Macbeth

‘The Kenneth Laws. If the mayor dies or declares a state of emergency, the chief commissioner takes over until further notice and in principle has unlimited power. Tourtell has to be warned.’

‘St Jordi’s,’ Caithness had said. ‘Seyton’s there.’

‘Drive,’ Duff had shouted, and Fleance stamped on the accelerator.

It had taken them less than twenty minutes, and they heard the first shot from the car park when they stopped in front of the hospital’s main entrance and were on their way up the steps.

Duff closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept, and this should have been over now. Macbeth should have been behind lock and key in Fife.

‘Here they are,’ Caithness said.

Duff opened his eyes again. Tourtell and Malcolm were walking down the corridor towards them.

‘The doctor says Lennox will live,’ Malcolm said and sat down. ‘He’s fully conscious and can talk and move his hands. But he’s paralysed from the middle of the back down, and it’ll probably be permanent. The bullet hit his spine.’

‘It was stopped by his spine,’ Tourtell said. ‘Otherwise it would have gone through him and hit me.’

‘His family are in the waiting room,’ Malcolm said. ‘They’ve been in to see him, and the doctor said that’s enough for today. He’s had morphine and needs to rest.’

‘Heard anything from Kasi?’ Caithness asked.

‘He hasn’t come home yet,’ Tourtell said. ‘But he knows his way around. He may have gone to friends or hidden somewhere. I’m not worried.’

‘You’re not?’

Tourtell pulled a grimace. ‘Not yet.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Duff asked.

‘We wait a few minutes until the family has gone,’ Malcolm said. ‘Tourtell persuaded the doctor to give us two minutes with Lennox. We need a confession as soon as possible from Lennox so that we can get Capitol to issue a federal arrest warrant for Macbeth.’

‘Aren’t our witness statements good enough?’ Duff asked.

Malcolm shook his head. ‘None of us has received death threats directly from Macbeth or personally heard him give an order to murder.’

‘What about blackmail?’ Caithness asked. ‘Tourtell, you just said that when you were playing blackjack in the private room at the Inverness Macbeth and Lady tried to force you to withdraw from the elections, dangling the bait of shares in the Obelisk and threatening to go public with a story of indecent behaviour with an underage boy.’

‘In my line of work we call that kind of blackmail politics,’ Tourtell said. ‘Hardly punishable.’

‘So Macbeth’s right?’ Duff said. ‘We’ve got nothing on him.’

‘We hope Lennox has something,’ Malcolm said. ‘Who should talk to him?’

‘Me,’ Duff said.

Malcolm regarded him pensively. ‘Fine, but it’s just a question of time before someone here recognises you or me, and raises the alarm.’

‘I know how Lennox looks when he lies,’ Duff said. ‘And he knows I know.’

‘But can you persuade him to reveal his cooperation and thus...?’

‘Yes,’ Duff said.

‘Don’t persuade him the way you did the Norse Rider patient, Duff.’

‘That was a different person who did that, sir. I’m not him any more.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No, sir.’

Malcolm held Duff’s gaze for a few seconds. ‘Good. Tourtell, could you please take Duff?’

‘Out of curiosity,’ Duff said when he and Tourtell had got some way down the corridor, ‘when Macbeth gave you his ultimatum why didn’t you tell him Kasi was your son?’

Tourtell shrugged. ‘Why tell the person pointing a gun at you it isn’t loaded? They’ll only start looking around for another weapon.’

The doctor was waiting for them outside a closed door. He opened it.

‘Just him,’ Tourtell said, pointing to Duff.

Duff stepped inside.

Lennox was as white as the sheets he was lying between. Tubes and wires led from his body to drip bags on a stand and machines emitting beeps. He looked like a surprised child, staring up at Duff with wide-open eyes and mouth. Duff took his hat and glasses off.

Lennox blinked.

‘We need you to go public and say Macbeth is behind this,’ Duff said. ‘Are you willing to do that?’

Thin, shiny saliva ran from one corner of Lennox’s mouth.

‘Listen, Lennox. I’ve got two minutes, and—’

‘Macbeth’s behind this,’ Lennox said. His voice was hoarse, husky, as though he had aged twenty years. But his eyes cleared. ‘He ordered Seyton, Olafson and me to execute Tourtell. Because he wanted to take over the reins of the town. And because he thinks Tourtell is Hecate’s informant. But he isn’t.’

‘So who is the informant?’

‘I’ll tell you if you do me a favour.’

Duff breathed hard through his nose. Concentrated on controlling his speech. ‘You mean I might have to owe you a favour?’

Lennox closed his eyes again. Duff saw a tear forced out. Pain from his wound, Duff assumed.

‘No,’ Lennox whispered in a fading voice.

Duff leaned forward. There was a nauseous, sweet smell coming from Lennox’s mouth, like the acetone breath of a diabetic, as he whispered, ‘I’m Hecate’s informant.’

‘You?’ Duff tried to digest the information, tried to make it fit.

‘Yes. How do you think Hecate slipped through our fingers all these years, how he was always a step ahead?’

‘You’re a spy for both—’