A Tiding of Magpies

by Steve Burrows

  “I can’t be involved any more, if there do happen to be any follow-up questions from the review of the case. I wanted Sergeant Maik to hear our discussion. If anything comes up, you should feel free to speak to him.”

  Fair enough, thought Maik, but he doubted any follow-ups would be arising from Des Gill’s investigation. He had suspected from the start that Jejeune was here today to pursue a different agenda, one of his own. Danny had been brought along to ensure someone else knew where he was headed, in case something came along that prevented the DCI from finishing it himself.

  33

  Des drew up at the airfield and parked the pageant-blue MGB near the offices. It had been an invigorating drive. The long shadows of morning still lay across the landscape and the breeze was cool. In the city, she might have put the car’s top up on a day like today, but out here there was so much for the senses to feast upon: the smell of the dew on freshly tilled earth, the sound of a Skylark scribbling its song out into the world. She wasn’t prepared to shut all that out just to have a warmer drive.

  She approached the offices and peered in through the darkened windows to the interior. Empty. Beside her, the large doors to a hangar were open on both sides and light was streaming through. There were two low-winged planes in the hangar and a small two-seater parked out on the tarmac behind it, but she could see neither mechanics nor ground crew anywhere. The airfield appeared to be deserted, and she had all but convinced herself she’d come to the wrong location when she spotted the distinctive grille of Holland’s Audi peeking out from the side of the hangar.

  Holland pushed his hand down to his side as he saw her round the corner, but the man across from him smiled and pointed at the hand, so Holland lifted his cigarette up again and offered her a guilty grin. “I know, bad habit,” he said. “I’ll be packing it up any day now.”

  He was seated on a stack of wooden pallets, leaning back against the metal wall of the hangar, one knee drawn up to support his smoking arm. The man standing opposite him wiped a hand on his once-white overalls and approached Des. “Stan,” he said. “I’m glad you could make it. Up there is no place to be trapped with just him for conversation. There’s nowhere to escape.”

  Des smiled at Stan as she processed that Tony’s invitation here meant they would actually be going up in a plane today.

  “I thought you’d like to see north Norfolk from the air,” said Holland, noticing her uncertainty. “You’re in for a treat, I can tell you. It’s perfect flying weather today.” He consulted the skies. “Ceiling at about three thousand feet, excellent visibility, winds south-southwest at about fifteen knots.” Holland sounded so convincing, for a moment Des could almost have believed he knew what he was talking about.

  Until Stan laughed, anyway. “I’ll grab my flight manifest and my gear and we can get underway,” he said. “If that’s okay with you, Squadron Leader. You can wait over by the plane.”

  “The Cessna 172 Skyhawk fixed-wing?” Holland asked.

  “Or, the white one, as we like to call it.”

  They watched Stan leave, shaking his head as he went.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” said Holland when they were alone.

  “I had to see someone first.”

  “About a permanent transfer up here?”

  “About a corvid.”

  Holland looked puzzled, but Des pointed to the corner of the hangar where Stan was now waving them towards the plane. “Looks like it’s time for the off,” she said.

  Holland scooted up from the pallet stack and stubbed out his cigarette.

  “Do you think we might have time for a chat when we get back,” Des asked casually as they walked to the plane.

  Holland nodded. “Sure. We can even talk while we fly, if you like. It’s called multi-tasking. Women are supposed to be good at it.”

  The shadow of the plane tracked steadily across the checkerboard of fields below them. It was the only evidence of movement Des could see down there.

  “Not bad, eh?” asked Holland for at least the fourth time. “I suppose this must be what it looks like to your hero when he’s got his cape on. Though it wasn’t exactly a vintage performance last time out in the Incident Room, was it?”

  She met his grin with a serious expression. “We all need our heroes, Tony, even if they have their off days. You could do worse than make Danny Maik yours, you know.”

  “What, old Captain Sadness? Do me a favour. What am I going to learn listening to somebody who hangs on to lost causes and sad songs?”

  “A lot more than if you don’t.”

  Stan smiled as he banked the plane into a gentle, slow turn and pointed down. Below them a river estuary spread out across the land like a wide, glittering fan. “Tidewater Marsh,” he told her. “You can’t really appreciate the layout of these parts until you see it from up here. It’s amazing how much wetland there is down there, isn’t it?”

  Des nodded and watched as the small plane faithfully traced the thin white fringe of surf breaking along the coastline directly beneath them. Tendrils of shimmering water snaked inland, carving the landscape into shapes and patterns that were undetectable from the ground. Pools of silver reflected back up at them, turning the area into a vast broken mirror of light shards.

  “Are you sure this isn’t a job-related trip?” Des asked Holland, though her expression suggested she’d already pretty much made up her mind.

  “What? Why would you ask that?”

  “Because we’ve made a low pass over the same stretch of coastline three times now. Almost as if, oh, I dunno, say, somebody was looking for something.”

  For a moment, the two of them sat looking at each other, their silence disappearing into the drone of the engines that seemed to fill the space around them. Holland gave her a guilty grin. “A beautiful woman with brains,” he said.

  “I know — what are the odds?”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way. I was just thinking what a great combination it was.”

  Des looked out the window at the patterns painted on the landscape by the interplay of sunlight and shadow. Whether she was buying the explanation or not, she was keen to get back to the matter at hand. “Were you also thinking of telling me what we’re doing up here?”

  “Okay. Stan does some contract work for the police, reconnaissance mainly, no active pursuits or anything like that. I just thought you might enjoy coming along with us for the day. I mean, you have to admit it is beautiful up here. The fields with the sun on them, and the water. And on a clear day like this you can see for miles. I think that’s King’s Lynn over there.”

  Des didn’t follow the direction of the pointing finger and Holland lowered it again in defeat. He sighed. “Fair enough,” he said. “The sarge thinks there may be a landing spot somewhere along here where the undocumented immigrants are being brought in. Stan spotted a few potential sites on an earlier run and now we’re checking them out more closely.” He leaned forward to tap Stan on the shoulder, making a slashing gesture at his throat and pointing further along the coast.

  The plane continued tracking the coastline. They passed over Saltmarsh Harbour, where boats with unrigged masts sat in patches of sunlit water like a forest of bare trees. To the west, the cloud-filtered light dappled the fields, appearing almost to set them moving like waves. A mesmerizing palette of earth tones rolled to the horizon, browns and yellows and sepias. The colour promised new life, food — coming sustenance for the people of north Norfolk and beyond. Holland pointed to the peninsula jutting out into the sea just ahead of them. “Whitehaven Golf Club. It can only be a mile or so across the water from Tidewater Marsh. But look how far inland and then back out again you have to go to get there by land.” He traced the route with his finger, coming inland from the point where the river spilled its contents into the sea to a narrow bridge across the coast road, and then back out again along the other bank of the river.

  “Last time we were up here, I told him a triangle with two long, e
qual sides like that is called an isosceles,” said Stan, turning his head towards Des. “He asked me if it was named after some Latin bloke. You see what I mean about conversation?”

  “Yeah, well, Latin isn’t my strong suit. But I know about triangles. And I told him, triangulation is how the police track the location of a phone call,” said Holland authoritatively. “Three points. Two towers and the phone.”

  As the plane banked, the land disappeared and a sea view filled their window. From up here, the boats were white dots adrift in a vast blue universe. Des wondered how keen those boat owners would have been to lay out all that money if they could have seen beforehand how insignificant they really were in the grand scheme of things.

  “You can do it with two sounds, too,” she said thoughtfully. “Triangulation. If you know the exact location each sound came from, and the exact decibel level at its source, you can pinpoint the spot where the sounds would coincide.” She paused and looked at Tony. “It’s been done.” She continued to watch his face, as if expecting he might already have heard about this. But his blank expression told her otherwise.

  “All I know is, you try to make that trip from Whitehaven to Tidewater Marsh by road, going inland and back out and all, and it’s going to take you the better part of fifteen minutes.”

  “Even you, Tony?” asked Stan.

  “Well, let’s say ten for me in the Audi, but at least fifteen if you’re trying to do it in some honking great Range Rover.”

  Des stared at Holland wide-eyed for a long moment, but he just returned her look with one of his irreverent grins.

  Holland claimed later that he was the first to spot it, but in Des’s recollection they were still looking at each other when a sudden lurch and change in engine pitch jolted them out of their staring contest. Either way, it was Stan who made the first move, pointing down to his left and banking the plane slightly so his passengers could see better. Directly below them, from an isolated building sitting at the edge of a glittering water course, a writhing tower of grey was rising into the sky. Smoke.

  “It’s that Polish Centre, Wawel,” said Holland. “Call it in, Stan, and get us down there, fast as you can.”

  Stan gave Tony the thumbs up and reached for the radio. Behind him, Des was leaning into the window as far as possible to look directly down. “I think there might be somebody in there,” she yelled at Holland over the noise of the deep-throttling engines. “I can see a car parked outside.”

  “Two,” said Holland. He pointed to another, smaller car, parked slightly away from the building. It was sitting at a haphazard angle, as if it had been slewed to a stop by someone in a hurry. Neither of them recognized the car closest to the building, but the other one was familiar to both of them. You didn’t soon forget Lindy Hey’s lime-green Nissan Leaf.

  34

  Holland thought Stan might try a landing on the berm itself. From up here, it looked much too short and narrow, but he had seen the pilot pull off some amazing things over the years. If he came in low over Wawel and dropped down immediately, it might just be possible. But Stan decided otherwise. The gravel track that bent through the flat landscape straightened out on its final approach to the berm. Whether this stretch was straight enough or long enough, the pilot was now intending to find out.

  He came in low and hard and the small plane bounced once as it touched down. They felt a slight skid as the tyres fought for grip on the loose gravel, and Stan hauled the plane left as it began to drift towards the marsh on the far side of the track. He reined the rolling plane in and brought it to a shuddering stop. Holland pushed open the door and leaped down. Des followed, and they sprinted shoulder to shoulder along the track as it rose towards the berm. Even though they could not see the top of the rise as they ran, they knew where the building was. They headed for the steady stream of grey smoke drifting skyward just ahead. As they mounted the slope, Danny Maik was there to meet them.

  “Paulina Kowalski called to say she was in danger. By the time I got here the building was already on fire. She must be inside, but I can’t get to her. That metal grille is padlocked. There’s a lot of smoke. If she’s still alive, she won’t have long.”

  Des had continued running past Maik towards the Centre as the sergeant spoke to Holland. She was standing at the side of the building looking up. Smoke was billowing out of a small opening. “This window’s open. I can get in.”

  The two men turned and ran over to her, looking up as they arrived. “The opening’s too small,” said Holland. “You’ll never squeeze through there.”

  “Worth a try,” she said. “Give me a bunk up.”

  Maik cupped his hands and boosted Des up as if she was made of feathers. He felt the tiny pressure points of her feet as she scrambled onto his broad shoulders, and then their absence as she reached into the narrow opening and hauled herself up. The two men watched as she corkscrewed her upper body in through the window and twisted her hips around until she was in. They heard a thud as she crashed through onto the floor inside. “Okay,” she called. She gave a choking cough. “I can’t see anything, the smoke is too thick. But there are no flames. The fire must be at the back.”

  “Is Mrs. Kowalski there?” asked Maik.

  “It’s hard to see anything.” Des gave another series of rasping coughs. “No, I can’t see her.” She coughed again. “My eyes are watering. The room is filling with smoke.”

  “You need to get out, Des,” shouted Holland from outside, “while you still can. Climb back up.”

  “I can’t see anything to climb onto. I’ll try to head for the front door.”

  The men sprinted to the front of the building and waited while the smoke continued to billow out from beneath the roof eaves. The stack of mattresses in the corridor, thought Maik. If those had been set smouldering, the entire building would be filled with toxic fumes long before any flames caught hold. Paulina Kowalski, if she was still in there, was almost certainly dead already. Des had seconds, at best, to make it to this front door and unlock the grille before she, too, was overtaken by the lethal smoke.

  “She’s here!” Des’s voice accompanied a slight movement of the wooden front door. Thick smoke billowed out of the narrow opening. Holland moved round slightly and peered in through the grille, but even with the door ajar, the smoke inside was so dense he could barely make out the small grey outline bending over another shape lying on the ground. “She’s blocking the doorway. I can’t open it any further.” Des was wheezing constantly now, fighting for air. “I can’t tell if she’s alive or not.”

  “The key to the padlock, Des,” Holland was pressing his face against the grille and shouting urgently. “Get the key.”

  “Not here. Can’t see.” The words came between paroxysms of coughing.

  “We’ve got to get that grille open,” shouted Maik. “Look around, find something to pry it open with, an iron bar, anything.”

  “There’s nothing here!” shouted Holland in panic. “Is there a tow rope in the car? We can tie it the grille and drag it open.”

  Maik checked the trunk but there was nothing in there.

  Holland pointed to the pile of weeds beside the building. “We’ll use this. If I can squeeze the root clumps between the bars and bring the vines either side, I can tie them to the back of the car.”

  “They’ll never hold,” said Maik.

  “They will. You’ve seen the way those roots bind together. You’ll never pull them apart.”

  “Even if the roots hold, the vines will break as soon as I pull away and put some tension on them.”

  Holland shook his head impatiently. “I heard Jejeune say this stuff is supposed to be as strong as rope. If we can twist enough of them together, maybe it’ll work.”

  From inside the house came a burst of choking hacks. Black smoke was escaping through the door opening in a steady stream now. The men looked at each other. “We have to try, Sarge. If we can’t get that grille open, she’s not going to make it.”

 
From the doorway came the sound of a deep, sickening cough, and a single, desperate, breath-starved call. “Tony!”

  It was all Maik needed to hear. He jumped in the Leaf and backed the car up to within a couple of metres of the grille while Holland grabbed armfuls of the Frankenweed, looking for the most densely matted root clumps he could find. He grabbed some and ran to the building, trailing the long tendrils of the vines behind him. Maik joined him at the grille and the two men jammed the root clumps through the bars at the far bottom corner, where there would be most play, twisting them sideways, desperately pounding them past their resistance until they were nestled snugly against the bars. As Tony dragged the vines back through the bars and frantically twisted them together, Maik opened the car’s tailgate. Together, they coiled the vines around the lift supports, cinching them as tightly as they could.

  Maik jumped in and eased the car forward. The weed rope held but the grille didn’t move. As he urged more from the engine, one of the lift supports began to bend under the strain. The metal grille twisted away from the door with the faintest of squeals.

  “She’s going. Give it some more!”

  Maik poured on the power. The support bent even more and began to pull away from the car’s body as the tailgate buckled downward. But the green cable held firm. The grille twisted further out and Holland tried to squeeze through the opening.

  “Not enough,” he shouted “Keep going. Keep going!”

  Maik gave the car more power, and with a tortured screech, the lift support tore away from the body of the car completely. Maik jammed on the brakes, but Holland was already undoing the weed rope before the car had stopped rocking. He rewrapped it on the other support rod with the rest of the vines and banged the car’s rear panel with his hand. There were no more sounds coming from inside the building now. No coughing, no choking, no cries.