Ю Несбё - Macbeth

Sniff. ‘Jump in the sea then and swim away. It’s not far. ETA in nine hours, Johnson.’ Sniff.

Duff stood watching the engineer disappear into the belly of the ship.

Then he went to a porthole and looked at the sea. Day was dawning. Eight hours until they were in harbour. The waves were high. How long would he survive in such weather, in such cold water? Twenty minutes? Thirty? And when they were approaching land the captain was sure to have someone keeping an eye on him. Duff leaned his brow against the glass.

There was no way out.

He went back into the cabin. Looked at his watch. A quarter to five. There were still fifteen minutes until he had to turn out, as they said. He lay on his bunk and closed his eyes. He could see Meredith: she was waving from the rock, across the water. Waving to him to join her.

‘We’re waiting for you.’

As if in a dream, Macbeth thought. Or like swimming in a grotto under the water. That must be roughly what it was like sleep-walking. He held the torch in one hand and Lady with the other. Shone the light across the roulette table and the empty chairs. Shadows moved like ghosts across the walls. The false crystal above them gleamed.

‘Why’s no one here?’ Lady asked.

‘Everyone’s gone home,’ Macbeth said, shining the torch on a half-full glass of whisky on a poker table, and instinctively his mind went to dope. The absence of it had begun to make itself felt, but he was holding firm. He was strong, stronger than ever. ‘It’s just you and me, my love.’

‘But we never close, do we?’ She let go of his hand. ‘Have you closed the Inverness down? And you’ve changed everything. I don’t recognise anything! What’s that?’

They had come into another room, where the cone of light caught a line of one-armed bandits. There they were, standing in a row down the room. Like an army of small, sleeping robots, Macbeth thought. Mechanical boxes that would never wake again.

‘Look, children’s coffins,’ Lady said. ‘And so many, so many...’ Her voice faded, and soundless sobbing took over.

Macbeth drew her close, away from the machines. ‘We’re not in the Inverness, darling, this is the Obelisk. I wanted to show you what I’ve done for you. Look, it’s closed. They’ve even cut off the electricity. Look, this is our victory. This is the foe’s handsome battlefield, darling.’

‘It’s ugly, it’s hideous! And it stinks. Can you smell it? It stinks of bodies. The stench is coming from the wardrobe!’

‘Darling, darling, it’s from the kitchen. The police threw everyone out at one so that no one could spoil the evidence. Look, there are still steaks on plates.’

Macbeth shone the torch over the tables: white cloths, burned-down candles and half-eaten meals. He stiffened when the light was reflected in two luminous yellow eyes staring at them. Lady screamed. He reached inside his jacket, but only glimpsed a lean, sinewy body before it was gone in the darkness. And discovered that he was holding a silver dagger in his hand.

‘Relax, darling,’ he said. ‘It was only a dog. It must have smelled the food and got in somehow. There, there, it’s gone now.’

‘I want to go! Get me out! I want to go away!’

‘OK, we’ve seen enough. We’ll go back to the Inverness now.’

‘Away, I said!’

‘What do you mean? Away where?’

‘Away!’

‘But...’ He didn’t complete the sentence, only the thought. They had nowhere else to go. They never had, but it hadn’t struck him until now. Everyone else had a family, a childhood home, relatives, a summer cottage, friends. They only had each other and the Inverness. But it had never occurred to him that this wouldn’t be enough. Not until now, after they had challenged the world and he was about to lose her. She had to come back; she had to wake up; he had to get her out of this dark place where she was trapped — that was why he had brought her here. But even their triumph was unable to jolt her back to reality. And he needed her now, needed her clear brain, her firm hand, not this woman crying silent tears who had no sense of what was happening around her.

‘We’ve found Duff,’ he said leading her quickly through the darkness towards the exit. ‘Seyton’s flown to Capitol, and at two MS Glamis will be docking.’ There was light outside, but at the Obelisk all the windows had blinds, it was eternal night and party time. Gambling tables he didn’t remember from when they had passed through before appeared suddenly in the torchlight and blocked their way. The sound of their footsteps was muffled by the carpet and he thought he heard the snarling and snapping of dogs’ jaws behind them. Shit! Where is it? Where was the exit?

Lennox stood in the green grass. He had parked his car up on the main road and put on his sunglasses.

This was one of the reasons he would never settle in Fife. The light was too bright. He could already feel the sun burning his pale pink skin, as though he were going to be set alight like some damn vampire.

But he wasn’t a vampire, was he. Some things you didn’t see until you got close. Like the white farmhouse in front of him. It wasn’t until you got close that you saw the whiteness was peppered with small black holes.

‘Welcome aboard,’ said the captain of MS Glamis as the pilot entered the bridge. ‘I’d like us to be on time today. We’ve got someone waiting for us.’

‘No problem,’ the pilot said, shook the captain’s hand and took up a position beside him. ‘If the engines are working.’

‘Why wouldn’t they be?’

‘One of your engineers asked to go back on my boat. He had to get hold of a part the first engineer wants.’

‘Oh?’ the captain said. ‘I hadn’t been told that.’

‘Probably a minor detail.’

‘Who was the engineer?’

‘Hutch-something-or-other. There they are.’ The pilot pointed to the boat rapidly moving away from them.

The captain took his binoculars. On the aft deck he saw a striped cap over the back of an Esso T-shirt.

‘Anything wrong?’ the pilot asked.

‘No one leaves the ship without my permission,’ the captain said. ‘At least not today.’ He pressed the intercom button for the galley. ‘Steward!’

‘Captain,’ came the response from the other end.

‘Send Johnson up with two cups of coffee.’

‘I’m coming, Captain.’

‘Johnson, I said.’

‘He’s got stomach cramps, Captain, so I let him rest until we dock.’

‘Check he’s in his cabin.’

‘Righty-ho.’

The captain took his finger off the button.

‘Three degrees port,’ the pilot said.

‘Aye aye,’ said the first mate.

Inspector Seyton had said the safest option was for the captain and the telegrapher to remain the only ones in the know so that Duff didn’t realise his cover had been blown. Seyton and two of his best men would be ready on the quay when they docked, board the boat and overpower Duff. And Seyton had stressed that when it happened he wanted the crew well clear so that no one would be hurt if shots were fired. Although to the captain it sounded like when shots were fired.

‘Captain!’ It was the steward. ‘Johnson’s sleeping like a baby in his bunk. Shall I wake—’

‘No! let him sleep. Is he alone in his cabin?’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Good, good.’ The captain looked at his watch. In an hour everything would be over and he could go home to his wife. Soon have a couple of days off. Just that summons to the shipping line tomorrow concerning the insurance company report about a suspiciously high number of cases of the same type of illness in the crew who had worked in the hold over the last ten years. Something to do with blood.