by Jo Nesbo
Duff met Duncan’s eyes, which were contemplating him. The chief commissioner’s index finger stroked the point of his chin to and fro. Then he moistened his lips.
‘There’s a lot of blood too. A lot of damage to the bridge. The fish in the river are probably already junkies. And Sweno’s still on the loose.’
Duff cursed inwardly. The hypocritical, arrogant fool must be capable of seeing the bigger picture.
‘But,’ said the chief commissioner, ‘six Norse Riders are in custody. And even if we do feel a little more invigorated than usual when eating fish over the next few weeks, better that than the dope ending up in our young people. Or—’ Duncan grabbed his champagne glass ‘—in Seized Goods.’
Lennox and Caithness laughed. It was well known that the HQ warehouse was still unaccountably losing goods.
‘So,’ Duncan said, raising his glass, ‘good police work, Duff.’
Duff blinked twice. His heart beat quickly and lightly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, draining his glass.
Duncan snatched the leather folder. ‘This is on me.’ He took the bill, held it at arm’s length and squinted. ‘Although I can’t see if I’ve been given the right bill.’
‘Who has!’ Lennox said with a stiff smile when no one laughed.
‘Let me,’ Caithness said, taking the bill and putting on her horn-rimmed granny glasses, which Duff knew she didn’t need but wore because she thought they added a couple of years to her age and detracted from her appearance. Duncan had been brave to give Caithness the Forensic Unit. Not because anyone doubted her professional competence – she had been the best cadet at her police college and had also studied chemistry and physics – but she was younger than any of the other unit heads, single and simply too good-looking for suspicion of ulterior motives not to creep in. The candle flames made the water in her laughing eyes behind the glasses, the moisture of her full red lips and the wetness of her shining white teeth sparkle. Duff closed his eyes. The gleaming shine of the tarmac, the sound of tyres on the wet road. The spattering sound. The blood that had splashed to the floor when the man had pulled the dagger from his neck. It was a like a hand squeezing Duff’s chest, and he opened his eyes with a gasp.
‘Everything OK?’ Lennox held a carafe of water over Duff’s glass, and the dregs splashed in. ‘Drink, Duff, so that you can dilute the champagne. You have to drive now.’
‘No question of that,’ Duncan said. ‘I don’t want my heroes arrested for drunk driving or killed on the road. My driver wouldn’t object to a little detour.’
‘Thank you,’ Duff said. ‘But Fife’s—’
‘—more or less on my way home,’ Duncan said. ‘And it’s Mrs Duff and your two wonderful children who should thank me.’
‘Excuse me,’ Duff said, pushing his chair back and standing up.
‘A stupendous police officer,’ Lennox said as he watched Duff stagger towards the toilet door at the back of the room.
‘Duff?’ Duncan queried.
‘Him too, but I was thinking about Macbeth. His results are impressive, his men love him, and even though he worked under Kenneth, we in the Anti-Corruption Unit know he’s rock solid. It’s a pity he doesn’t have the formal qualifications necessary for a higher management post.’
‘There’s no requirement to have anything higher than police college. Look at Kenneth.’
‘Yes, but Macbeth still isn’t one of us.’
‘Us?’
‘Well,’ Lennox lifted his champagne glass with a wry smile, ‘you’ve chosen heads who – whether we like it or not – are seen as belonging to the elite. We all come from the western side of town or Capitol, have an education or a respectable family name. Macbeth is seen more as someone from the broader ranks of the populace, if you know what I mean.’
‘I do. Listen, I’m a bit worried about Duff’s unsteadiness on his feet. Could you . . . ?’
Fortunately the toilet was empty.
Duff did up his flies, stood by one of the sinks, turned on a tap and splashed water over his face. He heard the door go behind him.
‘Duncan asked me to check how you were,’ Lennox said.
‘Mm. What do you think he thought?’
‘Thought about what?’
Duff grabbed a paper and dried his face. ‘About . . . how things went.’
‘He probably thinks what we all think: you did a good job.’
Duff nodded.
Lennox chuckled. ‘You really do want the Organised Crime job, don’t you.’
Duff turned off the tap and soaped his hands while looking at the head of Anti-Corruption in the mirror.
‘You mean I’m a climber?’
‘Nothing wrong with climbing the ladder.’ Lennox smirked. ‘It’s just amusing to see how you position yourself.’
‘I’m qualified, Lennox. So isn’t it simply my duty to this town and my and your children’s future to do what I can for Organised Crime? Or should I leave the biggest unit to Cawdor? A person we both know must have both dirty and bloody hands to have survived under Kenneth for as long as he did.’
‘Aha,’ Lennox said. ‘It’s duty that drives you? Not personal ambition at all. Well, St Duff, let me hold the door open for you.’ Lennox performed a deep bow. ‘I presume you will refuse the salary increase and other concomitant privileges.’
‘The salary, honour and fame are irrelevant to me,’ Duff said. ‘But society rewards those who contribute. Showing contempt for the salary would be like showing contempt for society.’ He studied his face in the mirror. How can you see when a person is lying? Is it possible when the person in question has succeeded in convincing himself that what he says is the truth? How long would it take him to convince himself that it was the truth, the version he and Macbeth had arranged to give of how they had killed the two men on the road?
‘Have you finished washing your hands now, Duff? I think Duncan wants to go home.’
The SWAT men took their leave of each other outside the Bricklayers Arms. ‘Loyalty, fraternity,’ Macbeth said in a loud voice.
The others answered him in slurred, to varying degrees, unison: ‘Baptised in fire, united in blood.’
Then they walked away in every direction of the compass. Macbeth and Banquo to the west, past a street musician who was howling rather than singing ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ and through the deserted run-down concourses and corridors of the central station. A strangely warm wind picked up through the passages and swept litter between the once beautiful Doric pillars crumbling after years of pollution and lack of maintenance.
‘Now,’ Banquo said. ‘Are you going to tell me what really happened?’
‘You tell me about the lorry and Kenneth,’ Macbeth said. ‘Ninety-metre free fall!’ His laughter resounded beneath the brick ceiling.
Banquo smiled. ‘Come on, Macbeth. What happened out there on the country road?’
‘Did they say anything about how long they would have to close the bridge for repairs?’
‘You might be able to lie to them, but not to me.’
‘We got them, Banquo. Do you need to know any more?’
‘Do I?’ Banquo waved away the stench from the stairs down to the toilets, where a woman of indeterminate age was standing bent over with her hair hanging down in front of her face as she clung to the handrail.
‘No.’
‘All right,’ Banquo said.
Macbeth stopped and crouched down by a young boy sitting by the wall with a begging cup in front of him. The boy raised his head. He had a black patch over one eye and the other stared out from a doped-up state, a dream. Macbeth put a banknote in his cup and a hand on his shoulder. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked softly.
‘Macbeth,’ the boy said. ‘As you can see.’
‘You can do it,’ Macbeth said. ‘Always remember that. You can stop.’
The boy’s voice slurred and slid from vowel to vowel. ‘And how do you know that?’
‘Believe me, it’s been done before.’ Macbeth stood up, and the boy called a tremulous ‘God bless you, Macbeth’ after them.
They went into the concourse in the eastern part of the station, where there was a conspicuous silence, like in a church. The druggies who weren’t sitting, lying or standing by the walls or on the benches were staggering around in a kind of slow dance, like astronauts in an alien atmosphere, a different gravitational field. Some stared suspiciously at the two police officers, but most just ignored them. As though they had X-ray eyes that had long-ago established that these two had nothing to sell. Most were so emaciated and ravaged it was hard to know exactly how long they had been alive. Or how long they had left.
‘You’re never tempted to start again?’ Banquo asked.
‘No.’
‘Most ex-junkies dream of a last shot.’
‘Not me. Let’s get out of here.’
They walked to the steps in front of the west exit, stopped before they came to where the roof no longer sheltered them from the rain. Beside them, on black rails on a low plinth, stood what appeared in the darkness to be a prehistoric monster. Bertha, a hundred and ten years old, the first locomotive in the country, the very symbol of the optimism about the future that had once held sway. The broad, majestic, gently graded steps led down to the dark, deserted Workers’ Square, where once there had been hustle and bustle, market stalls and travellers hurrying to and fro, but which was now ghostly, a square where the wind whistled and whined. At one end lights glittered in a venerable brick building which had at one time housed the offices of the National Railway Network but had fallen into disuse after the railway was abandoned, until it had been bought and renovated to become the most glamorous and elegant building the town had to offer: Inverness Casino. Banquo had been inside only once and immediately knew it was not his kind of place. Or, to be more precise, he wasn’t their kind of customer. He was probably the Obelisk type, where customers were not so well dressed, the drinks were not so expensive and the prostitutes not so beautiful nor so discreet.
‘Goodnight, Banquo.’
‘Goodnight, Macbeth. Sleep well.’
Banquo saw a light shiver go through his friend’s body, then Macbeth’s white teeth shone in the darkness. ‘Say hello to Fleance from me and tell him his father has done a great job tonight. What I wouldn’t have given to see Kenneth in free fall from his own bridge . . .’
Banquo heard his friend’s low chuckle as he disappeared into the darkness and rain on Workers’ Square, but when his own laughter had faded too an unease spread through him. Macbeth wasn’t only a friend and a colleague, he was like a son, a Moses in a basket whom Banquo loved almost as much as Fleance. So that was why Banquo waited until he saw Macbeth reappear on the other side of the square and walk into the light by the entrance to the casino, from which a tall woman with flowing flame-red hair in a long red dress emerged and hugged him, as though a phantom had warned her that her beloved was on his way.
Lady.
Perhaps she had caught wind of this evening’s events. A woman like Lady wouldn’t have got to where she was without informants who told her what she needed to know about everything that moved beneath the surface of this town.
They still had their arms around each other. She was a beautiful woman and might well have been even more beautiful once. No one seemed to know Lady’s age, but it was definitely a good deal more than Macbeth’s thirty-three years. But maybe it was true what they said: true love conquers all.
Or maybe not.
The older policeman turned and set off north.
In Fife the chief commissioner’s chauffeur turned off onto the gravel lane as instructed. The gravel crunched under the car tyres.
‘You can stop here. I’ll walk the rest of the way,’ Duff said.
The chauffeur braked. In the ensuing silence they could hear the grasshoppers and the sough of the deciduous trees.
‘You don’t want to wake them,’ Duncan said, looking down the lane, where a small white farmhouse lay bathed in moonlight. ‘And I agree. Let our dear ones sleep in ignorance and safe assurance. A lovely little place you’ve got here.’
‘Thank you. And sorry about the detour.’
‘We all have to take detours in life, Duff. The next time you get a tip-off, as with the Norse Riders, you make a detour towards me. OK?’
‘OK.’
Duncan’s index finger moved to and fro across his chin. ‘Our aim is to make this town a better place for everyone, Duff. But that means all the positive powers have to work together and think of the community’s best interests, not only their own.’
‘Of course. And I’d just like to say I’m willing to do any job so long as it serves the force and the town, sir.’
Duncan smiled. ‘In which case it’s me who should thank you, Duff. Ah, one last thing . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘You say fourteen Norse Riders including Sweno himself were more than you’d anticipated and it would have been more discreet of them to have just sent a couple of men to drive the lorry away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has it struck you that Sweno might also have been tipped off? He might have suspected you’d be there. So your fear of a leak was perhaps not unfounded. Goodnight, Duff.’
‘Goodnight.’
Duff walked down to his house breathing in the smell of the earth and grass where the dew had already fallen. He had considered this possibility and now Duncan had articulated it. A leak. An informant. And he, Duff, would find the leak. He would find him the very next day.
Macbeth lay on his side with his eyes closed. Behind him he heard her regular breathing and from down in the casino the bass line of the music, like muffled heartbeats. The Inverness stayed open all night, but it was now late even for crazed gamblers and thirsty drinkers. In the corridor overnight guests walked past and unlocked their rooms. Some alone, some with a spouse. Some with other company. This wasn’t something Lady paid too much attention to as long as the women who frequented the casino complied with her unwritten rules of always being discreet, always well groomed, always sober, always infection-free and always, but always, attractive. Lady had once, not long after they had got together, asked why he didn’t look at them. And laughed when he had answered it was because he only had eyes for her. It was only later she understood he meant that quite literally. He didn’t need to turn round to see her, her features were seared into his retinas; all he had to do – wherever he was – was close his eyes and she was there. There hadn’t been anyone before Lady. Well, there had been women who made his pulse race and there were definitely women’s hearts that had beaten faster because of him. But he had never been intimate with them. And of course there was one who had scarred his heart. When Lady had realised and had, laughing, asked him if she had been sent a genuine virgin, he told her his story. The story that hitherto only two people in the world had known. And then she had told him hers.
The suite’s silk sheet felt heavy and expensive on his naked body. Like a fever, hot and cold at the same time. He could hear from her breathing that she was awake.
‘What is it?’ she whispered sleepily.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just can’t sleep.’
She snuggled up to him, and her hand stroked his chest and shoulders. Occasionally, like now, they breathed in rhythm. As though they were one and the same organism, like Siamese twins sharing lungs – that was exactly how it felt the time they had exchanged their stories, and he knew he was no longer alone.
Her hand slid down his upper arm, over the tattoos, down to his lower arm, where she caressed his scars. He had told her about them too. And about Lorreal. They quite simply kept no secrets from each other. They weren’t secrets, but there were grim details he had begged her to spare him. She loved hi
m, that was all that was important, that was all he had to know about her. He turned onto his back. Her hand stroked his stomach, stopped and waited. She was the queen. And her vassal obediently stood up under the silk material.
When Duff crept into bed beside his wife, listened to her regular breathing and felt the heat from her back, it was as though the memories of the night’s events had already begun to recede. This place had that effect on him, it always had. They had met while he was a student. She came from an affluent family on the western side of town, and even though her parents had been initially sceptical, after a while they accepted the hard-working ambitious young man. And Duff came from a respectable family, in his father-in-law’s opinion. The rest followed almost automatically. Marriage, children, a house in Fife, where the children could grow up without inhaling the town’s toxic air, career, everyday grind. A lot of everyday grind with long days and promotion beckoning. And time flies by. That’s the way it is. She was a good woman and wife, it wasn’t that. Clever, caring and loyal. And what about him – wasn’t he a good husband? Didn’t he provide for them, save money for the children’s education, build a cabin by the lake? Yes, neither she nor her father had much to complain about. He was the way he was, he couldn’t help that. Anyway, there was a lot to say for having a home, having a family: it gave you peace. It had its own pace of life, its own agenda, and it didn’t care much about what was on the outside. Not really. And he needed that perception of reality – or the lack of it – he had to have it. Now and then.
‘You came home then—’ she mumbled.
‘To you and the kids,’ he said.
‘—in the night,’ she added.
He lay listening to the silence between them. Trying to decide whether it was good or bad. Then she laid a tender hand on his shoulder. Pressed her fingertips carefully against his tired muscles where he knew they would soothe.