Ю Несбё - Macbeth

‘Are you saying they laughed a lot in the Somme?’

‘According to my grandfather the worse it got, the more they laughed. He called it the laughter of war.’

‘I still think you’re lying, Lennox. You’re not the type to have a live grenade on your desk.’

Lennox smiled as he went on typing. ‘Grandad kept it in his house all his life. He said it reminded him of the important things — the transience of life, the role of chance, his own mortality and others’ incompetence.’

Duff motioned to the typewriter. ‘Haven’t you got a secretary to take care of that?’

‘I’ve started writing my own letters and leaving the building to post them myself. Yesterday I was told by the Public Prosecutor’s Office that one of my letters appeared to have been opened and resealed before they received it.’

‘I’m not shocked. Thanks for receiving me at such short notice.’

‘ Receiving me? That sounds very formal. You didn’t say what this was about on the phone.’

‘No. As I said, I’m not shocked that someone opens letters.’

‘The switchboard. Do you think—’

‘I don’t think anything, Lennox. I agree with you that there’s no point taking risks with the situation as it is now.’

Lennox nodded slowly and tilted his head. ‘And yet, good Duff, that’s precisely why you’ve come here?’

‘Maybe. I have some evidence concerning who killed Duncan.’

Lennox’s chair creaked as he straightened his back. He pushed himself away from the typewriter and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘Close the door.’

Duff stretched out his arm and closed it.

‘What kind of evidence? Tangible?’

‘Funny you should use that word...’ Duff took the letter opener from Lennox’s desk and weighed it in his hand. ‘As you know, at both crime scenes, Duncan’s and the bodyguards’, everything was apparently kosher.’

‘The word apparently is used when something seems fine on the surface but isn’t.’

‘Exactly.’ Inspector Duff placed the knife across his forefinger so that it balanced and formed a cross with his finger. ‘If you stabbed a man in the neck with a dagger to kill him, wouldn’t you hold on to the dagger in case you missed the carotid artery and had to stab again?’

‘I suppose so,’ Lennox said, staring at the letter opener.

‘And if you hit the artery straight away, as we know one dagger did, enormous quantities of blood would shoot out in a couple of brief spurts, the victim’s blood pressure would fall, the heart would stop beating, and the rest would just trickle out.’

‘I follow. I think.’

‘Yet the handle of the dagger we found on Hennessy was completely covered in blood; his prints were in the blood, and the inside of his hand was also covered with Duncan’s blood.’ Duff pointed to the handle of the letter opener. ‘That means the murderer wasn’t holding the handle when the blood spurted from Duncan’s neck, but grabbed the handle afterwards. Or that someone pressed his hand around the handle later. Because someone — someone else — threw the dagger at Duncan’s neck.’

‘I see,’ Lennox said, scratching his head. ‘But throw or stab, what’s the difference? The result’s the same.’

Duff passed Lennox the letter opener. ‘Try and throw this knife so that it sticks in the noticeboard over there.’

‘I...’

‘Come on.’

Lennox stood up. The distance to the board was probably two metres.

‘You have to throw it hard,’ Duff said. ‘It requires strength to pierce a man’s neck.’

Lennox threw. The knife hit the board and bounced off onto the floor with a clatter.

‘Try ten times,’ Duff said, picking up the knife and letting it balance on his finger. ‘I bet you a bottle of good whisky you can’t get the point to stick in.’

‘You don’t have much confidence in my ability or my luck?’

‘If I’d given you a knife that wasn’t balanced, with either a heavy handle or a heavy blade, I’d have made the odds better. But just like the dagger in Duncan’s neck this is a balanced knife. You have to be an expert to throw one. And no one I’ve spoken to in this building has ever seen or heard anything to suggest Duncan’s bodyguards were knife-throwers. To tell the truth, only one person I know was. Someone who actually almost ended up in a circus doing just that. And who was at Inverness Casino that evening.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘The man you gave Organised Crime. Macbeth.’

Lennox stood stock still gaping at a point on Duff’s forehead. ‘Are you telling me...?’

‘Yes, I am. Chief Commissioner Duncan was killed by Macbeth. And the murder of those innocent bodyguards was cold-blooded murder carried out by the same man.’

‘God have mercy on us,’ Lennox said, sitting down with a bump. ‘Have you spoken to Forensics and Caithness about this?’

Duff shook his head. ‘They noticed there was blood on the handle, but they think that was down to quick reflexes when the dagger was let go, not that the dagger was thrown. Reasonable enough theory. After all, it’s very rare for anyone to have that skill. And it’s only Macbeth’s closest colleagues who know he’s one of them.’

‘Good. We mustn’t mention this to anyone. No one .’ Lennox clenched his hands and chewed his knuckles. ‘Are you aware of the situation this puts me in, Duff?’

‘Yes. Now you know what I know, that can’t be changed, and now your head’s on the block with mine. I apologise for not giving you a choice, but what else could I do? Our moment of truth has come, Lennox.’

‘Indeed. If what you say is correct and Macbeth is the monster you believe, a wounding shot is not enough — that would make him doubly dangerous. He must be felled with a single, decisive shot.’

‘Yes, but how?’

‘With cunning and caution, Duff. I’ll have to give this some thought, and I’m no genius, so it will take time. Let’s meet again. Not here where the walls have ears.’

‘At six,’ Duff said, getting up. ‘The central station. By Bertha.’

‘The old train? Why there?’

‘That’s where I was going to meet Banquo. He was going to tell me all I’ve worked out anyway.’

‘So that’s a suitable meeting place. See you.’

Macbeth stared at the telephone on his desk.

He had just put down the receiver after talking to Sweno.

His nerves were jerking and twitching under his skin. He needed something . Not something , he knew what. He snatched the big hat Lady had bought him. Priscilla smiled as Macbeth strode towards the anteroom. ‘How long will the chief commissioner be out?’

She had, at Macbeth’s behest, been moved up from Lennox’s office, the whole process taking less than two hours. He had wanted to give Duncan’s old assistant the heave-ho, but instead had moved her down a floor after the head of admin explained to him that in the public sector not even a chief commissioner could dismiss employees at the drop of a hat.

‘An hour,’ Macbeth said. ‘Or two.’

‘I’ll say two to callers then,’ she said.

‘You do that, Priscilla.’

He walked into the lift and pressed G for the ground floor. To callers . Not if anyone calls . Because people did call, non-bloody-stop. Unit heads, judges, council representatives. He didn’t have the slightest clue what half of them did, apart from pester him with questions he couldn’t fathom, and that meant a queue of callers. Journalists. Duncan’s death, Malcolm’s disappearance. And now another policeman, plus his son. Was everything spinning out of control? they asked. Could the chief commissioner assure them that...? No comment. May I refer you to the next press conference, which...