Macbeth Read online

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. What would Duff have got if Sweno’s lackey had taken the stand against him? Twenty years? Twenty-five? In the force we take care of our own. No one else does. And even more importantly, another police scandal would do so much harm just as we have a chief commissioner who’s beginning to give the public back some faith in law and order. You have to see the bigger picture. And sometimes cruelty is on the side of the good, Macbeth.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Don’t give it another thought, my friend.’

  The water streaming down the windscreen had distorted the police headquarters building in front of them. They didn’t move, as though what had been said had to be digested before they could get out.

  ‘Duff should be grateful to you,’ Banquo said. ‘If you hadn’t done that he would’ve had to do it himself, both of you knew that. But now you’ve both got something on each other. A balance of terror. That’s what allows people to sleep at night.’

  ‘Duff and I are not the US and the Soviet Union.’

  ‘No? What are you actually? You were inseparable at police college, but now you barely talk. What happened?’

  Macbeth shrugged. ‘Nothing much. We were probably an odd couple anyway. He’s a Duff. His family had property once, and that kind of thing lingers. Language, upper-class manners. At the orphanage it isolated and exposed him, then he seemed to gravitate towards me. We became a duo you didn’t mess with, but at college you could see he was drawn to his own sort. He was released into the jungle like a tame lion. Duff studied at university, found himself an upper-class girl and got married. Children. We drifted apart.’

  ‘Or did you just get sick of him behaving like the selfish, arrogant bastard he is?’

  ‘People often get the wrong idea about Duff. At police college he and I swore we would get the big bad boys. Duff really wants to change this town, Banquo.’

  ‘Was that why you saved his skin?’

  ‘Duff’s competent and hard-working. He has a good chance of getting Organised Crime, everyone knows that. So why should one mistake in the heat of battle stop the career of a man who can do something good for us all?’

  ‘Because it’s not like you to kill a defenceless man in that way.’

  Macbeth shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve changed.’

  ‘People don’t change. But I see now you saw it simply as your soldier’s duty. You, Duff and I are fighting on the same side in this war. You’ve cut short the lives of two Norse Riders so that they can’t continue to cut short the lives of our children with their poison. But you don’t perform your duty by choice. I know what it costs you when you start seeing your dead enemies in traffic lights. You’re a better man than me, Macbeth.’

  Macbeth smirked. ‘You see more clearly than me in the mists of battle, old man, so it’s some solace to me that I have your forgiveness.’

  Banquo shook his head. ‘I don’t see better than anyone else. I’m just a chatterbox with doubt as my sole guide.’

  ‘Doubt, yes. Does it eat you up sometimes?’

  ‘No,’ Banquo answered, staring through the windscreen. ‘Not sometimes. All the time.’

  Macbeth and Banquo walked from the car park up to the staff entrance at the rear of HQ, a two-hundred-year-old stone building in the centre of District 3 East. In its time the building had been a prison, and there was talk of executions and mumblings of torture. Many of those who worked late also claimed they felt an inexplicably cold draught running through the offices and heard distant screams. Banquo had said to Macbeth it was only the somewhat eccentric caretaker, who turned down the heating at five on the dot every day, and his screams when he saw someone leaving their desk without turning off the lamp.

  Macbeth noticed two Asiatic-looking women shivering on the pavement among the unemployed men, looking around as if they were waiting for someone. The town’s prostitutes used to gather in Thrift Street behind the National Railway Network offices until the council chased them out a few years ago, and now the market had split into two: those attractive enough to work the casinos, and those forced to endure the hard conditions of the streets, who felt safer wall to wall with the law. Moreover, when the police, after periodic pressure from politicians or the press, ‘cleaned’ the ‘sex filth’ off the streets with mass arrests, it was convenient for all sides if the clear-up was brief and quick. Soon everything would be back to normal, and you couldn’t rule out the possibility that some of the girls’ punters came from police HQ anyway. But Macbeth had politely declined the girls’ offers for so long that they left him in peace. So when he saw the two women moving towards him and Banquo he assumed they were new to the area. And he would have remembered them. Even by the relatively low standard of these streets their appearance did not make a favourable impression. Now it was Macbeth’s experience that it was difficult to put a precise age on Asiatic women, but whatever theirs was, they must have been through hard times. It was in their eyes. They were the cold, inscrutable kind that don’t let you see in, that only reflect their surroundings and themselves. They were stooped and dressed in cheap coats, but there was something else that caught his attention, something which didn’t add up, the disfiguration of their faces. One opened her mouth and revealed a line of dirty, brown, neglected teeth.

  ‘Sorry, ladies,’ Macbeth said cheerfully before she managed to speak. ‘We’d have liked to say yes, but I’ve got a frighteningly jealous wife and him there, he’s got a terrible VD rash.’

  Banquo mumbled something and shook his head.

  ‘Macbeth,’ said one of them in a staccato accent and squeaky doll-like voice at variance with her hard eyes.

  ‘Banquo,’ said the other woman – identical accent, identical voice.

  Macbeth stopped. Both women had combed their long raven-black hair over their faces, probably to conceal them, but they couldn’t hide the big un-Asiatic fiery-red noses hanging over their mouths like glass glowing beneath the glass-blower’s pipe.

  ‘You know our names,’ he said. ‘So how can we help you, ladies?’

  They didn’t answer. Just nodded towards a house on the other side of the street. And there, from the shadows of an archway, a third person stepped into the daylight. The contrast to the two others couldn’t have been greater. This woman – if it was a woman – was as tall and broad-shouldered as a bouncer and dressed in a tight leopardskin-print outfit that emphasised her female curves the way a swindler emphasises the false benefits of his product. But Macbeth knew what she was selling, at least what she used to sell. And the false benefits. Everything about her was extreme: her height, width, bulging breasts, the claw-like red nails that bent around her strong fingers, the wide-open eyes, the theatrical make-up, boots up to her thighs with stiletto heels. To him the only shock was that she hadn’t changed. All the years had passed without apparently leaving a mark on her.

  She crossed the street in what seemed to be two gigantic steps.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she said in a voice so deep Macbeth thought he could hear the glass panes behind him quiver.

  ‘Strega,’ Macbeth said. ‘Long time, no see.’

  ‘Likewise. You were a mere boy then.’

  ‘So you remember me?’

  ‘I remember all my clients, Inspector Macbeth.’

  ‘And who are these two?’

  ‘My sisters.’ Strega smiled. ‘We bring Hecate’s congratulations.’

  Macbeth saw Banquo automatically reach inside his jacket at the sound of Hecate’s name, and he placed a guarded hand on his arm. ‘What for?’

  ‘Your appointment as head of Organised Crime,’ Strega said. ‘All hail Macbeth.’

  ‘All hail Macbeth,’ the sisters echoed.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Macbeth said, scanning the unemployed men across the street. He had spotted a movement when Banquo went for his gun.

  ‘One man’s loss, another man’s gain,’ Strega said. ‘Those are the laws of the jungle. More dead, more bread. And who will get the bread, I wonder, if Chief Commissioner Duncan dies?’

  ‘Hey!’ Banquo took a step towards her. ‘If that’s Hecate threatening us, then . . .’

  Macbeth held him back. He had seen it now. Three of the men across the road had looked up, braced themselves. They were standing apart but among the others, and there was a similarity: they all wore grey lightweight coats. ‘Just let her talk,’ Macbeth whispered.

  Strega smiled. ‘There’s no threat. Hecate won’t do anything; he’s just stating an interesting fact. He thinks you’ll be the next chief commissioner.’

  ‘Me?’ Macbeth laughed. ‘Duncan’s deputy would take over of course, and his name’s Malcolm. Be off with you.’

  ‘Hecate’s prophecies never err,’ said the man-woman. ‘And you know that.’ She stood opposite Macbeth without moving, and Macbeth realised she was still taller than him.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Is your casino lady keeping you clean?’

  Banquo saw Macbeth stiffen. And thought this Strega should be happy to be considered a woman. Macbeth snorted, looked as if he was going to say something but changed his mind. Shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Opened his mouth again. Nothing came out this time either. Then he turned and strode towards the entrance of police HQ.

  The tall woman watched him. ‘And as for you, Banquo, aren’t you curious to know what’s in store for you?’

  ‘No,’ he said and followed Macbeth.

  ‘Or your son, Fleance?’

  Banquo stopped in his tracks.

  ‘A good, hard-working boy,’ Strega said. ‘And Hecate promises that if he and his father behave and follow the rule
s of the game, in the fullness of time he’ll also become chief commissioner.’

  Banquo turned to her.

  ‘A planned rise,’ she said. Gave a slight bow and smiled, turned and grabbed the other two under her arms. ‘Come on, sisters.’

  Banquo stared after this bizarre trio until they had rounded the corner of HQ. So out of place had they seemed that when they were gone he had to ask himself if they had really been there.

  ‘Lots of fruitcakes on the streets nowadays,’ Banquo said as he caught up with Macbeth in the foyer before the reception desk.

  ‘Nowadays?’ Macbeth said, pressing the lift button impatiently again. ‘Fruitcakes have always prospered in this town. Did you notice the ladies had minders?’

  ‘Hecate’s invisible army?’

  The lift doors glided open.

  ‘Duff,’ Macbeth said, stepping to the side. ‘Now how . . . ?’

  ‘Macbeth and Banquo,’ said the blond man, striding past them towards the door to the street.

  ‘Goodness me,’ Banquo said. ‘A stressed man.’

  ‘That’s what it’s like when you’ve got the top job.’ Macbeth smiled, walked in and pressed the button for the basement floor. The SWAT floor.

  ‘Have you noticed how Duff’s shoes always creak?’

  ‘It’s because he always buys shoes too big for him,’ Macbeth said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No idea,’ Macbeth replied and managed to stop the doors closing in front of the officer running over from reception.

  ‘Just had a call from the chief commissioner’s office,’ he said, out of breath. ‘Telling us to ask you to go up the minute you arrive.’

  ‘Right,’ Macbeth said and let go of the doors.

  ‘Trouble?’ Banquo asked after they had closed.

  ‘Probably,’ Macbeth said, pressing the button for the fourth floor. Feeling the stitches in his shoulder begin to itch.

  5

  LADY WALKED THROUGH THE GAMING room. The light from the immense chandeliers fell softly on the dark mahogany where they were playing blackjack and poker, on the green felt where the dice would dance later in the evening, on the spear-shaped gold spire that stood up like a minaret in the middle of the spinning roulette wheel. She’d had the chandeliers made as smaller copies of the four-and-a-half-ton chandelier in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, while the spire pointing from the middle of the ceiling down to the roulette table was a copy of the spire in the roulette wheel. The chandeliers were anchored with cords tied to the banisters of the mezzanine in such a way that they could be lowered every Monday and the glass cleaned. This was the kind of detail that passed straight over most customers’ heads. Like the small, discreet lilies she’d had sewn into the thick, sound-muffling burgundy carpets she had bought in Italy for a tiny fortune. But they didn’t go over her head, she saw the matching spires and only she knew what the lilies commemorated. That was enough. For this was hers.

  The croupiers automatically stood up straight whenever she passed. They knew their jobs, they were efficient and careful, they treated the customers with courtesy but were firm, they had manicured hands, groomed hair and were immaculately dressed in Inverness Casino’s elegant red and black croupier uniform, which was changed every year and tailor-made for every single member of staff. And, most important of all, they were honest. This wasn’t something she assumed, it was something she saw and heard. Saw it in people’s eyes, involuntary tics, muscular twitches or theatrically relaxed states. Heard it in the tiny distinctions of quivering vocal cords. It was an innate sensitivity she had, inherited from her mother and grandmother. But while this sensitivity had led them as they aged into the dark shadows of insanity, Lady had used her skills to flush out dishonesty. Away from childhood’s vale of woe, up to where she was today. The rounds of inspection had two functions. One was to keep her employees on their toes that little bit more so that every day, every night, they would show themselves to be at least one class higher than those at the Obelisk. The second was to uncover any dishonesty. Even though they had been honest and honourable yesterday, people were like wet clay: they were shaped by opportunity, motive and what you told them today, and they could blithely do what had been inconceivable the day before. Yes, that was the only thing that was fixed, the only thing you could count on: the heart was greedy. Lady knew that. She had that kind of heart herself. A heart she alternately cursed and counted herself lucky to have, which had brought her affluence but had also deprived her of everything. But it was the heart that beat in her chest. You can’t change anything, you can’t stop it, all you can do is follow it.

  She nodded to the familiar faces gathered around the roulette table. Regular customers. They all had their reasons for coming here and playing. There were those who needed to switch off after a challenging working day and those who, after a boring working day, needed a challenge. And those who had neither work nor a challenge, but money. Those who had none of the above ended up at the Obelisk, where you were given a tasteless but free lunch if you gambled more than five hundred. You had idiots who thought they had a system which promised long-term gains, a breed that kept dying but curiously never died out. And then you had those who – and no casino-owner would admit this aloud – formed the bedrock of their business. Those who had to. Those who felt compelled to come here because they couldn’t stop themselves risking everything, night after night, fascinated by the roulette ball whizzing around the shiny wheel like a little globe caught in the sun’s gravitational field, the sun that gave them daily life but which in the end, with the inevitability of physics, would also burn them up. The addicted. Lady’s bread and butter.

  Talking about addiction. She looked at her watch. Nine. It was still a bit early in the evening, but she wished the tables were fuller. Reports from the Obelisk suggested they were continuing to take business away from her despite the heavy investment she had made in interior design, the kitchen and the upgrade of the hotel rooms. Some thought she was in the process of pricing herself out of the market and, because the three-year-old Obelisk was well established in people’s minds as the more reasonable alternative, she could and should cut down on the standards and expenses. After all, she wouldn’t lose her status as the town’s exclusive option. But they didn’t know Lady. They didn’t know that for her it wasn’t primarily about the bottom line but being the exclusive option. Not only more elegant than the Obelisk but better, whatever the comparison. Lady’s Inverness Casino should be the place you wanted to be seen, the place you wanted to be associated with. And she, Lady, should be the person you wanted to be seen and associated with. The moneyed came here and the top politicians, actors and sports personalities from the celebrity firmament, writers, beauties, hipsters and intellectuals – everyone came to Lady’s table, bowed respectfully, kissed her hand, met her discreet rejection of their equally discreet enquiry about gambling credit with a smile and gratefully accepted a Bloody Mary on the house. Profit or no profit, she hadn’t come all this way to run a bloody bordello, as they were doing at the Obelisk, so they could have the dregs, those she would rather not see beneath Inverness Casino’s chandeliers. Genuine chandeliers. But of course the tide had turned. The creditors had started asking questions. And they hadn’t liked her answer: what the Inverness needed was not cheaper drinks but more and bigger chandeliers.

  Business wasn’t on her mind now though. Addiction was. And the fact that Macbeth hadn’t got here yet. He always said if he was going to be late. And what had happened during the Sweno raid had affected him. He didn’t say so, but she could sense it. Sometimes he was strangely soft-hearted, it seemed to her – a man she had seen kill with her own eyes. She had seen the calculated determination before the killing, the cold efficiency during it and the remorseless smile afterwards.

  But this had been different, she knew. The man had been defenceless. And even if on occasion she had problems understanding the code of honour men like Macbeth upheld, she knew this sort of issue could cause him to lose his bearings. She crossed the floor, caught the stares of two men at the bar. Both younger than her. But they didn’t interest her. Although she had always done everything to feel desired she despised men who desired her. Apart from one man. It had surprised her at first that someone could fill her thoughts and heart so fully and completely. And often she had asked herself why she, who had never loved any man, loved this particular man. She had concluded it was because he loved that part of her which frightened other men. Her strength. Willpower. An intelligence that was superior to theirs and she couldn’t be bothered to hide under a bushel. It took a man to love that in a woman. She stood by the large window facing Workers’ Square, looked over towards Bertha, the black locomotive guarding the entrance to the disused station. To the swamp where, over the years, she had seen so many get stuck and sink. Could he—?