Macbeth

Lennox opened his eyes. Looked at his watch. An hour and a half to midnight. His eyelids went again. He had begged for more morphine. All he wanted was sleep, even the tormented sleep of the guilty.

‘Mr Lennox.’

He opened his eyes again. The first thing he saw was a hand holding a microphone. Behind it he glimpsed something yellow. Slowly it came into focus. A man in a yellow oilskin jacket sitting on a chair beside a hospital bed.

‘You?’ he whispered. ‘Of all the reporters in this world they sent you?’

Walt Kite straightened his glasses. ‘Tourtell, Malcolm and the others know that I... that I...’

‘That you’re in Macbeth’s pocket?’ Lennox lifted his head from the pillow. They were alone in the room. He squirmed to reach the alarm button by the bed head, but the radio reporter placed his hand over it.

‘No need,’ Kite said calmly.

Lennox tried to pull Kite’s hand away from the alarm, but he didn’t have the strength.

‘So that you can feed me to Macbeth?’ Lennox snorted. ‘The way you fed Angus to us?’

‘I was in the same predicament as you, Lennox. I had no choice. He threatened my family.’

Lennox gave up and slumped back. ‘And what do you want now? Have you got a knife with you? Poison?’

‘Yes. This.’ Kite waved the microphone.

‘Are you going to kill me with that ?’

‘Not you, but Macbeth.’

‘Oh?’

Walt Kite put down the microphone, unbuttoned his jacket and wiped the fug from his glasses.

‘When Tourtell rang I knew they had enough to get him. Tourtell persuaded the doctor to give me five minutes, so we have to hurry. Give me the story, and I’ll go straight to the radio station and broadcast it, raw and unedited.’

‘In the middle of the night?’

‘I can do it before midnight. And it’s enough for some people to hear it. Hear that it’s irrefutably your voice. Listen, I’m breaking all the principles of good journalism — the right to respond, the duty to check statements — to save—’

‘Your own skin,’ Lennox said. ‘To swap sides again. To be sure you’re on the winning team.’

He saw Kite open his mouth and close it again. Swallow. And blink behind his still fugged-up glasses.

‘Admit it, Kite. It’s fine. You’re not alone. We’re not heroes. We’re completely normal people who perhaps dream about being heroes, but confronted with the choice between life and the principles we sound off about, we’re pretty normal.’

Kite flashed a brief smile. ‘You’re right. I’ve been an arrogant, big-mouthed, cowardly moralist.’

Lennox drew breath, no longer sure whether it was him or the morphine talking. ‘But if you had the chance do you think you could do things any differently?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Could you be a different person? Could you make yourself sacrifice something for a higher entity than your own esteem?’

‘Such as what?’

‘Such as doing something which is really heroic because it will reduce the respected journalist Kite’s reputation to rubble?’

Macbeth closed his eyes. He hoped that when he opened them again he would wake up from the bad dream and the much-too-long night. All while the voice coming from the radio on the shelf behind his desk droned away. Every rolled ‘r’ sounded like a machine-gun volley.

‘So, Inspector Lennox, to sum up. You maintain that Chief Commissioner Macbeth is behind the murders of Chief Commissioner Duncan and Inspector Banquo, the massacre at the Norse Riders’ club house, the murder of Inspector Duff’s family, plus the execution of Police Officer Angus carried out at Macbeth’s orders by you and Inspector Seyton. And that earlier this afternoon Chief Commissioner Macbeth with the head of SWAT, Inspector Seyton, and Police Officer Olafson were behind the failed attempt on Mayor Tourtell’s life.’

‘That is correct.’

‘With that we say thank y

ou to Inspector Lennox, who was speaking from his bed in St Jordi’s Hospital. This recording has been made with witnesses present so that it can be used in a court of law, even if Lennox is also murdered. And so, dear listeners, finally I will add that I, Walt Kite, was an accessory to the murder of Police Officer Angus in that I placed the integrity you have honoured me with at the disposal of the chief commissioner and murderer, Macbeth. In the law court where I will be judged and in the conversations I will be having with my nearest and dearest, one mitigating circumstance might be that I and my family were threatened. However, professionally, this will not count. I have shown that I can be threatened, used and manipulated to lie to you. I have let myself down and I have let you down, and that means this is the last time you will hear from me, Walt Kite, radio reporter. I will miss you more than you will miss me. Show that you are better citizens than me. Take to the streets and depose Macbeth. Goodnight and God bless our town.’

The signature tune.

Macbeth opened his eyes. But he was still in his office, Seyton was still on the sofa, Olafson still on the chair and the radio was on.

Macbeth got up and turned it off.

‘Well?’ said Seyton.

‘Shh,’ Macbeth said.

‘What?’