Macbeth and Banquo sat on the pavement with their backs against the high wall to the south of the house, beside the gates. Cawdor — like most of his neighbours — had cemented glass shards into the top of the wall, but SWAT had mats to overcome hindrances of that kind. The raid followed the usual procedure, the teams reporting via walkie-talkies when they were in their pre-arranged positions. Macbeth glanced across the street to where a boy of six or seven had been throwing a ball against a garage wall when they arrived. Now he stopped and stared at them with his mouth open. Macbeth put a finger to his lips, and the boy nodded back somnambulantly. The same expression as the white-clad young man kneeling on the tarmac the previous night, Macbeth reflected.
‘Wake up.’ It was Banquo whispering in his ear.
‘What?’
‘All the teams are in position.’
Macbeth breathed in and out a couple of times. Had to shut out other things from his mind now, had to get in the zone. He pressed the talk button: ‘Fifty seconds to going in. North? Over.’
Angus’s voice with that unctuous priest-like chanting tone: ‘All OK. Can’t see any movement inside. Over.’
‘West? Over.’
‘All OK.’ That was the replacement’s voice, Seyton. Monotone, calm. ‘Hang on, the sitting-room curtain twitched. Over.’
‘OK,’ Macbeth said. He didn’t even need to think; this was part of the what-if procedure they drilled day in, day out. ‘We may have been seen, folks. Let’s cut the countdown and go in. Three, two, one... go!’
And there it was, the zone. The zone was like a room where you closed the door behind you and nothing else but the mission, you and your men existed.
They got to their feet, and as Banquo threw the mat over the glass on the wall Macbeth noticed the boy with the ball wave slowly, robotically, with his free hand.
Within seconds they were over the wall and sprinting through the garden, and Macbeth had this feeling he could sense everything around him. He could hear a branch creak in the wind, could see a crow take off from the ridge of the neighbour’s roof, could smell a rotting apple in the grass. They ran up the steps, and Banquo used the butt of his gun to smash the window beside the front door, slipped his hand through and unlocked the door from the inside. As they entered they heard glass breaking elsewhere in the house. Eight against one. When Macbeth asked Duncan if there was any reason to think Cawdor would put up resistance Duncan had answered that wasn’t why he wanted a full-scale arrest.
‘It’s to send a signal, Macbeth. We don’t treat our own more leniently. Quite the contrary. Smash glass, kick in doors, make a lot of noise and lead Cawdor out in handcuffs through the front entrance so that everyone can see and tell others.’
Macbeth went in first. Pressing an assault rifle to his shoulder as his gaze swept the hall. Stood with his back to the wall beside the sitting-room door. His eyes gradually adapted to the darkness after the sharp sunlight outside. All the curtains in the house appeared to be drawn. Banquo came up to his side and carried on into the sitting room.
As Macbeth pushed off from the wall to follow him, it happened.
The attacker came swiftly and silently from the darkness shrouding one of the two staircases, hit Macbeth in the chest and sent him flying backwards.
Macbeth felt hot air on his throat, but managed to get his gun barrel between him and the dog and knock its snout to the side so that the big teeth sank into his shoulder instead. He screamed with pain as an immense snarling head tore at skin and flesh. Macbeth tried to hit out, but his free hand was caught in his rifle strap. ‘Banquo!’ Cawdor wasn’t supposed to have a dog. They always checked before operations of this kind. But this was definitely a dog, and it was strong. The dog shoved the gun barrel to the side. It was going for his throat. He would soon have his carotid artery severed.
‘Banq—’
The dog went stiff. Macbeth turned his head and stared into dulled canine eyes. Then its body went limp and slumped on top of him. Macbeth pushed it off and looked up.
Seyton was standing over him holding out a hand.
‘Thank you,’ Macbeth said, getting to his feet without help. ‘Where’s Banquo?’
‘He and Cawdor are inside,’ Seyton answered, motioning towards the sitting room.
Macbeth went to the sitting-room door. They had opened the curtains, and in the bright light from behind he saw only Banquo’s back as he stared up at the ceiling. Above him hovered an angel with a halo of sunshine and his head bowed as if in a plea for forgiveness.
It took an hour.
An hour from the moment Macbeth had said, ‘Go!’ until Duncan had gathered all the departmental and unit leaders together in the large conference room at HQ.
Duncan stood up on the podium and looked down at some papers; Duff knew he had written some words there the way he wanted them to be said but that he would ad-lib according to the moment and the situation. Not because the chief commissioner was a loose cannon, far from it. Duff knew he had the words under control, he was as much a man of heart as he was of mind, a man who spoke how he felt and vice versa. A man who understood himself and therefore others too, Duff thought. A leader. Someone people would follow. Someone Duff wished he was, or could be.
‘You all know what happened,’ Duncan said in a low, solemn voice, yet it carried as though he had shouted. ‘I just wanted to brief you fully before the press conference this afternoon. One of our most trusted officers, Inspector Cawdor, had a serious charge of corruption levelled against him. And at the present moment it appears this suspicion was justified. In the light of his close connection with the Norse Riders — against whom we launched a successful operation yesterday — there was clearly a risk that he, given the situation, might try to destroy evidence or flee. For that reason, at ten o’clock this morning I gave the order for SWAT to arrest Inspector Cawdor with immediate effect.’
Duff had hoped his name would be mentioned, but he was also aware that Duncan wouldn’t divulge any details. For if there is one thing you learn in the police it is that rules are rules, even when unwritten. So he was surprised when Duncan looked up and said, ‘Inspector Macbeth, would you be so kind as to come up here and briefly summarise the arrest?’
Duff turned and watched his colleague stride up between the lines of chairs to the podium. Obviously he had been caught by surprise as well. The chief commissioner didn’t normally delegate in these contexts; he would usually say his piece, make it short and to the point and conclude the meeting so that everyone could get back to their job of making the town a better place to live.
Macbeth looked ill at ease. He was still wearing his black SWAT uniform, but the zip at the neck was undone far enough for them to see the bright white bandage on his right shoulder.
‘Well,’ he began.
Not exactly an elegant start, but then no one expected the head of SWAT to be a wordsmith. Macbeth checked his watch as though he had an appointment. Everyone in the room knew why: it is the instinctive reaction of police officers who have been ordered to report back and feel unsure of themselves. They check their watches as though the obligatory time references for past events are written there or the watch face will jog their memory.
‘At ten fifty-three,’ Macbeth said and coughed twice, ‘SWAT raided Inspector Cawdor’s home. A terrace door was open, but there was no sign of a break-in or violence, or that anyone had been there before us. Apart from a dog. Nor any signs that anyone other than Cawdor himself had done it...’ Now Macbeth stopped looking at his watch and addressed the gathering. ‘A chair was knocked over by the terrace door. I’m not going to anticipate the SOCOs’ conclusions, but it looked as if Cawdor didn’t just step off the chair when he hanged himself, he jumped, and when he swung back kicked the chair across the room. That tallies with the way the deceased’s excrement was scattered across the floor. The body was cold. Suicide seems the obvious cause of death, and one of the guys asked if we could skip the procedures and cut the man down as Cawdor had been a police officer all his life. I said no...’