by Jo Nesbo
‘What are you hoping is going on, Caithness?’
‘I’m hoping we’re going to remove Macbeth.’
Seyton pushed down the lever on the iron door and opened it. Macbeth stepped inside and twisted the switch. The neon tubes blinked twice before casting a cold blue light on the shelves of ammunition boxes and various weapons. On the floor in the square room were a safe and two half-dismantled Gatling guns. Macbeth went over to the safe, twirled the dial and opened it. Pulled out a zebra-striped suitcase. ‘The ammo room was the only place with thick enough walls where we dared to keep it,’ he said. ‘And even then, in a safe.’
‘So it’s a bomb?’
‘Yep,’ said Macbeth, who had crouched down and opened the suitcase. ‘Disguised as a case of gold.’ He lifted out the bars covering the bottom. ‘The bars are actually iron with a gold coating, but the bomb in the space beneath—’ he opened the lid to the false bottom ‘—is genuine enough.’
‘Look at that,’ Seyton said with a low whistle. ‘Your classic IED time bomb.’
‘Ingenious, eh? The gold means no one will be suspicious about the weight. This was designed to blow up the Inverness.’
‘Aha, it’s that case. And why wasn’t the bomb destroyed?’
‘My idea,’ Macbeth said, studying the clockwork machinery. ‘It’s a fantastically intricate piece of work and we had it fully disarmed. I thought we at SWAT might find a use for it one day. And now we have . . .’ He touched a matchstick-size metal pin. ‘You just have to pull this, and the clock counts down. It looks easy, but it took us almost forty minutes to defuse it, and there are only twenty-five minutes and fifty-five seconds left on the clock, so if I pull this out there’s no way back.’
‘Your discussions with Hecate will have to be quick then.’
‘Oh, it won’t be a long meeting. I’ll say that the gold is proof of my gratitude for what he’s already done and there’ll be more if he helps me to be elected as mayor.’
‘Will he, do you think?’
‘I don’t know, and he’ll be dead ten minutes later anyway. The point is that he mustn’t suspect anything, and he knows that in this town you don’t get anything for nothing. I’ll ask him to think about it, look at my watch, say I have a meeting with a management group – which is true – and go.’
‘Sorry . . .’ They turned to the door. It was Ricardo. ‘Telephone.’
‘Tell them I’ll ring back,’ Seyton said.
‘Not for you, for the chief commissioner.’
Macbeth heard the almost imperceptible coldness in the voice. He had felt it when he came to SWAT before. How the men had dutifully mumbled a greeting but had looked away seemingly busy with other things.
‘For me?’
‘Your receptionist has put it through. She says it’s the mayor.’
‘Show me the way.’
He followed the SWAT veteran. Something about Ricardo’s narrow, aristocratic face, the shiny blackness of his skin and the suppleness of his majestic gait had always made Macbeth think the officer must be descended from a lion-hunting tribe. What was it called again? A loyal man of honour. Macbeth knew Ricardo would be willing to follow his brothers to the death if necessary. A man worth his weight in gold. Genuine gold.
‘Anything wrong, Ricardo?’
‘Sir?’
‘You seem quiet today. Anything I should know?’
‘We’re a bit worried about Angus, that’s all.’
‘I heard he’d been off colour. This job isn’t for everyone.’
‘My worry is he hasn’t appeared for work, and no one knows where he is.’
‘He’ll turn up soon enough. He probably needed some time out for a think. But, yes, I can see you’re concerned he might have done something drastic.’
‘Something drastic has happened to . . .’ Ricardo stopped by the open office door. Inside a telephone receiver lay on a desk. ‘I don’t think Angus has done anything.’
Macbeth stopped and looked at him. ‘So what do you think?’
Their eyes met. And Macbeth saw nothing of the admiration and happiness directed at him that he was used to from his men in SWAT. Ricardo lowered his eyes. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
Macbeth closed the office door behind him and took the phone.
‘Yes, Tourtell?’
‘I lied about being the mayor so I’d be put through. The way you lied. You promised me no one would die.’
Macbeth thought it was strange how fear trumped arrogance. There wasn’t a trace left of the latter in Walt Kite’s voice.
‘You must have misunderstood,’ Macbeth said. ‘I meant no one in your family would die.’
‘You—’
‘And they won’t. If you continue to do as I say. I’m busy, so if there was nothing else, Kite.’
All he heard at the other end was an electric crackle.
‘Good job we cleared that up,’ Macbeth said and rang off. Looked at the photograph pinned to the wall above the desk. Showing the whole of the SWAT gang at the Bricklayers Arms. The broad smiles and the raised beer mugs testifying to the celebration of another successful mission. There was Banquo. Ricardo. Angus and the others. And Macbeth himself. So young. Such a stupid smile. So ignorant. So blissfully powerless.
‘So that’s the plan,’ Malcolm said. ‘And apart from you, we three are the only ones who know about it. What do you say, Caithness? Are you with us?’
They sat close to one another in the cramped hotel room, and Caithness looked from one face to the next. ‘And if I say the plan’s crazy and I won’t have anything to do with it, will you let me stroll away, so that I can blab to Macbeth?’
‘Yes,’ Malcolm said.
‘Isn’t that naive?’
‘Well. If you were thinking of running to Macbeth I assume you would have first told us it was a brilliant plan and that you were in. And then you would have blabbed. We know asking you is a calculated risk. But we refuse to believe there aren’t good people out there, people who care, who put the town before their own good.’
‘And you think I’m one of them?’
‘Duff thinks you’re one of them,’ Malcolm said. ‘He puts it stronger than that in fact: he says he knows you are. He says you’re better than him.’
Caithness looked at Duff.
‘It’s a brilliant idea and I’m in,’ she said.
Malcolm and Fleance laughed, and yes, even in Duff’s sad, lifeless eyes she saw a brief glimpse of laughter.
34
AT FIVE MINUTES TO SIX Macbeth entered the reception area at the Obelisk hotel. The spacious lobby was empty apart from a doorman, a couple of bellboys and three receptionists in black suits talking in low voices, like undertakers.
Macbeth headed straight for the lift, which was open, went in and pressed the button for the nineteenth floor. Clenched his teeth and blew out to equalise the pressure. The fastest lift in the country – they had even advertised it, probably to appeal to the country cousins. The handle of the suitcase felt slippery against his hand. Why had Collum, the unlucky gambler, chosen zebra stripes to disguise a bomb?
The lift door slid open and he walked out. He knew from drawings of the building that the stairs to the penthouse suite were to the left. He trotted up the fifteen steps and along a short corridor to the only door on the floor. Raised his hand to knock. But stopped and studied his hand. Did he detect a tremble, the tremble veterans said they got after around seven years at SWAT? The seven-year tremble. He couldn’t see one. They said it was worse if there wasn’t one, then it was definitely time to get out.
Macbeth knocked.
Heard footsteps.
His own breathing.
He didn’t have any weapons on him. He would be searched, and there was no reason to make anyone jumpy, after all this was supposed to resemble a business meeting. Repeated to hims
elf that he was only going to say he was standing for mayor and hand over the suitcase as thanks for services rendered and future favours. That explanation should be plausible.
‘Mr Macbeth, sir?’ It was a young boy. He was wearing jodhpurs and white gloves.
‘Yes?’
The boy stepped to the side. ‘Please come in.’
The penthouse suite had views in all directions. It had stopped raining, and in the west, behind the Inverness, the thin cloud cover was coloured orange by the afternoon sun. Macbeth’s eyes roamed further, over the harbour in the south and the factory towers to the east.
‘Mr Hand said he would be a little delayed, but not by much,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll bring you some champagne.’
The door closed gently and Macbeth was alone. He sat down in one of the leather chairs by the round Plexiglass table. ‘Mr Hand. Right.’
Macbeth looked at his watch. It was precisely three minutes and thirty-five seconds since he had been sitting with Seyton in the SWAT car and had pulled out the pin to activate the countdown. Twenty-two minutes and twenty seconds to detonation.
He got up, went over to the big brown fridge standing by one wall and opened it. Empty. Same with the wardrobe. He peered into the bedroom. Untouched. No one lived here. He went back to the leather chair and sat down.
Twenty minutes and six seconds.
He tried not to think, but thoughts came anyway.
They said that time ran out.
That darkness thickened.
That death drew closer.
Macbeth breathed deeply and calmly. And what if death came now? It would of course be a meaningless end, but isn’t that the case with all ends? We’re interrupted in mid-sentence in the narrative about ourselves, and the end hangs in the air, with no meaning, no conclusion, no unravelling final act. A short echo of the last, semi-articulated word and you’re forgotten. Forgotten, forgotten, not even the biggest statue can change that. The person you were, the person you really were, disappears faster than concentric rings in water. And what was the point of this short, interrupted guest appearance? Of playing along as best you can, seizing the pleasures and happiness life has to offer while it lasts? Or leaving a mark, changing the direction of things, making the world a slightly better place before you yourself have to leave it? Or perhaps the point is to reproduce, to put more suitable small creatures on the earth in the hope that humans will at some point become the demi-gods they imagine they are? Or is there simply no meaning? Perhaps we’re just detached sentences in an eternal chaotic babble in which everyone talks and no one listens, and our worst premonition finally turns out to be correct: you are alone. All alone.
Seventeen minutes.
Alone. Then Banquo had come along and taken him to his heart, made him part of his family. And now he had got rid of him. Got rid of everyone. And was alone again. Him and Lady. But what did he want with all this? Did he want it? Or did he want to give it to someone? Was it for her, for Lady?
Fourteen minutes.
And did he really think it would last? Wasn’t it all as fragile as Lady’s mind, wasn’t it doomed to crash to the ground, this empire they were building, wasn’t it just a question of time? Perhaps, but what else do we have but time, a little time, the frustratingly temporary nature of impermanence?
Eleven minutes.
Where was Hecate? It was already too late to take the suitcase to the harbour and heave it into the sea. The alternative was to dump it under a manhole cover in the street, but it was bright daylight, and the chances of Macbeth being recognised were high after the recent news programmes and press exposure.
Seven minutes.
Macbeth made up his mind. If Hecate wasn’t here in two minutes he would go. Leave the suitcase. Hope Hecate arrived before the bomb went off.
Five minutes. Four minutes.
Macbeth got up and went to the door. Listened.
Nothing.
Time to withdraw.
He gripped the door handle. Pulled. Pulled harder. Locked. He was locked in.
‘Do you mean you were cheated, sir?’ Lady was standing by the roulette table. She had been called because a customer was beginning to cause trouble. The man wasn’t completely sober, nor was he drunk though. Creased tweed jacket. She didn’t have to guess even: ex-Obelisk customer from bumpkin land.
‘Of course I was,’ the man said as Lady surveyed the room. It was just as full this evening. She would have to take on more staff, they needed at least two more in the bar. ‘The ball lands on fourteen three times in a row. What are the chances of that, eh?’
‘Exactly the same as they are for three, twenty-four and then sixteen,’ Lady said. ‘One in fifty thousand. Exactly the same as for any combination of numbers.’
‘But—’
‘Sir.’ Lady smiled, lightly touching his arm. ‘Has anyone ever told you that during a bombing raid you should hide in a bomb crater because lightning never strikes twice in the same place? That was when you were cheated. But now you’re in Inverness Casino, sir.’ She passed him a ticket. ‘Have a drink at the bar at my expense. Please consider the logic of what I’ve just said and we can talk afterwards, OK?’
The man leaned back and scrutinised her. Took the ticket and was gone.
‘Lady.’
She turned. Above her towered a tall broad-shouldered woman. Or man.
‘Mr Hand would like to speak to you.’ The man-woman nodded towards an elderly man standing a few metres away. He wore a white suit, had dyed dark hair and was leaning on a gilded walking stick while examining the chandelier above him with interest.
‘If this could wait for a couple of minutes . . .’ Lady smiled.
‘He also has a nickname. Starting with H.’
Lady stopped.
‘He prefers Hand.’ The man-woman smiled.
Lady walked over to the old man.
‘Baccarat crystal or Bohemian?’ he asked without taking his eyes off the chandelier.
‘Bohemian,’ she said. ‘It is, as you can see, a slightly smaller copy of the chandelier in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul.’
‘Unfortunately I’ve never been there, ma’am, but I was once in a chapel in a small place in Czechoslovakia. After the Black Death they had so many skeletons lying around there wasn’t enough room for them. So they employed this one-eyed monk to tidy up and stack the remains. But instead of doing that he used them to decorate the chapel. They have an attractive chandelier there made out of skulls and human bones. Some might think that shows little respect to the dead; I would maintain the opposite.’ The old man shifted his gaze from the chandelier to her. ‘What greater gift can mankind receive than the touch of immortality inherent in retaining a function even after death, ma’am? Like becoming a coral reef. A chandelier. Or a symbol and guiding star, a chief commissioner who dies so prematurely that people still have this notion of a good person, a selfless leader, so blessedly prematurely that there was never time to unmask him as another megalomaniacal corrupt king. I’m of the opinion that we need such deaths, ma’am. I hope the one-eyed monk received the gratitude he deserved.’
Lady swallowed. Usually she could see something in a person’s eyes which she could interpret, understand and then use. But behind this man’s eyes she saw nothing – it was like looking into the eyes of a blind man. ‘How may I be of assistance, Mr Hand?’
‘As you know, I should be at a meeting with your husband. He’s sitting in a hotel suite waiting to kill me.’
Lady felt her windpipe contract and knew that if she spoke now her voice would be high and squeaky. So she refrained.
‘But as I can’t see that I’d be serving any good purpose dead, I thought instead I’d talk sense with the sensible one of you two.’
Lady looked at him. He nodded and smiled a sad, gentle smile, like a wise grandfather. Like someone who understood her and told
her that excuses were unnecessary and pointless anyway.
‘I see,’ Lady said with a hefty cough. ‘I think I need a drink. What can I offer you?’
‘Well, if your bartender knows how to make a dirty martini . . . ?’
‘Come with me.’
They went to the bar, where people were queueing. Lady ploughed her way to behind the bar counter, grabbed two martini glasses, poured from the gin bottle and then the Martini bottle, mixed the cocktails on the worktop beneath the counter. Less than a minute later she was back and handing the old man his glass. ‘I hope it’s dirty enough.’
He tasted. ‘Definitely. But unless I’m mistaken it has an extra ingredient.’
‘Two. It’s my own recipe. This way?’
‘And what are the ingredients?’
‘That’s a business secret of course, but let me put it this way: I think drinks should have a local touch.’ Lady led the old man and the tall man-woman into the empty room behind the restaurant.
‘Naturally, a man in my position has some sympathy with you wanting to protect your business secrets,’ Hecate said, waiting for the man-woman to pull out a chair for him. ‘So please excuse me if I’ve revealed your intentions to take over my town. I respect ambition, but I have other plans.’
Lady sipped her martini. ‘Are you going to kill my husband?’
Hecate didn’t answer.
She repeated the question.
Macbeth stared at the door and felt his mouth go dry. Locked in. He imagined he could hear the bomb ticking behind him now. There was no other way out – exits were one of the things he always checked when he examined drawings of buildings. Outside the windows the smooth wall dropped twenty floors to the tarmac.
Locked in. Trapped. Hecate’s trap. His own trap.
He breathed through his mouth and tried to shut out the mounting panic.
His eyes swept the room. There was nowhere to hide, the bomb was too powerful. His eyes fell on the door again. On the thumb turn lock under the handle.
The thumb turn. He let his breath out in a long, relieved hiss. Shit, what was wrong with him? He laughed. A hotel door is supposed to lock when it closes. He lived in a hotel himself, for Christ’s sake. All you had to do was turn the lock to open the door.