Macbeth

‘Keep going,’ Angus said. ‘You and Duff had all the Norse Riders on the floor. What happened then?’ He flicked his blond hair behind his ears.

Macbeth gazed at the expectant faces around the table and exchanged glances with Banquo before continuing. ‘Some of them screamed they were surrendering. The dust settled and the music system was shot to pieces, so it was finally quiet but still dark, and the situation was rather unclear. Duff and I started checking them out from our end of the room. There were no fatalities, but a number of them required medical attention, you might say. Duff shouted that he couldn’t find Sweno.’ Macbeth ran a finger through the condensation on the outside of his glass. ‘I spotted a door behind the end of the table where Sweno had been sitting. At that moment we heard motorbikes starting up. So we left the others and charged out into the yard. And there we saw three motorbikes on their way out of the gate, one of them was red, Sweno’s. And the guard, a bald guy with a moustache, jumped on his bike and followed. Duff was furious, wanted to give chase, but I said there were a few badly injured guys inside...’

‘Did you think that would stop Duff?’ a voice whispered. ‘Bastards lying around bleeding when he could catch Sweno?’

Macbeth turned. The voice in question was sitting alone in the next booth, his face hidden in the shadow beneath the dart club’s trophy cupboard.

‘Did you think Duff would consider a few ordinary people’s lives when a heroic exploit was within reach?’ A beer mug was raised in the shadows. ‘After all there are careers to consider.’

Macbeth’s table had gone quiet.

Banquo coughed. ‘To hell with careers. We in SWAT don’t let defenceless people just die, Seyton. We don’t know what you in Narco do.’

Seyton leaned forward and the light fell on his face. ‘None of us in Narco quite know what we’re doing either, that’s the problem with a boss like Duff. But don’t let me interrupt your story, Macbeth. Did you go back in and tend their wounds?’

‘Sweno’s a murderer who would kill again if he had the chance,’ Macbeth said without letting go of Seyton’s eyes. ‘And Duff was worried they would escape across the bridge.’

‘I was afraid they’d get across the bridge, as the lorry had tried to do,’ Duff said. ‘So we jumped back on our bikes. We rode them as hard as we could. Plus a bit more. One miscalculated bend on the wet tarmac...’ Duff pushed the golden half-eaten crème brûlée across Lyon’s damask cloth, took the bottle of champagne from the cooler and refilled the other three’s glasses. ‘After the first hairpin bend at the bottom of the valley I saw the rear lights of four bikes and pressed on. In my mirror I saw Macbeth was still following.’

Duff cast a furtive glance at Chief Commissioner Duncan to see if his account was being well received. His gentle, friendly smile was hard to interpret. Duncan still hadn’t directly commented on the night’s stake-out, but wasn’t the fact that he had come to this little celebration an acknowledgement in itself? Perhaps, but the chief commissioner’s silence unsettled Duff. He felt more secure with the pale redhead leader of the Anti-Corruption Unit, Inspector Lennox, who with his customary enthusiasm leaned across the table swallowing every word. And the head of the Forensic Unit, Caithness, whose big green eyes told him she believed every scrap and crumb.

Duff put down the bottle. ‘On the stretch leading to the tunnel we were side by side and the lights ahead were growing. As though they had slowed down. I could see the horns on Sweno’s helmet. Then something unexpected happened.’

Duncan moved his champagne next to his red wine glass, which Duff didn’t know whether to interpret as tension or just impatience. ‘Two of the bikes turned off straight after the bus shelter, by the exit road to Forres, while the other two continued towards the tunnel. We were seconds away from the junction and I had to make a decision...’