Macbeth

‘You say fourteen Norse Riders including Sweno himself were more than you’d anticipated and it would have been more discreet of them to have just sent a couple of men to drive the lorry away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has it struck you that Sweno might also have been tipped off? He might have suspected you’d be there. So your fear of a leak was perhaps not unfounded. Goodnight, Duff.’

‘Goodnight.’

Duff walked down to his house breathing in the smell of the earth and grass where the dew had already fallen. He had considered this possibility and now Duncan had articulated it. A leak. An informant. And he, Duff, would find the leak. He would find him the very next day.

Macbeth lay on his side with his eyes closed. Behind him he heard her regular breathing and from down in the casino the bass line of the music, like muffled heartbeats. The Inverness stayed open all night, but it was now late even for crazed gamblers and thirsty drinkers. In the corridor overnight guests walked past and unlocked their rooms. Some alone, some with a spouse. Some with other company. This wasn’t something Lady paid too much attention to as long as the women who frequented the casino complied with her unwritten rules of always being discreet, always well groomed, always sober, always infection-free and always, but always, attractive. Lady had once, not long after they had got together, asked why he didn’t look at them. And laughed when he had answered it was because he only had eyes for her. It was only later she understood he meant that quite literally. He didn’t need to turn round to see her, her features were seared into his retinas; all he had to do — wherever he was — was close his eyes and she was there. There hadn’t been anyone before Lady. Well, there had been women who made his pulse race and there were definitely women’s hearts that had beaten faster because of him. But he had never been intimate with them. And of course there was one who had scarred his heart. When Lady had realised and had, laughing, asked him if she had been sent a genuine virgin, he told her his story. The story that hitherto only two people in the world had known. And then she had told him hers.

The suite’s silk sheet felt heavy and expensive on his naked body. Like a fever, hot and cold at the same time. He could hear from her breathing that she was awake.

‘What is it?’ she whispered sleepily.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just can’t sleep.’

She snuggled up to him, and her hand stroked his chest and shoulders. Occasionally, like now, they breathed in rhythm. As though they were one and the same organism, like Siamese twins sharing lungs — that was exactly how it felt the time they had exchanged their stories, and he knew he was no longer alone.

Her hand slid down his upper arm, over the tattoos, down to his lower arm, where she caressed his scars. He had told her about them too. And about Lorreal. They quite simply kept no secrets from each other. They weren’t secrets, but there were grim details he had begged her to spare him. She loved him, that was all that was important, that was all he had to know about her. He turned onto his back. Her hand stroked his stomach, stopped and waited. She was the queen. And her vassal obediently stood up under the silk material.

When Duff crept into bed beside his wife, listened to her regular breathing and felt the heat from her back, it was as though the memories of the night’s events had already begun to recede. This place had that effect on him, it always had. They had met while he was a student. She came from an affluent family on the western side of town, and even though her parents had been initially sceptical, after a while they accepted the hard-working ambitious young man. And Duff came from a respectable family, in his father-in-law’s opinion. The rest followed almost automatically. Marriage, children, a house in Fife, where the children could grow up without inhaling the town’s toxic air, career, everyday grind. A lot of everyday grind with long days and promotion beckoning. And time flies by. That’s the way it is. She was a good woman and wife, it wasn’t that. Clever, caring and loyal. And what about him — wasn’t he a good husband? Didn’t he provide for them, save money for the children’s education, build a cabin by the lake? Yes, neither she nor her father had much to complain about. He was the way he was, he couldn’t help that. Anyway, there was a lot to say for having a home, having a family: it gave you peace. It had its own pace of life, its own agenda, and it didn’t care much about what was on the outside. Not really. And he needed that perception of reality — or the lack of it — he had to have it. Now and then.

‘You came home then—’ she mumbled.

‘To you and the kids,’ he said.

‘—in the night,’ she added.

He lay listening to the silence between them. Trying to decide whether it was good or bad. Then she laid a tender hand on his shoulder. Pressed her fingertips carefully against his tired muscles where he knew they would soothe.