Macbeth

‘You recommend the voters elect Macbeth as your successor because he’s a man of the people, who works for the people and leads with the people. And because he, in his role as chief commissioner, has brought down both Sweno and Hecate and shown that he gets things done.’

‘Hecate?’

‘Macbeth and I are anticipating events here a little, but Hecate’s a dead man. We’re going to propose a meeting with Hecate, which he won’t leave alive. This is a promise, and I’m famous for keeping promises too, my dear Mr Mayor.’

‘And if I don’t go along with this—’ he spat the words out like a rotten grape ‘—share deal ?’

‘That would be a shame.’

Tourtell pushed his chair back, took one of his chins between his forefinger and middle finger. ‘What else have you got, woman?’

‘Sure we shouldn’t stop there?’ Lady asked.

Jack coughed, tapped his forefinger on the pack. ‘Enough cards, Mr Mayor?’

‘No!’ Tourtell snarled without taking his eyes off Lady.

‘As you wish,’ she sighed. ‘You’ll be arrested and accused of unseemly behaviour with an underage boy.’ She nodded to the card Jack had placed in front of him. ‘See, you went too far. Bust.’

Tourtell stared at her with his heavy cod-eyes. His protruding wet lip twitched. ‘You won’t get me,’ he hissed. ‘Do you hear me? You won’t get me!’

‘If we can get Hecate, we can certainly get you.’

Tourtell stood up. Looked down at them. His chins, his scarlet face, indeed his whole body was shaking with fury. Then he spun on his heel and marched out, the inside thighs of his trousers rubbing against each other.

‘What do you think?’ Macbeth said after he had gone.

‘Oh, he’ll do what we want,’ Lady said. ‘Tourtell’s no young fool. He just needs a bit of time to work out the odds before he makes his play.’

Caithness dreamed about Angus. He had rung her, but she didn’t dare lift the receiver because she knew someone had been tampering with her phone and it would explode. She woke up and turned to the alarm clock on the bedside table beside the ringing telephone. It was past midnight. It had to be a murder. She hoped it was a murder, an everyday murder and not... She lifted the receiver.

‘Hello?’ She heard the click which had been there ever since the meeting at Estex.

‘Sorry for ringing so late.’ It was an unfamiliar, young man’s voice. ‘I just wanted to confirm that you’re coming to 323 at the usual time tomorrow, Friday?’

‘I’m doing what?’

‘Sorry, perhaps I have the wrong number. Is that Mrs Mittbaum?’

Caithness sat up in bed, wide awake. She moistened her lips. Imagined the reels of the tape recorder in a room somewhere, perhaps the Surveillance Unit on the first floor of HQ.

‘I’m not her,’ she said. ‘But I wouldn’t worry. People with German surnames are generally punctual.’

‘My apologies. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

Caithness lay in bed, her heart pounding.

323. The room in the Grand Hotel where she and Duff used to have their lunchtime trysts, booked in the name of Mittbaum.

33

Hecate swung the telescope on its stand. The morning light leaked between the clouds and descended like pillars into the town. ‘So Macbeth said he was planning to kill me during the meeting?’

‘Yes,’ Bonus said.

Hecate looked through the telescope. ‘Look at that. Already a queue outside the Inverness.’

Bonus looked around. ‘Are the waiters here today?’

‘The boys, you mean? I book them only when I need them, same as with this penthouse suite. Owning things is tying yourself to them. And people, Bonus. But when you notice your car is so full of junk that it’s slowing you down, you get rid of the junk, not the car. That’s what Macbeth hasn’t realised. That I’m the car, not the junk. Did you ring Macbeth, Strega?’

The tall man-woman, who had just entered the room, stepped out of the shadows.

‘Yes.’

‘And what did you arrange?’

‘He’ll come here alone tomorrow at six to meet you.’

‘Thank you.’

She merged back into the shadows.

‘I wonder how he dares,’ Bonus said.

‘Dares?’ Hecate said. ‘He can’t stop himself. Macbeth has become like a moth drawn helplessly to the light, to power.’

‘And like a moth he’ll burn.’

‘Maybe. What Macbeth has most to fear is — like the moth — himself.’

Caithness looked at her watch. Twelves minutes to twelve. Then she directed her gaze at the hotel door in front of her. She would never forget the brass numbers, however long she lived and however many men she met, loved and shared days and nights with.

323.

She could still turn back. But she had come here. Why? Because she thought she would meet Duff again and something had changed? The only thing that had changed was that now she knew she would be able to manage perfectly well without him. Or was it because she suspected that behind the door there could be another chance, a chance to do the right thing? Which she had failed to do when she walked away from Angus at Estex. She had got hold of his private phone number but there had been no answer.

She raised her hand.

The door would explode if she knocked.

She knocked.