A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

by Steve Burrows

  Traz set his plate down on the floor beside his chair and looked at his friend. “You know what you have to do, JJ,” he said, his voice even and soft. “Let’s take care of it now, then we can get you back to the hotel room. You need to rest.”

  Jejeune shook his head. “She won’t do it.”

  “She has no choice. She committed a crime your brother has been charged with. Maybe they’ll go easy on her. Nobody’s saying it was deliberate. But she has to admit to it. It’s the right thing to do, the human thing.”

  The human thing. So often acting like a human being was upheld as a positive, but in Jejeune’s world, human beings were capable of the worst kinds of depravity. That was acting like a human being, too. What about asking Mariel, this frail, sad, simple woman, to sacrifice her home in this paradise, to swap it for a life in a prison cell? Was that, too, the human thing to do?

  Traz spoke to Mariel slowly, deliberately, without urgency or insistence. He listened to her answer, nodding to acknowledge it, nothing more.

  “I told her she has to come with us to the police, to tell them the truth about what happened. But she says if she does, the authorities will take this place away from her. And for what? Damian has already confessed to the crime.”

  “She’s right,” said Jejeune quietly. “Damian did all the things he’s accused of, going to Chiribiquete despite being denied a licence, taking a man with a communicable illness, contacting the Karijona.”

  “But Graumann was already sick when she took him there. She could sense it.”

  “Unless she’s a medical professional, her opinion would carry no weight. The man declared himself fit to travel. Even when the illness reaches the stage where it’s going to be fatal, it still may not manifest itself fully. She can’t have known for sure what was causing his sickness at that time.”

  “It introduces an element of doubt, surely. Maybe enough for them to clear Damian, or at least reduce the charges. You have to convince her, Dom. You have to try. Despite all you’ve done for him, you owe it to Damian.”

  “No,” said Jejeune simply. “Tell her she doesn’t have to testify. But tell her she must not stay here. Mas Aves think it was me who found her address on that computer. If they find out I was rescued from that pit, they’re going to assume I came looking for her. Mariel’s the only one who could tell me, or the authorities, what really happened.”

  “She’s already said she will refuse to testify.”

  “Mas Aves may not want to take her word for that. If she stays here she could be in danger, Traz. It’s not safe for her to be up here all alone. How much cash to do you have on you?”

  “None. It’s back at the hotel room.”

  Jejeune eased his leg out straight and fished uncomfortably into his pocket for a moment, drawing out some crumpled bills.

  “There’s a few thousand pesos there, maybe a hundred dollars. Tell her to take it and go somewhere safe. Just for a few days. Once Mas Aves know I have the whole story, it will be too late to try to silence her.”

  Traz looked at Jejeune incredulously. “She’s your brother’s only hope for justice, JJ. And you want to give her money so she can go into hiding?”

  But he didn’t sound angry. And there was a strange understanding in his face when he looked at Jejeune again. “You don’t do much for my love life, but I can think of worse things than being your friend.”

  39

  Maik was watching from the window in Jejeune’s office as the new Jaguar XF swept into the car park. Even though it was cold, the window was open a crack, just as DCI Jejeune liked it. Through it, Maik could hear the various noises of approval as Salter and Shepherd came down the steps to greet DI Laraby.

  “Got to have something to run around in for a few days, haven’t I, now that Sergeant Maik’s Mini is out of commission? I thought I’d treat myself. Besides, I’ve got a very important appointment to keep on Saturday.”

  He looked knowingly at Salter, and from his vantage point, Maik saw the exchange register with Shepherd. She would misinterpret the situation, he knew, but the signals she would get would be accurate anyway.

  There had been a shift in the landscape at Saltmarsh Station during Laraby’s absence. It was as if his injuries in the line of duty had earned him a place among them now. DCS Shepherd was regarding him with that same look of solicitous concern she bestowed on the rest of her team at such times.

  “And you’re sure you’re okay to return to work? We do value your contributions, but —”

  “But you don’t want me stumbling around all fuzzy-headed and confused. Any more than usual, anyway,” he said with a grin. “It’ll take more than a conk on the old noggin to put me out of action. The MO has given me the all-clear. I have to say, though, whoever came up with that Concussion Protocol has got the right idea. You can’t be too careful with head injuries.”

  Maik was pretty sure it had come up in conversation just whose initiative the Concussion Protocol was. But perhaps it had just slipped Laraby’s mind, a minor effect of that conk on the old noggin. Shepherd wasn’t about to point out whose idea it was, but she hadn’t missed the comment. She returned to the building with a satisfied smile, leaving Salter alone with Laraby. Maik couldn’t hear their murmured exchange and withdrew from the window, not wanting to be a part of it. But it would have been hard to miss the radiant smile Salter was showing Laraby upon his return. Or the message it conveyed.

  Maik was still in Jejeune’s office when Laraby entered. The sergeant seemed to have something important to say, but the way he was studying a Saltmarsh skyline he must have seen a thousand times was a clue that he wasn’t going to come right out with it yet.

  “Another cold one out there, Sergeant. I’ll bet this place sees some punishing temperatures when the storms come in off the sea.”

  The weather wasn’t one of Maik’s favourite topics, but it would do for now.

  “Sometimes, it seems like it’s colder out here on the clear days. I’ve been out there in bright sunshine when the air is so cold it takes your breath away.”

  Laraby nodded and moved to take a seat behind the desk. Jejeune’s chair, thought Maik. In Jejeune’s office.

  “I saw an impressive example of high-end legal talent in the waiting room as I came in. Oakes’s brief, I take it, here for the formal ID?”

  Maik confirmed that it was.

  “Good. As soon as we get that, he’s ours. With Oakes’s lifestyle, flitting off to America and back all the time, I can’t see a judge granting bail.” He nodded to himself. “It’ll give us time to come up with a motive. We’ll start with a relationship gone south and work backward from there.”

  From the window, a stream of pale light painted a trail across the hardwood floor to the desk, and to Laraby behind it. Maik looked at the DI. “The cup left in the kitchen, the one with Oakes’s DNA on it, James has a set of them in the galley on The Big Deal,” he said. “But there are only five. It seems like an odd number.”

  Laraby eased the chair back from the desk slightly and thought for a moment. “James blames Dawes for ruining his reputation. But if he’s going to kill her, he needs to pin it on someone. When Oakes goes round to the boat to pick up his drone, James offers him tea and saves the cup to plant it later?” He looked up at Maik. “Is that where we’re going with this, Danny? Or did Oakes pinch the cup off James when he was there? Took it as payment for that photo he gave him, perhaps?” He gave Maik a smile, to let him know he was joking, and switched direction so abruptly it took Maik a second to realize the question was directed to him.

  “Was it DCI Jejeune who asked about Ray Hayes?”

  Maik froze at the window. The answer would tell Laraby that he’d been in touch with Jejeune. He wasn’t one for babbling explanations of his conduct, but the inference was clear; Danny had been providing progress reports to the DCI while he was away. And perhaps he had, if not quite in the way Laraby would have understood it.

  He turned to face the DI, who had pushed himself fa
rther away from the desk, letting the wheels of the chair roll him where they would. He sat now with his hands folded in his lap — a man with forever at his disposal — to wait for the truth.

  “He didn’t say why,” said Maik.

  “No, but I think we both know, don’t we? That explosion.” Laraby shook his head. “I’ve been giving it some thought since you brought his name up. It wasn’t Hayes. That explosion was against the wall directly alongside the desk of that girl, what’s her name … Lindy? If she’d have been sitting there, she’d have been killed outright.” For the second time in as many moments, Laraby shook his head. “That’s not Hayes’s style. I told you, he likes to stalk them first, let them know he’s coming. That woman he killed, a week before it happened, her car had caught fire inside her garage. They put it down to a spark off a worn battery cable. Then a propane tank went off in her garden shed. Faulty seal. She knew it was Hayes. He’d told her he’d be coming for her after they broke up. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. She pleaded with the investigating officers to listen to her.” Laraby fell silent for a moment, gazing at some inner landscape that he seemed reluctant to visit. There was a long beat of silence before he spoke again. “But you know how it is, we were busy with other cases, and she was a bit hysterical to begin with, so ….” It took some effort, but Laraby brought himself back to the present. “There’d been no previous incidents with this Lindy, had there?”

  “There’s none on file.” Jejeune had never mentioned any either, and Maik was pretty sure something like that would’ve made it into the DCI’s pre-departure briefing.

  Laraby smiled a little, as if he had been watching for something in Maik, and had perhaps seen it. “Can I ask you something? Do you ever wonder why DCI Jejeune never mentions me?” From his low-slung position in Jejeune’s chair, Laraby raised his eyebrows as he looked at Maik. “His mentor, the one who showed him the ropes. You must have wondered about it, a smart copper like you. Oh, don’t worry,” he said, as Maik stirred uneasily and cast a glance at the door, “I won’t be roping you into our little drama. But you’ve worked with me. Any reason you can see why you and I couldn’t get along?”

  “No.”

  Laraby’s question was a reasonable one. It deserved an honest answer, and Maik had no reason to avoid giving one. So why did it feel like any answer he could have given the DI would have been wrong?

  “I value loyalty, Danny. A lot.” Laraby leaned forward a little, striving for sincerity. It was an incongruous arrangement for such a conversation, thought Danny fleetingly, the DI sitting in a chair in the centre of the room and Danny standing half an office away. There was an awkwardness about it that didn’t seem right. “If you had been asked to look into Ray Hayes, I wouldn’t have any problem with that. I can tell you he’s wrong. Hayes didn’t have anything to do with this. It’s an accident, just as it appears to be. But it’s his girl, and I understand. If he wanted you to have a poke around, it wouldn’t change my opinion of you. You’re still an officer I’d be happy to have on my staff. All I’d ask is that you come to me directly. Let me know what you’re up to. That’s all.”

  Any comment Maik was going to offer was stilled by a hesitant knock on the door and Constable Salter poking her head around without waiting for an answer. The sunshine smiles from the car park had disappeared. She looked like she would rather not be here. Laraby stood up. He made no move to approach her, but he slid his hands into his trouser pockets and straightened his back.

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” he asked with a thin smile.

  “No.”

  Laraby waited. Pauses for dramatic effect were part of Salter’s repertoire, but Maik recognized this as the real thing: hesitation.

  “There’s been a development, sir. Some kids found a bag on the riverbank, snagged on an overhanging branch. There was a set of clothes inside. A cap and a leather jacket. The cap has some makeup on it. We’re checking now, but we’re pretty sure it’s Gillian Forsyth’s. As far as they can tell, both items are brand new. No signs of wear at all.”

  Laraby looked at Maik. “Bought for the purpose, then?”

  The tension in the room was palpable, but Maik could tell Salter wasn’t finished. From his slowly forming look of concern, Laraby had come to the same conclusion.

  “There was something else in the bag, too. A false moustache and beard — a goatee like Robin Oakes’s.”

  Laraby considered the information for a long time.

  “Any prints, Constable?” asked Maik.

  Salter nodded. “A lot on the clothes; the kids showed the stuff to their teachers, their parents. The thing is, we’ve eliminated all those, and there’s still one set left. On the jacket.”

  “Just one?”

  Salter’s silence answered Laraby.

  “Even with all my years of experience, I couldn’t tell you who that set of prints belongs to, Constable Salter,” he said quietly. “But I can tell you who it doesn’t. It’s not Robin Oakes, is it?”

  “No, sir. Not him.” Something in the way she said it revealed the truth. Even before Maik had formed the words of the question, he knew the answer. And Laraby did, too.

  “Positive ID?”

  Salter nodded. “One hundred percent. The prints belong to Connor James.”

  40

  If there was a sense of casual decay in Bogota’s old quarter, it was not accompanied by hopelessness. In the glimpses of former glories afforded Domenic Jejeune as he walked past the once-magnificent structures, there was a certain stateliness to the decline. There seemed to be an inevitability to it all, as if the gradual slipping away of the old buildings was part of some natural order. In Colombia, so much of the new was being built on top of the old; it was as if the country’s history was nurturing the growth of the coming era.

  Jejeune had taken this early-morning stroll around the near-deserted streets surrounding the hotel as a way of combatting his restlessness, but his ankle was starting to throb again, and it was time to return to his room. With each passing hour, his conviction grew that his appeal to the Colombian Attorney General would be declined. He had spent an afternoon in a small air-conditioned office somewhere deep in the bowels of the Colombian Ministry of Justice and Law. The prevailing sentiment seemed to be that any special consideration to which his rank may have en­­titled him had been used up in securing this video conference. His cache of goodwill was empty now, and his case would be considered on its merits only.

  He had painstakingly gone through his explanation with the representative of the AG’s office; the desire of a dying man to see the fourteen Colombian endemic hummingbirds, the offer of a bonus a sign that money was no longer his major consideration; rather, time was.

  “Although Mariel Huaqua had told Mas Aves that Graumann was very sick, they had no reason to suspect his illness was contagious. He’d travelled with Mariel Huaqua and she showed no signs of infection. But she had spent a lot of time in cities, in hospitals. She has a modern-world immune system and had likely been vaccinated against many diseases. But the company did know Graumann was too sick to travel, and that whatever he was suffering from, he shouldn’t have been allowed to come into contact with the Karijona. They knew if they revealed to Damian that Graumann had been forced to return from Chiribiquete once because of illness, my brother would not have taken him the second time. So they made up the story that Mariel had quit in Urrao and told Graumann to stay silent about his previous trip.”

  But Jejeune had always known that the word of a man desperate enough to come to Colombia in an effort to exonerate his brother would not be enough. The glitchy quality of the video feed gave the movements of the head on the screen a robotic feel. The representative’s English was equally mechanical.

  “But there is no one willing to verify this earlier visit to Chiribiquete? The Karijona who you claim came into contact with this man are dead, as is Graumann himself. And this guide, Mariel Huaqua, she has not come forward to support this version of events.”
Though the pixilated face betrayed no expression, the voice sounded surprised, perhaps even a little affronted, that Jejeune would come without such proof. “You must understand, Inspector, it is not that I doubt your word, but this case has gained national attention. There are questions which touch the government’s duty of care to its indigenous peoples. To turn this into a matter about one man’s desire to see a rare bird …” Two grainy hands appeared at the sides of the screen. “However, this decision is not mine. I will relay your position to the relevant authorities for their consideration. You will be contacted with their decision in due course.”

  Jejeune watched the slowly disappearing screen for a moment after the man had signed off, wondering whether his hopes, too, were doomed to fade into nothingness.

  As he approached the hotel, he saw a yellow taxi idling at the curb. Traz was waiting for him in the lobby. “I thought we could take a trip out to Casa de Colibries again. We can grab breakfast in La Calera on the way. I’d like another shot at seeing the Sword-billed.”

  Jejeune smiled. It was probably true, although the way Traz was fervently over-selling the idea suggested he was just looking to avoid another day of lounging around the hotel lobby, waiting for due course to produce an answer from the Justice Department that Jejeune was increasingly certain was going to be negative.

  As they took their place at a small table in the courtyard, Traz looked around anxiously.

  “They won’t be coming,” Jejeune assured him. “My guess is the Waldens left the country as soon as you disappeared from the tour. They must have suspected you were going to try to find me. Carl Walden, at least, would have been on the first plane out. Thea wouldn’t have wanted her father around to answer questions if you decided to go to the police.”