Macbeth

Olafson swung the car down the narrow street and glanced at Seyton, who had opened the window and was inhaling the air, his nostrils opening and closing. Olafson was about to ask if Seyton could sniff out where the boy had run to, but refrained. If this man could heal a shoulder by touching it he was probably capable of smelling his way to where someone had gone. Was he afraid of his new commander? Maybe. He had definitely asked himself whether he preferred his predecessor. But he hadn’t known it could come to this. All he knew was that the surgeon at the hospital had pointed to an X-ray of his shoulder and explained that the bullet had destroyed the joint; he was an invalid and would have to get used to never working as a marksman for SWAT again. In a few moments the surgeon had deprived Olafson of all he had ever dreamed about doing. Then it had been easy to agree when Seyton said he could fix it if Olafson agreed to a deal. He hadn’t even meant it because who could fix something like that in a day? And what did he have to lose? He had already sworn allegiance to the brotherhood that was SWAT, so what Seyton wanted from him was in many ways something he already had.

No, there was no point having regrets now. And just look what had happened to his best pal, Angus. He had betrayed SWAT, the idiot. Betrayed the most precious thing they had, all they had. Baptised in fire and united in blood wasn’t an empty phrase, it was how they had to be, there were no alternatives. He wanted this. To know there was some meaning in what he did, that he meant something to people. To his comrades. Even when he couldn’t see any meaning in what they did. That was a job for other people. Not for Angus, the bloody fool. He must have lost the plot. Angus had tried to persuade him to join him, but he had told him to go to hell, he didn’t want anything to do with someone who betrayed SWAT. And Angus had stared at him and asked him how his shoulder had healed so quickly — a gunshot wound like that didn’t heal in a couple of days. But Olafson hadn’t answered. He just showed him the door.

The street ended. They had reached the riverbed.

‘We’re getting warmer,’ Seyton said. ‘Come on.’

They got out and walked by the hovels between the road and the riverbed. Passing house after house as Seyton sniffed the air. At a red building he stopped.

‘Here?’ Olafson asked.

Seyton sniffed in the direction of the house. Then he said aloud, ‘Whore!’ And walked on. They passed a burned-out house, a garage with a wrought-iron gate and came to a blue timber house with a cat on the steps. Seyton stopped again.

‘Here,’ he said.

‘Here?’

Kasi looked at his watch. He had been given it by his father and the hands shimmered green in the darkness, the way he imagined wolves’ eyes did in the night, from the light of a fire. More than twenty minutes had passed. He was fairly sure no one had followed him when he ran from the car park; he had looked back several times and hadn’t seen anyone. The coast ought to be clear now. He knew the area like the back of his hand, that was why he had run straight here. He could go down to Penny Bridge and take the 22 bus from there, go west. Back home. Dad would be there. He had to be there. Kasi stiffened. Had he heard something? The staircase creaking? That was the only wood that had survived the fire, he didn’t know why, just that it creaked when the wind blew or there was a change in the weather. Or if someone came. He held his breath. Listened. No. Probably the weather changing.

Kasi counted slowly to sixty.

Then he pushed the door open with his foot.

Stared.

‘You’re frightened,’ said the man standing outside and looking at him. ‘Smart thinking, hiding in a wardrobe. It keeps in the smell. Almost.’ He stretched his arms out to the side with his palms up. Inhaled. ‘But the air here is wonderful and full of your fear, boy.’

Kasi blinked. The man was lean, and his eyes were like the hands on Kasi’s watch. Wolf eyes. And he had to be old. Not that he looked that old, but Kasi just knew that this man was very, very old.

‘Hel—’ Kasi started to shout, before the man’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat. Kasi couldn’t breathe, and now he knew why he had come here. He was like the river rats. He had come here to die.

39

Duff looked at his watch, yawned and slumped even deeper in the chair. His long legs stretched almost across the hospital corridor, to Caithness and Fleance. Duff’s eyes met Caithness’s.

‘You were right,’ she said.

‘We were both right,’ he said.

It was less than an hour since he had jumped into the car in 15th Street, cursing, and said Macbeth had got away. And that something was afoot. Macbeth had said the mayor wouldn’t live that long.

‘An assassination,’ Malcolm had said. ‘A takeover. He’s gone completely insane.’

‘What?’