For Mark, Andrew and Matthew
May your stories always have happy endings
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my editor, Allison Hirst, and the staff at Dundurn for their continuing support and enthusiasm for the Birder Murder series. I am grateful, too, for the guidance and advice of Bruce Westwood and Lien de Nil at Westwood Creative Artists. Doug Gibson has pointed me in the right direction on more than one occasion, and the same is true of my many birding companions. My thanks to all of them.
And, as always, love and thanks go to my beautiful wife, Resa, who from the very beginning was convinced that there would be a second Birder Murder Mystery. Once again, darling, I have no hesitation in stating, in print, that you were absolutely … not incorrect.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
The European Turtledove
The Socorro Dove
Prologue
Autumn 2006
It was like driving into death; a grey maelstrom of ferocious rain and roiling storm clouds that cloaked the landscape with their dark menace. The storm of the century, they were calling it, worse even than ’53.
It had been building for days, hunkering offshore, marshalling its power as it waited for that one perfect confluence of weather systems. In the previous hours there had been a couple of tentative incursions over the land — high winds and swift, angry rain squalls — but at 9:32 that morning, as the tide rose to its highest point in fifteen years, the storm began to unleash its full fury on the north Norfolk coastline. By now it had built to its peak, bringing evening to the afternoon in a sinister twilight of bruised skies and vast, swirling sheets of rain. The lowlying coastal lands were being inundated by the deluge from above and the storm-driven tidal surges from the sea. And now the floodwaters were headed this way.
The man urged the tiny car onward, a shiny sliver of light creeping over the oily blackness of the road. He wondered how long it would be before he saw the first evidence of flooding in the fields on either side. The river had already burst its banks, according to the latest report that had come over the car radio. Soon the waters would begin creeping insidiously across the flat black earth of the farms, swallowing up every feature, every hollow of the land. It was no wonder the radio announcers had started rolling out the Noah’s ark references, even if they didn’t know what they were talking about. Two by two? He had turned the radio off in a fit of exasperation at that point. How could you trust their storm updates when they couldn’t even get basic scripture right? Seven: that was the number of clean beasts God had commanded Noah to take on the ark. Seven and seven, of each species, the male and the female. Not two.
At least somebody knew his Bible.
A momentary wave of lightheadedness passed over him. This snail’s pace driving and those earlier diversions had taken him long past his scheduled time to eat. Still, a glass of orange juice and a couple of digestives when he got home …
The man blinked hard to clear his blurred vision and concentrated on the narrow country lane in front of him. The incessant hammering of the rain on the roof seemed to fill the car. In the feeble headlights, he could see the manic devil-dance of raindrops falling so hard they were bouncing back up from the surface of the road. All around him, the storm was attacking the land with such terrifying ferocity that it seemed almost to have one single purpose: to obliterate Saltmarsh from the map. When the storm finally passed, thought the man, the destruction left in its wake would be devastating. It would take the local communities a long time to recover from the day this veil of misery descended upon them. Perhaps some never would.
Violent gusts of wind tore at the tops of the overgrown hedgerows along both sides of the narrow lane, scattering leaves like tiny wet messages of the storm’s destruction. A burst of wind-driven rain came out of the darkness like an ambush, rattling against the driver’s window and startling the man into a momentary oversteer. Careful. Get stuck in a ditch tonight, with the north Norfolk countryside disappearing beneath this storm of biblical proportions, and who knows when they’ll be out to rescue you. According to the radio reports, the emergency services were already stretched to the limit, clearing people from the path of the relentless brown tide that was bearing down on them.
And besides, there was his precious cargo. He didn’t want to have to explain that to any potential rescuers. He patted the lid of the large cardboard box on the seat next to him and wiped the back of a clammy hand across his forehead, blinking his eyes once more to clear his vision.
There were those in his church, he knew, who would argue that this storm was a punishment from above; divine retribution for Saltmarsh’s sins, past and present. He wondered if his actions counted among them. He had committed a crime, yes. He was prepared to admit that much. A perfect crime, as a matter of fact; but not a sin, surely. After all, he had acted with the best of intentions — compassion and mercy and pity. There could be no sin in that. The sky lit up as tendrils of lightning clawed their way across the towering bank of cloud on the horizon. The thunder that followed threatened to tear the swollen sky apart with its force. Somewhere over the noise of the storm, he heard the splintering crack of wood and saw the severed arm of an ancient oak crash onto the road ahead of him in an explosion of leaves and debris. Motive: that was what made it a sin. The man understood that now. His act of kindness had only ever had one real motive: his own gain. He knew it. And God knew it, too.
He steered cautiously around the fallen limb, gripping the steering wheel tightly as he feathered the accelerator. Silver sprays cascaded up against the bodywork as the wheels found a deeper patch of water near the edge of the road. He felt tired; the constant focus, the concentration, was taking its toll. And all the time, the metronomic beat of the wipers slapping back and forth against the wet windshield filled his senses, as measured and constant as a heartbeat, lulling him toward the rest he so badly needed.
In the dark, he almost missed the driveway. The little yellow carriage lamp had been torn off the gatepost by the wind and lay shattered across the road. What a shame. Maggie loved that lamp. An irrational sadness moved him almost to the point of weeping. He pulled into the driveway and parked. His body was bathed in sweat and he was shaking.
He sat in the car, watching the rain stream down the windows. The house beyo
nd was dark. His mind fogged with confusion. Where was Maggie? Of course. Working. He would call her from the house; make sure she had arrived safely at the hospital. But first he needed to rest, to close his eyes. Just for a few minutes. Not in his bed. Too far away. Here in the car, next to his prize, the spoils of his perfect crime. He fumbled in his jacket for a pen and scrawled a spidery note on the top of the box: For my Turtle D… The pen slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. Too far away. The drumming of the rain on the roof of the car was almost deafening now. He felt the weariness, the overwhelming weariness, pressing down upon him. He needed food, but it was in the kitchen. Too far away in this storm. Too far away. Just rest, then.
Maggie knew before she reached the car. Not when she alighted from the bus, stopped so thoughtfully by the driver a few feet past the actual bus stop, so she could avoid the massive puddle: not as she was walking along the lane, with its vegetation still dripping and heaving from the effects of last night’s storm. But by the time she turned into the driveway, she knew.
The threat of death had been a constant in their lives ever since his diagnosis all those years before. Though it sometimes drifted to the back of their consciousness, it never really left them. So she approached the car with a strange mix of reluctance and haste, pressing in to look through the passenger window, through the clearing morning mist on the glass, where she saw her husband slumped against the steering wheel. She opened the door and put a finger to his neck. Even to her, it seemed a cold, professional gesture. Perhaps it was best that she was still in her nursing mind-set. Sometimes it took her hours to switch off after a shift, especially after a night like last night, with all the stress and trauma of the storm-related injuries. She withdrew her hand, noticing for the first time the box lying on the passenger seat, and the words, his last words, scrawled on the top. She gently lifted the lid, peered in, and then replaced the lid and carried the box into the house.
Inside, she set the box on the floor and sat for a moment at the kitchen table in the cold, empty house. Then she crossed to the computer, typed out a short note, and printed it off. Folding and refolding the paper a couple of times, she opened a drawer of a battered old filing cabinet and stuffed the note into the middle of an untidy sheaf of papers, closing the drawer again with exaggerated care.
By the time she had swept the seat and floor of the passenger side of the car with a dustpan and brush, and emptied the dustpan onto a flowerbed, the shock was starting to set in. Back in the house, now barely aware of her actions, she put away the dustpan and brush and picked up the telephone. And then, having called the police to report the death of her husband of thirty-five years, Margaret Wylde sat down on her living-room couch and cried.
1
Spring 2014
The thing about death is, it never taunts you with false hope. There is never any chance that things will reverse course, or get better, or even change. So in that respect, death never disappointed Danny Maik. Only life could do that. Still, even a detective sergeant as familiar with death as Danny was entitled to wonder, just for a second, whether encountering this scene the second time around would make it any easier. But when he re-entered the room, he was greeted by the same frozen tableau of horror; the silent, empty absence of life that was witness to the violence that had gone before it. And so Danny’s own reaction was the same, too; an overwhelming sense of sadness. It came upon him whenever he encountered death, but perhaps this time the feeling was even a little stronger than usual, now that he could properly take in the pathetic innocence of the girl in the cage, and the peaceful repose of the man lying at her feet.
It was hard to believe that anyone’s first reaction to the news of these murders could have been optimism. But if Lindy Hey could have witnessed this room for herself, experienced the blood, the stench of soiled feathers, the grotesque posture of the girl’s body, Danny suspected that her response would not have been quite so upbeat.
“I don’t suppose he’s there,” Maik had asked when Lindy answered the phone.
“Weather like this? Peak migration season? Nothing wrong with your detective skills, is there, Sergeant?”
“I thought perhaps if you knew where he was, we could send a car. It might be faster.”
“Sorry, he could be anywhere along the coast at this time of year. Texting is your best bet. His phone will be off, but he’s pretty good at checking his messages. Is it a bad one?”
Danny could imagine Lindy cringing at the seeming insensitivity of her question. She knew that, for him, there were no levels to murder. For Danny Maik, it was only ever the extinction of life, terrible in its finality, no matter who the victim was, or what the circumstances. But he knew Lindy wasn’t being callous. Murder had once again intruded into her partner’s life. She was simply trying to gauge how it would affect him, them, their relationship.
“If he calls, can you tell him to come to the Free to Fly Sanctuary on Beach Road?”
“Really, that bird rescue place?”
It wasn’t just his imagination, that note of hope in her voice. He was sure of it now, considering it for a second time. Lindy was thinking that the presence of birds could possibly turn this into the one case that finally engaged Domenic Jejeune. And she might be right. A murder in a bird sanctuary might just capture the inspector’s interest in a way that previous cases had so obviously failed to do. Whether it would be enough to ultimately convince Jejeune to commit himself to the career everybody seemed to believe was his destiny, well, that was another question altogether. As the title of one of Maik’s beloved Motown titles might have put it: “Yes, No, Maybe So.”
Danny returned to the present and swept his eyes over the scene once again. Two rows of floor-to-ceiling cages lined the breeze block walls of the sparse room, separated by a narrow walkway. In every cage but one, birds huddled silently in the farthest corner, away from the light. The survival instinct, he recognized. Sit still and avoid drawing attention to yourself. In another life, Danny had employed the same tactics himself, when his own survival had depended on it.
Detective Constable Tony Holland approached and nodded toward the bodies on the other side of the wire. “Murders in a bird cage,” he said. “He’s going to love this one, isn’t he? Where is he, anyway? Off communing with his feathered friends somewhere, I suppose.”
Maik ignored the question. “Uniforms made sure they left the scene exactly as it was? Keys hung in exactly the same place?”
Holland’s look told Maik that even the uniforms had enough experience in dealing with a Domenic Jejeune crime scene to know what was expected of them. They would have disturbed nothing during their initial inspection, relocking the cage and replacing the keys carefully. The DCI would see everything just as it was when they first arrived on the scene. If any messages had been left, intentional or otherwise, Jejeune would be able to interpret them in situ before SOCO started sifting through things.
Maik asked for the background on the victims and Holland did his best to provide what they knew so far. It wasn’t much.
“The kneeler is Phoebe Hunter. She runs the shelter. Ran. Him, we have no idea. No ID or phone, either on the body or in the car. Nice shine, though.” Holland indicated an expensive watch and ring on the man’s left hand.
“There’s a car?” Maik couldn’t remember seeing anything other than familiar police vehicles when he arrived.
“Round the back, tucked away in the corner. It’s a local rental from Saxon’s Garage. I’ve called Old Man Saxon. He’ll pull the file and get us an ID as soon as he gets in.” Maik’s silence unnerved Holland and the constable checked the time on a flashy new iPhone. “I could go and get him if you like.…”
Maik dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. He peered into the cage once more, forcing himself to look beyond the carnage to take in the details. The body of a young woman knelt in a pool of her own blood. She had slumped far enough in death that her knees were resting on the concrete floor of the cage. But her upper torso remai
ned suspended upright, impaled on a broken branch that protruded like a spear point from a dead tree limb that had been stretched across the cage as a makeshift perch. Her head rested against her chest in an attitude Maik remembered from the crucifixes of his church-going youth. Beneath her, almost at her feet, lay the body of a man. He wore an expensive-looking turtleneck sweater, finely tailored trousers, and high-quality leather shoes, all in black. The man looked almost peaceful, curled on one side as though sleep had suddenly overtaken him. Maik wondered if it was the serenity of the man’s pose that made the girl’s own situation seem so grotesque by comparison. But no, Phoebe Hunter’s death really needed no point of contrast to appall anyone.
Maik looked at the dark blood pooled on the floor around the girl. He had seen blood spilled on many surfaces, but only on cement did it seem to settle like this, flowing outwards and then drawing back slightly from the edges, as if shrinking back in revulsion at its own progress. In that strange way of things, the blood had flowed to within inches of the man’s body, but had not touched it. There was not a trace of blood anywhere on the man’s black clothing.
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