A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  “I tend to consider myself a local now,” said Jejeune, anxious to put any distance he could between himself and the North American at the other end of the hide. Though he was less than comfortable with the situation, he did not regret bringing Damian out to Cley. This was his home turf, some of the best birding habitat in the world, and it had seemed important, somehow, to share it with his brother. But he realized now that it had become dangerous for them to be here, and he was waiting only for a suitable pulse of time to pass before he could bid them all goodbye. Damian would pick up on the cue and make his own way from the hide a few moments later, linking up with Domenic at the car park, where he would have the Range Rover’s engine running and the door unlocked.

  At the far end of the hide, Damian had gone very quiet and was staring through his bins with an intensity that Domenic recognized well. Domenic raised his own bins quickly and watched as a gull made a final arc before swooping in for a landing on a mudflat. Damian withdrew his gaze and stared across the other men toward his brother. But Domenic knew what would happen. The need to identify, to share, was too strong for an ex–bird tour leader.

  “That’s a Franklin’s Gull that has just come in with those Black-headed Gulls,” said Damian in a low, measured voice. He seemed to realize that he was starting on a path with an uncertain destination, but as Domenic had known, he was unable to stop himself.

  It was undoubtedly the casual nature of Damian’s announcement that caused Senior to greet it with such low-key interest. “Really, a Franklin’s? Are you sure? I have to say, it would be a remarkable sighting if it was.” Senior raised his bins. “Where are we looking, please?”

  “Second group of gulls from the right. It’s the fifth bird in, on the far side of the mudflat, slightly smaller than the bird in front of it, slightly darker back.”

  “I have it. Wind just ruffled its primaries, yes?” Senior sounded even less sure than before. “It’s certainly darker, but has its head tucked under its wing, and its legs aren’t visible. Conclusive diagnostics are impossible from here.” He seemed to remember his manners and quickly corrected himself. “That is to say, they would be for me.”

  “I saw it come in,” said Damian. “It had that narrow white band between the wingtip and inner wing.” Domenic detected a touch of hesitation in his voice. He’s realized, he thought. Too late, but he’s realized. But Damian’s tone carried the kind of assurance that caused Senior to lower his bins.

  “Not the white wedge of the Black-headed?” He fixed Damian with a stare. “And of course, you would have seen enough Franklin’s on your side of the pond, wouldn’t you, to recognize one.” There was rising tension in Senior’s voice. He was warming to the possibility of it. Eric was sitting silently at Senior’s side, watching with undisguised fascination as the drama of the discovery continued to play out.

  “You really believe it is a Franklin’s Gull?” It was as if Senior couldn’t quite give himself permission to believe it, without one last confirmation.

  Damian flashed a quick glance at Domenic.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, this is wonderful,” said Senior. “We must put the word out immediately. Eric, would you mind doing the honours? I’ll let you know if it twitches so much as a feather.” Eric withdrew his phone and began keying in his message. Senior looked up at Damian for a brief moment. “You’ll forgive me if I ask Eric to note it as a possible. I’d be leery of an unequivocal declaration until I’d seen a field mark or two of my own.”

  “Be my guest. It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, so hopefully you’ll be able to get your looks at some point.”

  Domenic shifted uneasily. In less than half an hour there were going to be upwards of fifty birders descending on this place. And Damian was going to be a thoroughly celebrated figure.

  “There, done,” declared Eric. He snatched up his bins and locked them onto the bird again.

  “What a wonderful introduction to your birding career, Eric. Cherish this one. Many birders here wait years to see a Franklin’s. They only pop up every ten years or so, and they hardly ever stay around for very long. Harry will be beside himself,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling softly. He looked at Eric. “Our resident gull expert. Every birding group has one. I’m sure you’ll run into him soon enough, though if he misses this bird, he probably won’t speak to you for weeks.” He smiled. “Well, this is a truly exciting, I can’t thank you enough, Mr. …?”

  “Damian,” he said hesitantly, “John Damian.”

  “Okay, Eric, I suggest we settle in and watch this chap for a little while. There’ll not be much doing until he stirs, but we might get a glimpse of the red legs, or the eye if we’re lucky. Ready for a bit of a session, Inspector?”

  Jejeune shook his head. “I have somewhere to be.”

  Senior looked genuinely disappointed. “Really? How sad. How about you, Mr. Damian, you’ll join us, I hope, point out to Eric the bits he should be noting?”

  “I have other plans, too, unfortunately,” said Damian. He stood to leave.

  “You will at least let us identify it as Found by, I hope?” asked Senior. “The local birders will be extremely grateful.”

  “Oh, that’s okay, really,” said Damian, reading the warnings in Domenic’s stare. “I mean, you were on it, too.”

  With a birder less established, or more vain, it might have worked, but Domenic could have told Damian that Senior’s integrity would have none of it.

  “Not at all, I’d’ve barely given the chap a second look, to tell you the truth. And once he’s roosted, well, no one could call a Franklin’s now, not till he eventually pops his head up. No, this find is all yours, my friend. Please, I must insist …”

  Damian looked helplessly at Domenic, but there was clearly no safe way to refuse, especially under the watchful stare of Eric, who looked as if he may have picked up something between the two men, even if he was not quite sure what it was.

  “Okay. Just John Damian. Overseas visitor. Something like that would be great. Thanks,” said Damian, following Domenic’s lead and escaping from the hide before Senior could unwittingly compromise them any further.

  Outside, Domenic was covering the ground at such a pace that Damian had to half run to keep pace. “Come on, Dom, don’t be mad,” he said in a reasonable tone. “It was a Franklin’s, for God’s sake. Over here. You couldn’t deny them a chance at that. You’d have called it if you’d seen it.”

  “I did see it,” said Domenic.

  Damian stopped on the path. “What, you want the credit? Let’s go back, I’d be happy to give it to you, honestly.”

  “No, we need to get you out of here. Now.”

  By the time they reached the car park at the visitor centre, the first of the cars were pulling in. Birders hurried to extract scopes and jackets from their cars, readying themselves for the walk in to the reserve. Two or three of them recognized Domenic and hurried over for information about the gull’s location. None gave Damian more than a passing nod. Senior obviously had higher priorities than having Eric assign credit for the find at the moment. But he wouldn’t wait long. It wasn’t in his nature to be anything less than gallant, and Jejeune was fairly sure the second wave of arrivals would come pre-armed with the news that they owed this coup to one John Damian. But by then, the man who had made the discovery would be long gone. And so would the man who had so recklessly brought him here.

  20

  Lindy pulled into the car park of the Old Dairy under a grey, uncertain sky. The size of the crowd surprised her. She had been led to believe there would be only a few protesters on hand, but this gathering was substantial, and growing. A steady flow of people were walking along the public footpath, joining the knot of individuals already there, milling and swirling around, collars turned up against a freshening breeze that tugged raggedly at the treetops.

  Lindy made her way over toward the large wire gates of the compound. “Morning, Danny,” she said. “Nice day for it.”


  Maik looked surprised. “Ms. Hey … Lindy,” he said awkwardly. “The DCI didn’t mention you would be here today.”

  “He didn’t know.” Lindy gave her long hair a toss and the wind swirled it around her head. “Nor did I, come to that. My publisher asked me to come down and cover the event. One of our reporters called in on a sickie — probably beer-induced, if I know him. He certainly knows how to attract a crowd, this prince.” She nodded toward a throng flanking the approach road to the gates.

  Maik’s eyes drifted over to where a half-hearted chant had broken out; a warm-up, perhaps, for the main event still to come. Lindy saw Lauren Salter on the far side of the group and watched her carefully tracking Sergeant Maik wherever he went, as usual. And as usual, Danny Maik remained completely oblivious. The course of unrequited love doth ever run untrue, thought Lindy.

  “You on security these days?” asked Lindy. There was humour in her tone, but faint concern, too. The Saltmarsh police department wouldn’t waste a valuable resource like Sergeant Danny Maik on crowd control unless a crowd genuinely needed controlling. Maik understood and smiled reassuringly. “This lot will make a bit of noise, but we’re not anticipating anything beyond that.”

  Lindy caught sight of Domenic, standing a good way inside the compound fence, with a group of people who were lining the road leading up to the glass-block offices. One person in particular took her eye, the one standing next to Domenic. “I see it has fallen to poor Dom’s lot to interview that stunner with long red hair,” she said. “Let me guess. She’s single, an avid birder, and has a thing for Canadian detectives? Don’t be too impressed with my psychic abilities, Danny. It’s the kind of luck I get these days.”

  Maik smiled. “I don’t think the inspector has paid much attention to Ms. Weil’s appearance, to tell you the truth.” He paused and cast a sidelong glance at Lindy. “He seems a bit, well, distracted lately, as a matter of fact. Nothing bothering him, is there?”

  It was as close as Maik would come to prying, but Lindy knew him well enough by now to recognize the danger signs. Dom was off-kilter and Danny Maik wanted to know why. Nor was it an idle inquiry. The murder of Philip Wayland was an unsettling, brutal event, and no one would feel truly safe again until his killer had been brought to justice. That would take a Domenic Jejeune firing on all cylinders, and Danny Maik just wanted to make sure that version would be available if called upon.

  Lindy shook her head casually. “No, I don’t think so, Sergeant … Danny. Nothing at all. Possibly this trip up to Scotland was a bit taxing, all that driving. But really, other than that, nothing comes to mind.”

  She turned away slightly, angry at herself. Perhaps it was okay to feel so guilty about deceiving such a kind, honest man as Danny Maik, but she could have probably done better than denying something three times in the same sentence. She knew it would be necessary to close down the subject before Maik could start to delve deeper. “I’d better get going. You’ve met my boss, I understand. So you’ll know he’s every bit as demanding and intolerant as yours.” She treated Danny to one of her best smiles and threw a tiny wave in for good measure before melting away to join the growing crowd.

  From inside the compound, Catherine Weil raised her hand in greeting to a small man on the other side of the wire fence. He was dressed in a ragged sweater and well-worn corduroys and seemed to be hovering slightly to the side of the main mass of protesters, as if unsure how closely he wanted to be associated with them. He smiled uncertainly and waved back. Jejeune watched the exchange with interest.

  “There’s been no harassment by the protesters of anyone working here?” Jejeune asked. “No personal threats aimed at any of the staff? Past or present?”

  He saw in her eyes that she understood. Weil shook her head a little, her long locks dancing with the movement. “Most of the people who work here are locals, too. We’ve all known each other for years. I have never felt threatened or intimidated by these protesters, and I doubt any of the other staff have, either. Past or present.”

  She had accepted his presence beside her in the line without comment, and her tone betrayed no hint of hostility or defensiveness. What had happened between them was consigned to the past, she seemed to suggest, and she was a person of the present. Jejeune suspected Catherine Weil rarely spent much time on regrets or recriminations. She turned to look at him frankly. “The thing is, most of us understand their point of view. We can even sympathize with it, to some extent. The local people who work here love this coastline, too. But the simple fact is, if we don’t do something about carbon capture and storage very soon, there won’t be any coastline left to worry about. The storm of 2013 was only a foretaste of what is to come. The latest predictions are that coastal flooding will cost the world economy one trillion dollars by the year 2050. By then, there will be 150 million environmental refugees. That’s not at some far-off point in humanity’s future, Inspector, that’s in our lifetimes. Yours and mine.”

  Jejeune was distracted momentarily by the sight of a woman who looked very much like Lindy milling around in the crowd on the far side of the fence. He strained to catch sight of her again, but the person, whoever she was, had been swallowed up by the mass of people and had disappeared from view. Jejeune let his eyes stay on the crowd for a moment. “Mr. el-Taleb mentioned a second set of protesters, ones who are keen to ensure the project does not leave?”

  Weil gave a withering look of contempt. She nodded toward the man on the other side of the fence. “People like Niall Doherty have voiced a concern that if the project proves too costly, Old Dairy Holdings may just pull up stakes and walk away. It has happened with a number of other carbon capture projects elsewhere. All these people are looking for is some sort of commitment from the board of directors, a trust fund, perhaps, to ensure the employees aren’t left high and dry if that happens.”

  “So there’s no chance these conflicting points of view could develop into a genuine rivalry, then?”

  “You mean civil unrest? Punch-ups in Saltmarsh Square?” Weil gave a light, derisive laugh. “I hardly think so, Inspector. This is an environmental issue we’re talking about, after all. I think people save that sort of passion for football matches, or the Boxing Day sales.”

  On the other side of the fence, the person who might be Lindy drifted into view again for a second and then was gone. Jejeune turned back to Weil, taking in her strong, uncompromising profile and her pale unblemished skin. Had they come far enough from their previous difficulties for him to get an honest answer to the most important question of all?

  “Why did Philip Wayland leave the project, Ms. Weil?”

  She seemed to consider the question for a long time before answering. “I suppose you might say it was a matter of respect. Philip never really seemed to have any, either for the project itself or for Yousef. I think Philip just saw him as some muppet with a chequebook.”

  The faint ­chatter of a blade chopping through the air arrived first, and everyone looked to the sky. To the west, the metallic glint of a small helicopter appeared, bucking slightly on the uncertain winds. It approached low, barely cresting the stand of tall pines on the far side of the property, before settling in a near-perfect touchdown onto a makeshift helipad in a field on the far side of the road. From either side of the wire fence, the assembled crowds watched as a tall, distinguished-looking individual dressed in a suit of immaculate cut ducked out from the helicopter, followed on the other side by another, slightly smaller man. For a pilot, he, too, seemed to be extraordinarily well-groomed.

  “Prince Yousef,” said Weil. “He makes it a point to meet his brother at the airport and fly him in personally. A helicopter pilot’s licence is about the only thing he owns that his brother doesn’t. Even then, the Crown Prince gets to travel around in his own custom-built jet, while all poor Yousef has is this dinky little thing to fly around in the local airspace.”

  For a moment, the appearance of Crown Prince Ibrahim seemed to take the protesters off guard
, as if perhaps they had been expecting someone in the long flowing robes of the desert. The hesitation meant the noise built slowly, uncertainly, and by the time it had reached its crescendo, the prince and his brother were already ensconced in the Rolls-Royce Phantom that had been parked at the side of the helicopter pad.

  “This is the part I love,” said Weil sarcastically. “He funds a multi-million-dollar project to address carbon emissions, and drives a couple of hundred metres from the helicopter to the compound in a car that probably gets about one kilometre to the litre.”

  Jejeune acknowledged the comment with a faint smile, though it was becoming clear that the prince could hardly have walked the distance, not with the barrage of angry complaints the protesters were now hurling at the car. As it approached, the crowd began to surge forward; a roiling, organic thing, in danger of spilling out of control. A cordon of uniformed officers had been arranged in a semicircle, protecting the entrance to the compound, but as the protesters caught sight of the silhouetted figure behind the car’s tinted windows, there was a concerted push, and one or two broke through the police line. As the car continued to inch ahead, reinforcements from both sides poured in, protesters piling in from the back of the crowd, only to be met by members of the prince’s security staff, who had sprinted from the compound at the first signs of danger, and were now wading in with arms flailing. Scuffles broke out, wild punches and grabs and mis-aimed kicks. The noise had grown into an angry roar now, shouted insults drowned by cheers erupting at every small victory for the protesters. For a few dangerous seconds, the balance of power teetered between the two forces, until the combined efforts of the police and the prince’s security detail could finally manhandle the crowd off the roadway and clear the way for the car to continue.

  As soon as the Rolls was safely inside the compound, the gates were rapidly closed. Through the wire fence, Jejeune saw Maik, and behind him, Constable Salter. Their expressions spoke volumes. They had gotten lucky. The police had seriously underestimated the mood among the protesters. Things could have become ugly if they’d been allowed to reach the prince.