Macbeth

Lennox and Seyton had parked in the road on the opposite side from Estex. It was so dark that Lennox couldn’t see the drizzle; he only heard it as a whisper on the car roof and windscreen.

‘There’s the reporter,’ Seyton said.

The light from a bike wobbled across the road. Turned in through the gate and was gone.

‘Let’s give him two minutes,’ Seyton said, checking his machine gun.

Lennox yawned. Luckily he had managed to get a shot.

‘Now,’ Seyton said.

They stepped out, ran through the darkness, through the gate and into the factory building.

Voices were coming from the foreman’s office high up on the wall.

Seyton sniffed the air. Then he motioned towards the steel staircase.

They tiptoed up, and Lennox felt a wonderful absence of thought and the steel of the railing which was so cold it burned the palms of his hands. They stood just outside the door. The high gave him that sense of sitting in a warm safe room and watching himself. The buzz of voices inside reminded him of his parents in the sitting room when he was small and had gone to bed.

‘When will it appear in print?’ Angus was speaking.

The answer came with drawled arrogance and long rolled ‘r’s: ‘Disregarding the fact that on radio we don’t refer to print, I hope—’

When Seyton opened the door it was as if someone had pressed the stop button on a cassette player. Walt Kite’s eyes behind his glasses were large. With fear. Excitement. Relief? Not surprise anyway. Lennox and Seyton had been punctual.

‘Good evening,’ Lennox said, feeling a warm smile spread across his face.

Angus stood up and knocked his chair over as he reached for something inside his jacket. But froze when he caught sight of Seyton’s machine gun.

In the silence that followed Kite buttoned up his yellow oilskin jacket. It was like being in a gentlemen’s toilet: no looks were exchanged, no words were said; he just left them quickly with his head lowered. He had done his bit. Left the others with the stench.

‘What are you waiting for, Lennox?’ Angus asked.

Lennox became aware of his outstretched arm and the gun on the end of it. ‘For the reporter to be so far away he won’t hear the shot,’ he said.

Angus’s Adam’s apple went up and down. ‘So you’re going to shoot me?’

‘Unless you have another suggestion. I’ve been given a free hand as to how this should happen.’

‘OK.’

‘OK as in I understand or as in Yes, I want to be shot ?’

‘As in—’

Lennox fired. In the enclosed space he felt the physical pressure of the explosion on his eardrums. He opened his eyes again. But Angus was still standing in front of him, open-mouthed now. There was a hole in the file on the shelf behind him.

‘Sorry,’ Lennox said, walking two steps closer. ‘I thought a sudden shot to the head would be the most humane solution here. But heads are very small. Stand still, please...’ An involuntary giggle escaped his lips.

‘Inspector Lennox, without—’

The second shot hit the target. And the third.

‘Without wishing to criticise,’ Seyton said, looking down at the dead body, ‘it would have been more practical if you’d ordered him down to the furnaces and done it there. Now we’ll have to carry him.’

Lennox didn’t answer. He was studying the growing pool of blood seeping out of the young man’s body towards him. There was something strangely beautiful about the shapes and colours, the sparkling red, the way it extended in all directions, like red balloons. They carried Angus down to the factory floor and then picked up the empty shell casings, washed the floor and dug the first bullet out of the wall. Downstairs they removed his watch, a chain with a gold cross and manoeuvred the body into a furnace, closed it and fired it up. Waited. Lennox stared at the gutter that went from the bottom of the furnace to a tub on the floor. A low hissing sound came from the furnace.

‘What happens to...?’

‘It evaporates,’ Seyton said. ‘Everything evaporates or turns to ash when the temperature’s more than two thousand degrees. Except metal, which just melts.’

Lennox nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes off the gutter. A grey trembling drop appeared with a membrane over it, like a coating.

‘Lead,’ Seyton said. ‘Melts at three hundred and fifty.’

They waited. The hissing inside had stopped.

Then a golden drop came.

‘We’ve topped a thousand now,’ Seyton said.

‘What... what’s that?’

‘Gold.’

‘But we removed—’

‘Teeth. Let’s wait until it’s over sixteen hundred, in case there’s any steel in the body. After that all we have to do is hoover up the ash. Hey, are you OK?’

Lennox nodded. ‘Bit dizzy. I’ve never... erm... shot anyone before. You have, so I’m sure you remember what it felt like the first time.’

‘Yes,’ Seyton said quietly.

Lennox was going to ask what it had felt like, but the glint in Seyton’s eyes made him change his mind.

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