by Jo Nesbo
They came in wearing their black uniforms, quick, soundless, obeying his every sign. They didn’t touch Collum; they led out a sobbing Jack. She pushed away an offer of help. Sat looking at the young head of SWAT, who leaned back in his chair looking content. Like someone thinking he had taken the last trick.
‘Collum will take the last trick,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Unless we find it.’
‘Find what?’
‘Didn’t you hear what he said? After dispatching you three to hell and blowing this place sky-high.’
He stared at her for a couple of seconds, first with surprise, then with something else. Acknowledgement. Respect. Then shouted, ‘Ricardo! There’s a bomb!’
Ricardo was a SWAT guy with calm self-assurance in his gaze, his movements and the softly spoken orders he gave. His skin was so black Lady thought she could see her reflection. It took Ricardo and his men four minutes to find what they were searching for, inside a locked toilet cubicle. A zebra-striped suitcase Collum had brought in after the doorman had checked the contents. Collum had explained it was four gold bars. He intended to use them as a stake at the exclusive poker table where, until the Gambling and Casino Committee had forbidden it, they had accepted cash, watches, wedding rings, mortgage deeds, car keys and anything else, provided that the players agreed. Behind the gold-painted iron bars engineer and numbers genius Collum had placed a home-made time bomb, which the SWAT bomb expert later praised for its craftsmanship. Exactly how many minutes were left on the timer Lady couldn’t remember. But she remembered the cards.
The king of hearts and the queen of spades. That evening they met under an evil moon.
Lady invited him over for dinner at the casino the next evening. He accepted the invitation but refused the aperitif. No to wine, but yes to water. She had the table on the mezzanine laid with a view of Workers’ Square, where the rain was trickling down and running quietly over the cobblestones from the railway station to the Inverness. The architects had built the station a few metres higher up because they thought the weight of all the marble and trains like Bertha would over time cause the floor to sink in the town’s constantly waterlogged, marshy terrain.
They talked about this and that. Avoided anything too personal. Avoided what had happened the evening before. In short, they had a nice time. And he was – if not polite – so charming and witty. And unusually attractive in a grey a-little-too-tight suit that he said he had been given by his older colleague, Banquo. She listened to stories about the orphanage, a pal called Duff and a travelling circus which he had joined one summer as a boy. About the nervous lion-tamer who always had a cold, about the skinny sisters who were trapeze artists and only ate oblong food, about the magician who invited members of the audience into the ring and made their possessions – a wedding ring, a key or a watch – float in the air in front of their very eyes. And he listened with interest to Lady talking about the casino she had built from scratch. And finally, when she felt she had told him everything that could be told, she raised her glass of wine and asked, ‘Why do you think he did it?’
Macbeth shrugged. ‘Hecate’s brew drives people crazy.’
‘We ruined him, that’s true, but there’s no duplicity with the cards.’
‘I didn’t think there was.’
‘But two years ago we had two croupiers who worked a number with players on the poker table and stole from others. I kicked them out of course, but I hear they’ve got together with some financiers and have applied to the council to have a new casino built.’
‘The Obelisk? Yes, I’ve seen the drawings.’
‘Perhaps you also know a couple of the players they worked with were politicians and Kenneth’s men?’
‘I’ve heard that, yes.’
‘So the casino will be built. And I promise you people like Ernest Collum will have every reason to feel they’re being cheated.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right.’
‘This town needs new leaders. A new start.’
‘Bertha,’ Macbeth said, nodding towards the window facing the central station, where the old black locomotive stood glistening in the rain on the plinth by the main entrance, its wheels on eight metres of the original rails that ran to Capitol. ‘Banquo says she needs to be started up again. We need to have a new, healthy activity. And there’s good energy in this town too.’
‘Let’s hope so. But back to last night . . .’ She twiddled her wine glass. Knew he was looking at her cleavage. She was used to men doing that and it didn’t make her feel anything either way; she only knew that her female attributes could be used now and then, sometimes should not be used, like any other business tool. But his eyes were different. He was different. He wasn’t anyone she needed, merely a sweet policeman on a low rung of the ladder. So why was she spending time with him? Of course she could have shown him a sign of her appreciation other than her presence. She observed his hand as he took the glass of water. The thick veins on the suntanned hand. Obviously he made sure to get out of town when he could.
‘What would you have done if Collum hadn’t agreed to play blackjack?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking at her. Brown eyes. People in this town had blue eyes, but of course she had known men with brown eyes before. Not like these though. Not so . . . strong. And yet vulnerable. My God, was she falling for him? So late in life?
‘You don’t know?’ she asked.
‘You said he was an addict. I was counting on him not being able to resist the temptation to gamble one more time. With everything.’
‘You’ve been to a lot of casinos, I can see.’
‘No.’ He laughed. A boy’s laughter. ‘I didn’t even know whether my cards were any good.’
‘Sixteen versus an ace? I would say they weren’t. So how could you be so sure he would play? The story you told him wasn’t exactly convincing.’
He shrugged. She looked into her glass of wine. And saw what she knew. He knew what addiction was.
‘Did you at any point have any doubt you’d be able to stop him before he shot Jack?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’
The young policeman sipped from his glass. He didn’t seem to be relishing this topic of conversation. Should she let him off the hook? She leaned across the table. ‘Tell me more, Macbeth.’
He put down his glass. ‘For a man to lose consciousness before he has time to pull the trigger in such a situation, you have to either shoot him in the head or cut his carotid artery. As you saw, cutting his artery produced a brief but thick jet of blood, then the rest trickled out. Well, the oxygen the brain needed was in the first jet, so that meant he was unconscious before the blood even hit the table. There were two problems. Firstly, the ideal distance for throwing a knife is five paces. I was sitting much closer, but fortunately the daggers I use are balanced. That makes them harder to throw for someone without sufficient experience, but for an experienced thrower it’s easier to adjust the rotation. The second problem was that Collum was sitting in such a way that I could only get at the artery on the left-hand side of his face. And I would have to throw with my right hand. I am, as you can see, left-handed. I was dependent on a bit of luck. And usually I’m not lucky. What was the card by the way?’
‘Queen of spades. You lost.’
‘See.’
‘You’re not lucky?’
‘Definitely not at cards.’
‘And?’
He considered. Then he shook his head. ‘Nope. Not lucky in love either.’
They laughed. Toasted each other and laughed again. Listened to the falling rain. And she closed her eyes for a moment. She thought she had heard ice clinking in glasses at the bar. The click of the ball on wood spinning round the roulette wheel. Her own heartbeats.
‘What?’ He blinked in the dark bedroom.
Sh
e repeated the words: ‘You have to kill Duncan.’
Lady heard the sound of her own words, felt them grow in her mouth and drown her beating heart.
Macbeth sat up in bed, looking at her carefully. ‘Are you awake or talking in your sleep, darling?’
‘No. I’m here. And you know it has to be done.’
‘You were having a bad dream. And now—’
‘No! Think about it. It’s logical. It’s him or us.’
‘Do you think he wishes us any harm? He’s only just promoted me.’
‘In name you may be the head of Organised Crime, but in practice you’re at the mercy of his whims. If you want to close the Obelisk, if you want to chase the drug dealers out of the area around the Inverness and increase police presence on the streets so that people feel safe you have to be chief commissioner. And that’s just the small things. Think of all the big things we could achieve with you in the top job, darling.’
Macbeth laughed. ‘But Duncan wants to do big things.’
‘I don’t doubt that he honestly and genuinely wants to, but to achieve big things a chief commissioner must have broad support from the people. And for this town’s inhabitants Duncan is just a snob who landed the top post, as Kenneth did too, as Tourtell did in the town hall. It isn’t beautiful words that win over the populace, it’s who you are. And you and I are part of them, Macbeth. We know what they know. We want what they want. Listen. Of the people. For the people. With the people. Do you understand? We are the only ones who can say that.’
‘I understand, but . . .’
‘But what?’ She stroked his stomach. ‘Don’t you want to be in charge? Aren’t you a man who wants to be at the top? Are you happy to lick the boots of others?’
‘Of course not. But if we just wait we’ll get there anyway. As head of Organised Crime I’m still number three.’
‘But the chief commissioner’s office is not for the likes of you, my love! Think about it. You’ve been given this job so that it looks as if we’re as good as them. They’ll never give you the top job. Not willingly. We have to take it.’
He rolled over onto his other side, with his back to her. ‘Let’s forget this, darling. The way you’ve forgotten that Malcolm will be chief if anything happens to Duncan.’
She grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back over so that he lay facing her again.
‘I haven’t forgotten anything. I haven’t forgotten that Hecate said you’ll be the chief commissioner, and that means he has a plan. We take care of Duncan and he’ll take care of Malcolm. And I haven’t forgotten the evening you took care of Ernest Collum. Duncan is Collum, my sweet. He’s holding a pistol to the head of our dream. And you have to find the courage you displayed that evening. You have to be the man you were that night, Macbeth. For me. For us.’ She placed a hand on his cheek and softened her voice. ‘Life doesn’t give the likes of us that many opportunities, darling. We have to grasp the few that offer themselves.’
He lay there. Silent. She waited. Listened, but no words drowned out the beating of her heart now. He had ambition, dreams and the will, she knew that, they were what had raised him from the mess he had found himself in – they had turned a youth addicted to drugs into a police cadet and later the head of SWAT. That was the affinity they had: they had both made good, paid the price. Should he stop now, halfway there, before they could enjoy the rewards? Before they could enjoy the respect and admire the view? He was courageous and a ruthless man of action, but he had failings that could prove costly. A lack of evil. The evil that you needed, if only for one decisive second. The second when you have to cope with not having restrictive morality on your side, when you mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture, mustn’t torment yourself by asking if you’re doing the right thing in this, the smaller one. Macbeth loved what he called justice, and his loyalty to the rules of others was a weakness she could love him for. In times of peace. And despise him for now, when the bells of war were ringing. She ran her hand from his cheek to his neck, slowly over his chest and stomach. And back up. Listened. His breathing was regular, calm. He was asleep.
Macbeth breathed deeply, as though he were sleeping. She took away her hand. Moved to lie down along his back. She was breathing calmly too now. He tried to breathe in time with her. Kill Duncan? Impossible. Of course it was impossible.
So why couldn’t he sleep? Why did her words persist, why did his thoughts whirl around in his head like bats?
Life doesn’t give the likes of us that many opportunities, darling. We have to grasp the few that offer themselves. He thought of the opportunities life had given him. The one that night in the orphanage, which he hadn’t grasped. And the one Banquo had given him, which he had. How the first one had almost killed him and the second had saved him. But isn’t it that you don’t take some opportunities that are offered because they will condemn you to unhappiness anyway, opportunities that will cause regret for the rest of your life whether you take them or not? Oh, the insidious dissatisfaction that will always poison the most perfect happiness. And yet. Had fate opened a door that would soon shut? Was his courage letting him down again, the way it had let him down that night in the orphanage? He visualised the man in the bed that time, asleep, unsuspecting. Defenceless. A man who stood between him and the freedom every human being deserved. Between him and the dignity every human being should crave. Between Macbeth and the power he would gain. And the respect. And the love.
Day had started to break when he woke Lady.
‘If I did this . . .’ he said, ‘I would be beholden to Hecate.’
She opened her eyes as though she had been awake the whole time. ‘Why do you think like that, darling? Hecate has only prophesied that something will happen, so there is no debt to be paid.’
‘So what has he to gain by my becoming chief commissioner?’
‘You’d better ask him, but it’s obvious – he must have heard that Duncan has sworn he won’t rest until he has arrested Hecate. And he probably knows it’s not inconceivable that you would prioritise action against the drugs gangs who use violence and shoot each other in the streets.’
‘The Norse Riders, whose back has already been broken?’
‘Or against establishments that cheat good people out of their savings.’
‘The Obelisk?’
‘For example.’
‘Hm. You said something about the big things we could do. Were you thinking of something good for the town?’
‘Of course. Remember the chief commissioner decides which politicians need to be investigated and which do not. And anyone who has any knowledge of the town council knows that everyone in a position of power during the last ten years has paid for services in ways that would not bear close scrutiny. And that they in turn have demanded payment. Under Kenneth they didn’t need to bother to camouflage their corruption, the evidence was there for all to see. We know that, they know that, and it means we can control them as we wish, my love.’
She stroked his lips with her forefinger. She had told him the first night they spent together that she loved his lips. They were so soft and thin-skinned she could taste his blood with no more than a little nibble.
‘Make them finally keep their promises to implement initiatives that would save this town,’ he whispered.
‘Exactly.’
‘Get Bertha running again.’
‘Yes.’ She nibbled his lower lip, and he could feel the trembling, hers and his, their hearts racing.
He held her.
‘I love you,’ he whispered.
Macbeth and Lady. Lady and Macbeth. They were breathing in rhythm with each other now.
7
LADY LOOKED AT MACBETH. HE was so handsome in a dinner jacket. She turned, checked that the waiter had put on white gloves as she had asked. And that the champagne flutes on the silver tray were the ones with the narrow bowls. She had, mostly f
or fun, put a small but elegant silver whisk on the tray, even though very few customers had seen one before and even fewer knew what it was for. Macbeth rocked back on his shoes as they sank into the deep carpet in the Inverness, and stared stiffly at the front door. He had seemed nervous all day. Only when they went through the practical details of the plan did he regain concentration and become the professional policeman of a rapid-response unit and forget the target had a name. Duncan.
The guards outside opened the door, and a gust of rain swept in.
The first guests. Lady switched on her happiest, most excited smile and placed her hand under Macbeth’s arm. She felt him instinctively straighten up.
‘Banquo, old friend!’ she exclaimed. ‘And you’ve brought Fleance. He’s become such a good-looking young man – I’m jolly glad I don’t have any daughters!’ Hugs and clinking glasses. ‘Lennox! You and I should have a little chat, but first some champagne. And there’s Caithness! You look ravishing, my dear! Why can’t I find dresses like that? Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm! But your title’s simply too long. Is it all right if I just call you Chief? Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I tell Macbeth to call me Director General just to hear how it sounds.’
She had barely said a word to most of them before, yet she still managed to make them feel they had known each other for years. Because she could see inside them, see how they wanted to be seen – it was the blessing of super-sensitivity among all its curses. It meant she could skip the preliminary skirmishes and get straight to the point. Perhaps it was her unpretentious manner that made them trust her. She broke the ice by telling them apparently intimate details of her life, which made them daring, and when they noticed their little secrets were rewarded with an ‘Ah’ and conspiratorial laughter, they ventured on to slightly bigger secrets. It was unlikely any other person in the town knew more about its inhabitants than this evening’s hostess.
‘Chief Commissioner Duncan!’
‘Lady. Apologies for my late arrival.’