really has these qualities,’ Duff said, hearing an inner voice whispering that he shouldn’t say this, ‘you have to ask yourself why he hasn’t got further since his police college years.’

‘True enough,’ Lennox said. ‘But this is one of the strongest arguments in favour of Macbeth.’ He laughed — an ill-timed, high-pitched trill. ‘None of us sitting round this table had high posts under the last chief commissioner. Because we, like Macbeth, weren’t in on the game, we refused to take bribes. I have sources who can say with total certainty that this stalled Macbeth’s career.’

‘Then you have answered the question already,’ Duff said stiffly. ‘And of course you’ve taken into consideration his relationship with the casino owner.’

Malcolm glanced at Duncan. Received a nod from him in return and spoke up. ‘The Fraud Unit’s now looking into businesses that were allowed to prosper under the previous administration and, with respect to that, they’ve just carried out a thorough investigation of Inverness Casino. Their conclusion is unambiguous: the Inverness is run in exemplary fashion with regard to accounts, tax and employment conditions. Which is not a matter you can take for granted in gambling joints. At this moment they’re taking a closer look at the Obelisk’s—’ he smiled wryly ‘—cards. And let me say quite openly that this is a different kettle of fish. To be continued, as they say. So, in other words, we have no objections to Lady and her establishment.’

‘Macbeth’s from the east end of town and an outsider,’ Duncan said, ‘while all of us around this table are considered to belong to an inner circle. We’re known to have stood up to Kenneth, we represent a change of culture in the force, but we’ve also had private educations and come from privileged homes. I think it’s a good signal to send. In the police, in our police force, everyone can get to the top, whatever background, whatever connections they have, as long as they work hard and are honest, with emphasis on the honest.’

‘Good thinking, sir,’ Lennox said.

‘Fine.’ Duncan brought his hands together. ‘Duff, anything you’d like to add?’

Haven’t you seen the scars on his arms?

‘Duff?’

Haven’t you seen the scars on his arms?

‘Anything wrong, Duff?’

‘No, sir. I have nothing to add. I’m sure Macbeth is a good choice.’

‘Good. Then let me thank all of you for attending this meeting.’

Macbeth stared at the red traffic lights as the wipers went to and fro across the windscreen of Banquo’s Volvo PV544. The car was as small as Banquo, a good deal older than the others around them, but fully functional and reliable. There was something about the design of the car, especially the set-back bonnet and protruding lower front, that made it look a bit like a throwback to before the war. But internally and under the bonnet, according to its owner, it had everything a man could demand of a modern car. The wipers struggled to dispose of the rain, and the running water reminded Macbeth of melting glass. A boy in a wet coat ran across the road in front of them, and Macbeth saw the light for pedestrians had changed from a green man to red. A human body covered with blood from head to toe. Macbeth shuddered.

‘What is it?’ Banquo asked.

‘I think I’m getting a temperature,’ Macbeth said. ‘I keep seeing things.’

‘Visions and signs,’ Banquo said. ‘It’s flu then. No wonder. Soaked all day yesterday and bitten by a dog today.’

‘Talking about the dog, have we found out where it came from?’

‘Only that it wasn’t Cawdor’s. It must have come in through the open veranda door. I was wondering how it died.’

‘Didn’t I tell you? Seyton killed it.’

‘I know that, but I couldn’t see any marks on it. Did he strangle it?’

‘I don’t know. Ask him.’

‘I did, but he didn’t give me a proper answer, just—’

‘It’s green, Dad.’ The boy on the back seat leaned forward between the two men. Macbeth glanced at the lanky nineteen-year-old. Fleance had inherited more of his mother’s modesty than his father’s good-natured joviality.

‘Who’s driving, you or your dad, son?’ Banquo said with a warm smile and accelerated. Macbeth looked at the people on the pavement, the housewives shopping, the unemployed men outside the bars. In the last ten years the town had become busier and busier in the mornings. It should have lent the town an atmosphere of hustle and bustle, but the opposite was true, the apathetic, resigned faces were more reminiscent of the living dead. He had searched for signs of change over recent months. To see whether Duncan’s leadership had made any difference. The most glaring and brutal street crimes were perhaps rarer, probably because there were more patrols out. Or maybe they had simply shifted to the back streets, into the twilight areas.

‘Afternoon lectures at police college,’ Macbeth said. ‘We didn’t have them in my day.’

‘It’s not a lecture,’ the boy said. ‘Me and a couple of others have a colloquium.’

‘A colloquium? What’s that?’

‘Fleance and some of the keener ones swot together before exams,’ Banquo said. ‘It’s a good idea.’

‘Dad says I have to study law. Police college isn’t enough. What do you think, Uncle Mac?’

‘I think you should listen to your dad.’

‘But you didn’t do law either,’ the boy objected.

‘And look where it got him.’ Banquo laughed. ‘Come on, Fleance. You have to aim higher than your wretched father and this slob.’

‘You say I don’t have leadership qualities,’ Fleance said.

Macbeth arched an eyebrow and glanced at Banquo.

‘Really? I thought it was a father’s job to make his children believe they can do anything if they try hard enough?’

‘It is,’ Banquo said. ‘And I didn’t say he hasn’t got leadership qualities, only skills. And that means he has to work on it. He’s smart; he just has to learn to trust his own judgement, which means taking the initiative and not always following others.’

Macbeth turned to the back seat. ‘You’ve got a hard nut of a father.’

Fleance shrugged. ‘Some people always want to give orders and take charge while others aren’t like that — is that so weird?’

‘Not weird,’ Banquo said. ‘But if you want to get anywhere you have to try to change.’

‘Have you changed?’ asked Fleance with a touch of annoyance in his voice.

‘No, I was like you,’ Banquo said. ‘Happy to let others take charge. But I wish I’d had someone to tell me my opinion was as good as anyone else’s. And sometimes better. And if you’ve got better judgement you should lead, it’s your damned duty to the community.’

‘What do you think, Uncle? Can you just change and become a leader?’

‘I don’t know,’ Macbeth said. ‘I think some people are born leaders and become them as a matter of course. Like Chief Commissioner Duncan. People whose sense of conviction rubs off on you, who can make you die for something. While others I know have neither conviction nor leadership skills, they’re just driven by the desire to climb and climb until they get the boss’s chair. They might be intelligent, have charm and the gift of the gab, but they don’t really understand people. Because they don’t see them. Because they understand and see only one thing: themselves.’

‘Are you talking about Duff?’ Banquo smiled.

‘Who’s Duff?’ Fleance pleaded.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Macbeth said.

‘Yes, it does. Come on, Uncle. I’m here to learn, aren’t I?’

Macbeth sighed. ‘Duff and I were friends at an orphanage and at police college, and now he’s head of the Narco Unit. Hopefully he’ll learn the odd thing on the way and that will change him.’

‘Not him.’ Banquo laughed.

‘The Narco Unit,’ Fleance said. ‘Is he the one with the diagonal scar across his mug?’

‘Yes,’ his father said.

‘Where did he get it?’

‘He was born with it,’ Macbeth said. ‘But here’s the school. Be good.’

‘Yeah, yeah, Uncle Mac.’

The ‘Uncle’ came from when Fleance was small; now he mostly used it ironically. But as Macbeth watched the boy sprinting through the rain to the gates of the police college it gave him a feeling of warmth anyway.

‘He’s a good lad,’ he said.

‘You should have children,’ Banquo said, pulling away from the kerb. ‘They’re a gift for life.’

‘I know, but it’s a bit late for Lady now.’

‘Then with someone younger. What about someone of your own age?’

Macbeth didn’t answer, staring out the window rapt in thought. ‘When I saw the red man at the lights I thought about death,’ he said.

‘You were thinking about Cawdor,’ Banquo said. ‘By the way, I spoke to Angus while he was staring at Cawdor dangling there.’

‘Religious musings?’

‘No. He just said he didn’t understand rich, privileged people who took their own lives. Even if Cawdor had lost his job and maybe had to do a short stretch, he was still well set up for a long, carefree life. I had to explain to the boy that it’s the fall that does it. And the disappointment when you see your future won’t live up to your expectations. That’s why it’s important not to have such high expectations, to start slowly, not to have success too young. A planned rise, don’t you think?’

‘You’re promising your son a better life than yours if he studies law.’

‘It’s different with sons. They’re an extension of your life. It’s their job to ensure a steady rise.’

‘It wasn’t Cawdor.’

‘Eh?’

‘It wasn’t Cawdor I was thinking of.’

‘Oh?’

‘It was one of the young men on the country road. He was—’ Macbeth looked out of the window ‘—red. Soaked in blood.’

‘Don’t think about it.’

‘Cold blood.’

‘Cold... what do you mean?’

Macbeth took a deep breath. ‘The two men by Forres, they’d surrendered. But Duff shot the guy wearing Sweno’s helmet anyway.’

Banquo shook his head. ‘I knew it was something like that. And the other one?’

‘He was a witness.’ Macbeth grimaced. ‘They’d run out of the party and he’d only been wearing a white shirt and white trousers. I took out my daggers. He started to plead; he knew what was coming.’

‘I don’t need to hear any more.’

‘I stood behind him. But I couldn’t do it. I stood there with a dagger in the air, paralysed. But then I saw Duff. He was sitting with his face in his hands sobbing like a child. Then I struck.’

A siren was heard in the distance. A fire engine. What the hell could be burning in this rain? Banquo thought.

‘I don’t know if it was because his clothes were drenched,’ Macbeth said, ‘but the blood covered all of him. All his shirt and trousers. And lying there on the tarmac with his arms down and slightly to the side, he reminded me of the traffic light. Stop now. Don’t walk.’

They went on in silence, past the entrance to the garage under police HQ. Only unit leaders and higher-ranking officers had parking spots there. Banquo turned into the car park at the rear of the building. He stopped and switched off the engine. The rain beat down on the car roof.

‘I understand,’ Banquo said.

‘What do you understand?’

‘Duff knew that if you arrested Sweno, hauled him before a greedy judge in the country’s most corrupt town, how long would he have got? Two years? Maximum three? Full acquittal? And I understand you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. What would Duff have got if Sweno’s lackey had taken the stand against him? Twenty years? Twenty-five? In the force we take care of our own. No one else does. And even more importantly, another police scandal would do so much harm just as we have a chief commissioner who’s beginning to give the public back some faith in law and order. You have to see the bigger picture. And sometimes cruelty is on the side of the good, Macbeth.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Don’t give it another thought, my friend.’

The water streaming down the windscreen had distorted the police headquarters building in front of them. They didn’t move, as though what had been said had to be digested before they could get out.

‘Duff should be grateful to you,’ Banquo said. ‘If you hadn’t done that he would’ve had to do it himself, both of you knew that. But now you’ve both got something on each other. A balance of terror. That’s what allows people to sleep at night.’

‘Duff and I are not the US and the Soviet Union.’

‘No? What are you actually? You were inseparable at police college, but now you barely talk. What happened?’

Macbeth shrugged. ‘Nothing much. We were probably an odd couple anyway. He’s a Duff. His family had property once, and that kind of thing lingers. Language, upper-class manners. At the orphanage it isolated and exposed him, then he seemed to gravitate towards me. We became a duo you didn’t mess with, but at college you could see he was drawn to his own sort. He was released into the jungle like a tame lion. Duff studied at university, found himself an upper-class girl and got married. Children. We drifted apart.’

‘Or did you just get sick of him behaving like the selfish, arrogant bastard he is?’

‘People often get the wrong idea about Duff. At police college he and I swore we would get the big bad boys. Duff really wants to change this town, Banquo.’

‘Was that why you saved his skin?’

‘Duff’s competent and hard-working. He has a good chance of getting Organised Crime, everyone knows that. So why should one mistake in the heat of battle stop the career of a man who can do something good for us all?’

‘Because it’s not like you to kill a defenceless man in that way.’

Macbeth shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve changed.’

‘People don’t change. But I see now you saw it simply as your soldier’s duty. You, Duff and I are fighting on the same side in this war. You’ve cut short the lives of two Norse Riders so that they can’t continue to cut short the lives of our children with their poison. But you don’t perform your duty by choice. I know what it costs you when you start seeing your dead enemies in traffic lights. You’re a better man than me, Macbeth.’

Macbeth smirked. ‘You see more clearly than me in the mists of battle, old man, so it’s some solace to me that I have your forgiveness.’

Banquo shook his head. ‘I don’t see better than anyone else. I’m just a chatterbox with doubt as my sole guide.’

‘Doubt, yes. Does it eat you up sometimes?’

‘No,’ Banquo answered, staring through the windscreen. ‘Not sometimes. All the time.’

Macbeth and Banquo walked from the car park up to the staff entrance at the rear of HQ, a two-hundred-year-old stone building in the centre of District 3 East. In its time the building had been a prison, and there was talk of executions and mumblings of torture. Many of those who worked late also claimed they felt an inexplicably cold draught running through the offices and heard distant screams. Banquo had said to Macbeth it was only the somewhat eccentric caretaker, who turned down the heating at five on the dot every day, and his screams when he saw someone leaving their desk without turning off the lamp.

Macbeth noticed two Asiatic-looking women shivering on the pavement among the unemployed men, looking around as if they were waiting for someone. The town’s prostitutes used to gather in Thrift Street behind the National Railway Network offices until the council chased them out a few years ago, and now the market had split into two: those attractive enough to work the casinos, and those forced to endure the hard conditions of the streets, who felt safer wall to wall with the law. Moreover, when the police, after periodic pressure from politicians or the press, ‘cleaned’ the ‘sex filth’ off the streets with mass arrests, it was convenient for all sides if the clear-up was brief and quick. Soon everything would be back to normal, and you couldn’t rule out the possibility that some of the girls’ punters came from police HQ anyway. But Macbeth had politely declined the girls’ offers for so long that they left him in peace. So when he saw the two women moving towards him and Banquo he assumed they were new to the area. And he would have remembered them. Even by the relatively low standard of these streets their appearance did not make a favourable impression. Now it was Macbeth’s experience that it was difficult to put a precise age on Asiatic women, but whatever theirs was, they must have been through hard times. It was in their eyes. They were the cold, inscrutable kind that don’t let you see in, that only reflect their surroundings and themselves. They were stooped and dressed in cheap coats, but there was something else that caught his attention, something which didn’t add up, the disfiguration of their faces. One opened her mouth and revealed a line of dirty, brown, neglected teeth.

‘Sorry, ladies,’ Macbeth said cheerfully before she managed to speak. ‘We’d have liked to say yes, but I’ve got a frighteningly jealous wife and him there, he’s got a terrible VD rash.’

Banquo mumbled something and shook his head.

‘Macbeth,’ said one of them in a staccato accent and squeaky doll-like voice at variance with her hard eyes.

‘Banquo,’ said the other woman — identical accent, identical voice.

Macbeth stopped. Both women had combed their long raven-black hair over their faces, probably to conceal them, but they couldn’t hide the big un-Asiatic fiery-red noses hanging over their mouths like glass glowing beneath the glass-blower’s pipe.

‘You know our names,’ he said. ‘So how can we help you, ladies?’

They didn’t answer. Just nodded towards a house on the other side of the street. And there, from the shadows of an archway, a third person stepped into the daylight. The contrast to the two others couldn’t have been greater. This woman — if it was a woman — was as tall and broad-shouldered as a bouncer and dressed in a tight leopardskin-print outfit that emphasised her female curves the way a swindler emphasises the false benefits of his product. But Macbeth knew what she was selling, at least what she used to sell. And the false benefits. Everything about her was extreme: her height, width, bulging breasts, the claw-like red nails that bent around her strong fingers, the wide-open eyes, the theatrical make-up, boots up to her thighs with stiletto heels. To him the only shock was that she hadn’t changed. All the years had passed without apparently leaving a mark on her.

She crossed the street in what seemed to be two gigantic steps.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said in a voice so deep Macbeth thought he could hear the glass panes behind him quiver.

‘Strega,’ Macbeth said. ‘Long time, no see.’

‘Likewise. You were a mere boy then.’

‘So you remember me?’

‘I remember all my clients, Inspector Macbeth.’

‘And who are these two?’

‘My sisters.’ Strega smiled. ‘We bring Hecate’s congratulations.’

Macbeth saw Banquo automatically reach inside his jacket at the sound of Hecate’s name, and he placed a guarded hand on his arm. ‘What for?’

‘Your appointment as head of Organised Crime,’ Strega said. ‘All hail Macbeth.’

‘All hail Macbeth,’ the sisters echoed.

‘What are you talking about?’ Macbeth said, scanning the unemployed men across the street. He had spotted a movement when Banquo went for his gun.

‘One man’s loss, another man’s gain,’ Strega said. ‘Those are the laws of the jungle. More dead, more bread. And who will get the bread, I wonder, if Chief Commissioner Duncan dies?’

‘Hey!’ Banquo took a step towards her. ‘If that’s Hecate threatening us, then...’

Macbeth held him back. He had seen it now. Three of the men across the road had looked up, braced themselves. They were standing apart but among the others, and there was a similarity: they all wore grey lightweight coats. ‘Just let her talk,’ Macbeth whispered.

Strega smiled. ‘There’s no threat. Hecate won’t do anything; he’s just stating an interesting fact. He thinks you’ll be the next chief commissioner.’

‘Me?’ Macbeth laughed. ‘Duncan’s deputy would take over of course, and his name’s Malcolm. Be off with you.’

‘Hecate’s prophecies never err,’ said the man-woman. ‘And you know that.’ She stood opposite Macbeth without moving, and Macbeth realised she was still taller than him.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Is your casino lady keeping you clean?’

Banquo saw Macbeth stiffen. And thought this Strega should be happy to be considered a woman. Macbeth snorted, looked as if he was going to say something but changed his mind. Shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Opened his mouth again. Nothing came out this time either. Then he turned and strode towards the entrance of police HQ.

The tall woman watched him. ‘And as for you, Banquo, aren’t you curious to know what’s in store for you?’

‘No,’ he said and followed Macbeth.

‘Or your son, Fleance?’

Banquo stopped in his tracks.

‘A good, hard-working boy,’ Strega said. ‘And Hecate promises that if he and his father behave and follow the rules of the game, in the fullness of time he’ll also become chief commissioner.’

Banquo turned to her.

‘A planned rise,’ she said. Gave a slight bow and smiled, turned and grabbed the other two under her arms. ‘Come on, sisters.’

Banquo stared after this bizarre trio until they had rounded the corner of HQ. So out of place had they seemed that when they were gone he had to ask himself if they had really been there.

‘Lots of fruitcakes on the streets nowadays,’ Banquo said as he caught up with Macbeth in the foyer before the reception desk.

‘Nowadays?’ Macbeth said, pressing the lift button impatiently again. ‘Fruitcakes have always prospered in this town. Did you notice the ladies had minders?’

‘Hecate’s invisible army?’

The lift doors glided open.

‘Duff,’ Macbeth said, stepping to the side. ‘Now how...?’

‘Macbeth and Banquo,’ said the blond man, striding past them towards the door to the street.

‘Goodness me,’ Banquo said. ‘A stressed man.’

‘That’s what it’s like when you’ve got the top job.’ Macbeth smiled, walked in and pressed the button for the basement floor. The SWAT floor.

‘Have you noticed how Duff’s shoes always creak?’

‘It’s because he always buys shoes too big for him,’ Macbeth said.

‘Why?’

‘No idea,’ Macbeth replied and managed to stop the doors closing in front of the officer running over from reception.

‘Just had a call from the chief commissioner’s office,’ he said, out of breath. ‘Telling us to ask you to go up the minute you arrive.’

‘Right,’ Macbeth said and let go of the doors.

‘Trouble?’ Banquo asked after they had closed.

‘Probably,’ Macbeth said, pressing the button for the fourth floor. Feeling the stitches in his shoulder begin to itch.

5

Lady walked through the gaming room. The light from the immense chandeliers fell softly on the dark mahogany where they were playing blackjack and poker, on the green felt where the dice would dance later in the evening, on the spear-shaped gold spire that stood up like a minaret in the middle of the spinning roulette wheel. She’d had the chandeliers made as smaller copies of the four-and-a-half-ton chandelier in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, while the spire pointing from the middle of the ceiling down to the roulette table was a copy of the spire in the roulette wheel. The chandeliers were anchored with cords tied to the banisters of the mezzanine in such a way that they could be lowered every Monday and the glass cleaned. This was the kind of detail that passed straight over most customers’ heads. Like the small, discreet lilies she’d had sewn into the thick, sound-muffling burgundy carpets she had bought in Italy for a tiny fortune. But they didn’t go over her head, she saw the matching spires and only she knew what the lilies commemorated. That was enough. For this was hers.

The croupiers automatically stood up straight whenever she passed. They knew their jobs, they were efficient and careful, they treated the customers with courtesy but were firm, they had manicured hands, groomed hair and were immaculately dressed in Inverness Casino’s elegant red and black croupier uniform, which was changed every year and tailor-made for every single member of staff. And, most important of all, they were honest. This wasn’t something she assumed, it was something she saw and heard. Saw it in people’s eyes, involuntary tics, muscular twitches or theatrically relaxed states. Heard it in the tiny distinctions of quivering vocal cords. It was an innate sensitivity she had, inherited from her mother and grandmother. But while this sensitivity had led them as they aged into the dark shadows of insanity, Lady had used her skills to flush out dishonesty. Away from childhood’s vale of woe, up to where she was today. The rounds of inspection had two functions. One was to keep her employees on their toes that little bit more so that every day, every night, they would show themselves to be at least one class higher than those at the Obelisk. The second was to uncover any dishonesty. Even though they had been honest and honourable yesterday, people were like wet clay: they were shaped by opportunity, motive and what you told them today, and they could blithely do what had been inconceivable the day before. Yes, that was the only thing that was fixed, the only thing you could count on: the heart was greedy. Lady knew that. She had that kind of heart herself. A heart she alternately cursed and counted herself lucky to have, which had brought her affluence but had also deprived her of everything. But it was the heart that beat in her chest. You can’t change anything, you can’t stop it, all you can do is follow it.

She nodded to the familiar faces gathered around the roulette table. Regular customers. They all had their reasons for coming here and playing. There were those who needed to switch off after a challenging working day and those who, after a boring working day, needed a challenge. And those who had neither work nor a challenge, but money. Those who had none of the above ended up at the Obelisk, where you were given a tasteless but free lunch if you gambled more than five hundred. You had idiots who thought they had a system which promised long-term gains, a breed that kept dying but curiously never died out. And then you had those who — and no casino-owner would admit this aloud — formed the bedrock of their business. Those who had to. Those who felt compelled to come here because they couldn’t stop themselves risking everything, night after night, fascinated by the roulette ball whizzing around the shiny wheel like a little globe caught in the sun’s gravitational field, the sun that gave them daily life but which in the end, with the inevitability of physics, would also burn them up. The addicted. Lady’s bread and butter.

Talking about addiction. She looked at her watch. Nine. It was still a bit early in the evening, but she wished the tables were fuller. Reports from the Obelisk suggested they were continuing to take business away from her despite the heavy investment she had made in interior design, the kitchen and the upgrade of the hotel rooms. Some thought she was in the process of pricing herself out of the market and, because the three-year-old Obelisk was well established in people’s minds as the more reasonable alternative, she could and should cut down on the standards and expenses. After all, she wouldn’t lose her status as the town’s exclusive option. But they didn’t know Lady. They didn’t know that for her it wasn’t primarily about the bottom line but being the exclusive option. Not only more elegant than the Obelisk but better, whatever the comparison. Lady’s Inverness Casino should be the place you wanted to be seen, the place you wanted to be associated with. And she, Lady, should be the person you wanted to be seen and associated with. The moneyed came here and the top politicians, actors and sports personalities from the celebrity firmament, writers, beauties, hipsters and intellectuals — everyone came to Lady’s table, bowed respectfully, kissed her hand, met her discreet rejection of their equally discreet enquiry about gambling credit with a smile and gratefully accepted a Bloody Mary on the house. Profit or no profit, she hadn’t come all this way to run a bloody bordello, as they were doing at the Obelisk, so they could have the dregs, those she would rather not see beneath Inverness Casino’s chandeliers. Genuine chandeliers. But of course the tide had turned. The creditors had started asking questions. And they hadn’t liked her answer: what the Inverness needed was not cheaper drinks but more and bigger chandeliers.

Business wasn’t on her mind now though. Addiction was. And the fact that Macbeth hadn’t got here yet. He always said if he was going to be late. And what had happened during the Sweno raid had affected him. He didn’t say so, but she could sense it. Sometimes he was strangely soft-hearted, it seemed to her — a man she had seen kill with her own eyes. She had seen the calculated determination before the killing, the cold efficiency during it and the remorseless smile afterwards.

But this had been different, she knew. The man had been defenceless. And even if on occasion she had problems understanding the code of honour men like Macbeth upheld, she knew this sort of issue could cause him to lose his bearings. She crossed the floor, caught the stares of two men at the bar. Both younger than her. But they didn’t interest her. Although she had always done everything to feel desired she despised men who desired her. Apart from one man. It had surprised her at first that someone could fill her thoughts and heart so fully and completely. And often she had asked herself why she, who had never loved any man, loved this particular man. She had concluded it was because he loved that part of her which frightened other men. Her strength. Willpower. An intelligence that was superior to theirs and she couldn’t be bothered to hide under a bushel. It took a man to love that in a woman. She stood by the large window facing Workers’ Square, looked over towards Bertha, the black locomotive guarding the entrance to the disused station. To the swamp where, over the years, she had seen so many get stuck and sink. Could he—?

‘Darling.’

How many times had she heard this voice whisper this word in her ear? And yet every time was like the first. He lifted her long red hair to the side, and she felt currents run through her body as his lips touched her neck. It was unprofessional — she knew the two men at the bar were watching — but she let it go. He was here.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘In my new office,’ he said, wrapping an arm around her midriff.

‘New office?’ She caressed his forearm. Felt the scar tissue under her fingertips. He had told her the reason the scars were there was because he’d had to inject in the dark and couldn’t see his veins, so he would feel his way to the wound from the previous injection and shoot up in the same spot. If you did that enough times, for several years, plus the unavoidable infection now and then, you ended up with forearms that looked like his, as though they had been dragged through barbed wire. But she couldn’t feel any fresh wounds. It was some years ago now. So long that sometimes — in fits of childlike optimism — she considered him cured.

‘I didn’t think you called those coal bins in the cellar offices.’

‘On the third floor,’ Macbeth said.

Lady turned to him. ‘What?’

His white teeth shone in his dark beard. ‘You see before you the new head of Organised Crime in this town.’

‘Is that true?’

‘Yes.’ He laughed. ‘And now you look as shocked as I imagine I did in Duncan’s office.’

‘I’m not shocked, my love. I’m... I’m just happy. It’s so deserved! Haven’t I kept telling you? Haven’t I said you’re worth more than that office in the basement?’

‘Yes, you have. Again and again, darling. But you were the only one.’ Macbeth leaned back and laughed again.

‘And now we’re going up, my love. Out of your cellar obscurity! I hope you demanded a good salary.’

‘Salary? No, I forgot to ask. My sole demand was that I had Banquo as my deputy, and they both agreed. It’s quite mad—’

‘Mad? Not at all. It’s a wise appointment.’

‘Not the appointment. On the way to HQ we met three sisters sent by Hecate, who prophesied I would get the job.’

‘Prophesied?’

‘Yes!’

‘They must have known.’

‘No. When I got to Duncan’s office he said the decision had been made just five minutes before.’

‘Hm. Witchcraft, nothing less.’

‘They were probably high on their own dope and talking nonsense. They said I’d be the chief commissioner, too. And do you know what? Duncan suggested we celebrate my appointment here, at the Inverness!’

‘Hang on a moment. What did they say?’

‘He wanted to celebrate it here. Wouldn’t the chief commissioner choosing to organise a party in your casino be good for your reputation?’

‘No, I mean the sisters. Did they say you’d be chief commissioner?’

‘Yes, but forget it, darling. I suggested to Duncan that we make an evening of it, and he and all the people who live out of town can stay overnight in the hotel. You’ve got quite a lot of unoccupied rooms at the moment, so...’

‘Of course we’ll do that.’ She stroked his cheek. ‘I can hear you’re happy, but you still look pale, my love.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think I’m sickening for something. I see dead men in traffic lights.’

She put a hand under his arm. ‘Come on. I’ve got what you need, my boy.’

He smiled. ‘Yes, you do.’

They sailed through the casino. She knew it was her high heels that made her half a head taller than him. Knew her young figure, elegant evening gown and stately, lissom walk made the men at the bar still stare after her. Knew this was something they didn’t have at the Obelisk.

Duff lay on the large double bed staring at the ceiling, at the crack in the paint he knew so well.

‘Afterwards, as I was leaving the meeting, Duncan took me aside and asked if I was disappointed,’ he explained. ‘He said we both knew I’d have been the natural candidate for the post.’

The crack had offshoots spreading in an apparently random way, but when he scrunched up his eyes, thereby losing focus, the crack seemed to follow a pattern, form an image. He just couldn’t work out what it was.

‘And what did you answer?’ came the voice over the running water in the bathroom. Even now, after having seen as much of each other as any two people can, she disliked him seeing her until she was ready. And that was fine by him.

‘I answered that, yes, I was disappointed. When he said they wanted Macbeth because he didn’t belong to the inner circle, my being one of those who had supported Duncan’s project right from the start was used against me.’

‘Well, that’s true. What did—?’

‘Duncan said there was another reason, but he didn’t want to mention it with the others present. The Sweno raid had only been partly successful as Sweno had got away. And it turned out I had received the tip-off so early that there would have been enough time to inform him. I had almost undone a year’s undercover work by what looked a lot like an ego trip. And Macbeth and SWAT had saved the whole operation. Therefore it would seem suspicious to choose me ahead of him. But at least he did give me a consolation prize.’

‘He gave you the Homicide Unit, and that’s not bad, is it?’

‘It’s smaller than Narco, but at least I escaped the humiliation of being a subordinate officer in Organised Crime.’

‘Who persuaded Duncan anyway?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who argued Macbeth’s case? Duncan’s a listener; he likes consensus and goes for group decisions.’

‘Believe me, my dearest, no one lobbies for Macbeth. I doubt he knows what the word means. All he wants in life is to catch baddies and make sure his casino queen is happy.’

‘Speaking of which.’ She posed by the bathroom door. The gauzy negligee revealed more than it hid of course. Duff liked a lot about this woman, some things he wasn’t even able to articulate, but what he idolised was plain enough: her youth. The glow from the candles on the floor made the moisture in her eyes, on her red lips, on her shining teeth, sparkle. And yet tonight he needed something more. He wasn’t in the mood. After what had happened he didn’t feel like the buck he had been when he had started the day. But that could perhaps be changed.

‘Take it off,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘I’ve just put it on.’

‘It’s an order. Stay where you are and take it off. Slowly.’

‘Hm. Maybe. If I’m given a clearer order...’

‘Caithness, you are hereby ordered by a superior officer to turn your back, pull what you’re wearing over your head, lean forward and take a good hold of the door frame.’

Duff heard her little girlie gasp of shock. Perhaps it was put on for his sake, perhaps not. It was fine by him. He was getting in the mood.

Hecate strode across the damp floor of the central station, between the peeling walls and mumbling drug addicts. He noticed the gaze of two guys stooped over a spoon and syringe they were obviously sharing. They didn’t know him. No one knew him. Perhaps they were thinking the big man with the mustard-yellow cashmere coat, the carefully groomed, almost unnaturally black hair and the resplendent heavy Rolex looked like perfect prey which had just walked into the lion’s den. Or they may have had suspicions; perhaps there was something about the self-assured, determined gait, something about the gold-capped walking stick, which made a rhythmic tick-tock in time with the stiletto heels of the tall broad-shouldered woman who walked two steps behind him. If she was a woman. There might also have been something about the three men, all wearing grey lightweight coats, who had entered the station immediately before him and taken up a position by the wall. Perhaps that was why they sensed that they were in his den. He was the lion.

Hecate stopped, and let Strega go first down the narrow stairs reeking of urine to the toilet. Saw the two druggies lower their heads and concentrate on the task in hand — heating and injecting. Addicts. For Hecate this was a statement of fact without contempt or irritation. After all, they were his bread and butter.

Strega opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, lifted a sleeping man to his feet, bared her teeth to show him her mood and a thumb to point him in the right direction. Hecate followed her in between the cubicles and the running sinks. The stench was so intense that Hecate could still get tears in his eyes. But it also had a function: it kept away curious eyes and made even the hardened addicts keep their visits as brief as possible. Strega and Hecate went into the furthest cubicle with the sign DO NOT USE on the door and a bowl filled to the brim with excrement. Furthermore, the neon tube in the ceiling above had been removed, so it was impossible to see or hit veins in there. Strega removed one of the tiles above the disconnected loo, turned a handle and pushed. The wall swung open, and they stepped inside.

‘Close it quickly,’ Hecate said and coughed. He looked around the room. It had been a railway storeroom, and the other door led to the tunnel for the southern lines. He had moved his production here two years after the train traffic had ceased. He’d had to chase out some tramps and junkies, and although no one ever came here and Chief Commissioner Kenneth had been their highest-ranking protector he had installed camouflaged CCTV in the tunnel and over the stairs down to the toilet. There were twelve people in total on the evening shift, all wearing masks and white coats. On this side of the glass partition dividing the room into two, brew was chopped up, weighed and packed into plastic bags by seven people. By the tunnel door sat two armed guards keeping an eye on the workers and the CCTV monitors. Inside the glass partition was what they called the inner sanctum or simply the kitchen. The tank was there, and only the sisters had access. The kitchen was hermetically sealed for many reasons. First, so that nothing outside could contaminate the processes inside and because some idiot might inadvertently flick a lighter or throw down a lit cigarette end, blowing them all to pieces. But mostly because everyone in the room would soon be hooked if they inhaled the molecules floating in the air on a daily basis.

Hecate had found the sisters in a Chinatown opium den in Bangkok, where the two had set up a home-made laboratory to make heroin from the opium in Chang Rai. He didn’t know much about them, only that they had fled China with Chiang Kai-shek’s people, the disease that had ravaged their faces had reportedly spread through the village they came from, and as long as he paid them punctually they would deliver whatever he asked. The ingredients were well known, the proportions the same, and others could follow the procedures through the glass window. Yet there was a mystery about the way they mixed and heated the ingredients. And Hecate saw no reason to deny the rumours that they used toads’ glands, bumble bee wings, juice from rats’ tails and even blew their noses into the tank. It created a sense of black magic, and if there was something that people would pay for in their all-too-real working lives, it was precisely that: black magic. And brew was going down a bomb. Hecate had never seen so many become so desperately addicted in such a short time. But it was equally obvious that the day the sisters produced a slightly less potent product he would have to get rid of them. That was how it was. Everything had its day, its cycle. Like the two decades under Kenneth. The good times. And now with Duncan, who if he was allowed to go his merry way would mean bad times for the magic industry. It is obvious that if the gods bring good and bad times, short human lives and death, you have to make sure you become a god yourself. It is easier than you might think. The obstacle to most people achieving god-like status is that they are afraid and superstitious, and in their anxiety-ridden submission they believe there is a morality, a set of heaven-sent rules that apply to all people. But these rules are made by precisely those that tell you they are gods, and in some strange way the rules serve these gods. Well, OK, not everyone can be a god, and every god needs followers, a client base. A market. A town. Many towns.

Hecate took up a position at the end of the room, placed both hands on the top of his stick and just stood there. This was his factory. Here he was the factory owner. In a growing industry. He would soon have to expand. If he didn’t meet the demand others would, those were the simple rules of capitalism. He’d long had plans to take over one of the town’s disused factories, set up some fictitious business as a cover while he concocted his brew in the back rooms. Guards, barbed-wire fences, his own lorries going in and out. He could increase production tenfold and export to the rest of the country. But it would be more visible and would require police protection. It would require a chief commissioner who was in his pocket. It would require a Kenneth. So what do you do if Kenneth is dead? You make a new one and clear a path for him.

He received stiff smiles and brief nods from his choppers and packers before they launched themselves at their tasks with renewed energy. They were frightened. That was the principal purpose of these inspections. Not to stop the cycle — it was inevitable — but to delay it. Everyone in this cellar room would at some point try to cheat him, take a few grams home and sell it themselves. They would be found out, and the sentence would be carried out speedily. By Strega. She seemed to enjoy her varied assignments. Like being a messenger together with the sisters.

‘Well, Strega,’ he said. ‘Do you think the seed we sowed in Macbeth will grow?’

‘Human ambition will always stretch towards the sun like a thistle and overshadow and kill everything around it.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘They’re thistles. They can’t help themselves. They’re evil and foolish. If people see the soothsayer’s first prophecy fulfilled they’ll believe the next one blindly. And now Macbeth has found out he’s the new head of Organised Crime. The only question is whether Macbeth has enough of the thistle’s ambition in him. And the necessary cruelty to go the whole way.’

‘Macbeth doesn’t,’ Hecate said. ‘But she does.’

‘She?’

‘Lady, his beloved dominatrix. I’ve never met her, yet I know her innermost secrets and understand her better than I understand you, Strega. All Lady needs is time to reach the inescapable conclusion. Believe me.’

‘Which is?’

‘That Duncan has to be got rid of.’

‘And then?’

‘Then,’ Hecate said, tapping his stick on the ground, tap-tap. ‘The good times will roll again.’

‘Are you sure we can control Macbeth? Now he’s clean he’s probably... moralistic, isn’t he?’

‘My dear Strega, the only person more predictable than a junkie or a moralist is a love-smitten junkie and moralist.’

Banquo lay in the bedroom on the first floor listening to the rain, to the silence in the room, to the train that never came. The railway track ran past outside, and he visualised the wet, glistening gravel where some of the rails and the sleepers had been removed. Well, stolen. They had been happy here, he and Vera. They’d had good times. He had met Vera while she was working for the goldsmith Jacobs & Sons, where the finer folk went to buy wedding rings and gifts for each other. One evening the burglar alarm went off, and Banquo — who was on patrol — arrived on the spot, sirens howling, within a minute. Inside, a terrified young woman was desperately shouting over the ear-piercing bell that she was only closing up, she was new and must have done something wrong when she was putting the alarm on. He had only caught the odd word here and there and had had all the more time to observe her. And when eventually she burst into tears he had put a gentle, consoling arm around her. She felt like a warm, tremulous, fledgling bird. During the next few weeks they went to the cinema, walked on the sunny side of the tunnel and he had kissed her at the gate. She came from a working-class family and lived at home. Right from a young girl she’d had to make a contribution and had worked at the Estex factory like her parents. Until she got a bad cough, unofficial advice from a doctor to work elsewhere and a job at Jacobs via recommendations.

‘The pay’s worse,’ she said, ‘but you live longer.’

‘You still cough?’

‘Only on rainy days.’

‘We’d better make sure you get more sunshine. Another walk on Sunday?’

After six months Banquo went to the jeweller’s shop and asked her if she had an engagement ring she could recommend. She looked so bewildered he had to laugh.

After getting married they moved into a poky two-bed flat, with neighbours beneath them on the ground floor. They had saved up for, bought and made love in the bed where he was lying now. Out of consideration for their neighbours, Vera — who was a passionate but shy woman — would wait for a train until she came. When a train thundered past, shaking the walls and ceiling lamps, she let herself go, screamed and dug her nails into his back. She did the same when she gave birth to Fleance in that very bed — waited until the train came and then screamed, dug her nails into his hand and squeezed out a son.

They bought the ground floor the following year to have more room. There were three of them and could soon be many more. But five years later there were only two of them: a boy and a man. It was her lungs. The doctors blamed the polluted air, all the toxins from the factories forced down by low-pressure weather systems hovering over the town like a lid. And with lungs that were already damaged... Banquo blamed himself. He hadn’t been able to scrape enough money together to move the family to the other side of the tunnel, to Fife, to somewhere with a bit of sunshine and fresh air you could breathe.

Now they had too much room. He could hear the radio on downstairs and knew Fleance was doing his schoolwork. Fleance was conscientious, he wanted so much to do well. It was some consolation that those who found school easy and got off to a good start often lost their enthusiasm when life became tougher. And then students like Fleance, who was forced to employ strict working routines and knew that learning required effort, got their turn. Yes, it would all be fine. And, who knows, perhaps the boy would meet a girl and start a family. Here in this house, for example. Perhaps new and better times were coming. Perhaps they would be able to help Duncan even more, now that Macbeth was in charge of fighting organised crime in this town. The news had come as a huge surprise to Banquo and most at HQ. Down in the SWAT cellar Ricardo had put it bluntly: he couldn’t imagine Macbeth and Banquo sitting behind their desks in suits and ties. Drawing diagrams and presenting budgets. Or making polite conversation at cocktail parties with chief commissioners, council members and other fine folk. But they would see. There wouldn’t be any lack of will. And perhaps it was now the turn of people like Macbeth, who were used to having to put in a shift, to achieve their aims.

There was no one else at HQ apart from Duff who knew how addicted to speed Macbeth had been when he was a teenager, how crazy it had made him, how hopelessly lost he had been. Banquo had been on the beat, tramping round the rain-lashed streets, when he came across the boy curled up on a bench in a bus shelter, out of his head on dope. He woke him, wanting to move him on, but there was something about his pleading brown eyes. Something in his alert movements when he stood up, something about his fit, compact body that told Banquo he was going to waste. Something that might have been developing. Something that could still be saved. Banquo took the fifteen-year-old home that night, got him some dry clothes. Vera fed him and they put him to bed. The next day, a Sunday, Vera, Banquo and the boy drove through the tunnel, came out into sunshine on the other side and went for a long walk in the green hills. Macbeth talked with a stammer at first, then less so. He had grown up in an orphanage and dreamed about working in a circus. He showed them how he could juggle and then took five paces from a tall oak and threw Banquo’s penknife into the tree, where it quivered. The boy found it more difficult to show them the scars on his forearm and talk about them. That didn’t happen until later, when he knew Banquo and Vera were people he could trust. Even then he only said it had started after he fled the home, not how or what triggered it. After that there were more Sundays, more conversations and walks. But Banquo remembered the first especially well because Vera had whispered to him on the way home, ‘Let’s make a son like him.’ And when, four years later, a proud Banquo had accompanied Macbeth to police college, Fleance had been three and Macbeth clean for just as long.

Banquo turned and looked at the photograph on the bedside table. It was of him and Fleance; they were standing under the dead apple tree in the garden. Fleance’s first day at police college. He was wearing his uniform, it was early morning, the sun was out, and the shadow of the photographer fell across them.

He heard a chair scrape and Fleance stomping around. Angry, frustrated. It wasn’t always easy to grasp everything straight off. It took time to acquire understanding. Like it took time and willpower to renounce drugs, the escape you had become so addicted to. Like it took time to change a town, to redress injustice, to purge the saboteurs, the corrupt politicians and the big-time criminals, to give the town’s citizens air they could breathe.

It had all gone quiet downstairs. Fleance was back at his desk.

It was possible if you took one day at a time and did the work that was required. Then one day the trains might run again.

He listened. All he heard was silence. And rain. But if he closed his eyes, wasn’t that Vera’s breathing beside him in bed?

Caithness’s panting slowly subsided.

‘I have to call home,’ Duff said, kissing her sweaty forehead and swinging his legs out of bed.

‘Now?’ she exclaimed. He could see from the way she bit her lower lip that it had come out more angrily than she had intended. Who said he didn’t understand people?

‘Ewan had toothache yesterday. I have to see how he is.’

She didn’t answer. Duff walked naked through the flat. He usually did as it was an attic flat and no one could see in. Besides, being seen naked didn’t bother him. He was proud of his body. Perhaps he was especially fond of his body because he had grown up feeling ashamed of the scar that divided his face. The flat was large, larger than you would have imagined a young woman working in the state sector would have. He had offered to help her with the rent as he spent so many nights there, but she said her father took care of that side of things.

Duff went into the study, closed the door after him and dialled the Fife number.

He listened to the rain drumming on the attic window right above his head. She answered after the third ring. Always after the third ring. Regardless of where she was in the house.

‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘How did it go with the dentist?’

‘He’s better now,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if it was toothache.’

‘Oh? What was it then?’

‘There are other things that can hurt. He was crying, and when I asked him why, he wouldn’t tell me and said the first thing that came into his head. He’s in bed now.’

‘Hm. I’ll be home tomorrow and then I’ll have a chat with him. What’s the weather like?’

‘Clear sky. Moonlight. Why?’

‘We could go to the lake tomorrow, all of us. For a swim.’

‘Where are you, Duff?’

He stiffened, there was something about her intonation. ‘Where? At the Grand, of course.’ And added in an exaggeratedly cheery voice, ‘Beddy-byes for tired men, you know.’

‘I rang the Grand earlier this evening. They said you hadn’t booked in.’

He stood up straight with the phone in his hand.

‘I rang you because Emily needed help with some maths. And, as you know, I’m not that good at putting two and two together. So where are you?’

‘In my office,’ Duff said, breathing through his mouth. ‘I’m sleeping on the sofa in the office. I’m up to my ears in work. I’m sorry I said I was at the Grand, but I thought you and the children didn’t need to know how hard things were at the moment.’

‘Hard?’

Duff gulped. ‘All the work. And I still didn’t get the Organised Crime post.’ He curled his toes. He could hear how pathetic he sounded, as though he were asking her to let him off the hook out of sympathy.

‘Well, you got the Homicide Unit anyway. And a new office, I hear.’

‘What?’

‘On the top floor. I can hear the rain drumming on a window. I’ll ring off then.’

There was a click and she was gone.

Duff shivered. The room was chilly. He should have put on some clothes. Shouldn’t have been so naked.

Lady listened to Macbeth’s breathing and shivered.

It was as though a chill had passed through the room. A ghost. The ghost of a child. She had to get out of the darkness that weighed down on her, force her way out of the mental prison that had imposed itself on her mother and grandmother, up into the light. Fight for her liberation, sacrifice whatever had to be sacrificed to be the sun. To be a star. A shining mother who was consumed in the process and gave life to others. The centre of the universe as she burned up. Yes. Burned. As her breath and skin burned now, forcing the cold from the room. She ran a hand down her body, feeling her skin tingle. It was the same thought, the same decision as then. It had to be done, there was no way round it. The only way was onwards, straight on at whatever lay in their path, like a bullet from a gun.

She laid a hand on Macbeth’s shoulder. He was sleeping like a child. It would be the last time. She shook him.

He turned to her, mumbling, put out his hands. Always ready to serve. She held his hands firmly in hers.

‘Darling,’ she whispered, ‘you have to kill him.’

He opened his eyes; they shone at her in the darkness.

She let go of his hands.

Stroked his cheek. The same decision as then.

‘You have to kill Duncan.’

6

Lady and Macbeth had first met one late summer’s evening four years ago. It had been one of those rare days when the sun shone from a cloudless sky and Lady was sure she had heard a bird singing in the morning. But when the sun had set and the night shift came on an evil moon had risen above Inverness Casino. She had been standing outside the main entrance to the casino, in the moonlight, when he rolled up in a SWAT armoured vehicle.

‘Lady?’ he said, looking straight into her eyes. What did she see? Strength and determination? Maybe. Or perhaps it was because that was what she wanted to see at that moment.

She nodded. Thinking he seemed a little too young. Thinking the man behind him, an elderly man with white hair and calm eyes, looked more suited for the job.

‘I’m Inspector Macbeth. Any changes in the situation, ma’am?’

She shook her head.

‘OK, is there anywhere we can see them from?’

‘The mezzanine.’

‘Banquo, assemble the men and I’ll recce.’

Before they went up the stairs to the mezzanine the young officer whispered that she should take off her high heels to make less noise. That meant she was no longer taller than him. On the mezzanine they first kept to the back, by the windows looking out over Workers’ Square, so that they couldn’t be seen from the gaming room below. Halfway along they moved towards the balustrade. They were partially hidden by the rope to the central chandelier and the genuine suit of Maximilian armour from the sixteenth century which she had bought at an auction in Augsburg. The idea was that when gamblers saw it up there it would give them an unconscious sense of being either protected or watched. Their own conscience would determine which. Lady and the officer crouched and peered down into the room, where twenty minutes earlier customers and staff had fled in panic. Lady had been standing on the roof looking up at the full moon and instinctively felt the evil when she heard the crash and screams from down below. She went down, grabbed one of the fleeing waiters, who said that some guy had fired a gun into the chandelier and was holding Jack.

She had already calculated the cost of a new chandelier, but it was obvious that would be nothing compared to the cost of the gun — which was at present pointing at the head of Jack, her best croupier — being fired one more time. After all, part of what her casino offered was safe excitement and relaxation; for a while you didn’t need to think about the crime in the streets outside. If the impression was created that Inverness Casino couldn’t offer that, the gaming room would be as empty as it was now. The only two people left were sitting at the blackjack table below the mezzanine on the other side. Poor Jack was ramrod-stiff and as white as a sheet.

Right behind him, holding a gun, sat the customer.

‘It would be hard to get a shot in from such a distance as long as he’s hiding behind your croupier,’ Macbeth whispered, taking out a little telescope from his black uniform. ‘We have to get closer. Who is he and what does he want?’

‘Ernest Collum. He says he’ll kill my croupier unless he’s given back everything he’s lost at the casino.’

‘And is that a lot?’

‘More than we have in cash here. Collum’s one of the addicts. An engineer and a number-crunching genius, so he knows the odds. They’re the worst. I’ve told him we’ll try and get the money, but the banks are closed, so it could take a while.’

‘We don’t have much time. I’m going in.’

‘How do you know?’

Macbeth moved back from the balustrade and tucked the telescope inside his uniform. ‘His pupils. He’s high and he’s going to shoot.’ He pressed a button on his walkie-talkie. ‘Code Four Six. Now. Take command, Banquo. Over.’

‘Banquo in command. Over.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Lady said, following Macbeth.

‘I don’t think—’

‘This is my the casino. My Jack.’

‘Listen, ma’am—’

‘Collum knows me, and women calm him down.’

‘This is a police matter,’ Macbeth said and ran down the stairs.

‘I’m coming,’ Lady said and ran after him.

Macbeth came to a halt and stood in front of her.

‘Look at me,’ he said.

‘No, you look at me,’ she said. ‘Do I look as if I’m not going with you? He’s expecting me to bring the money.’

He looked at her. He had a good look. Looked at her in a way other men had looked at her. But also in a way no men or women had looked at her. They looked at her with fear or admiration, respect or desire, hatred, love or subservience, measured her with their eyes, judged her, misjudged her. But this young man looked at her as though he had finally found something. Which he recognised. Which he had been looking for.

‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘But keep your mouth shut, ma’am.’

The thick carpet muffled the sound of their feet as they entered the room.

The table where the two men were sitting was less well illuminated than usual because of the smashed chandelier. Jack’s face, stiffened into a mask of transfixed shock, didn’t change when he saw Lady and Macbeth coming towards him. Lady noticed the hammer of the gun rise.

‘Who are you?’ Collum’s voice was thick.

‘I’m Inspector Macbeth from SWAT,’ said the policeman, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. Laying both palms on the table so that they were visible. ‘My job is to negotiate with you.’

‘There’s nothing to negotiate, Inspector. I’ve been cheated by this bloody casino for years. It has ruined me. They fix the cards. She fixes the cards.’

‘And you’ve arrived at that conclusion after taking brew?’ Macbeth asked, tapping his fingers soundlessly on the felt. ‘It distorts reality, you know.’

‘The reality, Inspector, is that I have a gun and I see better than ever, and if you don’t give me the money I’ll first shoot Jack here, then you, as you’ll try to draw a gun, and then Lady, so-called, who will at that point either try to flee or overpower me, but it will be too late for both. Then possibly myself, but we’ll have to see whether I’m in a better mood after dispatching you three to hell and blowing this place sky-high.’ He chuckled. ‘I don’t see any money, and these negotiations are thereby called off. So let’s get started...’

The hammer rose higher. Lady automatically grimaced and waited for the bang.

‘Double or quits,’ Macbeth said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Collum said. Immaculate pronunciation. Immaculate shave and immaculate dinner suit with a pressed white shirt. Lady guessed his underclothes were clean too. He had known this was unlikely to finish with him leaving the casino holding a suitcase full of money. He would be carried out as bankrupt as when he came in. But, well, immaculate.

‘You and I play a round of blackjack. If you win, you get all the money you’ve lost here, times two. If I win, I get your gun with all the bullets and you drop all your demands.’

Collum laughed. ‘You’re bluffing!’

‘The suitcase with the money you asked for has arrived and is in the police vehicle outside. The owner has said she’s willing to double up if we agree. Because we know there’s been some jiggery-pokery with the cards, and fair’s fair. What do you say, Ernest?’

Lady looked at Collum, at his left eye, which was all that was visible behind Jack’s head. Ernest Collum was not a stupid man; quite the opposite. He didn’t believe the story about the suitcase. And yet. Sometimes it seemed as if it was the most intelligent customers who refused to see the inevitability of chance. Given enough time everyone was doomed to lose against the casino.

‘Why would you do this?’ Collum said.

‘Well?’ Macbeth said.

Collum blinked twice. ‘I’m the dealer and you’re a player,’ he said. ‘She deals.’

Lady looked at Macbeth, who nodded. She took the pack, shuffled and laid two cards in front of Macbeth face up.

A six. And the king of hearts.

‘Sweet sixteen.’ Collum grinned.

Lady laid two cards in front of Collum, one face up. Ace of clubs.

‘One more,’ Macbeth said, stretching out a hand.

Lady gave him the top card from the pack. Macbeth held it to his chest, sneaked a look. Glanced up at Collum.

‘Looks like you’ve bust, sweet sixteen,’ Collum said. ‘Let’s see.’

‘Oh, I’m pretty happy with my hand,’ Macbeth said. Smiling at Collum. Then he threw the card to the right, where the table was in part-shadow. Collum automatically leaned across a fraction to see the card better.

The rest happened so fast Lady remembered it as a flash. A flash of a hand in motion, a flash of steel that caught the light as it flew across the table, a flash of Collum’s one eye staring at her, wide open in aggrieved protest, light glistening in a cascade of blood streaming out both sides of the blade that sliced his carotid artery. Then the sounds. The muffled sound of the gun hitting the thick, much-too-expensive carpet. The splash of blood landing on the table. Collum’s deep gurgle as his left eye extinguished. Jack’s one quavering sob.

And she remembered the cards. Not the ace, not the six. But the king of hearts. And, half in shadow, the queen of spades. Both sprayed with Ernest Collum’s blood.

They came in wearing their black uniforms, quick, soundless, obeying his every sign. They didn’t touch Collum; they led out a sobbing Jack. She pushed away an offer of help. Sat looking at the young head of SWAT, who leaned back in his chair looking content. Like someone thinking he had taken the last trick.

‘Collum will take the last trick,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Unless we find it.’

‘Find what?’

‘Didn’t you hear what he said? After dispatching you three to hell and blowing this place sky-high.’

He stared at her for a couple of seconds, first with surprise, then with something else. Acknowledgement. Respect. Then shouted, ‘Ricardo! There’s a bomb!’

Ricardo was a SWAT guy with calm self-assurance in his gaze, his movements and the softly spoken orders he gave. His skin was so black Lady thought she could see her reflection. It took Ricardo and his men four minutes to find what they were searching for, inside a locked toilet cubicle. A zebra-striped suitcase Collum had brought in after the doorman had checked the contents. Collum had explained it was four gold bars. He intended to use them as a stake at the exclusive poker table where, until the Gambling and Casino Committee had forbidden it, they had accepted cash, watches, wedding rings, mortgage deeds, car keys and anything else, provided that the players agreed. Behind the gold-painted iron bars engineer and numbers genius Collum had placed a home-made time bomb, which the SWAT bomb expert later praised for its craftsmanship. Exactly how many minutes were left on the timer Lady couldn’t remember. But she remembered the cards.

The king of hearts and the queen of spades. That evening they met under an evil moon.

Lady invited him over for dinner at the casino the next evening. He accepted the invitation but refused the aperitif. No to wine, but yes to water. She had the table on the mezzanine laid with a view of Workers’ Square, where the rain was trickling down and running quietly over the cobblestones from the railway station to the Inverness. The architects had built the station a few metres higher up because they thought the weight of all the marble and trains like Bertha would over time cause the floor to sink in the town’s constantly waterlogged, marshy terrain.

They talked about this and that. Avoided anything too personal. Avoided what had happened the evening before. In short, they had a nice time. And he was — if not polite — so charming and witty. And unusually attractive in a grey a-little-too-tight suit that he said he had been given by his older colleague, Banquo. She listened to stories about the orphanage, a pal called Duff and a travelling circus which he had joined one summer as a boy. About the nervous lion-tamer who always had a cold, about the skinny sisters who were trapeze artists and only ate oblong food, about the magician who invited members of the audience into the ring and made their possessions — a wedding ring, a key or a watch — float in the air in front of their very eyes. And he listened with interest to Lady talking about the casino she had built from scratch. And finally, when she felt she had told him everything that could be told, she raised her glass of wine and asked, ‘Why do you think he did it?’

Macbeth shrugged. ‘Hecate’s brew drives people crazy.’

‘We ruined him, that’s true, but there’s no duplicity with the cards.’

‘I didn’t think there was.’

‘But two years ago we had two croupiers who worked a number with players on the poker table and stole from others. I kicked them out of course, but I hear they’ve got together with some financiers and have applied to the council to have a new casino built.’

‘The Obelisk? Yes, I’ve seen the drawings.’

‘Perhaps you also know a couple of the players they worked with were politicians and Kenneth’s men?’

‘I’ve heard that, yes.’

‘So the casino will be built. And I promise you people like Ernest Collum will have every reason to feel they’re being cheated.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

‘This town needs new leaders. A new start.’

‘Bertha,’ Macbeth said, nodding towards the window facing the central station, where the old black locomotive stood glistening in the rain on the plinth by the main entrance, its wheels on eight metres of the original rails that ran to Capitol. ‘Banquo says she needs to be started up again. We need to have a new, healthy activity. And there’s good energy in this town too.’

‘Let’s hope so. But back to last night...’ She twiddled her wine glass. Knew he was looking at her cleavage. She was used to men doing that and it didn’t make her feel anything either way; she only knew that her female attributes could be used now and then, sometimes should not be used, like any other business tool. But his eyes were different. He was different. He wasn’t anyone she needed, merely a sweet policeman on a low rung of the ladder. So why was she spending time with him? Of course she could have shown him a sign of her appreciation other than her presence. She observed his hand as he took the glass of water. The thick veins on the suntanned hand. Obviously he made sure to get out of town when he could.

‘What would you have done if Collum hadn’t agreed to play blackjack?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking at her. Brown eyes. People in this town had blue eyes, but of course she had known men with brown eyes before. Not like these though. Not so... strong. And yet vulnerable. My God, was she falling for him? So late in life?

‘You don’t know?’ she asked.

‘You said he was an addict. I was counting on him not being able to resist the temptation to gamble one more time. With everything.’

‘You’ve been to a lot of casinos, I can see.’

‘No.’ He laughed. A boy’s laughter. ‘I didn’t even know whether my cards were any good.’

‘Sixteen versus an ace? I would say they weren’t. So how could you be so sure he would play? The story you told him wasn’t exactly convincing.’

He shrugged. She looked into her glass of wine. And saw what she knew. He knew what addiction was.

‘Did you at any point have any doubt you’d be able to stop him before he shot Jack?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’

The young policeman sipped from his glass. He didn’t seem to be relishing this topic of conversation. Should she let him off the hook? She leaned across the table. ‘Tell me more, Macbeth.’

He put down his glass. ‘For a man to lose consciousness before he has time to pull the trigger in such a situation, you have to either shoot him in the head or cut his carotid artery. As you saw, cutting his artery produced a brief but thick jet of blood, then the rest trickled out. Well, the oxygen the brain needed was in the first jet, so that meant he was unconscious before the blood even hit the table. There were two problems. Firstly, the ideal distance for throwing a knife is five paces. I was sitting much closer, but fortunately the daggers I use are balanced. That makes them harder to throw for someone without sufficient experience, but for an experienced thrower it’s easier to adjust the rotation. The second problem was that Collum was sitting in such a way that I could only get at the artery on the left-hand side of his face. And I would have to throw with my right hand. I am, as you can see, left-handed. I was dependent on a bit of luck. And usually I’m not lucky. What was the card by the way?’

‘Queen of spades. You lost.’

‘See.’

‘You’re not lucky?’

‘Definitely not at cards.’

‘And?’

He considered. Then he shook his head. ‘Nope. Not lucky in love either.’

They laughed. Toasted each other and laughed again. Listened to the falling rain. And she closed her eyes for a moment. She thought she had heard ice clinking in glasses at the bar. The click of the ball on wood spinning round the roulette wheel. Her own heartbeats.

‘What?’ He blinked in the dark bedroom.

She repeated the words: ‘You have to kill Duncan.’

Lady heard the sound of her own words, felt them grow in her mouth and drown her beating heart.

Macbeth sat up in bed, looking at her carefully. ‘Are you awake or talking in your sleep, darling?’

‘No. I’m here. And you know it has to be done.’

‘You were having a bad dream. And now—’

‘No! Think about it. It’s logical. It’s him or us.’

‘Do you think he wishes us any harm? He’s only just promoted me.’

‘In name you may be the head of Organised Crime, but in practice you’re at the mercy of his whims. If you want to close the Obelisk, if you want to chase the drug dealers out of the area around the Inverness and increase police presence on the streets so that people feel safe you have to be chief commissioner. And that’s just the small things. Think of all the big things we could achieve with you in the top job, darling.’

Macbeth laughed. ‘But Duncan wants to do big things.’

‘I don’t doubt that he honestly and genuinely wants to, but to achieve big things a chief commissioner must have broad support from the people. And for this town’s inhabitants Duncan is just a snob who landed the top post, as Kenneth did too, as Tourtell did in the town hall. It isn’t beautiful words that win over the populace, it’s who you are. And you and I are part of them, Macbeth. We know what they know. We want what they want. Listen. Of the people. For the people. With the people. Do you understand? We are the only ones who can say that.’

‘I understand, but...’

‘But what?’ She stroked his stomach. ‘Don’t you want to be in charge? Aren’t you a man who wants to be at the top? Are you happy to lick the boots of others?’

‘Of course not. But if we just wait we’ll get there anyway. As head of Organised Crime I’m still number three.’

‘But the chief commissioner’s office is not for the likes of you, my love! Think about it. You’ve been given this job so that it looks as if we’re as good as them. They’ll never give you the top job. Not willingly. We have to take it.’

He rolled over onto his other side, with his back to her. ‘Let’s forget this, darling. The way you’ve forgotten that Malcolm will be chief if anything happens to Duncan.’

She grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back over so that he lay facing her again.

‘I haven’t forgotten anything. I haven’t forgotten that Hecate said you’ll be the chief commissioner, and that means he has a plan. We take care of Duncan and he’ll take care of Malcolm. And I haven’t forgotten the evening you took care of Ernest Collum. Duncan is Collum, my sweet. He’s holding a pistol to the head of our dream. And you have to find the courage you displayed that evening. You have to be the man you were that night, Macbeth. For me. For us.’ She placed a hand on his cheek and softened her voice. ‘Life doesn’t give the likes of us that many opportunities, darling. We have to grasp the few that offer themselves.’

He lay there. Silent. She waited. Listened, but no words drowned out the beating of her heart now. He had ambition, dreams and the will, she knew that, they were what had raised him from the mess he had found himself in — they had turned a youth addicted to drugs into a police cadet and later the head of SWAT. That was the affinity they had: they had both made good, paid the price. Should he stop now, halfway there, before they could enjoy the rewards? Before they could enjoy the respect and admire the view? He was courageous and a ruthless man of action, but he had failings that could prove costly. A lack of evil. The evil that you needed, if only for one decisive second. The second when you have to cope with not having restrictive morality on your side, when you mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture, mustn’t torment yourself by asking if you’re doing the right thing in this, the smaller one. Macbeth loved what he called justice, and his loyalty to the rules of others was a weakness she could love him for. In times of peace. And despise him for now, when the bells of war were ringing. She ran her hand from his cheek to his neck, slowly over his chest and stomach. And back up. Listened. His breathing was regular, calm. He was asleep.

Macbeth breathed deeply, as though he were sleeping. She took away her hand. Moved to lie down along his back. She was breathing calmly too now. He tried to breathe in time with her. Kill Duncan? Impossible. Of course it was impossible.

So why couldn’t he sleep? Why did her words persist, why did his thoughts whirl around in his head like bats?

Life doesn’t give the likes of us that many opportunities, darling. We have to grasp the few that offer themselves. He thought of the opportunities life had given him. The one that night in the orphanage, which he hadn’t grasped. And the one Banquo had given him, which he had. How the first one had almost killed him and the second had saved him. But isn’t it that you don’t take some opportunities that are offered because they will condemn you to unhappiness anyway, opportunities that will cause regret for the rest of your life whether you take them or not? Oh, the insidious dissatisfaction that will always poison the most perfect happiness. And yet. Had fate opened a door that would soon shut? Was his courage letting him down again, the way it had let him down that night in the orphanage? He visualised the man in the bed that time, asleep, unsuspecting. Defenceless. A man who stood between him and the freedom every human being deserved. Between him and the dignity every human being should crave. Between Macbeth and the power he would gain. And the respect. And the love.

Day had started to break when he woke Lady.

‘If I did this...’ he said, ‘I would be beholden to Hecate.’

She opened her eyes as though she had been awake the whole time. ‘Why do you think like that, darling? Hecate has only prophesied that something will happen, so there is no debt to be paid.’

‘So what has he to gain by my becoming chief commissioner?’

‘You’d better ask him, but it’s obvious — he must have heard that Duncan has sworn he won’t rest until he has arrested Hecate. And he probably knows it’s not inconceivable that you would prioritise action against the drugs gangs who use violence and shoot each other in the streets.’

‘The Norse Riders, whose back has already been broken?’

‘Or against establishments that cheat good people out of their savings.’

‘The Obelisk?’

‘For example.’

‘Hm. You said something about the big things we could do. Were you thinking of something good for the town?’

‘Of course. Remember the chief commissioner decides which politicians need to be investigated and which do not. And anyone who has any knowledge of the town council knows that everyone in a position of power during the last ten years has paid for services in ways that would not bear close scrutiny. And that they in turn have demanded payment. Under Kenneth they didn’t need to bother to camouflage their corruption, the evidence was there for all to see. We know that, they know that, and it means we can control them as we wish, my love.’

She stroked his lips with her forefinger. She had told him the first night they spent together that she loved his lips. They were so soft and thin-skinned she could taste his blood with no more than a little nibble.

‘Make them finally keep their promises to implement initiatives that would save this town,’ he whispered.

‘Exactly.’

‘Get Bertha running again.’

‘Yes.’ She nibbled his lower lip, and he could feel the trembling, hers and his, their hearts racing.

He held her.

‘I love you,’ he whispered.

Macbeth and Lady. Lady and Macbeth. They were breathing in rhythm with each other now.

7

Lady looked at Macbeth. He was so handsome in a dinner jacket. She turned, checked that the waiter had put on white gloves as she had asked. And that the champagne flutes on the silver tray were the ones with the narrow bowls. She had, mostly for fun, put a small but elegant silver whisk on the tray, even though very few customers had seen one before and even fewer knew what it was for. Macbeth rocked back on his shoes as they sank into the deep carpet in the Inverness, and stared stiffly at the front door. He had seemed nervous all day. Only when they went through the practical details of the plan did he regain concentration and become the professional policeman of a rapid-response unit and forget the target had a name. Duncan.

The guards outside opened the door, and a gust of rain swept in.

The first guests. Lady switched on her happiest, most excited smile and placed her hand under Macbeth’s arm. She felt him instinctively straighten up.

‘Banquo, old friend!’ she exclaimed. ‘And you’ve brought Fleance. He’s become such a good-looking young man — I’m jolly glad I don’t have any daughters!’ Hugs and clinking glasses. ‘Lennox! You and I should have a little chat, but first some champagne. And there’s Caithness! You look ravishing, my dear! Why can’t I find dresses like that? Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm! But your title’s simply too long. Is it all right if I just call you Chief? Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I tell Macbeth to call me Director General just to hear how it sounds.’

She had barely said a word to most of them before, yet she still managed to make them feel they had known each other for years. Because she could see inside them, see how they wanted to be seen — it was the blessing of super-sensitivity among all its curses. It meant she could skip the preliminary skirmishes and get straight to the point. Perhaps it was her unpretentious manner that made them trust her. She broke the ice by telling them apparently intimate details of her life, which made them daring, and when they noticed their little secrets were rewarded with an ‘Ah’ and conspiratorial laughter, they ventured on to slightly bigger secrets. It was unlikely any other person in the town knew more about its inhabitants than this evening’s hostess.

‘Chief Commissioner Duncan!’

‘Lady. Apologies for my late arrival.’

‘Not at all. It is indeed your privilege. We don’t want a chief commissioner who arrives first. I always ensure I arrive last, in case anyone should be in any doubt as to who is considered the queen.’

Duncan laughed quietly, and she laid a hand on his arm. ‘You’re laughing, so in my eyes the evening is already a success, but you should try our exquisite champagne, dear Chief Commissioner. I assume your bodyguards won’t...’

‘No, they’ll probably be working all night.’

‘All night?’

‘When you publicly threaten Hecate you have to sleep with at least one eye open. I sleep with two pairs open.’

‘Apropos sleeping. Your bodyguards have the adjacent room to your suite with an intervening door, as they requested. The keys are at reception. But I insist your guards at least taste my home-made lemonade, which I promise was not made using the town’s drinking water.’ She signalled to the waiter holding a tray bearing two glasses.

‘We—’ one bodyguard said, clearing his throat.

‘Refusals will be taken personally and as an insult,’ Lady interrupted.

The bodyguards exchanged glances with Duncan, then they each took a glass, drained the contents and put it back on the tray.

‘It’s very magnanimous of you to host this party, ma’am,’ Duncan said.

‘It’s the least I can do after you made my husband head of the Organised Crime Unit.’

‘Husband? I didn’t know you were married.’

She tilted her head. ‘Are you a man to stand on formality, Chief Commissioner?’

‘If by formality you mean rules, I probably am. It’s in the nature of my work. As it in yours, I assume.’

‘A casino stands or falls on everyone knowing that the rules apply in all cases, no exceptions.’

‘I have to confess I’ve never set foot in a casino before, ma’am. I know you have your hostess duties, but might I ask for a tiny guided tour when it suits you?’

‘With pleasure.’ Lady smiled and linked her arm with his. ‘Come on.’

She led Duncan up the stairs to the mezzanine. If his eyes and secret thoughts were drawn to the high split in her dress as she strode ahead, he concealed them well. They stood at the balustrade. It was a quiet evening. Four customers at the roulette table; the blackjack tables were empty; four poker players at the table underneath them. The others at the party had gathered by the bar, which they had almost to themselves. Lady watched Macbeth nervously fidgeting with his glass of water as he stood with Malcolm and Lennox, trying to look as though he was listening.

‘Twelve years ago this was a water-damaged vandalised ruin after the railway administration moved out. As you know we’re the only county in the land to allow casinos.’

‘Thanks to Chief Commissioner Kenneth.’

‘Bless his blackened soul. Our roulette table was built according to the Monte Carlo principle. You can put your bets on identical slots on both sides of the wheel, which is made of mostly mahogany, a little rosewood and ivory.’

‘It is, frankly, very impressive what you’ve created here, Lady.’

‘Thank you, Chief Commissioner, but it has come at a cost.’

‘I understand. Sometimes you wonder what drives us humans.’

‘So tell me what drives you.’

‘Me?’ He deliberated for a second or two. ‘The hope that this town may one day be a good place to live.’

‘Behind that. Behind the fine principles we can so easily articulate. What are your selfish, emotional motives? What is your dark motive, the one that whispers to you at night and haunts you after all the celebratory speeches have been made?’

‘That’s a searching question, Lady.’

‘It’s the only question, my dear Chief Commissioner.’

‘Maybe.’ He rolled his shoulders inside his dinner jacket. ‘And maybe I didn’t need such a strong motivation. I was dealt good cards when I was born into a relatively affluent family where education, ambition and career were a matter of course. My father was unambiguous and plain-spoken about corruption in the public sector. That was probably why he didn’t get very far. I think I just carried on where he left off and learned from the strategic mistakes he made. Politics is the art of the possible, and sometimes you have to use evil to fight evil. I do whatever I have to do. I’m not the saint the press likes to portray me as, ma’am.’

‘Saints achieve little apart from being canonised. I’m more for your school of tactics, Chief Commissioner. That’s always been my way.’

‘I can understand that. And although I don’t know any details of your life, I do know you’ve had a longer and steeper path to tread than me.’

Lady laughed. ‘You’ll find me in the faded files of your archives. I supported myself on the oldest profession in the world for a few years — that’s not exactly a secret. But we all have a past and have — as you put it — done what we had to do. Does the Chief Commissioner gamble? If so, I’d like you to do so on the house tonight.’

‘Thank you for your generosity, Lady, but it would break my rules to accept.’

‘Even as a private individual?’

‘When you become chief commissioner your private life ceases to exist. Besides, I don’t gamble, ma’am. I prefer not to rely on the gods of fate but to merit any winnings I might make.’

‘Nevertheless you got where you are — as you yourself said — because the gods of fate dealt you good cards at birth.’

He smiled. ‘I said prefer. Life’s a game where you either play with the cards you have or throw in your hand.’

‘May I say something, Chief Commissioner? Why are you smiling?’

‘At your question, ma’am. I think you’ll ask anyway.’

‘I just wanted to say that I think you, my dear Duncan, are a thoroughly decent person. You’re a man with spine, and I respect who you are and what you stand for. Not least because you have dared to give an unknown quantity like Macbeth such a prominent position in your management team.’

‘Thank you, ma’am. Macbeth has only himself to thank.’

‘Does the appointment form part of your anti-corruption campaign?’

‘Corruption is like a bedbug. Sometimes you have to demolish the whole house to get rid of the plague. And start building again with non-infected materials. Like Macbeth. He wasn’t part of the establishment, so he isn’t infected.’

‘Like Cawdor.’

‘Like Cawdor, ma’am.’

‘I know what it costs to pare away the infected flesh. I had two disloyal servants in my employ.’ She leaned over the balustrade and nodded towards the roulette table. ‘I still cried when I sacked them. Being tempted by money and wealth is a very common human weakness. And I was too soft-hearted, so instead of crushing the bedbugs under my heel I let them go. And what was my thanks? They used my ideas, the expertise I had given them and probably money they had stolen from here to start a dubious establishment that is not only destroying the reputation of the industry but taking bread from the mouths of the people who created this market, from us. If you chase away bedbugs they come back. No, I’d have done the same as you, Chief Commissioner.’

‘As me, ma’am?’

‘With Cawdor.’

‘I couldn’t let him get away with working with Sweno.’

‘I mean, you did the job properly. All you had on him was the testimony of a Norse Rider who even the most stupid judge and jury know would have been willing to tell the police whatever he needed to keep himself out of prison. Cawdor could have got away.’

‘We had a bit more on him than that, ma’am.’

‘But not enough for a watertight conviction. Cawdor the bedbug could have come back. And then the scandal would have dragged on interminably. A court case with one hell of a shit-storm that could easily have left stains here and there. Not exactly what the police need when they’re trying to win back the town’s trust. You have my full support, Chief Commissioner. You have to crush them. One turn of your heel and it’s over.’

Duncan smiled. ‘That’s quite a detailed analysis, but I hope you’re not suggesting I had anything to do with Cawdor’s premature demise, ma’am.’

‘No, God forbid.’ She placed a hand on the chief commissioner’s arm. ‘I’m only saying what Banquo usually says: there are several ways to skin a cat.’

‘Such as?’

‘Hm. Such as ringing a man and telling him that Judgement Day has come. The evidence is so overwhelming he’ll have SWAT at his door in minutes; he’ll be publicly humiliated, stripped of all his honours, his name will be dragged through the gutters to the stocks. He has only a few minutes.’

Duncan studied the poker table beneath. ‘If I had some binoculars,’ he said. ‘I’d be able to see their cards.’

‘You would.’

‘Where did you get your binoculars, ma’am? A gift from birth?’

She laughed. ‘No, I had to buy them. With experience. Dearly bought.’

‘Of course I haven’t said anything, but Cawdor served in the force for many years. Like most of us he was neither a-hundred-per-cent good nor a-hundred-per-cent bad. Perhaps he deserved, perhaps his family deserved, to have had a choice as to which way out he took.’

‘You’re a nobler person than me, Chief Commissioner. I’d have done the same, but exclusively for selfish reasons. Santé.’

They raised glasses and clinked.

‘Talking about binoculars,’ Lady said, nodding towards the others in the bar. ‘I see Inspector Duff and young Caithness have their antennae tuned in.’

‘Oh?’ Duncan arched an eyebrow. ‘They’re standing at opposite ends of the bar, from what I can see.’

‘Exactly. They’re keeping the maximum distance between them. And still checking every fifteen seconds where the other is.’

‘Not much escapes your eye, does it?’

‘I saw something when I asked you what your dark, selfish motive was.’

Duncan laughed. ‘Can you see in the dark too?’

‘My sensitivity to the darkness is inherited, Chief Commissioner. I sleepwalk in the darkest night without hurting myself.’

‘I suppose the motive for the best charitable work can be called selfish, but my simple view is that the end justifies the motive.’

‘So you’d like a statue like the one Kenneth got? Or the love of the people, which he didn’t get?’

Duncan held her gaze, checked the bodyguards behind them were still outside hearing range, then emptied his glass and coughed. ‘For myself I wish to be at peace in my soul, ma’am. The satisfaction of having done my duty. Of having maintained and improved my forefathers’ house, so to speak. I know it’s perverse, so please don’t tell anyone.’

Lady took a deep breath, pushed off from the balustrade and lit up in a big happy smile. ‘But what is your hostess doing? Interrogating her guests when there’s supposed to be a party! Shall we go and meet the others? And then I’ll go down to the cellar and get a bottle that has been waiting for an occasion just like this.’

After enduring Malcolm’s lengthy analysis of the loopholes in the new tax law Duff made an excuse and went to sit at the bar to reward himself with a whisky.

‘Well?’ said a voice behind him. ‘How was your day off with the family?’

‘Fine, thanks,’ he said without turning. Pointed to a bottle for the waiter and showed with two fingers that he wanted a double.

‘And tonight?’ Caithness asked. ‘You still want to stay over at... the hotel?’

The code word for her bed. But he could hear the question was not only about tonight but the nights to come. She wanted him to repeat the old refrain: the assurance that he wanted her, he didn’t want to return to his family in Fife. But this all took time, there were many aspects to consider. It was incomprehensible to him that Caithness didn’t know him any better, that she doubted this could be what he really wanted. Perhaps that was why he answered with a certain defiance that he had been offered a bed at the casino.

‘And do you want that? To stay here?’

Duff sighed. What did women want? Were they all going to tie him up, tether him to the bed head and feed him in the kitchen so that they could milk his wallet and testicles to overwhelm him with more offspring and a guilty conscience?

‘No,’ he said, looking at Macbeth. Considering he was the focus of the party, he seemed strangely burdened and ill at ease. Had the responsibility and gravity of his new post already intimidated the happy, carefree boy in him? Well, now it was too late, both for Macbeth and for himself. ‘If you go first I’ll wait a suitable length of time and follow you.’

He noticed her hesitate behind him. He met her eyes in the mirror behind the shelves of bottles. Saw she was about to touch him. Sent her an admonitory glance. She desisted. And left. Jesus.

Duff knocked back his drink. Got up to go over to Macbeth, who was leaning on the end of the bar. Time to congratulate him properly. But right at that moment Duncan came between them; people flocked around him, and Macbeth was lost in the melee. And when Duff saw him again, Macbeth was on his way out, rushing after Lady’s skirt tails, which he saw leaving the room.

Macbeth caught Lady up as she was unlocking the wine cellar.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I can’t kill my own chief commissioner.’

She looked at him.

She grabbed the lapels of his jacket, pulled him inside and closed the door. ‘Don’t fail me now, Macbeth. Duncan and his guards are set up in their rooms. Everything’s ready. You’ve got the master key, haven’t you?’

Macbeth took the key from his pocket and held it up for her. ‘Take it. I can’t do this.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Both. I won’t do it to because I can’t find the will for such villainy. It’s wrong. Duncan’s a good chief commissioner, and I can’t do anything better than him. So what’s the point, apart from feeding my ambition?’

‘Our ambition! Because after hunger, cold, fear and lust there is nothing more than ambition, Macbeth. Because honour is the key to respect. And that is the master key. Use it!’ She was still holding his lapels, and her mouth was so close to his he could taste the fury in her breath.

‘Darling—’ he began.

‘No! If you think Duncan is such an honourable man listen to how he killed Cawdor to spare himself the embarrassing revelations that might have leaked out if Cawdor had lived.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Ask him yourself.’

‘You’re only saying that to... to...’

‘To steel your will,’ she said. She let go and instead pressed her palms against the lapels as if to feel his heartbeat. ‘Just think that you’re going to kill a murderer, the way you killed the Norse Rider, then it’ll be easy.’

‘I don’t want it to be easy.’

‘If it’s your morals that are getting the better of you, then just remember you’re bound by the promise you made me last night, Macbeth. Or are you telling me that what I saw and interpreted as courage when you killed Ernest Collum was just a young man’s recklessness because it wasn’t your life at stake but my croupier’s? While now, when you have to risk something yourself, you flee like a cowardly hyena.’

Her words were unreasonable but still hit home. ‘You know that’s not how it is,’ he said in desperation.

‘So how can’t you keep the promise you made to me, Macbeth?’

He gulped. Searched feverishly for words. ‘I... Can you say you keep all your promises?’

‘Me? Me?’ She emitted a piercing laugh of astonishment. ‘To keep a promise to myself I wrenched my suckling child from my breast and smashed its head against a wall. So how could I break a promise to you, my only beloved?’

Macbeth stood looking at her. He was inhaling her breath now, her poisonous breath. He felt it weakening him second by second. ‘But you don’t realise, do you, that if this fails Duncan will cut your head off too?’

‘It won’t fail. Listen. I’m going to give Duncan a glass of this burgundy, and I’ll insist that his bodyguards at least taste it. They won’t notice anything, but they might become a little muddled later in the evening. And sleep like logs when they go to bed...’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Shh! You’ll be using your daggers so there’s no chance of them waking. Afterwards smear the blood on the blades all over the guards and leave the daggers in their beds. And later when you wake them—’

‘I remember our plan. But it has weaknesses, and—’

‘It’s your plan, my love.’ She grasped his chin with one hand and bit the lobe of his ear hard. ‘And it’s perfect. Everyone will realise the guards have been bought by Hecate; they were just too drunk to hide the traces of their crime.’

Macbeth closed his eyes. ‘You can only give birth to boys, can’t you?’

Lady gave a low chuckle. Kissed him on the neck.

Macbeth held her shoulders and pushed her away. ‘You’ll be the death of me, Lady, do you know that?’

She smiled. ‘And you know everywhere you go, I go.’

8

The dinner was held in the casino restaurant. Duff was placed next to the hostess, who had Duncan on her other side. Macbeth sat opposite them with Caithness as his neighbour. Duff noticed that neither Caithness nor Macbeth spoke or ate much, but the atmosphere was still good and the table so wide it was hard to have a conversation across it. Lady chatted and seemed to be enjoying herself with Duncan, while Duff listened to Malcolm and concentrated on not yawning.

‘Caithness looks beautiful tonight, doesn’t she?’

Duff turned. It was Lady. She smiled at him, her large blue eyes innocent beneath fiery red hair.

‘Yes, nearly as beautiful as you, ma’am,’ Duff said but could hear his words lacked the spark that could have brought them to life.

‘She’s not only beautiful,’ Lady said. ‘I suppose, as a woman in the police, she must have sacrificed a lot to get where she is. Having a family, for example. I can see she’s sacrificed having a family. Can’t you too, Duff?’

Grey eyes. They were grey, not blue.

‘All women who want to get on have to sacrifice something, I suppose,’ Duff said, lifting his wine glass and discovering it was empty again. ‘Family isn’t the be-all and end-all for everyone. Don’t you agree, ma’am?’

Lady shrugged. ‘We humans are practical. If decisions we made once can’t be changed, we do our best to defend them so that our errors won’t haunt and torment us too much. I think that’s the recipe for a happy life.’

‘So you’re afraid you’d be haunted if you saw your decisions in a true light?’

‘If a woman is to get what she wants, she has to think and act like a man and not consider the family. Her own or others’.’

Duff recoiled. He tried to catch her eye, but she had leaned forward to fill the glasses of the guests around her. And the next moment Duncan tapped his glass, stood up and coughed.

Duff watched Macbeth during the inspired thank-you speech, which paid homage not only to the hostess’s dinner and the host’s promotion but to the mission they had all signed up to: to make the town a place where it was possible to live. And he rounded off by saying that after a long week they deserved the rest the merciful Lord had granted them and they would be wise to use it because there was a good chance the chief commissioner wasn’t going to be such a merciful god in the weeks to come.

He wished them a good night, stifled a yawn and proposed a toast to their hosts. During the ensuing applause Duff glanced across at Macbeth, wondering if he would return the toast — after all Duncan was the chief commissioner. But Macbeth just sat there, pale-faced and as stiff as a board, apparently caught off guard by the new situation, his new status and the new demands that he would have to face.

Duff pulled out Lady’s chair for her. ‘Thank you for everything this evening, ma’am.’

‘Likewise, Duff. Have you got the key for your room?’

‘Mm, I’ll be staying... elsewhere.’

‘Back home in Fife?’

‘No, with a cousin. But I’ll be here early tomorrow morning to pick up Duncan. We live in Fife, not far apart.’

‘Oh, what time?’

‘At seven. Duncan and I both have children and... Well, it’s the weekend. All go, you know how it is.’

‘Actually I don’t,’ Lady said with a smile. ‘Sleep well and my regards to your cousin, Duff.’

One by one the guests left the bar and the gaming tables and went to their rooms or homes. Macbeth stood in reception shaking hands and mumbling hollow goodbyes, but at least there he didn’t have to make conversation with the stragglers in the bar.

‘You really don’t look well,’ Banquo said with a slight slur. He had just come out of the toilet and placed a heavy paw on Macbeth’s shoulder. ‘Get to bed now, so you don’t infect other folk.’

‘Thanks, Banquo. But Lady’s still in the bar entertaining.’

‘It’s almost an hour now since the chief went to bed, so you’re allowed to go too. I’ll just drink up in the bar, then Fleance and I will go too. And I don’t want to see you standing here like a doorman. OK?’

‘OK. Goodnight, Banquo.’

Macbeth watched his friend walk somewhat unsteadily back to the bar. Looked at his watch. Seven minutes to midnight. It would happen in seven minutes. He waited for three. Then he straightened up, looked through the double doors to the bar, where Lady was standing and listening to Malcolm and Lennox. At that moment, as though she had felt his presence, she turned and their eyes met. She gave an imperceptible nod and he nodded back. Then she laughed at something Malcolm said, countering with something that made both of the men laugh. She was good.

Macbeth went up the stairs, let himself into his and Lady’s suite. Put his ear to the door of the bodyguards’ room. The snoring from inside was even, safe. Almost artless. He sat on the bed. Ran his hand over the smooth bedcover. The silk whispered beneath his rough fingertips. Yes, she was good. Better than he would ever be. And perhaps they could pull this off — perhaps the two of them, Macbeth and Lady, could make a difference, shape the town in their image, carry on what Duncan had started and take it further than he would ever have managed. They had the will, they had the strength and they could win people over. Of the people. For the people. With the people.

His fingers stroked the two daggers he had laid out on the bed. But for the fact that power corrupts and poisons, they wouldn’t have needed to do this. If Duncan’s heart had been pure and idealistic they could have discussed it, and Duncan would have seen that Macbeth was the best man to realise his dream of leading the town out of the darkness. For whatever dreams Duncan had, the common people of the town wouldn’t follow an upper-class stranger from Capitol, would they? No, they needed one of their own. Duncan could have been the navigator, but Macbeth would have to be the captain — as long as he could get the crew to obey, to guide the boat to where they both wanted, into a safe harbour. But even if he accepted that a transfer of power was in the best interests of the town, Duncan would never surrender his post to Macbeth. Duncan, for all his virtue, was no better than any other person in power: he put his personal ambitions above everything else. See how he killed those who could damage his reputation or threaten his authority. Cawdor’s body had still been warm when they got there.

Wasn’t that so? Yes, it was. It was, it was.

Twelve o’clock.

Macbeth closed his eyes. He had to get into the zone. He counted down from ten. Opened his eyes. Swore, closed them again and counted down from ten again. Looked at his watch. Grabbed the daggers, stuffed them in the especially made shoulder holster with sheaths for two knives, one on each side. Then he went into the corridor. Passed the bodyguards’ door and stopped outside Duncan’s. Listened. Nothing. He drew a deep breath. Evaluations of a variety of scenarios had been done beforehand; the only thing left was the act itself. He inserted the master key into the lock, saw his reflection in the shiny door knob of polished brass, then gripped it and turned. Observed what he could in the corridor light, then he was inside and had closed the door behind him.

He held his breath in the darkness and listened to Duncan’s breathing.

Calm, even.

Like Lorreal’s. The director of the orphanage.

No, don’t let that thought out now.

Duncan’s breathing told him he was in bed and asleep. Macbeth went to the bathroom door, switched on the light inside and left the door slightly ajar. Enough light for what he was going to do.

What he was going to do.

He stood beside the bed and looked down at the unsuspecting sleeping man. Then he straightened up. What an irony. He raised a dagger. Killing a defenceless man — could anything be easier? The decision had been taken, now all he had to do was carry it out. And hadn’t he already killed his first defenceless victim on the road to Forres, wasn’t his virginity already gone, hadn’t he paid his debt to Duff there and then, paid him back in the same currency Duff had run it up: cold blood. Seen Lorreal’s hot blood streaming onto the white sheet, the blood that had looked black in the darkness. So what was stopping him now? How was this conspiracy different from when he and Duff had changed the crime scene so that all the evidence found in Forres would tally with the story they agreed they would tell? And the story at the orphanage they agreed they would tell. And sometimes cruelty is on the side of the good, Macbeth. He looked up from the blade glinting in the light from the bathroom.

He lowered the dagger.

He didn’t have it in him.

But he had to do it. He had to. He had to have it in him. But what could he do if he wasn’t up to it even in the zone?

He had to become the other Macbeth, the one he had buried so deep, the crazy flesh-eating corpse he had sworn he would never be again.

Banquo stared at the big, lifeless locomotive as he unbuttoned his flies. He swayed in the wind. He was a bit drunk, he knew that.

‘Come on, Dad,’ came Fleance’s voice from behind him.

‘What’s the time, son?’

‘I don’t know, but the moon’s up.’

‘Then it’s past twelve. There’s a storm forecast tonight.’ The gun holster hanging between the first and second loops on his belt was in his way. He unhooked it and passed it to Fleance.

His son took it with a resigned groan. ‘Dad, this is a public place. You can’t—’

‘It’s a public urinal, that’s what it is,’ Banquo slurred and at that moment registered a black-clad figure coming round the steam engine. ‘Give me the gun, Fleance!’

The light fell on the man’s face.

‘Oh, it’s just you.’

‘Ah, it’s you, is it?’ Macbeth said. ‘I was out for some air.’

‘And I just had to air the old fella,’ Banquo slurred. ‘No, I wasn’t about to piss on Bertha. After all, that would be — now they’ve closed St Joseph’s Church — desecrating the last holy thing in this town.’

‘Yes, maybe.’

‘Is there anything up?’ Banquo said, trying to relax. He always found it difficult to get going with strangers nearby, but Macbeth and his son?

‘No,’ Macbeth said in a strangely neutral tone.

‘I dreamed about the three sisters last night,’ Banquo said. ‘We haven’t talked about it, but they got their prophecies spot on, didn’t they. Or what do you reckon?’

‘Oh, I’d forgotten them. Lets’s talk about it another time.’

‘Whenever,’ Banquo said, sensing the flow coming.

‘Well,’ Macbeth said. ‘Actually I was going to ask you — now you’re my deputy in Organised Crime — but suppose something like that did happen, just as the sisters said it would?’

‘Yes?’ Banquo groaned. He had lost patience, started forcing it, and with that the flow stopped.

‘I’d appreciate it if you joined me then too.’

‘Become your deputy CC? Ha ha, yes, pull the other one.’ Banquo suddenly realised that Macbeth wasn’t joking. ‘Of course, my boy, of course. You know I’m always willing to follow anyone who’ll fight the good fight.’

They looked at each other. And then, as if a magic wand had been waved, it came. Banquo looked down, and there was a majestic golden jet splashing intrepidly over the locomotive’s large rear wheel and running down onto the rail beneath.

‘Goodnight, Banquo. Goodnight, Fleance.’

‘Goodnight, Macbeth,’ answered father and son in unison.

‘Was Uncle Mac drunk?’ Fleance asked when Macbeth had gone.

‘Drunk? You know he doesn’t drink.’

‘Yes, I know, but he was so strange.’

‘Strange?’ Banquo grinned grimly as he watched the continuous stream with satisfaction. ‘Believe me, that boy isn’t strange when he gets high.’

‘What is he then?’

‘He goes crazy.’

The jet was suddenly swept to the side by a strong gust of wind.

‘The storm,’ Banquo said, buttoning up.

Macbeth went for a walk around the central station. When he came back Banquo and Fleance had gone, and he went into the large waiting room.

He scanned the room and instantly sorted the individuals there into the four relevant categories: those who sold, those who used, those who did both and those who needed somewhere to sleep, shelter from the rain and would soon be joining one of the first three. That was the path he himself had followed. From orphanage escapee receiving food and drink from officers of the Salvation Army to user who financed dope and food by selling.

Macbeth went over to an older, plump man in a wheelchair.

‘A quarter of brew,’ he said, and just the sound of the words made something that had been hibernating in his body wake up.

The man in the wheelchair looked up. ‘Macbeth,’ he said, spitting the name out in a shower of saliva. ‘I remember you and you remember me. You’re a policeman, and I don’t sell dope, OK? So get the hell away from me.’

Macbeth walked on to the next dealer, a man in a checked shirt who was so hyped up he couldn’t stand still.

‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’ he shouted. ‘I am by the way. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I. But selling to a cop and ending up in clink for twenty-four hours when you know you can’t go four hours without a fix?’ He leaned back, and his laughter echoed beneath the ceiling. Macbeth went further in, along the corridor to the departures hall, and heard the dealer’s cry resound behind him: ‘Undercover cop coming, folks!’

‘Hi, Macbeth,’ came a thin, weak voice.

Macbeth turned. It was the young boy with the eyepatch. Macbeth went over to him and crouched down by the wall. The black patch had ridden up, allowing Macbeth to see inside the cavity’s mysterious darkness.

‘I need a quarter of brew,’ Macbeth said. ‘Can you help me?’

‘No,’ said the boy. ‘I can’t help anyone. Can you help me?’

Macbeth recognised something in his expression. It was like looking into a mirror. What the hell was he actually doing? He had, with the help of good people, managed to get away, and now he was back to this? To perform an act of villainy even the most desperate drug addict would shy away from? He could still refuse. He could take this boy with him to the Inverness. Give him food, a shower and a bed. Tonight could be very different from the way he had planned it, there was still that possibility. The possibility of saving himself. The boy. Duncan. Lady.

‘Come on. Let’s—’ Macbeth started.

‘Macbeth.’ The voice coming from behind him rumbled like thunder through the corridor. ‘Your prayers have been heard. I have what you need.’

Macbeth turned. Lifted his eyes higher. And higher. ‘How did you know I was here, Strega?’

‘We have our eyes and ears everywhere. Here you are, a present from Hecate.’

Macbeth gazed down at the little bag that had dropped into his hand. ‘I want to pay. How much?’

‘Pay for a present? I think Hecate would take that as an insult. Have a good night.’ Strega turned and left.

‘Then I won’t take it,’ Macbeth called out and threw the bag after her, but she had already been swallowed up the darkness.

‘If you don’t...’ said the one-eyed reedy voice. ‘Is it OK if I...?’

‘Stay where you are,’ Macbeth snarled without moving.

‘What do you want to do?’ the boy asked.

‘Want?’ Macbeth echoed. ‘It’s never what you want to do, but what you have to do.’

He walked towards the bag and picked it up. Walked back. Passing the boy’s outstretched hand.

‘Hey, aren’t you going...?’

‘Go to hell,’ Macbeth growled. ‘I’ll see you there.’

Macbeth went down the stairs to the stinking toilet, chased out a woman sitting on the floor, tore open the bag, sprinkled the powder onto the sink below the mirrors, crushed the lumps with the blunt side of a dagger and used the blade to chop it up into finer particles. Then he rolled up a banknote and sniffed the yellowy-white powder first up one nostril, then the other. It took the chemicals a surprisingly short time to pass through the mucous membranes into his blood. And his last thought before the dope-infected blood entered his brain was that it was like renewing an acquaintance with a lover. A much too beautiful, much too dangerous lover who hadn’t aged a day in all these years.

‘What did I tell you?’ Hecate banged his stick on the floor by the CCTV monitors.

‘You said there was nothing more predictable than a love-smitten junkie and moralist.’

‘Thank you, Strega.’

Macbeth stopped at the top of the steps in front of the central station.

Workers’ Square swayed like a sea ahead of him; the breakers crashed beneath the cobblestones, sounding like the chattering of teeth as they rose and fell. And down below the Inverness there was a paddle steamer filled with the noise of music and laughter, and the light made it sparkle in the water running from its slowly rotating, roaring wheel.

Then he set off. Through the black night, back to the Inverness. He seemed to be gliding through the air, his feet off the ground. He floated through the door and into the reception area. The receptionist looked at him and gave him a friendly nod. Macbeth turned to the gaming room and saw that Lady, Malcolm and Duff were still talking in the bar. Then he went up the stairs as though he were flying, along the corridor until he stopped outside Duncan’s door.

Macbeth inserted the master key in the lock, turned the knob and went in.

He was back. Nothing had changed. The bathroom door was still ajar, and the light inside was on. He walked over to the bed. Looked down at the sleeping police officer, put his left hand inside his jacket and found the handle of the dagger.

He raised his hand. It was so much easier now. Aimed for the heart. The way he had aimed at the heart carved into the oak tree. And the knife bored a hole between the names there. Meredith and Macbeth.

‘Sleep no more! Macbeth is murdering sleep.’

Macbeth stiffened. Was it the chief commissioner, the dope or he himself who had spoken?

He looked down at Duncan’s face. No, the eyes were still closed and his breathing calm and even. But as he watched, Duncan’s eyes opened. Looked at him quietly. ‘Macbeth?’ The chief commissioner’s eyes went to the dagger.

‘I thought I heard s-s-sounds coming from here,’ Macbeth said. ‘I’ll check.’

‘My bodyguards...’

‘I h-h-heard them snoring.’

Duncan listened for a few moments. Then he yawned. ‘Good. Let them sleep. I’m safe here, I know. Thanks, Macbeth.’

‘Not at all, sir.’

Macbeth walked towards the door. He wasn’t floating any longer. A sense of relief, happiness even, spread through his body. He was saved. The chief commissioner had liberated him. Lady could do and say what she liked, but this stopped here. Five paces. He grabbed the door knob with his free hand.

Then a movement in the reflection on the polished brass.

As if in a fairground mirror and in the light from the bathroom door he saw — like in some absurd, distorted film — the chief commissioner pull something from under his pillow and point it at his back. A gun. Five paces. Throwing distance. Macbeth reacted instinctively. Whirled round. He was off balance, and the dagger left his hand while he was still moving.

9

Of course it had been Duff who had approached the two girls and asked to join them at their table. Macbeth went to the bar and bought them all beers, came back and heard Duff sounding off about Macbeth and him being the best two cadets in the final year at police college. Their future prospects looked more than rosy, and the girls should make a move if they knew what was good for them, he said. The two girls laughed, and the eyes of the girl called Meredith glinted, but she looked down when Macbeth tried to hold her gaze. When the bar closed, Macbeth accompanied Meredith to the gate and was rewarded with a friendly handshake and a telephone number. While, next morning, Duff went into great detail about how he had serviced the friend, Rita, in a narrow bed at the nurses’ hall of residence, Macbeth rang Meredith the same evening and in a trembling voice invited her out for dinner.

He had ordered a table at Lyon’s and knew it was a mistake the moment he saw the head waiter’s knowing gaze. The elegant suit Duff had lent him was much too big, so he’d had to go for Banquo’s, which was two sizes too small and twenty years out of date. Fortunately Meredith’s dress, beauty and calm polite nature compensated. The only part of the French menu he understood was the prices. But Meredith explained and said that was how the French were: they refused to accept that they spoke a language that was no longer international, and they were so bad at English they couldn’t bear the double ignominy of appearing idiots in their rivals’ tongue.

‘Arrogance and insecurity often go together,’ she said.

‘I’m insecure,’ Macbeth said.

‘I was thinking of your friend Duff,’ she said. ‘Why are you so insecure?’

Macbeth told her about his background. The orphanage. Banquo and Vera. Police college. She was so easy to talk to he was almost tempted to tell her everything, for one crazy moment even about Lorreal. But of course he didn’t. Meredith said she had grown up in the western part of town, with parents who made sure their children lacked for nothing but who also made demands on them and were ambitious on their behalf, especially for her brothers.

‘Protected, privileged and boring,’ she said. ‘Do you know I’ve never been to District 2 East.’ She laughed when Macbeth refused to accept that could be true. ‘Yes, it is! I never have!’

So after dinner he took her down to the riverbed. Walking along the potholed road alongside the run-down houses as far as Penny Bridge. And when he said goodnight outside the gate she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

When he returned to his room Duff was still up. ‘Spill the beans,’ he ordered. ‘Slowly and in detail.’

Two days later. Cinema. Lord of the Flies. They walked home under the same umbrella, Meredith’s hand under his arm. ‘How can children be so cruel and bloodthirsty?’ she said.

‘Why should children be any less cruel than adults?’

‘They’re born innocent!’

‘Innocent and without any sense of morality. Isn’t peaceful passivity just something that adults force children to learn so that we recognise our place in society and let them do what they like with us?’

They kissed at the gate. And on Sunday he took her for a walk in the woods on the other side of the tunnel. He had packed a picnic basket.

‘You can cook!’ she exclaimed excitedly.

‘Banquo and Vera taught me. We used to come to this very spot.’

Then they kissed, she panted and he put his hand up her cotton dress.

‘Wait...’ she said.

And he waited. Instead he carved a heart in the big oak and used the point of his knife to write their names. Meredith and Macbeth.

‘She’s ready to be plucked,’ Duff told Macbeth when he came home and told him the details. ‘I’m going to Rita’s on Wednesday. Invite her here.’

Macbeth had opened a bottle of wine and lit candles when Meredith rang at the door. He was prepared. But not for what happened — for her loosening his belt as soon as they were inside the door and stuffing her hand down his trousers.

‘D-d-don’t,’ he said.

She looked at him in surprise.

‘S-s-stop.’

‘Why are you stammering?’

‘I d-d-don’t want you to.’

She withdrew her hand, her cheeks burning with shame.

Afterwards they drank a glass of red wine in silence.

‘I have to get up early tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Exams soon and...’

‘Of course.’

Three weeks passed. Macbeth tried ringing several times, but the few times he got an answer Rita said that Meredith wasn’t at home.

‘You and Meredith are no longer dating, I take it,’ Duff said.

‘No.’

‘Rita and I aren’t either. Do you mind if I meet Meredith?’

‘You’d better ask her.’

‘I have.’

Macbeth gulped. It was as if he had a claw around his heart. ‘Oh yes? And what did she say?’

‘She said yes.’

‘Did she? And when are you...?’

‘Yesterday. Just for a bite to eat, but... it was nice.’

The day after, Macbeth woke up and was sick. And it was only later he realised what this sickness was and that there was no remedy for a broken heart. You had to suffer your way through it and he did. Suffered in silence without mentioning her name to anyone but an old oak tree on the healthy side of the tunnel. And after a while the symptoms passed. Almost completely. And he discovered that it wasn’t true what people said, that we can only fall in love once. But unlike Meredith, Lady was the sickness and remedy in one. Thirst and water. Desire and satisfaction. And now her voice reached him from across the sea, from across the night.

‘Darling...’

Macbeth drifted through water and air, light and darkness.

‘Wake up!’

‘He opened his eyes. He was lying in bed. It had to be night still, for the room was dark. But there was a grainy element, a kind of imperceptible greyness that presaged dawn.

‘At last!’ she hissed in his ear. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Been?’ Macbeth said, trying to hold on to a scrap of the dream. ‘Haven’t I been here?’

‘Your body has, yes, but I’ve been trying to wake you for hours. It’s as if you’ve been unconscious. What have you done?’

Macbeth was still holding on to the dream, but suddenly he didn’t know whether it was a good dream or a nightmare. Duncan... He let go, and images whirled in the darkness.

‘Your pupils,’ she said, holding his face between her hands. ‘You’ve taken dope, that’s why.’

He squirmed away, from her, from the light. ‘I needed it.’

‘But you’ve done it?

‘It?’

She shook him hard. ‘Macbeth, darling, answer me! Have you done the deed you promised you would?’

‘Yes!’ He groaned and ran a hand across his face. ‘No, I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know ?’

‘I can see him in front of me with a dagger in him, but I don’t know if it really happened or I just dreamed it.’

‘There’s a clean dagger here on the bedside table. You were supposed to have put both daggers in with the bodyguards after killing Duncan, one with each of them.’

‘Yes, yes, I remember.’

‘Is the other dagger with them? Pull yourself together!’

‘Sleep no more. Macbeth is murdering sleep.’

‘What?’

‘He said that. Or I dreamed it.’

‘We’d better go in and check.’

Macbeth closed his eyes, reached out for the dream — perhaps it could tell him. Rather that than go back in. But the dream had already slipped through his fingers. When he reopened his eyes Lady was standing with an ear to the wall.

‘They’re still snoring. Come on.’ She grabbed the dagger from the bedside table.

Macbeth breathed in deeply. The day and its revealing light would soon be here. He swung his legs out of bed and discovered he was still fully dressed.

They went into the corridor. Not a sound to be heard. Those who stayed at the Inverness didn’t usually get up early.

Lady unlocked the guards’ room, and she and Macbeth went in. Each was lying asleep in an armchair. But there were no daggers anywhere, and there was no blood smeared over their suits and shirts, as per their plan.

‘I only dreamed it,’ Macbeth whispered. ‘Come on, let’s drop this.’

‘No!’ Lady snarled and strode off to the door connecting to Duncan’s room. Shifted the dagger to her right hand. Then, without any sign of hesitation, she tore open the door and went in.

Macbeth waited and listened.

Nothing.

He walked over to the door opening.

Grey light seeped in through the window.

She was standing on the opposite side of the bed with the dagger raised by her mouth. Squeezing the handle with both hands, her eyes wide with horror.

Duncan was in the bed. His eyes were open and seemed to be staring at something by the other door. Everything was sprayed with blood. The duvet, the gun lying on the duvet, the hand on the gun. And the handle of the dagger sticking out of Duncan’s neck like a hook.

‘Oh darling,’ Lady whispered. ‘My man, my hero, my saviour, Macbeth.’

Macbeth opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment the total Sunday silence was broken by a barely audible but continuous ringing sound from below.

Lady looked at her watch. ‘That’s Duff. He’s early! Darling, go downstairs and keep him busy while I sort this out.’

‘You’ve got three minutes,’ Macbeth said. ‘Don’t touch the blood. It’s semi-coagulated and will leave prints. OK?’

She angled back her head and smiled at him. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘There you are.’

And he knew what she meant. At last he was there. The zone.

Standing in front of the door to the Inverness, Duff shivered and longed to be back in Caithness’s warm bed. He was about to press the bell a second time when the door opened.

‘Sir, the entrance to the casino is down there.’

‘No, I’m here to collect Chief Commissioner Duncan.’

‘Oh, right. Come in. I’ll ring and say you’re here. Inspector Duff, isn’t it?’

Duff nodded. They had really first-class staff at the Inverness. He sank down into one of the deep armchairs.

‘No answer, sir,’ said the receptionist. ‘Neither there nor in his bodyguards’ room.’

Duff looked at his watch. ‘What’s the chief commissioner’s room number?’

‘Two thirteen, sir.’

‘Would you mind if I went up to wake him?’

‘Not at all.’

Duff was on his way up the stairs when a familiar figure came bounding down towards him.

‘Morning, Duff,’ Macbeth called cheerily. ‘Jack, could you go to the kitchen and get us both a cup of strong coffee.’

The receptionist went off.

‘Thanks, Macbeth, but I’ve been told to collect Duncan.’

‘Is it that urgent? And aren’t you a bit early?’

‘We’ve arranged a time to be home, and I remembered that Kenneth Bridge was still out of action, so we’ll have to take the detour over the old bridge.’

‘Relax.’ Macbeth laughed, grabbing Duff under the arm. ‘She won’t be setting a stopwatch, will she? And you look exhausted, so if you’re driving you’ll need some strong coffee. Come on, let’s sit down.’

Duff hesitated. ‘Thanks, my friend, but that’ll have to wait.’

‘A cup of coffee and she won’t notice the smell of whisky quite as easily.’

‘I’m considering becoming a teetotaller like you.’

‘Are you?’

‘Booze leads to three things: a colourful nose, sleep and pissing. In Duncan’s case, obviously sleep. I’ll go up and—’

Macbeth held on to his arm. ‘And booze is lust’s dupe, I’ve heard. Increases your lust but reduces performance. How was your night? Tell me. Slowly and in detail.’

Duff arched an eyebrow. Slowly and in detail. Was he using the interrogation term from their police college days as a jokey parody or did he know something? No, Macbeth didn’t talk in riddles. He didn’t have the patience or the ability. ‘There’s not much to tell. I stayed with a cousin.’

‘Eh? You never told me you had any family. I thought your grandfather was the last relation you had. Look, here’s the coffee. Just put it on the table, Jack. And try ringing Duncan again.’

Reassured that the receptionist was on the case, Duff went down the steps and greedily reached for the coffee. But stayed standing.

‘The family, yes,’ Macbeth said. ‘It’s a source of a constant guilty conscience, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, maybe,’ said Duff, who had burned his tongue with his first sip and was now blowing on the coffee.

‘How are they? Are they enjoying Fife?’

‘Everyone enjoys Fife.’

‘Duncan still isn’t answering his phone, sir.’

‘Thanks, Jack. Keep trying. Lots of people will have heavy heads this morning.’

Duff put down his cup. ‘Macbeth, I think I’ll wake him first and drink coffee afterwards, so we can get going.’

‘I’ll go up with you. He’s next to us,’ Macbeth said, taking a sip of his coffee. He spilled it on his hand and jacket sleeve. ‘Whoops. Have you got a paper towel, Jack?’

‘I’ll just—’

‘Hang about, Duff. That’s it, yes. Thanks, Jack. Come on, let’s go.’

They walked up the stairs.

‘Have you hurt yourself?’ Duff asked.

‘No. Why?’

‘I’ve never seen you climb stairs so slowly.’

‘I might have pulled a muscle during the Norse Rider chase.’

‘Hm.’

‘Otherwise. Sleep well?’

‘No,’ Duff said. ‘It was a terrible night. Thunder, lightning and rain.’

‘Yes, it was a bad night.’

‘So you didn’t sleep either?’

‘Well, I did—’

Duff turned and looked at him.

‘—after the worst of the storm had died down,’ Macbeth finished. ‘Here we are.’

Duff knocked. Waited and knocked again. Grabbed the door knob. The door was locked. And he had a sense, a sense something was not as it should be.

‘Is there a master key?’

‘I’ll go and ask Jack,’ Macbeth said.

‘Jack!’ Duff shouted. And then again, from the bottom of his lungs: ‘Jack!’

After a few seconds the receptionist’s head appeared over the edge of the stairs. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Have you got a master key?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Come here and open the door at once.’

The receptionist ran up to them, taking short steps, rummaged in his jacket pocket and pulled out a key, put it in the lock and twisted.

Duff opened the door.

They stood staring. The first person to speak was the receptionist.

‘Holy shit.’

Macbeth examined the scene, conscious of the door threshold pressing against the sole of his foot, and heard Duff smash the glass of the fire alarm, which immediately began to howl. The dagger had been removed from the right-hand side of Duncan’s neck and Lady had added a stab on the left. The gun on the duvet had also been removed. Otherwise everything appeared to be how it had been.

‘Jack!’ Duff called over the howl. ‘Get everyone out of their rooms and assemble them in reception now. Not a word about what you’ve seen, all right?’

‘All r-right, sir.’

Doors down the corridor opened. Out of the closest came Lady, barefoot and in her dressing gown.

‘What’s up, darling? Is there a fire?’

She was good. They were back following the plan, he was still in the zone, and Macbeth felt at this second, at this moment, with everything apparently in chaos, that everything was actually on track. Right now he and the woman he loved were unbeatable, right now they were in total control — of the town, fate, the orbit of the stars. And he felt it now, it was like a high, as strong as anything Hecate could offer.

‘Where on earth are his bodyguards?’ Duff shouted, furious.

They hadn’t imagined it would be Duff in the role of witness to what was about to happen, but one of the more perplexed and frightened overnight guests they had placed in neighbouring rooms, such as Malcolm. But now Duff was here he was impossible to ignore.

‘In here, darling,’ Macbeth said. ‘You too, Duff.’

He pushed them into Duncan’s room and closed the door. Took his service pistol from the holster on his trouser belt. ‘Listen carefully now. The door was locked and there was no sign of a break-in. The only person who has a master key to this room is Jack...’

‘And me,’ said Lady. ‘I think so anyway...’

‘Apart from that, there’s only one possibility.’ Macbeth pointed to the door to the adjacent room.

‘His own bodyguards?’ Lady said in horror and put a hand to her mouth.

Macbeth cocked his gun. ‘I’m going in to check.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Duff said.

‘No, you won’t,’ Macbeth said. ‘This is my business, not yours.’

‘And I choose to ma—’

‘You’ll choose to do what I tell you, Inspector Duff.’

Macbeth initially saw surprise in Duff’s face. Afterwards it slowly sank in: the head of Organised Crime outranked the head of Homicide.

‘Take care of Lady, will you, Duff?’

Without waiting for an answer Macbeth opened the door to the guards’ room, stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The bodyguards were still in their chairs. One of them grunted; perhaps the fire alarm was penetrating the heavy veil of drugs.

Macbeth struck him with the back of his hand.

One eye half-opened, its gaze floated around the room and landed on Macbeth. It remained there before gradually taking in his body.

Andrianov registered that his black suit jacket and white shirt were covered with blood, then he felt that something was missing. The weight of his gun in its holster. He put a hand inside his jacket and down into the holster, where his fingers found instead of his service pistol cold sharp steel and something sticky... The bodyguard removed his hand and looked at it. Blood? Was he still dreaming? He groaned, a section of his brain received what it interpreted as signals of danger, and he desperately tried to collect himself, automatically looked around, and there, on the floor beside his chair he saw his gun. And his colleague’s gun, beside the chair where he lay, apparently asleep.

‘What...’ Andrianov mumbled, looking into the muzzle of the gun held by the man in front of him.

‘Police!’ the man shouted. It was Macbeth. The new head of... of... ‘Hold the guns where I can see them or I’ll shoot.’

Andrianov blinked in his confusion. Why did it feel as if he was lying in a bog? What had he taken?

‘Don’t point that gun at me!’ Macbeth shouted. ‘Don’t...’

Something told Andrianov that he shouldn’t reach for the gun on the floor. The man in front of him wouldn’t shoot him if he sat still. But it didn’t help. Perhaps all the hours, days, years as a bodyguard had created an instinct, a reaction which was no longer steered by will, to protect without a thought for your own life. Or perhaps that was just how he was and why he had applied to work in this branch of service.

Andrianov reached out for the gun, and his life and reasoning were interrupted by a bullet that bored through his forehead, brain and the back of the chair and didn’t stop until it met the wall with the golden-thread wallpaper that Lady had bought for a minor fortune in Paris. The explosion sent a convulsion through his colleague’s body, but he never managed to regain consciousness before he too got a bullet through the forehead.

Duff made for the door as the first shot went off.

But Lady held him back. ‘He said you—’

A second shot rang out, and Duff freed himself from her grasp. Ripped open the door and charged in. And stood in the middle of the floor looking around. Two men, each in a chair with a third eye in his forehead.

‘Norse Riders,’ Macbeth said, putting the smoking gun back in its holster. ‘Sweno’s behind this.’

There was shouting and banging on the corridor door.

‘Let them in,’ Macbeth said.

Duff did as he was told.

‘What’s going on?’ Malcolm gasped, out of breath. ‘Heavens above, are they...? Who...?’

‘Me,’ said Macbeth.

‘They pulled their guns,’ Duff said.

Malcolm’s eyes jumped in bewilderment from Duff back to Macbeth. ‘On you? Why?’

‘Because I was going to arrest them,’ Macbeth said.

‘What for?’ Lennox asked.

‘Murder.’

‘Sir,’ Duff said, looking at Malcolm, ‘I’m afraid we have bad news.’

He could see Malcolm’s eyes narrowing behind the square glasses as he leaned forward like a boxer bracing himself for the punch he wouldn’t see yet sensed was on its way. Everyone turned to the figure that had appeared in the doorway to the next room.

‘Chief Commissioner Duncan is dead,’ Lady said. ‘Stabbed with a knife while he was sleeping.’

The last sentence made Duff automatically turn towards Macbeth. Not because it said anything he didn’t already know, but because it was an echo of the same sentence uttered early one morning in an orphanage so many years ago.

Their eyes met for a brief instant before both of them looked away.