A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

by Steve Burrows

  Jejeune pulled on his bottom lip and stared thoughtfully through the windscreen.

  “I worked those estates when I was first with the Met,” he said. “The kids didn’t often get the benefit of the doubt. The officers at the Met don’t like to lose. A few of them were known to get impatient, waiting for proof to show up.”

  Danny waved a car over from another lane, though this one was moving no faster. “I looked into James’s previous arrests,” he said. “If somebody was inventing evidence, there’s no suggestion they were trying to pin the crimes on the wrong person.”

  But Maik was still unsure. Jejeune could tell. There was something that wasn’t fitting for him. And Jejeune knew his sergeant well enough to understand that if it was troubling Danny, he would probably have some doubts of his own.

  “Nothing wrong with the evidence in this case, is there?”

  Maik moved his shoulders again. “No one else’s fingerprints are on the leather jacket. And the cup in the cottage with Oakes’s DNA comes from James’s boat. He claims he knows nothing about it, but it didn’t get there by itself.”

  Jejeune was quiet. Two pieces of evidence, a cup and a disguise. Both attempts to point the police toward Oakes, but they did it in different ways. It was as if two different forces were at work. But fatigue was starting to take over again, and he couldn’t bring his mind to concentrate on whatever it was that was bothering him. The traffic started to move more freely and before long the Range Rover was easing along at a steady clip. The gentle rocking and the low hush of the tires on the road surface became a lullaby for Jejeune, and despite his efforts, he slid into a deep sleep.

  Maik raised the passenger window, but he left the low music on. It was probably three hours to Saltmarsh, and he wasn’t expecting to have any other company on the trip. He took a brief look across at the sleeping DCI. He had brought his quick mind to the case, filtering information, sorting clues, asking all the right questions with an evident active interest. But the one topic he hadn’t asked about during the entire conversation was how the investigation had been conducted. Of the techniques and operating procedures and working theories of his one-time boss, DI Marvin Laraby, Jejeune had not made a single mention.

  44

  Shepherd and Laraby were sitting in a quiet corner of The Boatman’s Arms. From her vantage point, she could see the lobby, where the whitewashed wall displayed a fresh-looking gouge in the shape of the door handle. She wondered if it had happened the night of the explosion, when the impact of the blast had sent the door bursting inward. Her eyes drifted around the room. She had no doubt that many of this crowd were in the pub that night, but the comforting normality of their daily ritual in here seemed to have airbrushed the incident from their minds already. She found it reassuring, and yet, at the same time, faintly troubling that Saltmarsh could settle so quickly on its axis again after such a traumatic event and continue as if it had been entirely unaffected by it.

  On the noticeboard behind them was a poster advertising an upcoming karaoke night.

  “I suppose if I was to make this my local, I’d have to get up to speed on my singing,” said Laraby, nodding at the poster. “It seems to be a mandatory requirement in here. You know what I’ve just noticed, as well? There’s no TV.”

  Shepherd took a sip of her wine. “Nor will there ever be as long as Jackie Tatlow is the proprietor. People come in here at lunchtime to enjoy a quiet drink, not follow the stock market or the latest failings of the Whitehall crowd.”

  Laraby watched a man in a tweed jacket approach the bar. The barman greeted him with a friendly smile while the man on a stool beside him reached down and ruffled the ears of the man’s aging English pointer, greeting the dog even before its master.

  Laraby smiled. “That’s not something you see much of in London anymore.”

  The DCS smiled at the comment. “If bringing a dog into a pub is the biggest difference you’ve noticed between here and London, you haven’t been paying attention.”

  Laraby took a drink from his water bottle. “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t take a bit of getting used to, being up here,” he said, “but there’s a lot to like — this countryside, the wide open spaces. I was standing on the coast just the other day, as a matter of fact, watching the surf pounding in on the rocks.” He leaned back again, making a point of looking around the pub. “You might think it’s a strange thing to say, but murder seems worse here, somehow, in a quiet, decent, honest little place like this. It makes you want to try harder to preserve this way of life, to put all the pieces back in place, so people can get on with their lives again, safe, unafraid.” He tipped his head back a little, breaking the mood, and took another swig from his bottle, holding it by the neck and waving it around slightly afterward. “Aah, ignore me …” he said with a broad smile, “it’s just the water talking.”

  The low murmur of conversation around them seemed to amplify Shepherd’s silence.

  “I’ve been made aware of a request for the station to be informed if anyone knows the whereabouts of a man called Ray Hayes.” She stared at Laraby, eyebrows raised.

  “An old collar of mine,” said Laraby easily. “He got released recently. I should have been informed, but it never happened. They had no idea where to find me. Typical bureaucratic cock-up.”

  Shepherd shook her head. “What’s the collective noun for bureaucrats, I wonder? A lobotomy would be my suggestion. So nothing for me to worry about then?”

  “Not a thing. Just my curiosity, that’s all.”

  Shepherd held up her wine, the glass reflecting an amber glow from the room’s wall lamps. The pointer had settled peacefully beneath his owner’s bar stool, and the ambient noise of the lunchtime crowd didn’t seem to be disturbing its rest in the least. Beside her, a fire crackled in the grate. She had a glass of good Chardonnay in her hand. And now she got to tell the man opposite her he would be getting the reward his work deserved. She’d had worse lunch hours.

  “It wasn’t just for a bottle of fizzy water that I brought you here,” said Shepherd. “You’ll have already heard, I’m sure, that a DCI position is coming up at Minton. As is often the case, they’ve come to the Detective Chief Supers to see if we have any recommendations.” She paused and looked at him. “I have.”

  Laraby hung his head slightly, in what might have been humility. “I would be honoured to be put up for it, of course, but I’m sure there’ll be other candidates. I’d be surprised if Minton wasn’t looking for an up-and-comer, some high-flier to bring over a bit of that outside-the-box thinking. You know, the kind you’ve been such a big proponent of here in Saltmarsh. I don’t know if you realize it, DCS Shepherd, but some of the innovations you’ve put in place here, they’ve not gone unnoticed.”

  Shepherd looked at Laraby steadily. “Then, presumably, that should mean a recommendation from me would carry considerable weight,” she said evenly. “I suppose what I’m telling you is that the position would be yours, if you’re interested.” She sipped her wine again. “I understand that you’d need to give it some thought. It’s a big step. And a new area like Minton, it would be quite a change from the Met, I suppose.”

  Laraby inclined his head to acknowledge the point. “The thing is, people think the City is all blokes swilling pink gin and calling each other my dear chap, but it’s not all as sophisticated and refined as they might imagine. There’s a lot of grit and grime down there.” He smiled and took another sip of his water. “Listen to me, carrying on as if you lot up here still think London is broken up into Monopoly colours, and any street with four houses on it gets a hotel. You must get a bit sick of know-it-alls swanning up from The Smoke and treating you as if you’ve never seen electric lighting before.”

  “We get used to it,” said Shepherd with a smile. But she didn’t deny it. Behind him, she watched as the pub’s owner rounded the bar and set down a steel bowl of water beside the dog.

  “On the house. I mean his drink, not yours,” he said, pointing to
the man on the stool.

  “Perhaps you should have asked for yours in a bowl instead of a bottle,” Shepherd told Laraby. She became serious. “The Dawes case. You know the CPS is saying that for all the evidence pointing to Connor James, they’re not entirely convinced about the motive.”

  Laraby nodded. “With respect, ma’am, that’s because they don’t come from his world. They don’t understand how hard he worked to get inside their circle, having to put up with their airs and graces, always being seen, if we’re being honest, as nothing more than some raggedy-arsed chancer who could make them a few quid.”

  “Like Dawes herself, you mean? You think that’s what James found so hard to accept? That she was from the same background, that she must have known how hard it was for him to get where he was, and yet she was still willing to destroy it all for him by stealing the IV League’s funds?”

  “He’d spent the better part of his life building up to where he was. Now he’d arrived, those were the sorts of contacts that would have set him up for life. She took all that away from him.”

  “It would help if we could get James to say all this himself. I understand he’s no closer to confessing.”

  Laraby shook his head. “He’s been around the circuit. He knows it’s up to us to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.”

  “And can we?”

  “Already have, as far as I’m concerned. But if the CPS wants more, we’ll get it for them. There will be something in amongst the evidence we’ve already collected — a witness statement, a report, something that will be enough to convince them.” He set his water bottle down on the table and leaned forward a little. “I’ve been thinking. Now that DCI Jejeune is back, I imagine he’ll be having a bit of trouble adjusting to the idea of sitting this one out. I’m not saying we need to have him cover what we already know, but we could get him sifting through the evidence again, just to check we haven’t missed anything. Contrary to the rumours, I’m not perfect.”

  Shepherd leaned toward Laraby, as if it was very important she understood this point clearly. “Are you saying you’d welcome his involvement?”

  Laraby shrugged easily. “We need to get the right result, and that means putting personal differences aside.”

  Across the room, the barman set a steaming steak pie in front of the man in the tweed jacket. The dog stirred slightly, as if expecting that the occasional piece might find its way down to him. Shepherd suspected the dog might be right.

  “This business between you and DCI Jejeune,” she said, without taking her eyes off the dog. “It stems from the case involving the Home Secretary’s daughter, doesn’t it?”

  “In a way.” Laraby picked up his water bottle and took a long drink before returning it to the table. “We were investigating the death of a young lad on an inner city estate when the call came in about that case. Understandably, they were looking for recruits to be seconded to the detail; high-profile case like that, you wouldn’t have expected otherwise. I felt we were getting close to a breakthrough on our own case, and I argued we should see it through first.” He shrugged. “I like to finish what I’ve started. It’s just the way I was brought up. But Sergeant Jejeune, as he was then, he couldn’t get away fast enough. I suppose he always thought he was destined for greater things. And let’s face it, he was right. Once he’d volunteered, it was inevitable that, as his immediate supervisor, I would get drafted to go along and keep an eye on him.” Laraby looked around, as if unsure whether to deliver the next sentence. In the end, he gave his shoulders another easy roll. “I’m not saying he didn’t care about the lad on the estate. He just seemed to care more about the Home Secretary’s daughter. It just never really sat right with me, that’s all, and things between us went downhill from there.”

  Shepherd seemed to consider the information for a long time. She looked at her watch. “We should be getting back.”

  But instead of rising, Laraby eased back in his seat and slid his hands into his trouser pockets, puffing out his chest slightly. “Listen, if you think Minton could use my services, modest as they may be, I’d be delighted to accept. The only thing I would request is that I get to stay on here and see this Erin Dawes case through to the end. As I say, I like to finish what I start.”

  “Oh, I think we can arrange that,” said Shepherd, draining her wine. As she stood up, she looked around the pub again. Its history was etched into its walls, the uneven floors, the long wooden bar shiny with elbow polish. Despite all the force’s emphasis on modernity and progress, there was a lot to be said for traditional values, too.

  45

  Lindy had declined the invitation to go up to the Deputy Consul’s office with Domenic. Instead, she had remained seated on the brown leather couch in the cavernous marble atrium, flicking listlessly through the messages on her phone, in clear violation of the sign on the wall of a circled cellphone with a red diagonal line drawn through its heart. The security guard had made one half-hearted approach, but Lindy had stopped him in his tracks with one of her special smiles and he had retreated to his post, from where he continued to cast the occasional furtive glance in her direction.

  The echo of Domenic’s awkward shuffle down the wide marble staircase reached her long before he came into view. He gave her a tight smile, but said nothing as he waited for her to tuck away her phone and stand up. They walked across the lobby’s harlequin-patterned tiles and waited wordlessly, side by side, until the security guard buzzed the door open for them.

  When they got outside, she turned to him. “Well?”

  “No decision. Mariel Huaqua is considered an unreliable witness, though nobody seems willing to say why exactly. The government is considering her testimony, but on its own it may not be enough.”

  The wind swirled Lindy’s hair around her head as she turned to look at him. “On its own? What else is there?”

  Jejeune was silent for a long time. “Nothing. There is nothing else. Their decision to reopen the investigation or stay the charges against Damian depends entirely on whether they choose to accept Mariel’s account.”

  From their position on the top step of the Colombian consulate building, they could see the busy traffic on Sloane Street heading down toward Knightsbridge. It was the lower tier of the scene Jejeune had seen from the window of Carmela Rojas’s office. He realized her office must be directly above the portico of this door. She would be at the window now, he imagined, watching for his departure. He resisted the temptation to look up at the window.

  Lindy touched his arm. “It’s okay, Dom. You did everything you could. Everything it was possible to do. You proved your brother’s innocence.”

  “Unless the Colombians agree to withdraw the charges, nothing changes. He’ll still be a fugitive under an international warrant.”

  “That doesn’t matter, not to Damian. Surely you must understand that? It was never about the warrant. It was the guilt he wanted to be free from. You did that for him, Domenic. You took away his responsibility for killing four people. He’s a free man now, whether the Colombians withdraw the charges or not.”

  Jejeune shook his head. “He deserves more than that. All he’s guilty of is failing to secure a permit to enter a national park. That shouldn’t be a life sentence. For anybody.”

  Lindy let it drop. The truth was, there was much more at stake. They both knew Damian would never contact Domenic again as long as he remained a fugitive. He had almost cost his brother his career once, and no matter how deep his gratitude that his conscience had been cleared, he wouldn’t put Domenic at risk again.

  They descended the steps and began walking in the direction of Hyde Park. The destination had been a favourite of theirs when they first met. It was warmer then, and the lime trees lining the pathways had provided a glorious canopy of leaves to shelter them from the sun. Perhaps neither of them had thought much about the future during those strolls, but for Lindy, these days, her thoughts were of little else.

  They walked among the bundled-up early
Christmas shoppers and bought shade-grown Colombian coffees at a small specialty café. They entered the park and followed a gravel path down to a bench by the water.

  “I’ve had Danny’s jacket cleaned, so you can give it back to him when you see him next.”

  “His jacket?”

  “The one he brought to the airport for you. There were one or two marks on it, but it’s come out looking like new.”

  “He brought me a jacket,” said Jejeune slowly, speaking almost to himself, like someone trying to remember something. He stared at the lake, lost in thought.

  Lindy had experienced Jejeune’s distance before, been a victim of it, she might have said. But previously it had been work-related, as Jejeune had retreated into a shell to consider some aspect of a case, wheedle out some connection, or interpret some piece of evidence. This was different. There was an edginess about him that had been interposing itself between them since he had returned from Colombia. She had thought it was tied in to the decision hanging over Damian’s fate, but it was here now, hovering as darkly over them as ever, despite the Colombian embassy fading into the distance behind them.

  “We haven’t been here for years, Dom. I’d say it’s highly unlikely anybody familiar is going to show up.”

  Jejeune looked puzzled.

  “You’ve been staring at everybody that’s passed us. Are you expecting to see someone you know?”

  “Sorry, just the policeman on duty, I guess. Ever vigilant.” He tried a faux dramatic gesture, one of a number of ways of dissembling that he wasn’t very good at.

  It was part of a pattern Lindy had noticed since he had appeared unannounced at the front door of the cottage a couple of days ago. His hug had been long and lingering, and she had no doubts about its sincerity. Her own feelings, too, swamped any fears her mind had been trying to taunt her with. Dom was here again. She felt like a missing part of her had been replaced and she felt a wholeness and balance she had not known since it was ripped from her by the explosion.