by Jo Nesbo
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?’
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.