Macbeth

Now his son was calling to him — what, he couldn’t hear — but when he saw he had caught his father’s attention he did a cartwheel on the grass. Lennox applauded with his hands raised high in the air, and now all three of them were doing cartwheels. Impress their daddy, impress the daddy they still admired, the daddy they thought was worth emulating. Shouting, laughter and frolics. Lennox thought of the silence out in Fife, the sunshine, the curtains fluttering in a window that had been shot to pieces, the gentle breeze whistling a barely audible doleful note through one of the holes in the wall. All the unbearable thoughts. There were so many ways to lose those you loved. What if one day they found out, realised, what kind of person their husband or father really was? Would the wind sing the same lament then?

He closed his eyes. Bit of a rest. Bit of decent weather.

He sensed someone was there, standing over him and breathing on him. He opened his eyes. It was Sheila.

‘Didn’t you hear me shouting?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘There’s a phone call for you. Some Inspector Seyton.’

Lennox went into the hall, picked up the receiver from the table. ‘Hello?’

‘Home early, Lennox? I’ll need some help this evening.’

‘I’m not well. You’d better try someone else.’

‘The chief commissioner said to take you.’

Lennox swallowed. His mouth tasted of lead. ‘Take me where?’

‘To a hospital. Be ready in an hour. I’ll pick you up.’ There was a click. Lennox had rung off. Lead.

‘What is it?’ Sheila called from the kitchen.

A pale metal shaped by its environment, which poisons and kills, a heavy but unresisting material that melts at three hundred and fifty degrees.

‘Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing.’

Macbeth woke from a dream about death. There was a knock at the door. Something about the knocking told him it had been going on for a long time.

‘Sir!’ It was Jack’s voice.

‘Yes,’ Macbeth grunted, looking around. The room was flooded with daylight. What was the time? He had been dreaming. Dreaming he had been standing over the bed with a dagger in his hand. But whenever he blinked the face on the pillow changed.

‘It’s Inspector Caithness on the phone, sir. She says it’s urgent.’

‘Put her through,’ Macbeth said, rolling over towards the bedside table. ‘Caithness?’

‘Sorry to ring you on a Saturday, but we’ve found a body. I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to help.’ She sounded out of breath.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because we think it could be Fleance, Banquo’s son. The body is in a bad way, and as he has no close relatives in town it seems you’re the best person to identify him.’

‘Oh,’ Macbeth said, feeling his throat tighten.

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes, I suppose I am,’ Macbeth said and pulled the duvet tighter around him. ‘When a body’s been in seawater for so long...’

‘That’s the point.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘We didn’t find the body in the sea but in an alleyway between 14th and 15th Streets.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why we want to be absolutely sure it’s Fleance before we go any further.’

‘14th and 15th, you say?’

‘Go to 14th and Doheney. I’ll wait for you outside Joey’s Hamburger Bar.’

‘OK, Caithness. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Macbeth rang off. Lilies. The flowers in the carpet were lilies. Lily. That was the name of Lady’s child. Why hadn’t he made the connection before? Dead. Because he hadn’t seen, tasted, eaten and slept so much death before. He closed his eyes. Recalled the changing faces from the dream. Orphanage Director Lorreal’s unknowing face as he snored with his mouth open became Chief Commissioner Duncan’s, eyes that opened and stared at him, knowing. Then Banquo’s stiff, brutal glare. No bodies, only the head on the pillow. Then the nameless young Norse Rider’s panic-stricken expression as he knelt on the tarmac staring at his already dead comrade and Macbeth coming towards him. He looked at the ceiling. And remembered all the times he had woken from a nightmare and breathed a sigh of relief. Relieved to find in reality he wasn’t drowning in quicksand or being eaten by dogs. But sometimes he thought he had woken from a nightmare but was still dreaming, still drowning, and he had to break through several layers before he reached consciousness. He shut his eyes tight. Opened them again. Then he got up.

The buxom black woman in reception at St Jordi’s Hospital looked up from the ID card Lennox showed her.

‘We’ve been told that no one has access...’ She checked the card again. ‘Inspector.’

‘Police matter,’ he said. ‘Top priority. The mayor has to be informed at once.’

‘If you leave a message I can—’

‘Confidential matter, urgent.’

She sighed.

‘Room 204, first floor.’

Mayor Tourtell and the young boy sat side by side on wooden chairs next to one of the beds in the large ward. The older man held the boy around the shoulder and they both looked up as Lennox stood behind them and coughed. In the bed lay a wan, thin-haired, middle-aged woman, and Lennox saw at once the likeness with the boy. ‘Good evening, sir. You won’t remember me, but we met at the dinner at Inverness Casino.’