Ю Несбё - Macbeth

Caithness’s panting slowly subsided.

‘I have to call home,’ Duff said, kissing her sweaty forehead and swinging his legs out of bed.

‘Now?’ she exclaimed. He could see from the way she bit her lower lip that it had come out more angrily than she had intended. Who said he didn’t understand people?

‘Ewan had toothache yesterday. I have to see how he is.’

She didn’t answer. Duff walked naked through the flat. He usually did as it was an attic flat and no one could see in. Besides, being seen naked didn’t bother him. He was proud of his body. Perhaps he was especially fond of his body because he had grown up feeling ashamed of the scar that divided his face. The flat was large, larger than you would have imagined a young woman working in the state sector would have. He had offered to help her with the rent as he spent so many nights there, but she said her father took care of that side of things.

Duff went into the study, closed the door after him and dialled the Fife number.

He listened to the rain drumming on the attic window right above his head. She answered after the third ring. Always after the third ring. Regardless of where she was in the house.

‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘How did it go with the dentist?’

‘He’s better now,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if it was toothache.’

‘Oh? What was it then?’

‘There are other things that can hurt. He was crying, and when I asked him why, he wouldn’t tell me and said the first thing that came into his head. He’s in bed now.’

‘Hm. I’ll be home tomorrow and then I’ll have a chat with him. What’s the weather like?’

‘Clear sky. Moonlight. Why?’

‘We could go to the lake tomorrow, all of us. For a swim.’

‘Where are you, Duff?’

He stiffened, there was something about her intonation. ‘Where? At the Grand, of course.’ And added in an exaggeratedly cheery voice, ‘Beddy-byes for tired men, you know.’

‘I rang the Grand earlier this evening. They said you hadn’t booked in.’

He stood up straight with the phone in his hand.

‘I rang you because Emily needed help with some maths. And, as you know, I’m not that good at putting two and two together. So where are you?’

‘In my office,’ Duff said, breathing through his mouth. ‘I’m sleeping on the sofa in the office. I’m up to my ears in work. I’m sorry I said I was at the Grand, but I thought you and the children didn’t need to know how hard things were at the moment.’

‘Hard?’

Duff gulped. ‘All the work. And I still didn’t get the Organised Crime post.’ He curled his toes. He could hear how pathetic he sounded, as though he were asking her to let him off the hook out of sympathy.

‘Well, you got the Homicide Unit anyway. And a new office, I hear.’

‘What?’

‘On the top floor. I can hear the rain drumming on a window. I’ll ring off then.’

There was a click and she was gone.

Duff shivered. The room was chilly. He should have put on some clothes. Shouldn’t have been so naked.

Lady listened to Macbeth’s breathing and shivered.

It was as though a chill had passed through the room. A ghost. The ghost of a child. She had to get out of the darkness that weighed down on her, force her way out of the mental prison that had imposed itself on her mother and grandmother, up into the light. Fight for her liberation, sacrifice whatever had to be sacrificed to be the sun. To be a star. A shining mother who was consumed in the process and gave life to others. The centre of the universe as she burned up. Yes. Burned. As her breath and skin burned now, forcing the cold from the room. She ran a hand down her body, feeling her skin tingle. It was the same thought, the same decision as then. It had to be done, there was no way round it. The only way was onwards, straight on at whatever lay in their path, like a bullet from a gun.

She laid a hand on Macbeth’s shoulder. He was sleeping like a child. It would be the last time. She shook him.

He turned to her, mumbling, put out his hands. Always ready to serve. She held his hands firmly in hers.

‘Darling,’ she whispered, ‘you have to kill him.’

He opened his eyes; they shone at her in the darkness.

She let go of his hands.

Stroked his cheek. The same decision as then.

‘You have to kill Duncan.’

Lady and Macbeth had first met one late summer’s evening four years ago. It had been one of those rare days when the sun shone from a cloudless sky and Lady was sure she had heard a bird singing in the morning. But when the sun had set and the night shift came on an evil moon had risen above Inverness Casino. She had been standing outside the main entrance to the casino, in the moonlight, when he rolled up in a SWAT armoured vehicle.

‘Lady?’ he said, looking straight into her eyes. What did she see? Strength and determination? Maybe. Or perhaps it was because that was what she wanted to see at that moment.

She nodded. Thinking he seemed a little too young. Thinking the man behind him, an elderly man with white hair and calm eyes, looked more suited for the job.

‘I’m Inspector Macbeth. Any changes in the situation, ma’am?’

She shook her head.

‘OK, is there anywhere we can see them from?’

‘The mezzanine.’

‘Banquo, assemble the men and I’ll recce.’

Before they went up the stairs to the mezzanine the young officer whispered that she should take off her high heels to make less noise. That meant she was no longer taller than him. On the mezzanine they first kept to the back, by the windows looking out over Workers’ Square, so that they couldn’t be seen from the gaming room below. Halfway along they moved towards the balustrade. They were partially hidden by the rope to the central chandelier and the genuine suit of Maximilian armour from the sixteenth century which she had bought at an auction in Augsburg. The idea was that when gamblers saw it up there it would give them an unconscious sense of being either protected or watched. Their own conscience would determine which. Lady and the officer crouched and peered down into the room, where twenty minutes earlier customers and staff had fled in panic. Lady had been standing on the roof looking up at the full moon and instinctively felt the evil when she heard the crash and screams from down below. She went down, grabbed one of the fleeing waiters, who said that some guy had fired a gun into the chandelier and was holding Jack.

She had already calculated the cost of a new chandelier, but it was obvious that would be nothing compared to the cost of the gun — which was at present pointing at the head of Jack, her best croupier — being fired one more time. After all, part of what her casino offered was safe excitement and relaxation; for a while you didn’t need to think about the crime in the streets outside. If the impression was created that Inverness Casino couldn’t offer that, the gaming room would be as empty as it was now. The only two people left were sitting at the blackjack table below the mezzanine on the other side. Poor Jack was ramrod-stiff and as white as a sheet.

Right behind him, holding a gun, sat the customer.

‘It would be hard to get a shot in from such a distance as long as he’s hiding behind your croupier,’ Macbeth whispered, taking out a little telescope from his black uniform. ‘We have to get closer. Who is he and what does he want?’

‘Ernest Collum. He says he’ll kill my croupier unless he’s given back everything he’s lost at the casino.’

‘And is that a lot?’

‘More than we have in cash here. Collum’s one of the addicts. An engineer and a number-crunching genius, so he knows the odds. They’re the worst. I’ve told him we’ll try and get the money, but the banks are closed, so it could take a while.’