Macbeth

Ricardo was a SWAT guy with calm self-assurance in his gaze, his movements and the softly spoken orders he gave. His skin was so black Lady thought she could see her reflection. It took Ricardo and his men four minutes to find what they were searching for, inside a locked toilet cubicle. A zebra-striped suitcase Collum had brought in after the doorman had checked the contents. Collum had explained it was four gold bars. He intended to use them as a stake at the exclusive poker table where, until the Gambling and Casino Committee had forbidden it, they had accepted cash, watches, wedding rings, mortgage deeds, car keys and anything else, provided that the players agreed. Behind the gold-painted iron bars engineer and numbers genius Collum had placed a home-made time bomb, which the SWAT bomb expert later praised for its craftsmanship. Exactly how many minutes were left on the timer Lady couldn’t remember. But she remembered the cards.

The king of hearts and the queen of spades. That evening they met under an evil moon.

Lady invited him over for dinner at the casino the next evening. He accepted the invitation but refused the aperitif. No to wine, but yes to water. She had the table on the mezzanine laid with a view of Workers’ Square, where the rain was trickling down and running quietly over the cobblestones from the railway station to the Inverness. The architects had built the station a few metres higher up because they thought the weight of all the marble and trains like Bertha would over time cause the floor to sink in the town’s constantly waterlogged, marshy terrain.

They talked about this and that. Avoided anything too personal. Avoided what had happened the evening before. In short, they had a nice time. And he was — if not polite — so charming and witty. And unusually attractive in a grey a-little-too-tight suit that he said he had been given by his older colleague, Banquo. She listened to stories about the orphanage, a pal called Duff and a travelling circus which he had joined one summer as a boy. About the nervous lion-tamer who always had a cold, about the skinny sisters who were trapeze artists and only ate oblong food, about the magician who invited members of the audience into the ring and made their possessions — a wedding ring, a key or a watch — float in the air in front of their very eyes. And he listened with interest to Lady talking about the casino she had built from scratch. And finally, when she felt she had told him everything that could be told, she raised her glass of wine and asked, ‘Why do you think he did it?’

Macbeth shrugged. ‘Hecate’s brew drives people crazy.’

‘We ruined him, that’s true, but there’s no duplicity with the cards.’

‘I didn’t think there was.’

‘But two years ago we had two croupiers who worked a number with players on the poker table and stole from others. I kicked them out of course, but I hear they’ve got together with some financiers and have applied to the council to have a new casino built.’

‘The Obelisk? Yes, I’ve seen the drawings.’

‘Perhaps you also know a couple of the players they worked with were politicians and Kenneth’s men?’

‘I’ve heard that, yes.’

‘So the casino will be built. And I promise you people like Ernest Collum will have every reason to feel they’re being cheated.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

‘This town needs new leaders. A new start.’

‘Bertha,’ Macbeth said, nodding towards the window facing the central station, where the old black locomotive stood glistening in the rain on the plinth by the main entrance, its wheels on eight metres of the original rails that ran to Capitol. ‘Banquo says she needs to be started up again. We need to have a new, healthy activity. And there’s good energy in this town too.’

‘Let’s hope so. But back to last night...’ She twiddled her wine glass. Knew he was looking at her cleavage. She was used to men doing that and it didn’t make her feel anything either way; she only knew that her female attributes could be used now and then, sometimes should not be used, like any other business tool. But his eyes were different. He was different. He wasn’t anyone she needed, merely a sweet policeman on a low rung of the ladder. So why was she spending time with him? Of course she could have shown him a sign of her appreciation other than her presence. She observed his hand as he took the glass of water. The thick veins on the suntanned hand. Obviously he made sure to get out of town when he could.

‘What would you have done if Collum hadn’t agreed to play blackjack?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking at her. Brown eyes. People in this town had blue eyes, but of course she had known men with brown eyes before. Not like these though. Not so... strong. And yet vulnerable. My God, was she falling for him? So late in life?

‘You don’t know?’ she asked.

‘You said he was an addict. I was counting on him not being able to resist the temptation to gamble one more time. With everything.’

‘You’ve been to a lot of casinos, I can see.’