by Jo Nesbo
Closed his eyes.
And he saw it again.
The raindrop hanging from the edge of his visor. The man kneeling in front of him. Not moving. The helmet with the horns. Duff wanted to say something to him, but he couldn’t. Instead he lifted the gun to his shoulder. Couldn’t the man at least move? The raindrop would soon fall.
‘Duff,’ Macbeth said behind him. ‘Duff, don’t . . .’
The drop fell.
Duff fired. Fired again. Fired again.
Three shots.
The man kneeling in front of him fell sideways.
The silence afterwards was deafening. He squatted down beside the dead man and removed his helmet. It was like having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over him when he saw it wasn’t Sweno. The young man’s eyes were closed; he looked like he was sleeping peacefully where he lay.
Duff turned, glanced at Macbeth. Felt the tears filling his eyes, still unable to speak, just shook his head. Macbeth nodded in response and removed the other’s helmet. Also a young man. Duff felt something pushing up into his throat and wrapped his hands around his face. Over his sobs he heard the man’s pleas reverberate like gulls’ cries across the uninhabited plains. ‘No, don’t! I haven’t seen anything! I won’t tell anyone! Please, no jury will believe me anyway. I under—’
The voice was cut off. Duff heard a body smack against the tarmac, a low gurgle, then everything went quiet.
He turned. Only now did he notice the other man was wearing white clothes. They were soaking up the blood running from the hole in his neck.
Macbeth stood behind the man, a dagger in his hand. His chest was heaving. ‘Now,’ he said gruffly. Cleared his throat. ‘Now I’ve paid my debt to you, Duff.’
Duff pressed his fingertips against the place where he knew they didn’t soothe. He held his other hand over the man’s mouth to muffle his screams and forced him down onto the hospital bed. The man pulled desperately at the handcuffs shackling him to the bed head. From the daylight flooding in through the window Duff could clearly see the network of fine blood vessels around the big pupils, black with shock, in his wide-open eyes under the NORSE RIDER TILL I DIE tattoo on his forehead. Duff’s forefinger and index finger went red where they pressed under the bandage into the shoulder wound, making squelching noises.
Any job, Duff thought, as long as it serves the force and the town.
And repeated the question: ‘Who’s your police informant?’
He took his hand away from the wound. The man stopped screaming. Duff took his hand off his mouth. The man didn’t answer.
Duff ripped off the bandage and pressed all his fingers into the wound.
He knew he would get an answer, it was just a question of time. There is only so much a man can take before he gives in, before he breaks every tattooed oath and does everything – absolutely everything – he thought he would never do. For eternal loyalty is inhuman and betrayal is human.
4
IT TOOK TWENTY MINUTES.
Twenty minutes after Duff had walked into the hospital and poked his fingers into the shoulder wound of the man with the tattoo on his forehead, until he left, amazed, with enough information about whom, where and when for the relevant person to find it impossible to deny unless he was innocent. Amazed because – now things had got so bad that they had a mole in their midst – it was almost too good to be true.
It took thirty minutes.
Thirty minutes after Duff had got in his car, driven through the trickle of rain falling onto the town like an old man piddling, parked outside the main police station, received a gracious nod from the chief commissioner’s anteroom lady to let him know he could pass, until he was sitting in front of Duncan and articulated the one word. Cawdor. And the chief commissioner leaned across his desk, asked Duff if he was sure, after all this was the head of the Gang Unit they were talking about – sat back, drew a hand over his face and for the first time Duff heard Duncan swear.
It took forty minutes.
Forty minutes from when Duncan had announced that Cawdor had a day off, lifted the phone and ordered Macbeth to arrest him, until eight SWAT men surrounded Cawdor’s house, which lay on a big plot of land overlooking the sea so far to the west that refuse was still collected and the homeless removed, and Mayor Tourtell was his closest neighbour. The SWAT team parked some distance away and crept up to the house, two men from each direction.
Macbeth and Banquo sat on the pavement with their backs against the high wall to the south of the house, beside the gates. Cawdor – like most of his neighbours – had cemented glass shards into the top of the wall, but SWAT had mats to overcome hindrances of that kind. The raid followed the usual procedure, the teams reporting via walkie-talkies when they were in their pre-arranged positions. Macbeth glanced across the street to where a boy of six or seven had been throwing a ball against a garage wall when they arrived. Now he stopped and stared at them with his mouth open. Macbeth put a finger to his lips, and the boy nodded back somnambulantly. The same expression as the white-clad young man kneeling on the tarmac the previous night, Macbeth reflected.
‘Wake up.’ It was Banquo whispering in his ear.
‘What?’
‘All the teams are in position.’
Macbeth breathed in and out a couple of times. Had to shut out other things from his mind now, had to get in the zone. He pressed the talk button: ‘Fifty seconds to going in. North? Over.’
Angus’s voice with that unctuous priest-like chanting tone: ‘All OK. Can’t see any movement inside. Over.’
‘West? Over.’
‘All OK.’ That was the replacement’s voice, Seyton. Monotone, calm. ‘Hang on, the sitting-room curtain twitched. Over.’
‘OK,’ Macbeth said. He didn’t even need to think; this was part of the what-if procedure they drilled day in, day out. ‘We may have been seen, folks. Let’s cut the countdown and go in. Three, two, one . . . go!’
And there it was, the zone. The zone was like a room where you closed the door behind you and nothing else but the mission, you and your men existed.
They got to their feet, and as Banquo threw the mat over the glass on the wall Macbeth noticed the boy with the ball wave slowly, robotically, with his free hand.
Within seconds they were over the wall and sprinting through the garden, and Macbeth had this feeling he could sense everything around him. He could hear a branch creak in the wind, could see a crow take off from the ridge of the neighbour’s roof, could smell a rotting apple in the grass. They ran up the steps, and Banquo used the butt of his gun to smash the window beside the front door, slipped his hand through and unlocked the door from the inside. As they entered they heard glass breaking elsewhere in the house. Eight against one. When Macbeth asked Duncan if there was any reason to think Cawdor would put up resistance Duncan had answered that wasn’t why he wanted a full-scale arrest.
‘It’s to send a signal, Macbeth. We don’t treat our own more leniently. Quite the contrary. Smash glass, kick in doors, make a lot of noise and lead Cawdor out in handcuffs through the front entrance so that everyone can see and tell others.’
Macbeth went in first. Pressing an assault rifle to his shoulder as his gaze swept the hall. Stood with his back to the wall beside the sitting-room door. His eyes gradually adapted to the darkness after the sharp sunlight outside. All the curtains in the house appeared to be drawn. Banquo came up to his side and carried on into the sitting room.
As Macbeth pushed off from the wall to follow him, it happened.
The attacker came swiftly and silently from the darkness shrouding one of the two staircases, hit Macbeth in the chest and sent him flying backwards.
Macbeth felt hot air on his throat, but managed to get his gun barrel between him and the dog and knock its snout to the side so that the big teeth sank into his shoulder instead. He screamed with pain as an imm
ense snarling head tore at skin and flesh. Macbeth tried to hit out, but his free hand was caught in his rifle strap. ‘Banquo!’ Cawdor wasn’t supposed to have a dog. They always checked before operations of this kind. But this was definitely a dog, and it was strong. The dog shoved the gun barrel to the side. It was going for his throat. He would soon have his carotid artery severed.
‘Banq—’
The dog went stiff. Macbeth turned his head and stared into dulled canine eyes. Then its body went limp and slumped on top of him. Macbeth pushed it off and looked up.
Seyton was standing over him holding out a hand.
‘Thank you,’ Macbeth said, getting to his feet without help. ‘Where’s Banquo?’
‘He and Cawdor are inside,’ Seyton answered, motioning towards the sitting room.
Macbeth went to the sitting-room door. They had opened the curtains, and in the bright light from behind he saw only Banquo’s back as he stared up at the ceiling. Above him hovered an angel with a halo of sunshine and his head bowed as if in a plea for forgiveness.
It took an hour.
An hour from the moment Macbeth had said, ‘Go!’ until Duncan had gathered all the departmental and unit leaders together in the large conference room at HQ.
Duncan stood up on the podium and looked down at some papers; Duff knew he had written some words there the way he wanted them to be said but that he would ad-lib according to the moment and the situation. Not because the chief commissioner was a loose cannon, far from it. Duff knew he had the words under control, he was as much a man of heart as he was of mind, a man who spoke how he felt and vice versa. A man who understood himself and therefore others too, Duff thought. A leader. Someone people would follow. Someone Duff wished he was, or could be.
‘You all know what happened,’ Duncan said in a low, solemn voice, yet it carried as though he had shouted. ‘I just wanted to brief you fully before the press conference this afternoon. One of our most trusted officers, Inspector Cawdor, had a serious charge of corruption levelled against him. And at the present moment it appears this suspicion was justified. In the light of his close connection with the Norse Riders – against whom we launched a successful operation yesterday – there was clearly a risk that he, given the situation, might try to destroy evidence or flee. For that reason, at ten o’clock this morning I gave the order for SWAT to arrest Inspector Cawdor with immediate effect.’
Duff had hoped his name would be mentioned, but he was also aware that Duncan wouldn’t divulge any details. For if there is one thing you learn in the police it is that rules are rules, even when unwritten. So he was surprised when Duncan looked up and said, ‘Inspector Macbeth, would you be so kind as to come up here and briefly summarise the arrest?’
Duff turned and watched his colleague stride up between the lines of chairs to the podium. Obviously he had been caught by surprise as well. The chief commissioner didn’t normally delegate in these contexts; he would usually say his piece, make it short and to the point and conclude the meeting so that everyone could get back to their job of making the town a better place to live.
Macbeth looked ill at ease. He was still wearing his black SWAT uniform, but the zip at the neck was undone far enough for them to see the bright white bandage on his right shoulder.
‘Well,’ he began.
Not exactly an elegant start, but then no one expected the head of SWAT to be a wordsmith. Macbeth checked his watch as though he had an appointment. Everyone in the room knew why: it is the instinctive reaction of police officers who have been ordered to report back and feel unsure of themselves. They check their watches as though the obligatory time references for past events are written there or the watch face will jog their memory.
‘At ten fifty-three,’ Macbeth said and coughed twice, ‘SWAT raided Inspector Cawdor’s home. A terrace door was open, but there was no sign of a break-in or violence, or that anyone had been there before us. Apart from a dog. Nor any signs that anyone other than Cawdor himself had done it . . .’ Now Macbeth stopped looking at his watch and addressed the gathering. ‘A chair was knocked over by the terrace door. I’m not going to anticipate the SOCOs’ conclusions, but it looked as if Cawdor didn’t just step off the chair when he hanged himself, he jumped, and when he swung back kicked the chair across the room. That tallies with the way the deceased’s excrement was scattered across the floor. The body was cold. Suicide seems the obvious cause of death, and one of the guys asked if we could skip the procedures and cut the man down as Cawdor had been a police officer all his life. I said no . . .’
Duff noticed Macbeth’s dramatic pause. As if to allow the audience to listen to his silence. It was a trick Duff might use himself, a method had definitely seen Duncan use, but he hadn’t imagined that the pragmatic Macbeth would have it in his repertoire. And perhaps he didn’t, because he was studying his watch again.
‘Ten fifty-nine.’
Macbeth looked up and pulled his sleeve over the watch in a gesture to suggest he had finished.
‘So Cawdor’s still hanging there. Not for any investigative purpose, but because he was a corrupt policeman.’
It was so quiet in the room that Duff could hear the rain lashing against the window high up the wall. Macbeth turned to Duncan and gave a cursory nod. Then he left the podium and went back to his seat.
Duncan waited until Macbeth had sat down before saying, ‘Thank you, Macbeth. That won’t form part of the press conference, but I think it’s a suitable conclusion to this internal briefing. Remember that a condemnation of all that is weak and bad in us can also be seen as an optimistic tribute to all that is strong and good. So back to your good work, folks.’
The young nurse stood by the door and watched the patient take off his top. He had pulled his long black hair behind his head as the doctor unwound the blood stained bandage from his left shoulder. All she knew about the patient was that he was a police officer. And muscular.
‘Oh my goodness,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ll have to give you a few stitches. And you’ll need a tetanus injection, we always do that with dog bites. But first a little anaesthetic. Maria, can you . . . ?
‘No,’ said the patient, staring stiffly at the wall.
‘Sorry?’
‘No anaesthetic.’
A silence ensued.
‘No anaesthetic?’
‘No anaesthetic.’
The doctor was about to say something about pain when she caught sight of the scars on his forearms. Old scars. But the type of scar she had seen all too often after she moved to this town.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘No anaesthetic.’
Duff leaned back in his office chair and pressed the receiver to his ear.
‘It’s me, love. What are you all doing?’
‘Emily’s gone swimming with friends. Ewan has got toothache. I’ll take him to the dentist.’
‘OK. Love, I’m working late today.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I may have to stay over here.’
‘Why’s that?’ she repeated. Her voice didn’t reveal any annoyance or frustration. It just sounded as if this was information she would like, perhaps to explain his absence to the children. Not because she needed him. Not because . . .
‘It’ll soon be on the news,’ he said. ‘Cawdor has committed suicide.’
‘Oh dear. Who’s Cawdor?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘No.’
‘The head of the Gang Unit. He was a strong candidate for the Organised Crime post.’
Silence.
She had never taken much interest in his work. Her world was Fife, the children and – at least when he was at home – her husband. Which was great for him. In the sense that he didn’t have to involve them in the grimness of his work. On the other hand, her lack of interest in his ambition meant she didn’t always show much understandi
ng for what the job demanded of his time. For his sacrifice. For . . . what he needed, for goodness’ sake.
‘The head of Organised Crime, who will be number three in the chain of command at HQ, after Duncan and Deputy Commissioner Malcolm. So, yes, this is a big deal, and it means I have to be here. Probably for the next few days, too.’
‘Just tell me you’ll be here for the pre-birthday.’
The pre-birthday. Oh, hell! It was a tradition they had, the day before the child’s real birthday it was just the four of them, meat broth and Mum and Dad’s presents. Had he really forgotten Ewan’s birthday? Perhaps the date had slipped his mind with all the events of the last few days, but he had gone out to buy what Ewan said he wanted after Duff told him how the undercover officers worked in the Narco Unit – sometimes they donned a disguise so that they wouldn’t be recognised. In the drawer in front of Duff there was a nicely wrapped gift box containing a false beard and glue, fake glasses and a green woolly hat, all adult sizes so that he could assure Ewan it was exactly what Daddy and the others in the Narco Unit wore.
A light flashed on his telephone. An internal call. He had an inkling who it might be.
‘Just a mo, love.’
He pressed the button below the light. ‘Yes?’
‘Duff? Duncan here. It’s about the press conference this afternoon.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘I’d like to show we haven’t been rendered impotent by what’s happened and we’re thinking about the future, so I’m going to announce the name of the acting head of Organised Crime.’
‘Organised Crime? Er . . . already?’
‘I’d have done it at the end of the month anyway, but as the Gang Unit no longer has a leader it’s expedient to appoint an acting head straight away. Can you come up to my office?’
‘Of course.’
Duncan rang off. Duff sat staring at the extinguished light. It was unusual for the chief commissioner to ring personally; it was always his secretary or one of his assistants who called meetings. Acting head. Who would probably take over the post when the formalities – application phase, appointment board’s deliberations and so on – were at an end. His gaze picked up another light. He had completely forgotten his wife was on hold.