Macbeth

10

The morning Chief Commissioner Duncan was found dead in bed at Inverness Casino was the second time in its history that Lady had immediately ordered the building to be cleared of customers and a CLOSED sign to be hung up outside.

Caithness arrived with everyone she could muster from Forensics and they closed the whole of the first floor.

The other officers who had stayed the night gathered around the roulette table in the empty gaming room.

Duff looked at Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm sitting at the end of the makeshift conference table. He had taken off his glasses, perhaps to clean them, at least that was what he was doing as he stared fixedly at the green felt, as though answers to all the questions lay there. Malcolm was the highest-ranking officer present, and Duff had occasionally wondered whether the reason he walked with such a stoop was that Malcolm, a bureaucrat surrounded by people with practical police experience, felt he was on such thin ice that he automatically leaned forward to catch any advice, any whispered hints. And perhaps Malcolm’s wan complexion was not down to the previous night’s drinking but the fact that he had suddenly become acting chief commissioner.

Malcolm breathed on his glasses and kept cleaning them. He didn’t look up. As though he didn’t dare meet the gazes directed at him, colleagues waiting for him to speak.

Duff was perhaps too harsh. Everyone knew that in chiselling out Duncan’s programme Malcolm had been both the chisel and the hammer. But could he lead them? The others had years of experience leading their respective units, while Malcolm had spent days running two stooped paces behind Duncan like a kind of overpaid assistant.

‘Gentlemen,’ Malcolm said, staring at the green felt. ‘A great man has left us. And at this juncture that’s all I intend to say about Duncan.’ He put on his glasses, raised his head and studied those around the table. ‘As chief commissioner he would not have allowed us to sink into sentimentality and despair at such a pass, he would have demanded that we did what we’re employed to do: find the guilty party, or parties, and put them under lock and key. Tears and commemorative words will have to come afterwards. At this meeting let’s plan and coordinate what to do first. The next meeting will be at HQ at six this evening. I suggest the first thing you do after this meeting is to ring your wives and so on—’

Malcolm’s gaze landed on Duff, but Duff couldn’t work out if there was any intentional subtext.

‘—and say you’re unlikely to be home for a while.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Because first of all you’re going to arrest the person who took Chief Commissioner Duncan from us.’ Long pause. ‘Duff, you’ve got the Homicide Unit. I want an interim report for the meeting in an hour, including whatever Caithness and her team have or haven’t found at the crime scene.’

‘Right.’

‘Lennox, I want a full background check on the bodyguards and details of their movements before the murder. Where they were, who they spoke to, what they bought, any changes in their bank accounts, some tough questioning of family and friends. Requisition any resources you need.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Macbeth, you’ve already contributed a lot to this case, but I need more. See if Organised Crime can link this with the big players, those who would profit most from getting rid of Duncan.’

‘Isn’t it pretty obvious?’ Macbeth said. ‘We’ve dumped Sweno’s dope in the river, killed two and arrested half the Norse Riders. This is Sweno’s revenge, and—’

‘It’s not obvious,’ Malcolm said.

The others stared at the deputy chief commissioner in surprise.

‘Sweno has everything to gain by Duncan continuing his project.’ Malcolm tapped on some gambling chips that had been left on the cloth after the hasty evacuation. ‘What was Duncan’s first promise to this town? He was going to arrest Hecate. And now, with the Norse Riders down for the count, Duncan would have focused all the police resources on precisely that. And if Duncan had succeeded what would he have done?’

‘He would have cleaned up the market for Sweno so that he could make a comeback,’ Lennox said.

‘Quite honestly,’ Macbeth said, ‘do you really think a vindictive Sweno would think that rationally?’ Malcolm raised an eyebrow a fraction. ‘A man from the working classes, with no education or any other help, who has run one of the most profitable businesses in this town for more than thirty years. Could he be financially rational? Is he capable of putting aside a thirst for revenge when he can see what’s good for business?’

‘OK,’ Duff said. ‘Hecate’s the one with the most to gain from Duncan’s removal, so you assume he’s behind this.’ He was looking at Malcolm.

‘I’m not assuming anything, but Duncan’s extreme prioritisation of the hunt for Hecate has been, as we know, much debated, and from Hecate’s point of view anyone who succeeds Duncan would be preferable.’

‘Especially if his successor were someone Hecate had tabs on,’ Duff said. Realising at once what he had insinuated, he closed his eyes. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to...’

‘That’s fine,’ Malcolm said. ‘We can speak and think freely here, and what you said follows from my reasoning. Hecate might think he would have an easier time than under Duncan. So let’s show him how wrong he is.’ Malcolm pushed all the chips onto black. ‘So our provisional hypothesis is Hecate, but let’s hope we know more by six o’clock. To work.’

Banquo could feel sleep letting go. Felt the dream letting go. Felt Vera letting go. He blinked. Was it the church bells that had woken him? No. There was someone in the room. A person sitting by the window and looking down at the framed photograph, who, without looking up, asked, ‘Hangover?’

‘Macbeth? How...?’

‘Fleance let me in. He’s taken over my room, I see. Even the winkle-pickers you bought me.’

‘What’s the time?’

‘And there was me thinking pointed shoes were way out of fashion.’

‘That was why you left them here. But Fleance will wear anything if he knows it was once yours.’

‘Books and school stuff everywhere. He’s hard-working, he’s got the right attitude to get to the top.’

‘Yes, he’s getting there.’

‘But, as we know, that’s not always enough to get to the top. You’re one of many, so it’s a question of opportunity. Having the skill and the courage to strike when the opportunity presents itself. Do you remember who took this picture?’

Macbeth held it up. Fleance and Banquo under the dead apple tree. The shadow of the photographer falling across them.

‘You did. What do you want?’ Banquo rubbed his face. Macbeth was right: he did have a hangover.

‘Duncan’s dead.’

Banquo’s hands dropped to the duvet. ‘What was that you said?’

‘His bodyguards stabbed him in the neck while he was asleep at the Inverness last night.’

Banquo felt nausea on the march and had to breathe in several times to stop himself throwing up.

‘This is the opportunity,’ Macbeth said. ‘That is, it’s a parting of the ways. From here one way goes to hell and the other to heaven. I’m here to ask which you’ll choose.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I want to know if you’ll follow me.’

‘I’ve already answered that. And the answer’s yes.’

Macbeth turned to him. Smiled. ‘And you can say that without asking whether it’ll lead to heaven or hell?’ His face was pale, his pupils abnormally small. Had to be the sharp morning light because if Banquo hadn’t known Macbeth better he would have said he was back on dope. But the moment he was about to push that thought away the certainty broke over him like a sudden freezing-cold deluge.

‘Was it you?’ Banquo said. ‘Was it you who killed him?’

Macbeth tilted his head and studied Banquo. Studied him the way you study a parachute before you jump, a woman before you try to kiss her for the first time.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I killed Duncan.’

Banquo had difficulty breathing. Squeezed his eyes shut. Hoping that Macbeth, that this would be gone when he opened them again. ‘And what now?’

‘Now I have to kill Malcolm,’ he heard Macbeth say. ‘That is, you have to kill Malcolm.’

Banquo opened his eyes.

‘For me,’ Macbeth said. ‘And for my crown prince, Fleance.’

11

Banquo sat in the frugal light of the cellar listening to Fleance stamping to and fro upstairs. The boy wanted to go out. Meet friends. Maybe a girl. It would be good for him.

Banquo let the chain slide through his fingers.

He had said yes to Macbeth. Why? Why had he crossed this boundary so easily? Was it because of Macbeth’s promise that he was of the people, with the people and for the people, in a way that an upper-class man like Malcolm could never be? No. It was because you simply couldn’t say no when it was about a son. And even less when it was about two.

Macbeth had described it as following fate’s call, clearing a path to the chief commissioner’s office. He hadn’t said anything about Lady being the brains behind it. He hadn’t needed to. Macbeth preferred simple plans. Plans that didn’t require too much thinking in critical situations. Banquo closed his eyes. Tried to imagine it. Macbeth taking over as chief commissioner and running the town with absolute power, the way Kenneth had done but with the honest aim of making the town a better place for all its inhabitants. If you want to make all the drastic changes that are needed, the slowness of democracy and the free rein it gives simple-mindedness are no good. A strong, just hand. And so, by the time Macbeth is too old, he will let Fleance take over at the helm. By then Banquo will have died of old age, happy. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t imagine it.

Banquo heard the front door slam.

But it’s obvious, even if visions of this nature take time to become completely clear.

He put on his gloves.

It was half past five and the rain was hammering down on the cobblestones and on the windscreen of Malcolm’s Chevelle 454 SS as he wound his way through the streets. He was aware it was stupid to buy a petrol guzzler in the middle of an oil crisis, and even if he had bought it second-hand for what he considered a reasonable price, he had fallen short in the responsibility argument. First of all, with his ecology-conscious daughter, then with Duncan, who had underscored the significance of leaders showing moderation. In the end Malcolm had said what he felt: he had loved these American exaggerations of cars ever since he was a boy, and Duncan had said that at least it showed economists were humans too.

He had quickly popped home to have a shower and change his clothes, which fortunately didn’t take long because it was a Sunday and there was very little traffic. A large press gathering awaited him at the entrance to HQ, probably hoping for a comment or a better picture than they would get at the press conference at half past seven. The mayor, Tourtell, had already been on TV to make a statement. ‘Incomprehensible’, ‘tragedy’, ‘our thoughts go out to the family’ and ‘the town must stand united against this evil’ was what he had said, only accompanied by a great many more words. Malcolm’s, by contrast, minimal comment had been to ask the press for their understanding; his focus was now on the investigation, and he referred them to the press conference.

Malcolm drove down the ramp to the basement garage, nodded to the guard, who opened the barrier, and swung in. The distance from your parking slot to the lift was in direct proportion to your place in the hierarchy. And when Malcolm backed into his slot it struck him that, from a formal point of view, he could have actually parked in the one that was closest.

He was about to take out the ignition key when the door on the passenger side opened and someone slipped into the back, sliding over behind the driver’s seat. And for the first time since Duncan’s murder Malcolm confronted the thought. With the chief commissioner’s job came not only a parking slot closer to the lift but also a death threat, whenever, wherever; security was a privilege accorded to those who parked further away.

‘Start up the car,’ the person in the back seat said.

Malcolm looked in the rear-view mirror. The person had moved so quickly and so soundlessly that he could only conclude SWAT training was effective. ‘Anything wrong, Banquo?’

‘Yes, sir. We’ve uncovered plans for an attack on your life.’

‘Inside police HQ?’

‘Yes. Drive slowly, please. We have to get away. We don’t know who is involved in the force yet, but we think they’re the same people who killed Duncan.’

Malcolm knew he should be frightened. And he was. But not as frightened as he could have been. Often it was trivial situations — like standing on a ladder or being surrounded by angry wasps — that could trigger pathetic panic-like reactions. But now, just like this morning, it was as though the situation didn’t permit that type of fear; on the contrary it sharpened your ability to think fast and rationally, strengthened your resolve and, paradoxically, calmed him down.

‘If that’s the case, how do I know you’re not one of them, Banquo?’

‘If I’d wanted to kill you, you would already be dead, sir.’

Malcolm nodded. Something about Banquo’s tone told him that the physically smaller and much older man would probably have been able to do so with his bare hands if he so wished.

‘So where are we going?’

‘To the container harbour, sir.’

‘Why not home to—’

‘You don’t want your family caught up in this mess, sir. I’ll explain when we’re there. Drive. I’ll slump down in the seat. Best no one sees me and realises you’ve been informed.’

Malcolm drove out, received a nod from the guard, the barrier was lifted and he was back out in the rain.

‘I have a meeting in—’

‘That’ll be taken care of.’

‘And the press conference?’

‘That too. What you should think about now is you. And your daughter.’

‘Julia?’ Malcolm could feel it now. The panic.

‘She’ll be taken care of, sir. Just drive now. We’ll soon be there.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Whatever has to be done.’

Five minutes later they drove through the gates of the container harbour, which in recent years had been left open as all attempts to keep the homeless and thieves out had achieved had been smashed fences and locks. It was Sunday and the quay was deserted.

‘Park behind the shed there,’ Banquo said.

Malcolm did as instructed, parking beside a Volvo saloon.

‘Sign this,’ Banquo said, holding a sheet of paper and a pen between the front seats.

‘What is it?’ Malcolm said.

‘A few lines written on your typewriter,’ Banquo said. ‘Read it aloud.’

‘The Norse Riders threatened they would kill my daughter—’ Malcolm stopped.

‘Carry on,’ Banquo said.

Malcolm cleared his throat. ‘—Julia, if I didn’t help them to kill the chief commissioner,’ he read. ‘But now they have a hold on me and they’ve told me to perform other services for them, too. I know that for as long as I’m alive the threat to my daughter will always be there. That is why — and because of the shame I feel for what I’ve done — I’ve decided to drown myself.’

‘That is in fact true,’ Banquo said. ‘Only the signature on that letter can save your daughter.’

Malcolm turned to Banquo on the back seat. Stared into the muzzle of the gun he was holding in his gloved hand.

‘There isn’t any attempt on my life. You lied.’

‘Yes and no,’ Banquo said.

‘You tricked me into coming here so that you could kill me and dump me in this canal.’

‘You’ll drown yourself, as it says in the letter.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because the alternative is that I shoot you in the head now, drive to your house and then the suicide letter looks like this.’ Banquo passed him another sheet of paper. ‘Just the ending has been changed.’

‘For as long as my daughter and I are alive, the threat will always be there. That’s why I’ve chosen to take our lives and spare her the shame of what I’ve done and a life of endless fear.’ Malcolm blinked. He understood the words, they made sense, yet still he had to reread the letter.

‘Sign now, Malcolm.’ Banquo’s voice sounded almost comforting.

Malcolm closed his eyes. It was so quiet in the car that he could hear the creak of the trigger springs in Banquo’s gun. Then he opened his eyes, grabbed the pen and signed his name on the first letter. Metal rattled on the back seat. ‘Here,’ said Banquo. ‘Put them around your waist under your coat.’

Malcolm appraised the tyre chains Banquo held out. A weight.

He took them and wrapped them around his waist while his brain tried to find a way out.

‘Let me see,’ Banquo said, tightening the chains. Then he threaded through a padlock and clicked it shut. Placed the signed letter on the passenger seat and on top a key Malcolm assumed was for the padlock.

‘Come on.’ They got out into the rain. With his gun Banquo prodded Malcolm along the edge of the quay following a narrow canal that cut in from the main docks. Containers stood like walls on both sides of the canal. Even if people were out walking on the quay they wouldn’t see Malcolm and Banquo where they were.

‘Stop,’ Banquo said.

Malcolm stared across the black sea, which lay flat, beaten down and tamed by the lashing rain. Lowered his gaze and looked down into the oil-covered greenish-black water, then turned his back to the sea and fixed his eyes on Banquo.

Banquo raised his gun. ‘Jump, sir.’

‘You don’t look like someone intending to kill, Banquo.’

‘With all due respect, sir, I don’t think you know what such people look like.’

‘True enough. But I’m a fairly good judge of character.’

‘Have been up to now.’

Malcolm stretched his arms out to the side. ‘Push me then.’

Banquo moistened his lips. Changed his grip on the gun.

‘Well, Banquo? Show me the killer in you.’

‘You’re cool for a suit, sir.’

Malcolm lowered his arms. ‘That’s because I know something about loss, Banquo. Just like you. I’ve learned that we can afford to lose most things. But then there are some we cannot, that will stop us existing even more than if we lose our own lives. I know that you lost your wife to the illness which this town has given to its inhabitants.’

‘Oh yes? How do you know that?’

‘Because Duncan told me. And he did so because I lost my first wife to the same illness. And we talked about how we could help to create a town where this wouldn’t happen, where even the town’s most powerful industrial magnates would face trial for breaking the law, where a murder is a murder, whether it’s with a weapon or by gassing the town’s inhabitants until their eyes go yellow and they smell like a corpse.’

‘So you’ve already lost the unloseable.’

‘No. You can lose your wife and your life still has meaning. Because you have a child. A daughter. A son. It’s our children who are unloseable, Banquo. If I save Julia by dying now, that’s the way it has to be, it’s worth it. And there will be others after me and Duncan. You might not believe me, but this world is full of people who want what is good, Banquo.’

‘And who decides what is good? You and the other big bosses?’

‘Ask your heart, Banquo. Your brain will deceive you. Ask your heart.’

Malcolm saw Banquo shift his weight from one foot to the other. Malcolm’s mouth and throat were dry, he was already hoarse. ‘You can hang as many chains on us as you like, Banquo, it won’t make any difference because we’ll float to the surface. What is good rises. I swear I’m going to float to the surface somewhere and reveal your misdeeds.’

‘They aren’t mine, Malcolm.’

‘Hecate. Yours. You’re in the same boat. And we both know which river that boat will cross and where you’ll soon end up.’

Banquo nodded slowly. ‘Hecate,’ he said. ‘Exactly.’

‘What?’

Banquo seemed to be staring at a point on Malcolm’s forehead. ‘You’re right, sir. I work for Hecate.’ Malcolm tried to decipher Banquo’s faint smile. Water was running down his face as though he were crying, Malcolm thought. Was he hesitating? Malcolm knew he would have to continue talking, to make Banquo talk, because every word, every second prolonged his life. Increased the fading tiny chance that Banquo might change his mind or someone might appear.

‘Why drowning, Banquo?’

‘Eh?’

‘Shooting me in the car and making it look like suicide would be easier.’

Banquo shrugged. ‘There are many ways to skin a cat. The crime scene is underwater. No traces if they suspect murder. And drowning is nicer. Like going to sleep.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I know. I almost drowned twice in my youth.’

The barrel of Banquo’s gun had sunk a fraction. Malcolm estimated the distance between them.

Malcolm swallowed. ‘Why did you almost drown, Banquo?’

‘Because I grew up on the east side of town and never learned to swim. Isn’t it funny that here in a town on the edge of the sea there are people who die if they fall in? So I tried to teach my boy to swim. The odd thing is he didn’t learn either. Perhaps because it was a non-swimmer trying to teach him. If we sink, they sink, that’s how our fates are passed on. But people like you can swim, Malcolm.’

‘Hence the chains, I assume.’

‘Yes.’ The gun barrel was raised again. The hesitation was gone and the determination back in Banquo’s eyes. Malcolm took a deep breath. The chance had been there and now it wasn’t.

‘Good people or not,’ Banquo said, ‘you have the buoyancy we lack. And I have to be sure you will stay under the water. And never rise to the surface again. If you don’t I won’t have done my job. Do you understand?’

‘Understand?’

‘Give me your police badge.’

Malcolm took the brass badge from his jacket pocket and gave it to Banquo, who immediately threw it. It flew over the edge of the quay, hit the water and sank. ‘It’s brass. It’s shiny but will sink right to the bottom. That’s gravity, sir, it drags everything with it into the mud. You have to disappear, Malcolm. Disappear for ever.’

In the meeting room Macbeth looked at his watch. Twenty-nine minutes past six. The door opened again, and a person Macbeth recognised as Lennox’s assistant stuck her head in, said it still wasn’t possible to get in contact with Malcolm; all they knew was he arrived at HQ, turned round in the garage and left, and no one, not even his daughter Julia, knew where he was.

‘Thanks, Priscilla,’ Lennox said and turned to the others. ‘Then I think we should start this meeting by—’

Macbeth knew this was the moment. The moment Lady had spoken about, the moment of the leadership void, when everyone would unconsciously regard the person who took the initiative as the new leader. For that reason his interruption came over loud and clear.

‘Excuse me, Lennox.’ Macbeth turned to the door. ‘Priscilla, could you organise a search for Malcolm and his car? For the time being, radio only patrol cars. And phrase it as low key as possible. HQ wishes to contact him ASAP. That kind of thing, thank you.’ He turned to the others. ‘Sorry to requisition your assistant, Lennox, but I think most of us here share my unease. OK, let’s start the meeting. Anyone object if I chair it until Malcolm arrives?’

He scanned the table. Caithness. Lennox. Duff. Saw how they had to think before they concluded what Lennox said stiffly after a clearing of the throat: ‘You’re the next in command, Macbeth. Away you go.’

‘Thank you, Lennox. Would you mind, by the way, closing the window behind you? Let’s start with the bodyguards. Has Anti-Corruption got anything there?’

‘Not yet,’ Lennox said, trying to close the latches. ‘There’s nothing to suggest irregularities or anything one might deem suspicious. In fact, the lack of irregularities is the only suspicious thing.’

‘Nothing suspicious, new connections, no sudden purchasing of luxury goods or bank account movements?’

Lennox shook his head. ‘They seem as clean as shining armour.’

‘My guess is they were clean,’ Duff said. ‘But even the cleanest knights can be poisoned and corrupted if you can find the chink in their armour. And Hecate found that gap.’

‘Then we can, too,’ Macbeth said. ‘Keep searching, Lennox.’

‘I will.’ His tone suggested a space for sir at the end. It wasn’t spoken, but everyone had heard it.

‘You mentioned you spoke to the undercover guys in your old section, Duff?’

‘They say the murder came as a shock to everyone working on the street. No one knew anything. But everyone takes it as a foregone conclusion that Hecate’s behind it. A young guy down at the central station mentioned something about a police officer asking for dope — I don’t know if it was one of our undercover drugs men, but it definitely wasn’t either of the bodyguards. We’ll continue to look for clues that could lead us to where Hecate is. But it’s — as we know — at least as hard as finding Sweno.’

‘Thanks, Duff. Crime scene investigation, Caithness?’

‘Predicted finds,’ she said, looking at the notes in front of her. ‘We’ve identified various fingerprints in the deceased’s room and they match those of the three maids, the bodyguards and those who were in the room — Lady, Macbeth and Duff. As well as a set of prints we couldn’t identify for a while, but now we have a match with the prints of the previous occupants of the room. So when I say predicted finds that’s not exactly true; usually hotel rooms are full of unidentified fingerprints.’

‘The owner of the Inverness takes cleaning very seriously,’ Macbeth said drily.

‘Pathology confirms that the direct cause of death was two stab wounds. The wounds match the daggers that were found. And although the daggers were cleaned on the sheet and the bodyguards’ own clothing there was still more than enough blood on the blades and handles to establish it came from the deceased.’

‘Can we say Duncan?’ Macbeth asked. ‘Instead of deceased.’

‘As you wish. One dagger is bloodier than the other as it was the one that cut the dece— erm Duncan’s carotid artery, hence the splash of blood over the duvet, as you can see on this photograph.’ Caithness pushed a black-and-white photo into the middle of the table, which the others dutifully examined. ‘Full autopsy report will be ready tomorrow morning. We can say more then.’

‘More about what?’ Duff asked. ‘What he had for dinner? As we all know, we had the same. Or what illnesses he had that he didn’t die of? If we’re going to keep up the pace it’s essential now that we focus on information that’s important.’

‘An autopsy,’ Caithness said, and Macbeth noticed the quiver in her voice, ‘can confirm or deny the assumed sequence of events. And I’d assume that was pretty important.’

‘It is, Caithness,’ Macbeth said. ‘Anything else?’

She showed some more photos, talked about other medical and technical evidence, but none of it pointed in a direction that was different from the general consensus around the table: that the two bodyguards had killed Duncan. There was also agreement that the guards didn’t seem to have a motive, therefore other forces must have been behind the murder, but the consequent discussion about whether anyone else apart from Hecate could have been responsible was brief and unproductive.

Macbeth suggested postponing the press conference until ten o’clock pending the location and briefing of Malcolm. Lennox pointed out that nine was a better time for the press as they had early deadlines on a Sunday.

‘Thank you, Lennox,’ Macbeth said. ‘But our agenda is what counts and not sales figures early tomorrow.’

‘I think that’s stupid,’ Lennox said. ‘We’re the new management team, and it’s unwise to make ourselves unpopular with the press at the very first opportunity.’

‘Your view has been noted,’ Macbeth said. ‘Unless Malcolm appears and says anything to the contrary, we meet here at nine and go through what has to be said at the press conference.’

‘And who will give the press conference?’ Duff asked.

Before Macbeth had the chance to answer, the door opened. It was Priscilla, Lennox’s assistant.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said. ‘A patrol car has reported that Malcolm’s car is parked at the container harbour. It’s empty and there’s no sign of Malcolm.’

Macbeth felt the silence in the room. Savoured the knowledge that they didn’t share. And the control it gave him.

‘Where in the container harbour?’ Macbeth asked.

‘On the quay by one of the canals.’

Macbeth nodded slowly. ‘Send divers.’

‘Divers?’ Lennox said. ‘Isn’t that a bit premature?’

‘I think Macbeth’s right,’ Priscilla interrupted, and the others turned to her in astonishment. She gulped. ‘They found a letter on the car seat.’

12

The press conference started at ten precisely. When Macbeth entered Scone Hall and walked to the podium, flashes fired off from all angles and cast grotesque fleeting shadows of him on the wall behind. He placed his papers on the lectern in front of him, looked down at them for a few seconds, then coughed and scanned the full rows of seats. He had never enjoyed speaking in front of audiences. Once, long ago, the very thought of it had been worse than the most hazardous mission. But it had got better. And now, this evening, he felt happy. He would enjoy it. Because he was in control and knew something they didn’t. And because he had just inhaled a line of brew. That was all he needed.

‘Good evening, I’m Inspector Macbeth, head of the Organised Crime Unit. As you know, Chief Commissioner Duncan was found murdered at Inverness Casino this morning at 6.42. Immediately afterwards the two provisional suspects in the case, Duncan’s bodyguards Police Officer Andrianov and Police Officer Hennessy, were shot and killed by the police in the adjacent room when they resisted arrest. An hour ago you were given a detailed account of the course of events, our current findings and assumptions about the case, so this can be dealt with quickly. But I would like to add a couple of things of a more technical nature.’

Macbeth held his breath and one journalist was unable to restrain himself:

‘What do you know about Malcolm?’ the question resounded.

‘Is he dead?’ another journalist lobbed in.

Macbeth looked down at his notes. Put them to the side.

‘If these questions mean the press considers we’ve covered our responsibility to report on the murder of Chief Commissioner Duncan, we can now talk about the disappearance of the deputy chief commissioner.’

‘No, but first things first,’ shouted one of the older journalists. ‘We have deadlines looming.’

‘OK,’ Macbeth said. ‘Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm didn’t show up — as you appear to know — at our meeting in police HQ at six. On a day when the chief commissioner has been found dead that is of course disturbing. So we instigated a search, and Malcolm’s car was located this afternoon in the container harbour. Subsequently the area was searched, also by divers. And they found—’

‘The body?’

‘—this.’ Macbeth held up a round piece of metal that glinted in the glare of the TV lamps. ‘This is Malcolm’s police badge, and was found on the seabed by the quay.’

‘Do you think someone has killed him?’

‘Possibly,’ Macbeth said, without batting an eyelid, in the deafening silence that followed. ‘If by someone we include Malcolm himself.’ He ran his eye over the audience and continued: ‘A letter was found on the front seat of his car.’

Macbeth addressed the letter. Cleared his throat.

‘The Norse Riders threatened they would kill my daughter, Julia, if I didn’t help them to kill the chief commissioner. But now they have a hold on me and they’ve told me to perform other services for them, too. I know that for as long as I’m alive the threat to my daughter will always be there. That is why — and because of the shame I feel for what I’ve done — I’ve decided to drown myself. It is signed by the deputy chief commissioner.’

Macbeth looked up at the assembled journalists. ‘The first question we — and I presume you, too — are asking is of course whether the letter is genuine. Our Forensics Unit has confirmed that the letter was written on Malcolm’s typewriter at HQ. The paper bears Malcolm’s fingerprints and the signature is Malcolm’s.’

It was as though the room needed a few seconds to digest the information. Then came shrill voices.

‘Do you know if there’s anything else to confirm Malcolm was behind Duncan’s murder?’

‘How could Malcolm have helped the Norse Riders to murder Duncan?’

‘What’s the connection between Malcolm and the bodyguards?’

‘Do you think there are any other police officers involved?’

Macbeth held up his palms. ‘I won’t answer any questions about Duncan’s murder now, as it is all speculation. Only questions about Malcolm’s disappearance. One at a time, please.’

Silence. Then the only female journalist in the room said, ‘Are we to understand that you’ve found Malcolm’s police badge, but not Malcolm?’

‘We have a muddy seabed to contend with, and the water in our harbour is not the cleanest. A light brass badge doesn’t necessarily sink into the mud the way a body does, and brass reflects light. It will take the divers time to find Malcolm.’

Macbeth watched the journalists as they threw themselves over their pads and made notes.

‘Isn’t the most obvious reason for that the current carrying away the body?’ said a voice with rolled ‘r’s.

‘Yes,’ Macbeth replied, and he spotted the face behind the voice. One of the few who wasn’t taking notes. Walt Kite. He didn’t need to; the radio station microphone was placed in front of Macbeth.

‘If Malcolm killed Duncan and regretted it, why—’

‘Stop.’ Macbeth raised a palm. ‘As I said, I won’t answer any questions about Duncan’s murder until we know more. And now please understand that we have to return to work. The number one priority for us is to investigate this case as quickly and efficiently as we can with the resources at our disposal. We also have to appoint a chief commissioner as soon as possible so that we have continuity in the rest of the work the police are doing for this town.’

‘Is it correct that you’re the acting chief at this moment, Macbeth?’

‘In formal terms, yes.’

‘And in practice?’

‘In practice...’ Macbeth paused. Looked down quickly at his sheet. Moistened his lips. ‘We’re a group of experienced unit heads who have already taken the helm, and I’m not afraid to say we are in control. Nor, however, am I afraid to say that filling Duncan’s shoes will take some doing. Duncan was a visionary man, a hero who died in the fight against the powers of evil, who think today they have won a victory.’ He gripped the lectern and leaned forward. ‘But all they have achieved is to make us even more determined that this lost battle will be the start of progress towards the final victory for the power of good. For justice. For security. And through that for rebuilding, re-establishing and regaining prosperity. But we can’t do that alone; to do that we need your trust and the town’s trust. If we have that we will continue the work that Chief Commissioner Duncan started. And I would—’ he stopped to raise his hand as if swearing an oath ‘—like to guarantee personally that we will not stop until we have achieved the goals that Duncan set for this town and all — all — its inhabitants.’

Macbeth let go of the lectern and straightened up. Looked at the faces, which blurred into a sea of eyes and open mouths before him. No, he wasn’t afraid. He saw the effect and was still savouring the sound of his own words. Lady’s words. He had leaned forward exactly when he was supposed to. She had instructed him in front of a mirror and explained how aggressive body language gave the impression of spontaneous passion and hunger for a fight, and that body language was more important than the words he used because it bypasses the brain and speaks directly to the heart.

‘The next press conference is tomorrow morning at eleven here in Scone Hall. Thank you.’

Macbeth collected his papers, and there was a groan of disappointment before a hail of protests and questions. Macbeth peered across the room. He wanted to stay there a couple more seconds. He managed — with some difficulty — to stop the incipient smile at the last moment.

He looks like the bloody captain of a boat, thought Duff, sitting in the front row. A captain fearlessly looking across the stormy sea. Someone has taught him that. It’s not the Macbeth I know. Knew.

Macbeth nodded briefly, marched across the podium and disappeared through the door held open by Priscilla.

‘Well, what do you reckon, Lennox?’ Duff asked while the journalists were still shouting for an encore behind them.

‘I’m moved,’ said the redhead inspector. ‘And inspired.’

‘Exactly. That was more like an election speech than a press conference.’

‘You can interpret it like that or you can interpret it as a clever and responsible tactical move.’

‘Responsible?’ Duff snorted.

‘A town, a country, rests on notions. Notions that banknotes can be exchanged for gold, notions that our leaders think about you and me and not their own good, that crimes will be punished. If we didn’t believe in those notions civilised society would disintegrate in a frighteningly short time. And in a situation where anarchy is knocking on the door Macbeth has just reassured us that the town’s public institutions are fully intact. It was a speech worthy of a statesman.’

‘Or stateswoman.’

‘You think those were Lady’s words, not Macbeth’s?’

‘Women understand hearts and how to speak to them. Because the heart is the woman in us. Even if the brain is bigger, talks more and believes that the husband rules the house, it’s the heart that silently makes the decisions. The speech touched your heart and the brain gladly follows. Believe me, Macbeth doesn’t have it in him; the speech is her work.’

‘So what? We all need a better half. As long as the result is what we want it doesn’t matter if the devil himself is behind it. You’re not jealous of Macbeth, are you, Duff?’

‘Jealous?’ Duff snorted. ‘Why would I be? He looks and speaks like a real leader, and if he acts like one as well, it’s obviously best for all of us that he leads and no one else.’

Chairs scraped back behind them. Macbeth hadn’t returned and their deadline was approaching.

It was an hour to midnight. The wind had dropped, but litter and wreckage from last night’s storm were still being blown through the streets. The damp north-westerly was compressed and accelerated through the corridors of the station concourse, past a bundle lying beside the wall and — a few metres further down — a man with a scarf wrapped over his nose and mouth.

Strega went over to him.

‘Afraid you’ll be recognised, Macbeth?’

‘Shh, don’t say my name. I gave a speech this evening and I’m afraid I lost my anonymity.’

‘I saw the evening news, yes. You looked good up there. I believed almost everything you said. But then a handsome face has always had that effect on me.’

‘How come you appear as soon as I show up here, Strega?’

She smiled. ‘Brew?’

‘Have you got anything else? Speed? Cocaine? I’m seeing things and get such terrible dreams from brew.’

‘It was the storm, not brew, that gave you such bad dreams, Macbeth. I don’t touch the stuff, yet I dreamed that all the dogs went mad from the thunder. I saw them going for each other with foam coming from their jaws. And while they were still alive they were eating each other. I was covered in sweat and relieved when I woke up.’

Macbeth pointed at the bundle further up the corridor. ‘There you have your dream.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s the corpse of a half-eaten dog, can’t you see?’

‘I think you’re seeing things again. Here.’ She put a little bag in his hand. ‘Brew. Don’t go crazy now, Macbeth. Remember the path is simple, it runs straight ahead.’

As Macbeth passed Bertha and hurried down across the deserted Workers’ Square where it sloped down towards Inverness Casino’s illuminated facade he saw a figure standing in the darkness and rain. And on getting closer he saw to his surprise that it was Banquo.

‘What are you doing here?’ Macbeth said.

‘Waiting for you,’ Banquo said.

‘Midway between Bertha and the Inverness, where neither can give you shelter?’

‘I couldn’t make up my mind,’ Banquo said.

‘Which way to go?’

‘What to do with Malcolm.’

‘You didn’t put the chains around him, is that it?’

‘What?’

‘The divers haven’t found the body yet. Without some weight the current will have taken him.’

‘It’s not that.’

‘No? Let’s go to the Inverness then instead of standing here and getting cold and wet.’

‘For me it’s too late. I’m chilled to the very bottom of my heart. I was waiting for you here because there are journalists outside the casino. They’re waiting for you, the new chief commissioner.’

‘Then we’d better do this quickly. What happened?’

‘I skinned the cat in a different way. You have nothing to fear. Malcolm’s gone for ever and will never come back. And even if he did he has no idea you’ve played a part in this. He thinks Hecate’s behind everything.’

‘What are you talking about? Is Malcolm alive ?’

Banquo shivered. ‘Malcolm thinks I’m in Hecate’s pocket and it was me who influenced Duncan’s bodyguards. I know this wasn’t what we agreed. But I solved our problem and I saved the life of a good man.’

‘Where’s Malcolm now?’

‘Gone.’

‘Where?’ Macbeth said and saw from Banquo’s face that he had raised his voice.

‘I drove him to the airport and put him on a plane to Capitol. From there he’ll go abroad. He knows that if he tries to contact anyone or gives the smallest sign of being alive, his daughter Julia will be liquidated at once. Malcolm is a father, Macbeth. And I know what that means. He will never risk his daughter’s life, never. He’d rather let a town go to the dogs. Believe me, even in the draughtiest attic a flea-bitten Malcolm will wake up every morning hungry, cold and lonely and thank his maker that his daughter can live another day.’

Macbeth raised his hand and then saw something in Banquo’s eyes he had only ever seen once before. Not in all the operations they had carried out together against desperadoes or lunatics who had taken children as hostages. Not the times Banquo had faced an adversary who was bigger, stronger and he knew would — and did — give him a beating. Macbeth had only seen this expression on Banquo’s face once, and it was the time he came home after visiting Vera in hospital and the doctor had told him the result of the latest tests. Fear. Sheer, unadulterated fear. And for that reason Macbeth suspected it wasn’t for himself that Banquo was afraid.

‘Thank you,’ Macbeth said. He laid his hand heavily on Banquo’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, my dear friend, for being kind where I was not. I thought one man was a small sacrifice for such an immense objective as ours. But you’re right: a town can’t be saved from going to the dogs by letting good men die without need. This one could be spared and so he should be spared. And perhaps you’ve saved us both from ending up in hell for such a gross act of cruelty.’

‘I’m so glad you see it that way,’ Banquo exclaimed, and Macbeth could feel the trembling muscles in Banquo’s shoulder relax under his hand.

‘Get off home and sleep now, Banquo. And say hello to Fleance from me.’

‘I will. Goodnight.’

Macbeth crossed the square, pensive. Sometimes good men did die for no need, he thought. And sometimes there was a need. He entered the light from the Inverness, ignored the journalists’ barked questions about Malcolm, about Duncan’s bodyguards, about whether it really was he who had shot them both.

Inside, Lady received him.

‘They broadcast the whole of the press conference live on TV, and you were fantastic,’ she said and hugged him. He wouldn’t let her go again. He held her until he could feel heat returning to his body. Felt the wonderful electric currents down his back as her lips touched his ear and she whispered, ‘Chief Commissioner.’

Home. With her. The two of them. This, this was all he wanted. But to have this you had to merit it. That is how it is in this world. And, he thought, also in the next.

‘Are you home?’

Duff turned in the doorway to the children’s room, to the surprised voice behind him. Meredith had put on a dressing gown and stood with her arms crossed, shivering.

‘Just popped by,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t want to wake you. Doesn’t Ewan want to sleep in his own room?’ He nodded towards his son, who lay curled up in the bed beside his big sister.

Meredith sighed. ‘He’s started going to Emily when he can’t sleep. I thought you would be staying in town while you’re working on these dreadful things?’

‘Yes. Yes, but I had to escape for a while. Get some clean clothes. See if you all still existed. I thought I’d sleep a couple of hours in the guest room and then be on my way.’

‘All right, I’ll make up the bed. Have you eaten?’

‘I’m not hungry. I’ll have a sandwich when I wake up.’

‘I can make you some breakfast. I can’t sleep anyway.’

‘You go and sleep, Meredith. I’ll be up for a bit, then I’ll make up the bed.’

‘As you like.’ She stood there with her arms crossed looking at him, but in the darkness he couldn’t see her eyes. She turned and went.

13

‘But I want to know why,’ Duff said, placing his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. ‘Why didn’t Andrianov and Hennessy run off? Why would two treacherous bodyguards first kill their boss and then lie down for a sleep in the adjacent room, covered in blood and evidence from here to hell? Come on, you’re detectives, you must have some bloody suggestions at least!’

He looked around. Several of the Homicide Unit’s twelve detectives sat in the room in front of him, but the only one who opened his mouth did so to yawn. It was Monday morning — perhaps that was why they were so uncommunicative, looked so ill-at-ease and switched off? No, these faces would look just as tired tomorrow unless someone got a grip on things. There was a reason the Homicide Unit had been without a formal leader for the two months that had passed since Duncan had given the previous head an ultimatum: resign or an internal enquiry will be set up to investigate suspected corruption. There were no qualified applicants. Under Kenneth, the Homicide Unit had had the lowest clear-up rate in the country, and corruption was not the only reason. While the Homicide Unit in Capitol got the best in the field, the Homicide Unit at police HQ had only the dregs: the apathetic and the dysfunctional.

‘This has to be turned round,’ Duncan had said. ‘The success or failure of the Homicide Unit determines to a large extent people’s confidence in the police. That’s why I’m putting one of our finest officers on the case. You, Duff.’

Duncan had known how to serve up bad news to his staff in an inspiring way. Duff groaned. He had a pile of reports beside him worth less than the paper they were written on — meaninglessly detailed interviews with guests at Inverness Casino all telling the same story: they hadn’t seen or heard anything apart from the hellish weather. Duff knew the silence around the table might be because they were simply afraid of his fury, but he didn’t give a damn. This wasn’t a popularity contest, and if they had to be frightened into doing something, fine by him.

‘So we think the guilty bodyguards just slept the sleep of the innocent, do we? As it had been a long day at work. Which of you idiots votes for that?’

No reaction.

‘And who doesn’t believe that?’

‘Not of the innocent,’ said Caithness, who had just breezed in through the door. ‘Of the medicated. Apologies for my late arrival, but I had to pick up this.’ She waved something horribly resembling a report. Which it was, Duff established as it landed in front of the pile on the table with a thud. More precisely, a forensic report. ‘Blood samples taken from Andrianov and Hennessy show they had enough benzodiazepines in their bodies to sleep for twelve hours.’ Caithness sat down on one of the unoccupied chairs.

‘Bodyguards who take sleeping tablets?’ Duff said in disbelief.

‘They calm you down,’ said one guy rocking on a chair at the back of the room. ‘If you’re going to assassinate your boss, you’re probably a bit shaky. Lots of bank robbers take benzos.’

‘And that’s why they fuck it up,’ said a detective with nervous twitches around his nose wearing a shoulder holster over a white polo neck.

Laughter. Short-lived.

‘What do you reckon, Caithness?’ Duff said.

She shrugged. ‘Detection is not my field of expertise, but to me it seems pretty obvious that they needed to take something to calm their nerves, but they don’t know a lot about drugs, so they messed up the dosage. During the murder the drugs worked as intended. Their reflexes were still fast, but the nervousness was gone, and the clean cuts show a steady hand. But after the murder, when the chemical really kicked in, they lost control of the situation. They wandered around getting blood all over themselves and in the end both simply fell asleep in chairs.’

‘Typical,’ said the polo neck. ‘Once we nabbed two doped-up bank robbers who had fallen asleep in their getaway car at the lights. I’m not kidding. Criminals are so bloody stupid you can—’

‘Thank you,’ Duff interrupted. ‘How do you know their reflexes were still fast?’

Caithness shrugged. ‘Whoever made the first stab managed to remove their hand from the knife before the blood spurted out. Our blood-spatter analyst says the blood on the handle is from the spurt. It didn’t run, drip or get smeared on.’

‘In which case I agree with all your other conclusions,’ Duff said. ‘Who disagrees?’

No reaction.

‘Anyone agree?’

Mute nods.

‘Good, let’s say that answers that then. Now let’s go to the other loose thread. Malcolm’s suicide.’ Duff stood up. ‘His letter says that the Norse Riders threatened to kill his daughter if he didn’t help them kill Duncan. My question is: instead of doing as Sweno and the Norse Riders want and taking his own life, why not go to Duncan and have his daughter moved to a safe house? Threats aren’t exactly something new for the police. What do you think?’

The others looked at the floor, each other and out of the window.

‘No opinions? Really? A whole Homicide Unit of detectives and no—’

‘Malcolm knows Sweno has contacts in the police,’ said the chair rocker. ‘He knows Sweno would have found his daughter anyway.’

‘Good, we’re up and running,’ Duff said, bent over and pacing to and fro in front of them. ‘Let’s assume Malcolm thinks his daughter can be saved by doing as Sweno says. Or by dying so that Sweno no longer has any reason to kill his daughter. OK?’ He saw that none of those present had a clue where he was going.

‘So if Malcolm — as the letter suggests — cannot live if either he loses his daughter or he becomes an accessory to Duncan’s murder, why didn’t he commit suicide before Duncan was murdered and save them both?’

The faces gaped at him.

‘If I might...’ Caithness began.

‘Please, Inspector.’

‘Your question might be logical, but the human psyche doesn’t work like that.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ Duff replied. ‘I think it does. There’s something about Malcolm’s apparent suicide that doesn’t tally. Our brains will always — with great accuracy and based on available information — weigh up the pros and cons and then make an irrefutably logical decision.’

‘If the logic’s irrefutable, why, despite having no new information, do we sometimes feel remorse?’

‘Remorse?’

‘Remorse, Inspector Duff.’ Caithness looked him straight in the eye. ‘It’s a feeling in people with human qualities that tells us we wish something that we’ve done, undone. We can’t exclude the possibility that Malcolm was like that.’

Duff shook his head. ‘Remorse is a sign of illness. Einstein said proof of insanity is when someone goes through the same thought process again hoping to get a different answer.’

‘Then Einstein’s contention can be refuted if, over time, we draw different conclusions. Not because the information has changed in any way, but because people can do that.’

‘People don’t change!’

Duff noticed that the officers in the room had woken up and were following attentively now. They perhaps suspected that this exchange with Caithness was no longer only about Malcolm’s death.

‘Perhaps Malcolm changed,’ Caithness said. ‘Perhaps Duncan’s death changed him. That can’t be ruled out.’

‘Nor can we rule out the possibility that he left a suicide letter, threw his police badge in the sea and did a runner,’ Duff said. ‘As regards human qualities and all that.’

The door opened. It was an officer from the Narcotics Unit. ‘Phone call for you, Inspector Duff. He says it’s about Malcolm and it’s urgent. And he only wants to speak to you.’

Lady stood in the middle of the bedroom looking at the man sleeping in her bed. In their bed. It was gone nine o’clock, she’d had her breakfast a long time ago, but there was still no life in the body under the silk sheets.

She sat down on the side of the bed, stroked his cheek, tugged at his thick black curls and shook him. A narrow strip of white appeared under his eyelids.

‘Chief Commissioner! Wake up! The town’s on fire!’

She laughed as Macbeth groaned and rolled onto his side, his back to her. ‘What’s the time?’

‘Late.’

‘I dreamed it was Sunday.’

‘You dreamed a lot, I think.’

‘Yes, that bloody...’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I heard storm bells. But then I realised they were church bells. Summoning churchgoers to confession and a christening.’

‘I told you not to say that word.’

‘Christening?’

‘Macbeth!’

‘Sorry.’

‘The press conference is in less than two hours. And they’ll be wondering what’s happened to their chief commissioner.’

He swung his legs out of bed. Lady stopped him, held his face between her hands and inspected him carefully. The pupils were small. Again.

She pulled a stray hair from his eyebrow.

‘Also we’ve got a dinner this evening,’ she said, searching for more. ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you?’

‘Is it really right to have it so close after Duncan’s passing-away?’

‘It’s a dinner to cultivate connections, not a banquet. And we still have to eat, darling.’

‘Who’s coming?’

‘Everyone I’ve asked. The mayor. Some of your colleagues.’ She found a grey hair, but it slipped between her long red nails. ‘We’re going to discuss how to enforce the regulations for the casinos. It’s in today’s leader column that the Obelisk is apparently running a prostitution racket under cover of the casino and that therefore it should be closed.’

‘It doesn’t help that your editor chum writes what you want him to if no one reads his newspapers.’

‘No. But now I’ve got a chief commissioner as my husband.’

‘Ow!’

‘You should get a few more grey hairs. They look good on bosses. I’ll talk to my hairdresser today. Perhaps he can discreetly dye your temples.’

‘My temples aren’t visible.’

‘Exactly. That’s why we’ll get your hair cut — so they are.’

‘Never!’

‘Mayor Tourtell might think his town should have a chief commissioner who looks like a grown man, not a boy.’

‘Oh? Are you worried?’

Lady shrugged. ‘Normally the mayor wouldn’t interfere with the police hierarchy, but he’s the one who appoints the new chief commissioner. We just have to be sure he doesn’t get any funny ideas.’

‘And how can we do that?’

‘Well, we might have to ensure we have some hold over Tourtell in the unlikely event that he cuts up rough. But don’t you worry about that, darling.’

‘All right. Apropos cutting up rough...’

She stopped searching for unruly hairs. She recognised the tone. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me, dearest?’

‘Banquo...’

‘What about him?’

‘I’ve begun to wonder whether I can trust him. Whether he hasn’t made some cunning plan for himself and Fleance.’ He took a deep breath, and she knew he was about to tell her something important. ‘Banquo didn’t kill Malcolm yesterday, he sent him off to Capitol. He made some excuse about this not being a life we risked anything by sparing.’

She knew he was waiting for her reaction. When none was forthcoming he remarked she didn’t seem so dumbfounded.

She smiled.

‘This is not the time to be dumbfounded. What do you think he’s planning?’

‘He claims he’s frightened Malcolm into silence, but I’m guessing the two of them have concocted something that will give Banquo a better and surer pay-off than he’s getting with me.’

‘Darling, surely you don’t think that nice old Banquo has any ambition to become chief commissioner?’

‘No, no, Banquo has always been someone who wants to be led, not to lead. This is about his son, Fleance. I’m only fifteen years older than Fleance, and by the time I retire Fleance will be old and grey himself. So it’s better for him to be the crown prince to an older man like Malcolm.’

‘You’re just tired, my love. Banquo’s much too loyal to want to do anything like that. You said yourself he would burn in hell for you.’

‘Yes, he has been loyal. And so have I to him.’ Macbeth got up and stood in front of the big gold-framed mirror on the wall. ‘But if you take a closer look, hasn’t this mutual loyalty been more advantageous for Banquo? Hasn’t he been the hyena who follows the lion’s footprints and eats prey he hasn’t killed himself? I made him second-in-command in SWAT and my deputy in Organised Crime. I would say he’s been well paid for the small services he’s performed for me.’

‘All the more reason why you can count on his loyalty, darling.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought too. But now I see...’ Macbeth frowned and went closer to the mirror. Placed a hand on its surface to check if there was something there. ‘He loved me like a father loves a son, but that love turned to hatred when he drank the poison of envy. I passed him on the way up, and instead of him being my boss I became his. And as well as obeying my orders he has had to tolerate the unspoken contempt of his own blood, Fleance, who has seen his father bow his head to the cuckoo in the nest, Macbeth. Have you ever looked into a dog’s faithful brown eyes as it looks up at you, wagging its tail and hoping for food? It sits there, still, waiting, because that’s what it’s been trained to do. And you smile at it, pat its head, and you can’t see the hatred behind the obedience. You can’t see that if it got the opportunity, if it saw its chance to escape punishment, it would attack you, it would tear at your throat; your death would be its breath of freedom and it would leave you half-eaten in some filthy corridor.’

‘Darling, what is the matter with you?’

‘That’s what I dreamed.’

‘You’re paranoid. Banquo really is your friend! If he was planning to betray you he could have just gone to Malcolm and told him about your schemes.’

‘No, he knows he’ll be stronger if he plays his ace at the end. First kill me, a dangerous murderer, and then bring back Malcolm as chief commissioner. What a heroic deed! How can you reward a man like that and his family?’

‘Do you really believe this?’

‘No,’ said Macbeth. He was standing close to the mirror now, his nose touching the glass, which had misted up. ‘I don’t believe it, I know it. I can see. I can see the two of them. Banquo and Fleance. I have to forestall them, but how?’ Suddenly he turned to her. ‘How? You, my only one, you have to help me. You have to help us.’

Lady crossed her arms. However warped Macbeth’s reasoning sounded, there was some sense in it. He might be right. And if he wasn’t, Banquo was still a fellow conspirator and a potential witness and blabber. The fewer there were of them, the better. And what real use did they have for Banquo and Fleance? None. She sighed. As Jack would say, If you’ve got less than twelve in blackjack you ask for another card. Because you can’t lose.

‘Invite them here one evening,’ she said. ‘Then we know where they are.’

‘And we do it here?’

‘No, no, there have been enough murders at the Inverness; one more would cast suspicion on us and also frighten away the clientele. We’ll do it on the road.’

Macbeth nodded. ‘I’ll ask Banquo and Fleance to come by car. I’ll tell them we’ve promised someone a lift home with them. I know exactly the route he’ll take, so if I tell them to be punctual we’ll know to the minute where on the route they’ll be. Do you know what, woman of my dreams?’

Yes, she thought, as he embraced her, but let him say it anyway.

‘I love you above everything on this earth and in the sky above.’

Duff found the young boy sitting on a bollard at the edge of the quay. There was a break in the rain, and more light than usual penetrated the layer of white cloud above them. But out in the river new troops of bluish-grey clouds stood lined up ready to ride in on the north-westerly wind against them — all you could rely on in this town.

‘I’m Duff. Are you the person who rang about Malcolm?’

‘Cool scar,’ the boy said, straightening his eyepatch. ‘They said you weren’t the head of Narco any more?’

‘You said it was urgent.’

‘It’s always urgent, Mr Narco Boss.’

‘Suits me fine. Spit it out.’

‘Fork it out, I think we say.’

‘Oh, so that’s why it’s urgent. When do you have to have your next shot?’

‘A couple of hours ago. And as this is important enough for the boss himself to show up, I think we’ll say you pay for not only the next one, but the next ten.’

‘Or I wait half an hour and you’ll happily spit it out for half the price. Another half an hour and it’ll cost half again...’

‘I cannot deny this, Mr Narco Boss, but the question is: which of us is in a greater hurry? I read about Malcolm in the papers this morning and recognised him in the photo. Drowned, kind of. Deputy chief commissioner and shit. Heavy stuff.’

‘Come on, lad, and I’ll pay you what it’s worth.’

The one-eyed boy chuckled. ‘Sorry, Mr Narco Boss, but I’ve stopped trusting the fuzz. Here’s your first bite. I wake up after nodding off, sitting between the lines of containers you can see over there, where you can shoot up and have a trip without being robbed, know what I mean? No one sees me, but I can see him, Malcolm, on the other side of the canal. Well, Narco Boss? First shot’s for free, the next one will cost you big time. Heard that one before?’ The boy laughed.

‘Not sure I’m hooked there,’ Duff said. ‘We know Malcolm was here, we found his car.’

‘But you didn’t know he wasn’t alone here. Or who was here with him.’

From bitter experience Duff knew a junkie told more lies than the truth, especially if that way they could finance their next shot. But, as a rule, a junkie preferred easier and quicker ways of tricking you than ringing HQ and insisting on talking to one of the unit heads, then waiting an hour in the rain, and all of that without a guaranteed payment.

‘And you know that, do you?’ Duff asked. ‘Who this person is?’

‘I’ve seen him before, yes.’

Duff took out his wallet. Produced a wad, counted, passed the banknotes to the boy.

‘I was thinking of calling Macbeth himself,’ the boy said as he recounted. ‘But then I realised he would probably refuse to believe me when I told him who it was.’

‘Personal?’

‘That Malcolm was talking to Macbeth’s sidekick,’ the boy said. ‘Old guy, white hair.’

Duff gasped involuntarily. ‘Banquo?’

‘I dunno what his name is, but I’ve seen him with Macbeth at the station.’

‘And what were Banquo and Malcolm talking about?’

‘They were too far away for me to hear.’

‘What erm... did it seem as if they were talking about? Were they laughing? Or were there loud, angry voices?’

‘Impossible to say. The rain was hammering down on the containers and mostly they had their backs to me. They might have been arguing. The old boy was waving his shooter for a while. But then things quietened down, they got into a Volvo and drove off. The old boy was driving.’

Duff scratched his head. Banquo and Malcolm in cahoots?

‘This is too much,’ the boy said, holding up a note.

Duff looked down at him. A junkie giving him change? He took the note. ‘You didn’t tell me this just for the money for another shot, did you?’

‘Eh?’

‘You said you’d read the papers and knew this was heavy stuff. And it is. So heavy that if you’d rung a journalist with this story you’d have got ten times more than from a policeman. So either it’s Hecate who sent you to spread false info or you’ve got another agenda.’

‘Go to hell, Mr Narco Boss.’

Duff grabbed the junkie’s collar and pulled him off the bollard. The boy weighed almost nothing.

‘Listen to me,’ Duff said, trying to avoid inhaling the boy’s stinking breath. ‘I can put you behind bars, and let’s see then what you think when you hit cold turkey and you know you’ve got two days in the wilderness in front of you. Or you tell me now why you came to me. You’ve got five seconds. Four...’

The boy glared back at Duff.

‘Three...’

‘You piece of cop shit, you’re fuckin’...’

‘Two...’

‘My eye.’

‘One...’

‘My eye, I said!’

‘What about it?’

‘I only wanted to help you catch the man that took my eye.’

‘Who was it?’

The boy snorted. ‘The same guy that’s busting your arse. Don’t you know who’s behind all this shit? There’s only one person in this town who can kill a chief commissioner and get away with it, and that’s the Invisible Hand.’

Hecate?

14

Macbeth drove along the dirty road between the old factories. The cloud hung so low and Monday-grey over the chimneys that it was difficult to see which were smoking, but some of the gates had CLOSED signs or chains secured across them like ironic bow ties.

The press conference had passed painlessly. Painlessly because he had been too high to feel anything. He had concentrated on sitting back in a relaxed manner with his arms crossed and leaving the questions to Lennox and Caithness. Apart from those directed at him personally, which he had answered with, ‘We cannot comment on that at the present time,’ delivered with an expression that said they had much too much information and were in full control. Calm and assured. That was the impression he hoped he had given. An acting chief commissioner who did not allow himself to be affected by the hysteria around him, who answered journalists’ shrill questions — ‘Doesn’t the public have the right to know?’ — with a somewhat resigned, tolerant smile.

Although then Kite, the reporter with the rolled ‘r’s, had said in his radio programme right after the press conference that the acting chief commissioner had yawned a lot, seemed uninvolved and looked at his watch a lot. But to hell with Kite. In the Patrols Section they definitely thought the new chief commissioner was involved enough as he had personally dropped in and redirected the patrols from District 2 West to District 1 East. He explained it was time the neighbourhoods of normal people were also patrolled. It was an important signal to send: the police didn’t prioritise districts with money and influence. And if Kite had been annoyed, Banquo had at least been happy to receive a dinner invitation with instructions to bring along Fleance.

‘Good for the lad to get used to mixing with the big boys,’ Macbeth had said. ‘And then I think you should decide what you’d like to do. Take over SWAT, Organised Crime or become the deputy chief commissioner.’

‘Me?’

‘Don’t get stressed now, Banquo. Just give it some thought, OK?’

And Banquo had chortled and shaken his head. Gentle, as always. As though he didn’t have an evil thought in his mind. Or at least he didn’t have a conscience about having one. Well, tonight the traitor would meet his maker and destroyer.

No one was on the gate of the Norse Riders’ club house. They probably didn’t have anyone left to stand guard.

Macbeth got out of his car and went into the club-room. Stopped in the doorway and looked around. It felt like a strangely long time ago since he had stood there beside Duff and scanned the same room. Now the long table had gone, and at the bar stood three men with low-slung paunches in the club’s leather jackets and two women with high-slung breasts. One was holding a baby, who was wriggling around under a muscular maternal arm tattooed with the name SEAN.

‘Colin, isn’t that the...?’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ said the completely bald man with the walrus moustache in a low voice. ‘That’s the one who got Sean.’

Macbeth remembered the name from the report. It was strange how he kept forgetting the names of people he met, but never those that appeared in reports. Sean. He was the one who had been on guard at the gate, the one Macbeth had knifed in the shoulder and whom they had used as a hostage, one of those who was still in custody.

The man glared at the police officer in slack-jawed fury. Macbeth took a deep breath. It was so quiet he could hear the floorboards creak under his heels as he walked over to the bar. He addressed the leather jacket behind the counter and caught himself thinking as he opened his mouth that he shouldn’t have sniffed that last line before leaving HQ. Brew had a tendency to make him cocky. And his concern was confirmed by what came out: ‘Hello, not many people here, where is everybody? Oh, yes, that’s right. In the slammer. Or the morgue. A Glendoran, please.’

Macbeth saw the barman’s eyes flit across, knew an attack was imminent from his left and he still had oceans of time. Macbeth had always had good reflexes, but with brew he was like a fly — he could yawn, scratch his back and study his watch with its incredibly slow second hand while a fist was on its way. But then, as Colin with the walrus moustache thought he was about to connect, Macbeth swayed back, and the fist that was heading for his newly trimmed temple met air. Macbeth lifted and swung his elbow to the side, barely felt the impact, only heard a groan, the crunch of cartilage, staggering footsteps and bar stools toppling over.

‘On the rocks,’ Macbeth said.

Then he turned to the man beside him, in time to see he had clenched his right hand and drawn his shoulder back to deliver a punch. As it arrived, Macbeth lifted his hand and met Colin’s halfway. But instead of the expected crunch of bone on bone,there came the smooth sound of steel in flesh followed by a dull thud when Colin’s knuckles hit the hilt. Then his long drawn-out scream when he saw the dagger running up through his clenched hand into his forearm. Macbeth pulled out the dagger with a jerk.

‘... and some soda.’

The man with the walrus moustache fell to his knees.

‘What the hell is going on?’ said a voice.

This came from the door to the garage. The man had a big beard and a leather jacket with three chevrons on each shoulder. Plus a sawn-off shotgun in his hands.

‘I’m ordering,’ Macbeth said, turning to the barman, who still hadn’t moved.

‘Ordering what?’ said the man, coming closer.

‘Whisky. Among other things.’

‘And what else?’

‘You’re the sergeant. You run the shop when Sweno’s not here, don’t you? By the way, where’s he hiding this time?’

‘Say what you came to say and get outta here, cop scum.’

‘I won’t hear a bad word about the place, but the service could be friendlier and quicker. What about you and me doing this in peace and quiet, in a back room, Sarge?’

The man looked at Macbeth for some moments. Then he lowered the gun barrel. ‘There’s not much more damage you can do here anyway.’

‘I know. And Sweno’s going to like my commission, I can guarantee you that.’

The sergeant’s little office — for that’s what it was — had posters of motorbikes on the walls and a very small selection of engine parts on the shelves. With a desk, telephone and in and out trays. And a chair for visitors.

‘Don’t make yourself too comfortable, cop.’

‘My order is for a hit job.’

If the sergeant was shocked he didn’t show it. ‘Wrong address. We don’t do that stuff for cops any more.’

‘So the rumour’s true? You used to do hit jobs for Kenneth’s men?’

‘If there was nothing else...’

‘Only this time it isn’t a competitor you would have to dispatch into the beyond,’ Macbeth said, leaning forward in his chair. ‘It’s two cops. And the payment is your Norse Riders being set free immediately afterwards and all charges dropped.’

The sergeant raised an eyebrow. ‘And how would you do that?’

‘Procedural error. Spoiled evidence. This shit happens all the time. And if the chief commissioner says we haven’t got a case, we haven’t got a case.’

The sergeant crossed his arms. ‘Carry on.’

‘The person who has to be dispatched is the guy who ensured the dope you were going to live off ended up in the river. Inspector Banquo.’ Macbeth watched the sergeant nod slowly. ‘The other is a cop sprog who will be in the same car.’

‘And why are they to be expedited?’

‘Is that important?’

‘Usually I wouldn’t ask, but this is police officers we’re talking about, and that means there’s going to be loads of trouble.’

‘Not with these ones. We know Inspector Banquo is working with Hecate, we just can’t prove it, so we have to get rid of him another way. This is the best option from our point of view.’

The sergeant nodded again. Macbeth had counted on him understanding this logic.

‘How do we know you’ll keep your part of a potential deal?’

‘Well,’ Macbeth said, squinting at the calendar girl above the sergeant’s head. ‘We have five witnesses in the bar who can vouch for Acting Chief Commissioner Macbeth being here in person and giving you a commission. You don’t think I’d want to give you any reason to make that public, do you?’

The sergeant leaned back in his chair so far it touched the wall, studying Macbeth while making growling noises and pulling at his beard. ‘And when and where would this job potentially take place?’

‘Tonight. You know Gallows Hill in District 2 West?’

‘That’s where they hanged my great-great-grandfather.’

‘On the main road above the lanes where the West Enders go shopping there’s a big junction.’

‘I know the one you mean.’

‘They’ll be in a black Volvo at the lights some time between half past six and ten to seven. Probably at exactly a quarter to. He’s a punctual man.’

‘Hm. There are always a lot of patrol cars there.’

Macbeth smiled. ‘Not tonight there won’t be.’

‘Oh, really? I’ll think about it and give you an answer at four.’

Macbeth laughed. ‘Sweno will think about it, you mean. Great. Pick up a pen, and I’ll give you my phone number and the registration number of the Volvo. And one more thing.’

‘Uhuh?’

‘I want their heads.’

‘Whose?’

‘The two cops. I want their heads. Delivered to the door.’

The sergeant stared at Macbeth as if he considered him insane.

‘The customer requires a receipt,’ Macbeth said. ‘Last time I ordered a hit job I didn’t ask for a receipt and that was an error. I didn’t get what I ordered.’

Late in the afternoon Duff made a decision.

His thoughts had been churning for hours in a brain where the traffic felt as slow-moving as that on the road in front of him and the way ahead as full of choices. They still hadn’t replaced the railings on Kenneth Bridge, so the traffic eastbound was being redirected to the old bridge and the queue backed up to District 2, where Duff’s car moved forward at a snail’s pace from junction to junction, which all threw up the question: left, right, straight ahead, what’s the fastest?

Duff’s own particular junction was this.

Should he go to Macbeth and the others with what he had found out on the quayside? Should he keep it to himself? But suppose the one-eyed boy wasn’t telling the truth or Banquo was able to deny the accusations? What would the consequences be for Duff if in this chaotic situation he made false accusations against Banquo, who, with Macbeth, had suddenly become a powerful figure?

Duff could of course simply present the information the way he had been given it and let Lennox and Macbeth evaluate it themselves, but then he would lose the chance to register a badly needed personal triumph by single-handedly arresting and unmasking Banquo.

On the other hand, he couldn’t afford another blunder after his raid on the container harbour. It had cost him the Organised Crime appointment; another blunder could easily cost him his job.

Another junction: Organised Crime would be up for grabs again if Macbeth became chief commissioner, and if Duff seized the opportunity now, dared and won, the unit could be his.

He had weighed up asking Caithness for her opinion, but then the cat would be out of the bag, he couldn’t play innocent and would be forced to do something. Take a risk.

The way he had chosen in the end was one where he didn’t risk much, but where he would still get the credit if it all went as he hoped.

Duff turned off the little railway bridge and into the yard in front of the modest brick building on the other side. It had taken him more than three quarters of an hour to cover the short distance from HQ to Banquo’s address.

‘Duff,’ said Banquo, who opened the door seconds after Duff had rung the bell. ‘What gives?’

‘A party by the looks of it,’ Duff said.

‘Yes, and that’s why I can’t decide whether to take this or not.’ Banquo held up the holster with his service gun.

‘Leave it behind. It’ll only make a bulge in your suit. But that tie knot is no good.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Banquo said, pressing his chin down against his white shirt collar in a futile attempt to see the knot. ‘It’s been good enough for fifty years, ever since I was confirmed.’

‘That’s a poor man’s knot, Banquo. Come on, let me show you...’

Banquo warded off Duff’s helping hand by covering the knot. ‘I am a poor man, Duff. And I assume you came here to get help, not offer it.’

‘That’s true enough, Banquo. Can I come in?’

‘I’d have liked to offer you help and coffee, but I’m afraid we’re on our way out.’ Banquo put his gun holster on the hat shelf behind him and called up the stairs: ‘Fleance!’

‘Coming!’ was the response.

‘We can go outside in the meantime,’ Banquo said, buttoning up his coat.

They stood on the covered white steps. Rain gurgled cheerily down from the gutters while Banquo offered Duff a cigarette and lit his own when the inspector declined.

‘I was back in the container harbour today,’ Duff said. ‘I met a boy, one of our young drug addicts, who wanted to talk to me. He’s got only one eye. He told me how he lost the other one.’

‘Mmhm.’

‘He’d been driven crazy with his craving for dope but was broke. Down at central station he met an old man and begged him for some money. The old man had a walking stick with a gold tip.’

‘Hecate?’

‘The old man stopped, took out a bag which he dangled in front of the boy and said it was top-quality brew straight from the pot. The boy could have it if he would do two things for him. The first was to answer the question: which sense would you be most afraid to lose? When the boy replied it would be his eyesight, the old man said he wanted one of his eyes.’

‘That was Hecate.’

‘When the boy asked the old man why he wanted his eye, Hecate answered that he had everything, so all that was left for him was what was most valuable to the buyer, not to himself. And after all it was only half his eyesight, well, not even that. And think how much more valuable his second eye would be afterwards. Indeed loss and gain would almost be equal.’

‘I don’t understand that.’

‘Maybe not, but that’s the way some people are. They desire power itself more than what it can give them. They’d rather own a worthless tree than the edible fruit that grows on it. Just so that they can point to it and say, “That’s mine.” And then cut it down.’

Banquo blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘What did the boy decide to do?’

‘He was helped by a man-woman, who was with the old man, to take out the eye. And when he got his shot afterwards all the pain he had ever known was gone — it smoothed all the scars, removed all the bad memories. The boy said it was so wonderful that even today he can’t say he has any regrets. He’s still chasing after it, the perfect shot.’

‘And what was he after today when you met him?’

‘The same. Plus the person who had taken his eye just because he could.’

‘He’ll have to take his place in the queue of Hecate-chasers.’

‘He was thinking instead that he would help us catch Hecate.’

‘And how would a poor brew slave do that?’

‘Malcolm’s so-called suicide letter tries to finger the Norse Riders. But the boy thinks Hecate’s behind everything. Both the letter and the murder of Duncan. And Hecate’s in league with Malcolm. And perhaps others in the force.’

‘A popular theory nowadays.’Banquo flicked the ash off the cigarette and looked at his watch. ‘Was he paid for that?’

‘No,’ Duff said. ‘He wasn’t paid for anything until he told me he’d seen Malcolm down on the quay before he went missing. And he’d been with you.’

The cigarette on its way to Banquo’s mouth stopped. He laughed. ‘Me? I don’t believe it.’

‘He described you and your car.’

‘Neither I nor my car was there. And I find it difficult to believe you could have paid public money for such a claim. So which of you is bluffing? This junkie then or you now?’

A gust of cold wind blew, and Duff shivered. ‘The boy says he saw Malcolm and an older man he’d seen with Macbeth. A Volvo saloon.And a gun. Wouldn’t you have paid for that information, Banquo?’

‘Only if I was desperate.’ Banquo stubbed his cigarette out on the iron railing which flanked the steps. ‘And not even then if it concerned a police colleague.’

‘Because you always rate loyalty very high, don’t you?’

‘A police force cannot function without the loyalty of individuals. It’s a prerequisite.’

‘So how far does your loyalty to the force stretch?’

‘I’m a simple man, Duff, and I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘If you mean what you say about loyalty then you have to give us Malcolm. For the sake of the force.’

Duff pointed out into the grey soup of rain and mist in front of them. ‘For this town’s sake. Where is Duncan’s murderer hiding in Capitol?’

Banquo blew the ash from the cigarette end and put it in his coat pocket. ‘I know nothing about Malcolm. Fleance! Sorry, Inspector, but we’re going out to dinner.’

Duff ran after Banquo, who had walked down the three steps into the rain. ‘Speak to me, Banquo! I can see you’re weighed down by guilt and a bad conscience. You’re not an evil, cunning person. You’ve just been led into temptation by someone higher in rank than you by trusting their judgement. And so you’ve been betrayed. He has to be arrested, Banquo!’

‘Fleance!’ Banquo screamed in the direction of the house as he unlocked the car in the yard.

‘Do you want us to continue in this downward spiral into chaos and anarchy, Banquo? Our forefathers built railways and schools. We build brothels and casinos.’

Banquo got into the car and hooted the horn twice. The house door opened, and a suited Fleance emerged onto the steps struggling to open an umbrella.

Banquo cracked open the window, presumably because the car was misting up inside, and Duff put his hands on the window and tried to press it down further while talking through the narrow opening. ‘Listen, Banquo. If you do this, if you confess, there’s not a lot I can do for you, you know that. But I promise you no one will be allowed to hurt Fleance. His prospects won’t be those of a traitor’s son but those of the son of a man who sacrificed himself for the town. You have my word.’

‘Hi. Inspector Duff, isn’t it?’

Duff straightened up. ‘Hi, Fleance. That’s right. Have a nice dinner.’

‘Thanks.’

Duff waited until Fleance had got into the passenger’s seat and Banquo had started the engine. Then he set off for his car.

‘Duff!’

He turned.

Banquo had opened his door. ‘It’s not as you think,’ he shouted.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No. Meet me by Bertha at midnight.’

Duff nodded.

The Volvo was put into gear, and father and son went through the gate into the mist.

15

Lady went up the last metal rungs of the ladder to the door leading to the flat roof of Inverness Casino. She opened it and stared into the darkness. All that could be heard was the mumbled whisper of the rain. It seemed that everything and everyone had secrets. She was about to turn and go back in when a crackle of lightning lit up the roof, and she saw him. He was standing by the edge of the roof and looking down into Thrift Street, at the back of the casino. Before she had persuaded the town council to clean it up, the prostitutes had stood there in the barely lit street and not only offered themselves but often performed their services right there, in the archways, in cars, on cars or up against walls. When the National Railway Network had been here it was said that the boss had had all the windows facing Thrift Street bricked up so that his subordinates could concentrate on work and not the filth outside.

She opened her umbrella and went over to Macbeth.

‘Out here getting wet, darling? I’ve been looking for you. The guests for dinner will be here soon.’ She looked down the smooth black windowless walls like a fortress that led down to Thrift Street. She knew every yard of the street. And that was reason enough to keep the windows bricked up.

‘What can you see down there?’

‘An abyss,’ he said. ‘Fear.’

‘My dearest, don’t be so gloomy.’

‘No?’

‘What would the point of all our victories be if they didn’t bring a smile to our lips?’

‘We’ve won only a couple of battles. The war has barely begun. And already I’m being consumed by this fear. God knows where it comes from. Give me an armed biker gang coming towards me rather than this serpent we’ve slashed at but haven’t killed.’

‘Stop it, my love. No one can catch us now.’

‘Duncan. I can see him down there. And I envy him. He’s dead — I’ve granted him peace — while all he gives me is anxiety and these nightmares.’

‘It’s brew, right? It’s brew that gives you nightmares.’

‘Darling...’

‘Do you remember what you said about Collum? You said brew drove people crazy. You have to stop taking it or you’ll lose everything we’ve won! Do you hear me? Not another grain of brew!’

‘But the nightmares aren’t a product of my imagination. The sergeant called me. The deal is done. Or have you forgotten the grave deed we have planned for this evening? Have you repressed the thought that my only father and best friend are going to be slaughtered?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and nor do you. When what’s done is done, there’ll be nothing to brood over. And brew won’t give you consolation or courage. Now your soul will receive its reward. So no more brew! Put a tie on now, my love. And a smile.’ She took his hand. ‘Come on, let’s charm them to pieces.’

Caithness sat in an armchair with a glass of red wine in her hand listening to the rain on the attic window and Kite on the radio. He was talking about the problem of an acting chief commissioner in practice having more power than a democratically elected mayor, all because of Kenneth’s tampering with the town’s laws and statutes. She liked the way he rolled his ‘r’s and his calm voice. Liked the way he wasn’t afraid to shine with his knowledge and intelligence. But most of all she liked the way he was always against something. Against Kenneth, against Tourtell, yes, even against Duncan, who himself had been against so much. It had to be a lonely furrow. And who would want to be lonely if they had a choice?

She had occasionally wondered whether to send an anonymous letter to his radio station, saying how reassuring it was that there were still principled people like him, someone who took on the job of a lone, fearless watchdog. Speaking of which. Wasn’t that the second time she had heard that sound from the front door? She turned down the radio. Listened. There it was again. She crept over to the door and put her ear against it. A familiar creaking sound. She opened the door.

‘Duff. What are you doing?’

‘I... erm... am standing here. And thinking.’ He had his hands stuck deep down in his coat pockets and was rocking on his much-too-large shoes with the creaking soles.

‘Why didn’t you ring the bell?’

‘I have,’ Duff said. ‘I... The bell obviously doesn’t work.’

She opened the door wide, but he still seemed to be caught in two minds.

‘Why so glum, Duff?’

‘Am I glum?’

‘Sorry, I know there’s not much to be cheery about right now, but are you coming or going?’

His eyes flitted around. ‘Can I stay until midnight?’

‘Of course, but come in, will you? I’m cold.’

The sergeant rested his hands on the handlebars of his Honda CB450 ‘Black Bomber’. It was less than five years since he had bought it, and on good days he could squeeze a ton out of it. Nevertheless it felt a bit old now that the Honda CB750 superbike was on the market. He looked at his watch. Sixteen minutes to seven. The rush hour had subsided now, and darkness had fallen early. Waiting beside the road, he could see every single car that came towards the Gallows Hill junction. Sweno had sent them reinforcements from the club down south: three members, cousins they called them, had jumped on their bikes and arrived in town in less than three hours. They were sitting on their bikes, ready, by the pumps at the petrol station on the road along which the car was supposed to be coming. Appraising the models and number plates. Down the road, on the other side of the junction, he could see Colin standing on climbing irons up one of the posts by the junction box. The only entertainment they’d had so far was when they had done a trial run, and Colin had stuck a screwdriver in and turned. Brakes squealed on the road when the lights, without any warning, had changed from green to red. And seconds later, when they had changed back to green, engine revs had risen hesitantly and carefully, and cars crept across the junction while the sergeant flashed his headlights to signal to Colin that things were working as they should.

The sergeant looked at his watch again. A quarter to seven.

Sweno had needed a little time to make the decision, but the sergeant had the feeling that was more for reasons of caution than doubt. And that was confirmed when the three cousins from the south had drawn up in front of the club gate, a Harley Davidson chopper with high handlebars, a Harley FL 1200 Electra Glide and a Russian Ural with a sidecar and mounted machine gun. The guy on the Electra Glide had a sword with him, not curved like Sweno’s sabre, but it would do the job.

Fourteen minutes to seven.

‘Fleance...’

Something in his father’s voice made Fleance glance across. His father was always calm, but when something was wrong he had this voice that was even calmer. Like the time Fleance was seven and his father came home from the hospital after visiting Mum and said his name in that same eerily calm way.

‘Change of plans for this evening.’ His father shifted lane, tucked in behind a Ford Galaxy. ‘And the next few days.’

‘Really?’

‘You’re going to Capitol. Tonight.’

‘Capitol?’

‘Something’s happened. You’ll have lots of questions, my lad, but you won’t get any answers just yet. Drop me off at the Inverness, then you drive on at once. Pop home, take only what you need with you and go to Capitol. Drive steadily, not too fast, and you’ll get there late tomorrow. Got that?’

‘Yes, but what—’

‘No questions. You should stay there a few days, maybe weeks. As you know, your mother inherited a little flat. Take the notepad from the glove compartment.’

‘The one-room flat she called the rat hole?’

‘Yes. No wonder we never managed to sell it. Fortunately, I have to say now. The address is 66 Tannery Street, District 6. Right next to the Dolphin Nightclub. Second floor on the right. You’re safe there. Have you written that down?’

‘Yes.’ Fleance tore out the page and put the notepad back in the glove compartment. ‘But I’ll need a key, won’t I? I mean, who’ll let me in if it’s empty?’

‘It’s not empty.’

‘Tenants?’

‘Not exactly; I’ve let poor old cousin Alfie stay there. He’s so old and deaf he might not open up when you ring the bell, so you’ll have to improvise.’

‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’

‘Has this got anything to do with what Duff was after? He seemed very... intense.’

‘Yes, but no more questions, Fleance. You’ll just have to stay there, study some school books you take with you, get bored, but no phone calls, no letters, don’t say a peep to anyone about where you are. Just do as I say, and I’ll send for you when it’s safe to return.’

‘Are you safe then?’

‘You heard what I said.’

Fleance nodded.

They drove in silence, the worn rubbers of the windscreen wipers squeaking and sounding as if they wanted to tell them something.

‘Yes,’ Banquo said, ‘I’m safe. But take no notice of the news from now on, probably just lies. There’s someone else staying there as well at the moment. I think he’s got a mattress on the floor, so you take the sofa. If the rats haven’t eaten it.’

‘Funny guy. Do you promise me you’re safe?’

‘Don’t you worry...’

‘The lights are red!’

Banquo jumped on the brakes and almost ended up on the rear bumper of the Galaxy, which obviously hadn’t seen the lights change either.

‘Here,’ Banquo said, passing his son a thick worn wallet. ‘Take the money, then you’ve got enough to make ends meet for a while.’

Fleance took out the notes

‘Bloody long time on red...’ he heard his father mutter.

Fleance glanced in the side mirror. There was already a long queue behind them. On the outside of the queue a line of motorbikes was coming towards them.

‘Strange,’ his father said. Again his much-too-calm voice. ‘Looks like the road ahead is on red too. And has been for a while.’

‘Dad, there are some motorbikes coming.’

Fleance saw his father glance in the rear-view mirror for a second. Then he put his foot down on the accelerator, wrenched the steering wheel to the right and let go of the clutch. The old car spun on the wet, oily tarmac, but squeezed out to the right of the queue. The hubcaps hit the high kerb, and both cars screamed as if hurt when the Volvo scraped alongside the Galaxy and knocked off its side mirror as they passed.

A huge roar came from the street ahead. The lights had changed to green.

‘Dad! Stop!’

But his father didn’t stop; on the contrary, he slammed his foot down. They raced into the junction on a collision course with a lorry from the left and a bus from the right. And heard two horns blaring, one from either side, roaring a jarring chord as they emerged from between them. Fleance stared in the mirror as they shot down from Gallows Hill towards the centre, and the painful music sank in pitch behind them. He saw the traffic lights had changed back to green and the motorbikes were already across the junction.

Macbeth stood with both feet firmly planted on the solid tiles at the entrance to Inverness Casino yet still felt he was at sea. In front of him an overweight man in a black suit struggled to get out of the rear seat of a limousine. The Inverness’s red-clad doorman held the car door open and an umbrella in his hand as he hesitated between offering to pull him up or letting him retain his dignity. After the man had finally managed to complete the job without help but with some panting, Lady rushed forward.

‘Our very own... my very own mayor!’ She laughed and embraced him. Which was no mean feat, Macbeth thought, hearing himself let slip a silly snigger as he watched Lady’s slender hands grasp Tourtell’s well padded turtle shell.

‘You become more handsome and more virile every time we meet,’ she twittered.

‘And you, Lady, more beautiful and more mendacious. Macbeth...’

Macbeth shook hands, fascinated by how the flesh on the mayor’s hand oozed away from under his thumb.

‘And who’s this young man?’ Lady asked.

A brown-eyed, smooth-skinned boy with girlish good looks, so young he must have been in his teens, scurried around the limousine from the rear door on the opposite side. He smiled tentatively at Tourtell as if for help.

‘This, Lady, is my son,’ Tourtell said.

‘Silly billy, you don’t have any children,’ Lady said, smacking the mayor on the lapel of his jacket.

‘My extra-marital son,’ Tourtell amended, stroking the base of the boy’s spine and winking at Macbeth with a chuckle. ‘I’ve only just found out about him, you know. You can see the likeness though, can’t you, Lady?’

‘You are and always will be a sly fox, dear Tourtell. Shall we give him a name?’

‘What about Kasi Tourtell Junior?’ said the mayor, stroking his Salvador Dalí moustache and emitting a booming laugh when Lady rolled her eyes.

‘Get yourselves some refreshment in the warm,’ Lady said.

The two of them went through the door as she came to stand next to Macbeth.

‘How dare he, the perverted pig,’ Macbeth said. ‘I thought Tourtell was one of the respectable guys.’

‘He’s one of the respected guys, and that’s all that counts, dear. Power gives you the freedom to do what you want without people losing their respect for you. At least now you’re smiling.’

‘Am I?’

‘Like an unhinged clown.’ Lady was already beaming at the taxi drawing up to the entrance. ‘Don’t overdo the grin, darling. This is Janovic, a property investor from Capitol.’

‘Another scavenger buying up our factory sites for a song?’

‘He looks at the casinos. Be nice and say hello, and at some point let drop a comment assuring him that street crime is already on its way down.’

Fleance screamed instinctively and ducked when the rear window exploded.

‘How many?’ his father asked calmly and swerved hard to the right, down a cobbled side street. Fleance turned. The roar of the bikes behind them rose in volume like an enraged dragon.

‘Five or six,’ Fleance shouted. ‘Give me your gun!’

‘It wanted to stay at home tonight,’ Banquo said. ‘Hold tight.’ He twisted the steering wheel; the wheels hit the kerb, and the Volvo jumped and cut the corner in front of a posh clothes shop as they turned left down an even narrower street. Fleance understood the strategy: in these one-way alleys at least the bikers couldn’t come alongside and finish them off. But they were getting unremittingly close. Another bang behind them. Fleance hadn’t as yet learned to differentiate between all types of firearm, which he knew his father could, but even he knew that was a shotgun. Which after all was better than –

A hail of bullets hammered against the car body.

— an automatic weapon.

His father executed another sudden turn with authority, as though he knew where he was going. They were well into the shopping area now, but the shops were closed and the streets almost deserted in the rain. Did his father know a way out of this labyrinth? In response Banquo suddenly steered the car to the right, past a sign bearing bad news.

‘Dad, this is a cul-de-sac!’

Banquo didn’t react.

‘Dad!’

Still no reaction, only his eyes staring ahead in deep concentration, his hands clutching the wheel. Fleance only discovered now that blood was running down his father’s face and inside the neck of his shirt, where its white collar, like blotting paper, had assumed a pink colour from the welling blood. And there was something missing from where the blood was seeping out of his father’s head. Fleance shifted his gaze to the steering wheel. That was why he wasn’t answering. His ear. It lay stuck to the dashboard, a small, pale scrap of skin, shreds of flesh and blood.

Fleance raised his eyes to the windscreen. And there he saw, quite literally, the end. The blind alley culminated in a solid-looking timber house. The ground floor was a large partially illuminated shop window. It was approaching fast, and they showed no signs of stopping.

‘Belt on, Fleance.’

‘Dad!’

‘Now.’

Fleance grabbed his seat belt, pulled it across his chest and just managed to buckle it before the front wheels hit the kerb and they reared up. The bonnet hit the shop window in the middle, and Fleance had the feeling it had opened and they were flying through a curtain of white glass into whatever was inside. Then, as he looked around in amazement, knowing something was dislocated, there was a break in the course of events and he knew he must have passed out. There was an infernal ringing in his ears. His father lay motionless with his head on the wheel.

‘Dad!’

Fleance shook him.

‘Dad!’

No reaction. The windscreen was gone, and something on the bonnet was shining. Fleance had to blink before he realised it was what it looked like. Rings. Necklaces. Bracelets. And in front of him on the wall was written in gold letters: JACOBS & SONS. JEWELLERS. They had driven into a bloody jewellery shop. And the ringing he could hear wasn’t coming from his head, it was the burglar alarm. Now it dawned on him. The burglar alarm. All the town’s banks, the casinos and larger jewellery shops were connected to the central switchboard at police HQ. Who immediately contacted patrol cars in the district. Dad had known where he was going after all.

Fleance tried to undo his seat belt, but couldn’t. He yanked and tugged, but the buckle refused to move.

The sergeant sat on his bike, counted the seconds and looked at the car protruding from the shop in front of them. The alarm drowned most sounds, but he could see from the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe that the engine was running.

‘Whad are we waidin’ for, eh?’ asked the guy on the Electra Glide. There was something irritating about the way he spoke. ‘Led’s go ged ’em.’

‘We’ll wait a while longer,’ the sergeant said and counted. ‘Twenty-one, twenty-two.’

‘How long, eh?’

‘Until we know the guy who ordered this job has kept his promise,’ said the sergeant. Twenty-five, twenty-six.

‘Doh. I wanna finish this head-choppin’ stuff and leave this shide down.’

‘Wait.’ The sergeant quietly observed him. The guy looked like a grown man. Two grown men. The guy was as broad as a barn door and had muscles everywhere, even in his face. Yet he wore a brace on his teeth, like a boy. The sergeant had seen it before, in prison, where the inmates who pumped iron and took anabolic steroids grew such powerful jawbones that their teeth curled. Twenty-nine, thirty. Thirty seconds and no sirens. ‘Away you go,’ the sergeant said.

‘Thanks.’ The barn door pulled a long-barrelled Colt from his waistband and the sword from its sheath, dismounted his bike and set off towards the car. He nonchalantly ran the sword blade along the wall and over the post of the NO PARKING sign. The sergeant studied the back of his leather jacket. A pirate flag with the skull over a swastika. No style. He sighed. ‘Cover him with the shotgun, Colin.’

Colin smoothed his walrus moustache with a bandaged hand, then broke open a short-barrelled shotgun and inserted two shells.

The sergeant saw a couple of faces appear in windows across the road, but still heard no sirens, only the monotonous, unceasing burglar alarm as the guy entered the shop and approached the car. He put the sword under his arm, pulled open the passenger door with his free hand and pointed the revolver at the person sitting there. The sergeant automatically clenched his teeth as he waited for the bang.

Fleance tore at the belt, but the infuriating buckle was stuck. He tried to wriggle out. Fleance raised his knees to his chin, swung himself round in the seat and placed his feet against the passenger door to push himself over towards his father and the driver’s seat. At that moment he caught sight of the man stepping into the shop with a sword and a revolver in his hands. It was too late to get away now, and Fleance didn’t even have time to think how frightened he was.

The passenger door was wrenched open. Fleance saw the gleam of a dental brace and a revolver being raised and realised the man was out of reach for the kick he had planned. So instead he reached out with one foot for the opened door in sheer desperation. A normal shoe wouldn’t have fitted behind the internal door handle, but the long thin toe of Macbeth’s old winkle-pickers slipped in easily. He glimpsed the blackness of eternity in the revolver muzzle, then pulled the door to as hard as he could. There was a smack as the door hit the man’s wrist and jammed it in the opening. And a muffled thud as the revolver hit the floor.

Fleance heard swearing, slammed the door shut with one hand while searching for the revolver with the other.

The door was torn open again, and there stood the dental-brace man with a sword raised over his head. Fleance patted the floor everywhere — under the seat — where the hell had the gun gone? Dental Brace then obviously realised that the door opening was too narrow for him to swing the sword and he would have to stab with it. He brought his elbow back, aimed the point at Fleance and leaped at him. Fleance lashed out and met him halfway with two outstretched legs, which sent the guy staggering backwards through the room to finally topple back and smash a glass counter in his fall.

‘Colin,’ sighed the sergeant. ‘Please go in and bring this vaudeville to an end.’

‘Right, boss.’ Before dismounting Colin checked he would still be able to pull the trigger with the hand Macbeth had impaled with a dagger.

Fleance had given up his struggle, realising that he was trapped, he wouldn’t be able to free himself from the seat belt before it was too late. So he lay sideways on the seat, watched the guy with the sword stand up from behind the smashed counter, fragments of glass falling from his broad shoulders. He was more careful this time. Took up a position beyond Fleance’s reach. Checked he had a good grip on the sword. Fleance knew he was aiming for where he could do most instant damage and remain out of Fleance’s reach. His groin.

‘Bloody shide down,’ the man snarled, spat on the sword, brought back his arm, took the necessary step closer and bared a row of clenched teeth. The soft, warm shop lighting made his brace sparkle, which for one instant looked like it belonged to the shop’s inventory. Fleance raised the gun and fired. Glimpsed a surprised expression and a small black hole in the middle of the brace before the man fell.

The pianoforte’s soft, discreet tones tickled Macbeth’s ears.

‘Dear guests, acquaintances, colleagues and friends of the casino,’ he said, looking at the faces surrounding him, ‘even if not everyone has arrived yet, I’d like on behalf of the woman you all know and fear—’ muted polite laughter and nods to a laughing Lady ‘—to wish you a warm welcome and propose a toast before we take our seats at the table.’

Colin stopped when he saw his cousin from the south fall to the floor. The noise of the shot had drowned the alarm, and he saw a hand holding a revolver sticking out of the car-door opening. He reacted quickly. Fired one barrel. Saw the shell hit, saw the light-coloured inside of the door turn red, the window in the door explode and the revolver fall to the shop floor.

Colin walked quickly towards the motionless car. Adrenaline had made his senses so receptive that he took everything in. The faint vibration of the exhaust pipe, the absence of any heads in the smashed rear window and a sound he just recognised through the drone of the alarm. The belching sound of revving. Shit!

Colin ran the last steps to the door opening. On the passenger seat sat a suit-clad boy in a strangely distorted position. With his seat belt on, a blood-covered hand and his left foot stretched over to where the driver lay lifeless slumped over the wheel. Colin raised the shotgun as the engine raced, caught traction and the car rushed backwards. The open door hit Colin in the chest, but he managed to stick out his left hand and cling to the top of the door. They raced out of the shop, but Colin didn’t let go. He still had the shotgun in his aching right hand, but to get a shot into the car he would have to move it to under his left arm...

Fleance had managed to get his foot over to the pedals, push his father’s foot away and press the clutch so that he could move the gear lever out of neutral and into reverse. Then he gradually raised his heel off the clutch while pressing the accelerator with the tip of his shoe. The open passenger door had hit some guy who was still hanging on, but now they were out of the shop, on their way back. Fleance couldn’t see a damn thing, but he gave it full throttle and hoped they wouldn’t crash into anything.

The guy on the door was struggling to do something, and in a flash he saw what. The muzzle of a shotgun was protruding from under his arm. The next moment it went off.

Fleance blinked.

The guy with the gun was gone. Also the passenger door. He looked over the dashboard and saw the door and the guy wrapped around the post of the NO PARKING sign.

And he saw a side street.

He stamped on the brake and pressed the clutch before the engine died. Checked his mirror. Saw four men dismounting from their motorbikes and coming towards him. Their bikes were parked side by side barricading the narrow street; the Volvo wouldn’t be able to reverse over them. Fleance grabbed the gear lever, noticed now that his hand was bleeding, tried to find first gear but couldn’t, probably because from the position he was in he couldn’t press the clutch right down. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The engine coughed and spluttered, about to breathe its last. He saw in his mirror they had drawn guns. No, machine guns. This was it. This was where it ended. And a strange thought struck him. How bitter it was that he wouldn’t be taking his final exam in law now that he had finally cracked the code and understood the thinking: the difference between wrong and illegal, moral and regulation. Between power and crime.

He felt a warm hand on his, on top of the gear stick.

‘Who’s driving, son? You or your dad?’

Banquo’s eyes were a little dimmed, but he sat upright in the seat with both hands on the wheel. And the next second the engine’s old voice rose to a hoarse roar, and they skidded away on the cobblestones as the machine guns popped and crackled behind them as if it were Chinese New Year.

Macbeth looked at Lady. She sat two seats away from him enthusiastically making conversation with her dinner partner, Jano-something-or-other. The property shark from Capitol. She had placed her hand on his arm. Last year one of the town’s powerful factory owners had sat in the shark’s chair and captured her attention. But this year the factory was closed and its owner was not invited.

‘You and I should have a chat,’ Tourtell said.

‘Yes,’ Macbeth said, turning to the mayor, who was pushing a heavily laden fork of veal into his open jaws. ‘What about?’

‘What about? About the town, of course.’

Macbeth watched with fascination as the mayor’s many chins expanded and compressed as he chewed, like an accordion of flesh.

‘About what’s best for the town,’ Tourtell said with a smile. As though that was a joke. Macbeth knew he should concentrate on the conversation, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts together, hold them here, down on the earth. Now for example he was wondering whether the calf’s mother was still alive. And if so, if she could sense that now, right now, her child was being eaten.

‘There’s this radio reporter,’ Macbeth said. ‘Kite. He spreads malicious gossip and obviously has an unfortunate agenda. How do you neutralise a person like that?’

‘Reporters,’ Tourtell said, rolling his eyes. ‘Now look, that’s difficult. They answer only to their editors. And even if the editors in turn answer to owners who want to earn money, reporters are solemnly convinced that they’re serving a higher purpose. Very difficult. You’re not eating, Macbeth. Worried?’

‘Me? Not at all.’

‘Really? With one chief commissioner dead, another missing and all the responsibility on your shoulders? If you aren’t worried, I’d be worried, Macbeth!’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Macbeth looked for help from Lady, who was sitting on the mayor’s other side, but she was now engaged in conversation with a woman who was the town council’s financial adviser or something.

‘Excuse me,’ Macbeth said and stood up. Got a quizzical, slightly concerned look from Lady and strode quickly into reception.

‘Give me the phone, Jack.’

The receptionist passed him the phone, and Macbeth dialled the number of the HQ switchboard. It answered on the fifth ring. Was that a long or a short time to wait for an answer from the police? He didn’t know, he had never considered it before. But now he would have to. Think about that sort of thing. As well. ‘Put me through to Patrols.’

‘OK.’

He could hear he had been put through, and the phone at the other end began to ring. Macbeth looked at his watch. They were taking their time.

‘I never see you in the gaming room, Jack.’

‘I don’t work as a croupier any more, sir. Not after... well, that night, you know.’

‘I see. It takes a while to get over.’

Jack shrugged. ‘It’s not just that. In fact, I think being a receptionist suits me better than being a croupier. So it’s no tragedy.’

‘But don’t you earn a good deal more as a croupier?’

‘If you’re a fish out of water, it doesn’t matter how much you earn. The fish can’t breathe and dies beside a fat bagful of money. That’s a tragedy, sir.’

Macbeth was about to answer when a voice announced that he had got through to Patrols.

‘Macbeth here. I was wondering if you’d had any reports about a shooting in Gallows Hill during the last hour.’

‘No. Should we have done?’

‘We have a customer here who said he’d just driven by and heard a loud bang. Must have been a puncture.’

‘Must have been.’

‘So there’s nothing in District 2 West?’

‘Only a break-in at a jeweller’s, sir. The closest patrol car was some distance away, but we’re heading there now.’

‘I see. Well, have a good evening.’

‘You, too, Inspector.’

Macbeth rang off. Stared down at the carpet, at the strange needlework, the flowery shapes. He had never thought about them, but now it was as if they were trying to tell him something.

‘Sir?’

Macbeth looked up. Jack had a worried expression on his face.

‘Sir, you’ve got a nosebleed.’

Macbeth put a hand to his top lip, realised the receptionist was right and hurried to the toilet.

Banquo accelerated down the main road. The wind howled outside the doorless passenger side. They passed the Obelisk. It wouldn’t be long before they were at the central station now.

‘Can you see them?’

Fleance said something.

‘Louder!’

‘No.’

Banquo couldn’t hear in the ear on Fleance’s side, either because the auditory canal was blocked with blood or because the bullet had taken his hearing as well. However it wasn’t that shot which bothered him. He looked at the petrol gauge — the indicator had dropped remarkably in the four or five minutes since they had left the shopping area. The machine guns might have sounded harmless, but they had holed the petrol tank. But it wasn’t those shots that bothered him either; they had enough petrol to get to the Inverness and safety.

‘Who are they, Dad? Why are they after us?’

There, in front of them, was the central station.

‘I don’t know, Fleance.’ Banquo concentrated on the road. And breathing. He had to breathe, get air into his lungs. Carry on. Carry on until Fleance was safe. That, and nothing else, was what mattered. Not the road that had begun to blur in front of him, not the shot that had hit him.

‘Someone must have known we would come that way, Dad. The traffic lights, that wasn’t normal. They knew exactly when we would pass Gallows Hill.’

Banquo had worked that one out. But it meant nothing now. What did mean something was that they had passed the central station and that the lights of the Inverness lay before them. Park in front of the entrance, get Fleance inside.

‘I can see them now, Dad. They’re at least two hundred metres behind us.’

More than enough if they didn’t get held up. He should have had the blue light and the siren in the car. Banquo stared at the Inverness. Light. He could drive across Workers’ Square at a pinch. The sirens. Something stuck in his throat. Stuck in his mind.

‘Did you hear any sirens, Fleance?’

‘Eh?’

‘Sirens. Patrol cars. Did you hear them at the jeweller’s?’

‘No.’

‘Absolutely sure? There are always loads of patrol cars in District 2 West.’

‘Absolutely sure.’

Banquo felt the pain and darkness come. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No, Macbeth, my boy...’ He held the wheel and turned left.

‘Dad! This isn’t the way to the Inverness.’

Banquo pressed the horn, pulled the Volvo out from behind the car in front and accelerated. He could feel the paralysing pain from his back spreading to his chest. Soon he wouldn’t be able to keep his right hand on the wheel. The bullet probably hadn’t made a big hole in the seat, but it had hit it. And that was the shot that worried him.

In front of them there was nothing. Only the container harbour, the sea and darkness.

But there was one last possibility.

Macbeth studied himself in the mirror above the sink. The bleeding had stopped, but he knew what it meant. That his mucous membranes couldn’t take any more brew, and he should give it up for a while. It was different when he was young: then his body could take any amount of punishment. But if he continued now his nose would ache and bleed and his brain would spin until his head unscrewed itself from his neck. What he needed was a break. So why, thinking this, did he roll up a banknote and place it at the right-hand end of the line of powder on the sink? Because this was the exception. This was the critical point when he needed it. The point when he had to tackle the fat perverted mayor on the one side and the Norse Rider brigand who it seemed hadn’t managed to keep to their agreement on the other. And Lady on the third. No, she wasn’t a problem, she was the alpha and the omega, his birth, life and death. His reason for being. But just as their love could give him a tremulous joy, he could also feel the pain when he thought of what might be taken from him — her power now consisted in not loving him as much as loving him. He inhaled, sucked the brew up into his brain, hard, until it hit the inside of his scalp, or so it felt. Again looked at himself in the mirror. His face contorted and changed. He had white hair. A woman’s red lips. A scar grew across his face. New chins extended under his chin. Tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He had to stop now. He had seen people who had sniffed so much they had ended up with prosthetic noses. Had to stop while there was still time, while there was something to save. He had to switch to a syringe.

The sergeant saw the rear lights of the Volvo gradually coming nearer. He opened the throttle knowing the others would find it difficult to keep up now even though his engine was only 450 cc. On wet oily tarmac experience and sensitivity were more important for road-holding than engine size. It was therefore with some surprise that he saw a bike approaching fast in his mirror. And with disbelief he recognised it. And the rider’s helmet. The red Indian Chief passed so close to the sergeant that the point of a horn almost brushed against him. His headlight was reflected in the sabre when the bike overtook him. Where had he come from? How did he know? How did he always know when they needed him? The sergeant slowed down. Let Sweno ride at the front and lead them.

Banquo drove the same way they had when they were following the Russian lorry, overtaking dangerously a couple of times and temporarily increasing their distance from the motorbikes. They would soon catch up again, but perhaps there was still time. There was a barrier in front of the tunnel and a sign to say the bridge was closed due to repairs. Splinters flew as the front of the Volvo smashed into the barrier and its headlights bored into the tunnel’s darkness. He drove with one hand on the wheel; the other lay in his lap like a corpse. They could already see the exit when they heard the angry yapping of the motorbike engines entering the tunnel behind them.

Banquo braked approaching the sharp bend onto the bridge and then speeded up again.

And soon they were out on it, to a sudden silence beneath a clear sky and in the moonlight, which made the river glitter like copper below, far beneath them. All that could be heard was the Volvo’s engine working as hard as it could. And then the whine of rubber on tarmac as Banquo braked suddenly in the middle of the bridge where the statue of Kenneth had once been and turned onto the shoulder where the breeze flapped the Highway Agency’s red cordon tape, marking the spot the ZIS-5 had plunged down with the railing. Surprised, Fleance turned to his father, who had put the car into neutral. Banquo leaned over his son with a pocket knife in his hand and cut his seat belt.

‘What...?’

‘We’ve got a leak, son. Soon we won’t have any petrol, so listen to me. I’ve never been much of a preacher, you know that, but I want to say this to you...’ Banquo leaned against the door on his side, lifted his knees and swung round in his seat as Fleance had done.

‘You can be whatever you want, Fleance. So don’t be what I was. Don’t be a lackey for lackeys.’

‘Dad...’

‘And land on your feet.’

He placed the soles of his shoes against his son’s hip and shoulder, saw Fleance try to grab on to something, then shoved him with all his might. The son screamed in protest, in fear as he had done when he was born, but then he was out, the last umbilical cord severed, alone in the big wide world, in free fall towards his fate.

Banquo groaned with pain as he swung himself back, put the car in gear and accelerated towards his own fate.

When he ran out of petrol three kilometres after leaving the bridge they had almost caught him up. The car rolled the last metres, and Banquo could feel he was sleepy and laid his head back. A chill had spread down his whole back and into his stomach and was moving towards his heart. He thought about Vera. And when it finally rained on this side of the tunnel, it rained lead. Lead that pierced the car, seats and Banquo’s body. He stared out of the side window, up the mountainside. There, almost at the top, he could see what looked like from the town side a tribute to evil. But here it was a Christian cross that shone in the light of the moon. It was so close. It showed the way. The gate was open.

‘A planned rise,’ Banquo mumbled. A plann—’

16

Duff listened to Caithness’s breathing as it slowly quietened. Then he freed himself from her embrace and turned to the bedside table.

‘Well, Cinders?’ she whispered. ‘Is it almost midnight?’

‘We’ve got plenty of time, but I can’t arrive late.’

‘You’ve been looking at the clock every half an hour ever since you got here. Anyone would think you were dying to leave.’

He turned to her again. Put his hand behind her neck. ‘That’s not why, my beautiful woman, it’s just that I lose all concept of time when I’m here with you.’ He kissed her lightly on the lips.

She chuckled. ‘You can sweet-talk, you can, Romeo. But I’ve been thinking.’

‘Sounds scary.’

‘Stop it. I’ve been thinking I love you. And—’

‘Scary.’

‘Stop it, I said. And I don’t just want you here and now. I don’t want you always disappearing like a half-dreamed dream.’

‘I don’t want to either, my love, but—’

‘No more buts, Duff. You always say you’ll tell her about us, but then there’s the constant but, which means you have to postpone doing it, which you say is out of consideration for her, for the children, for—’

‘But there are considerations, Caithness. You have to understand that. I’ve got a family and with it come—’

‘—Responsibilities I can’t run away from,’ she mimicked. ‘What about some consideration for me? You never seem to have any problem running away from me.’

‘You know very well it’s not like that. But you’re young, you’ve got alternatives.’

‘Alternatives? What do you mean? I love you !’

‘I only mean that Meredith and the children are vulnerable right now. If we wait until the children are a year older, it’ll be easier, then I can—’

‘No!’ Caithness smacked her hand down on the duvet. ‘I want you to tell her now, Duff. And do you know what? That’s the first time you’ve mentioned her by name.’

‘Caithness...’

‘Meredith. It’s a nice name. I’ve envied her that name for a long time.’

‘Why such a hurry all of a sudden?’

‘I’ve realised something over the last few days. To get what you want you can’t wait for someone to give it to you. You have to be tough, possibly inconsiderate, but a clean cut is best. Believe me, it isn’t easy for me to ask you to do this, to sacrifice your family — it affects innocent people, and that’s not in my nature.’

‘No, Caithness, it’s not in your nature, so where have you got this from, this idea of a clean cut?’

‘Duff.’ She sat up, cross-legged, in the middle of the bed. ‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes! Jesus, yes.’

‘So will you do it? Will you do this for me?’

‘Listen to me, Caithness—’

‘I like Meredith better.’

‘Darling. I love you more than anything else. I would give my life for you. My very own life, yes, without hesitation. But others’ lives?’ Duff shook his head. Inhaled to speak but let his breath back out. A clean cut. Did it have to be now? The idea of it surprised him. Had he unwittingly been on his way there all the time? On his way from Caithness, on his way home to Fife? He took another deep breath.

‘My mother — whom I never knew — sacrificed her life for me. Sacrificed hers so that I could live. So even if it’s in my nature — as it was in my mother’s nature — to sacrifice a life for love, love for a child is the greatest love. Just the thought of having to sacrifice anything smaller for my children — taking their family away from them for my selfish love for another woman — is like spitting on my mother’s memory.’

Caithness put her hand to her mouth and an involuntary sob escaped her as her eyes filled with tears. Then she stood up and left the bedroom.

Duff closed his eyes. Banged his head on the pillow behind him. Then he followed her. He found her in the sitting room, where she was standing by one of the attic windows and staring out. Naked and shimmeringly white in the neon light from outside, which made the trails of raindrops on the window look like tears running down her cheeks.

He stood behind her and put an arm around her naked body. Whispered into her hair. ‘If you want me to go now, I will.’

‘I’m not crying because I can’t have all of you, Duff. I’m crying because of my own hard heart. While you, you’re a man with a real heart, darling. A man a child can trust. I can’t stop loving you. Forgive me. And if I can’t have everything, give me what you can of your pure heart.’

Duff didn’t answer, just held her. Kissed her neck and held her. Her hips began to move. He thought of the time. Of Banquo. Their meeting by the locomotive. But it was still a long time to midnight.

‘Inverness Casino, Jack speaking.’

‘Good evening, Jack. I’d like to talk to Macbeth.’

‘He’s at a dinner. Can I give him a—’

‘Get him, Jack. Come on.’

Pause.

The sergeant looked at the motorbikes gathered around the telephone box. Their shapes were distorted by the thick snakes of water coiling down the outside of the glass, but still the sight was the most beautiful he knew — engines on two wheels. And the brothers who rode them.

‘I can ask, sir. Who can I say is calling?’

‘Just say this is the call he was expecting.’

‘I see, sir.’

The sergeant waited. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Switching the blood-stained parcel from one arm to the other.

‘Macbeth.’

‘Good evening. I’m just calling to say the fish has been caught and gutted, but the fry swam away.’

‘Where?’

‘Now the chances of a single fry surviving are a thousand to one against, and I think in this case we can be satisfied that it’s dead and lying at the bottom of the sea.’

‘Right. So?’

‘The fish head’s on its way. And I’d say you’ve won my respect, Macbeth. There are few who have the palate or stomach for this kind of delicacy.’

Macbeth put down the phone and held on to the counter as he breathed quickly in and out.

‘Are you sure you’re well this evening, sir?’

‘Yes, thank you, Jack. Just a bit giddy.’

Macbeth repressed his thoughts and images one by one. Then he adjusted his jacket and tie and went back to the dining room.

The guests at the long table were talking and toasting, but there wasn’t a great atmosphere. Now perhaps these people didn’t celebrate as loudly and passionately as they did in SWAT, but he wondered whether the shadow of Duncan’s death didn’t lie more heavily over the casino than Lady would have admitted. The mayor had seen Macbeth and waved him over. He saw that someone was sitting on his chair and assumed it was Tourtell’s companion. But when Macbeth saw that he was wrong he came to a sudden halt. It felt as if his heart had stopped beating.

Banquo.

He was sitting there. Now.

‘What is it, my love?’ It was Lady. She had turned and was looking at him in surprise. ‘Sit down.’

‘My place is taken,’ he said.

Tourtell also turned. ‘Come on, Macbeth. Sit down.’

‘Where?’

‘On your chair,’ Lady said. ‘What’s the matter?’

Macbeth screamed as Banquo turned his head like an owl. Above his white collar ran a long, continuous wound that seemed to run completely around his neck. Blood ran from the wound, like from the rim of a full glass of wine someone was continuing to fill.

‘Who... who did this to you?’ Macbeth groaned and placed both hands around Banquo’s neck. Squeezed to stop the blood, but it was thin and trickled between his fingers like diluted wine.

‘What are you doing, my love?’ Lady laughed in a strained voice.

Banquo’s mouth opened. ‘It... was... you... my son.’ The words were delivered in a monotone, his face expressionless like a ventriloquist’s doll.

‘No!’

‘I... saw... you... master... I... am... waiting... for... you... master.’

‘Be quiet!’ Macbeth squeezed harder.

‘You... are... strangling... me... Murdererbeth.’

Macbeth, terrified, let go. He felt someone pull hard at his arm.

‘Come on.’ It was Lady. He was about to tear his arm away when she hissed into his ear, ‘Now! While you’re still chief commissioner.’

She put her hand under his arm, as though she was following him, and like this they sailed out of the dining hall as if blown by the expressions of their guests.

‘What’s the matter?’ she hissed when she had locked them in their suite.

‘Didn’t you see him? Banquo! He was sitting in my chair.’

‘My God, you’re high. You’re seeing things! Do you want the mayor to think he’s got a lunatic as his chief commissioner?’

‘His?’

‘Where’s your wretched brew? Where?’ She thrust her hand into his trouser pocket. ‘This is going out now!’

Macbeth grabbed her wrist. ‘His chief commissioner?’

‘Tourtell’s going to appoint you, Macbeth. I put you two together because I thought at least you wouldn’t destroy the impression that you were the right man for the job. Ow, let go!’

‘Let Mayor Tourtell do what he likes. I’ve got enough on him to lock him up tomorrow. And if I don’t, I can get it. I’m the chief commissioner, woman! Don’t you understand what that means? I’m in command of six thousand people, two thousand of them armed. An army, darling!’

Macbeth saw her eyes were softening.

‘All right, yes,’ she whispered. ‘Now you’re talking sense again, love.’

He was still gripping her fine, slender wrist, but her hand had started moving in his pocket.

‘Now I can feel you again,’ she said.

‘Come on, let’s—’

‘No, not now,’ she interrupted and pulled her hand away. ‘We’ve got guests. But I have something else for you. A present to celebrate your appointment.’

‘Oh?’

‘Look in the bedside-table drawer.’

Macbeth took out a case. Inside it was a bright, shiny dagger. He lifted it to the light. ‘Silver?’

‘I was going to give it to you after the dinner, but I think you need it now. Silver, as is well known, is the only material that can kill ghosts.’

‘Thank you, my sweet.’

‘It’s a pleasure. So tell me Banquo is dead.’

‘Banquo’s dead. He’s dead.’

‘Yes, and we’ll mourn later. Now let’s join the others. You tell them it was an inside joke between us. Come on.’

It was ten minutes past eleven.

Caithness was still in bed, while Duff had got dressed and was standing by the kitchen worktop. He had made a cup of tea and found a lemon in the fridge, but the only clean knife was more suited to stabbing than slicing a lemon. He stuck the point in the peel and a fine spray came out. So late at night it would normally take half the usual time to get to the central station, find a parking spot and get to Bertha. He had no intention of being late. Banquo didn’t seem as if he needed an excuse not to tell him what he knew. On the other hand, Duff had seen Banquo wanted to talk. Wanted to unburden himself of... of what? The guilt? Or just what he knew? Banquo was no bellwether, he was a sheep, no more than a link. And soon Duff hoped he would know who the others were. And armed with that he would... The silence was broken by the telephone on the wall beside the cork board.

‘Phone!’ he shouted.

‘Heard it. I’ll take it here,’ Caithness answered from the bedroom. She had a phone in every room, one of the things that could make him feel old when he was with her. They were perhaps a little old-fashioned, Meredith and him, but they thought that one phone per household was enough — it didn’t hurt to have to run. He found a cloth and wiped his hand. Listened for her voice to determine what kind of conversation it was, who was ringing so late at night. Meredith? The thought came to him, and he rejected it at once. The second thought lingered for longer. A lover. Another lover, younger. No, an admirer, a potential lover. Someone standing in the wings, ready to step in if Duff hadn’t given her the answer she wanted this evening. Yes, that was the reason for the sudden hurry. And Duff hadn’t complied with her demands, while his ultimatum had been turned round to become her own. And she had chosen him. The moment he articulated the thought he half-wished it was an admirer. How strange are we humans?

‘Could you repeat that?’ he heard Caithness say from the bedroom. Her professional voice. Only more excited than usual. ‘I’m on my way. Call the others.’

Definitely work. SOCO work.

He heard her rummaging around in her room. He hoped the job wasn’t in Fife and she would suggest he drove her. His hand was sweaty. He licked it while looking down at the lemon. The juice had got into one of the cuts he had received when he fell on the tarmac at the quay. He was still for a second. Then he pulled the knife out and stabbed the lemon again. Hard and fast this time. Let go of the knife quickly and pulled his hand away, but it stung again. It was impossible. Impossible to stab and remove your hand before the spray.

Caithness rushed into the kitchen with a black doctor’s bag in her hand.

‘What is it?’ Duff asked when he saw her expression.

‘It was HQ. Macbeth’s deputy from SWAT...’

‘Banquo?’ Duff felt his throat constrict.

‘Yes,’ she said, pulling open a drawer. ‘He’s been found on Kenneth Bridge.’

‘Found? Do you mean...?’

‘Yes,’ she said, rummaging angrily in the drawer.

‘How?’ The questions that accumulated were too numerous, and Duff helplessly grabbed his forehead.

‘I don’t know yet, but the police at the scene say his car’s riddled with bullets. And his head’s been removed.’

‘Removed? As in... cut off?’

‘We’ll soon see,’ she said, taking a pair of latex gloves from the drawer and putting them in the bag. ‘Can you drive me?’

‘Caithness, I’ve got this meeting, so...’

‘You didn’t say where, but if it’s a long detour...’

He looked at the knife again.

‘I’ll go with you,’ he said. ‘Of course I will. I’m head of the Homicide Unit, and this case is top priority.’

Then he turned and threw the knife hard at the cork board. It spun one and a half times on its axis before hitting the board handle first and falling to the kitchen floor with a clatter.

‘What are you trying to do?’ she asked.

Duff stared at the knife. ‘Something you need a lot of practice at before you succeed. Come on.’

17

‘So, Seyton,’ Macbeth said, ‘What can I do for you?’

The rays of sunshine had found a break in the clouds and were now angled through the grimy windows of the chief commissioner’s office and fell on his desk, on his photo of Lady, on the calendar showing it was a Tuesday, on the drawing of the Gatling gun and, sitting in front of Macbeth’s desk, the polished, shiny pate of the lean, sinewy officer.

‘You need a bodyguard,’ Seyton said.

‘Do I? And what kind of bodyguard do I need?’

‘One who can fight evil with evil. Duncan had two, and after this business with Banquo, God bless his soul, there’s every reason to assume they’re after you as well, Chief Commissioner.’

‘Who are they ?’

Seyton looked at Macbeth with puzzlement in his eyes before answering. ‘The Norse Riders. My understanding is that they’re behind this execution.’

Macbeth nodded. ‘Witnesses in District 2 say they saw bikers, some of them wearing Norse Rider jackets, shooting at a Volvo outside a jewellery shop the car had driven into. We presume it was Banquo’s car.’

‘If Malcolm was involved, the threat to the chief commissioner may come from inside the force. I don’t trust all our so-called leaders. In my opinion, Duff is someone who lacks spine and morality. Of the threats outside the force there’s obviously Hecate.’

‘Hecate’s a businessman. Being suspected of murder is rarely good for business. Sweno, on the other hand, has a motive which trumps business sense.’

‘Revenge.’

‘Good old-fashioned revenge, yes. Some of our economists seem to undervalue the human tendency to follow our basest instincts instead of the bank book. When the black widow’s lover is lying on her back, sated and exhausted by love-making, he knows he’ll soon be eaten. Yet he would never be able to make any other choice. And there you have Sweno.’

‘So you’re less afraid of Hecate?’

‘I’ve told you today that resources should be distributed more sensibly, the witch-hunt aimed at Hecate has to be scaled down so that we can sort out other more pressing problems for the town.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as honest, hard-working people being openly cheated and robbed of their savings by one of our more dubious casinos. But back to the point. Former chief commissioners have had bad experiences with bodyguards, but I haven’t forgotten how effective and brave you were when I was attacked by that dog at Cawdor’s. So let me sleep on this, Seyton. Actually, I’d been thinking of giving you a different post, one which is not so different from the one you were requesting, actually.’

‘Oh?’

‘Now I’m chief commissioner and Banquo’s gone, SWAT doesn’t have a head. You, Seyton, are the oldest officer with the most experience.’

‘Thank you, Chief Commissioner. That is really an unexpected honour and statement of trust. The problem is that I don’t know if I’m worthy of the trust. I’m not a politician, nor a leader of men.’

‘No, I know the type. You’re a watchdog who needs a master and a mistress, Seyton. But SWAT is a kind of watchdog. You’d be surprised at the detail of the instructions you get. I barely needed to think about how to apprehend the bad guys. And given the murders over the last two days it’s clear that the threat to someone sitting in my chair is such that SWAT will have to be used to actively protect the head of police HQ.’

‘Are you saying that SWAT will become the chief commissioner’s personal bodyguard?’

‘I can’t imagine that an arrangement of that kind would meet any resistance that can’t be quelled. In which case, we would be killing two birds with one stone. Your wishes and mine would be met. What do you say, Seyton?’

The sun was going down, and perhaps it was the sudden darkness falling in the room that made Seyton lower his voice so it sounded like a conspiratorial whisper: ‘As long as my orders come directly and in detail from you personally, Chief Commissioner.’

Macbeth studied the man in front of him. God bless his soul, Seyton had said about Banquo. Macbeth wondered what kind of blessing it had been.

‘My orders, loyal Seyton, will be unambiguous. As far as quelling protests is concerned, I’ve just ordered two of these Gatling guns.’ He passed Seyton the drawing. ‘Express delivery. Bit more expensive, but we’ll get them in two days. What do you think?’

Seyton ran his eye over the drawing, nodding slowly. ‘Tasty,’ he said. ‘Beautiful in fact.’

Duff yawned as he drove from a clear sky to dark clouds.

Ewan had woken him when he jumped up into the guest bed, with his sister hard on his heels.

‘Daddy, you’re home!’

They’d had breakfast in the kitchen with the morning sun low over the lake. Meredith had told the children to stop fighting to sit on Daddy’s lap and eat; they had to go to school. She hadn’t managed to put on the strict voice Duff knew she wanted to, and he had seen the smile in her eyes.

Now he passed the crime scene, where the bullet-riddled car had been towed away and the blood on the tarmac had been cleaned up. Caithness and her people had worked efficiently and found what evidence there was. And there hadn’t been much for him to do apart from state the obvious: that Banquo had been shot and beheaded. There was no trace of Fleance, but Duff had noticed that the seat belt on the passenger seat had been cut. That could mean anything at all; for the time being all they could do was put out a general missing-person alert for Banquo’s young son. It was a deserted stretch of road, as the bridge was closed, and it was unlikely there had been any witnesses in the vicinity, so after an hour Duff had decided that since he was halfway home he may as well sleep in Fife.

Where he had lain awake thinking to the accompaniment of the grasshoppers’ song outside. He had known. Known but hadn’t understood. It wasn’t that he had suddenly seen the bigger picture; it wasn’t that all the interlocking pieces had suddenly fitted into the jigsaw puzzle. It had been one simple detail. The knife in Caithness’s kitchen. But while he had been brooding the other pieces had emerged and slowly fitted in. Then he had fallen asleep and woken to the children’s ambush at dawn.

Duff drove over the old bridge. It was narrow and modest in comparison with Kenneth Bridge, but solidly built, and many thought it would stand for longer.

The problem was: who should he talk to?

It had to be someone who not only had enough power, influence and dynamism, but also someone he could trust, who wasn’t involved.

He drove down to the garage under HQ as the break in the clouds closed and the sun’s short visit was over.

Lennox looked up from his typewriter as Duff came in. ‘Lunch soon, and you’re yawning as if you’ve just got up.’

‘For the last time, is that thing genuine?’ Duff asked, nodding at the tarnished stick with a lump of rusty metal on the end that Lennox used as a paperweight. Duff slumped down in a chair beside the door.

‘And for the last time—’ Lennox sighed ‘—I inherited it from my grandfather, who had it thrown at his head in the Somme trenches. Fortunately, as you can see, the German forgot to pull the detonator pin. His soldier pals laughed a lot at that story.’

‘Are you saying they laughed a lot in the Somme?’

‘According to my grandfather the worse it got, the more they laughed. He called it the laughter of war.’

‘I still think you’re lying, Lennox. You’re not the type to have a live grenade on your desk.’

Lennox smiled as he went on typing. ‘Grandad kept it in his house all his life. He said it reminded him of the important things — the transience of life, the role of chance, his own mortality and others’ incompetence.’

Duff motioned to the typewriter. ‘Haven’t you got a secretary to take care of that?’

‘I’ve started writing my own letters and leaving the building to post them myself. Yesterday I was told by the Public Prosecutor’s Office that one of my letters appeared to have been opened and resealed before they received it.’

‘I’m not shocked. Thanks for receiving me at such short notice.’

‘Receiving me? That sounds very formal. You didn’t say what this was about on the phone.’

‘No. As I said, I’m not shocked that someone opens letters.’

‘The switchboard. Do you think—’

‘I don’t think anything, Lennox. I agree with you that there’s no point taking risks with the situation as it is now.’

Lennox nodded slowly and tilted his head. ‘And yet, good Duff, that’s precisely why you’ve come here?’

‘Maybe. I have some evidence concerning who killed Duncan.’

Lennox’s chair creaked as he straightened his back. He pushed himself away from the typewriter and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘Close the door.’

Duff stretched out his arm and closed it.

‘What kind of evidence? Tangible?’

‘Funny you should use that word...’ Duff took the letter opener from Lennox’s desk and weighed it in his hand. ‘As you know, at both crime scenes, Duncan’s and the bodyguards’, everything was apparently kosher.’

‘The word apparently is used when something seems fine on the surface but isn’t.’

‘Exactly.’ Inspector Duff placed the knife across his forefinger so that it balanced and formed a cross with his finger. ‘If you stabbed a man in the neck with a dagger to kill him, wouldn’t you hold on to the dagger in case you missed the carotid artery and had to stab again?’

‘I suppose so,’ Lennox said, staring at the letter opener.

‘And if you hit the artery straight away, as we know one dagger did, enormous quantities of blood would shoot out in a couple of brief spurts, the victim’s blood pressure would fall, the heart would stop beating, and the rest would just trickle out.’

‘I follow. I think.’

‘Yet the handle of the dagger we found on Hennessy was completely covered in blood; his prints were in the blood, and the inside of his hand was also covered with Duncan’s blood.’ Duff pointed to the handle of the letter opener. ‘That means the murderer wasn’t holding the handle when the blood spurted from Duncan’s neck, but grabbed the handle afterwards. Or that someone pressed his hand around the handle later. Because someone — someone else — threw the dagger at Duncan’s neck.’

‘I see,’ Lennox said, scratching his head. ‘But throw or stab, what’s the difference? The result’s the same.’

Duff passed Lennox the letter opener. ‘Try and throw this knife so that it sticks in the noticeboard over there.’

‘I...’

‘Come on.’

Lennox stood up. The distance to the board was probably two metres.

‘You have to throw it hard,’ Duff said. ‘It requires strength to pierce a man’s neck.’

Lennox threw. The knife hit the board and bounced off onto the floor with a clatter.

‘Try ten times,’ Duff said, picking up the knife and letting it balance on his finger. ‘I bet you a bottle of good whisky you can’t get the point to stick in.’

‘You don’t have much confidence in my ability or my luck?’

‘If I’d given you a knife that wasn’t balanced, with either a heavy handle or a heavy blade, I’d have made the odds better. But just like the dagger in Duncan’s neck this is a balanced knife. You have to be an expert to throw one. And no one I’ve spoken to in this building has ever seen or heard anything to suggest Duncan’s bodyguards were knife-throwers. To tell the truth, only one person I know was. Someone who actually almost ended up in a circus doing just that. And who was at Inverness Casino that evening.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘The man you gave Organised Crime. Macbeth.’

Lennox stood stock still gaping at a point on Duff’s forehead. ‘Are you telling me...?’

‘Yes, I am. Chief Commissioner Duncan was killed by Macbeth. And the murder of those innocent bodyguards was cold-blooded murder carried out by the same man.’

‘God have mercy on us,’ Lennox said, sitting down with a bump. ‘Have you spoken to Forensics and Caithness about this?’

Duff shook his head. ‘They noticed there was blood on the handle, but they think that was down to quick reflexes when the dagger was let go, not that the dagger was thrown. Reasonable enough theory. After all, it’s very rare for anyone to have that skill. And it’s only Macbeth’s closest colleagues who know he’s one of them.’

‘Good. We mustn’t mention this to anyone. No one.’ Lennox clenched his hands and chewed his knuckles. ‘Are you aware of the situation this puts me in, Duff?’

‘Yes. Now you know what I know, that can’t be changed, and now your head’s on the block with mine. I apologise for not giving you a choice, but what else could I do? Our moment of truth has come, Lennox.’

‘Indeed. If what you say is correct and Macbeth is the monster you believe, a wounding shot is not enough — that would make him doubly dangerous. He must be felled with a single, decisive shot.’

‘Yes, but how?’

‘With cunning and caution, Duff. I’ll have to give this some thought, and I’m no genius, so it will take time. Let’s meet again. Not here where the walls have ears.’

‘At six,’ Duff said, getting up. ‘The central station. By Bertha.’

‘The old train? Why there?’

‘That’s where I was going to meet Banquo. He was going to tell me all I’ve worked out anyway.’

‘So that’s a suitable meeting place. See you.’

Macbeth stared at the telephone on his desk.

He had just put down the receiver after talking to Sweno.

His nerves were jerking and twitching under his skin. He needed something. Not something, he knew what. He snatched the big hat Lady had bought him. Priscilla smiled as Macbeth strode towards the anteroom. ‘How long will the chief commissioner be out?’

She had, at Macbeth’s behest, been moved up from Lennox’s office, the whole process taking less than two hours. He had wanted to give Duncan’s old assistant the heave-ho, but instead had moved her down a floor after the head of admin explained to him that in the public sector not even a chief commissioner could dismiss employees at the drop of a hat.

‘An hour,’ Macbeth said. ‘Or two.’

‘I’ll say two to callers then,’ she said.

‘You do that, Priscilla.’

He walked into the lift and pressed G for the ground floor. To callers. Not if anyone calls. Because people did call, non-bloody-stop. Unit heads, judges, council representatives. He didn’t have the slightest clue what half of them did, apart from pester him with questions he couldn’t fathom, and that meant a queue of callers. Journalists. Duncan’s death, Malcolm’s disappearance. And now another policeman, plus his son. Was everything spinning out of control? they asked. Could the chief commissioner assure them that...? No comment. May I refer you to the next press conference, which...

And then there was Sweno.

The lift doors opened; two uniformed policemen on their way in stopped and backed out again. It was a rule Kenneth had introduced, and Duncan had abolished, that the chief commissioner should have the lift to himself. But before Macbeth could say they were welcome the lift doors had closed again and he continued down on his own.

On the pavement outside headquarters he bumped into a man in a grey coat reading a newspaper who mumbled, ‘Sorry, Macbeth.’ Not so strange because when Macbeth looked up he saw his own face on the front page. THIRD OFFICER TAKES THE HELM. Not a bad headline. Might have been Lady’s suggestion. The editor was putty in her hands.

Macbeth pulled the big hat down over his face and walked with long strides. Now, in the middle of the day, the streets were so chock-a-block with traffic it was faster to walk than drive to the central station. And besides it was just as well no one saw the chief commissioner’s limousine there.

God knows what Sweno had said to Priscilla to be put through. At any rate he hadn’t said his name when Macbeth had him on the line, he hadn’t needed to. If you heard his voice once you didn’t forget it. The bass made the plastic in the receiver quiver. He said that Macbeth’s promise had been the immediate release of the Norse Riders, and twelve hours had already passed. Macbeth had answered that it wasn’t that simple: papers had to be signed by judges and lawyers as a prosecution had already been raised. But Sweno could safely prepare a welcome speech for the homecoming party in two days.

‘That’s two days too many,’ Sweno had said. ‘And the two last days you will ever get from me. The day after tomorrow, at eleven o’clock on the dot, one of our members will ring the home of one of the town’s judges, I won’t say which, and confess his involvement in Banquo’s murder and how we knew exactly where Banquo and Fleance would be.’

‘One of your kamikaze pilots?’

‘In addition, we have seven witnesses that saw you come to our club house.’

‘Relax and think about your speech, Sweno. We’ll drop your boys outside the club gate tomorrow afternoon at half past three.’

And with that Macbeth rang off.

At the foot of the steps to the central station Macbeth scoured the area. Saw another grey coat, but not the same one. The hat hid his face, and he was after all only one of many smartly dressed men who ran up these steps every day to buy whatever they needed to function as surprisingly well as they did.

He stood where he had last stood, in the corridor, by the stairs down to the toilet. The young boy was nowhere to be seen. Macbeth hopped from foot to foot impatiently. It was many hours since he had felt the need, but it was only now, as he was about to satisfy his need, that it was really bad.

She appeared after what felt like an hour, but his watch told him only ten minutes had passed. She had a white stick in her hand, whatever that was supposed to mean.

‘I need two bags,’ he said.

‘You need to meet someone,’ Strega said. ‘Put these in your ears and wear these.’ She held out a pair of earplugs and some glasses that looked like a cross between swimming and welding goggles, the type he had seen blind people wear.

‘Why should I?’

‘Because if you don’t you won’t get any brew.’

He hesitated. No, he didn’t hesitate, he just took his time. He would have walked on his hands if that was what they demanded. The goggles were painted, so he could see nothing at all. Strega held him and whirled him round several times, evidently so that he would lose his sense of direction. Then she handed him the white stick and led him off. Ten minutes later he knew they had walked in the rain, people and traffic had been around them, the ear-plugs didn’t shut out all sound. Strega had helped him up onto a cement edge a metre and a half high and from there they had walked on gravel or sand. Then up onto another cement edge and inside somewhere, he guessed — at least it was warmer and the air was drier. And he had been sat down on a chair where someone took out the earplugs and told him to keep the goggles on.

He heard someone approaching, and a tap-tap sound stopped right in front of him.

‘I regret to have to bring you here in this way.’ The voice was unusually gentle and soft and sounded as if it belonged to an elderly man. ‘But I thought — all things taken into account — it was best to meet face to face. That is, you can’t see mine of course, but if I were you, Macbeth, I would be glad of that.’

‘I understand. It means you intend to let me leave alive.’

‘You’re not smart, but you’re more smart than stupid, Macbeth. That was why we chose you.’

‘Why am I here?’

‘Because we’re concerned. We knew of course of your affection for stimulants before we chose you, but we weren’t aware that it would take over so completely and so quickly. In short, we have to find out if you’re trustworthy or we will have to swap you.’

‘Swap me for what?’

‘Do you imagine you’re unique? I hope the chief commissioner title hasn’t gone to your head and that you realise it’s only a front. Without me you’re nothing. Duncan thought he could manage without me, indeed, that he could fight me. Do you believe that too, Macbeth?’

Macbeth gritted his teeth and swallowed his anger. He only wanted the bags and to get away. He took a deep breath. ‘As far as I can see, we have a form of collaboration we both profit from, Hecate. You may have triggered events that led to me becoming chief commissioner, and I will get rid of Sweno and ensure that the police don’t bother you and your monopoly too much.’

‘Hm. So you have no moral scruples?’

‘Of course I do, but I’m a pragmatist. In any town of this size there will be a market for dream sellers like you. If it isn’t you or Sweno, it’ll be someone else. Our cooperation will at least keep other and perhaps worse drug dealers away. I accept you as the means to the end of building a good future for this town.’

The old man chuckled. ‘Sounds like words taken straight from Lady’s mouth. Light and sweet to the taste but insubstantial. I’m at a crossroads here, Macbeth. And to decide my way I will have to make an assessment of your suitability. I see the newspapers are using metaphors about the third officer taking over the helm from the captain. Well, your ship is in a hurricane right now. Duncan, Banquo and a police cadet have been executed. Cawdor, Malcolm and two bodyguards are dead and assumed corrupt. Your ship is already a physical and moral wreck, Macbeth, so if I’m going to help you I have to know specifically how you’re going to steer it into calmer waters.’

‘The guilty parties will of course be apprehended and punished.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. And who are the guilty parties?’

‘That’s obvious. The Norse Riders. They forced Malcolm and his guards to cooperate.’

‘Good. In which case we shall be acquitted, you and I. But what if Sweno can prove his innocence with respect to Duncan’s murder?’

‘I have a feeling he won’t be able to.’

‘Hm. I hope you’ve got the energy to follow up what you’ve said, Macbeth.’

‘I have, Hecate. And I hope I can demand the same of you.’

‘What do you mean? I’ve carved out a path for you as chief commissioner, isn’t that enough?’

‘Not if I’m not protected. What I can see now is that everyone’s out to get me: judges, journalists, criminals and probably colleagues too. With guns or words as weapons. The phone never stops. And look. I can be kidnapped or abducted like a blind man in the middle of the day.’

‘Haven’t you got SWAT to keep an eye on you?’

‘Who knows if I can rely on everyone there. I need more protection.’

‘I understand. And here’s my answer. You already have my protection. You’ve already had it for some time. You just haven’t seen it.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Don’t even think about it. You should know Hecate protects his investments. The person I am, what I stand for, is the guarantee that no one, absolutely no one in this town, can hurt you as long as you’re mine, Macbeth.’

‘No one?’

‘I promise you, the person isn’t born that can harm a hair on your beautiful head. And old Bertha will roll again before anyone can push you out of office. Isn’t that good enough for you, Macbeth?’

‘Yes, I’m happy with both of those promises.’

‘Good. Because there’s one last thing I have to say. And that is, watch out for Inspector Duff.’

‘Oh?’

‘He knows it was you who killed Duncan.’

Macbeth knew he should feel alarm. Fear. Panic. But all he had space for was the familiar, hated craving.

‘Fortunately for you there is at the moment only one man who knows what Duff knows.’

‘Who’s that?’ Macbeth asked.

‘The same man who launched and supported your candidature for head of Organised Crime, at my instruction. So discreetly that Duncan thought afterwards it had been his idea.’

‘And who was that?’

‘See for yourself.’

A chair leg scraped as Macbeth was turned round. Then his goggles were removed. Macbeth’s first thought was that he was looking into a soundproofed interview room. It had the same one-way window that meant the interrogee neither saw nor heard those outside. The difference was that this resembled a large laboratory with glass flasks, tubes and pipes leading to an enormous tank. The tank made an almost comical contrast with all the modern equipment and reminded Macbeth of cartoons showing cannibals boiling people alive. On the wall behind the tank hung a sign with the words NO SMOKING. In front of the tank in the harshly illuminated room, close to the glass, sat a pale red-haired man upright in a recliner. One shirtsleeve was rolled up, his face turned to the ceiling, his mouth half-open, his eyes half-shut. He sat so close to them that Macbeth could see the blue half-irises under the man’s eyelids trembling. He recognised one of the Chinese sisters, who was holding a syringe with the needle sticking into Inspector Lennox’s forearm.

The gentle voice behind Macbeth said, ‘Lennox sowed the idea in Duncan’s mind, the idea that he should appoint someone who didn’t belong to the elite, but a man people in the town felt was one of them.’

‘Lennox told Duncan he should appoint me head of Organised Crime?’

‘Of course Lennox said the opposite. Duncan couldn’t take you because you had no formal qualifications and were too popular. That’s how you manipulate stubborn old mules with big egos.’

‘You said jump and Lennox jumped?’

‘And Lennox didn’t say jump and Duncan jumped.’ There came a gurgle of laughter from behind Macbeth, as though someone were pouring whisky. ‘The labyrinths of the human mind, Macbeth. Broad avenues, above all, easy to navigate. Lennox has been mine for more than ten years. A loyal toiler, Inspector Lennox.’

Macbeth tried to see the reflection of the man behind him, but he saw only Strega, as though Hecate himself could not be reflected. But he was standing there because Macbeth heard his voice by his ear:

‘But when I say jump, it means jump.’

‘Oh?’

‘Kill Duff.’

Macbeth swallowed. ‘Duff’s my friend. But you probably knew that.’

‘Banquo was a father to you, but that didn’t stop you. Killing Duff is a necessity, Macbeth. Besides I have a better friend for you. Her name is power.’

‘I don’t need any new friends.’

‘Yes, you do. Brew makes you unstable and quirky. You’ve had hallucinations, haven’t you?’

‘Maybe. Maybe this is a hallucination. What’s power?’

‘A new yet ancient product. Brew is a poor man’s power. Power is seven times stronger and half as damaging. It sharpens and strengthens your mind. And that’s what these times demand.’

‘I prefer brew.’

‘What you prefer, Macbeth, is to continue as chief commissioner.’

‘And this new drug, will it make me dependent?’

‘I told you it was ancient. And power will replace everything you’re already dependent on. So what do you think? Duff versus power?’

Macbeth saw Lennox’s head tip forward. He heard Strega whisper something behind him. The sister laid Lennox back on the recliner and went to the tank.

‘Give it to me.’

‘Sorry?’

Macbeth cleared his throat: ‘Give it to me, I said.’

‘Give him the bags,’ Hecate said.

Macbeth heard the tap-tap fade as his goggles were put back on and the world around him disappeared.

18

‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ Lennox said, stroking the curves.

‘No,’ Duff said. ‘Bertha is many things, but she isn’t beautiful.’

Lennox laughed and looked down at his hand, which was now covered with soot. ‘Everyone says Bertha, but her full name is Bertha Birnam. Named after a black-haired construction site cook, she was the only employee with them throughout the years it took to build the line from here to Capitol.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because my grandfather worked on the line. From here to Capitol.’

‘So your grandfather swung a sledgehammer and dragged sleepers?’

‘No, of course not, he helped to finance the railway.’

‘That sounds more likely.’ Duff looked across at Inverness Casino’s welcoming lights in the afternoon darkness.

‘Yep, we Lennoxes are really bankers. In fact, I’m a kind of black sheep. What about your origins, Duff?’

‘The usual.’

‘Police.’

‘As far as the eye can see.’

‘I know lots of Duffs in town, but none of them is in the police.’

‘I took the name from my maternal grandfather when I moved here.’

‘And he’s...’

‘Dead. Orphanage after that. Then police college.’

‘If you’re not from here why didn’t you go to the police college in Capitol? It’s better, and so are the weather and air.’

‘The big fish are here. The Norse Riders, Hecate...’

‘I see. You really wanted Organised Crime, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I probably did.’

‘Well, it’s still free. And when we’ve arrested Macbeth as Duncan’s murderer, you’ll just have to point to which unit you want. We’ll be hailed as the saviours of the town, Duff.’

‘Will we? Do you really think they care?’ Duff nodded to the square, where people were scurrying to get out of sight as fast as possible, into the shadows to find shelter.

‘I know what you mean, but it’s a mistake to underrate the general public in this town.’

‘There are two ways to tackle a problem, Lennox. By solving it or ignoring it. Kenneth taught this town to do the latter. Apathy towards corruption and shoving responsibility for the community onto others. Watching them escape, like cockroaches when the light comes on.’

‘A contemptible town with contemptible inhabitants, and yet you’re willing to risk everything?’

Lennox watched Duff shaking his head.

‘My God, Lennox, what makes you think this is for the town ? The town. It’s just a way of speaking they use when they want to be elected to the town hall or become the chief commissioner. Tell me what you’ve turned up since we last met.’

‘OK. I’ve spoken to a judge in Capitol—’

‘We shouldn’t talk to anyone !’

‘Take it easy now, Duff. I didn’t say what or who it was about, only that it concerned corruption at a high level. The point is that this judge is reliable. He lives elsewhere, so he’s out of Macbeth, Sweno or Hecate’s control. As a judge in a federal court of law he can hook up with the federal police, so we can leapfrog HQ and prosecute in Capitol, where Macbeth can’t pull any strings. The judge is coming here in three days and he’s agreed to meet us in total secrecy.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jones.’

Lennox saw Duff staring at him.

‘Lars Jones,’ Lennox said. ‘Anything wrong?’

‘You’ve got pupils like a junkie.’

Lennox moistened his tongue and laughed. ‘That’s how it is when you’re born half-albino. Eyes sensitive to light. That’s one reason my family prefers indoor jobs.’

Duff shivered in his coat. Looked over at Inverness Casino again. ‘So, three days. What shall we do in the meantime?’

Lennox shrugged. ‘Keep our heads down. Don’t rock the boat. And... I can’t think of a third way to say that.’

‘I’m already dreading my next meeting with Macbeth.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I’m no actor.’

‘You’ve never fooled anyone?’

‘Yes, but people always see through me.’

Lennox glanced at Duff. ‘Oh? At home?’

Duff shrugged. ‘Even my lad, who’ll be nine in a couple of days, knows when his dad’s telling fibs. And Macbeth knows me better than anyone.’

‘Strange,’ Lennox said, ‘that two people who are so different have been such close friends.’

‘We’ll have to talk later,’ Duff said, looking to the west. ‘If I set off now I’ll be in Fife by sunset.’

Lennox stood looking in the same direction as Duff. And thought it was good that nature had arranged things in such a way that rain showers always hid the view from those who were behind so that you could always be optimistic about a quick improvement in the weather.

‘I have a feeling we’re over the worst,’ Macbeth said, stretching for the lighter on the bedside table and lighting his cigarette. ‘Everything will get better now, my sweet. We’re back where we should be. This town is ours.’

Lady rested a hand on her chest, felt her still-racing heart under the silk sheet. And talked between breaths: ‘If your newly acquired enthusiasm is an indicator of your strength, darling—’

‘Mm?’

‘—then we’re unbeatable. Are you aware how much they love you out there? People in the casino talk about you, say you’re the town’s saviour. And do you read the papers? Today The Times suggested in its leader that you should stand in the mayoral elections.’

‘Was that your friend, the editor?’ Macbeth grinned. ‘Because you asked him?’

‘No, no. The leader wasn’t about you. It was a comment piece on Tourtell not having a real rival and being re-elected despite being unpopular.’

‘You don’t become popular by being Kenneth’s lackey.’

‘So your name was mentioned as someone who theoretically could challenge Tourtell. What do you say to that?’

‘To standing as mayor? Me?’ Macbeth laughed and scratched his forearm. ‘Thank you, but no thank you. I’ve got a big enough office and now we have more than enough power to do what we want.’ His nail rasped over the little hole in his skin. Power. He had injected himself with a syringe, and the sales pitch hadn’t exaggerated.

‘You’re right, darling,’ she said. ‘But muse on it a little anyway. When the idea matures it will perhaps feel different — who knows? By the way, Jack received a parcel for you this morning. A biker brought it. Heavy and very well packed.’

Macbeth waited for the feeling of ice in his veins, but it didn’t come. Must have been the effect of the new dope. ‘Where did you put it?’

‘On the hat shelf in your wardrobe,’ she said, pointing.

‘Thank you.’

He slowly smoked his cigarette listening to her fall asleep beside him. Stared at the solid brown oak door of the wardrobe. Then he laid his head on the pillow and blew rings up into the beams of moonlight from the window, saw them twist and wreathe like an Arab belly dancer. He wasn’t afraid. He had SWAT protecting him, he had Hecate protecting him, the gods of destiny were smiling on him. He lifted his head and stared at the wardrobe again. Not a sound came from it. The ghosts had made themselves scarce. And it was perfectly still outside, no drumming on the window. For sunshine did follow the rain. Love did purge you of the blood of battle. Forgiveness did come after sin.

19

‘Good morning, everyone,’ Macbeth said, meeting the eyes of everyone around the table. ‘Except that it isn’t a good morning, but the second one Banquo has been dead and the thirty-sixth hour his murderer has been wandering around free and unpunished. Let’s start with a minute’s silence for Banquo.’

Duff closed his eyes.

It was unusual to see Macbeth enter a room with such a serious expression; he used to greet every day and every person with a smile, come rain or come shine, whether he knew them or not. Like the first time they met at the orphanage. He must have looked at Duff, at his clothes and hair, how different the two of them were, but he had smiled as if they shared something that went deeper than such external matters, something that bound them together, that made them secret brothers. Perhaps he made everyone feel like that with this unconditional, white smile. It had conveyed a naive belief that the people around him wished one another the best and made Duff feel like a cold cynic even then. And what wouldn’t Duff have given for a smile that could rub off on those around him.

‘Duff?’ Someone had whispered his name. He turned and looked into Caithness’s clear green eyes. She nodded to the end of the meeting table, where Macbeth was looking at him.

‘I asked if we could have an update on where we are in the investigation, Duff.’

Duff sat up on his chair, coughed, blushed and knew it. Then he began. He talked about the witnesses who had seen members of the Norse Riders and — judging by the logos on their leather jackets — another bikers’ club shoot at the Volvo outside the jewellers’ shop, Jacobs & Sons. About the jacket and Fleance’s wallet, which were found by the bank below Kenneth Bridge, but no body as yet. Caithness had given a comprehensive account of the forensic evidence, which only confirmed what they already knew — that Sweno’s gang had murdered Banquo and possibly Fleance.

‘There’s some evidence to suggest Sweno was personally present at the execution,’ Duff said. ‘The end of a cigarillo on the tarmac beside the car.’

‘Lots of people smoke cigarillos, Lennox remarked.

‘Not Davidoff Long Panatellas,’ Duff answered.

‘You know what Sweno smokes?’ Lennox said with an arched eyebrow.

Duff didn’t respond.

‘We cannot allow this,’ Macbeth said. ‘The town cannot allow us to allow it. Killing a police officer is an attack on the town itself. For the heads of units sitting in this room to have the town’s confidence tomorrow, something has to happen today. For that reason we cannot afford to hesitate, we have to strike with all the strength we have, even at the risk of losing police lives. This is a war and so we have to use the rhetoric of war. And, as you know, it doesn’t consist of words but bullets. Accordingly I have appointed a new head of SWAT and given them extended powers regarding the use of weapons and also in their instructions for fighting organised crime.’

‘Excuse me,’ Lennox said. ‘And what are the instructions?’

‘You’ll see soon. They’re being worked on as we speak.’

‘And who’s writing them?’ Caithness asked.

‘Police Officer Seyton,’ Macbeth said, ‘SWAT’s new head.’

‘He’s writing his own instructions?’ Caithness asked. ‘Without us—’

‘It’s time to act,’ Macbeth interrupted. ‘Not to polish formulations of instructions. You’ll soon see the result, and I’m sure you’ll be as happy as me. And the rest of the town.’

‘But—’

‘Naturally, you’ll be able to comment on the instructions when they’re available. This meeting is terminated. Let’s get down to work, folks!’ And there it was. The smile. ‘Duff, can I have a few words with you?’

Chairs scraped back tentatively.

‘You can go too, Priscilla,’ Macbeth said. ‘And please close the door after you. Thank you.’

The room emptied. Duff braced himself.

‘Come here. Sit closer,’ Macbeth said.

Duff stood up and moved to the chair beside him. Tried to be relaxed, breathed calmly and avoided involuntarily tensing his face muscles. Conscious that he was sitting within spitting distance of the man who killed Duncan.

‘I’ve been thinking of asking you about something,’ Macbeth said. ‘And I want you to be absolutely honest.’

Duff could feel his throat constrict and his heart race.

‘I wanted to offer someone else the post of head of Organised Crime. I know your first reaction is disappointment—’

Duff nodded, his mouth was so dry he wasn’t sure his voice would obey.

‘—but only because I want you to be my deputy. How do you feel about that?’

Duff cleared his throat. ‘Thank you,’ he said hoarsely.

‘Aren’t you well, Duff?’ Macbeth wore an expression of concern and placed a hand on Duff’s shoulder. ‘Or just a wee bit disappointed? I know how much you wanted Organised Crime, and I can understand you’d prefer an operational post to helping an awkward bugger like me find his words and feet.’ He smiled the white smile as Duff did his best to answer.

‘You’re my friend, Duff, and I want you close by. How does that proverb go?’

Duff coughed. ‘Which proverb?’

‘Proverbs are your domain, Duff, but never mind. If you insist on Organised Crime I’ll give it some thought. I haven’t said anything to Lennox yet. You look really dreadful. Shall I get you a glass of water?’

‘No, thanks, I’m fine. I’m just a bit exhausted. I barely slept before the raid and I haven’t had a wink of sleep since Duncan’s murder.’

‘Only a bit exhausted?’

Duff pondered. Shook his head. ‘No, I’d actually been wondering whether I could have the next two days off. I know we’re in the middle of an investigation, but Caithness can...’

‘Of course, of course, Duff. No point riding a horse to death just because the rider’s in a hurry. Go back home to Fife. Say hello to Meredith from me and tell her you have to stay in bed for two days at least. And those are, believe it or not, the chief commissioner’s orders.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I warn you I’ll come and check you’re resting in Fife.’

‘Fine.’

‘And then you come back with an answer regarding the deputy position in three days.’

‘Deal.’

Duff went straight to a toilet and threw up in the bowl.

His shirt was drenched with sweat and it was only an hour later, as he was finally driving over the old bridge, that his pulse dropped back to normal.

Lady walked through the restaurant and gaming room. She counted nine customers. Tried to tell herself that straight after lunch was the quietest time. She went to see Jack in reception.

‘Any new clients today?’

‘Not yet, ma’am.’

‘Not yet? Will there be any later today?’

He smiled apologetically. ‘Not that I know of.’

‘Did you pop into the Obelisk, as I asked?’

‘Of course, ma’am.’

‘And there it was...?’

‘Quiet, I would say.’

‘You’re lying, Jack.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Lady had to laugh. ‘Jack, you’re always a comfort to me. Is it the murders here, do you think?’

‘Maybe. But someone also rang asking specifically for the room Duncan died in. At a pinch, the bodyguards’ room.’

‘People are sick in the head. And talking about sick, I’d like you to do a bit of probing around this boy Tourtell had with him. Find out how old he is.’

‘So you think...?’

‘Let’s hope for the boy’s sake he’s over sixteen. And for ours he’s under.’

‘Any special reason for this information, ma’am?’

‘Storing up ammo just in case, Jack. The mayor appoints the chief commissioner, and even if the mayor usually follows the pecking order, in a case like this we can never be too sure, can we?’

‘That’s all?’

‘Well, we’d like to see Tourtell put more pressure on the Gambling and the Casino Board to scrutinise the Obelisk’s business practices, of course. I’ve been patient and tried the kind approach, but if it doesn’t produce any results soon, we’ll have to take more drastic action.’

‘I’ll see what I can find out.’

‘Jack?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘Have I been sleepwalking recently?’

‘Not on my shifts, ma’am.’

‘Are you lying again?’

‘You might have popped down to reception last night, but I wasn’t sure whether you were asleep or not.’

She laughed. ‘Jack, Jack, if only everyone was as good as you. I had a suspicion. The key was in the lock on the outside of the door when I woke up.’

‘Anything in particular on your mind? You only sleepwalk when something’s bothering you.’

‘Is there anything else but bother?’ Lady sighed.

‘And dreams? Do you have the same dream again and again?’

‘I’ve told you, Jack. It isn’t a dream, it’s a memory.’

‘Sorry, but you can’t know that, ma’am. You can’t know it happened exactly like that if you see it every night. Then the dream becomes a memory. For all you know, the child died a natural death.’

‘The eternal comforter. But I don’t need comfort. I don’t need to forget. Quite the opposite, I need to remember. Remember what I’ve given up to be where I am, to put a price on my childless life every single morning when I wake up between silk sheets beside a man I’ve chosen to spend the night with, and can go downstairs to my place, to a life I’ve created for myself. Where I’m respected for what I am, Jack.’

‘None of us is respected for what we are, ma’am. We’re respected for what we can do. Especially if there’s something we can do to the person we want respect from—’

‘You’re too clever to be a receptionist, Jack.’

‘—and unfortunately that’s why a receptionist’s wisdom doesn’t gain much respect. He’s a harmless observer, a eunuch and occasionally a comfort to those who are respected.’

‘I’m glad you never had children, Jack. You’re the only person I can talk to about neglecting your own baby without it arousing the shocked revulsion it would from parents. You’re a clever, tolerant man who prefers understanding to condemnation.’

‘What is there to condemn? A young girl growing up in impoverished circumstances, who’s raped when she’s thirteen, becomes pregnant and — abandoned and without a roof over her head — gives birth to a child she cannot keep alive?’

‘What if I didn’t try hard enough?’

‘What if you had died in the process, you mean? You were thirteen. Not an adult, but with a sharp mind. Should your future be sacrificed for a newborn baby, a seed which still isn’t aware it’s alive, which still doesn’t feel longing, guilt, shame, true love, indeed is not really human, just a millstone around the neck of a young girl whom life has punished enough as it is? That this thirteen-year-old was unable to keep both of you alive, but survived herself, has to be called good luck within the bad luck. Because look what she achieved afterwards. She set up a little brothel. Set up a bigger, more luxurious one, which catered to the needs of everyone from the police commissioner to the town’s most important politicians. Sold it and established the town’s best the casino. And now — hey presto — she’s the queen of the town.’

Lady shook her head. ‘That’s taking it too far, Jack. Embellishing my motives and granting me an amnesty for my misdeeds. What is a casino, what are the dreams of idiots against a real child’s life? If I’d demanded less of my life I might have been able to save hers.’

‘Did you demand so much in reality?’

‘I demanded acceptance from others. No, more — respect. Yes, and love. Those are gifts that are not granted to everyone, but I demanded to be one of the few. And the price is having to lose my child again and again, night after night.’

Jack nodded. ‘And if you could choose again, ma’am?’

Lady looked at him. ‘Perhaps we’re all, good or bad, only slaves of our desires, Jack. Do you believe that?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am, but with respect to slaves of desires I’ll check out this boy of Tourtell’s tomorrow.’

Macbeth exited the lift in the basement and stood for a couple of seconds inhaling the smell of leather, gun oil and male sweat. Looked at SWAT’s motto under a fire-breathing red dragon: LOYALTY, FRATERNITY, BAPTISED IN FIRE, UNITED IN BLOOD. My God, it felt like a minor eternity since then.

He walked through the door to the SWAT common room.

‘Olafson! Angus! Hey, what is this? Sit down, don’t jump up like a couple of recruits. Where’s Seyton?’

‘In there,’ Angus said in his unctuous priest-like tone. ‘Sad to hear about Banquo. The lads are collecting money for a wreath, but you probably aren’t—’

‘One of the boys any more? Of course I am.’ Macbeth pulled out his wallet. ‘Thought you were on sick leave, Olafson. Where’s the sling?’

‘Slung it.’ Olafson’s lisp made him sound Spanish. ‘The doctor thought I’d destroyed all the tendons in my shoulder and would never be able to shoot again. But then Seyton looked at it and suddenly it was fine again.’

‘There you go. Don’t trust doctors.’ Macbeth passed Olafson a wad of notes.

‘That’s too much, sir.’

‘Take it.’

‘It’s enough for a coffin.’

‘Take it!’

Macbeth went into his old office. Which wasn’t actually an office but a workshop with gun parts and ammunition on shelves and benches, where the typewriter had been moved unused to a chair.

‘Well?’ Macbeth said.

‘The boys are briefed,’ Seyton said, sitting with a thick instruction manual in front of him. ‘And ready.’

‘And our two Gatling girls?’ Macbeth nodded to the manual.

‘The machine guns are coming at about eight, early tomorrow morning. You spoke to the harbour master, I take it, so that the boat could jump the queue?’

‘We couldn’t have the girls coming late to the party. And there’ll be a little job for you lads later tomorrow.’

‘Fine. Where?’

‘In Fife.’

20

Thursday morning. Fife was bathed in sunshine.

Duff was swimming.

Full, muscular breaststroke, ploughing a path through the cold heavy water.

He had long preferred the saltwater of the river, it felt lighter to swim in. Which actually was strange because he had learned that saltwater gave you more buoyancy, which had to mean it had greater density, which in turn had to mean it was heavier than freshwater. Nevertheless, until recently he had preferred the river, which as well as being freezing cold was so polluted that he felt dirty every time he emerged from it. But now he was clean. He had got up early, done his exercises on the cold wooden floor beside the guest bed, made breakfast for the family, sung a little birthday song for Ewan, driven the children to school and afterwards walked with Meredith the half a mile or so down to the lake. She had talked about how many apples there were on the trees this autumn, their daughter getting her first love letter — though Meredith was privately very disappointed it was from a boy who was three years younger than her — and Emily wanting a guitar for her twelfth birthday. Ewan had been in a fight in the school playground and had brought home a note for his parents. He had agreed with Mum that he would have to tell Dad himself, but it could wait until after his birthday party today — there would be plenty of time then. Duff asked if postponing the evil moment wouldn’t mean Ewan would be dreading it for an unnecessarily long time.

‘I don’t know what he does most.’ Meredith smiled. ‘Look forward to something or dread it. The boy he had a fight with yesterday is in the class above him, and Ewan said the boy kicked little Peter first.’

‘Who?’

‘Ewan’s best friend.’

‘Oh, him,’ Duff lied.

‘Ewan said he was sorry but he had to defend his pal; Dad would have done the same. So he’s keen to hear what you have to say.’

‘I’ll have to be balanced then. Condemn his behaviour but praise his courage. Say something about taking the initiative to make up instead of waging war. Reconciliation, right?’

‘I’d appreciate that.’

And as he and Meredith glided out through the water Duff decided there and then that he would never swim anywhere except in their little lake in Fife.

‘Here it is,’ Meredith panted behind him.

Duff turned onto his back so that he could watch her while he floated, moving his hands and kicking his feet. His body was pale with a greenish tint under the water whereas hers, even in this light, was golden brown. He spent too much time in town; he had to get more sun.

She swam past him and crawled ashore onto a large water-smoothed rock.

Not any rock. Their rock. The rock where their daughter was conceived one summer’s day eleven years ago. They had come to Fife to escape the town and had found this lake almost by chance. They had stopped because they saw an abandoned little farm Meredith thought looked so sweet. And from there they saw the water glitter, walked for ten to fifteen minutes and found the lake. Although the only other creatures by the lake were a couple of cows, they had swum to this hidden rock across the water where it was unlikely anyone would see them. A month later Meredith had told him she was pregnant, and in total euphoria they went back, bought the house midway between the lake and the main road and after their second child, Ewan, was born, the plot by the lake where the cabin now stood.

Duff clambered up next to her on the rock. From where they sat they could see over to the red cabin.

He lay on his back on the sun-warmed rock. Closed his eyes and felt waves of pleasure run through his body. Sometimes it was worth getting cold to enjoy warming up afterwards, he thought.

‘Are you home again now, Duff?’

When you lose something and find it again, the pleasure is greater than before you lost it.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Her shadow fell over him.

And when they kissed he wondered why he now — and not before — thought a woman’s lips wetted by freshwater tasted better than wetted by saltwater, but concluded that it must be the body at some point telling you that freshwater can be drunk but not saltwater.

Afterwards when they lay entwined and sweaty from the sun and making love, he said he had to go to town.

‘Right. It’s broth at the usual time.’

‘I’ll be back in good time before. I just have to pick up Ewan’s present. It’s in the desk drawer in my office.’

‘He wanted the undercover cop outfit, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, and there’s one other thing I have to sort out ASAP.’

She stroked a finger down his forehead and nose. ‘Something come up?’

‘Yes and no. I should have sorted it out ages ago.’

‘In which case—’ her finger, which knew him so well, caressed his lips ‘—you do whatever you think you have to do. I’ll wait for you here.’

Duff sat up on his elbows and looked down at her. ‘Meredith.’

‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’

‘I know, Duff. You just forgot for a while.’

Duff smiled. Kissed her freshwater lips again and stood up. Went to dive in, then stopped. ‘Meredith?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did Ewan say who won the fight?’

‘Did the chief commissioner say why they have to be driven to their club house?’ the driver asked.

The prison warder looked down at the bunch of keys to find the right one for the next cell. ‘Not enough evidence to keep them in custody.’

‘Not enough evidence? Bloody hell, the whole town knows it was the Norse Riders who picked up the dope at the harbour. And they know it was the Norse Riders who killed that policeman and his son. But I didn’t ask why they were being set free — I’m used to that malarkey — I was wondering why we don’t just let them go. When I drive prisoners it’s usually from one prison to another, not as a bloody taxi service so they don’t have to walk home.’

‘Don’t ask me,’ the warder said, unlocking the cell. ‘Hey, Sean! Off your bed and home to your missus and daughter!’

‘All hail Macbeth!’ came a cry from inside the cell.

The warder shook his head and turned to the driver. ‘You’d better bring the bus to the exit and we’ll assemble there. We’ll send two armed officers with you.’

‘Why? Aren’t these boys free?’

‘The chief commissioner wants to be sure they’re delivered where they’re going with no trouble.’

‘Can I put leg shackles on them too?’

‘Not according to the book, but do as you like. Hey! Do up your shoes. We haven’t got all day.’

‘Do you mean it? Are the good times back, like under Kenneth?’

‘Heh, heh. It’s a bit early to say, but Macbeth’s shaping up well, they say.’

‘His problem is the unsolved police murders. If you don’t fix things smartish you’re soon out on your arse.’

‘Maybe. Kite said on the radio today that Macbeth’s a catastrophe.’ He repeated ‘catastrophe’ exaggerating the rolled ‘r’, and the driver laughed. And gave a shudder when he saw the tattoo on the forehead of the prisoner who came out.

‘Livestock transport,’ he mumbled as the warder pushed the prisoner in the direction they were going.

Duff popped into his office, stuffed the parcel for Ewan in his jacket and hurried out. At Forensics on the second floor he was told that Caithness was in the darkroom in the garage. He took the lift down and let himself in. At some point when Caithness was sharing a flat with a girlfriend Duff had persuaded the caretaker that as head of Narco it would be useful if he had a key to the garage where Forensics had a firing range for ballistic analysis, a chemistry room, a darkroom to develop crime scene photographs, plus an open area inside the garage door facing the street where they could keep larger objects, such as cars, that had to be examined for evidence. After work hardly anyone did overtime in the cold damp basement; they went up to the offices on the second floor. For a year Duff and Caithness had had a regular rendezvous after work in the basement, as well as their weekly lunchtime meeting in Room 323 under the name of Mittbaum at the Grand Hotel. After Caithness had acquired her attic flat, strangely enough, Duff had missed these rushed trysts.

And opening the door and feeling the raw air hit him, he thought they must have been very much in love. In the middle of the garage stood Banquo’s bullet-ridden Volvo. It was covered with a tarpaulin, presumably because the door on the passenger side had been torn off and they wanted to protect possible evidence in the car from the rats that roamed the basement at night. Duff stopped outside the darkroom and took a deep breath. The decision was made. Now it was just the deed that needed doing. The deed. He pressed down the door handle and went into the darkness. Closed the door after him. Stood inhaling the ammonia smell from the fixer liquid, waiting for his pupils to expand.

‘Duff?’ he heard from the darkness. The same friendly, slightly tentative voice that had woken him in the meeting room yesterday morning. The same friendly, slightly tentative voice that had woken him on so many mornings in her attic flat. The friendly, tentative voice he wouldn’t hear any more, not in the same way, not there.

‘Caithness, we can’t—’

‘Roy,’ she said, ‘can you leave us alone for a while?’

Duff’s eyes got used to the darkness in time for him to see the forensic photographer leave.

‘Have you seen these?’ asked Caithness, pointing a red light at the three recent dripping exposures hanging on a line.

One showed Banquo’s car. The second, Banquo’s headless body on the tarmac outside the car. The third was a close-up of the skin of Banquo’s neck where it had been severed. She pointed to the last one. ‘We think it was cut by a large blade, like the sabre you said Sweno has.’

‘I see,’ Duff said, staring at the picture.

‘We found traces of other blood on the spine. Isn’t that interesting?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Sweno, or whoever it is, clearly hasn’t been very particular about washing his sabre, so as the sabre cut through the spine here—’ she pointed ‘—it scraped old dried blood off the blade. If we can determine which blood group it is, it might help us in other murder cases.’

Duff’s stomach was on the point of turning, and he clutched the bench.

‘Still feeling ill?’ Caithness asked.

Duff took some deep breaths. ‘Yes. No. I just had to get away. We have to talk.’

‘What about?’ He could hear in her voice she already knew. She had probably already known when he burst in; talking about the photos had been a kind of panic reaction.

‘About meeting,’ he said. ‘It won’t work any longer.’

He tried to see her face, but it was too dark.

‘Is that all we’ve done?’ she said. Her voice was tearful. ‘Meet?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you’re right of course — it was more than meeting. And all the more reason for it to stop.’

‘You want to stop, dump me, here, at work?’

‘Caithness—’

Her bitter laugh interrupted him. ‘Well, that’s very fitting. A relationship that has taken place in a dark room is concluded in a darkroom.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s out of consideration for—’

‘You. You, Duff. Not the children, not the family, but you. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met, so don’t try to tell me it’s out of consideration for anyone else but you.’

‘As you like. It’s out of consideration for me.’

‘And out of which consideration are you dumping me, Duff? Is there an even younger, even more naive girl out there, who you know won’t nag you to commit, to sacrifice something? Not yet anyway.’

‘Does it help if I say I’m only thinking about the personal, selfish well-being I hope to feel when I imagine I’m doing the right thing for those I have obligations towards? If I’m breaking up with you because I’m scared stiff not to be included among the saved souls on the Day of Judgement?’

‘Do you think you will be?’

‘No. But the decision has been taken, Caithness, so just tell me how you want me to pull the tooth, slowly or all in one go?’

‘Why should the torment stop now? Come to my flat at four.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘To hear me cry, curse and beg. I can’t do that here.’

‘I’ve promised to eat with the family at five.’

‘If you don’t come, first of all I’ll throw all your possessions out on the street, then I’ll ring and tell your wife about your escapades—’

‘She knows already, Caithness.’

‘—and your parents-in-law. Tell them how you deceived their daughter and grandchildren.’

Duff gulped. ‘Caithness—’

‘Four o’clock. If you’re nice and listen you’ll get to your bloody meal.’

‘OK, OK, I’ll come. But don’t think this will change anything.’

The crime photographer was leaning against the garage door and smoking when Duff came out.

‘Nasty?’ he asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘Cutting off his head like that.’

‘Murder’s always nasty,’ Duff said, making for the exit.

Lady was in the bedroom, standing in front of the door to Macbeth’s wardrobe. Listening to the sound of wet rats scurrying across the wooden floor. She told herself the sounds were only in her imagination; the floor was thickly carpeted. Sounds in her imagination. Soon it would be voices. The voices her mother had talked about that wouldn’t leave her in peace, the same voices her mother’s mother had heard — their forefathers speaking, commanding them to sleepwalk at night, to hurtle towards death. She had been so afraid when she saw Macbeth hallucinating at the table during the dinner. Had she infected her only true love with this illness?

The scurrying rat feet had been in her imagination a long time now and they didn’t want to disappear.

All she could do was scurry herself. Away from the sounds, away from her imagination.

She opened the wardrobe door.

Pulled out the drawer under the shelf. There was a little bag of powder inside. Macbeth’s escape. Did it work? Would she escape if she went to the same place he went? She didn’t think so. She closed the drawer again.

Looked up at the hat shelf. At the parcel Jack had been given. It was wrapped in paper, tied with twine and with transparent plastic on top. It was only a parcel. And yet it was as though it was staring down at her.

She opened the drawer again and took out the bag. Sprinkled a tiny bit of powder on the table in front of the mirror, rolled up a banknote and — unsure of how you actually did it — put one end in one nostril and held the other above the powder and breathed in, half with her nose, half with her mouth. As that didn’t work, and after a couple more attempts, she arranged the powder in a line, inserted the note in her nostril and inhaled hard while running the note along the line, vacuuming it up. She sat for a while studying herself in the mirror. The sound of scurrying rats disappeared. Then she went to the bed and lay down.

‘Here they come!’ the sarge shouted. He stood in the Norse Riders gateway watching the yellow prison bus come up the road. It was half past three, bang on time. He glanced over at those who had gathered outside the club house in the drizzle. Everyone in the club was duty-bound to welcome back the injured they’d had to leave to the police that night. The women had also turned up — the girls who had a boyfriend among the released prisoners and those who did the rounds. The sergeant smiled at the laughing baby in Betty’s arms; Betty was looking for her Sean. Even their cousins from the south had decided to join them again for this party, which already promised to be legendary. Sweno had given orders that there should be enough booze and dope to entertain the average village because they were celebrating more than just the release of their comrades. The Norse Riders had avenged the losses they had suffered with the dispatching of Banquo and — even more importantly — gained a new and gold-plated alliance. As Sweno had said, by making a personal appearance at the club house and ordering a hit job, Macbeth had sold his soul to the devil, and there was no right of cancellation on that. Now he was in their pocket just as much as they were in his.

The sarge went into the street and signalled to the bus to pull up outside the gate. No one except one-hundred-per-cent-ID’d members were allowed inside, that was the new club rule.

And then they trooped off the bus as the stereo in the club house was turned up. ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’. Some walked and some danced to the gate, where they were received with clapping and raised fists by comrades and hugs and wet kisses by the women.

‘This is fun,’ shouted the sergeant, ‘but the booze is inside.’

Calls and laughter. They moved inside. But the sarge stood at the doorway, scanning their surroundings one more time. The bus on its way down the road again. Chang, who had been joined by two men, guarding the gate. The empty factory buildings around, which they had checked to make sure no one was watching the club. The sky to the west, where it actually seemed that a little blue was on the way. Now perhaps he could relax a little. Perhaps Sweno was right: perhaps better times really were coming their way.

The sergeant went in, refused spirits and put a mug of beer to his mouth. Party or not, these were critical times. He looked around. Sean and Betty were smooching in the corner with the baby squeezed between them, and the sarge thought it would be a bizarre way to end a young life. But there were plenty of things a lot bloody worse than being suffocated by undiluted love.

‘Norse Riders!’ he shouted. The music was turned down, and conversations died away.

‘This is a day of happiness. And a day of sadness. We haven’t forgotten the fallen. But there’s a time to cry and a time to laugh, and today we’re partying. Cheers!’

Cheering and raised glasses. The sergeant took a huge swig and wiped the foam from his beard.

‘And this is a new start,’ he continued.

‘To the speech?’ shouted Sean, and everyone laughed.

‘We lost a few men; they lost a few men,’ the sergeant said. ‘The drugs from Russia are water under the bridge.’ No laughter. ‘But as a man whose name you all know said to me today, “With this head-case as the chief commissioner better times are coming our way.” ’

More cheering. The sarge felt as if he could talk for quite some time yet, say a few things about the club, about comradeship and sacrifice. But he had taken up enough time and space. No one but the sergeant knew that Sweno was waiting in the wings somewhere right now. It was time for the evening’s grand entrance.

‘And with these words,’ he said, ‘let me pass you over—’

In the dramatic pause that followed he heard something. The deep growl of a lorry with a powerful engine and in too low a gear. Well, there were lots of poor drivers out there.

‘—to—’

He heard a roar. And knew the gate had flown off its hinges. And that the evening’s grand entrance had a rival.

Duff stood outside the grey five-storey block of flats. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to four. He could still make it to the birthday party by quite a margin. He rang the bell.

‘Come up,’ said Caithness’s voice from the intercom.

After their conversation in the darkroom he had gone to the Bricklayers Arms, sat in one of the booths and had a beer. He could of course have spent the time working in his office, but Macbeth’s orders had been to stay at home in Fife. And then he had another. Giving himself time to think.

Now he walked up the stairs, not with the plodding, heavy steps of someone going to the scaffold, but with the quick, light steps of someone wanting to get a scene over with and survive. And who had another life he wanted to get back to.

The flat door was open.

‘Come in,’ he heard Caithness shout from somewhere. He gave a sigh of relief when he saw she had collected all his possessions on the table in the hall. A toilet bag. A shaver. A couple of shirts and underwear. The tennis racket she had bought him as they both played, though it had never been used. A necklace and pearl earrings. Duff’s fingers caressed the jewellery he had bought her. It had been worn often.

‘In here,’ she shouted. From the bedroom.

The stereo was on. Elvis. ‘Love Me Tender’.

Duff walked towards the open bedroom door, hesitating, not so light-footed now. He could smell her perfume from where he was.

‘Duff,’ she said with a sniffle when he appeared in the doorway. ‘I’m giving you back what you gave me, but I expect a farewell present.’

She lay on the bed in a black corset and nylons. Also bought by him. At the bed head there was a champagne cooler containing an open bottle, which she was obviously well into. He absorbed the sight of her. She was the most beautiful, most gorgeous woman he had ever been with. Every single time he saw her he was struck by her beauty, as though it were the first time. And he could feel every caress they had exchanged, every wild ride they’d had. And now he was renouncing this. Now and for ever.

‘Caithness,’ Duff said, feeling his throat thicken. ‘My dear, dear, beautiful Caithness.’

‘Come here.’

‘I can’t...’

‘Of course you can. You’ve been able to for so long, so many times, this is just the last. You owe me that.’

‘You won’t enjoy it. Neither of us will.’

‘I don’t want to enjoy it, Duff. I want closure. I want you to crawl, for once. I want you to swallow your virtue and do as I want. And now this is what I want. Just this. And afterwards you can go to hell and home to the meal with the wife you no longer love. Come on now. I can see from here you’re ready for—’

‘No, Caithness. I can’t. You said you’d be satisfied with what you could have of my heart. But I can’t just give you a bit of that, Caithness. Then I would be cheating twice, both you and the mother of my children. And what you said about me not loving her any more isn’t true.’ He inhaled. ‘Because I’d forgotten. But then I remembered. That I love her and I always have. And I’ve been unfaithful to you with my own wife.’

He saw the words hit home. Saw the thin, false veneer of seduction melt into deep shock. Then tears sprang from her eyes, and she curled up, pulled up the sheet and covered herself.

‘Goodbye, Caithness. Hate me as I should be hated. I’m leaving now.’

At the front door Duff took the clothes and toiletries under his arm. The racket could stay. You don’t play tennis on a smallholding. He stood looking at the earrings and necklace. Heard Caithness’s pained sobs from the bedroom. It was expensive jewellery — it had cost him more than strictly speaking he could afford — but now, in his hand, it had no value. There was no one he could give it to anyway, except a pawnbroker. But could he bear the thought of this jewellery being worn by a stranger?

He hesitated. Looked at his watch. Then he put down the other things, took the jewellery and went back to the bedroom.

She stopped crying when she saw him. Her face was wet with tears, black with make-up. Her body shook with a last sob. One stocking had slipped down, also a shoulder strap.

‘Duff...’ she whispered.

‘Caithness,’ he said with a gulp. Sugar in his stomach, blood rushing in his head. The jewellery fell on the floor.

The sergeant grabbed the rifle from behind the bar and ran to the window; the rest of the club members were already on their way to the arms cupboard. Outside there was a lorry standing side on to the club house. The engine was running and the club gate was still hanging off its front bumper. As was Chang. The sergeant put the rifle to his shoulder as the tarpaulin over the back of the lorry dropped. And there were SWAT in their ugly black uniforms, their guns raised. But there was something even uglier on board, something which made the blood in the sergeant’s veins turn to ice. Three monsters. Two of them made of steel and on stands, with ammunition feeds, rotating barrels and cooling chambers. The third stood between them, a bald, lean, sinewy man the sergeant had never seen before but knew he had always known, had always been close to. And now this man raised his hand and shouted, ‘Loyalty, fraternity!’

The others responded: ‘Baptised in fire, united in blood!’

Then a single command: ‘Fire.’ Of course. Fire.

The sergeant got him in his sights and pulled the trigger. One shot. The last.

The raindrop fell from the sky, through the mist, towards the filthy port below. Heading for an attic window beneath which a couple were making love. The man was silent as his hips went up and down, slowly but with force. The woman beneath him clawed the sheet as, sobbing and impatient, she received him. The gramophone record had stopped playing its sweet melody some time ago, and the stylus kept bumping monotonously, like the man, against the record label with the command Love Me Tender. But the lovers didn’t appear to notice, didn’t appear to notice anything apart from the repetitive motion they were caught up in, didn’t even notice each other as they banged away, banging out demons, banging out reality, the world around them, this town, this day, for these few minutes, this brief hour. But the raindrop never reached the window pane above them. A cold gust from the north-west drew the drop east of the river that split the town lengthways and south of the disused railway line dividing the town diagonally. It fell on the factory district, past Estex’s extinguished chimneys and further east towards the fenced-in low timber building between the closed factories. There the drop ended its passage through the air and hit the shiny skull of a lean man, ran down his forehead, stopped for an instant in his short eyelashes, then fell like a tear down one cheek that had never known real tears.

Seyton didn’t notice he had been hit. Not by a random raindrop, nor by the sergeant’s bullet. He stood there, legs planted wide, his hand raised, feeling only the vibrations through the lorry as the Gatling guns opened up, feeling them spread from the soles of his shoes up to his hips, feeling the sound pound evenly on his eardrums, a sound that rose from a chattering mumble to a roar and then to a concerted howl as the barrels spat out bullets faster and faster. And as time passed, as the club house in front of them was shot to pieces, he felt the heat from the two machines. Two machines from hell with one function, to swallow the metal they were fed and spit it out again like bulimic robots, but faster than anything else in the world. So far the machine-gunners hadn’t seen much damage, but gradually it became apparent as windows and doors fell off and parts of the walls simply dissolved. A woman appeared on the floor inside the door. Sections of her head were missing, while her body was shaking as if from electric shocks. Seyton sensed he had an erection. Must be the vibrations of the lorry.

One machine gun stopped firing.

Seyton turned to the gunner.

‘Anything wrong, Angus?’

‘The job’s done now,’ Angus shouted back, pulling his blond fringe to the side.

‘No one stops until I say so.’

‘But—’

‘Is that understood?’ Seyton yelled.

Angus swallowed. ‘For Banquo?’

‘That’s what I said! For Banquo! Now!’

Angus’s machine gun opened up again. But Seyton could see that Angus was right. The job was done. There wasn’t a square decimetre in front of them that wasn’t perforated. There was nothing that wasn’t destroyed. Nothing that wasn’t dead.

He still waited. Closed his eyes and just listened. But it was time to let the girls have a rest.

‘Stop!’ he shouted.

The machine guns fell silent.

A cloud of dust rose from the obliterated club house. Seyton closed his eyes again and breathed in the air. A cloud of souls.

‘What’s up?’ lisped Olafson from the end of the lorry.

‘We’re saving ammo,’ Seyton said. ‘We’ve got a job this afternoon.’

‘You’re bleeding, sir! Your arm.’

Seyton looked down at his jacket, which was stuck to his elbow where blood was pouring from a hole. He placed a hand on the wound. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Handguns at the ready, everyone. We’ll go in and do a body count. If you find Sweno, tell me.’

‘And if we find any survivors?’ Angus asked.

Someone laughed.

Seyton wiped a raindrop from his cheek. ‘I repeat. Macbeth’s order was that none of Banquo’s murderers should survive. Is that a good enough answer for you, Angus?’

21

Meredith was hanging sheets on the line over the veranda by the front door. She loved this house, the rural, unpretentious, traditional, sober but practical essence of it. When people heard that she and Duff lived on a farm in Fife they automatically assumed it was a luxurious estate and probably thought she was being coy when she described how simply they lived. What would a woman with her surname be doing on a disused smallholding, they must have thought.

She had washed all the bedlinen in the house so that Duff wouldn’t think she had only done the sheets of the marital bed. Where they would sleep tonight. Forget the bad stuff, repress what had been. Reawaken what they’d had. It had been dormant, that was all. She felt her stomach grow warm at the thought. The intimacy they had shared on the rock this morning had been so wonderful. As wonderful as in the first years. No, more wonderful. She hummed a tune she had heard on the radio — she didn’t know what it was — hung up the last sheet and ran her hand over the wet cotton, inhaled the fragrant perfume. The wind blew the sheet high in the air, and the sunshine swept over her face and dress. Warm, pleasant, bright. This is how life should be. Making love, working, living. This was what she had been brought up to do, this was still her credo.

She heard a seagull scream and shaded her eyes. What was it doing here, so far from the sea?

‘Mum!’

She had hung the washing over several lines, so she had to move between them, skip her way to the front door.

‘Yes, Ewan?’

Her son was sitting on a bench, his chin propped on one hand, looking into the distance. Squinting into the low afternoon sun. ‘Won’t Dad be here soon?’

‘Yes, he will. How’s the soup doing, Emily?’

‘It was ready aeons ago,’ the daughter said, dutifully stirring the big pot.

Broth. Simple, nutritious peasant food.

Ewan stuck out his lower lip. ‘He said he’d be here before the meal.’

‘You hang him up by his toes for breaking his promise,’ Meredith said, stroking his fringe.

‘Should people be hung for lying?’

‘Without exception.’ Meredith looked at her watch. There might be hold-ups in the rush-hour traffic, now that only the old bridge was open.

‘Who by?’ the boy asked.

‘What do you mean who by?’

‘Who should hang people who lie?’ Ewan’s eyes had a faraway look, as though he were talking to himself.

‘The honest joes of course.’

Ewan turned to his mother. ‘Then liars are stupid because there are lots more of them than there are honest joes. They could beat the joes and hang them instead.’

‘Listen!’ Emily said.

Meredith pricked up her ears. And now she could hear it too. The distant rumble of an engine getting closer.

The boy jumped down from the bench. ‘Here he comes! Emily, let’s hide and give him a fright.’

‘Yes!’

The children disappeared into the bedroom while Meredith went to the window. Tried to shade her eyes from the sun. She felt an unease she couldn’t explain. Perhaps she was afraid the Duff who came home wouldn’t be the same one who had left that morning.

Duff put his car in neutral and let it roll the last part of the gravel track to the house. The gravel murmured and fretted like subterranean trolls beneath the wheels. He had driven like a man possessed from Caithness, had broken a principle he had always adhered to, never to misuse the blue light he kept in the glove compartment. With the light on the roof he had managed to jump the queue on the road to the old bridge, but once there the carriageway was so narrow that even with the light he’d had to grit his teeth as they moved forward at a snail’s pace. He braked hard and the subterranean voices died. Switched off the engine and got out. The sun was shining on the white sheets on the veranda welcoming him home with a wave. She had done the washing. All the bedlinen so that he wouldn’t think she had only done the sheets on the marital bed. And even though he was sated with love-making, the notion warmed his heart. Because he had left Caithness. And Caithness had left him. She had stood in the door, wiping a last tear, given him a last goodbye kiss and said that now the door was closed to him. She could do this now that she had made up her mind. One day maybe someone else would come through the door he was leaving. And he replied that he hoped so, and the ‘someone else’ would be a very lucky man. On the street he had leaped in the air with relief, happiness and freedom regained. Yes, imagine that — free. To be with his wife and children! Life is strange. And wonderful.

He walked towards the veranda. ‘Ewan! Emily!’ Usually when he came home they ran out to meet him. But sometimes they also hid to launch a surprise attack on him.

He dodged between the lines of sheets.

‘Ewan! Emily!’

He stopped. He was hidden between the sheets, which cast long shadows that moved across the veranda floor. He inhaled the soap’s perfume and the freshwater in which they had been washed. There was another smell too. He smiled. Broth. His smile became even broader as he remembered the good-natured discussion they’d had when Ewan insisted on having the beard glued on before he ate his soup. It was perfectly still. The ambush could come at any second.

There were tiny dots of sunshine in the shadows the sheets cast.

He stood staring at them.

Then down at himself. At his sweater and trousers covered with tiny dots of sunshine. He felt his heart skip a beat. Ran a finger over a sheet. It found a hole at once. And another. He stopped breathing.

Pulled the sheet at the back to the side.

The kitchen window was gone. The wall was holed so badly it looked more like a hole than a wall. He looked in through where the window had been. The pot on the hotplate looked like a sieve. The stove and the floor around were covered with a steaming yellowish-green broth.

He wanted to go inside. He had to go inside. But he couldn’t; it was as if his feet were frozen to the veranda floor and his willpower was deactivated.

But there’s no one in the kitchen, he told himself. Empty. Perhaps the rest of the house was empty too. Destroyed but empty. Perhaps they had escaped to the cabin. Perhaps. Perhaps he hadn’t lost everything.

He forced himself to pass through the opening where the door had been. He went into the children’s rooms. First Emily’s, then Ewan’s. Checked the cupboards raked with machine gun fire and under the beds. No one. Nor in the guest room. He went towards the last room, his and Meredith’s bedroom, with the broad soft double bed where on Sunday mornings they made room for all four of them, lay on their sides, tickled bare toes to the children’s loud shrieks, gently scratched each other’s backs, talked about all sorts of weird and wonderful things and fought to decide who should get up first.

The bedroom door hadn’t been shot away, but the gaps between the bullet holes were the same as elsewhere in the house. Duff took a deep breath.

Perhaps not all was lost yet.

He gripped the handle. Opened the door.

Of course he knew he had been lying to himself. He had become good at it: the more he had practised self-deception the easier it had been to see what he wanted to see. But in the last few days the scales had fallen from his eyes and now he was there and couldn’t not see what lay before his eyes. The feathers from the mattress were everywhere, as though snow had been falling. Perhaps that was why everything seemed so peaceful. Meredith looked as if she had tried to keep Ewan and Emily warm as they sat on the floor in the far corner with her arms around them. Red feathers were stuck to the walls around them.

Duff’s breathing came in gasps. And then came a sob. One single, bitter, raging sob.

Everything was lost.

Absolutely everything was lost.

22

Duff remained standing in the doorway. Saw the blanket on the bed. He knew it wouldn’t help if he waded into the feathers; all he would do was contaminate the crime scene and potentially destroy the evidence. But he had to cover them up. Cover them up for a last time, they couldn’t stay like that. He stepped inside, then stopped.

He had heard a sound. A shout.

He backed out and strode into the sitting room, over to the smashed window facing south-east, towards the lake. There was the cry again. So far away he couldn’t see who was shouting, but sound carried well out there in the afternoon. The voice sounded angry. It had repeated the same word, but Duff couldn’t make out what it was. He pulled out the remains of a chest drawer, took out the binoculars kept there, focused on the cabin. One lens of the binoculars was pierced, but the other was good enough for him to see a fair-haired man hurrying towards the house on the narrow road. Behind him, in front of the cabin, stood a lorry, on the back of which was a man whose face he recognised. Seyton. He was standing between what looked like two enormous meat-mincers on stands. Duff remembered Macbeth’s words. Stay in bed for two days at least... an order. Macbeth had known. Known that Duff was about to reveal that he had killed Duncan. Lennox. Lennox, the traitor. There was no judge from Capitol coming to town tomorrow.

Duff saw Seyton’s mouth moving before the sound reached him. The same furious word: ‘Angus!’

Duff moved back from the window so that the glass in the binoculars wouldn’t reflect the sun and give him away. He had to escape.

As darkness fell over the town, news of the massacre at the Norse Riders’ club house was already spreading. And at nine o’clock most of the town’s journalists, TV and radio crews were gathered in Scone Hall. Macbeth stood in the wings listening to Lennox welcome them to the press conference.

‘We would ask you not to use flash until the chief commissioner has finished, and please ask questions by raising a hand and speaking. And now here is this proud town’s chief commissioner, Macbeth.’

This introduction — and possibly the rumours of the victory over the Norse Riders in the battle at the club house — were cause enough for a couple of the less experienced journalists to clap when Macbeth appeared on the podium, but the thin applause died under the eloquent gazes of the more seasoned members of the audience.

Macbeth walked up to the lectern. No, he took the lectern by force, that was how it felt. It was strange that this — speaking to an audience — was what he had feared most; now he didn’t just like it, he longed for it, he needed it. He coughed, looked down at his papers. Then he started.

‘Today the police carried out two armed operations against those behind the recent murders of our officers, among them Chief Commissioner Duncan. I’m pleased to say that the first operation, given the circumstances, was one-hundred-per-cent successful. The criminal gang known as the Norse Riders has ceased to exist.’ A single hurrah from the audience broke the silence. ‘This was a planned action based on new information that emerged after the release of some Norse Rider members. The circumstances were that the Norse Riders fired shots at SWAT, and we had no choice but to hit back hard.’

A shout from the back of the hall: ‘Is Sweno among the dead?’

‘Yes,’ said Macbeth. ‘He is indeed one of the bodies that cannot be identified because of the comprehensive nature of his injuries, but I think you all recognise this...’ Macbeth held up a shiny sabre. More hurrahs, and now some of the more experienced journalists joined in the spontaneous applause. ‘And with it an era is over. Fortunately.’

‘There are rumours that women and children are among the dead.’

‘Yes and no,’ Macbeth said. ‘Adult women who had chosen to associate with the club, yes. Many of them have what we might call a sullied record and none of them did anything to stop the Norse Riders firing at us. As for children, that’s just nonsense. There were no innocent victims here.’

‘You mentioned a second operation. What was that?’

‘It took place out of town, in Fife, straight after the first, in a relatively deserted area, so you may not have heard about it, but this was an attempt to arrest someone we now know had been working with the Norse Riders for some time. It is of course regrettable that such an officer could be found within our ranks, but it also proves that Chief Commissioner Duncan was not infallible when he handed the Narcotics Unit and later the Homicide Unit to this man, Inspector Duff. And we’re not infallible either. We considered his family and assumed he would do the same and give himself up. So when we arrived, Police Officer Seyton, the head of SWAT, went towards the house and asked Duff to come out alone and give himself up. Duff responded by shooting at Seyton.’

He nodded towards Seyton, who was standing under the light by the door at the front of the hall so that everyone could see him with his arm in a sling.

‘Luck would have it that the shot wasn’t fatal. Police Officer Seyton soon received medical attention and there’s every chance that he’ll escape permanent injury. However, despite the seriousness of his injury, Police Officer Seyton led the attack. Unfortunately, Duff, in his desperation and cowardice, chose to use his family as a shield, with the tragic result that they paid with their lives, while Duff managed to escape from the back of the house and make a getaway in his car. He’s a wanted man, and we have commenced a search. I promise to you here and now that we will find and punish Duff. Incidentally, let me use this opportunity to announce that we’ll soon be able to address Police Officer Seyton as Inspector Seyton.’

More joined in the applause this time. Once it had died down there was a cough, and a voice with rolled ‘r’s said, ‘This is all very well, Macbeth, but where is the evidence—’ the questioner pronounced ‘evidence ’ slowly with ultra-clear diction as though it were a difficult foreign word ‘—against the people you have mown down?’

‘As far as the Norse Riders are concerned, we have witnesses who saw them shooting at Banquo’s car, and we have fingerprints on and inside the car, also blood on Banquo’s seat identical to the types of some of those found dead in the club house this evening. Forensics can also confirm that fingerprints found on the inside of the windscreen, on the driver’s side, match those of—’ Macbeth paused ‘—Inspector Duff.’

A ripple went through the hall.

‘At this juncture I’d like to praise the SOC officers. Duff went to the crime scene just after the murder. This was odd as no one at Homicide had been able to get hold of Duff to inform him of the murder. Obviously he turned up with the intention of erasing his fingerprints and other clues he must have known he’d left behind. But the Forensics Unit didn’t let anyone, no one at all, go near the body and contaminate the evidence. Personally, I can add that my suspicion that Duff was working with the Norse Riders grew during the raid on the container harbour. Both the Narcotics Unit and we at SWAT had received such a clear tip-off that Duff couldn’t have ignored it without arousing suspicion that he was protecting them. Duff cleverly set up a raid that was doomed to fail, with inexperienced officers from his own unit in insufficient numbers, without seeking the assistance of SWAT, which is the normal procedure in such cases. Luckily the raid came to our attention, so SWAT reacted independently, and I think I can say without blowing our own trumpet that this was the start of the Norse Riders’ and Duff’s downfall. The Norse Riders and Inspector Duff dug their own graves when they avenged the loss of the drugs consignment and five of their members by killing first Duncan and then Banquo and his son. And this is, incidentally, the last time I will mention Duff by rank, which in our police force is considered an honour regardless of whether it is the highest or the lowest.’ Macbeth noticed to his dismay that the slightly tremulous indignation in his voice was genuine, completely genuine.

‘Do you really mean to say, Macbeth—’

‘Hand up before you...’ Lennox started to say, but Macbeth raised his palms and nodded for Kite to continue. He was ready to take on this insubordinate querulous bastard now.

‘Do you really mean to say, Macbeth, that you, the police, cannot be criticised for anything during these operations? In the course of one afternoon you killed seven people you’d released from prison an hour earlier, nine other gang members, most of whom had no record, plus six women who, as far as we know, had nothing to do with any crimes committed by the Norse Riders. Then you tell us there’s also a family in Fife who are by definition innocent victims. And you consider that you didn’t make a single error?’

Macbeth observed Kite. The radio reporter had dark hair surrounding a bald head and a moustache that formed a sad mouth around his own. Always bad news. Macbeth wondered what fate awaited such a man. He shuffled his papers. Found the page he had drafted and to which Lady, later Lennox, had added detail. Breathed in. Knew he was in perfect equilibrium. Knew his medication was perfect. Knew he had received the perfect serve.

‘He’s right,’ Macbeth said, looking across the assembled journalists. ‘We’ve made mistakes.’ Waited, waited until it was even quieter than quiet, until the silence was unbearable, you couldn’t breathe, until the silence demanded sound. He looked down at his speech. He had to bring it alive, make it seem as if he wasn’t just quoting the text he had in front of him.

‘In a democracy,’ he began, ‘there are rules which determine when suspects must be released from custody. We obeyed them.’ He nodded as an amen to his declaration. ‘In a democracy there are rules which state that the police can and must arrest suspects when there is new evidence in a case. We obeyed them.’ More nodding. ‘In a democracy there are rules which set out how the police should react if suspects resist arrest and, as in this case, shoot at the police. And we obeyed them.’ He could of course have continued like this, but three instances of ‘We obeyed them’ were enough. He raised a forefinger. ‘And that’s all we’ve done. Some have already called what we did heroic. Some have already called it the most effective and eagerly awaited police operation in the history of this town’s suffering. And some have called it a turning point in the fight against crime on our streets.’ He saw how his nodding had rubbed off on the listeners, he even heard a couple of mumbled yeses. ‘But the way I see it as chief commissioner is that we were only doing the job we’d been given. Nothing more than you can ask of us as police officers.’

In the empty gallery he saw Lennox standing ready by the projector while following the speech in his copy of the manuscript.

‘But I have to admit it makes me feel good this evening,’ Macbeth said, ‘to be able to say police officers and do so with pride. And now, goodness me, folks, let’s put the formalities to one side for a moment. The fact is we had a big clean-up today. We paid Sweno and his murderers back in their own coin. We showed them what they can expect if they take our best men from us...’

The light shone brighter around him, and he knew the slide of Duncan had come up on the screen behind him; soon it would shift to Banquo and Fleance in uniform under the apple tree in the garden behind their house.

‘But, yes, we made errors. We made an error by not starting this clean-up before ! Before it was too late for Chief Commissioner Duncan. Before it was too late for Inspector Banquo, who served this town all his life. And his son, Police Cadet Fleance, who was looking forward to doing the same.’ Macbeth had to take deep breaths to control the tremor in his voice. ‘But this afternoon we showed that this is a new day. A new day when criminals are no longer in charge. A new day when the citizens of this town have stood up and said no. No, we won’t allow this. And now this is the evening of the first of these new days. And in the days to come we will continue to clean up the streets of this town because this big clean-up isn’t over.’

When Macbeth had finished and said, ‘Thank you,’ he stayed on his feet. Stood there in the storm of applause that broke out as chairs scraped and people rose and the ovation continued with undiminished vigour. And he could feel his eyes going misty at the cynical journalists’ genuine response to his falsehoods. And when Kite also stood up and clapped, albeit in a rather more sedate tempo, he wondered if that was because the guy knew what was good for him. Because he saw that Macbeth had won their love now. Won power. And he could see and hear that the new chief commissioner was a man who was unafraid to use it.

Macbeth strode down the corridor behind Scone Hall.

Power. He could feel it in his veins; the harmony was still there. Not as perfect as a while ago — the unease and restlessness were already on the verge of returning — but he had more than enough medicine for the moment. And he would just enjoy tonight. Enjoy the food and drink, enjoy Lady, enjoy the view of the town, enjoy everything that was his.

‘Good speech, sir,’ Seyton said, who seemed to have no problem keeping up with Macbeth’s pace.

Lennox ran up alongside him.

‘Fantastic, Macbeth!’ he exclaimed, out of breath. ‘There are some journalists here from Capitol to see you. They’d like to interview you and—’

‘Thank you but no,’ Macbeth said without slowing down. ‘No victory interviews, no laurels until we’ve achieved our goal. Any news of Duff?’

‘His car’s been found in the town, parked beside the Obelisk. The roads out of town, the airport, passenger boats — everything has been under surveillance since half an hour after we saw him driving towards the town from Fife, so we know he’s still here somewhere. We’ve checked Banquo’s house, his parents-in-law, and he’s not there. But in this weather a man has to have a roof over his head at night, so we’ll go through every hotel, every boarding house, pub and brothel with a toothcomb. Everyone, absolutely everyone is chasing Duff tonight.’

‘Chasing’s good, catching’s better.’

‘Oh, we’ll catch him. It’s just a question of time.’

‘Good. Could you leave us alone for a minute?’

‘OK.’ Lennox stopped and was soon far behind them.

‘Something bothering you, Seyton? The wound?’

‘No, sir.’ Seyton took his arm out of the sling.

‘No? The sergeant shot you in the arm, didn’t he?’

‘I have unusually good healing tissue,’ Seyton said. ‘It’s in the family.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Good healing tissue?’

‘Family. There’s something else eating you then?’

‘Two things.’

‘Out with it.’

‘The baby we found and removed from the club house after the shooting.’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t really know what to do with it. I’ve got it locked in my office.’

‘I’ll take care of it,’ Macbeth said. ‘And the other thing?’

‘Angus, sir.’

‘What about him?’

‘He didn’t obey orders in Fife. He refused to fire and in the end left before the op was finished. He called it slaughter. He hadn’t joined SWAT to take part in this kind of thing. I think there’s a risk he might blab. We have to do something.’

They stopped in front of the lift.

Macbeth rubbed his chin. ‘So you think Angus has lost the belief? If so, it won’t be the first time. Has he told you he studied theology?’

‘No, but I can smell it. And he walks about with this bloody ugly cross around his neck.’

‘You’re in charge of SWAT now, Seyton. What do you think should be done?’

‘We have to get rid of him, boss.’

‘Death?’

‘You said yourself we’re at war, sir. In war traitors and cowards are punished with death. We’ll do what we did with Duff: we’ll leak that he’s corrupt and make it look like he resisted arrest.’

‘Let me chew on it. Right now we’re in the spotlight and we need to show loyalty and unity. Cawdor, Malcolm, Duff and now Angus. It’s too many. The town likes dead criminals better than duplicitous policemen. Where is he?’

‘He’s sitting alone moping in the basement. He won’t talk to anyone.’

‘OK. Let me have a chat with him before we make a move.’

Macbeth found Angus in the SWAT common room. He was sitting with his head in his hands and barely reacted when Macbeth put a large shoebox before him on the table and sat down in the chair directly opposite.

‘I heard what happened. How are you?’

No answer.

‘You’re a principled lad, Angus. That’s part of what I like about you. Principles are important to you, aren’t they?’

Angus raised his head and looked at Macbeth with bloodshot eyes.

‘I can see them burning in your eyes right now,’ Macbeth said. ‘Righteous indignation, it warms your heart, doesn’t it? Makes you feel like the person you want to be. But when the brotherhood demands a real sacrifice it’s sometimes exactly that that we want, Angus. Your principles. For you to renounce the cosy warmth of a good conscience, for you to be wakened by the same nightmares as us, for you to give up what is most valuable to you, the way your former god demanded that Abraham give up his son.’

Angus cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse. ‘I can give. But for what?’

‘For the long-term goal. For the community’s good. For the town, Angus.’

Angus snorted. ‘Can you explain to me how killing innocent people is for the community’s good?’

‘Twenty-five years ago an American president dropped the atom bomb on two Japanese towns populated by children, civilians and innocents. It stopped a war. That’s the kind of paradox God torments us with.’

‘That’s easy to say. You weren’t there.’

‘I know what it costs, Angus. Recently I cut the throat of an innocent person for the good of the community. I don’t sleep well at night. The doubt, the shame, the sense of guilt, they’re part of the price we have to pay if we really want to do something good and not just bathe in the cosy, safe warmth of self-righteousness.’

‘God doesn’t exist and I’m no president.’

‘That’s correct,’ Macbeth said, taking the lid off the shoebox. ‘But as I’m both in this building I’ll give you a chance to make up for the mistake you made in Fife.’

Angus peeped into the box. And recoiled in his chair in shock.

‘Take this and burn it in the furnace at Estex tonight.’

Angus swallowed, as pale as death. ‘That’s the b-b-baby from the club house...’

‘Front-line soldiers, like you and me, know that innocent lives have to be lost in war, but they don’t know that at home — the people we fight for. That’s why we keep such things hidden from them, so they don’t get hysterical. Do you get hysterical, Angus?’

‘I–I...’

‘Listen. I’m showing my confidence in you by giving you this assignment. You can go to Estex or you can use this to report your brothers here in SWAT. I’m giving you the choice. Because I need to know that I can trust you.’

Angus shook his head, a sob escaped him. ‘You need to make me an accessory to know you can trust me!’

Macbeth shook his head. ‘You’re already an accessory. I only need to know that you’re strong enough to take and carry the guilt without those at home finding out the price we pay to defend them. Only then will I know if you’re a real man, Angus.’

‘You make it sound as if we, and not the child, are the victims. I can’t do it! I’d rather be shot.’

Macbeth looked at Angus. He didn’t feel any anger. Perhaps because he liked Angus. Perhaps because he knew Angus couldn’t hurt them. But mostly because he was sorry for him. Macbeth put the lid back on the shoebox and stood up.

‘Wait,’ Angus said. ‘H-how are you going to punish me?’

‘Oh, you’ll punish yourself,’ Macbeth said. ‘Read what it says on our flag. It’s not the child’s screaming you’ll hear when you wake up sweaty after a nightmare, but the words: Loyalty, fraternity, baptised in fire, united in blood.’

He took the shoebox and left.

There was still more than an hour to midnight when Macbeth let himself into the suite.

Lady was standing by the window with her back to him. The room was sparsely illuminated by a single wax candle, and she was dressed in a nightdress. He put the shoebox on the table under the mirror, went over to her and kissed her neck.

‘The electricity went when I arrived,’ he said. ‘Jack’s checking the fuse box. Hope none of the customers are using the opportunity to make off with the kitty.’

‘The electricity has gone in over half the town,’ she said, leaning back and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I can see from here. What have you got in the shoebox?’

‘What do you normally have in a shoebox?’

‘You’re carrying it as if it were a bomb.’

At that moment a huge streak of lightning flashed like a white luminous vein across the sky, and they caught a glimpse of the town. Then it was dark again and thunder rolled in.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he said, inhaling the scent of her hair.

‘I don’t know what it is, you know.’

‘I meant the town. And it will be more beautiful. When Duff’s no longer in it.’

‘It will still have a mayor who makes it ugly. Won’t you tell me what’s in the box?’ Her voice was thick, as though she had just woken up.

‘Just something I have to burn. I’ll ask Jack to take it up to the furnaces at Estex tomorrow.’

‘I want to be burned too, darling.’

Macbeth stiffened. What had she said? Was she sleepwalking? But sleepwalkers couldn’t hold conversations, could they?

‘So you haven’t found Duff yet?’ she said.

‘Not yet, but we’re looking everywhere.’

‘Poor man. Losing his children and now he’s all alone.’

‘Someone’s helping him. Otherwise we’d have found him. I don’t trust Lennox.’

‘Because you know he serves Hecate and brew?’

‘Because Lennox is basically weak. He might be getting soft and conspiratorial, the way Banquo became. Perhaps he’s hiding Duff. I should arrest him. Seyton tells me that under Kenneth they used to give arrestees an electric shock in the groin if they didn’t talk. And another one to stop them talking.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. Arresting one of your own unit commanders would look bad now. For the time being the general impression is that you’ve nabbed two rotten apples in Duff and Malcolm. Three would make it look like a purge. Purges raise questions not only about the unpurged but also the leader, and we don’t want to give Tourtell any reason to hesitate in appointing you. And as for electric shocks, right now there’s no electricity in this part of town.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘You wake the electrician and ask him to fix it.’

‘You’re difficult this evening, my love. This evening you should be uniting with me, acclaiming me as a hero.’

‘And you me as a heroine, Macbeth. Have you checked out Caithness?’

‘Caithness? What makes you think she’s involved?’

‘During the dinner that night Duff said he was staying with a cousin.’

‘Yes, he mentioned that.’

‘And you weren’t surprised that an orphanage boy had an uncle in town?’

‘Not all uncles can take on...’ Macbeth frowned as he stood behind her. ‘You mean Duff and Caithness...?’

‘Dear Macbeth, my hero, you are and will always be a simple man without a woman’s eye for how two secretly enamoured people look at each other.’

Macbeth blinked into the darkness. Then he put his arms around her, closed his eyes and pulled her to him. How would he have survived without her? ‘Only when we two stand in front of the mirror,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Thank you, darling. Go to bed now and I’ll tell Lennox to go to Caithness’s at once.’

‘It’s back,’ she said.

‘What is?’

‘The electricity. Look. Our town is lit up again.’

Macbeth opened his eyes and looked at her illuminated face. Looked down at both of their bodies. They glowed red from the neon Bacardi lights on the building across Thrift Street.

‘Lennox?’ Caithness was already so frozen that her teeth were chattering as she stood with her arms crossed in the doorway to her flat. ‘Police Officer Seyton?’

‘Inspector Seyton,’ the lean policeman said, pushed her aside and went in.

‘What’s this about?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry, Caithness,’ Lennox said. ‘Orders. Is Duff here?’

‘Duff? Why on earth would he be here?’

‘And why on earth would you say yes?’ Seyton said, directing the four machine-gun-toting men in SWAT uniforms to the four rooms in the flat. ‘If he’s here it’s because you’re hiding him. You know very well he’s a wanted man.’

‘Feel free,’ she said.

‘Thank you so much for your permission,’ Seyton said acidly. Studying her in a way that made her wish she had more on than her thin nightdress. Then he smiled. Caithness shuddered. His mouth arced up behind his slightly slanting eyes, making him look like a snake.

‘Are you trying to hold us up?’ he said.

‘Hold you up?’ she said, hoping he didn’t notice the fear in her voice.

‘Sir?’ It was one of the men. ‘There’s a door to a fire escape here.’

‘Oh, is there?’ Seyton intoned without taking his eyes off Caithness. ‘Interesting. So when we rang your doorbell down on the street you let the cat out through the flap, did you?’

‘Not at all,’ she said.

‘You are of course familiar with the penalty for lying to the police — in addition to that for hiding a criminal?’

‘I am not lying, Police Officer Seyton.’

‘Inspec—’ He paused, regained his smile. ‘This is SWAT you’re dealing with, Miss Caithness. We know our job. Such as examining the drawings of buildings before we enter.’ He lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth. ‘Alpha to Charlie. Any sign of Duff by the fire escape door? Over.’

The brief sibilance when he pressed the button of the walkie-talkie made her think of waves lapping on a beach somewhere far far away.

‘Not yet, Alpha,’ came the answer. ‘Conditions for a controlled arrest are good here, so can we confirm that the object should be shot on sight? Over.’

Caithness saw Seyton’s eyes harden and heard his voice sharpen. ‘Duff’s dangerous. The order comes straight from the chief commissioner and must be followed to the letter.’

‘Roger. Over and out.’

The four men came back into the sitting room. ‘He’s not here, sir.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I found this lying on the bedroom floor by the door to the fire escape.’ One of them held up a tennis racket and jewellery.

Seyton took the racket and leaned over the hand holding the jewellery. To Caithness it looked as if he was sniffing them. Then he turned back to her holding the handle of the racket in an obscene way.

‘Big racket for a little hand like yours, Miss Caithness. And do you make a habit of throwing your earrings on the floor?’

Caithness straightened. Breathed in. ‘I think it’s a common habit, Police Officer. Casting pearls before swine. But in time one learns, hopefully. If you’ve finished looking and the cat on the stairs has been executed, I’d like to go back to sleep. Goodnight, gentlemen.’

She saw Seyton’s eyes go black and his mouth open, but he held his tongue when Lennox placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘We apologise for the disturbance, Caithness. But as a colleague you will understand that absolutely no stone must be left unturned in this case.’

Lennox and the rest headed towards the front door, but Seyton stood his ground. ‘Even if we don’t always like the filth we find under them,’ he said. ‘So he didn’t buy you a wedding ring then, I suppose?’

‘What do you want, Seyton?’

His repulsive smile returned. ‘Yes, what do we want?’

Then he turned and left.

She closed the door behind him. Pressed her back against it. Where was Duff? Where was he last night? And what did she wish for him? The hell he had to be in or the redemption he didn’t deserve?

Lennox stared through the rain pouring down the windscreen. The refracted light made the red traffic lights blur and distort. God, how he longed to get these hours, this shift, this night over and done with. God, how he longed to relax in his sitting room, pour himself a glass of whisky and inject some brew. He wasn’t addicted. Not to the extent that it was a problem anyway. He was a user, not a misuser; he was in control, not the dope. One of the lucky few who could take drugs and still function in a demanding job as well as be a father and a husband. Yes, dope did actually help him to function. Without the breaks at work he wasn’t sure he would have managed. Balancing everything, watching his step. Making compromises where he had to, eating shit with a smile, not rocking the boat, understanding who was in charge, bending with the wind. But one day it would probably be his turn to take charge. And if it wasn’t, other things were more important. His family — that was who he was working for. So that he and Sheila could have a spacious house in a safe neighbourhood in the west of town, send their three lovely kids to a good school with healthy values, take a well-deserved Mediterranean holiday once a year, cover the health insurance, dentist and all that kind of thing. God, how he loved his family. Sometimes he would put down the newspaper and just look at them sitting in the lounge, all of them busy, and then he would think, This is a gift I never thought I would have the good fortune to receive. The love of others. He, the one they called Albert Albino, was beaten up in every school break until he got a doctor’s note saying he couldn’t tolerate daylight and had to stay in the classroom alone during breaks. White, small and delicate he may have been, but he had a big mouth on him. That was how he had got Sheila — he talked loudly and volubly for both of them. And even more when he had tried cocaine for the first time. It was coke that had made him a better version of himself, energetic, dogged and unafraid. At least for a while. Later it had become a necessity so that he wouldn’t become a bad version of himself. Then he had changed drug in the hope that there was another way other than the dead-end street that cocaine was. Maximum one shot a day. No more. Some needed five. The dysfunctional. He was a long way from that. His father was wrong, he did have a spine. He had control.

‘Everything under control?’

Lennox started. ‘Eh?’

‘Your list,’ Seyton said from the back seat. ‘What’s left?’

Lennox yawned. ‘HQ. That’s the last stop.’

‘Police HQ’s massive.’

‘Yes, but according to the caretaker Duff has only three keys. One for Narco and one for Homicide.’

‘And the third?’

‘The Forensics garage. But I hardly think he’d want to catch pneumonia in the cellar if he can hide under a table in a warm dry office.’

The police radio crackled, and a nasal voice informed them that all the rooms at the Obelisk, including the penthouse suite, had been searched without success.

The caretaker stood waiting for them with a big bunch of keys outside the staff entrance to HQ. It took Lennox, Seyton and eight officers less than twenty minutes to search the Narco rooms. Less to trawl through Homicide. And they had even checked behind the ceiling boards and the pipes in the ventilation system.

‘That’s that then.’ Lennox yawned. ‘That’s it, folks. Grab a few hours’ sleep. We’ll continue tomorrow.’

‘The garage,’ Seyton said.

‘As I said—’

‘The garage.’

Lennox shrugged. ‘You’re right. Won’t take long. Lads, you go home, and Seyton, Olafson and I will check the garage.’

The three of them took the lift down to the basement floor with the caretaker, who let them in and switched on the lights.

In the silence as the electricity worked to get the phosphates in the neon tubes to fluoresce Lennox heard something.

‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.

‘No,’ the caretaker said. ‘But it’ll be rats if it’s anything.’

Lennox had his doubts. It hadn’t been a rattling or a scurrying, it had been a creak. As if from shoes.

‘A plague,’ the caretaker sighed. ‘Can’t get rid of ’em, not down here.’

The large cellar room was empty apart from a trolley carrying various tools and Banquo’s Volvo covered with a tarpaulin by the garage door. Ranged along the wall there were five closed doors.

‘If you want to get rid of rats,’ Seyton said, releasing the safety catch on his machine gun, ‘just contact me. Olafson, let’s start from the left.’

Lennox watched as the bald man moved quickly and nimbly across the room with Olafson hard on his heels. They took the doors one by one as if in a precisely choreographed and practised dance. Seyton opened, Olafson went in with his gun to his shoulder, sank to his knees while Seyton followed and passed him. Lennox counted the minutes. It was getting late for his shot, he could feel. There, the final room at last. Seyton pressed the handle.

‘Locked!’ he shouted.

‘Oh yes, the darkroom is always locked,’ the caretaker said. ‘Photos are considered evidence. Duff hasn’t got a key for this room. At least, he didn’t get it from me.’

‘Let’s go then,’ Lennox said.

Seyton and Olafson came towards them with the short barrels of their machine guns lowered as the caretaker held the door open.

At last.

Seyton held out his hand. ‘The key.’

‘What?’

‘To the darkroom.’

The caretaker hesitated, glanced at Lennox, who sighed and nodded. The caretaker removed a key from his bunch and gave it to Seyton.

‘What’s he doing?’ asked the caretaker as they watched Seyton and Olafson walk past the Volvo to the darkroom door.

‘His job,’ growled Lennox.

‘I mean with his nose. Looks like he’s sniffing, like an animal.’

Lennox nodded. Thinking he wasn’t alone in noticing that Seyton could assume the shape of a... he didn’t know what. Something that wasn’t human anyway.

Seyton could smell him now. That smell. The same as the one in the house in Fife and Caithness’s flat. Either he was here or he had been here recently. Seyton unlocked the door and opened it. Olafson went in and sank to his knees. When the caretaker turned on the switch at the front door all the lights in the garage and the side rooms had come on as well, but in here it was still dark. Of course. A darkroom.

Seyton went in. The stench of chemicals drowned the smell of the prey, of Duff. He found the light switch on the inside of the door, twisted it on, but still no light came. Maybe the fuse had gone during the power cut. Or someone had removed the bulb. Seyton switched on his torch. The wall above the table was covered with big photos hanging from a line. Seyton shone his torch across them. They showed a dagger with a bloodstained blade and handle. Duff had been here. Seyton was absolutely sure.

‘Hey! What’s going on?’ It was Lennox. The little albino wimp wanted to go home. He was sweating and yawning. The bloody old woman.

‘Coming,’ Seyton shouted, switching off the torch. ‘Come on, Olafson.’

Seyton let Olafson pass. Shut the door hard after him and stood inside the door. Listened in the darkness. Until Duff thought the coast was clear and relaxed. Seyton lifted his gun to the photos. Pressed the trigger. The weapon shook in his hands, the sound reverberated against his eardrums. He drew a cross with the burst. Then he switched on his torch again, walked over to the perforated photos and pulled them aside.

Stared at the bullet holes in the wall behind.

No Duff.

The explosions were still ringing in his ears. He noted that one of the holes was extra-deep — must have been two bullets hitting the same spot. Chance.

Of course.

Seyton marched out towards the others.

‘What was that?’ Lennox asked.

‘I didn’t like the photos,’ Seyton said. ‘There’s one place we’ve forgotten.’

‘Yes,’ Lennox groaned. ‘Our beds.’

‘Duff thinks like they did during the bomb attacks in the war. He hides in a bomb crater because he believes two bombs can’t hit exactly the same place.’

‘What the hell...?’

‘He’s back in his house in Fife. Come on!’

The rat darted out of its hiding place after the light in the garage had gone off, it had heard the door slam and the steps fade away. It padded over the damp brick floor to the car in the middle. There was blood on the driver’s seat, which attracted it. Sweet, nutritious and days old. It just had to get through the tarpaulin spread over the car. The rat had almost got through before when it was disturbed. But now it gnawed through the last part and was inside. It ran across the floor on the passenger side, past the gear stick and down onto the rubber mat on the driver’s side. Over a pair of leather shoes. Recoiled when one leather shoe creaked and rose. It reared up onto its legs and hissed. The lovely bloodstained driver’s seat was occupied.

Duff heard the rustle of the fleeing rat. Then he loosened his tensed grip on the wheel. He could feel his heart wasn’t pounding any more, only beating. It had been hammering so hard while Seyton and his men were in the garage he was sure they must have heard. He looked at his watch. Still five hours to daybreak. He tried to shift position, but his trousers were stuck to the blood on the seat. Banquo’s blood. It glued him to this place. But he had to get away. Move on.

But where? And how?

When he fled his idea had been that it would be easier to drive to town and disappear in the crowds there than escape along a country road. He had abandoned his car in a street not far from the Obelisk and gone into the casino, which was the only place besides the Inverness he knew stayed open all night. He couldn’t rent a room of course; overnight accommodation would be the first place Macbeth would check. But he could sit among the great swathe of one-armed bandits, as lonely and undisturbed as the person on the nearest machine, feeding it with coins and slowly allowing himself to be robbed. And he had done that while thinking — trying to think — about how he could escape and staring at the images of the odds spinning round in the three small windows. A heart. A dagger. A crown. After a few hours he went to the bar for a beer to see if that could brighten his mood and saw on the muted TV above the barman the press conference at police HQ, and suddenly a familiar face appeared on the screen, with a white scar running diagonally across it like a traffic sign. A close-up of himself, with the word WANTED written over it. Duff made for the exit with his collar turned up and head bent. And the cold night air cleared his brain enough for him to remember their old love nest, the garage, which was his best overnight option.

But soon Friday would dawn, a working day, and he would have to get out before the staff arrived, and outside the news-stands would be adorned with his face.

Duff put his hand into his jacket pocket. Felt the glossy paper under his fingers. Pulled out the package. Couldn’t stop himself, imagined Ewan’s face when he saw that he had been given what he asked for. Duff heard his own wild sobbing. Stop! He mustn’t! He had promised himself he wouldn’t think about them now. Grieving was a privilege he could grant himself later if he survived. He switched on the Volvo’s inside light, dried his tears, removed the wrapping paper, took out the false beard, opened the glue tube and squeezed out the shiny glue, which he spread over his chin, around his lips and inside the beard. Used the rear-view mirror to stick it on. Pulled the tight woollen hat over his forehead so that the upper part of his scar was hidden. Then he put on the glasses. The comically wide frames covered the scar on his cheek above the beard. In the mirror he saw he had glue on his cheek. Searched in vain through his pockets for something to wipe it off with, opened the glove compartment, found a notebook, took it out and was about to tear off the top page. Stopped. In the light he saw depressions in the paper. Someone had recently written in the notebook. So what? He tore off the sheet, wiped the glue from his cheek. Scrunched up the paper and put it in his jacket pocket. Put the notebook back in the glove compartment.

So.

Leaned back in the seat. Closed his eyes.

Five hours. Why had he put on the beard so early? It already itched. He started thinking again. Fought to keep his mind off Fife. He had to find himself a place to hide in town. All the roads out would be closed. Besides he didn’t have any bolt-holes outside town or in Fife, no hostels or hotels that wouldn’t be warned, no one out of town who would hide a wanted cop-killer. And then it struck him. He didn’t know anyone who would help him. Not here, not anywhere. He was the type of person people got on with; they didn’t necessarily actively dislike him. They just didn’t like him. And why would they? What had he ever done to help them that hadn’t also helped himself? He had alliances, not friends. And now, when Duff really needed help, a friend, a shoulder to cry on, Duff was a man with no creditworthiness, a lost cause. He examined his pathetic, stiff, hirsute reflection. The fox. The hunters were closing in on him, Macbeth’s new chief hound, Seyton, already barking at his heels. He had to get away. But where, where could the fox find a foxhole?

Five hours to daybreak. To Friday. To Ewan’s birth...

No! Don’t cry! Survive! A dead man can’t avenge anything.

He had to stay awake until it became light, then find himself somewhere else. One of the disused factories perhaps. No, he had already rejected that idea. Macbeth knew as well as he did where he would try to hide. Shit! Now he was going round in circles, crossing his own tracks, the way people did when they got lost.

He was so tired, but he had to stay awake until it was light. Ewan had never turned ten. Shit! He tried to find something to distract himself. He read all the gauges in front of him. Took the crumpled sheet from his jacket pocket, uncrumpled it and smoothed the page. Tried to read. Rummaged through the glove compartment until he found a pencil. Held it sideways over the paper and shaded over the depressions. What had been writen on the paper, on the sheet above, which had been taken, shone white against black: Dolphin. 66 Tannery St, District 6. Alfie. Safe haven.

An address. There was a Tannery Street in town, but no District 6. And there was only one other town that was divided into districts. Capitol. When could this note have been written? He had no idea how long it took for an impression made by a pencil to disappear. And what did it mean by Safe haven ?

Duff switched off the light and closed his eyes. A little nap maybe?

Capitol. Friday. He had seen this combination somewhere quite recently.

Duff was slipping into a dream with associations to the two words when he woke with a start.

He switched the light back on.

23

‘Meredith and I are getting married,’ Duff said. A sun seemed to be shining out of his eyes.

‘Really? That was... erm quick.’

‘Yes! Will you be my best man, Macbeth?’

‘Me?’

‘Of course. Who else?’

‘Erm. When...?’

‘Sixth of July. At Meredith’s parents’ summer place. Everything’s sorted. Invitations were sent out today.’

‘It’s kind of you to ask, Duff. I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Thought?’

‘I’ve... planned a longish trip in July. July’s difficult for me, Duff.’

‘Trip? You didn’t say anything about this to me.’

‘No, I might not have done.’

‘But then we haven’t spoken for a while. Where have you been? Meredith was asking after you.’

‘Was she? Oh, here and there. Been a bit busy.’

‘And where will this trip take you?’

‘To Capitol.’

‘Capitol?’

‘Yes, I’ve... erm never been there. Time to see our capital, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be so much nicer than here.’

‘Listen to me now, my dear Macbeth. I’ll pay for a return air ticket from Capitol. Can’t have my best pal not being there when I get married. It’ll be the party of the year! Imagine all Meredith’s single girlfriends...’

‘And from Capitol I’m going abroad. It’s a long trip, Duff. I’ll probably be away all July.’

‘But... Has this got anything to do with the little flirtation you and Meredith had once?’

‘So if we don’t see each other for a bit, all the best with the wedding and... well, everything.’

‘Macbeth!’

‘Thanks, Duff, but I won’t forget I owe you dragon blood. Say hello to Meredith and thank her for the little flirtation.’

‘Macbeth, sir!’

Macbeth opened his eyes. He was lying in bed. A dream. Nevertheless. Were those the words they had used then? Dragon blood. Lorreal. Had he really said that?

‘Macbeth!?’

The voice came from the other side of the bedroom door and now it was accompanied by frenetic banging. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. Three o’clock in the morning.

‘Sir, it’s Jack!’

Macbeth turned the other way. He was alone. Lady wasn’t there.

‘Sir, you have to—’

Macbeth tore open the door. ‘What’s up, Jack?’

‘She’s sleepwalking.’

‘So? Aren’t you keeping an eye on her?’

‘It’s different this time, sir. She... You’ve got to come.’

Macbeth yawned, switched on the light, donned a dressing gown and was about to leave the room when his gaze fell on the table under the mirror. The shoebox was gone.

‘Quick. Show me the way, Jack.’

They found her on the roof. Jack paused on the threshold of the open metal door. It had stopped raining, and all that could be heard was the wind and the regular rumble of the traffic that never slept. She was standing right on the edge, in the light of the Bacardi sign, with her back to them. A gust of wind caught her thin nightdress.

‘Lady!’ Macbeth said and was about to rush over to her, but Jack held him back. ‘The psychiatrist said she mustn’t be woken up when she’s sleepwalking, sir.’

‘But she could fall over the edge!’

‘She often comes up here and stands just there,’ Jack said. ‘She can see even if she’s asleep. The psychiatrist says sleepwalkers rarely come to harm, but if you wake them they can become disorientated and hurt themselves.’

‘Why has no one told me she comes up here? I’ve been given the impression she basically strolls up and down the corridor.’

‘She told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to say what she does in her sleep, sir.’

‘And what does she do?’

‘Sometimes she strolls up and down the corridor as you say. Otherwise she goes into the washroom and uses the strong soap there. Scrubs her hands, occasionally until her skin goes red. Then she comes up on the roof.’

Macbeth looked at her. His beloved Lady. So exposed and vulnerable out in the wind-blown night. So alone in the darkness of her mind, the darkness she had told him about but where she couldn’t take him. There was nothing he could do. Just wait and hope she would choose to come back in from the night. So near and so out of reach.

‘What makes you think she might take her life tonight?’

Jack glanced at Macbeth in surprise. ‘I don’t think she will, sir.’

‘So what was it then, Jack?’

‘What was what, sir?’

‘What made you so worried that you called me?’

At that moment the moonlight broke through a gap in the cloud. And as if at an agreed signal Lady turned and walked towards them.

‘That, sir.’

‘God help us,’ Macbeth whispered and hurriedly took a step back.

She was holding a bundle in her arms. She had pulled her nightdress to expose one breast, which she held to the open end of the bundle. Macbeth saw the back of a baby’s head. He counted four black holes in it.

‘Is she asleep?’ Macbeth asked.

‘I think so,’ Jack whispered.

They had followed her closely off the roof, down the stairs and into the suite. Now they were standing by her bed, where she lay with the blanket pulled up over her and the child.

‘Shall we take it off her?’

‘Let her keep it,’ Macbeth said. ‘What harm can it do? But I want you to sit here and watch over her tonight. I have an important radio interview early tomorrow morning and have to sleep, so just give me a key for another room.’

‘Of course,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll ring for someone to take over at reception.’

While Jack was away Macbeth stroked the baby’s cheek. Cold, stiff, a destroyed baby. What Lady and he had been. But they had managed to repair themselves. No. Lady had managed to repair herself. Macbeth had had help. From Banquo. And before that, at the orphanage, from Duff. Had Duff not killed Lorreal, Macbeth would probably have committed suicide sooner or later. Even when he escaped from the home he still had four black holes in his heart. Four holes that had to be filled with something. Brew was the quickest and easiest available sealant. But at least he kept himself alive. Thanks to Duff, the bastard.

And then there was Lady of course. Who had shown him that hearts can be sealed with love, and pain can be eased with love-making. He stroked her cheek. Warm. Soft.

Were there ways back or had they forgotten to plan for a possible retreat? Had they planned only for victories? Yes, and they’d had victories. But what if the victory leaves a bitter taste, what if it comes at too great a cost and you would prefer a cheap defeat? What do you do then? Do you abdicate, renounce the royal trappings, ask humbly for forgiveness and return to your daily chores? When you step off the edge of the roof, and the cobbles of the red-light district rush towards you, do you ask gravity if you can retrace your ill-considered step? No. You take what’s coming. Make the best of it. Make sure you land on your feet and perhaps break a leg or two. But you survive. And you become a better person who has learned to tread more carefully the next time.

Jack came in. ‘I’ve found someone for reception,’ he said and handed Macbeth a key.

Macbeth looked at it. ‘Duncan’s room?’

Jack put a hand to his mouth in horror. ‘I thought it was the best room, but you might prefer...’

‘That’s fine, Jack. I’m close by in case there is anything. Besides I don’t believe in ghosts. And as everyone knows I have nothing to fear from Duncan’s ghost.’

‘No, nothing.’

‘Indeed, nothing at all. Goodnight.’

They came as soon as he closed his eyes.

Duncan and Malcolm. They were lying under the duvet either side of him.

‘There isn’t room for us all,’ Macbeth screamed and kicked them out onto the floor, where they hissed until rat tails rustled alongside the wall and they were gone.

But then the door opened, and in crept Banquo, Fleance and Duff, each with a dagger in hand, poised ready to strike.

‘What do you want?’

‘Justice and our sleep back.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Macbeth laughed, writhing in his bed. ‘The person who can hurt me hasn’t been born! Only Bertha can unseat me as chief commissioner! I am immortal! Macbeth is immortal! Out, you dead mortals!’

24

Fred Ziegler yawned.

‘Fred, you need a cup of coffee.’ The captain of MS Glamis chuckled. ‘We can’t have a harbour pilot falling asleep in this weather. Tell me, are you always tired?’

‘Busy days, not enough sleep,’ Fred said. He could hardly tell the captain the reason he was always yawning was that he was frightened. Fred had seen the same symptom in his dog, but fortunately yawning was usually regarded as indicating that you were totally at ease. Bored. Or, indeed, you hadn’t slept enough. The captain pressed the intercom, and his order for coffee went down the cable to the galley, deck after deck after deck. MS Glamis was a big ship. A tall ship. And that was what bothered Fred Ziegler.

He stifled another yawn and stared across the river. He knew every reef, every shallow and every tiny paragraph in the port authority rulebook about sailing into and out of the harbour — where the current flowed strong, where the waves broke, where you could lie in shelter and where every bollard on the quay was. That didn’t bother him. The river was grey; he could guide ships in and out blindfolded, and often had, or as good as. The weather didn’t bother him either. A near gale was blowing, and the glass in front of them was already white with spray and salt. But he had guided bigger and smaller ships in hurricanes and worse without needing a beacon, a spar buoy or a lookout. The trip in the little pilot boat that would take him ashore didn’t trouble him, even though it was as seaworthy as a cow — a fresh breeze and it took in water, the hint of a gale and it could turn round if the coxswain didn’t hit the waves right.

Fred Ziegler yawned because he dreaded the ship lowering the red and white flag that showed they had a pilot on board. Or to be more precise, having to leave the ship. Going down the rope ladder.

For twelve years he had worked as a pilot and still he hadn’t got used to going up and down the side of a ship. It didn’t bother him that he might end up in the drink, although he knew he ought to have been afraid because he couldn’t swim.

No, what bothered him was the height.

The paralysing fear when he would have to step out backwards from the ship’s side. Even in this weather the ship was so big that climbing down the ladder on the leeward side wasn’t difficult from a purely technical point of view. However, seeing or just knowing that there was fifteen metres of thin air between him and the abyss bothered him. It had always been like this and always would be. Every bloody working day was bound up with this minor hell: it was the first thing on his mind when he woke up in the morning and the last before he went to sleep. But what the heck, there was nothing unusual about it — all around him he saw people who lived their whole lives doing jobs or in positions they weren’t cut out for.

‘You must have come out of the harbour so many times now that you could ask the coastguard just to let you go,’ Fred said.

‘Let me go?’ the captain said. ‘I wouldn’t have your company then, Fred. What is it? Don’t you like me?’

I don’t like your ship, Fred thought. I’m a small man who doesn’t like big ships.

‘By the way, you’re going to see less of me in the future,’ the captain said.

‘Oh?’

‘Not enough cargo. Last year we lost Graven when they went bankrupt and then Estex closed down. What we have on board now is the last remaining stock.’

Fred had noticed by the way the ship lay in the water there was less cargo than usual.

‘Shame,’ Fred said.

‘No, makes no odds,’ the captain said gloomily. ‘Knowing this toxic stuff we’ve been transporting for all these years is paid for with our fellow citizens’ lives... Believe me, I haven’t always slept well and I’ve sometimes wondered what it must have been like being the captain of a slave ship. You have to be creative to find good enough excuses for yourself. Perhaps we know the difference between right and wrong even without using this wonderful big brain of ours. But with it we can assemble some really sophisticated arguments which, individually, sound good and, as a whole, can lead us to exactly where we want to go, regardless of how steeped in insanity this all is. No, Fred, I don’t want to ask the coastguards for permission to navigate these contaminated waters without a pilot. On Wednesday we were queueing up to come in when a message came from the harbour master himself saying that we had top priority. Free of charge.’

‘That must have been a nice surprise.’

‘Yes. Then I took a closer look at the bill of lading. Turned out we’d been transporting two Gatling guns. This is beginning to resemble how it was under Kenneth. Hey, careful! Are you trying to scald our pilot, son?’

The man in the chequered galley outfit had lost his balance as the ship pitched into a wave and had spilled coffee on the pilot’s black uniform. The guy mumbled an apology into his beard, put down the cups and hurried out.

‘Sorry, Fred. Even here, where half the town is unemployed, it’s hard to find crew with sea legs. This bloke came to us this morning claiming he’d worked in a galley before but had lost his papers.’

Fred slurped from the cup. ‘He’s not been on board a boat before and he can’t make coffee either.’

‘Oh well,’ the captain sighed. ‘We’ll manage as we’re only going to Capitol. That’s the Isle of Hanstholm behind us and now we’re over the worst. I’ll call up your boat and tell them to throw out the ladder.’

‘OK,’ Fred said, swallowing. ‘Then we’re over the worst.’

Macbeth was sitting on a chair in the corridor wringing his hands and staring at the door to the suite. ‘What’s he actually doing in there?’

‘I don’t know much about psychiatry,’ Jack said. ‘Shall I get some more coffee, sir?’

‘No, stay where you are. But he’s good, you say?’

‘Yes, Dr Alsaker’s supposed to be the best in town.’

‘That’s good, Jack. That’s good. Terrible, terrible.’ Macbeth leaned forward on the chair and hid his face in his hands. There was still an hour to go to the radio interview. He had woken before dawn to screams from Lady’s room. And when he dashed in she had been standing beside the bed pointing at the dead baby.

‘Look!’ she shrieked. ‘Look what I’ve done!’

‘But it wasn’t you, my love.’ He tried to hold her, but she tore herself away and fell to her knees sobbing.

‘Don’t call me my love ! I can’t be loved, a child killer shouldn’t be loved!’ Then she turned to Macbeth and looked at him through those crazed black eyes of hers. ‘Not even a child killer should love a child killer. Get out!’

‘Come and lie down with me, darling.’

‘Get out of my bedroom! And don’t touch the child!’

‘This is insanity. It’s going to be burned today.’

‘Touch the child and I’ll kill you, Macbeth, I swear I will.’ She took the body in her arms and rocked it.

He swallowed. He needed his morning shot. ‘I’ll take some clothes and leave you in peace,’ he said, going to the wardrobe. Pulled out a drawer. Stared.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to go and get some more. We need it, both of us.’

He left and instead of going for some more power he had got Jack to call for psychiatric assistance.

Now Macbeth looked at his watch again. How long could it take to fix the little short circuit she’d obviously had?

In response the door opened and Macbeth jumped up from his chair. A little man with a wispy grey beard and eyelids that appeared to be one size too large came out.

‘Well?’ Macbeth asked. ‘Doctor... er...’

‘Dr Alsaker,’ Jack said.

‘I’ve given her something to calm her down,’ the psychiatrist said.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Hard to say.’

‘Hard? You’re supposed to be the best.’

‘That’s nice to hear, but not even the very best know all the labyrinths of the mind, Mr Macbeth.’

‘You have to cure her.’

‘As I said, with the little we really know about the human mind that’s a lot to ask...’

‘I’m not asking, Doctor. I’m giving you an ultimatum.’

‘An ultimatum, Mr Macbeth?’

‘If you don’t make her normal again, I’ll have to arrest you as a charlatan.’

Alsaker looked at him from under his oversized eyelids. ‘I can see that you have slept badly and you’re beside yourself with worry, Chief Commissioner. I recommend you take a day off work. Now as for your wife—’

‘You’re mistaken,’ Macbeth said, taking a dagger from his shoulder holster. ‘And the punishment for not doing your job is draconian during the present state of emergency.’

‘Sir...’ Jack started to say.

‘Surgery,’ Macbeth said. ‘That’s what’s needed, that’s what a real doctor does: he cuts away what is pernicious. He excludes any thought of the patient’s pain because that only makes him vacillate. You remove and destroy the offending item, a tumour or a rotting foot, to save the whole. It’s not that the tumour or the foot are evil in themselves, they simply have to be sacrificed. Isn’t that so, Doctor?’

The psychiatrist tilted his head. ‘Are you sure it’s your wife who needs to be examined and not yourself, Mr Macbeth?’

‘You have your ultimatum.’

‘And I’m leaving now. So you’d better stab me in the back with that thing if you need to.’

Macbeth watched Alsaker turn his back and set off towards the stairs. He stared at the dagger in his hand. What on earth was he doing?

‘Alsaker!’ Macbeth ran after the psychiatrist. Caught up with him and knelt down before him. ‘Please, you have to, you have to help her. She’s all I have. I must have her back. You must get her back. I’ll pay whatever it costs.’

Alsaker held his beard between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Is it brew?’ he asked.

‘Power,’ Macbeth said.

‘Naturally.’

‘You know it?’

‘Under a variety of sobriquets, but the chemicals are the same. People think it’s an anti-depressant because it acts as an upper the first few times until the episodes become psychotic.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s what she takes.’

‘I asked what you take, Mr Macbeth. And now I can see. How long have you been taking power?’

‘I...’

‘Not long evidently. The first thing to go is your teeth. Then your mind. And it’s not easy to escape from the prison of psychosis. Do you know what they call you when you’re completely hooked on power? A POW.’

‘Now listen here—’

‘A prisoner of war. Neat, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not your patient now, Alsaker. I beg you not to leave until you’ve done all you can.’

‘I promise to return, but I have other patients to attend to now.’

‘Jack,’ Macbeth said without moving or taking his eyes off the psychiatrist.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Show him.’

‘But...’

‘He’s bound by the Hippocratic oath.’

Jack unwound the cloth from the bundle and held it out for the doctor. He took a step back covering his nose and mouth with his hand.

‘She thinks it’s hers,’ Macbeth said. ‘If not for my sake and hers, then for the town’s, Doctor.’

Macbeth felt a strange pressure in his ears as the door closed behind him. Finally, he thought, I’m in the nuthouse. The walls of the little square room, where three people sat observing him, were padded, although there was a window.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ said the man at the table in front of him. ‘I’m just going to ask a few questions. It’ll all be over soon.’

‘It’s not the questions I’m frightened of,’ Macbeth said, sitting down, ‘it’s the answers.’

The man smiled, the music from the speaker above the window died, and he put a finger to his mouth as a red light on the wall came on.

‘This is Rolling News with Walt Kite,’ the man trilled, turning to the mike in front of him. ‘We have a visit from the town’s new favourite, Chief Commissioner Macbeth, who after wiping out one of the town’s most notorious drugs gangs, the Norse Riders, is now tirelessly chasing their corrupt collaborators inside the police’s own ranks. He has won the hearts of the people and lifted their hopes with inspiring speeches in which he says we’re entering new times. Chief Commissioner Macbeth, isn’t this just rhetoric?’

Macbeth cleared his throat. He was up for this. He was a new man. Once again he was perfectly medicated. ‘I’m a simple man and I don’t know much about rhetoric, Walt. I’ve only said what was on my mind. And that is that if this town has the will it has the muscle power to raise itself. But neither the chief commissioner nor politicians can lift a town; its citizens have to do that themselves.’

‘But they can be inspired and led?’

‘Naturally.’

‘You’re already being touted as mayor material. Is this something that might tempt you, Chief Commissioner Macbeth?’

‘I’m a police officer and I wish only to serve the town in the job I have been appointed to.’

‘As a humble servant of the people, in other words. Your predecessor, Duncan, also saw himself as a servant of the people, though he wasn’t so humble. He promised to catch the town’s most powerful criminal, Hecate, also known as the Invisible Hand, within a year. Now, you’ve dealt with the Norse Riders. What deadline have you set yourself for Hecate?’

‘First, let me say there is a reason for the name the Invisible Hand. We know very little about Hecate, only that he’s probably behind the manufacturing of the drug called brew. But given its widespread production and distribution it’s equally probable that we’re talking about a network or a shared supply chain.’

‘Do I hear you saying you’re not going to prioritise the arrest of Hecate as highly as Duncan did?’

‘What you hear is a chief commissioner refusing to use all his resources on arrests that might make headlines, bring honour to the police and lead to clinking champagne glasses in the town hall, but in reality do little for people’s everyday lives. If we arrest a man by the name of Hecate others will take over his market unless we tackle the town’s real problem.’

‘Which is?’

‘Jobs, Walt. Giving people work. That’s the best and the cheapest initiative against crime. We can fill our prisons, but as long as we have people walking the streets without food...’

‘Now you really sound as if you’re considering standing for election.’

‘I don’t care what it sounds like. I only want this town back on an even keel.’

‘And how will you do that?’

‘We can do that by ensuring this becomes a town where we take account of both investors and workers. Investors mustn’t get away with not paying taxes into the common pot or bribing their way to privileges. But the town can give them the sure knowledge that rules are being followed. And workers should know that their workplace isn’t poisoning them. Our recently deceased hero Banquo lost his wife Vera several years ago. She had breathed in poisonous fumes at the factory where she worked for many years. Vera was a lovely hard-working wife and mother. I knew her personally and loved her. As chief commissioner I promise the town that none of its future workplaces will take the lives of any more Veras. There are other ways of finding employment for people. Better ways. Which will give them a better life.’

Macbeth could see from Walt Kite’s grin that he was impressed. Macbeth was impressed himself. He had never been so clear-thinking. It had to be the new powder, delivering the words, so concise and logical, from the brain to the tongue.

‘Your popularity has grown quickly — exponentially — Chief Commissioner. Is that why you dare to make statements that, if I were Mayor Tourtell, I would regard as a challenge? Formally speaking, he is your boss and has to endorse your appointment to the post of chief commissioner. Otherwise you don’t have a job.’

‘I have more bosses than the mayor, Walt, among them my own conscience and the citizens of this town. And for me my conscience and this town are above a comfy chair in the chief commissioner’s office.’

‘In four months there are elections for a new mayor, and the closing date for nominations is in three weeks.’

‘If you say so, Walt.’

Walt Kite laughed and raised an arm above his head. ‘And with that we say thank you to Chief Commissioner Macbeth. I’m not so sure he’s telling us the truth when he says he knows nothing about rhetoric. And now here’s Miles Davis...’ He dropped his arm and pointed to the window. The red light went out, and the sound of a soft, dry trumpet filled the speakers.

‘Thank you.’ Kite smiled. ‘No one will take the lives of any more Veras? You are aware that you could be elected as mayor on that sound bite alone, aren’t you?’

‘Thanks for the interview,’ Macbeth said without moving.

Kite glanced at him questioningly.

‘Did I hear you aright?’ Macbeth said slowly in a low voice. ‘Did you accuse me of lying at the end there?’

Kite blinked, taken aback. ‘Lying?’

‘I’m not so sure he’s telling us the truth when he...’

‘Oh, but that—’ the reporter’s Adam’s apple jumped ‘—was just a joke of course, a... erm, way of speaking, a...’

‘I was just teasing.’ Macbeth smiled and got up. ‘See you.’

As Macbeth left the radio building in the rain he felt that Walt Kite wouldn’t be a problem any more. And as he sat in the back of the limousine he felt that the Obelisk, Duff and Lady’s illness weren’t going to be problems any more either. Because he was thinking more clearly than ever.

‘Drive a bit more slowly,’ he said.

He wanted to enjoy the trip through the town. His town.

True enough, it wasn’t his yet, but it soon would be. Because he was invincible. And perfectly medicated.

While they were waiting at some red lights his gaze fell on a man waiting by the crossing, although the pedestrian light was green. His upper body and face were hidden by a large black umbrella, so all Macbeth could see was his light-coloured coat, brown shoes and the big black dog he was holding on a lead. And a thought struck Macbeth. Did the dog wonder why he was owned, why he was on a lead? He gets a little food, his allotted portion, just enough for him to prefer security to insecurity, to be kept in check. That is all that stops the dog from trotting over to the owner while he is asleep, tearing out his throat and taking over the house. For that is all he has to do. Once you realise how to open the pantry door it is actually the natural response.