A Tiding of Magpies

by Steve Burrows

  “You’re joking, right?” From long practice, Holland’s tone fell just the right side of contempt. “Even now, it’s all uniforms can do to keep people far enough back so that we can do our jobs. A shopping centre built on the site of a violent murder? Once the place opens for business you could charge admission and the lineup would still go from here to Sheringham.”

  Shepherd tilted her head slightly to acknowledge the sad truth of Holland’s remarks. “Nevertheless, the sooner we can turn the site back over to the developer, the fewer phone calls I’ll be receiving from on high. Any idea when that might be?”

  Maik had spent the previous afternoon extracting from Jones what little bit of information they now had. He reached for his formal tone, to hide any lingering personal feelings he might have about Dr. Mansfield bloody Jones. “The M.E. would prefer to share his conclusions only after he has explored all possible interpretations of the evidence.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’ll be worth us all coming out of retirement for,” said Holland. Like the others, he knew Maik found the man’s refusal to enter into any kind of speculation particularly exasperating. He had watched with amusement as the sergeant sat at his desk when he returned from his meeting, headphones on, staring blankly at his laptop screen as he sought to let his music bring his blood pressure back under control.

  Shepherd nodded, but not with indulgence. “I’m sure we all appreciate Dr. Jones’s thoroughness,” she said diplomatically. “Nevertheless, the entire population of Saltmarsh shouldn’t have to sit in abeyance waiting for him to make his pronouncements. Try and hurry things along, would you, Sergeant?”

  “It strikes me,” said Holland, “it might be helpful if the sergeant spent his days shadowing Dr. Jones. You know, working side by side with him. That way, he’d be on hand to report any findings as soon as the doc made them.”

  Maik’s expression suggested the idea might not be the only thing to strike Holland, who was doing his best now to portray a look of wide-eyed innocence.

  Shepherd looked at the pair of them carefully. So much of her time at these meetings seemed to involve ensuring they didn’t disappear down these rabbit holes of irrelevance, and instead stayed focused on the task at hand.

  “So, Inspector,” she said briskly, “any other thoughts at this point?” It would have been unusual for the old DCI Jejeune to be very forthcoming at such an early stage, but perhaps this new, engaged edition was more inclined to share his ideas.

  “Large amounts of petrol were used to burn the body. It was likely done to ensure the burn temperature was high enough to make DNA recovery impossible.”

  “So you believe the intent of the fire was to conceal the victim’s identity?” said Shepherd cautiously. She nodded. “Yes, I think I’d be ready to go along with you on that.”

  Jejeune wasn’t sure if Shepherd was already along with him on the rest of it. But Danny Maik was. “It seems to me the best way of concealing a murder victim’s identity is to make sure the body is never discovered in the first place.”

  “Exactly, Sergeant. So why go to such trouble to disguise the victim’s identity and then leave the body where you can virtually guarantee it will be found within twenty-four hours, when construction work begins on the site?”

  Shepherd nodded in understanding. “So you’re saying whoever committed this murder wanted people to know about the act, but not about the victim.” And just like that, the case had morphed from a straightforward murder investigation into one that was undoubtedly going to require the inspector’s special talents. She would have been grateful for her DCI’s involvement at any time, but she had a feeling that watching this new, fully-engaged Domenic Jejeune at work was going to be something to behold.

  4

  A matter of life and death.

  It was the kind of hyperbolic drivel that reminded Lindy Hey why they rarely listened to local radio talk shows anymore. In fact, they rarely listened to the radio at all when they were driving. Usually, it was a CD by one of Dom’s obscure Canadian bands, or something from this century if Lindy was at the controls. But today’s discussion topic was relevant to the investigation, so they had tuned in to listen. People wanted to know just how long the discovery of the body was going to hold up construction of the new shopping centre. And in Saltmarsh, “people” generally meant those with enough juice to put DCS Colleen Shepherd, and consequently DCI Jejeune, under significant pressure.

  The callers were clashing over whether the delay would cause further traffic backups on the area’s narrow roads during the tourist season. Things had become heated and the host had felt compelled to intervene. Clearly, passions are running high on both sides, but I’d urge you all to keep some perspective here. I mean, it’s hardly a matter of life and death.

  Few things are, thought Lindy. Even for this poor man whose body had been discovered on the site. It was simply a matter of death for him, now. His life was no longer of relevance. His existence, his achievements, his place in the world, they had all been consigned to the past. And that is where most people would be content to let them remain. But not you, she thought, looking over at Domenic. For you, this person’s life will still matter. Because you’ll be relying on the secrets it held to lead you to the reason for his death.

  The Range Rover drifted towards the centre of the lane as Jejeune guided it along the narrow country lane. Lindy waited for him to correct it, but it continued to drift further still as he craned forward to look up through the windshield.

  “No birding while we drive, Dom. Remember,” said Lindy calmly, “wheels stopped and handbrake on if you’re going to watch birds from the car. What are they anyway?” Her own eyes followed the small group as it crossed overhead and disappeared from sight behind the tall hawthorn hedge.

  “Little Terns, back from West Africa.” He eased The Beast back into the proper lane. “The first ones of spring are always nice to see, but I’m surprised they’re here so soon.”

  They turned onto an even narrower track and drove along in silence. In the waning light of the spring evening, Lindy could see the faint outline of the full moon hanging low over the newly tilled fields. It seemed so alien to the landscape that she stared at it for a long while. She was surprised when Dom drew the vehicle to a bumpy stop at the side of the road, and looked around her.

  “Where are we?”

  “Far side of the construction site. There are a couple of things I want to check out.” He jumped out and rounded to Lindy’s side to open the door for her. Dom occasionally surprised her with genteel courtesies like this, and they never failed to bring her a tiny frisson of delight. They scrambled up the low bank and began to pick their way carefully over the uneven ground. The traces of human activity that were so much in evidence on the far side of the site were absent here. The natural colonization that had begun after the destruction of the old buildings had continued unhindered, and the rubble now lay under a thick, tangled mass of ground elder and nettles. Dom and Lindy crested a small rise and emerged onto the dustbowl of the main construction area.

  “It was here?” asked Lindy quietly.

  Jejeune pointed to an area on the far side of the site where a perimeter of yellow police tape fluttered in the light breeze. Lindy drew her shoulders together slightly. It seemed worse, somehow, than a domestic murder. You could almost accept that as being a random act within the confines of somebody’s private space; a one-time event that happened when all the controls broke down. But a body left out in the open like this, abandoned on public ground — this crime seemed to belong to everybody, drawing them into the horror, the tragedy.

  “You’re wondering if the killer brought the body up through the way we’ve just come. I don’t know, Dom.” Lindy shook her head uncertainly. “That’s a long way to drag a full-grown person.”

  “I don’t see any evidence that happened,” agreed Jejeune. She looked at him now, surveying the area enclosed by the yellow tape, the place where a man’s body had been so callously discarde
d. There must be somebody who was missing this person, she thought. Didn’t everybody hold a place in somebody’s life, no matter how small? Perhaps. But if he did leave any connections behind in the world of the living, it was now up to Domenic to find them. He needed them if he was to discover why this person had been murdered and then had all traces of his human identity scorched out of him.

  She left him to his thoughtful silence and wandered off between a low canyon of rubble that led to the far side of the site.

  *

  On the still evening air, her voice came to him like a siren’s call. “Come and have a look at this.”

  Lindy was standing at a gap in a section of chain-link fencing that had collapsed. Just beyond was a large pond surrounded by steep-sided mounds of construction rubble. In the last of the low, slanting sunlight from the west, small waves rippled over the surface of the water like light along a serrated blade.

  “Did you know this was here?” asked Lindy as she heard Jejeune approaching.

  He shook his head. “It’s a construction pond, a man-made scrape that rain and runoff have filled up over time. If they’re allowed to survive for long enough, some of these ponds become a viable environment.”

  “Viable for what? Look at all the concrete in there, not to mention the bricks and the rebar and the rest. God knows what that pretty little duck is finding to eat. It’s disappeared now. Dived. It’ll be back up in minute. It had a blue beak.”

  Jejeune snapped a look in her direction. “You saw the blue clearly? It couldn’t have been a trick of the light?”

  Lindy cast an exasperated look at him. “It was bright blue, Dom.” She began to protest as he opened his phone app. “Come on. You know I’m not going to have noted its scalloped primaries or partially indented septum.” But she nodded as soon as the image came up. “That’s it: Ruddy Duck. The tail sort of stuck up a bit, just like that.” She leaned forward to read the text. “North American vagrant. Interesting description. Friend of yours?”

  Jejeune didn’t see her cheeky grin. He was already scouring the water surface again. There were so many weed-strewn islands in the water, so many piles of demolition debris around the edge. A small duck could be concealed behind any of them.

  “That one was there, too,” said Lindy, scrolling down to another image. “Oh, it’s the female. That explains it. He’s probably brought her out here to this picturesque spot for a date. He seems to have the same flair for romance as another North American male I know.”

  “There was a pair? Are you sure?”

  Again her humour seemed to have missed the mark. She was used to Dom’s passion when it came to potential sightings, but the urgency charging his voice surprised her. “That eye-stripe’s hard to miss, even in this light, and she had that same pointy tail thing going. Are they rare? Has Lindy earned a slap-up dinner for finding her man a listable bird? Providing, of course, that he’s a good enough birder to re-find it … them.”

  If Jejeune wasn’t rising to the bait, he was certainly taking up the challenge. She couldn’t remember when he had scanned an area for a particular bird with such unwavering intensity.

  “Relax, Dom. I’m sure they’re still around. I would have seen them if they’d flown off.”

  “I should have grabbed my bins. I never thought …”

  “You won’t need them. They’re really close.” She flung out her left arm. “There, ten o’clock, in front of that island on the left. The male. Both now.”

  By the time the female had bobbed up from her dive to join her partner, Jejeune had spun and focused on the spot. Together, he and Lindy watched as the ducks puttered around in tight circles before diving again suddenly and disappearing from view. The light was almost completely gone now, but he had seen enough for a positive ID.

  “So, is that a lifer for you?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’ve seen them before, plenty of them.”

  “But not over here, I take it?”

  He nodded. “Even here.”

  He didn’t seem to want to say any more, to explain why it had been so important to him to see a bird he’d seen so many times before, why there had been such a desperation about his search this time. Lindy let it go. He continued watching the water, observing the ducks until the last vestiges of the day disappeared and the full moon bloomed on the horizon, spilling its milky light over the landscape. Lindy had already tired of the vigil and wandered along the fenceline. He found her now, resting her forearms on the top of a fencepost, her chin set on them, staring unblinkingly at the perfect yellow disc. She didn’t turn at his approach. “The moon has some of the most fantastically-named features I’ve ever heard,” she said. “The Sea of Tranquility, the Bay of Rainbows.” Jejeune looked at the moon carefully. Even with the naked eye it was possible to make out some of the topography, the suction-cup craters and the hard, bony ridges of mountain ranges.

  Lindy sighed heavily. “How can another world have such beauty when there is so much horror down here on this one? To leave that man out here, to burn away everything that made him a human being, everything that might tell people who he was. Who could do that?” She gave a slight shiver. “We’d better get back to the car,” she said. “This bumpy ground is going to be no fun in the dark.”

  They picked their way over the moon-gilded landscape in silence. Though she couldn’t risk taking her eyes from her path to check, she had the sense that beside her, Dom was deep in thought. As they approached the Range Rover, he paused and turned to look at her. “We can’t say anything about seeing these ducks, Lindy. Okay? Not even to Eric.”

  Not sharing a sighting was so out of character for Domenic that she was taken aback. She’d already decided that the only reason he hadn’t already texted one of the bird lines was because it would have been so dark by the time anybody got here it would have been impossible to see the ducks anyway. Apparently, though, there was another reason.

  “I’m going to need an explanation as to why I’d be jeopardizing my career by failing to inform my boss about such an apparently important bird. If he finds out I’ve seen these ducks and he ends up missing them, I’m going to be reporting on construction site developments like this one for the rest of my days.”

  “I just need to check out a couple of things first. A day or so at most, I promise.”

  Lindy nodded uncertainly. A day or so could be a lifetime in birdwatching, when even a few seconds could mean the difference between seeing a bird and missing it. But Domenic didn’t make frivolous requests, and certainly not with the urgency he was making this one. Whatever his reasons, she knew it was important. And that was enough for her. For now.

  The night had filled the narrow lane with shadows. The sudden flurry of two shapes in flight flashed across in front of them as they drove and Jejeune spun his head to track the birds. He heard Lindy scream and felt the jolt as The Beast swerved wildly off the road, the two offside tyres mounting the grassy verge beside the hedgerow. The front tyre slipped down into the ditch beyond the verge, sending the vehicle lurching towards the hedgerow, branches scraping along the windshield and bodywork, squealing as the vehicle hurtled alongside them. He fought the steering wheel as the ditch threatened to snatch it from his grasp, the muscles in his forearms bulging with the effort as he held on and yanked the wheel hard to the right. The Range Rover began to tilt further in, and he accelerated, the big engine roaring with the effort of dragging the front wheel up from the ditch. With a final surge, The Beast remounted the verge and bounced down onto the road surface, the chassis rocking violently as it landed. As soon as he had righted it, Jejeune pulled the Range Rover to a halt and put it in neutral.

  Lindy let her hands fall from the brace position against the door and dashboard. She drew a deep breath and patted her chest. “You idiot,” she said, giving him a hard slap on the shoulder. “I swear, you’re going to kill us one day with your car birding.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I thought it was the ducks flying over.
I wanted to track their direction. Are you all right?”

  Though she was still shaken, there was a part of Lindy that would never allow fear its complete victory. She needed to show her recovery even before she felt it, and irreverence was often the way. “Here lies Lindy,” she announced solemnly, “Birded to death. Not much of an epitaph, is it?” She fell quiet and looked out through the windshield for a second. The headlights lit up the hedgerow ahead of them, but the rest of the lane was in darkness. “Sorry,” she said. “That was wrong, considering that poor man who was left out there.”

  Jejeune reached down to put the car into gear again, but before he did so, he paused and turned to her. “Listen, Lindy,” he said earnestly. “I can’t emphasize how important it is that we say nothing about having seen those ducks.”

  It wasn’t like Dom to restate something. They were tuned in enough to each other to pick up the nonverbal clues that a thing was important; a sudden stillness that accompanied the words, or the slight leaning in to close the space between them. That he should mention this again now surprised her, especially when he should still have been offering her his apologies.

  “Jeez, Dom, I get it,” she said testily. “Not a word. A matter of life and death.”

  Jejeune paused for a moment. Finally, he slid the vehicle into gear and pulled away. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “it is.”

  5

  In other police stations, getting hold of a medical examiner’s report was easier than this, Maik thought ruefully as he made his way down the steps to the basement. You called down and had it sent up. If the findings it contained were sensitive enough, perhaps the M.E. might even deign to bring it up himself, blinking in the light, no doubt, as he emerged from his lair. But to get anything of value from Dr. Mansfield Jones, it was apparently going to be necessary to go down to where he held sway. Maik gave a small sigh of irritation. He only remembered having to do this once with Jones’s predecessor. A popular television show at the time had featured a medical examiner in the lead role. For his own part, Maik didn’t understand the appeal of a show where the main focus seemed to revolve around dissecting bodies. Then again, there were a lot of things about television that Danny Maik didn’t understand, which no doubt went a long way to explaining why he spent most of his nights listening to vintage Motown tunes on his turntable instead. But the Saltmarsh M.E. at the time seemed to consider himself elevated to something of a celebrity along with his TV counterpart, and found himself far too much in demand to deliver mundane forensic reports to the detectives on the upper floors. Maik had been advised that if he wanted reports, from now on he’d need to come down to get them. Neither the arrangement nor the medical examiner had lasted very long.