A Tiding of Magpies

by Steve Burrows

  “Place of conception, perhaps?” said Eric, taking a sip of his champagne.

  “If so, let’s hope the idea doesn’t catch on here,” said Shepherd. “With Tony Holland’s antics, I could foresee entire classrooms of kids named Saltmarsh.”

  “That was the old Tony Holland, surely,” said Lindy with a laugh. “According to Dom, the new constable seems to have him well reined in. Speaking of which, you could do a lot worse for an investigator than one named Desdemona. Very honest was Shakespeare’s Des. Determined, too.”

  “This investigation,” said Eric, with a nonchalance that told them it was merely casual interest, “it’s just a matter of verifying the records, is it?”

  “She’s looking at the whole case, actually,” said Lindy confidently. “We met for coffee at the market a couple of days ago. She wanted to reassure me that all this wasn’t just a hatchet job on my man. I imagine she’ll be pretty thorough, though. I’ll bet she’s a proper little Jack Russell once she’s on the trail of something.” Lindy turned to Dom and smiled, placing her palm on his chest in mock comfort. “I don’t think you’ve got much to worry about, though, darling. To say she’s a fan of yours would be an understatement. She thinks you could be the goat by the time you’re done.”

  Jejeune’s puzzled expression was met by Lindy’s wide-eyed nod of affirmation.

  “G.O.A.T. Greatest of All Time — it’s a thing,” Lindy said defensively. “I said that was quite appropriate for somebody who told me he was brought up in a stable. Or was that a stable environment? I can never quite remember.”

  It isn’t the champagne causing this giddiness, thought Jejeune. It was the headiness of the occasion, the sense of release, after so many months of uncertainty. So much time and effort and planning poured into a bottomless void of hope; and now, this one single announcement had repaid it all. It was why, too, Lindy’s normally razor-sharp powers of observation had failed to notice their guests’ reactions to her comments. In her defence, she’d been turned away from them almost the whole time, staring up into Dom’s face with a twinkly-eyed sense of mischief. But Domenic had seen them, reactions he hadn’t expected — guarded, troubled looks. He’d noticed one other thing, too, in that brief moment before the expressions disappeared behind masks of polite good humour: the reactions were not the same. Whatever feelings Shepherd and Eric had about Desdemona Gill, they were not shared.

  “So I imagine you’ll be wanting to jet off to a family reunion in the not-too-distant future, Domenic?” said Shepherd, bringing him back to the present. “I can’t see any problem with that, as long as this case has been wrapped up.”

  “I suppose that means you’ll be going too, Lindy,” said Eric. He smiled. “Though I’m not at all sure you’re as expendable as Dom.”

  “We haven’t really talked about it,” said Lindy breezily. She looked across in case Domenic wanted to make a contribution, but he was staring at Shepherd as if trying to commit her features to memory. The ease with which the DCS had moved the conversation on was a testament to her skill, and if Jejeune hadn’t been watching for it, he might have found himself discussing an impending trip to Canada without ever realizing how they had arrived at the subject. But his senses were heightened now, and through the lens of what he had just seen, the change of topic took on the appearance of a carefully crafted escape route. Whether Eric’s own contribution was part of the plan, he couldn’t have said. But based on the man’s earlier expression, Jejeune had little doubt he would be as relieved as Shepherd to see all mention of Desdemona Gill disappearing in the rear-view mirror.

  Shepherd set her champagne glass down firmly. “Unfortunately, Eric and I have somewhere to be, but before we leave, I wonder if I can just talk shop with Domenic for a moment. We’ll let you two discuss the nefarious world of journalism while we pop into the kitchen.”

  She led Jejeune, gentle hand on elbow, into the other room. “It’s wonderful news about your brother, Domenic. Truly, I couldn’t be more pleased for you.”

  Jejeune inclined his head in acknowledgement, but he said nothing. This wasn’t the shop talk Shepherd had come in here to discuss.

  “You’ve been summoned to the high altar. Tomorrow afternoon. An audience with the holiest of holies.” She was trying to make light of the news, but affectation wasn’t really Shepherd’s forte. When she spoke it was generally to deliver a point unequivocally. She seemed to realize her limitations and reverted to form. “It will be about DC Gill’s review of the case. If he should ask, please tell the Home Secretary that, much as we love having the Empowered Investigator with us, I am hopeful she’ll be concluding her work very shortly. For one thing, I fear she’s becoming a bit of a distraction for you, Domenic. I feel quite sure she’s the reason you’ve not yet had a result in the Kowalski murder.”

  Jejeune was equally sure she was not, but he was more interested in the reason for Shepherd’s statement than the accuracy of it. As in their other conversations about the investigator, Shepherd seemed reluctant to continue. “Domenic,” she said uneasily, glancing back over her shoulder towards the living room. “The news coverage of that story, it was all above board, as far as you know?”

  Was she talking about his relationship with Lindy?

  “All the protocols were followed,” he said defensively. “We’d only just met, but we had boundaries as to what I’d tell her, and what she would ask. Any information I ever gave Lindy was cleared by the press office.” He shrugged. “I had no control over any of the other reporting, the sensationalist parts. There were lots of journalists covering the story.”

  “But not at the end.”

  “No. Lindy was the one who broke the news that the girl was safe. That was her exclusive.”

  “But she didn’t report the confession, did she, Domenic? That wasn’t Lindy.”

  Shepherd’s look went to the living room again, and in a blinding moment of realization, Jejeune understood. That one taunting detail that had been eluding him, like a butterfly, dancing on the wind: the confession. He’d been concentrating so much on his own role in the case, reliving it, running it over in his mind, that he’d simply breezed over the aftermath, the tidy resolution, the convenient answers to all the troubling questions. The confession. Shepherd was right. It wasn’t Lindy who had covered the deathbed confession.

  It was Eric.

  27

  Lindy leaned into Domenic as they stood in the doorway watching Eric’s car disappear down the driveway. Much as she appreciated the DCS and her boss being here to share the good news with them, she was looking forward to time alone with Dom, to process the idea, to come to terms with it. She was holding the champagne bottle by the neck, two glasses clustered in her other hand. “Let’s go and sit round the back,” she said. She hot-footed her way across the gravel of the driveway and padded barefoot over the grass towards the rear patio.

  It was a beautiful evening, with a soft breeze coming in off the sea and a sky gliding effortlessly through shades of blue towards nightfall. The clear skies promised a perfect backdrop for the waning moon; it would rise through the sky like joy as the night wore on. All in all, their seaward-facing haven seemed about as perfect a place as any Lindy could think of to drink in the new air of a world in which Damian Jejeune was a free man.

  She set down the bottle and glasses on a small round table and leaned on the railing, staring out over the sea. Jejeune joined her. “Does Damian know yet?” he asked.

  “I’ve emailed him,” she said without turning from the water, “but his pattern seems to be to check his emails around noon, Greenwich Time, so we may have missed him for today.”

  It seemed strange to hear Lindy speak out loud about her secret backchannel to his brother, the lifeline that had tethered them together since his frantic departure from Saltmarsh. A faint uneasiness welled within Domenic still. Perhaps the caution of holding on to his brother’s secrets for all this time wasn’t going to be so easy to overcome. For either of them.

  �
�I told him we’d let him know as soon as we had confirmation that the Canadian authorities had been informed of Colombia’s decision,” said Lindy. “He should probably wait until then before making any grand appearance anywhere, but I’m sure he’d still be safe enough to contact your parents.”

  Jejeune nodded. Even with glacial pace of international bureaucracy, the Canadian government should have been informed by close of business tomorrow. Damian would then be free to emerge into the light and resume a normal life. The thought was hard to process. He looked at Lindy and she understood. For so long, Domenic had lived under the shadow of his brother’s troubles; they both had. And now Damian was free. And so were they.

  Lindy went to the table and poured two glasses of champagne. She returned to the rail and handed one to Domenic. They sipped in silence for a moment. “We should probably start thinking about when we’re going to go over there,” said Lindy casually. “I’ll go online tomorrow to see if there are any cheap flights coming up. Will a couple of weeks be enough, do you think? Or will we need longer? Shepherd didn’t seem to think it would be a problem for you to have some time off after this case is wrapped up.”

  “As long as DC Gill’s review is over.”

  “I don’t think you’ve got much to worry about there, Dom. I wasn’t kidding inside. She really is a big fan. I mean huge. She probably had pictures of you on her bedroom wall when she was growing up. I do hope she doesn’t end up being disappointed in you, Domenic.” She smiled at him. “Let’s remember, the man Shakespeare’s Desdemona admired hardly lived up to her expectations in the end, did he?”

  He thought about the two women exchanging details of their athletic pursuits at Wawel that night. In the strictest sense of the word, what Lindy had told Des was true. Every year since they’d been in Saltmarsh, she’d participated in two annual charity runs, one in May and one in September. These were the five-Ks she ran “regularly.” But Jejeune knew Lindy chose her words carefully, and even if she would argue that was hardly her fault if a young, fit Des Gill confused the word regular with frequent, his partner had known exactly what she was saying. A friendship of sorts might be developing between the two women, thought Jejeune, but that wouldn’t necessarily prevent each from pursuing her own agenda.

  “Did DC Gill ask you anything specific when you chatted?”

  On another day, Lindy’s antennae might have been up at such a forthright question. But it was not another day; it was the day Damian’s freedom had finally been secured, the day the rest of Lindy’s life, and Dom’s, could begin. Her thoughts were racing with the possibilities, and she was not of a mind to analyze her partner’s questions too closely.

  “She asked me if I was with you when you saw your Iberian Azure-winged Magpie.”

  “Most people refer to them as Iberian Magpies these days,” said Jejeune.

  “Well, of course,” said Lindy sarcastically. “The thing has azure wings; it stands to reason birders would want to drop that little detail from its name.”

  “It’s because there’s already a species called the Azure-winged Magpie in Asia. Until quite recently they were thought to be conspecific, but …”

  Lindy’s look suggested that her interest in this subject had ended around the phrase Most people …

  “Well, she certainly seemed interested enough in your sighting. Not a birder, is she?”

  “She’s not a birder,” confirmed Jejeune thoughtfully. “She’s just looking into everything that happened around that time, that’s all.” Domenic’s expression suggested that it might not be all, but Lindy was too consumed with the darkening sky and the play of the dying light on the water, and the all-encompassing beauty of the world and everything in it to notice.

  “It was strange,” she said, “listening to another woman talk about her open admiration for you. If I wasn’t so certain you’re deliriously happy with me, I’m sure I’d feel quite threatened.” She looked across to see his reaction, but Jejeune was staring at the slow undulations of the water. “A little more delirium wouldn’t go amiss, you know.”

  He roused from his thought and pointed a finger at his face, making a circling motion. “This is me being delirious,” he said. He wanted to join Lindy in her happiness, but his restless policeman’s mind wouldn’t let him. Even now, at this hour of triumph, when all he had worked for had come to pass, when his victory was complete and his brother was free, there was evidence to be weighed, suspicions to be mulled over.

  “You’ve known Eric a long time, haven’t you?” The fact that he hadn’t even tried to disguise the abrupt change of topic should have set off some alarms, but Lindy had gone back to staring out over the water and didn’t even turn at the inquiry.

  “Eric’s the kind of bloke you feel as if you’ve known forever, but I suppose it’s been a good few years, yes.”

  “He admires you, doesn’t he? You have qualities that impress him.”

  “I don’t think he’s got any pictures of me on his bedroom wall, if that’s what you mean. His dartboard, now that’s another matter. What’s this about, Dom?” But even with one eye still on the breathtaking spectacle of the fading light over the sea, and a glass of chilled champagne pressed against her chest, Lindy was able to notice that Domenic didn’t answer her question.

  “The deathbed confession of Vincent Canby, that was quite a coup for Eric.” He paused, not wanting to continue on this soft, beautiful evening, but knowing he had to. “Does he ever talk about it?”

  Lindy shook her head. “That’s no great shock, though. Eric tends not to dwell on past glories. He’s the kind of man who always believes there’s a new prize just around the corner. That said, it doesn’t surprise me he got the confession. He’s an old-fashioned newspaperman at heart. A notepad and a tape recorder, and a relentless determination to get the stories the others can’t. It was part of the attraction when I agreed to work for him. I’ve just realized,” she said, “I was about as old then as Des is now. I suppose it’s a sign of advancing years, isn’t it, when you start seeing people who remind you of a younger version of yourself?” Lindy sipped her champagne thoughtfully, as if considering the wisdom of her observation.

  The pale moon hung like a giant apostrophe, just above the horizon. A faint haze had started to form around it. Burr, the locals called it. Jejeune looked at the moon for a long time, and was still staring at it when he spoke. “It seems an extraordinary arrangement for a dying man to make, to have Eric as the only person in attendance …”

  “Marvin Laraby was there, too.”

  “Yes, but Eric was the one Canby had made all the arrangements with beforehand. Eric’s was the phone number the hospice had, and Canby’s wife, for when the time came. If he hadn’t called in Laraby to verify the confession, Eric would have been there alone, just him and Canby.”

  Had it been a different time, Lindy might just have let him know exactly what she thought about this line of inquiry. But the momentous joy of the evening’s news came to his rescue and she chose to indulge him. “He’d built trust with Canby. It’s what journos do. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but there are some people out there who still trust us. A good journalist reassures a source they can be relied on to tell the story, their story. To a man who was dying, probably nothing could have been more important than to know that. You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I’d never really considered before just how much it speaks to Eric’s integrity that a dying man would trust him with such a tremendous responsibility.” The thought seemed to stir something within her and she straightened from the railing suddenly. “Okay, enough talk about your old cases. We’ve got a beautiful moon, wonderful news, and glasses of bubbly. I’d say we’ve got some serious celebrating to do. You know, you never did offer a toast back inside. Time to put that right, I think.” She took his glass and padded across the patio to the small round table where the champagne bottle stood.

  Jejeune leaned on the railing, watching the gentle rise and fall of the sea’s swells in the l
ast of the evening’s light. She was right. Tonight was Damian’s night, even in absentia, and if Lindy wasn’t going to let anybody take his brother’s shining moment away, he wouldn’t either. He realized she was beside him again, holding out a replenished glass of champagne. He wondered how long she had been there, waiting, watching him like this. He took the glass and raised it to meet the one Lindy was holding aloft. The curious ways of the world, he thought. He’d gone many months without offering a toast, and now here he was being called upon to do so twice in a couple of days. Patterns, coincidences, anomalies. It fell to some people to watch for them, to decide which were innocuous and which meant something more.

  “To Damian,” he said. “And the future.”

  The toast seemed to please Lindy immensely, and a smile lit her entire face. She held her glass up high and looked at him.

  “To the future,” she replied.

  28

  Highborne was a house that drew its character from its pedigree, rather than its presence, thought Jejeune, staring up at the grand, ivy-clad building. The imposing granite wings were higher than the main facade and seemed to squeeze in on it, making the main part of the building look as if it was sinking inward, receding into the past of which it was so much a part.

  If the room Jejeune was ushered into wasn’t exactly a replica of the quilted leather and polished hardwood of the cabinet offices, it certainly paid homage to the staunchly masculine decor. Sir David Gresham was sitting in a worn leather chair talking to a man perched uncomfortably on the front edge of a sofa. A table with a bottle and three glasses stood off to one side.

  The Home Secretary had lost weight since the last time Jejeune had seen him, and his hair was thinning. There was a slight pallor to his skin, too. Lindy’s once-damning verdict that he looked just a bit too much like a politician to ever make it to the top seemed a sad irony now that he no longer possessed the trademark panache of the chosen ones.