Jejeune tilted his head in acknowledgment.
“Once again you demonstrate that your reputation is justified, Inspector,” said Sir Michael Hillier in his rich baritone. He raised a glass. “I congratulate you. You must be extremely proud of him, young lady.”
“Always,” said Lindy, slipping her hand through his arm. Jejeune winced a little.
“I hope your injuries are not too serious.” There was genuine concern in Hidalgo’s voice. Jejeune assured him they were not, and deflected further inquiries by inviting Hidalgo to explain the duties of his position to Lindy. The diplomat inclined his head gracefully.
“Mexico is a place of many beauties, but it faces many challenges, too,” he said. “Did you know, almost a quarter of a million people once lived on floating islands on Lake Tenochtitlan, the site of modern-day Mexico City? When the Spanish arrived, they drained the lake, but today, water being removed by wells from the lakebed is causing Mexico City to sink forty times faster than Venice. I cannot think of a more heartbreaking metaphor for my country’s fate. Mexico is like our precious planet Earth, Ms. Hey; it is under threat from all sides. To our north we have an established industrial giant, to our south an emerging one. We have the latent Asian tiger to our west and the might of Europe to our east. No country, I believe, faces a greater threat to its culture. So, like this planet, my country needs champions to preserve all aspects of its dignity, its environment, its heritage. My role is to make some small contribution to this effort.”
“I’d like to visit Mexico one day,” said Lindy, “but I could probably only get Dom to go if you promised him that there were birds there.”
Hidalgo shared a knowing smile with Jejeune. “Those who know about these things inform me that over one thousand species of bird can be seen in Mexico.”
“Blimey, Dom,” said Lindy, turning to him. “I guess we know where you’ll be going when you die. If you’re good, that is.”
Jejeune smiled, but it was clear he was content to let the conversation swirl around him. He was mentally preparing himself for what was to come — the speech, the gracious acknowledgement of the accolades and compliments, the humble acceptance of the bravery award. The show, in other words, that was about to begin. Maik, watching from the sidelines, saw Domenic Jejeune set himself. In a few moments he would stroll to the microphone and become the master of it all — his speech, his subject, the room. He would captivate them, as he always did. And only a few, Lindy, Maik, perhaps Shepherd, would know how much of himself Jejeune was holding back, how reluctant he was to become a part of this event thrown in his honour.
Shepherd’s raised voice caused a hush to fall over the room. Her introduction was uncharacteristically brief and uneffusive, and then it was the chief constable’s turn to step up and shower Domenic with praise before presenting him with the medal in a velvet box.
Jejeune waited patiently behind the podium for the applause to die down. After the initial acknowledgements and thanks, he turned to the TV cameras, as if in the dispassionate glass lens he could find an understanding for his points he might not from the expectant faces in the room.
“People constantly try to find rational explanations for why a person would attempt to commit suicide,” he said. “But to attempt suicide in itself is not a rational act, so it’s perhaps only by looking past the rational explanations that these people can find their answers.” The audience was hushed, unsure of where he was going, but willing to follow him anyway, wherever he led them. “I’m not sure what drove the man I saw on that ledge to his act of desperation, and to be honest, I’m not sure he knew himself. In his mind, David Nyce saw the taking of his life, committing the ultimate act of penance, self-murder, as the price he should pay for his actions. But the person I saw out there was a deeply troubled, confused person for whom the rational world seemed a long way off. Whatever it is we know, or think we know, must be considered in this light, too. The victims in this case, Ramon Santos, Phoebe Hunter, Jordan Waters, and those left behind to mourn them, deserve answers to all the questions. But the only way we can be sure those answers will come is if we can finally settle the truth about why David Nyce wanted to kill himself. I am happy to report that he is recovering, so let us all hope that, in the next few days, he will be able to supply those answers for us himself. Thank you.”
The applause when Jejeune descended from the podium was generous but brief, and the room fell into a quiet hum of conversation more quickly than might have been expected. Shepherd had watched the proceedings with a guarded expression. If there was to be controversy, she knew, it would centre on Jejeune including Waters among the victims, counting his loss as equal to the others. But there were things in the speech that troubled her far more than that. And they would speak of them, if not before Jejeune left on his holiday, then definitely after his return.
Lindy approached him with an uncertain smile. “Nice job, darling, even if it was a bit deep for an acceptance speech,” she said. “Next time, maybe just thank your agent and the members of the academy and leave it at that.” Jejeune accepted her fleeting kiss on the cheek and then made his way over to where Danny Maik was standing.
“Off tomorrow, then,” said Danny over-brightly. “A bit of birding, Lindy tells me. That’ll be nice. A chance to recharge the batteries a bit, come back fighting fit.” And then, having established that there was no reason for anyone to be paying any particular attention to their conversation, he waited for Jejeune to get to what it was he wanted to say.
“Just a couple of loose ends to tie up,” said the DCI, with a strangely frank look at Maik. “I wonder if I could ask you to take care of them while I’m away.”
Maik looked around the room, at Trueman, at Hillier, at Hidalgo, at Shepherd. Which one of them didn’t Jejeune want eavesdropping on anything he might have to say to Danny? He turned his gaze back to Jejeune.
“You’d like to be kept informed, I take it?” He was beginning to understand Jejeune’s cadences, and he realized that these unspoken communications between them marked the first steps toward a true partnership. But with partnerships came commitments that could put you in jeopardy. Jejeune seemed to hesitate, as if he was aware that once he had drawn Danny into his plans, there would be no going back. They would both be complicit from this point on, wherever it might lead. It was a heavy burden to lay on someone without their approval. Danny gave it to Jejeune with a look.
“I’m going to buy a prepaid phone for the trip,” Jejeune said. Unregistered, he meant. “Save taking my own. I could buy one for you, too, if you like. It seems unfair to have to run up long distance bills on the station’s plan. Wise use of resources and all that.”
Danny nodded. “Trouble is, a careless bugger like me, chances are I might lose this new phone sooner or later.” And with it, any evidence that we had been in contact. He saw that he had guessed correctly. Jejeune moved in and told him what he needed him to do.
“Look at you two, huddled over here like BFFs,” said Lindy as she approached them. The men exchanged a glance of understanding, brief, but not unmissed by Lindy. “Honestly, you are developing such great shorthand between you,” she said.
A strange way to put it, perhaps, but she wasn’t wrong.
40
Lindy leaned on the balcony railing, looking out at the tropical morning emerging from the sea. On the horizon, daybreak was unfurling a pink and grey tapestry beneath a bank of low clouds. Domenic joined her, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.
She turned around and kissed him, letting her hand rest on the stubble on his cheek. “You know, every day I spend in places like this makes me wonder why I don’t spend every day in places like this. How about you? Having fun?”
He was. She could see it. She looked at him now, with a couple of days’ beard, sporting a loosely woven fedora and a blue-patterned shirt with parrots on it. Dom was like a different person whenever he was away. Not in that daft non-literal way that Lindy’s mom used the phrase, but in a real, almost t
ranscendent sense. It was as if he shed a skin, shrugging off not only the oppressive weight of the cases he was working on, but the job itself; as if his existence as Domenic Jejeune, police detective, was nothing more than a bad dream from which he had suddenly emerged. It was, of course, why he always crashed so spectacularly toward the end of their trips, descending into a mood of brooding silence. But it was a price Lindy was always willing to pay.
They had spent the previous day, their first on the island, driving around the coastal road, drinking in the sights and sounds of the island: the warm, tropical light; the soft, sandy shorelines; the luxuriant vegetation. Lindy wondered whether the locals ever became blasé about it all. Probably not, she had decided.
Only once had a cloud appeared on her tropical horizon. They had stopped at a small market, and the assault on the senses was overwhelming; the fetid odours, the vivacious colours. And the noise, a dreadful, wonderful cacophony of car horns, made-for-tourists reggae musak, shouts, gestures, disputes, greetings, embraces. Lindy loved it all. She browsed the stalls and found a trinket, a souvenir of St. Lucia that would be perfect for the little niche above their fireplace.
Domenic pulled a face. It was a conversation they had bandied between them many times before. Why would someone who disliked dust as much as Lindy spend so much of her time shopping for things that would collect it? But he had smiled indulgently. That is, until she reached into his pocket for his credit card. He had snapped his hand down, pressing hers flat.
“Blimey, Dom, take it easy. I’m not going to steal it. I left mine in the safety deposit box.”
“Sorry, I would just prefer to use cash.”
“You realize they are going to tell you they have to give you East Carribbean dollars as change?”
“I would expect no less,” he said, his smile not disguising his desire to move on from the incident as quickly as possible.
Later, as they sat nursing drinks at a small outdoor café, watching the passing parade of street life, he had leaned in and suddenly become serious. “If anything was to happen down here, you should go to the British authorities, not the Canadian.”
Lindy stopped sipping. “Anything like what?”
“I’m just saying.”
“What’s going to happen, Dom? You’re scaring me here.”
“Nothing.” He laughed, but to Lindy it sounded a little bit forced. “No, it’s just that I hold two passports, Canadian and British. I just wouldn’t want it to be confusing. I mean, I could pass for British now. I’ve had my lessons from Robin, Jump in the old jam jar, off dahn the frog n’ toad for a pint in the rub-a-dub-dub. Sorted, innit.”
Lindy exploded a spray of fruit juice across the table, turning red and flapping a hand helplessly as she tried to stop herself from choking.
“Oh, God,” she said as she eventually surfaced for air. She dabbed her eyes. “That’s the best Am-glish I’ve heard since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.” And then she went off again, dissolving into a fit of giggles that earned stares from passing pedestrians. The uncomfortable exchange of earlier passed and she had all but forgotten about it until dinner that evening, when she saw his expression in an unguarded moment as he eased the bill toward her to sign, that same look of uneasiness.
But today was a new day, and after a leisurely breakfast in the sun on the hotel patio, they got in the rented Jeep and headed up into the hills to visit a bird reserve Domenic had on his list. How strange, thought Lindy as the Jeep wended its way farther and farther up toward the rainforest-cloaked interior of the island. At home, the bird reserves were all tucked along the margins between the land and sea, with human habitation penning them in. Here it was the resorts that were penned in, and the wide expanses of wilderness that stretched inland.
Eventually they saw a hand-painted wooden sign to the Des Cartiers Trail and turned off down a steep dirt track. There was only one other vehicle in the lot when Jejeune pulled the Jeep to a halt. They got out and strolled along a path dappled by the bright sunlight that filtered through the tangle of leaves high overhead. In a small clearing ahead of them, a man was standing at the base of a large tree, his binoculars trained on something up in the canopy.
“The people you meet when you’re walking through the rainforest,” said Jejeune.
The man started a little at Jejeune’s greeting, turning to face them almost defensively. Then his face broke into a wide smile. “Well, damn, JJ. Long time, no see,” said the man delightedly. “What the hell are you doing here? Damn,” he said again. The two men shook hands warmly and Jejeune made the introductions.
His name was Traz, and he gave Lindy a frank, appreciative look that she found flattering and yet honest at the same time.
“Saw you on YouTube,” said Traz to Jejeune. He hummed a few bars of dramatic theme music before breaking into another of his broad, infectious smiles.
“Star Wars?” asked Lindy.
Jejeune pulled a face. “Indiana Jones, I think.”
Lindy laughed. It wouldn’t take very long at all to get to like Traz. For one thing, he was possibly the neatest field worker she had ever seen. Despite wandering around in this wilting tropical humidity, his khakis looked pressed and unsoiled, and his dark hair was clean and neatly brushed. Even his boots showed few traces of mud. Lindy had taken Dom to parties looking less well turned-out than this.
“Traz?” asked Lindy inquisitively.
“Short for Alcatraz. As in Birdman of. It’s from an old movie, a true story about a convict named Robert Stroud who used to care for birds. Somebody tagged me with it in college, probably numbnuts here, and it stuck. My real name is Juan Perez. Proud second-generation Canadian.” He smiled.
“And JJ?”
“Jejeune junior.”
She looked at Domenic. “So who’s Jejeune senior, then, your dad?”
“No.” Jejeune looked uneasy, guilty almost.
Lindy looked back to Traz. “You know Dom’s older brother?”
“A little, yeah,” said Traz guardedly. The men exchanged a glance and something flickered between them for a brief moment and was gone. Upbeat, lightweight talk between the two friends took its place. Somewhere in the space it had taken Lindy to recover herself, Dom had asked Traz about his work.
“The overall goal is to measure the impact of human disturbance, pesky tourists like you, on the forest birds. We have some great trails here in St. Lucia, but they can see a surprising amount of traffic. In order to know how the birds react to disturbance, I need to find out how they react when there isn’t any. Only …”
Jejeune nodded. Only in order to study how birds react when no humans are around, you have to be around. Traz saw that he understood.
“I try to have as little impact on the natural rhythms as possible, to let it all flow on around me. I collect my data in the morning and evening, but for the rest of the time I pretty much just sit around and watch nature being nature. I just, literally, try to do as little as possible.”
“Sounds like the perfect job for you,” said Jejeune, smiling.
Traz looked Jejeune up and down, as if he couldn’t really believe his old college friend was actually here in front of him. “Man, it’s good to see you, JJ,” he said sincerely.
JJ. We are so many different things to so many people, thought Lindy. Like Phoebe Hunter. Who would Domenic have been to this man, this kid, when they were at college together? She thought about her own college friends. What reaction would they have if they knew literary brainiac Lindy Hey was out stomping through the Caribbean rainforest in her hiking boots looking for birds? Pity, probably.
“So, let’s see.” Traz held his hands to his head like a prophet channelling a message. “Foreign birder, this part of the island. You want to see the endemics.”
“The St. Lucia Parrot especially,” said Lindy. “Dom’s been banging on about that one ever since we landed.”
Traz shook his head. “Too late. In this part of the forest, early morning is your best bet. If you can
come early tomorrow, we’ll take a walk up into the hills. I know a few spots. There are other endemics around now, though,” said Traz, “like that one over there, for example. St. Lucia Warbler.”
He and Lindy laughed as Jejeune grabbed his bins and darted along the trail, cautiously approaching the thicket into which the little bird had disappeared. They watched him holding his bins at the ready, primed to be snapped into action the second the tiny bird reappeared.
“It’s funny,” said Traz, tossing his head in Jejeune’s direction, “we all thought it was a lock that he would become a field researcher. He was always talking about it. I sometimes think I only got into it in the first place because he was so enthusiastic about it.”
“So why didn’t he?”
Traz shrugged his shoulders. “Too many people told him otherwise. He doesn’t like to contradict people.”
“He’s getting better at it,” said Lindy with a half-smile. “But I know what you mean. If somebody says something he disagrees with, he rarely argues with them.”
Traz raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps he should have. If there was ever a time to speak your mind, it’s when other people are planning your future for you. Dom never did, though, so he ended up doing what everybody else thought he would be good at.”
And they were right, thought Lindy. But that didn’t mean Domenic wouldn’t swap places with his old college friend now — in a heartbeat.
Jejeune returned, beaming.
“Get on it?” asked Traz.
He nodded.
“Diagnostic looks?” asked Lindy, drawing an appreciative glance from Traz. She knew how important it was for Dom to be able to distinguish the field marks on a new bird. Someone as familiar with the species as Traz could tell him with absolute certainty that it had been a St. Lucia Warbler, but Dom would want to have seen it clearly enough, and for long enough, to be able to identify it himself.
He smiled. “Beautiful. That V on its head and the little black eye-stripe …” he stopped, still smiling. “You’ve seen them before.”
A Pitying of Doves Page 25
