Macbeth

‘Possibly, although you may only be saying what you want me to hear. But what I don’t want to hear is any conversion nonsense. You might be slightly changed, but the world is the same.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m pleased you regard me as relatively decent. But if I’m going to have you as part of my team I have to know your angel wings don’t prevent you from keeping your feet on the ground. Surely you don’t think you can get to me without turning a blind eye to some things? Accepting some... established practices for who gets away with something and who doesn’t, and who gets the brown envelopes. If you take everything from a badly paid policeman overnight how are you going to get his loyalty? And isn’t it better to win a few small battles now and then rather than to insist on always losing the big ones?’

Duff looked at the man with the beard as if to make sure this really was Malcolm. ‘You mean, don’t go after Hecate but his small competitors?’

‘I mean, be realistic, my dear Duff. No one gains anything with a chief commissioner who doesn’t know how things work in this world. We have to make a better and cleaner town than those who came before us, Duff, but for this job we damn well have to be paid.’

‘Take payment, you mean?’

‘We can’t win against Hecate, Duff. Not yet. In the meantime we can let him pay some of our wages so that we’re equipped to fight all the other crime in the town. God knows there’s enough of it.’

At first Duff felt a weariness. And a strange relief. The fight was over; he could give in, could rest now. With Meredith. He shook his head. ‘I can’t accept that. You aren’t the person I’d hoped you were, Malcolm, so that’s my last hope gone.’

‘Do you think there are better men? Are you a better man?’

‘Not me, but I’ve met men in the belly of a boat who are better than you or me, Malcolm. So now I’m going to leave. You’d better make up your mind whether you’re going to let me go or shoot me.’

‘I can’t let you go now as you know where I am. Unless you swear not to reveal my whereabouts.’

‘A promise between traitors wouldn’t be worth much, Malcolm. I still won’t swear though. Please shoot me in the head — I have a family waiting for me.’

Duff got up, but Malcolm did too, put both hands on his shoulders and forced him back down onto the chair.

‘You’ve asked me quite a few questions, Duff. And in an interview the questions are often truer and more revealing than the answers. I’ve been lying to you, and your questions were the right ones. But I wasn’t sure if your righteous indignation was genuine until now, when you were willing to take a bullet for a clean police force and town.’

Duff blinked. His body was so heavy all of a sudden, he was close to fainting.

‘There are three men in this room,’ Malcolm said. ‘Three men willing to sacrifice everything to carry on what Duncan stood for.’ He put on the glasses he had been cleaning. ‘Three men who may not be better than any others — perhaps we’ve already lost so much that it doesn’t cost us much to sacrifice the rest. But this is the seed and the logic of the revolution, so let’s not get carried away by our own moral excellence. Let’s just say we have the will to do the right thing irrespective of whether the fuel powering our will is a sense of justice—’ he shrugged ‘—a family man’s lust for revenge, a traitor’s shame, the moral exaltation of a privileged person or a God-fearing horror of burning in hell. For this is the right path and what we need now is the will. There are no simple paths to justice and purity, only the difficult one.’

‘Three men,’ Duff said.

‘You, me and...?’

‘And Fleance,’ Duff said. ‘How did you manage it, lad?’

‘My father kicked me out of the car and off the bridge,’ the voice said behind him. ‘He taught me how to do what he never succeeded in teaching Macbeth. How to swim.’

Duff looked at Malcolm, who sighed then smiled. And to his surprise Duff felt himself smiling too. And felt something surge up his throat. A sob. But he realised it was laughter, not tears, only when he saw Malcolm also burst into laughter and then Fleance. The laughter of war.

‘Wozzup?’

They turned to see old Alfie standing in the doorway with a bewildered expression on his face and the newspaper in his hand, and they laughed even louder.

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