Macbeth

Duff emphasised the word decision. Of course he could have said make a choice. But choosing was just something any idiot might be forced to do while making a decision is pro-active, it requires a mental process and character, it is taken by a leader. The kind of leader the chief commissioner needed when he appointed the head of the newly established Organised Crime Unit. The OCU was a grand merging of the Narco Unit and the Gang Unit, and a logical fusion as all the drug dealing in town was now split between Hecate and the Norse Riders, who had swallowed the other gangs. The question was who would lead the unit, Duff or Cawdor, the experienced leader of the Gang Unit, who had a suspiciously large fully paid-off house on the west side of town. The problem was that Cawdor had a supporting cast on the town council and among Kenneth’s old conspirators at police HQ, and even though everyone knew Duncan was prepared to stick his neck out to get rid of the various Cawdors he also had to show some political nous so as not to lose control at HQ. What was clear was that one of Cawdor or Duff would emerge as the winner and the other would be left without a unit.

‘I signalled to Macbeth that we should follow the Forres pair.’

‘Really?’ said Lennox. ‘Then the other two would cross the county boundary.’

‘Yes, and that was the dilemma. Sweno’s a sly fox. Was he sending two men to Forres as decoys while he drove to the boundary as he’s the only Norse Rider we’ve got anything on? Or was he counting on us thinking that was what he was thinking and he would therefore do the opposite?’

‘Have we?’ Lennox asked.

‘Have we what?’ Duff asked, trying to conceal his irritation at being interrupted.

‘Got anything on Sweno? The Stoke Massacre is time-barred, as far as I know.’

‘The two post office robberies in District 1 five years ago,’ Duff said impatiently. ‘We’ve got Sweno’s fingerprints and everything.’

‘And the other Norse Riders?’

‘Zilch. And we didn’t get anything tonight either because they were all wearing helmets. Anyway, when we turned off for Forres we saw the helmet—’

‘What’s the Stoke Massacre?’ Caithness asked.

Duff groaned.

‘You probably weren’t born then,’ Duncan said in a friendly voice. ‘It happened in Capitol straight after the war. Sweno’s brother was about to be arrested for desertion and was stupid enough to draw a weapon. The two arresting policemen, who had both spent the war in the trenches, shot holes in him. Sweno avenged his brother several months later in Stoke. He went into the local police station and shot down four officers, among them one very pregnant woman. Sweno disappeared off our radar, and when he reappeared the case was time-barred. Please, Duff, continue.’

‘Thank you. I thought they weren’t aware we were so close on their tails that we could see Sweno’s helmet when he turned off for Forres and the old bridge. We caught them up only a couple of kilometres or so later. That is, Macbeth fired two shots in the air when they were still a good way in front, and they stopped. So we stopped too. We had left the valley behind us, so it wasn’t raining. Good visibility, moonlight, fifty to sixty metres between us. I had my AK-47 and ordered them to get off their bikes, walk five steps towards us and kneel down on the tarmac with their hands behind their heads. They did as we said, we got off our bikes and walked towards them.’

Duff closed his eyes.

He could see them now.

They were kneeling.

Duff’s leather gear creaked as he walked towards them, and a drop of water hung in his peripheral vision from the edge of his open visor. Soon it would fall. Soon.

‘There was probably a distance of ten to fifteen strides between us when Sweno pulled out a gun,’ Macbeth said. ‘Duff reacted at once. He fired. Hitting Sweno three times in the chest. He was dead before his helmet hit the ground. But in the meantime the second man had drawn his gun and aimed at Duff. Fortunately though he never managed to pull the trigger.’

‘Holy shit!’ Angus shouted. ‘You shot him, did you?’

Macbeth leaned back. ‘I got him with a dagger.’

Banquo studied his superior officer.

‘Impressive,’ whispered Seyton from the shadows. ‘On the other hand, Duff reacted quicker than you when Sweno went for his gun? I’d have bet you’d be quicker, Macbeth.’

‘But there you’re wrong,’ Macbeth said. What was Seyton doing, what was he after? ‘Just like Duff,’ Macbeth said, lifting his beer mug to his mouth.

‘I made a mistake,’ Duff said, signalling to the head waiter for another bottle of champagne. ‘Not about shooting, of course. But choosing which bikes to follow.’

The head waiter came to the table and quietly informed them that unfortunately they would have to close, and it was illegal to sell alcohol after midnight. Unless the chief commissioner...

‘Thank you, but no,’ said Duncan, who was a master of the art of smiling roguishly while raising his eyebrows in reproof. ‘We’ll keep to the law.’