Macbeth

‘Keep clear!’ Duff shrieked, tightening the strap of his machine gun and holding the butt of the reserve weapon he had tucked inside his belt.

The steam engine’s wheels turned, wrenched out of their torpor, rolled slowly down the eight-metre length of rail and tipped off the plinth. The front wheels hit the top of the steps and the flagstones broke with a deafening crunch. For a moment it seemed the train would stop there, but then Duff heard the next step crack. And the next. And he knew that nothing could now stop this slowly accelerating massive force.

Duff stared fixedly ahead, but from the corner of his eye he registered that someone had jumped onto the train and was standing beside him.

‘Single to the Inverness, please.’ It was Caithness.

‘Sir!’ It was Olafson.

‘Yes?’ Macbeth’s gaze followed the ivory’s rumbling revolutions.

‘I think it... it’s... coming.’

‘What’s coming?’

‘The... train.’

Macbeth raised his head. ‘The train?’

‘Bertha! She’s coming... here! It’s—’

The rest was drowned. Macbeth got up. From where he was standing in the gaming room he couldn’t see up to the station building, only the sloping square outside the tall window. But he could hear. It sounded like something was being crunched to pieces by a bellowing monster. And it was coming closer.

And then, crossing the square in front of the Inverness, it came into his field of vision.

He gulped.

Bertha was coming.

‘Fire!’

Deputy Chief Commissioner Malcolm stared in disbelief. Because he knew that whatever happened now he was never going to see the like of this again in his lifetime. A steam engine eating stone and making its own track across Workers’ Square. A form of transport their forefathers had built with iron, too heavy and solid to be held back, with ball bearings that didn’t rust or dry out after a mere eighty years of neglect, a locomotive against which a hail of bullets from a Gatling gun produced sparks but was repelled like water as it held its course straight towards Inverness Casino.

‘That is one solid building,’ someone said next to him.

Malcolm shook his head. ‘It’s just a gambling den,’ he said.

‘Hold on tight!’ Duff yelled.

Caithness had sat down on the iron floor with her back to the side of the cab to avoid ricochets from the bullets screaming over their heads. She shouted something, her facial muscles tensed and her eyes closed.

‘What?’ yelled Duff.

‘I love—’

Then they hit the Inverness.

Macbeth enjoyed the sight of Bertha filling the window before she smashed through. He had a feeling the whole building — the floor he was sitting on, the air in the room — everything was pushed back as the train broke through the wall into the room. The noise lay like a coating on his eardrums. The funnel on the steam engine cut through the eastern part of the mezzanine and its cow catcher dug into the floor. The Inverness had braked her, but Bertha was still eating her way forward, metre by metre. She stopped half a metre in front of him, with the funnel against the railing of the west mezzanine and the cow catcher touching the roulette table. For a moment there was total silence. Then came a rattle of crystal. And Macbeth knew what that was. Bertha had sliced the ropes holding the chandelier above him. He made no attempt to move, he didn’t even look up. All he noticed before everything went black was that he was covered in Bohemian glass.

Duff climbed up onto the train with the machine gun in his hands. The low rays of sun shone through the dust filling the air.

‘The Gatling gun in the south-east corner is unmanned!’ Caithness shouted behind him. ‘What about—’

‘Unmanned on the south-west too,’ Duff said. ‘Seyton’s lying by the roulette table with a dagger in him. Looks pretty dead.’

‘Kasi’s here. Looks like he’s unharmed.’

Duff scanned what once had been a gaming room. Coughed because of the dust. Listened. Apart from the frenetic rolling of a roulette ball in the wheel, there was silence. Sunday morning. In a few hours the church bells would peal. He clambered down. Stepped over Seyton’s body to the chandelier. Used the sabre to sweep away the bits of glass from Macbeth’s face.

Macbeth’s eyes were wide open with surprise, like a child’s. The point of the chandelier’s gilt spire had disappeared into his right shoulder. Not much blood ran from the wound, which contracted rhythmically as if sucking from the light fitting.

‘Good morning, Duff.’

‘Good morning, Macbeth.’

‘Heh heh. Do you remember we used to say that every morning when we got up in the orphanage, Duff? You were in the top bunk.’

‘Where are the others? Where’s Olafson?’

‘Clever lad, that Olafson. He knows when the time’s right to scarper. Like you.’

‘Your SWAT men don’t scarper,’ Duff said.

Macbeth sighed. ‘No, you’re right. Would you believe me if I said he’s behind you and will kill you in... erm, two seconds?’