The door opened. It was an officer from the Narcotics Unit. ‘Phone call for you, Inspector Duff. He says it’s about Malcolm and it’s urgent. And he only wants to speak to you.’
Lady stood in the middle of the bedroom looking at the man sleeping in her bed. In their bed. It was gone nine o’clock, she’d had her breakfast a long time ago, but there was still no life in the body under the silk sheets.
She sat down on the side of the bed, stroked his cheek, tugged at his thick black curls and shook him. A narrow strip of white appeared under his eyelids.
‘Chief Commissioner! Wake up! The town’s on fire!’
She laughed as Macbeth groaned and rolled onto his side, his back to her. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Late.’
‘I dreamed it was Sunday.’
‘You dreamed a lot, I think.’
‘Yes, that bloody...’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I heard storm bells. But then I realised they were church bells. Summoning churchgoers to confession and a christening.’
‘I told you not to say that word.’
‘Christening?’
‘Macbeth!’
‘Sorry.’
‘The press conference is in less than two hours. And they’ll be wondering what’s happened to their chief commissioner.’
He swung his legs out of bed. Lady stopped him, held his face between her hands and inspected him carefully. The pupils were small. Again.
She pulled a stray hair from his eyebrow.
‘Also we’ve got a dinner this evening,’ she said, searching for more. ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you?’
‘Is it really right to have it so close after Duncan’s passing-away?’
‘It’s a dinner to cultivate connections, not a banquet. And we still have to eat, darling.’
‘Who’s coming?’
‘Everyone I’ve asked. The mayor. Some of your colleagues.’ She found a grey hair, but it slipped between her long red nails. ‘We’re going to discuss how to enforce the regulations for the casinos. It’s in today’s leader column that the Obelisk is apparently running a prostitution racket under cover of the casino and that therefore it should be closed.’
‘It doesn’t help that your editor chum writes what you want him to if no one reads his newspapers.’
‘No. But now I’ve got a chief commissioner as my husband.’
‘Ow!’
‘You should get a few more grey hairs. They look good on bosses. I’ll talk to my hairdresser today. Perhaps he can discreetly dye your temples.’
‘My temples aren’t visible.’
‘Exactly. That’s why we’ll get your hair cut — so they are.’
‘Never!’
‘Mayor Tourtell might think his town should have a chief commissioner who looks like a grown man, not a boy.’
‘Oh? Are you worried?’
Lady shrugged. ‘Normally the mayor wouldn’t interfere with the police hierarchy, but he’s the one who appoints the new chief commissioner. We just have to be sure he doesn’t get any funny ideas.’
‘And how can we do that?’
‘Well, we might have to ensure we have some hold over Tourtell in the unlikely event that he cuts up rough. But don’t you worry about that, darling.’
‘All right. Apropos cutting up rough...’
She stopped searching for unruly hairs. She recognised the tone. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me, dearest?’
‘Banquo...’
‘What about him?’
‘I’ve begun to wonder whether I can trust him. Whether he hasn’t made some cunning plan for himself and Fleance.’ He took a deep breath, and she knew he was about to tell her something important. ‘Banquo didn’t kill Malcolm yesterday, he sent him off to Capitol. He made some excuse about this not being a life we risked anything by sparing.’
She knew he was waiting for her reaction. When none was forthcoming he remarked she didn’t seem so dumbfounded.
She smiled.
‘This is not the time to be dumbfounded. What do you think he’s planning?’
‘He claims he’s frightened Malcolm into silence, but I’m guessing the two of them have concocted something that will give Banquo a better and surer pay-off than he’s getting with me.’
‘Darling, surely you don’t think that nice old Banquo has any ambition to become chief commissioner?’
‘No, no, Banquo has always been someone who wants to be led, not to lead. This is about his son, Fleance. I’m only fifteen years older than Fleance, and by the time I retire Fleance will be old and grey himself. So it’s better for him to be the crown prince to an older man like Malcolm.’
‘You’re just tired, my love. Banquo’s much too loyal to want to do anything like that. You said yourself he would burn in hell for you.’
‘Yes, he has been loyal. And so have I to him.’ Macbeth got up and stood in front of the big gold-framed mirror on the wall. ‘But if you take a closer look, hasn’t this mutual loyalty been more advantageous for Banquo? Hasn’t he been the hyena who follows the lion’s footprints and eats prey he hasn’t killed himself? I made him second-in-command in SWAT and my deputy in Organised Crime. I would say he’s been well paid for the small services he’s performed for me.’
‘All the more reason why you can count on his loyalty, darling.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought too. But now I see...’ Macbeth frowned and went closer to the mirror. Placed a hand on its surface to check if there was something there. ‘He loved me like a father loves a son, but that love turned to hatred when he drank the poison of envy. I passed him on the way up, and instead of him being my boss I became his. And as well as obeying my orders he has had to tolerate the unspoken contempt of his own blood, Fleance, who has seen his father bow his head to the cuckoo in the nest, Macbeth. Have you ever looked into a dog’s faithful brown eyes as it looks up at you, wagging its tail and hoping for food? It sits there, still, waiting, because that’s what it’s been trained to do. And you smile at it, pat its head, and you can’t see the hatred behind the obedience. You can’t see that if it got the opportunity, if it saw its chance to escape punishment, it would attack you, it would tear at your throat; your death would be its breath of freedom and it would leave you half-eaten in some filthy corridor.’
‘Darling, what is the matter with you?’
‘That’s what I dreamed.’
‘You’re paranoid. Banquo really is your friend! If he was planning to betray you he could have just gone to Malcolm and told him about your schemes.’
‘No, he knows he’ll be stronger if he plays his ace at the end. First kill me, a dangerous murderer, and then bring back Malcolm as chief commissioner. What a heroic deed! How can you reward a man like that and his family?’
‘Do you really believe this?’
‘No,’ said Macbeth. He was standing close to the mirror now, his nose touching the glass, which had misted up. ‘I don’t believe it, I know it. I can see. I can see the two of them. Banquo and Fleance. I have to forestall them, but how?’ Suddenly he turned to her. ‘How? You, my only one, you have to help me. You have to help us.’
Lady crossed her arms. However warped Macbeth’s reasoning sounded, there was some sense in it. He might be right. And if he wasn’t, Banquo was still a fellow conspirator and a potential witness and blabber. The fewer there were of them, the better. And what real use did they have for Banquo and Fleance? None. She sighed. As Jack would say, If you’ve got less than twelve in blackjack you ask for another card. Because you can’t lose.
‘Invite them here one evening,’ she said. ‘Then we know where they are.’