Ю Несбё - Macbeth

‘My worry is he hasn’t appeared for work, and no one knows where he is.’

‘He’ll turn up soon enough. He probably needed some time out for a think. But, yes, I can see you’re concerned he might have done something drastic.’

‘Something drastic has happened to...’ Ricardo stopped by the open office door. Inside a telephone receiver lay on a desk. ‘I don’t think Angus has done anything.’

Macbeth stopped and looked at him. ‘So what do you think?’

Their eyes met. And Macbeth saw nothing of the admiration and happiness directed at him that he was used to from his men in SWAT. Ricardo lowered his eyes. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

Macbeth closed the office door behind him and took the phone.

‘Yes, Tourtell?’

‘I lied about being the mayor so I’d be put through. The way you lied. You promised me no one would die.’

Macbeth thought it was strange how fear trumped arrogance. There wasn’t a trace left of the latter in Walt Kite’s voice.

‘You must have misunderstood,’ Macbeth said. ‘I meant no one in your family would die.’

‘You—’

‘And they won’t. If you continue to do as I say. I’m busy, so if there was nothing else, Kite.’

All he heard at the other end was an electric crackle.

‘Good job we cleared that up,’ Macbeth said and rang off. Looked at the photograph pinned to the wall above the desk. Showing the whole of the SWAT gang at the Bricklayers Arms. The broad smiles and the raised beer mugs testifying to the celebration of another successful mission. There was Banquo. Ricardo. Angus and the others. And Macbeth himself. So young. Such a stupid smile. So ignorant. So blissfully powerless.

‘So that’s the plan,’ Malcolm said. ‘And apart from you, we three are the only ones who know about it. What do you say, Caithness? Are you with us?’

They sat close to one another in the cramped hotel room, and Caithness looked from one face to the next. ‘And if I say the plan’s crazy and I won’t have anything to do with it, will you let me stroll away, so that I can blab to Macbeth?’

‘Yes,’ Malcolm said.

‘Isn’t that naive?’

‘Well. If you were thinking of running to Macbeth I assume you would have first told us it was a brilliant plan and that you were in. And then you would have blabbed. We know asking you is a calculated risk. But we refuse to believe there aren’t good people out there, people who care, who put the town before their own good.’

‘And you think I’m one of them?’

‘Duff thinks you’re one of them,’ Malcolm said. ‘He puts it stronger than that in fact: he says he knows you are. He says you’re better than him.’

Caithness looked at Duff.

‘It’s a brilliant idea and I’m in,’ she said.

Malcolm and Fleance laughed, and yes, even in Duff’s sad, lifeless eyes she saw a brief glimpse of laughter.

At five minutes to six Macbeth entered the reception area at the Obelisk hotel. The spacious lobby was empty apart from a doorman, a couple of bellboys and three receptionists in black suits talking in low voices, like undertakers.

Macbeth headed straight for the lift, which was open, went in and pressed the button for the nineteenth floor. Clenched his teeth and blew out to equalise the pressure. The fastest lift in the country — they had even advertised it, probably to appeal to the country cousins. The handle of the suitcase felt slippery against his hand. Why had Collum, the unlucky gambler, chosen zebra stripes to disguise a bomb?

The lift door slid open and he walked out. He knew from drawings of the building that the stairs to the penthouse suite were to the left. He trotted up the fifteen steps and along a short corridor to the only door on the floor. Raised his hand to knock. But stopped and studied his hand. Did he detect a tremble, the tremble veterans said they got after around seven years at SWAT? The seven-year tremble. He couldn’t see one. They said it was worse if there wasn’t one, then it was definitely time to get out.

Macbeth knocked.

Heard footsteps.

His own breathing.

He didn’t have any weapons on him. He would be searched, and there was no reason to make anyone jumpy, after all this was supposed to resemble a business meeting. Repeated to himself that he was only going to say he was standing for mayor and hand over the suitcase as thanks for services rendered and future favours. That explanation should be plausible.

‘Mr Macbeth, sir?’ It was a young boy. He was wearing jodhpurs and white gloves.

‘Yes?’

The boy stepped to the side. ‘Please come in.’

The penthouse suite had views in all directions. It had stopped raining, and in the west, behind the Inverness, the thin cloud cover was coloured orange by the afternoon sun. Macbeth’s eyes roamed further, over the harbour in the south and the factory towers to the east.

‘Mr Hand said he would be a little delayed, but not by much,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll bring you some champagne.’

The door closed gently and Macbeth was alone. He sat down in one of the leather chairs by the round Plexiglass table. ‘Mr Hand. Right.’

Macbeth looked at his watch. It was precisely three minutes and thirty-five seconds since he had been sitting with Seyton in the SWAT car and had pulled out the pin to activate the countdown. Twenty-two minutes and twenty seconds to detonation.

He got up, went over to the big brown fridge standing by one wall and opened it. Empty. Same with the wardrobe. He peered into the bedroom. Untouched. No one lived here. He went back to the leather chair and sat down.

Twenty minutes and six seconds.

He tried not to think, but thoughts came anyway.

They said that time ran out.

That darkness thickened.

That death drew closer.

Macbeth breathed deeply and calmly. And what if death came now? It would of course be a meaningless end, but isn’t that the case with all ends? We’re interrupted in mid-sentence in the narrative about ourselves, and the end hangs in the air, with no meaning, no conclusion, no unravelling final act. A short echo of the last, semi-articulated word and you’re forgotten. Forgotten, forgotten, not even the biggest statue can change that. The person you were, the person you really were, disappears faster than concentric rings in water. And what was the point of this short, interrupted guest appearance? Of playing along as best you can, seizing the pleasures and happiness life has to offer while it lasts? Or leaving a mark, changing the direction of things, making the world a slightly better place before you yourself have to leave it? Or perhaps the point is to reproduce, to put more suitable small creatures on the earth in the hope that humans will at some point become the demi-gods they imagine they are? Or is there simply no meaning? Perhaps we’re just detached sentences in an eternal chaotic babble in which everyone talks and no one listens, and our worst premonition finally turns out to be correct: you are alone. All alone.

Seventeen minutes.

Alone. Then Banquo had come along and taken him to his heart, made him part of his family. And now he had got rid of him. Got rid of everyone. And was alone again. Him and Lady. But what did he want with all this? Did he want it? Or did he want to give it to someone? Was it for her, for Lady?

Fourteen minutes.

And did he really think it would last? Wasn’t it all as fragile as Lady’s mind, wasn’t it doomed to crash to the ground, this empire they were building, wasn’t it just a question of time? Perhaps, but what else do we have but time, a little time, the frustratingly temporary nature of impermanence?

Eleven minutes.