A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

by Steve Burrows

  The clumsy crashing of a pair of Greater Anis in the undergrowth had both men turning simultaneously, but as soon as they had identified the large black birds, they lowered their bins. Jejeune waited for Traz to continue. He had started along a path, but he had not reached his destination yet.

  “The word was, there was some big bonus at stake, like maybe a thousand dollars per bird, if Mas Aves could get Graumann all fourteen endemic hummers. Mariel had started the tour and found him nine. But for some reason, right after they checked off the Glittering Starfrontlet in Urrao, she announced she was quitting.”

  The word was. Damian’s phrasing. Traz had spoken to Jejeune’s brother, but to ask was to invite more secrecy, more evasion. And they were past that now. All of them.

  “They returned to Bogota, where Graumann was told to wait in the hotel. Two days later, Damian arrived to take over the hunt for the five endemics left on the list.”

  Jejeune nodded silently. The list Lindy had given him; the ones he had stared at on the coastal path in that watery-eyed mixture of wonder and bewilderment that seemed like ten lifetimes ago. Four birds in the Bogota area and the Chiribiquete Emerald, deep in the Amazonas region. Karijonas country, where people had died and Damian’s life had come apart at the seams; and Domenic’s, for a time, had fallen apart along with it.

  They heard footsteps on the path behind them and turned to find Thea.

  “You didn’t go with Armando, then?” asked Traz, tucking away the men’s conversation neatly.

  Thea shook her head. “On a day like today, it’s more about backlit views of the underside of some bird in the canopy that I’m never going to identify unless Armando tells me. It’s okay if you’re into list-building.” She shrugged. “I’m not.” She pointed along the path. “Besides, there are other things to see.”

  A large morpho butterfly came flitting into view along the path. They watched its dancing, puppet-string flight as it approached, the rainbow-blue of its wings glittering in the patches of sunlight. It settled on the edge of a muddy puddle to drink from it, driving off a smaller heliconia butterfly that had been resting there. Even amongst the gentlest things, thought Jejeune, the rules of life played out.

  “That woman your father was telling us about at Casa de Colibries, the one who could identify individual hummingbirds, did you know her yourself?” Although Jejeune’s question may have sounded casual, Traz realized it was anything but.

  “Mariel? I met her once or twice when my father was treating her. She seemed nice, a little frail perhaps. Fractured, damaged in some way. Many of my father’s patients are like this.” She seemed disinclined to say more, and Jejeune was prepared to let the subject drop until Traz intervened.

  “Her last name; Huaque. It’s not Spanish, is it?”

  “Indigenous, I think.”

  “Karijona?” asked Jejeune, stirring slightly.

  Thea looked at him carefully. “I never asked. In Colombia, it is not always wise to inquire too deeply about a person’s past. It’s enough that they are prepared to be a part of the country’s present, whatever they may have been in a past life.” She gave them one of her smiles. “It’s pretty quiet here,” she said. “I’m not sure there’ll be much bird activity in this heat. I’m going to head back to the lodge and take a nice cool shower. See you at dinner, maybe?”

  They watched her go, her step light and energetic despite the gluey mud tugging at her boots.

  “Something we said?” asked Jejeune.

  “A lot of people have secrets they’d like to keep in this country, JJ. Maybe they were part of something they’d rather not admit to, back when. Asking too much about somebody’s background just makes people nervous, that’s all.”

  The men watched a trail of leaf-cutter ants threading its way across the path, their leaf-segment burdens moving like self-propelled emeralds. They tracked the line until it disappeared into the foliage on the far side of the path.

  “I just don’t understand why Mariel would quit, if she was so close to that bonus,” said Traz.

  “Perhaps she wasn’t up to the trip. You heard Thea. She was frail. A trek into Chiribiquete is taxing enough for a person in good health. A hard drive from Bogota, a boat into the park, and then a three-day hike into the Serranía de Chiribiquete mountains.”

  “Maybe,” said Traz. “Still, it’s strange no one seems to know where she went afterward. I even risked a little Spanish on one of the group. Nobody ever saw or heard from her again once she quit guiding.”

  Traz’s hesitation was so slight others might have missed it. But he and Jejeune had known each other for too long.

  “What else, Traz?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Mariel. In the trip notes she left for Damian when he took over, she warned him not to go to Chiribiquete. She said she foresaw deaths, many deaths. I know what I said about magic not existing here, JJ, but this woman is starting to give me the creeps. And I’ve never even met her.”

  The campfire glowed orange against the surrounding darkness, its intensity contrasting with the pale yellow lights strung across the verandah of the lodge behind them. Around the edge of the fire, the group was gathered in small knots, murmuring quietly to each other or staring silently into the flames. On the far side, near the edge of the circle of light, Armando and Carl Walden stood in earnest conversation. The firelight flickered on their faces, hollowing out eye sockets and cheekbones into skeletal masks. It was strange, thought Jejeune, that even from this distance he could tell they were speaking a different language. He couldn’t have identified it as Spanish, though he knew it would be, but there was something in the cadences, perhaps even the ebb and flow of intensities, that separated it from a conversation in English.

  Traz approached and sat beside Jejeune on the ground, handing him an opened bottle of beer and sipping on his own. His eyes seemed to shine in the firelight. Perhaps this was not his first Club Colombia of the night. The fire crackled slightly and gave a soft rush as a glowing fragment collapsed within its core. The flames guttered, dancing higher, sending fingers of light out over the clearing. The men stared into the fire, transported to somewhere else.

  “Memories, eh?”

  Jejeune nodded and raised the bottle to his lips. “I can’t even remember what we used to talk about around a campfire back in those days.”

  “Damian, probably,” Traz paused, “about whatever trouble he had got himself into, and how we were going to get him out of it. We’ve been doing this a long time, JJ.” He gave Domenic a strange, knowing look. He seemed about to say something else, but he saw Thea approaching and fell silent. She crouched beside Jejeune. “Apparently, there’s a problem with the accommodations for tonight. The room you two were supposed to take has a broken water pipe. There are two other rooms, one here, one at a farmhouse about ten minutes away. Each has only one bed.”

  She looked from Traz to Jejeune. In the firelight, her skin glistened with an orange glow and her pupils took on a tawny, tiger-like intensity. Traz seemed unable to take his eyes off her.

  “The room here is really basic,” she continued. “No fan, slatted windows. For somebody not used to these humid conditions, it could be a long night. They are wondering if it might be best for the inspector to go to the farmhouse.”

  She offered an uncertain smile. The daughter of an American, thought Jejeune, sent to broker a deal with the two Canadians, to deliver the This is South America, after all argument. From the far side of the fire, Armando and Walden watched, waiting to see how the men would react to the news that the accommodations weren’t going to be as advertised; to this apology that wasn’t an apology.

  “You can stay here as long as you like, Inspector,” said Thea. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll run you over there by bike.”

  Jejeune’s easy smile reassured her there would be no problem. She stood and returned to deliver the good news to Armando and her father, treating Traz to a smile as she left. The m
en on the far side of the fire seemed to relax, having picked up on Jejeune’s reaction. They drifted away slightly, into the shadows, to await Thea’s return and her confirmation.

  “Did it look to you like Armando might have something else on his mind when he was staring over here?” asked Traz.

  “Like the thought that you’d be alone in a room now, with Thea only a few doors down, you mean?”

  Traz smiled, as if he hadn’t considered that possibility. He stood up and began to make his way toward her. “I’ll tell her you’re ready to go now, shall I? We’ve got an early start in the morning. You need to get some rest.”

  Jejeune called after him. “Traz, what was it you were going to tell me, before Thea came over?”

  Traz flapped a dismissive hand toward him without turning. “It’ll keep,” he called over his shoulder. “See you at breakfast.”

  29

  Dinner had gone well. Better than well, in fact. Despite spending most of the day cursing herself for extending the invitation in the first place, Lauren Salter had found herself quietly anticipating Marvin Laraby’s visit as the time drew near. Now the only thing to worry about was Max. Some police officers couldn’t seem to tell the difference between a three-year-old and a thirteen-year-old when it came to dealing with kids. Not unless they had a few of their own. She had no idea if Laraby did. Worse still were the ones who saw it as their duty to open a young boy’s eyes to the terrible real­ities life had in store. Salter wouldn’t have considered herself an overly protective mother, but once Max had crossed the threshold of innocence, she knew there would be no bringing him back. She would take as many more nights of cuddles and stories and shared experiences as she could before she was prepared to let him go off into the world. So the second DI Laraby veered toward the seamier side of their profession, she’d be ready to call it a night.

  But he hadn’t. He managed to strike that perfect tone that some adults seem able to find with children, and answered Max’s questions with gravitas and sincerity. If Salter paid particularly close attention, it was because she expected she might be dealing with follow-up questions from Max later, and it would be important to know the context that had raised them.

  “Here’s one you can impress your teacher with on Monday,” Laraby said to Max as Salter distributed the dinner plates. “Did you know that when the Metropolitan Police Force was first established in London it was illegal for them to investigate a crime?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Max. Salter knew he had just acquired the word and she was surprised to see he felt comfortable enough to use it with a stranger.

  “The job of the police was public order, to stop fights and such. Police officers were actually forbidden by law from looking into anyone’s private affairs, so you couldn’t try to find out anything that might help tell if they’d been involved in a crime. Can you imagine? Your mom would be out of a job. She’d have to start working as a fashion model instead.”

  Salter’s look toward Laraby as she sat at the table wasn’t lost on Max, but he had other lines of inquiry to pursue.

  “Is it hard to catch criminals?” he asked, sliding his carrots to the side of his plate with a bravado that suggested he wasn’t expecting his mom to make a scene about vegetables in front of the company.

  “Sometimes. But the thing to remember is that most criminals are not very clever.” Laraby leaned forward to add a confidential note to his response. “To tell you the truth, Max, in my experience, if brains were dynamite, most criminals wouldn’t have enough to blow their hats off.”

  Max laughed and Salter smiled dutifully, even if she wasn’t so sure about the truth of Laraby’s statement. Criminal cunning might not get you a nice piece of rolled-up paper from a university, but it let some people hide their crimes from the police for a very long time. Surely there was some kind of intelligence in that. She took the conversation off in other directions, to avoid it becoming an interrogation. Max’s school life featured strongly, but the two adults managed to exchange a couple of points of view, too.

  As Salter returned the dinner plates to the kitchen, Max’s downward look took Laraby’s eyes to the floor also. He bent and picked up the kitten in one hand, raising it to eye level, exactly as he had done in Erin Dawes’s cottage. It had filled out a little since then, but it still fit comfortably in Laraby’s large hand. He twisted the kitten slightly to bring its face around to meet his own. “A good home?” He made a show of looking around the small, neat living room. “You could do worse, pal. Got a name for him yet?” he asked Max.

  “Mom calls him Laraby.”

  There was a sound of dishes crashing in the kitchen. It was a long time before Salter emerged again. She looked composed as she carried in the dish containing her homemade Duke of Norfolk’s pudding, and offered them both a small smile as she set it down. But the smile had a brittle quality to it, as if the slightest tremor might break it into a thousand pieces. Neither her son nor her guest decided to test it.

  “Hands?” asked Laraby, rising. “Cat hairs,” he explained.

  Salter directed him toward the bathroom and he made it as far as the doorway before turning. “Oh, I nearly forgot, I’ve got a spare ticket for Norwich’s match next Saturday. If either of you can think of anybody who’d like it, let me know, would you? Be a shame to go and sit there all by myself. This way?” he confirmed, before disappearing around the corner. His timing was excellent, as it happened, because it seemed as if Max had something urgent he wanted to discuss with his mother in private.

  Salter recognized that she was approaching, very cautiously, something important. If she’d begun the evening observing Laraby from a cool distance, she had gradually been drawn in, little by little, as the DI exhibited various facets of his character, some surprising, some enlightening, all admirable. There was his engaging way with Max, whom he addressed in the same confiding adult tone her father used with the boy. His answer to Max’s earnest question, for example.

  “Do you like being a detective?”

  Laraby had given the question some serious thought.

  “Not always. But the thing is, Max, it matters. And that’s important. The law is there to make things fair for people. Otherwise, the powerful people would just set the rules. And we couldn’t have that, could we? You know what they used to call the slave classes in the early times, Max? Live money. The rich didn’t even think of them as real people.”

  Having tried it out successfully once earlier in the evening, Max went to his new default response. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. When somebody killed somebody else back in the olden days, they paid a fine; the amount depended on how much value the other person’s life was judged to be worth. Now, I ask you, is that a society you’d like to live in?”

  Max looked uncertain about the word society, but he understood the tenor of the question well enough to give the required answer. He shook his head.

  “Me neither. So, I see being a detective as being about making sure everybody gets treated the same. No exceptions. Nobody gets off just because they’ve got a bit more money, or a fancier house. You do something wrong, you get punished the same as anybody else. Sound fair? ’Course it does!”

  There was his easy self-confidence, too. He was a bright man, a good copper, and if he didn’t need to keep reminding people of the fact, he wasn’t about to pretend it wasn’t true either. But mostly, he was just good company. He seemed free of the angst that plagued so many of the people Salter knew these days. If Laraby had any inner demons, he knew how to keep them hidden. When you invited Marvin Laraby to dinner, what you got was a man who came prepared to eat your food, take an interest in your points of view, and enjoy your hospitality. As the evening progressed, Lauren Salter found herself trying without success to remember when she had enjoyed an evening more.

  Max had made mild protests when his mother told him it was time for bed. She hadn’t heard this before, and she recognized it as one more sign, if sh
e needed any, that her son had also enjoyed the company of their guest.

  When she returned, Laraby was just finishing off the last of his mineral water. He handed the glass to her. “I should be going.”

  “Back to the station?”

  “Me? No. I never understood this idea of poring over records until all hours,” he said. “If the answers are in the paperwork, they’ll still be there when you go in again the next morning. No, I’ll get back and get settled in for the night, and think about what a lovely evening it’s been. Good food, good conversation.” He paused. “Good company.” Laraby shrugged on his topcoat but held up a hand as Salter moved toward the coat rack for her own. “I wouldn’t think of it. Besides, you’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. I’ll get a minicab.”

  Salter dialled, waiting patiently for the pickup. Five minutes, they said. She found herself wanting it to be longer. The two of them stood in an awkward silence in the small hallway. Laraby looked at her seriously. “I’d like to do this again. Perhaps just you and me next time? We could go out for a bite to eat. Somewhere nice, if you think you can find a babysitter.”

  “That’s what grandads are for.” Salter didn’t trust herself with any other response just now. “Can I ask you something … personal?”

  Laraby stood more still. But he didn’t ease away from her. “If you like.”

  “Your marriage. What happened?”

  Laraby thought about it for a moment, head down slightly, the way he seemed to do with serious questions. “Is it important?”

  “It could be. To me. To us.”

  Laraby’s eyes widened slightly, but he still hadn’t backed away. Not a half-step, not a sway, not even a shimmer of movement. The lights of a car lit up the living-room curtains. It was a time for avoiding distractions, so neither of them bothered to announce the minicab’s arrival.

  “I’ll tell you what happened. Domenic Jejeune happened.”