Macbeth

‘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.

34

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.