A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  “It’s been one of those areas that has fascinated me for years, to tell you the truth,” said Eric. “You know, what do you people see in it? Am I missing out on something? So I decided to throw myself in at the deep end. Lindy says she can’t think of anyone better to show me the ropes.”

  “I’m not sure about that, but certainly there could be no one more willing.”

  “I thought I might like to turn it into a feature for the magazine, too, chronicling my experiences as I try to become a bona fide birder. That means we’d want to include some bits of your wisdom, a few tips, insights about bird behaviour, that sort of thing, if that would be okay.”

  “Of course,” said Senior heartily. “If you’re sure you want to expose your poor readers to my piffle, I’d have no objections at all.”

  “I believe Eric had me pencilled in for the feature part of it,” said Lindy, smiling confidingly at Senior, “but I think we both know that was never going to happen.”

  “You’ll have to forgive Ms. Hey,” Senior said, turning to Eric with mock seriousness. “She’s still fighting the call herself, you see. You strike me as a man of certain experience, Mr. Chappell. Is anything quite as tragic, I wonder, as watching a young heart deny its true destiny?”

  Eric smiled, aware he had entered in the second act of an ongoing drama. But though he may not know Quentin Senior yet, he clearly knew Lindy well enough to decide that a middle ground was the safest. He marked his position on the matter with a measured silence.

  “Right … birding,” said Senior brightly. “Let’s get started. Rule one, I suppose, is always try to give a bird a decent look. I was out here one day and I saw a female Reed Bunting. Didn’t even give it a second glance. And then I heard that distinctive tic. — Little Bunting, can you believe it? I’d have passed right by if it hadn’t given that call, and I’d have missed one of the rarest visitors to these parts. Since then, I’ve seen plenty of birds I couldn’t identify, and failed to get on plenty more, but it’s never been for want of trying.”

  As if to demonstrate the point, he snapped his bins up swiftly now, lowering them after a brief glance over the fields. Lindy couldn’t help smiling. “Better buckle up, Eric,” she said. But she could tell he was already captivated by Senior’s enthusiasm, as she always was.

  “Why don’t we take a walk down toward the beach, see if there are any gulls to work on? Might as well throw you in at the deep end,” said Senior breezily. “Would you care to join us, Ms. Hey?”

  He undoubtedly already knew her answer, but she recognized it was courtesy, rather than mischief, that required him to ask. She had seen Quentin Senior stand as a woman left a dining table. Such old school manners would never have permitted him to take his leave today without first making his offer.

  Lindy shook her head. “Other plans, sadly,” she said with mock regret. “Besides, I’m expecting Dom home any time, possibly this evening.”

  From somewhere off to their left, a mixed flock of waders flushed suddenly, startling them. Senior raised his bins and tracked them as they flew off low across the exposed mudflat, peeping their alarm calls. Both Lindy and Eric saw the look of quiet contentment that spread across his features as he watched them go.

  “And you could identify all those, I assume?” said Eric.

  “Dunlin,” said Senior, “Green Sandpiper, a Sanderling or two. Though I was once told that it is novices who identify birds. Apparently, experienced birders recognize them.” He gave them a soft smile. “Or am I trying too hard to provide you with suitable copy? Curlew, Eric, behind you, flying to the left!”

  Senior’s sudden announcement caused the man to spin in time to see a large bird disappearing over the reed beds on low, lazy wing beats. As it rose over a distant berm, Lindy saw two other birders, in silhouette, standing to watch the Curlew’s progress. It would have spoiled the scene a little for Dom, she thought, the presence of people. He liked his vistas pristine, empty of any evidence of humans. The non-natural things, he called them, as if human beings shouldn’t be a part of this landscape, didn’t belong. He was a man of such absolutes sometimes; it was difficult to see how life could ever satisfy such an exacting view of the world. But Domenic loved birding at Cley, and she knew he would come here as soon as he returned. Perhaps he would meet Senior, and Eric. Slowly, it seemed as if all the men she cared about were disappearing into birding. The thought made her strangely sad as she left the two men to their newfound friendship and made her way alone back along the trail to the car park.

  9

  “Now there’s a man who looks like he didn’t get much sleep last night,” announced Iron McLeod boldly as he strode into the hotel’s breakfast room. The other diners turned in surprise and suppressed grins at Jejeune’s sheepish reaction to the good-natured ribbing.

  The inspector was sitting at a small table nestled neatly into the bay window of the room. Weak sunshine was filtering in through the net curtains, spilling pools of light onto the white linen tablecloth.

  “Strong night, was it, sampling the fleshpots of Ullapool?” McLeod nodded down at Jejeune’s half-finished breakfast. “Never mind pushing it off to one side of your plate, man, you need to get some of that haggis and black pudding down you. That’ll set you up for the day, right enough.”

  McLeod leaned back easily on the rear legs of the chair and gave a lavish wink to the waitress who had delivered a second silver pot of coffee to Jejeune. She smiled shyly in return, enjoying his attentions. With his short, sandy hair and his neatly trimmed beard, McLeod looked well suited to play the lead in a young girl’s dreams, thought Jejeune idly, even if his florid features and rugged, powerful hands suggested he might be more the type for solitary outdoor pursuits.

  “I was wondering,” said Jejeune casually, “is there any thought that this business is any more than it looks?”

  McLeod tipped forward and eyed him warily. “If you’re not going to eat that toast, would you mind? My daughter was running late for school today, and I had no time to grab any breakfast for myself.”

  Jejeune pushed the untouched toast toward him.

  “More than it looks?” said McLeod, taking an inordinate amount of care to spread marmalade onto the toast, a task which left him no attention to return Jejeune’s gaze. “Now, why would you ask a question like that, I wonder?”

  “Because you said the man was wearing a high-end waterproof jacket,” Jejeune said. “And a person who invests that much in outdoor wear probably knows enough not to go out hiking without the proper equipment. But you said he had nothing with him, this man, no pack, no water bottle. It just seems strange, that’s all.”

  McLeod nodded. “Plenty enough that’s strange about this case, though, isn’t there, Inspector Jejeune? Now that you’ve had some time to sleep on it, did you think of anything more that you could tell us about that book. Or about the man who had it?”

  It hadn’t been necessary for McLeod to take Jejeune down to the mortuary before setting out for Sgurr Fiona yesterday. He had texted a picture to the detective from the south and had a better-quality printed copy waiting to show him when he arrived. Jejeune confirmed that he’d never seen the man before, and had no idea who he was. The DCI suspected that, like himself, McLeod was not a policeman who made a habit of asking the same question twice. He would know, as Jejeune did, that people rarely changed their answers the second time of asking. If they had answered truthfully in the first place, there was no need to. If they had lied, they had no option but to stay with their first response.

  Jejeune shook his head slowly. “Nothing comes to mind.” Other than his name, he thought, and how he came to this country. The deceptions continued to mount. They were like ants on his skin. He couldn’t wait to shake them off, get away from this place, get home, to shower off the lies and feel the freshness again of unguarded … what? Honesty? Hardly, with Lindy unaware of exactly who she would be harbouring under her roof. But if not honesty then, what? Truth, of a sort. No more lies, at least.
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br />   McLeod bit into the toast and chewed it slowly. He looked at Jejeune carefully.

  “No, I didn’t expect anything would,” he said.

  Jejeune seemed to find something interesting about the walls of the breakfast room, and it was a moment before he turned to face McLeod again. When he did, he found the other man’s gaze waiting to meet him.

  “Do you know when your department might be able to release the book?”

  “Ah, now then, that would be down to me,” said McLeod. “Would there be any more coffee in that pot, d’ye think?” He reached over to a neighbouring table and snared a cup from the place setting.

  Jejeune drew the cup toward him and began pouring. “The book?” he said, in a tone which suggested that he, too, had all the time in the world.

  “I’d be willing to release it to you right now. Just the one puzzle to be answered.”

  On the far side of the breakfast table, Jejeune finished pouring with an immaculately steady hand. He slid the cup across the table. McLeod stirred in cream lavishly and took a long drink. “Now that’s a fine cup of coffee.”

  Jejeune said nothing.

  “Fingerprints,” announced McLeod. “The dead man’s aren’t on it.”

  Jejeune turned for a moment to take in life on the far side of the bay window. Whatever was out there, it didn’t hold his interest for very long. “I can see how that would be a problem,” he said at his most reasonable again. He turned his gaze to McLeod. “Although …”

  “Although, there could be any number of explanations for that.” McLeod gave the table a resounding slap with his broad, weathered hand, making the cutlery bounce. “That’s exactly what I said. He could have been wearing gloves when he put it in his pocket, for example, and then taken them off and left them in his room before he set out to climb the Fiona. All we need to do is find out where he was staying, locate the gloves, and Bob’s your uncle. Mystery solved.” He looked at Jejeune carefully, gauging the other man’s face for a reaction.

  “Did I mention I had a nice chat with that Sergeant Maik of yours down in Norfolk? He couldnae say enough about you. You can tell a lot about a person by the kind of loyalty they inspire in the people who work for them, I always find.” He searched Jejeune’s face with his eyes for a moment. “Can I ask you something, Inspector?” he asked, his tone more conversational now, more relaxed.

  “Of course,” said Jejeune guardedly, raising his coffee cup to his lips.

  “You’re obviously a birder, or else why would you have had that book in the first place. Have you ever seen a white eagle?”

  Jejeune stopped drinking.

  “I’m sure I saw one up on the Fiona about two months ago. Does such a bird exist?”

  “Not as far as I know,” said Jejeune. No as in yes, he thought. More truth. More deception. “Could it have been an Osprey? They’re extremely rare up here, but they’re all white below.”

  McLeod shook his head. “No, I’ve seen an Osprey. A gillie called me up to his salmon river one time, where he was losing fish to one. Wanted to know if he could kill the bird as a pest.” He held up a hand to still the slow progress of alarm spreading across Jejeune’s features. “Even I know enough about the Nature Conservation Act to know the answer to that one. No, the Osprey has a dark back, doesn’t it? This bird I saw was pure white, I’m sure of it.”

  Ask your friend the police sergeant if there is something else up there that a free spirit like Jack de Laet might be interested in.

  “There’s no species like that which you could reasonably expect to see in Scotland,” said Jejeune, adding the qualifier that helped him to hang on to a fragment of the truth. Deception was such an easy game to play, if you allowed yourself these moveable boundaries.

  “I suppose it must have been a sea eagle, then. You’ve seen that light up on the Fiona. It’s magical. It could transform almost anything into something else, I suppose, make you believe you’ve seen something you haven’t.”

  McLeod paused and looked at Jejeune, who found something interesting enough in his coffee cup to avoid having his eyes meet the sergeant’s.

  “Pity,” said McLeod finally. “This mystery man who had your book. Seems he must’ve been a birder, too. I was thinking if it was a white eagle, and he had heard about it, mebbe he went out for a wee look.”

  If McLeod was laying a snare to see if anyone was eager enough to jump into it, Jejeune wasn’t going to be first. “You said you didn’t find any binoculars on him.”

  “No, that’s right. And anyway, if you’re telling me there’s no such thing, then I guess I’m on the wrong track.” McLeod stood up abruptly, the chair making a loud scraping noise as he pushed it back. “Well, that’s me away to the station. It’s been a real pleasure to meet you, Inspector Jejeune.” He leaned forward across the table, oblivious to the scattershot of crumbs lying on the tablecloth between them. Jejeune thought he was offering his hand, and had stretched out his own before he realized McLeod was handing him something. It was the bird book, wrapped in plastic. He passed it to Jejeune with a significant look. “You won’t forget now, if anything comes to mind about this man, or what he might have been doing in possession of your book, you will let me know. Anything that could help us write this off as an accident once and for all.”

  Jejeune felt the tension flow from his body as he watched McLeod leave. He felt slightly queasy from the effort of stonewalling such a decent person; from the effort of … let’s face it, deceiving him at every turn, even if he wasn’t entirely sure at this point about what. He had just taken a steadying mouthful of coffee when a heavy hand on his shoulder made him start.

  “Almost forgot,” said McLeod. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  10

  Danny Maik eased himself out of the small car, rounding to the passenger side to open the door. Constable Salter could have opened it, but why would she? Why spoil the fantasy she had been building for herself on the drive out here. Opening a door was something a man might do for his lady, especially a gentleman like Danny Maik. So if she wanted to pretend that she and Danny were just out for a drive on this beautiful summer afternoon, that they had come down here, with the dreamy sounds of Motown playing in the background, to this sun-kissed field to take in the beauty for a few moments, where was the harm in that?

  They were on a gentle slope of land, mid-point between a rocky shoreline and a dense stand of trees that ran across the ridgeline. It was the glade where Philip Wayland had been killed. From here, there was no sign of the fenced-off compound just beyond the rise. Salter couldn’t imagine owning such an immense piece of land, one on which you were unable to see a one-hectare compound from another point on your property. She turned to take in the swath of ground around them. It looked like it would have been able to yield valuable crops, with the proper care and attention. But Salter knew Prince Ibrahim al-Haladin had no interest in frivolities like agricultural practices. For him, these fields were reserved for another purpose.

  Maik had parked the Mini next to Tony Holland’s brand new Audi TT, in front of a large dome-shaped hangar. It was the only building in sight. Holland emerged from the hangar and approached them with what looked like a genuine smile of appreciation.

  “You two didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

  “No trouble, Constable,” said Maik easily.

  Holland nodded, showing that he recognized Salter’s presence as necessary, too. Despite the fact that Tony was Darla Doherty’s boyfriend, Maik would have insisted there be a female officer on scene, just in case.

  Salter looked past Holland to the hangar. “Your girlfriend works here, Tony? At the prince’s falconry?” Salter couldn’t keep the amusement from her voice. “Blimey, no wonder you kept it quiet.”

  The connection to a subject Holland had so often derided in DCI Jejeune forced him into an explanation. “These are birds of prey,” he said defensively. “We’re not talking about those useless bundles of fluff the DCI wastes his time with. I mean, these
are proper birds — hunters.”

  “Shall we?” asked Maik. “The DCI would never forgive me if I had the chance to investigate a breakin at a falcon enclosure and I wasn’t able to give him chapter and verse when he got back.”

  “Just so you know, it’s called a mews, a falcon’s pen,” said Holland, causing Maik and Salter to exchange a significant glance. “I’ve already had a look around. As far as Darla can tell, nothing has been taken, but it does look like somebody’s had a bit of a riffle around in one of the filing cabinets.”

  Salter knew Holland would be relieved that he had found justification for rushing out here after receiving the panicked call from his girlfriend. When he had left the station, his expression had told them he was uncertain whether it was just the overreaction of somebody still unnerved by the violent murder that had taken place just up the hill.

  “Come on through,” he said. “Believe me, it’s worth seeing.”

  They entered the hangar and found themselves in a cavernous space that smelled faintly of ammonia. It was not dark inside, but coming in from the bright sunshine, it still took their eyes a few minutes to adjust. As they did, they could make out cage wire stretching down from the roof to the floor all around the sides of the building, about two metres out from the walls. Other wire ran off this screen back to the walls, creating a series of towering pens, each, Salter would have guessed, at least four metres high. Somewhere in each pen, a single falcon sat on a perch.

  At a desk beside the rear door sat a young woman. She was short and small-boned, with delicate features and dark brown eyes that seemed to accentuate her pale face. Her short hair was the colour of straw. Pretty, decided Salter, but not the type of woman she had come to associate with Holland. Far less flash and brass. If she had been asked for a description, the anodyne “nice girl” would have been the constable’s choice.

  “This is Darla,” Holland announced, moving over to stand beside her. “She looks after the Crown Prince’s falcons. Feeding, care, stuff like that. Flies them, too, when he’s not here.”