Ю Несбё - Macbeth

The street ended. They had reached the riverbed.

‘We’re getting warmer,’ Seyton said. ‘Come on.’

They got out and walked by the hovels between the road and the riverbed. Passing house after house as Seyton sniffed the air. At a red building he stopped.

‘Here?’ Olafson asked.

Seyton sniffed in the direction of the house. Then he said aloud, ‘Whore!’ And walked on. They passed a burned-out house, a garage with a wrought-iron gate and came to a blue timber house with a cat on the steps. Seyton stopped again.

‘Here,’ he said.

‘Here?’

Kasi looked at his watch. He had been given it by his father and the hands shimmered green in the darkness, the way he imagined wolves’ eyes did in the night, from the light of a fire. More than twenty minutes had passed. He was fairly sure no one had followed him when he ran from the car park; he had looked back several times and hadn’t seen anyone. The coast ought to be clear now. He knew the area like the back of his hand, that was why he had run straight here. He could go down to Penny Bridge and take the 22 bus from there, go west. Back home. Dad would be there. He had to be there. Kasi stiffened. Had he heard something? The staircase creaking? That was the only wood that had survived the fire, he didn’t know why, just that it creaked when the wind blew or there was a change in the weather. Or if someone came. He held his breath. Listened. No. Probably the weather changing.

Kasi counted slowly to sixty.

Then he pushed the door open with his foot.

Stared.

‘You’re frightened,’ said the man standing outside and looking at him. ‘Smart thinking, hiding in a wardrobe. It keeps in the smell. Almost.’ He stretched his arms out to the side with his palms up. Inhaled. ‘But the air here is wonderful and full of your fear, boy.’

Kasi blinked. The man was lean, and his eyes were like the hands on Kasi’s watch. Wolf eyes. And he had to be old. Not that he looked that old, but Kasi just knew that this man was very, very old.

‘Hel—’ Kasi started to shout, before the man’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat. Kasi couldn’t breathe, and now he knew why he had come here. He was like the river rats. He had come here to die.

Duff looked at his watch, yawned and slumped even deeper in the chair. His long legs stretched almost across the hospital corridor, to Caithness and Fleance. Duff’s eyes met Caithness’s.

‘You were right,’ she said.

‘We were both right,’ he said.

It was less than an hour since he had jumped into the car in 15th Street, cursing, and said Macbeth had got away. And that something was afoot. Macbeth had said the mayor wouldn’t live that long.

‘An assassination,’ Malcolm had said. ‘A takeover. He’s gone completely insane.’

‘What?’

‘The Kenneth Laws. If the mayor dies or declares a state of emergency, the chief commissioner takes over until further notice and in principle has unlimited power. Tourtell has to be warned.’

‘St Jordi’s,’ Caithness had said. ‘Seyton’s there.’

‘Drive,’ Duff had shouted, and Fleance stamped on the accelerator.

It had taken them less than twenty minutes, and they heard the first shot from the car park when they stopped in front of the hospital’s main entrance and were on their way up the steps.

Duff closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept, and this should have been over now. Macbeth should have been behind lock and key in Fife.

‘Here they are,’ Caithness said.

Duff opened his eyes again. Tourtell and Malcolm were walking down the corridor towards them.

‘The doctor says Lennox will live,’ Malcolm said and sat down. ‘He’s fully conscious and can talk and move his hands. But he’s paralysed from the middle of the back down, and it’ll probably be permanent. The bullet hit his spine.’

‘It was stopped by his spine,’ Tourtell said. ‘Otherwise it would have gone through him and hit me.’

‘His family are in the waiting room,’ Malcolm said. ‘They’ve been in to see him, and the doctor said that’s enough for today. He’s had morphine and needs to rest.’

‘Heard anything from Kasi?’ Caithness asked.

‘He hasn’t come home yet,’ Tourtell said. ‘But he knows his way around. He may have gone to friends or hidden somewhere. I’m not worried.’

‘You’re not?’

Tourtell pulled a grimace. ‘Not yet.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Duff asked.

‘We wait a few minutes until the family has gone,’ Malcolm said. ‘Tourtell persuaded the doctor to give us two minutes with Lennox. We need a confession as soon as possible from Lennox so that we can get Capitol to issue a federal arrest warrant for Macbeth.’

‘Aren’t our witness statements good enough?’ Duff asked.

Malcolm shook his head. ‘None of us has received death threats directly from Macbeth or personally heard him give an order to murder.’

‘What about blackmail?’ Caithness asked. ‘Tourtell, you just said that when you were playing blackjack in the private room at the Inverness Macbeth and Lady tried to force you to withdraw from the elections, dangling the bait of shares in the Obelisk and threatening to go public with a story of indecent behaviour with an underage boy.’

‘In my line of work we call that kind of blackmail politics,’ Tourtell said. ‘Hardly punishable.’

‘So Macbeth’s right?’ Duff said. ‘We’ve got nothing on him.’

‘We hope Lennox has something,’ Malcolm said. ‘Who should talk to him?’

‘Me,’ Duff said.

Malcolm regarded him pensively. ‘Fine, but it’s just a question of time before someone here recognises you or me, and raises the alarm.’

‘I know how Lennox looks when he lies,’ Duff said. ‘And he knows I know.’

‘But can you persuade him to reveal his cooperation and thus...?’

‘Yes,’ Duff said.

‘Don’t persuade him the way you did the Norse Rider patient, Duff.’

‘That was a different person who did that, sir. I’m not him any more.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No, sir.’

Malcolm held Duff’s gaze for a few seconds. ‘Good. Tourtell, could you please take Duff?’

‘Out of curiosity,’ Duff said when he and Tourtell had got some way down the corridor, ‘when Macbeth gave you his ultimatum why didn’t you tell him Kasi was your son?’

Tourtell shrugged. ‘Why tell the person pointing a gun at you it isn’t loaded? They’ll only start looking around for another weapon.’

The doctor was waiting for them outside a closed door. He opened it.

‘Just him,’ Tourtell said, pointing to Duff.

Duff stepped inside.

Lennox was as white as the sheets he was lying between. Tubes and wires led from his body to drip bags on a stand and machines emitting beeps. He looked like a surprised child, staring up at Duff with wide-open eyes and mouth. Duff took his hat and glasses off.

Lennox blinked.

‘We need you to go public and say Macbeth is behind this,’ Duff said. ‘Are you willing to do that?’

Thin, shiny saliva ran from one corner of Lennox’s mouth.

‘Listen, Lennox. I’ve got two minutes, and—’

‘Macbeth’s behind this,’ Lennox said. His voice was hoarse, husky, as though he had aged twenty years. But his eyes cleared. ‘He ordered Seyton, Olafson and me to execute Tourtell. Because he wanted to take over the reins of the town. And because he thinks Tourtell is Hecate’s informant. But he isn’t.’

‘So who is the informant?’

‘I’ll tell you if you do me a favour.’

Duff breathed hard through his nose. Concentrated on controlling his speech. ‘You mean I might have to owe you a favour?’