A Tiding of Magpies

by Steve Burrows

  “That is disappointing,” said Angeren, “especially with the news.”

  Maik had closed the distance before Jejeune had time to respond. The sergeant now stood less than a foot from Angeren. In the trees along the fairway, the birdsong had fallen silent. “What news?”

  “Oh, that’s right, you won’t have heard,” Angeren said pleasantly, taking time to draw on his cigar. He looked from Maik to Jejeune and back again, enjoying the moment. “According to the grapevine, Ray Hayes is back. And he’s on his way to Saltmarsh.”

  20

  Maik had wanted to press, out there on the golf course, with nothing but green, open spaces around them and the nearest sets of ears on the next tee, hundreds of metres away. He felt he might have been able to make an effective pitch for Angeren’s cooperation. But the chances were good that Angeren wouldn’t know Hayes’s exact location anyway, and Jejeune didn’t want to give him the opportunity to delay them any longer. The two officers sprinted up the fairway and raced back to the Range Rover. Jejeune had it in gear and moving before Maik’s door was shut.

  As they sped towards town along the narrow lanes, Maik dialled a number and asked for Lindy. He listened carefully and switched off his phone, letting it rest in his hand. “She’s gone to Saltmarsh Square to meet someone. At the café there. The receptionist doesn’t know who, but it wasn’t in Lindy’s diary this morning. She’s guessing the call hasn’t long come in, but she doesn’t recall putting it through herself.”

  Jejeune risked taking his eyes off the road long enough to flash a quick look in Danny’s direction. “It’s market day.”

  Maik nodded. Pedestrian access only. They’d have to park on the perimeter of the square and go in on foot, between the market stalls and through crowds of vendors and shoppers packed in so tightly that running was impossible. The big Range Rover sped forward as Jejeune poured on the power, rocking slightly as it emerged from a high-speed corner. If they met anything coming the other way on these narrow lanes, Maik suspected the customary north Norfolk road courtesies wouldn’t be applying today.

  The Beast skidded to a stop at the corner of the nearest open road on Saltmarsh High Street and the two men jumped out hurriedly. The entire length of the High Street had been barricaded off into a pedestrian-only area, and it was teeming with bodies. The Saltmarsh Market was a popular destination anyway, and the early spring sunshine had brought the shoppers out in numbers. From the edge of the low metal barrier, Jejeune craned his head, frantically looking for Lindy in the milling crowds. It was a hopeless task. Heads bobbed everywhere. He knew, too, Lindy’s penchant for punctuality meant she would almost certainly already be at the café by now, sitting in the sunshine, working on her laptop as she waited for her guest to arrive. He knew Lindy always switched off her phone for meetings. It was a courtesy Jejeune had often praised, but he cursed it now. The Market Café was equidistant from any entry points the two policemen could have accessed, but it was tucked back off the main square, not visible from where they stood. Their only option was to go in on foot.

  “I’ll make my way from this end,” said Maik, forcing his way between the barriers. “You go along New Lane and come in from the other end.” The sergeant eased his way into the flow of the crowd and in seconds even his imposing frame had been swallowed by it. Jejeune turned and ran to the road parallel to the High Street, unfettered by barriers and open to traffic as an alternative route through town on market days. He sprinted along the street, choosing the edge of the roadway in an effort to avoid the window shoppers and placards that littered the pavement. Heads turned to watch as he raced past, jacket flailing, arms pumping. This was not a man trying to catch a bus; it was someone going full out, running for his life. Or somebody else’s. At the far end of the street, where it bent towards the enclosed market area, Jejeune skidded around the corner and vaulted over the barrier. It rocked under his weight but held firm, and he landed on the other side safely. He was panting heavily now, but he didn’t wait to catch his breath. Instead, he began squirming, side on, into the flow of the oncoming crowd. He turned his head back and forth, his eyes in constant motion, but he took in the colour and noise and smells of the marketplace only as a background blur. He was looking for Lindy, still hoping to find her, late and flustered, hurrying to her meeting. He was looking for Hayes, too, a small skulking figure who habitually wore a hoodie to disguise the shaved head and prison tattoos. But anyone that small wouldn’t show up in this sea of heads that Jejeune now found all around him.

  He noticed a gap between the rows of vendors’ stalls where they had arranged them back-to-back along the centre of the main street and he headed for it. It was unpeopled, but cluttered with crates and cartons and coils of thick black power cable. Progress was faster than swimming against the tide of humanity in the crowded street, but not by much. It was hotter in here, too, and he began to sweat as he clambered between the obstacles, earning the occasional shout from the vendors who noticed him scrambling past. He emerged from the end of the row of stalls to find he had veered off somehow into one of the side streets. He didn’t know where he was, and panic gripped him as he felt time slipping away. He leaped onto one of the old metal lamp posts that lined the streets of this historic quarter and found a foothold on a moulding. With his arm wrapped around the post and passersby staring at him quizzically, he surveyed the marketplace from his perch. He could see the white lights trailing around the perimeter of the café courtyard. It seemed impossibly far away, a landmass separated from him by a seething, swirling ocean of tightly-packed human bodies. He knew he couldn’t get there in time. Danny Maik was his only hope now. The sergeant’s formidable presence would have parted the oncoming crowds like a freight liner and he would have made better progress than Jejeune had. He was about to jump down to renew his own push through the crowds when he saw a small form, grey-hooded and moving with a nimbleness that allowed it to slide easily through the momentary gaps between the people. Grey Hoodie was probably fifty metres ahead of Jejeune’s position, heading directly for the café.

  Jejeune jumped into the crowd and began forcing his way through, ignoring the protests and angry shoves of the shoppers as he passed. The sweat was dripping into his eyes, stinging them, making them blur. He blinked it away and pushed on. Perhaps he was closing the gap, but he had lost sight of the hoodie now and couldn’t tell. All he knew was they were both heading for the same destination, And he had to get there first.

  The Market Café was housed in an old building flanked on either side by a narrow alleyway. A small open-air patio had been set up in front, enclosed by a low metal barrier on three sides to protect the patrons from the crowds of shoppers streaming by. The single entrance to the patio was from the street. The side barrier caused a chicane, with the crowds bending towards the centre of the street to get past. It cleared the sightlines slightly, and from his position Jejeune could see all the way up to the patio. His heart lurched as he caught sight of a shock of corn-blonde hair. Lindy was sitting at a table beside the railing, with her back to him. If Hayes decided on a simple knife swipe in passing, she was in direct line. From the corner of his eye, Jejeune saw the grey hoodie, veering in towards the café. Hayes was ten metres in front of him, the same distance from Lindy. Jejeune frantically scrabbled past the bodies in front of him and surged up behind the figure. He was within striking distance now, and drew back to whip an arm around Hayes’s neck and wrestle him to the ground. He never got the chance. From somewhere in the crowd a figure materialized and hauled Jejeune into the alleyway beside the café. A number of passing shoppers momentarily turned their heads in surprise. But Lindy didn’t. Nor did the hoodie. Both were still facing away from Jejeune. Grey Hoodie rounded the barrier into the patio and approached Lindy’s table.

  With his shoulder blades pinned against the rough brick of the alley wall, Jejeune found himself looking into a face he recognized. From the café table, he heard a voice. It was familiar, too.

  “Hi, I’m Lindy.” Je
jeune heard the scraping of a chair being drawn back. “And you must be Des.”

  21

  “Nice of you to join us this morning, Sarge.”

  “I had to walk in,” said Maik tersely. “Car trouble.” “You know, the kindest thing might be to have it put down,” said Holland. “They do it humanely now. It won’t feel a thing. I promise.” Holland decided not to push it any further. Apart from anything else, Maik prized punctuality highly, and he wouldn’t be best pleased about showing up late, regardless of the circumstances. The constable switched his attention to the other occupant of the workroom. “So, where’d you get to yesterday?” he asked Des Gill.

  “Oh, you know, around. I went down to the market,” she said. “I thought I’d take in a bit of that local colour you were talking about.”

  “Must be nice; get a bit of shopping in while the sergeant and our intrepid DCI were off having a stroll around the links. Meanwhile, I was stuck here, slogging my way through this useless background stuff on the Polish community. Did you get anything of interest from Angeren, by the way, Sarge?”

  Maik looked at Holland for a long moment, trying to determine whether the constable had any special motive for asking. But Holland wasn’t fixing Maik with a stare, as you might if you wanted to detect evasion about something you already knew, like the fact that Ray Hayes was now back in the picture. In fact, the constable’s attention was being drawn more in the direction of Empowered Investigator Gill as she bent over the desk to plug in her laptop. If Holland hadn’t returned his gaze to the sergeant, Maik might not have bothered answering at all. As it was, he gave a small shrug. “Not really. Other than the fact he did confirm he was behind the breakin at Paulina Kowalski’s house, so it seems a pretty safe bet now that he was the one who sent the eavesdropper the first time we were there.”

  Gill, who had been half-listening, turned to Danny as she straightened up. “He really had the audacity to confirm that he was behind the breakin?”

  Maik tilted his head slightly. “When we inquired whether they’d found what they were after, Angeren asked if ‘he’ had anything worth taking. The only room the burglars paid any attention to was the son’s.”

  “Could be just a slip-up, though, surely,” said Holland.

  Maik shook his head. “The Curtis Angerens of the world don’t stay on top very long if they make mistakes like that. He wants us to know he’s involved now because he thinks it’ll only serve to show he had nothing to do with the murder.”

  “And we’re buying that, are we?”

  “We are,” said Maik. “For now.”

  He stopped and looked at Gill. She was watching the two men, but with a different kind of interest now, as if she might gain some insight into them, rather than the case they were discussing.

  “All in order, DC Gill?” asked Maik pleasantly. “Got everything you need?”

  “All in order, Sergeant,” she told him in a semi-official tone. Nestling on her headphones, she flipped open her laptop and clicked on the audio file.

  Sunday November 21st, 10:38 a.m. Call duration: 1 minute 38 seconds

  Caller: So, you all set to listen to what’s going to happen, Domenic the Canadian?

  Jejeune: I’m all set. How are Carolyn and Monte coping?

  Caller: Let’s get this deal done and you’ll be able to see for yourself, won’t you? Now the way this is going to work is —

  Jejeune: The authorities will need proof of life before we enter into any negotiations.

  Caller: We’ll do things the way I say we do them. You pay, they get released. End of.

  Jejeune: There will be no payment without prior proof of life. I don’t want this to seem like it’s something between us. I’m simply telling you, nobody is going to sanction a payment unless that condition is met.

  (Muffled sounds; eight-second silence)

  Caller: I’m listening. Not agreeing. Just listening.

  Jejeune: A phone call, to each of them in turn. I will ask them each one question. No tricks, but it will be a question to which only they will know the answer. When we’re sure it’s them, we can move on to the terms of the exchange.

  Caller: No calls. I’ll send you a photo of each of them. Separate. Holding today’s paper.

  Jejeune: That won’t work. It’s too easy to Photoshop photographs, and it will take us too long to verify them. It has to be a phone conversation. I have to have proof they are still alive and unharmed.

  Caller: I told you, no phone calls. It’s photos or nothing. Don’t make this difficult for everybody, Domenic.

  (Seven-second silence)

  Jejeune: Okay, a compromise. You get one fingerprint from each of them, and you send it to us. (Six-second silence)

  Caller: I could do that. I’ll get some prints on a glass.

  Jejeune: No, it has to be something you buy, something you couldn’t possibly have lying around there already, that might have picked up their prints beforehand. I want to know you’ve been able to get fresh prints, since we spoke.

  Caller: Like I said before, I’m listening. Only. (Five-second pause)

  Jejeune: Do you have any medication with you in case either of them goes into shock?

  Caller: What? She’s fine, Domenic. They both are. Are we going to talk about proof of life or not?

  Jejeune: It could happen. You need something on hand, just in case. A person in shock can go downhill quickly without treatment. Here’s what you need to do …

  Holland’s tap on the shoulder startled Des. She peeled off the headphones and looked at him. “So what is it today, more of His Birdship’s greatest hits?”

  “Just the section of the negotiations where Jejeune asked the kidnapper for proof of life.”

  “As you would,” said Holland. He set a mug down on the desk in front of her. “Coffee, black and strong, according to your mates down at the Met.” He gave her a wink and she smiled. Holland parked himself on the corner of her desk, but to the watching Danny Maik there was a less predatory feel to the approach than other times he’d seen Holland operate. Perhaps DC Des Gill had already set some boundaries with their earlier encounters.

  “Always a bit dodgy, that proof of life thing,” said Holland pensively. “Stands to reason these kidnappers are going to be sadistic bastards anyway. You don’t want them sawing off any body parts and sending them to you through the post, just to make a point.”

  Des shook her head. “I get the impression Jejeune knew right from the very beginning this one wasn’t going to be like that. He seemed to sense the kidnapper really did want to let them go unharmed.”

  “So what did he ask for? Video?”

  “Not even. Just a call.” Des sipped her coffee and started back from it a little. Hot, they would have told Holland down at the Met, too. He’d obviously taken the instructions to heart. “But the kidnapper refused. No phone contact of any kind. Instead he agreed to provide fingerprints, on an object Jejeune would designate. One he would have to go out and buy.”

  Holland looked down at Gill and nodded slowly. “So he refuses a simple phone call, the easiest proof of life there is, but agrees to one that’s going to cause him a lot more trouble.” He smiled at her. “If it was me, I’d have to wonder if that wasn’t telling me something else. Like maybe no phone signal at the place where the kids were being held.”

  Des flashed a look at Maik, who was watching the exchange with interest from his desk. “You’d have fit right in on the kidnapping detail, Tony,” said Des with a smile. “Because that’s exactly what they thought.”

  “How about that?” he said, easing himself off the desk, “Well, I’ll leave you to your listening.”

  “I need a break. I can’t wear those ’phones for too long. They make my ears ache.”

  “I have that problem with Sarge’s Motown,” said Holland with a wink in Maik’s direction. He returned to his desk and Des reached for a folder of case notes.

  “What? That can’t be right, Sergeant.”

  The comment
startled Maik. He’d been immersed in The Marvelettes’ radical solution to love’s disappointments, letting the harmonies of “Locking Up My Heart” swirl around him. It took him a few seconds to realize Gill was not speaking to him. She was studying a file, a hefty set of curling pages in a battered folder yellowed with age. Her elbows rested on the desk, fingertips pressed against her temples as she read, oblivious to the world. She seemed unaware she’d spoken out loud.

  Holland had looked up at the comment, too. Like Maik, he had expected to find Gill staring in the sergeant’s direction. But her eyes were still on the notes before her and both men realized the sergeant she was addressing was not the one sitting across the room from her now, but one who had been stationed in an office at the Met, a long time ago. Together, the men watched as she flipped back and forth through the sheets, checking and rechecking. Her frown suggested a second reading had done nothing to make Sergeant Jejeune’s statements any clearer. She brought up a map on the computer screen and peered at it for a few moments, one-handing a few searches into Google. Then she took out her phone, jabbed a series of numbers into the calculator function and jotted down a few more notes. She twisted her mouth from its default smile and tried the calculations again. Doubt etched lines into her flawless, child-smooth skin. She’d found something, and despite her best efforts to calculate it away, it was still troubling her. Gill sat staring at the case folder for a long moment before fixing her upbeat persona back into place. By the time she finally looked up at the room again, both men had managed to avert their gaze.

  “Can I ask, did the inspector ever talk to you about the rare bird he spotted around that time, a kind of Magpie?”

  Holland had a surprisingly engaging laugh when he wasn’t trying to use it as a weapon. “Erm, I suspect he might have realized he wouldn’t find the most rapt of audiences in here. It’s probably the way our eyes glaze over whenever he starts banging on about birds.”