Macbeth

‘It’s different with sons. They’re an extension of your life. It’s their job to ensure a steady rise.’

‘It wasn’t Cawdor.’

‘Eh?’

‘It wasn’t Cawdor I was thinking of.’

‘Oh?’

‘It was one of the young men on the country road. He was—’ Macbeth looked out of the window ‘—red. Soaked in blood.’

‘Don’t think about it.’

‘Cold blood.’

‘Cold... what do you mean?’

Macbeth took a deep breath. ‘The two men by Forres, they’d surrendered. But Duff shot the guy wearing Sweno’s helmet anyway.’

Banquo shook his head. ‘I knew it was something like that. And the other one?’

‘He was a witness.’ Macbeth grimaced. ‘They’d run out of the party and he’d only been wearing a white shirt and white trousers. I took out my daggers. He started to plead; he knew what was coming.’

‘I don’t need to hear any more.’

‘I stood behind him. But I couldn’t do it. I stood there with a dagger in the air, paralysed. But then I saw Duff. He was sitting with his face in his hands sobbing like a child. Then I struck.’

A siren was heard in the distance. A fire engine. What the hell could be burning in this rain? Banquo thought.

‘I don’t know if it was because his clothes were drenched,’ Macbeth said, ‘but the blood covered all of him. All his shirt and trousers. And lying there on the tarmac with his arms down and slightly to the side, he reminded me of the traffic light. Stop now. Don’t walk.’

They went on in silence, past the entrance to the garage under police HQ. Only unit leaders and higher-ranking officers had parking spots there. Banquo turned into the car park at the rear of the building. He stopped and switched off the engine. The rain beat down on the car roof.

‘I understand,’ Banquo said.

‘What do you understand?’

‘Duff knew that if you arrested Sweno, hauled him before a greedy judge in the country’s most corrupt town, how long would he have got? Two years? Maximum three? Full acquittal? And I understand you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. What would Duff have got if Sweno’s lackey had taken the stand against him? Twenty years? Twenty-five? In the force we take care of our own. No one else does. And even more importantly, another police scandal would do so much harm just as we have a chief commissioner who’s beginning to give the public back some faith in law and order. You have to see the bigger picture. And sometimes cruelty is on the side of the good, Macbeth.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Don’t give it another thought, my friend.’

The water streaming down the windscreen had distorted the police headquarters building in front of them. They didn’t move, as though what had been said had to be digested before they could get out.

‘Duff should be grateful to you,’ Banquo said. ‘If you hadn’t done that he would’ve had to do it himself, both of you knew that. But now you’ve both got something on each other. A balance of terror. That’s what allows people to sleep at night.’

‘Duff and I are not the US and the Soviet Union.’

‘No? What are you actually? You were inseparable at police college, but now you barely talk. What happened?’

Macbeth shrugged. ‘Nothing much. We were probably an odd couple anyway. He’s a Duff. His family had property once, and that kind of thing lingers. Language, upper-class manners. At the orphanage it isolated and exposed him, then he seemed to gravitate towards me. We became a duo you didn’t mess with, but at college you could see he was drawn to his own sort. He was released into the jungle like a tame lion. Duff studied at university, found himself an upper-class girl and got married. Children. We drifted apart.’

‘Or did you just get sick of him behaving like the selfish, arrogant bastard he is?’

‘People often get the wrong idea about Duff. At police college he and I swore we would get the big bad boys. Duff really wants to change this town, Banquo.’

‘Was that why you saved his skin?’

‘Duff’s competent and hard-working. He has a good chance of getting Organised Crime, everyone knows that. So why should one mistake in the heat of battle stop the career of a man who can do something good for us all?’

‘Because it’s not like you to kill a defenceless man in that way.’

Macbeth shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve changed.’

‘People don’t change. But I see now you saw it simply as your soldier’s duty. You, Duff and I are fighting on the same side in this war. You’ve cut short the lives of two Norse Riders so that they can’t continue to cut short the lives of our children with their poison. But you don’t perform your duty by choice. I know what it costs you when you start seeing your dead enemies in traffic lights. You’re a better man than me, Macbeth.’

Macbeth smirked. ‘You see more clearly than me in the mists of battle, old man, so it’s some solace to me that I have your forgiveness.’

Banquo shook his head. ‘I don’t see better than anyone else. I’m just a chatterbox with doubt as my sole guide.’

‘Doubt, yes. Does it eat you up sometimes?’

‘No,’ Banquo answered, staring through the windscreen. ‘Not sometimes. All the time.’