Ю Несбё - Macbeth

‘I don’t want to hear this,’ Caithness said and stood up.

‘No one was going to be arrested,’ Angus said in a louder voice. ‘We started shooting at the Norse Riders, and they managed to fire off one—’ he held up a forefinger which trembled as much as his voice ‘—one single bloody shot in self-defence! Unlike at—’

Caithness stamped on the floor to drown out Angus’s voice, opened the door, was about to step outside and leave when she heard his name and froze.

‘—Duff’s place in Fife. Not a single shot was fired there. Because he wasn’t at home. When we entered the house after we’d shot it to pieces we found a girl and a boy and their mother—’ Angus’s voice failed him.

Caithness turned to him. The young man leaned against the table and squeezed his eyes shut, ‘—who had tried to cover them with her own body in the bedroom.’

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ Caithness heard herself whisper.

‘Macbeth gave the order,’ Angus said, ‘and Seyton ensured it was carried out to the letter by SWAT, including—’ he coughed ‘—me.’

‘Why on earth would Macbeth give orders for these... liquidations?’ Lennox asked with disbelief in his voice. ‘He could have just arrested them, both Duff and the Norse Riders?’

‘Maybe not,’ Angus said. ‘Maybe they had something on Macbeth, something that made him need to silence them.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Haven’t you asked yourselves why the Norse Riders took their revenge on Banquo? Why not kill the person who gave the orders, Macbeth himself?’

‘Simple,’ Lennox snorted. ‘Macbeth is better protected. Have you any proof at all?’

‘These eyes,’ Angus said, pointing.

‘They’re yours, and the same applies to your accusations. Give me one reason why we should believe you.’

‘There’s one reason,’ Caithness said, walking slowly back to her chair. ‘It’s easy enough to get Angus’s accusations confirmed or denied by the other SWAT officers, and if they’re false, he’ll lose his job, find himself on a charge and, to put it mildly, his future prospects will be poor. And he knows that.’

Angus laughed.

Caithness raised an eyebrow. ‘Excuse me, did I say something stupid?’

‘It’s SWAT,’ Lennox said. ‘Loyalty, brotherhood, baptised in fire, united in blood.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You’ll never get anyone in SWAT to say a word that will harm Macbeth,’ Angus said. ‘Or Seyton. Or any of the brothers.’

Caithness dropped her hands to her sides. ‘So you come to us with these claims of executions even though you know there’s no way to prove them?’

‘Macbeth asked me to burn the body of a baby killed in the club house massacre,’ Angus said. He fidgeted with his necklace. ‘Here, in one of the furnaces.’

Caithness shuddered. And regretted staying. Why hadn’t she turned on her heel? Why wasn’t she already sitting in the taxi leaving this behind her?

‘I said no,’ Angus continued. ‘But that means someone else has done it. Perhaps he did it himself. I’ve looked through the furnaces and one of them has been used recently. I thought that if you got your Forensics people to examine the furnace you might find clues. Fingerprints, remains of bones, what do I know? And if you did, the Anti-Corruption Unit could take the case further.’

Lennox and Caithness exchanged glances.

‘The police can’t investigate their own chief commissioner,’ Lennox said. ‘Didn’t you know?’

Angus frowned. ‘But... the Anti-Corruption Unit, isn’t it...?’

‘No, we can’t do internal enquiries,’ Lennox said. ‘If you want to go after the chief commissioner you’ll have to present your case to the town council and Tourtell.’

Angus shook his head desperately. ‘No, no, no, they’re bought and paid for, the whole bunch of them! We have to do this off our own bat. We have to bring Macbeth down from the inside.’

Caithness didn’t answer. Confirming only that Angus was right. No one on the town council, Tourtell included, would dare to come out into the open against Macbeth. Kenneth had made sure that the chief commissioner had the legal authority to stamp down hard on that kind of political rebellion.

Lennox looked at his watch. ‘I have a meeting in twenty minutes. I recommend you drop the matter until you’ve got something concrete, Angus. Then you can take your chances with the town council, can’t you.’

Angus blinked in disbelief. ‘ My chances?’ he said in a thick voice. He turned to Caithness. Despair, supplication, fear and hope flitted across his face like a narrative. And instantly she realised that Angus hadn’t only asked her to come along because he needed Forensics to examine the furnaces. Angus needed a witness, a third person to ensure that Lennox couldn’t pretend he hadn’t received the information and, regardless of the outcome, then make his life uncomfortable. Angus had chosen Caithness simply because she had smiled at him in the lift. Because she looked like someone he could trust.

‘Inspector Caithness?’ he begged in a low voice.

She took a deep breath. ‘Lennox is right, Angus. You’re asking us to attack a bear and all we have is a cardboard sword.’

Angus’s eyes were watery. ‘You’re frightened,’ he stuttered. ‘You believe me. Otherwise you wouldn’t still be here. But you’re frightened. You’re frightened because you believe me. Because I’ve shown you what Macbeth is capable of.’

‘Let’s agree that this meeting never took place,’ Lennox said, making for the door. Caithness was about to follow when Angus grabbed her arm.

‘A baby,’ he whispered, close to tears. ‘It was in a shoebox.’

‘It was an innocent victim in the fight against a crime syndicate,’ she said. ‘It happens. Macbeth wanting to hide it from the press to avoid a police scandal doesn’t make him a murderer.’

Caithness saw Angus let go of her arm as if he had burned himself. He took a step back and stared at her. Caithness turned and left.

On the steel staircase to the factory floor the chill hit her warm cheeks.

As she made for the exit she stopped by one of the furnaces. There were stripes and marks made of grey dust.

Lennox stood in the factory doorway waving to the taxi to drive through the gate so that they wouldn’t have to walk through the driving rain. ‘What do you think Angus is after?’ he asked.

‘After?’ Caithness turned and looked up at the foreman’s shed-like office.

‘He must know he’s too young for a management post,’ Lennox said. ‘Hey! Over here! Is it about honour and fame?’

‘Perhaps it’s what he said. Someone has to stop Macbeth.’

‘Duty calls?’ Lennox chuckled, and Caithness heard the crunch of tyres on gravel. ‘Everyone wants something, Caithness. Are you coming?’

‘Yes.’ Caithness could just make out the shape of Angus behind the window — he hadn’t moved since they left him. He was just standing there. Waiting for something, it seemed.

How long would it be before Lennox informed Macbeth about this attempted mutiny?

What was she going to do with what Angus had told them?

She put her hand to her cheek. She knew why it was warm. She was blushing. Blushing with shame.

Lennox took the short cut through the station concourse. He liked short cuts. Always had. He had bought sweets to make friends, lied about diving off the crane on the harbour quay and about paying for a hand job from the girl working at the Indigo kiosk. He had worn higher platform shoes than anyone else, cheated in exams and still had to blag up his grade when the results came out. His father used to say — generally at family gatherings and without any attempt to conceal who he was referring to — that only a man with no spine would take short cuts. When his father had given a smallish gift to the town’s private university, thereby saving himself and Lennox the disgrace of his son studying in the public sector, Lennox had also forged his degree certificate. Not to show potential employers but his father, who had asked to see it. Of course this was a fiasco because Lennox didn’t have the spine to resist his father’s suspicious looks and questions, and his father told him he didn’t know how a mollusc like Lennox could stand up straight; he didn’t have a single bone in his body!