Macbeth

‘I didn’t say that, dear Banquo. But if we start anything now we’ll have a bloodbath down there. Angus?’

‘Sir?’ came the quick response from the lad with the deep blue eyes and the long blond hair unlikely to have been allowed by any other team leader but Macbeth. His emotions were written over all his open face. Angus and Olafson had the training, now they just needed some more experience. Angus especially needed to toughen up. During his job interview Angus had explained that he had dropped out of training to become a priest when he saw there was no god; people could only save themselves and one another, so he wanted to become a policeman instead. That had been good enough for Macbeth; he liked the fearless attitude, the boy dealing with the consequences of his beliefs. But Angus also needed to learn how to master his feelings and realise that in SWAT they became practical men of action, the long, and rough, arm of the law. Others could take care of reflection.

‘Go down the back, fetch the car and be ready by the door.’

‘Right,’ Angus said, got up and was gone.

‘Olafson?’

‘Yes?’

Macbeth glanced at him. The constant slack jaw, the lisping, the semi-closed eyes and his grades at police college meant that when Olafson had come to Macbeth, begging to be moved to SWAT, he had had his doubts. But the lad had wanted the move, and Macbeth decided to give him a chance, as he himself had been given a chance. Macbeth needed a sharpshooter, and even if Olafson was not spectacularly talented in theoretical subjects, he was a highly gifted marksman.

‘At the last shooting test you beat the twenty-year-old record held by him over there.’ Macbeth nodded to Banquo. ‘Congratulations, that’s a damn fine achievement. You know what it means right here and now?’

‘Er... no, sir.’

‘Good, because it means absolutely nothing. What you have to do here is watch and listen to Inspector Banquo and learn. You won’t save the day today. That’s for later. Understand?’

Olafson’s slack jaw and lower lip were working but were clearly unable to produce a sound, so he just nodded.

Macbeth laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Bit nervous?’

‘Bit, sir.’

‘That’s normal. Try to relax. And one more thing, Olafson.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t mess up.’

‘What’s happening?’ Bonus asked.

‘I know what’s going to happen,’ Hecate said, straightening his back and swinging his telescope away from the quay. ‘So I don’t need this.’ He sat down beside Bonus. Bonus had noticed that he often did that. Sat down beside you instead of opposite. As though he didn’t like you looking straight at him.

‘They’ve got Sweno and the amphetamine?’

‘On the contrary. Sweno’s seized one of Duff’s men.’

‘What? Aren’t you worried?’

‘I never bet on one horse, Bonus. And I’m more worried about the bigger picture. What do you think of Chief Commissioner Duncan?’

‘His promise that you’ll be arrested?’

‘That doesn’t concern me at all, but he’s removed many of my former associates in the police and that’s already created problems in the markets. Come on, you’re a good judge of character. You’ve seen him, heard him. Is he as incorruptible as they say?’

Bonus shrugged. ‘Everyone has a price.’

‘You’re right there, but the price is not always money. Not everyone is as simple as you.’

Bonus ignored the insult by not perceiving it as such. ‘To know how Duncan can be bribed you have to know what he wants.’

‘Duncan wants to serve the herd,’ Hecate said. ‘Earn the town’s love. Have a statue erected he didn’t order himself.’

‘Tricky. It’s easier to bribe greedy vermin like us than pillars of society like Duncan.’

‘You’re right as far as bribery is concerned,’ Hecate said. ‘And wrong with respect to pillars of society and vermin.’

‘Oh?’

‘The foundation of capitalism, dear Bonus. The individual’s attempt to get rich enriches the herd. It’s mechanics pure and simple and happens without us seeing or thinking about it. You and I are pillars of society, not deluded idealists like Duncan.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘The moral philosopher Adam Hand thought so.’

‘Producing and selling drugs serves society?’

‘Anyone who supplies a demand helps to build society. People like Duncan who want to regulate and limit are unnatural and in the long run harmful to us all. So how can Duncan, for the good of the town, be rendered harmless? What’s his weakness? What can we use? Sex, dope, family secrets?’

‘Thank you for your confidence, Hecate, but I really don’t know.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Hecate, gently tapping his stick on the carpet as he observed one of the boys remove the wire from the cork of a new bottle of champagne. ‘You see, I’ve begun to suspect Duncan has only one weak point.’

‘And that is?’

‘The length of his life.’

Bonus recoiled in his chair. ‘I really hope you haven’t invited me here to ask me to...’

‘Not at all, my dear flounder. You’ll be allowed to lie still in the mud.’

Bonus heaved a sigh of relief as he watched the boy struggle with the cork.