Macbeth

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Priscilla. They only want to sell dope. Or buy it.’ He saw from her shadow as they passed under a street light that she had straightened up. Their speed increased.

As arranged, she had picked him up while it was still dark outside, before the corridors were full of nurses and doctors who would have stopped them. And she had brought various things from the office which he had requested. He didn’t even need to persuade her or explain anything to her; she had immediately done what he had said, even if officially he was no longer her boss.

‘That’s fine,’ she had said. ‘You’ll always be my boss. And Macbeth won’t continue as chief commissioner, will he?’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s off his trolley, isn’t he.’

They passed cigarette-smoking pushers and junkies dozing on blankets who woke up and automatically reached out a begging hand.

But Priscilla didn’t stop until they were in front of the stairs by the toilets.

It was here they used to collect him. All he had to do was stand there and they came. Lennox had never worked out where they took him because they not only put goggles on him but also gave him earplugs so that he couldn’t speculate from the background noises.

It was a part of the agreement. When he needed a real trip, one that couldn’t happen at home or at the office in the evening without the risk of being caught, they took him into the kitchen, the place where they made brew. And there he was given the purest drug that could be produced, injected by specialists. He was placed in a reclining chair, a bit like they did in the old days in opium dens, and after sleeping off his high in safe surroundings he could go into town and move around for a while like a new and better man.

In a way which he would never be able to do again.

He had felt how helpless he was when Priscilla freed him from all the wires and tubes and manoeuvred him across into the wheelchair. How useless he had become. How little he could be expected to do.

‘Go,’ he said now.

‘What? Are we going?’

‘You are.’

‘And just leave you here, you mean?’

‘It’ll be fine. I’ll ring you. Go now.’

She didn’t move.

‘It’s an order, Priscilla—’ he smiled ‘—from the man who will always be your boss.’

She sighed. Gently placed a hand on his shoulder. Then she left.

Less than ten minutes passed before Strega was standing in front of him with her arms crossed. ‘Wow!’ was all she said.

‘I know,’ Lennox said. ‘It’s an ungodly hour.’

She laughed briefly. ‘You’re in good humour despite the wheelchair. What can I do for you?’

‘Something to stop the pain and an hour in the recliner.’

She passed him the earplugs and the goggles.

‘My legs are not what they were, so you might have to help me get there.’

‘A feather like you?’ she said.

‘I need the wheelchair with me.’

‘We’ll have to skip the car trip today.’

She pushed him. The pains had come and gone all morning, but when she lifted him out of the wheelchair a few minutes later and lowered him onto what felt like crushed stone it hurt so much he cried. He felt Strega’s muscular arms around him, the almost overwhelming scent of her. After she managed to get him back in the wheelchair she began to push it. Every metre the wheelchair hit something in the gravel. A sleeper. There was a smell of tar and burned metal. He was being pushed along a railway track.

Fancy not realising. The other times they had ridden in a car, not a long way, but clearly in a circle, back to their starting point at the central station. He had known before that they were under cover as he hadn’t felt the rain, but not that the brewing took place in one of the disused tunnels right under their noses! He groaned with impotence as Strega lifted him and laid him cheek down on something cold and damp. Concrete. Then she put him back in the wheelchair. Pushed it. The air was getting warmer, drier. They were approaching the kitchen now, the easily recognisable smells activating something in his brain which made his heart beat faster and gave him a foretaste of the trip. Someone removed the goggles and earplugs and he caught the tail end of Strega’s sentence.

‘... wash the trail of blood after him.’

‘All right,’ said one of the sisters stirring the tank.

Strega was about to lift him into the reclining chair, but Lennox waved her away and rolled up his left shirtsleeve. Brew straight from the pot. It didn’t get any better than that. A junkie’s heaven. This was where he wanted to go. Or not. He would see. Or not.

‘Isn’t that Inspector Lennox from the Anti-Corruption Unit?’ Jack said. He was standing by the one-way glass looking in at the kitchen and the man in the wheelchair.

‘Yes,’ Hecate said. He was wearing a white linen suit and hat. ‘It’s not enough to have eyes and ears in the Inverness.’

‘Did you hear that Lennox has accused Macbeth of murder? Doesn’t he know Macbeth is your instrument?’