A Tiding of Magpies

by Steve Burrows

  “I suppose the compulsion is always to search for new species.”

  Jejeune realized he’d been staring out the window, and Jones thought he was watching the birds. He smiled at the man’s question. There was no cynicism in it, no hint of sarcasm, only the genuine curiosity of someone trying to understand the rules.

  “But I wonder if chasing after birds is such a wise strategy. I suspect there may be an argument for staying in one spot.”

  Perhaps, thought Jejeune. Perhaps if you waited long enough, the birds, like the truth, would eventually find you.

  Jones stared out at the duck pond. “I am always intrigued by the idea that something can be so utterly absorbing for some people and hold so little interest for others. Not just birding, of course, I’m sure it’s true of all pastimes.”

  It was the observation of an outsider, thought Jejeune, a stranger to the world of hobbies and recreational activities. There was an eternity of sadness for him in the knowledge that somebody could have no refuge in their lives beyond their work, nowhere to retreat to during those times when there didn’t seem to be very much left in your daily life to hold on to.

  Jejeune left Mansfield Jones staring out the window. He wondered if it was the man’s quest for unequivocal truths, in people as well as pastimes, which left him eating unappealing food alone in the corner of a sterile police cafeteria.

  42

  Maik saw Tony Holland gaze at the desk vacated by Gill, now cleared of her files and her laptop. As promised, she hadn’t disturbed much of Lauren Salter’s stuff, but had merely shoved it off to the perimeter. But the strange emptiness in the centre of the desk seemed to mesmerize the constable. Gill had drifted into his life and out of it again and left nothing but empty space behind. Space and longing. Maik’s own thoughts turned to the usual occupant of the desk. He missed Salter’s stories — about her life, her time with her son, Max. But more, he missed her, so often the only hand stretching out to him across the wasteland of human loneliness.

  He pulled himself together and looked over the room. He’d decoded most of the secrets he’d seen in here before, but one person still held hers. Off to the side, he watched as DCS Shepherd ran her fingers through her hair and passed her palms over her thighs to smooth out her skirt. She was doing her best to project her normal, efficient, measured self. But a room full of detectives was no place to be trying to hide things, and the signs were there to observant viewers. Maik saw the slightly drawn cheeks and the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, where the unevenly applied makeup had missed. It was the look of someone who hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately, and who spent most of their waking hours gnawing on something troubling. But Maik saw something else in it, too. It was that special look of concern that lacked any sense of self. It was the look a parent gets when a child is ill, or a spouse when their partner is distressed.

  “I take it there’s no question Jakub Kowalski’s murder and this fire are related?” she said to the room at large.

  “Related, or connected?”

  “It’s a simple enough question, Domenic,” said Shepherd angrily. “You’re getting as bad as Mansfield Jones, for God’s sake. Is there any chance I might, one day, receive a simple, direct answer to a question?” She was shouting now, frustrated at Jejeune’s evasion. And perhaps at other things, too.

  Which is why the target of her wrath looked less affected by it than anyone else. Though the others were shocked at Shepherd’s sudden rise to anger, Jejeune understood the reason. Shepherd had missed no opportunity to make eye contact with him over the past few days — in meetings, at briefings, passing in a corridor. On every occasion, Jejeune had met her gaze head on, but he had never provided her with that glimmer of reassurance, that faint nod or look she so desperately sought. She knew Jejeune must have completed his inquiries by now. Whatever he had uncovered, it was preventing him from silently telling her that he had looked into Eric’s practices and everything was okay. And that meant it wasn’t.

  “The two incidents are connected,” said Jejeune evenly, “but they were not committed by the same person.”

  “I see. Thank you.” Shepherd had recovered from her outburst, but she was not apologetic.

  “Whether he committed them, or not, surely the same person is behind them both?” said Maik. “Curtis Angeren’s shadow is all over this attack on Paulina Kowalski. He was up at Wawel the day before.”

  “Was he? I wasn’t aware we’d checked on that?”

  “Is there any particular reason you thought Sikorski might have lied about that, Domenic?” asked Shepherd, puzzled.

  “He was talking to Paulina Kowalski when we arrived at the hospital,” said Jejeune. “He claimed he was offering her assistance, but she didn’t seem particularly happy to have him at her bedside.”

  “His concern for her looked sincere enough to me,” said Maik, tilting his head slightly as if to bring his DCI, or perhaps his motives, into better focus.

  “Sikorski was speaking Polish. We have no idea what he was saying. For all we know, he could have been threatening her to keep quiet about something else.” Shepherd wasn’t sure whether Jejeune had bristled at Maik’s tone, or the fact that he had gone to see Angeren behind his back. But she doubted Maik’s current expression was going to do much to ease the situation. It was the one the sergeant used on suspects sometimes; the ones he didn’t quite trust. “Surely, you’re not trying to suggest Sikorski deliberately set the fire himself?”

  Shepherd watched the exchange with astonishment. The two men had blithely dismissed each other’s ideas with a brusqueness that bordered on contempt. Their rift couldn’t be over something as petty as the damage to Lindy’s car, could it?

  “In case you’re wondering, Domenic, I can confirm the department is prepared to cover all expenses for the repairs to Lindy’s vehicle. Just have her submit the bills when the work is completed.” She paused for a moment to see if the news had thawed the relationship between the two men. If it had, there were no outward signs. But there were developments with the case that needed discussing, regardless.

  “Sorted?” Shepherd nodded. “Good. We move on,” she said decisively. “I think perhaps what Inspector Jejeune is trying to point out is that even if Angeren was at Wawel the day before, that doesn’t necessarily tie him in to this incident, Sergeant.”

  Maik looked at Holland. “When DC Gill dragged Paulina Kowalski from the community centre, did she use the standard lift?”

  “Under the shoulders from behind.” Holland looked at Maik as if to question why the sergeant would ask for confirmation he didn’t really need.

  “So you’re sure she didn’t grab her by the arms to pull her.”

  “There’s no way a small woman …” Holland looked at Shepherd, “person like that would be able to drag a full-grown adult through that gap.”

  Maik nodded, his point confirmed. “Paulina Kowalski claims she was hit from behind, but she has some fairly severe bruising around her neck and on her forearms. I think somebody grabbed her and forced her to go somewhere with them.”

  “Somewhere?” asked Shepherd.

  “The lockers. I think she was forced to show someone where her son’s locker was. That’s why the key is missing.”

  “What would they want from Jakub Kowalski’s locker?”

  “The same thing they were looking for at Paulina Kowalski’s house. Electronics — things that hold data on those illegal immigrants her son was bringing in, the ones whose records she was likely processing for him.”

  “Then why won’t she identify Angeren as her attacker?” asked Jejeune sharply. “It seems unlikely, to say the least, that the woman would protect the man who killed her son. That locker was opened with a key, a key any number of other people at Wawel had access to.” He shook his head. “Angeren might be tied to this in some way, but he didn’t kill Jakub Kowalski. The last time anyone saw Kowalski was on the Tuesday evening at Tidewater Marsh. Teodor Sikorski said he saw him there looking fo
r the ducks when he left for the day. It seems a reasonable assumption Kowalski was killed later that night.”

  “Reasonable to who?” asked Holland. “Jones can’t give us time of death, only the approximate time the body was set on fire. The window is any time between that and the last time Kowalski was seen alive.”

  Jejeune nodded in Holland’s direction, as if acknowledging that the point was valid. “Kowalski didn’t find the ducks he was looking for. I’m sure I saw the same birds recently. But he was killed with the same kind of ammunition he used to shoot Ruddy Ducks. It suggests he hadn’t had time to unload the gun by the time it was used to kill him.”

  “And you think whoever killed Kowalski must have been able to take a loaded weapon off him and get behind him,” said Shepherd, drawing her expression into something approaching approval.

  Jejeune nodded. “Most people wouldn’t let that happen unless they trusted the person. I doubt that either Curtis Angeren or any of his men would have fallen into that category.”

  “Unless Jones is right, after all,” said Holland. “Kowalski could have been dead, or disabled, before he was shot.”

  Shepherd looked ashen at the prospect that she may have to tell Jones his ultra-cautious approach had been justified. She might have expected Danny Maik to step in as her champion against Jones’s madness, anyway, but the fact that it once again gave him the opportunity to directly contradict his DCI’s point seemed to encourage him all the more.

  “I doubt Kowalski’s gun would have been loaded,” said Maik. “Carrying a loaded Brno CZ over the kind of uneven ground they have up at Tidewater Marsh would be a good way to lose a lot of blood. That’s a big risk, just because you were too lazy to load the gun at your kill zone.”

  “Surely duck hunters pre-load,” said Jejeune quickly. “They don’t wait for the birds to take flight before putting in their shells.”

  “Kowalski was a marksman. His approach would be more like that of a sniper. You choose your spot, sight your target, then load. At least, that’s the way I’d go about it.”

  Maik’s flat tone suggested no hint of regret at having thoroughly undermined his DCI’s theory. Shepherd looked from one man to the other and then back again before leaving her gaze somewhere in between. She knew this was not about car repairs, and never had been. Something much more personal was going on, and whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t good for the case. Or the station.

  The meeting had concluded without either man conceding any ground. Indeed, neither had offered any further contribution at all, forcing Shepherd to declare an awkward end to the briefing. For his own part, Jejeune was puzzled by the morning’s turn of events. But he remained unmoved. Whatever the reason was that Maik had suddenly begun finding fault with his theories, the main point of his argument hadn’t gone away. Ignoring the M.E.’s nonsense about Kowalski being dead or disabled first, the victim had allowed someone to take a loaded weapon from him and circle behind him. Even if Maik was right, and the weapon hadn’t been loaded, it meant someone had removed ammunition from Kowalski’s pocket and loaded the rifle before shooting him, presumably while he stood there and watched them. Neither scenario made any sense. Or rather, they both only made sense in the same way, the one Jejeune was now slowly and reluctantly being drawn towards.

  43

  Jejeune guided the Range Rover carefully up the steep side of the berm and parked on the top. Before him, the still waters of Tidewater Estuary spread out like glass. Lindy hopped out of The Beast and marched towards the door of Wawel, bending to examine the twisted metal grille hanging from its hinges. “So this is where that sergeant of yours held his demolition derby with my little car?” she said. But her voice held no anger. “It really did save their lives, didn’t it?”

  “That and the Frankenweed.”

  Lindy examined the twisted grille again, more closely this time. “It must be formidable stuff to bend metal this thick. God help up us if it ever becomes established out here.”

  “And this, of course, is what we have been working to prevent,” said Sikorski from the doorway. “Welcome, both of you. I trust you have forgiven me, Ms. Hey, for my intemperance the last time you were at Wawel. The drunken ramblings of a disillusioned old man, I’m afraid. The sheer scale of the challenge facing us sometimes seems overwhelming. Invasive species are the second greatest threat to global biodiversity after habitat loss, but sometimes it seems we are even more helpless to control the spread of invasives than we are to prevent the loss of a tract of rainforest. But I think the inspector does not wish to discuss such matters today. You have come to view the scene of the crime, have you not?” Sikorski stood aside from the charred doorway and gave an elegant sweep of his hand. “Please, come inside.”

  Lindy and Domenic stood and surveyed the scene of heartbreaking devastation. The once-white walls were now smoke-blackened and scorched. The exquisite handcrafted doilies and curtains that had done so much to lend an air of domesticity to the great hall lay soiled and sodden on the floor. Those painted icons and artifacts that had survived the smoke and water damage were stacked in a ragged pile in the centre of the room. It looked to Lindy as if the firefighters’ efforts to save the building had caused as much carnage as the fire itself. She looked around, unable to reconcile the abject wretchedness of this space with the room that had so recently throbbed with energy and life. The lustrous wooden floor on which she and Des had danced was now coated with a thick layer of grime, through which a single set of footprints had tracked.

  “No one else has been here to help you?” Lindy asked.

  Along the hallway, Sikorski picked up the statue of St. Stanislaus that was lying on the floor. He wiped it tenderly with his hand and checked it was undamaged before setting it back in the alcove from where it had fallen. “They will come. When their own wounds have healed. This damage will be repaired and the centre will once again become a place of happiness, of comfort. Resilience is in the Polish blood. It is in the history of the country itself. Some might say it is the history of Poland. Sometimes, I think it is not an eagle on the Polish flag, but a phoenix.”

  The man’s optimism seemed so out of place, juxtaposed against the wreckage that surrounded him. But Lindy recognized it contained the hope he was going to need to rebuild this centre. Somehow, the thought seemed to make the act of destruction all the more unbearable.

  “That someone could do this …” Lindy’s voice faltered slightly and Jejeune detected the glint of moisture at the corner of her eyes. But the words seemed to stir her from her sadness and she straightened. “We’re not having it. I’ll talk to Calista tonight and we’ll come by first thing in the morning. We’ll help you to put Wawel back together as quickly as possible. We’ll show those bastards we won’t stand for their attempts to destroy this place. They have failed. And will always fail.”

  Jejeune had been looking around the room carefully since they entered. He had seen the same damage Lindy saw, the patches of dampness in the corners, the smoke-blackened walls, the icons and decorations driven to the ground by the force of the water hoses. But it was what he didn’t see that caught his attention.

  “There’s no vandalism,” he said quietly, “no attempt to destroy any of the religious artifacts.” He continued looking around him. “I believe the damage to the building was incidental. I think someone wanted to kill Paulina Kowalski. The fire was good cover for their crime, but it wasn’t their purpose for coming here.”

  “Look at this place, Dom.” said Lindy, opening her arms and spinning around in frustration. “In the end, does the motive even matter?”

  But even as she asked, she could see that to Sikorski it did. His eyes showed understanding of Jejeune’s comment and with it a kind of appreciation. Domenic’s observations would do nothing to reduce the workload ahead, but it would bring a kind of peace to the process. It would remove the shadows of hate. Instead, the community could take on the restoration project as an act of love, of devotion, free from bitterness and rese
ntment.

  “I was wondering if you found that missing key,” said Jejeune. “The one to Jakub Kowalski’s locker.”

  “I believe I told you before that I did not know where this key is.”

  “Actually, you said you couldn’t help us.”

  Sikorski nodded. “Ah, the policemen’s precision. I have looked,” the Count told him. “Even in all this … I do not think this key is here. Perhaps Mrs. Kowalski’s attacker took it with him. Perhaps he was attracted to this bright, shiny key, like the Magpie at your famous kidnapping case.”

  “It was a lynchpin,” said Jejeune. He returned Sikorski’s smile, but to Lindy it looked a little forced. And perhaps to Sikorski, too.

  “A key to unlock one thing, a pin to unlock another.” He lifted his hand. “How these small details of English betray us. Language is the guardian of any culture, do you not think, its protector against outsiders?”

  The language and the history, thought Jejeune, those tiny tripwires set out to catch foreigners, to remind them this was not their homeland, that however well assimilated they may become, they will forever be interlopers.

  Sikorski looked around him at the damage and destruction. “Would you mind if we went outside?” he asked. “I find the comfort of the natural world can help with many sorrows.”

  After the smell of stale smoke and fire retardant, the freshness of the breeze sweeping in off the marshlands was like a song of joy. Lindy looked back at the building. “It will take a lot of work, but you know Calista, she’ll get things moving,” she said reassuringly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as good as new before we even leave for Canada.” She stopped abruptly and turned to Sikorski. “I’m sorry; I know it will take more than a couple of coats of paint for the community to forget what happened here.”