‘Yes?’
Bonus swallowed. ‘Nothing.’ What was it about Hecate that always made him feel like a dithering teenager? It was more than the display of real power; there was something else, something that terrified Bonus but he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It wasn’t what he could see in Hecate’s eyes, it was more what he couldn’t see. It was the blood-curdling certainty of a nothingness. Wasteland and numbingly cold nights.
‘Anyway,’ Hecate said, ‘what I wanted to discuss was Macbeth. I’m concerned about him. He’s changed.’
‘Really?’
‘I fear he’s hooked. Not so strange, maybe, after all it is the world’s most addictive dope.’
‘Power?’
‘Yes, but not the type that comes in powder form. Real power. I didn’t think that he would be hooked quite so quickly. He’s already managed to divest himself of any emotions that tie him to morality and humanity; now power is his new and only lover. You heard the radio interview the other day. The brat wants to be mayor.’
‘But in practice the chief commissioner has more power.’
‘As chief commissioner he will of course make sure that real power is returned to the town hall before he occupies the mayoral office. Truly, Macbeth is dreaming of taking over this town. He thinks he is invincible now. And that he can challenge me too.’
Bonus looked at Hecate in surprise. He had folded his hands over the golden top of his stick and was studying his reflection.
‘Yes, Bonus, it should be the other way round: it should be you telling me that Macbeth is after me. That’s what I pay you for. And now your little flounder brain is wondering how I can know this. Well, just ask me.’
‘I . . . er . . . How do you know?’
‘Because he said so on the radio programme you also listened to.’
‘I thought he said the opposite, that pursuing Hecate wouldn’t have the same priority as under Duncan.’
‘And when did you last hear anyone with political ambitions say on radio what they weren’t going to do for the electorate? He could have said he was going to arrest Hecate and create jobs. Sober politicians always promise everything under the sun. But what he said wasn’t meant for voters, it was meant for me, Bonus. He didn’t need to, yet he committed himself publicly and pandered to me. And when people pander you have to watch out.’
‘You think he wants to gain your confidence—’ Bonus looked at Hecate to see if he was on the right track ‘—because he hopes that way you will let him in close and he can then dispose of you?’
Hecate pulled a black hair from a wart on his cheek and studied it. ‘I could crush Macbeth under my heel this minute. But I’ve invested a lot in getting him where he is now, and if there’s one thing I hate it’s a bad investment, Bonus. Therefore I want you to keep your eyes and ears open to find out what he’s planning.’ Hecate threw up his arms. ‘Ah! Look, here’s Al with more jackets. Let’s find one to fit your long tentacle arms.’
Bonus gulped. ‘What if I don’t find out anything?’
‘Then I have no more use for you, dear Bonus.’
It was said in such a casual way and made even more innocuous with a little smile. Bonus’s eyes searched behind the smile. But he found nothing there except night and chill.
‘Look at the watch,’ Dr Alsaker ordered and let his pocket watch swing in front of the patient’s face. ‘You’re relaxing, your arms and legs are feeling heavy, you’re tired and you’re falling asleep. And you won’t wake until I say chestnut.’
She was easy to hypnotise. So easy that Alsaker had to check a couple of times that she wasn’t pretending. Whenever he came to the Inverness he was followed up to the suite by the receptionist, Jack. There she sat ready in her dressing gown – she refused to wear anything else. Her hands were red from compulsive daily scrubbing, and even if she insisted she wasn’t taking anything, he could see from her pupils that she was under the influence of some drug or other. It was one of several disadvantages of being refused permission to admit her to a psychiatric ward, where he could have kept an eye on her medication, sleep and meals and observed her behaviour.
‘Let’s begin where we left off last time,’ Alsaker said, looking at his notes. Not that he needed them to remember; the details were of such a brutal nature they had seared themselves into his memory. He needed his notes to believe what she had actually told him. The first lines were not unusual; on the contrary they were a common refrain in many similar cases. ‘Unemployed, alcoholic father and depressive and violent mother. You grew up by the river in what you call a hovel or a rats’ nest. Literally. You told me your first memories were watching rats swimming towards your house when the sun set, and you remember thinking it was the rats’ house. You slept in their bed, you had eaten their food, when they came up into your bed you understood why they bit you.’
Her voice was soft and low. ‘They just wanted what was theirs.’
‘And your father said the same when he got into your bed.’
‘He just wanted what was his.’
Alsaker skimmed his notes. It wasn’t the first abuse case he had treated, but this one had some details that were particularly disturbing.
‘You became pregnant when you were thirteen and gave birth to a child. Your mother called you a whore. She said you should chuck the misbegotten child into the river, but you refused.’
‘I just wanted to have what was mine.’
‘So you and the child were thrown out of the house, and you spent the next night with the first man you met.’
‘He said he’d kill the baby if it didn’t stop screaming, so I took it into the bed. But then he said it ruined his concentration because it was watching.’
‘And while he was sleeping you stole money from his pockets and food from the kitchen.’
‘I just took what was mine.’
‘And what is yours?’
‘What everyone else has.’
‘What happened then?’
‘The river ran dry.’
‘Come on, Lady. What happened then?’
‘More factories were built. More workers came to town. I earned a bit more money. Mum came to see me and told me Dad was dead. His lungs. It had been a painful death. I told her I’d have liked to have been there to see his pain.’
‘Don’t skirt around it, Lady. Get to the point. What happened to the baby?’
‘Have you seen how babies’ faces change, almost from one day to the next. Well, suddenly, one day it had his face.’
‘Your father’s.’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did you do then?’
‘I gave it extra milk so that it was smiling blissfully at me when it fell asleep. Then I smashed its head against the wall. A head smashes easily, you know? How fragile a human life is.’
Alsaker swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘Did you do it because the child’s face was like your father’s?’
‘No. But it finally made it possible.’
‘Does that mean you’d been thinking about it for a while?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Can you tell me why you say of course ?’
She was silent for a moment. Alsaker saw her pupils twitch, and this reminded him of something. Frogspawn. A tadpole trying to break free from a sticky egg.
‘If you want to achieve your aims you have to be able to renounce what you love. If the person you climb with to reach the peak weakens, you have to either encourage him or cut the rope.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? If he falls he’ll drag both of you down. If you want to survive, your hand has to do what your heart refuses to do.’
‘Kill the person you love?’
‘The way Abraham sacrificed his son. Let the blood flow. Amen.’
Alsaker shivered and took notes. ‘What is there at the peak that yo
u want?’
‘The peak is the top. Then you’re up. Higher than everything and everyone.’
‘Do you have to go there?’
‘No. You can crawl around in the lowlands. On the rubbish heap. In the muddy riverbed. But once you’ve started climbing there’s no way back. It’s the peak or the abyss.’
Alsaker put down his pen. ‘And for this peak you’re willing to sacrifice everything – also what you love? Is survival above love?’
‘Naturally. But recently I’ve seen that we can live without love. So all this survival will be the death of me, Doctor.’
Her eyes had a sudden clarity which for an instant made Alsaker think she wasn’t psychotic after all. But it may have been just the hypnosis or a temporary awakening. Alsaker had seen this many times before. How a patient in deep psychosis or depression can apparently perk up, like a drowning person coming to the surface with an effort of will, giving both relatives and an inexperienced psychiatrist hope. They can stay afloat for several days, only to use this last effort of will to do what they had been threatening or just sink back into the darkness whence they came. But no, it must have been the hypnosis because now the frogspawn membrane was over her eyes again.
‘It says in the paper here that after the radio interview people are waiting for you to announce you’re standing in the mayoral election,’ Seyton said. He had spread the newspaper over a coffee table and was dropping his fingernail clippings onto it.
‘Let them write,’ Macbeth said, looking at his watch. ‘Tourtell should have been here ten minutes ago.’
‘But will you, sir?’ There was a loud, clear snip as the long, pointed nail on his forefinger was cut.
Macbeth shrugged. ‘You have to ponder something like that. Who knows? When the idea matures it might feel different.’
The door creaked. In the narrow opening Priscilla’s sweet over-made-up face appeared. ‘He’s here, sir.’
‘Good. Let him in.’ Macbeth stood up. ‘And get us some coffee.’
Priscilla smiled, and her eyes disappeared into her chubby cheeks, then she disappeared too.
‘Shall I go?’ Seyton asked, making a move to rise from the sofa.
‘You stay,’ Macbeth said.
Seyton resumed his nail-cutting.
‘But stand up.’
Seyton rose to his feet.
The door opened wide. ‘Macbeth, my friend!’ roared Tourtell, and for a moment Macbeth wondered whether the doorway would be wide enough. Or his ribs strong enough, when the mayor slapped his chunky hand against his back.
‘You’ve really got things buzzing here, Macbeth.’
‘Thank you. Please, take a seat.’
Tourtell nodded briefly to Seyton and sat down. ‘Thank you. And thank you, Chief Commissioner, for receiving me at such short notice.’
‘You’re my employer, so it’s me who should feel honoured that you’ve made the time. And, importantly, that you’ve come here instead of the other way round.’
‘Oh, that. I don’t like to give people the feeling they’ve been summoned.’
‘Does that mean I’ve been summoned?’ Macbeth asked.
The mayor laughed. ‘Not at all, Macbeth. I only wanted to see how things were going. Whether you were finding your feet. I mean it is a bit of a transition. And with all that’s happened in the last few days . . .’ Tourtell rolled his eyes. ‘That could have been a mess.’
‘Do you mean it has? Been a mess?’
‘No, no, no. Not at all. I think you’ve tackled everything beyond all expectation. After all, you’re new to this game.’
‘New to the game.’
‘Yes. Things move fast. You have to react on the hoof. Comment. And then you can say things you don’t even think.’
Priscilla came in, put a tray on the table, poured coffee, curtseyed awkwardly and left.
Macbeth sipped his coffee. ‘Hm. Is that a reference to the radio interview?’
Tourtell reached for the bowl of sugar lumps, took three and put one in his mouth. ‘Some of what you said could be interpreted as criticism of the town council and me. And that’s fine – we appreciate a chief commissioner who calls a spade a spade – no one wears a muzzle here. The question is of course whether the criticism came across as a bit harsher than it was meant. Or what?’
Macbeth placed his forefinger under his chin and stared into the air pensively. ‘I didn’t consider it overly harsh.’
‘There you go. That’s exactly what I thought. You didn’t mean to be harsh! You and I, we want the same things, Macbeth. What’s best for the town. To get the wheels moving, to bring down unemployment. A lower jobless rate we know from experience will bring down crime and hit the drugs trade, which in turn reduces property crime. Soon prisoner numbers are drastically down, and everyone asks themselves how Chief Commissioner Macbeth has achieved what none of his predecessors managed. As you know, a mayor can only serve two terms of office. So after I’ve been elected, hopefully, and then finished my second term, it’s a new man’s turn. And then perhaps the town will feel this is the kind of man they need, someone who has produced results as a chief commissioner.’
‘More coffee?’ Macbeth poured the brown liquid into Tourtell’s already full cup until it ran over into the saucer. ‘Do you know what my friend Banquo used to say? Kiss the girl while she’s in love.’
‘Which means?’ Tourtell said, staring at the saucer.
‘Feelings change. The town loves me now. And four years is a long time.’
‘Maybe. But you have to choose your battles, Macbeth. And your decision now is whether to challenge the incumbent mayor – which historically seldom leads to success – or wait for four years and be supported in the election by the departing mayor – which historically very often leads to success.’
‘That kind of promise is easily made and more easily broken.’
Tourtell shook his head. ‘I’ve based my long political career on strategic alliances and cooperation, Macbeth. Kenneth made sure that the chief commissioner’s office had such extensive powers that I as mayor was – and am – completely dependent on the chief commissioner’s goodwill. Believe me, I know a broken promise would cost me dear. You’re an intelligent man and you learn quickly, Macbeth, but you lack experience in the complicated tactical game called politics. Instant popularity and a couple of juicy sound bites on radio aren’t enough. My support isn’t enough either, but it’s more than you can hope to achieve on your own.’
‘You wouldn’t have come here to persuade me not to throw my hat in the ring for the upcoming elections if you didn’t see me as a serious challenger.’
‘You might think so,’ Tourtell said, ‘because you still don’t have enough experience of politics to see the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is that when I continue as mayor and you as chief commissioner over the next four years, then the town will have a problem if its two most powerful men have had an agonising electoral struggle which makes it difficult for them to work together. And it would also make it impossible for me to support your candidature later. I’m sure you understand.’
I’m sure you understand. Ever so slightly condescending. Macbeth opened his mouth to object, but the thought that was supposed to form the words didn’t come.
‘Let me make a suggestion,’ Tourtell said. ‘Don’t stand for election, and you won’t have to wait four years for my support.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. The day you arrest Hecate – which will be an immense victory for us both – I’ll go public and say I hope you’ll be my successor at the elections in four years. What do you say to that, Macbeth?’
‘I think I said on the radio that Hecate isn’t our top priority.’
‘I heard you. And I interpreted that as you saying you didn’t want the pressure that Duncan put on himself and the police by making such optimistic and
all-too-specific promises. Now, the day you arrest him will simply be a bonus. That’s what you’ve planned, isn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ Macbeth said. ‘Hecate’s a difficult man to arrest, but if the opportunity should offer itself—’
‘My experience, I’m afraid to say, is that opportunities don’t offer themselves,’ Tourtell said. ‘They have to be created and then grasped. So what’s your plan for arresting Hecate?’
Macbeth coughed, played with his coffee cup. Tried to collect his thoughts. He had noticed he could suddenly have difficulty doing this, as though it were too much: there were too many balls to keep in the air at once, and when one ball fell, they all fell, and he had to start anew. Was he taking too much power? Or too little? Macbeth’s eyes sought Seyton’s, who had sat down at the coffee table, but there was no help to be found there. Of course not. Only she could help him. Lady. He would have to give up the drugs, talk to her. Only she could blow away the fog, clarify his thinking.
‘I want to lure him into a trap,’ Macbeth said.
‘What kind of trap?’
‘We haven’t got the details worked out yet.’
‘We’re talking about the town’s number-one enemy, so I would appreciate it if you keep me informed,’ Tourtell said and stood up. ‘Perhaps you could give me the plan in broad outline at Duncan’s funeral tomorrow? Along with your decision regarding the election.’
Macbeth took Tourtell’s outstretched hand without getting up. Tourtell nodded to the wall behind him. ‘I’ve always liked that painting, Macbeth. I’ll find my own way out.’
Macbeth watched him. Tourtell seemed to have grown every time he saw him. He hadn’t touched the coffee. Macbeth swivelled on his chair to face the picture. It was big and showed a man and a woman, both dressed as workers, walking hand in hand. Behind them came a procession of children and behind that the sun was high in the sky. The bigger picture. He guessed Duncan had hung it; Kenneth had probably had a portrait of himself. Macbeth angled his head to one side but still couldn’t work out what it meant.
‘Tell me, Seyton. What do you think?’
‘What I think? To hell with Tourtell. You’re more popular than he is.’