A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  Domenic knew it was true. He had seen it in his brother with the Franklin’s Gull at Cley. Even watching the Raven’s barrel roll at Dunnet Head; his wide-eyed enthusiasm had been every bit as much in evidence as the boy he was sharing it with.

  Damian’s face softened with sadness. “You probably think it’s the big things I miss, being able to travel wherever I want, walk down the street without looking over my shoulder. But really, it’s nights like tonight I miss the most, having friends over, being able to tell them the truth about who you are and what you do.”

  The truth? Domenic had spent most of the evening avoiding precisely that. But he let the comment pass. He knew what Damian meant. They sat for a few moments, sipping their drinks, thinking their thoughts.

  Damian drained his glass and rose from the bed. “Another?”

  Domenic nodded. “How did you manage to get the bottle, anyway?”

  “Lindy brought it in for me when she locked the door.” He poured the drinks and brought one over to Domenic, standing over him. He smiled. “I think I’m in love with your girlfriend, Domino.”

  Domenic smiled back. “She’s easy to love.”

  “High maintenance, though, I’m betting.”

  “An entire department.” He looked at his brother. “I’m guessing she’s been making subtle inquiries about our childhood?”

  Damian nodded, “Subtle, like an open-pit mining operation, you mean?”

  “It’s okay. She’s just trying to build up a picture for herself.”

  “I read her article,” said Damian. “She’s a smart lady. I can see how she might have some problems with an arrangement where the older male child had claim to everything, though.” He looked up at Dom. “Can you imagine if it still worked like that? All this would be mine.” Glass in hand, he spread his arms to embrace the vast expanse of this three-metre-square bedroom.

  “Lindy, too, I suppose,” said Domenic.

  “I’m not sure she’d take kindly to being classified as chattel.And I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one to break it to her.” Damian suddenly became serious and looked at his brother with an earnestness Domenic hadn’t seen for a long time. “I love what you have here; your career, this cottage, Lindy. Live it well, Domenic. For both of us.”

  Domenic wondered if it was the whisky causing Damian’s sudden lurches between moods. He sensed that it was close, the time when his older brother would be able to tell him the reason he had come, sought out Domenic with the siren call of that bird guide. Close, but here yet? He saw the dark square of the window over Damian’s shoulder. Outside it was as still and quiet as before. In the house, too, nothing moved. The ticking of a distant clock drifted down the hallway, but otherwise there was silence.

  “You have to tell her, Domenic,” said Damian quietly. “She needs to know about the person she has staying in her house.”

  “Don’t, Damian.”

  “You can’t let it go any longer.”

  “I’ll, it’ll be …”

  “It’ll be what? It’ll be fine? It’ll be taken care of? Or it’ll be the end of your relationship with her, if she finds out what her boyfriend’s brother has done?”

  “Stop, Damian. Okay. Just … I’ll deal with it.”

  “Just be sure you do, little brother. I’ve messed up enough people’s lives already. I don’t want any more sorrow on my conscience.” A wave of melancholy seemed to sweep over him.

  “Why did you come here, Damian?”

  Damian looked up from the bed and smiled, greeting the question like an old friend he had been waiting to arrive. “Simple, Domino,” he said. “You’re the only person I know who might be able to keep me alive.”

  He gave his brother a lazy smile. “Just words, Dom. I’m fine. Really. It’s late. Get some sleep. We’ll talk later.”

  Domenic had stepped into the hallway before he paused and looked back. But Damian was already engrossed in King Lear again. He didn’t look up.

  27

  Colleen Shepherd was waiting in the car park of the police station, leaning against one of the patrol cars when Domenic wheeled the Range Rover in. He looked at her curiously, and then noticed her white cross-trainers.

  “Fancy a walk, Domenic? Do you good after all those full Scottish breakfasts. I’ll bet it’s been a while since you had a nice stroll in the sunshine.”

  Except strolls didn’t usually involve elaborate stopwatches, like the one Shepherd was now withdrawing from her pocket, as she made her way to the starting line of the car park entrance. She held an arm aloft and dropped it like a falling axe, setting off along the street at a brisk pace. Jejeune caught up to her, and they walked side by side in silence for a few moments, shuffling into a comfortable rhythm. The weak sunshine bathed the streets in a gentle light, giving a soothing, almost ballet-like quality to the comings and goings of the people. Jejeune envied them their anodyne tasks, their daily chores, while his own life seemed to be constantly lurching from one potential catastrophe to another. He felt so weighed down by all he had already faced, all he still had to face. The last thing he needed today was a speed-walk through the streets of Saltmarsh. He redoubled his efforts to keep up with Shepherd, who showed no sign of slackening her pace.

  “No new leads among the protesters, I understand,” she said, as he came alongside. “Though I’m not sure I’m quite ready to write them off just yet.”

  “Wayland’s new plan would allow for carbon storage without the need for offshore pipes or massive underground storage caverns,” said Jejeune. “Okay, it involves pumping large amounts of iron into the sea to induce the algal growth in the first place, but I would have thought the protesters would have found that a far more acceptable solution than destroying the coastline.”

  Shepherd nodded to herself. “If they understood the difference. It’s still carbon capture and storage, and it’s still a hot-button topic out here. It may be another approach, but truly, when have you ever heard of a mob doing nuance, Domenic? As lead researcher at the Old Dairy, Wayland was the poster child for all they are protesting about. Old hatreds don’t always die with a change in the facts.”

  Shepherd condescended to look each way before stepping off the curb to cross the cobbled high street, though in truth, Jejeune doubted it would have made very much difference whether there was any traffic coming or not, such was the DCS’s determination to maintain her steady pace. While he wasn’t exactly struggling to keep up with her, he found himself hoping this would be over soon.

  “So if not the protesters, where do we go with this?” She seemed to have mastered the art of locking on sideways eye contact while maintaining her pace.

  “When Catherine Weil spoke to me, she did everything she could to put Abrar el-Taleb on our radar,” said Jejeune. “She couldn’t have laid out his potential motives any more clearly with a process chart.”

  “Does she have any particular reason for not liking the man?”

  “He has a job she would like for herself.”

  He steeled himself for the response he knew would be coming. Shepherd cast him a withering sidelong glance, barely managing to keep up her pace as she did so, but her reaction was far more sanguine than he had been anticipating. Perhaps this exercise regimen was having an effect on the DCS’s temperament, too.

  “And what, you think she’s willing to provide Prince Yousef with a false alibi on the premise that once we railroad the hapless Mr. el-Taleb into twenty years at her majesty’s pleasure, she’ll get a promotion? Really, Domenic, even for you, that’s a bit weak.”

  Jejeune made an extra effort to stay alongside the DCS. His point needed to be made on an equal footing, not from half a step behind. “Weil’s testimony is the only thing that stops us from saying Wayland was already dead by, say, 6:30, long before the prince ever took off in his helicopter.”

  “But do we have a why in all this, Domenic? Why would Prince Yousef want Philip Wayland dead in the first place? I’m not even prepared to accept el-Taleb as a suspect
just yet, but there’s a hell of a lot stronger case to be made for him than for Prince Yousef. Let me tell you where I see you heading with all this, shall I? Taking el-Taleb out of the equation and substituting the prince instead, it goes something like this: Wayland abandons the project, and this reflects very badly on the man who is supposed to be running things at the Old Dairy, particularly in the eyes of his brother. Prince Yousef, therefore, decides to dispatch Wayland, almost a year after the fact, to avenge his personal humiliation.” Without breaking stride, Shepherd called upon one of her special expressions to convey her contempt with an eloquence no words could match. “Revenge for dishonour? It’s all a bit archaic, isn’t it? Not to mention it is leading us down some very dubious us-and-them cultural paths. Prince Yousef is a modern, sophisticated man, Oxbridge-educated. The idea is more than offensive, Domenic. It’s downright insulting.”

  Jejeune didn’t say anything. He had all but made the left-hand turn back to the station when he realized to his dismay that Shepherd was continuing on, instead, heading down toward the waterfront. Returning to the station via this route was going to involve considerably more strolling than he had bargained for.

  The walk along the quayside was one Jejeune had often enjoyed with Lindy. But they usually did it at less than a quarter of this pace. The clanking of lanyard rings and the gentle flapping of canvas in the breeze mingled with the calls of wheeling Herring Gulls, filling the air with the music of the seaside. Small encampments of commerce were emerging on the quay; cafés setting up for lunch, stores putting out their wares. A pair of early browsers stopped suddenly in front of them, forcing them to walk around. The tourist season was beginning to build, and although Saltmarsh didn’t see nearly the numbers of other places up and down the coast, in another month this waterfront area would be too densely packed to allow the DCS to maintain a steady pace along here, regardless of how much determination she showed. The thought gave Jejeune a glimmer of guilty satisfaction. The Boatman’s Arms appeared on the horizon.

  “They should be open by now,” said Jejeune casually. “Perhaps we would be better discussing this over a drink.”

  “Why not. We can have a pie while we’re at it.” Shepherd shot him a look of exasperation. “The idea is a sustained period of exercise, Domenic, though this regimen would undoubtedly be a lot more popular if you could add a couple of glasses of Chardonnay in at the halfway point.” She shook her head. “We’ll be on the home stretch soon, but if you feel you can’t keep up, you can have a rest, and I’ll wait for you at the station.”

  The gauntlet thrown down, they crossed another street without breaking stride and turned a corner. Jejeune welcomed the cool shadows that lay behind the high walls of a row of former maritime warehouses, long ago converted into small stalls and waterfront apartments. A greengrocer was bent over a chalkboard, listing today’s specials — samphire, chard, onions — all at prices so low it was hard to see how anybody could make a profit from their sale. Shepherd let her look linger for a long time on the signboard as they passed.

  “The al-Haladins move in a world mere mortals like you and I can’t even imagine, Domenic. Look at these birds, for example, these Gyrfalcons. I understand they’re worth tens of thousands of pounds each, and the Crown Prince has, what, fourteen of them, standing by waiting, in case he might just find the time to fly them during the couple of visits a year he makes to the U.K.? Now, does all their money put them above the law? Of course not. But it certainly puts them above the day-to-day workings of police divisions out in the wilds of north Norfolk. Especially when we have no evidence — none whatsoever — that they have been involved in anything illegal.” She managed another full-pace sidelong glance. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me? Something that brings us closer to a genuine motive for Prince Yousef to kill Philip Wayland?”

  Was there? Did Philip Wayland’s new research, as incomplete as it was, pose enough of a threat to the Old Dairy project to warrant killing him? A billion pounds in prize money was at stake. Even Emirati royalty sat up and took notice of sums like that. But Jejeune had nothing yet, nothing he could present to DCS Shepherd. He knew he was only going to get one chance when the time came, one grudging agreement to arrange an interview with the prince. He needed to have everything in place before he made his final appeal. And he was a long way from that yet. A very long way indeed.

  They returned to the station in silence. Shepherd skipped up to the top step of the entrance and paused to look down on Jejeune, who was leaning against the iron railing, trying to draw as much breath into his lungs as possible without appearing to breathe heavily.

  “Prince Yousef is off-limits, Domenic. I’m not going to pretend I’m hiding behind some higher directive here. This is coming from me. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that avoiding any diplomatic incident here has to be our number one priority.”

  Jejeune looked up at her. He felt it might be slightly churlish to point out that, in a murder inquiry, the number one priority was usually solving the case. But as he watched her disappear through the door, he wondered if DCS Shepherd had, in fact, meant exactly what she’d said.

  28

  There was no doubt in Maik’s mind that the DCI had been set on going out to the Old Dairy again this morning, despite Shepherd’s objections. Jejeune felt there was something there. Maik could sense it in his DCI’s attitude, a restlessness that usually signalled he was closing in on something. But the news awaiting Jejeune on his arrival at the station had changed all that. Prince Yousef had agreed to a meeting. Jejeune and Maik were to go to the Palm Court Hotel tomorrow at noon, where they could speak to him over lunch. As welcome as this response to his earlier request was, it left Jejeune searching for a new direction to channel his nervous energy while they waited for their audience. He had settled on the university.

  The fact that there was no genuine reason Maik could see for them to be heading out there seemed to make the prospect of visiting a soul-destroying building, where only the inconsolable sadness of Xandria Grey awaited them, even less appealing. In response, Maik had chosen The Temptations to raise his spirits. I Can’t Get Next to You was upbeat enough to brighten anybody’s mood, and with his preoccupied DCI staring obliviously out the Mini’s window at the high hedgerows blurring past, Danny even treated himself to a little extra volume.

  “Tell me, Sergeant,” said Jejeune without taking his eyes from the fields, “you’ve been inside that Gyrfalcon facility at the Old Dairy. How would you describe it?”

  Maik considered the question for a moment. “Not what I expected, to be honest. It was quite a bit larger, and brighter. The cages went from floor to ceiling.”

  Jejeune seemed to think about Maik’s answer for a moment. “So the Gyrfalcons had a lot of room. You wouldn’t say they were cooped up?”

  Maik shook his head.

  “Your report said Darla thought it was her father who had broken in, but I don’t think he has ever been in there. He doesn’t seem to know the conditions the birds are kept in. Like a lot of uninformed objectors, he just assumes the worst.”

  A momentary cloud passed in front of the sun, sending a dappled shadow over the land. “She’s scared of something, that girl,” said Maik. “The breakin, and the accident with that bird, they’ve got her shaken-up. You don’t think it’s connected. This business at the Gyrfalcon facility and Wayland’s murder?”

  “It’s hard to see how,” said Jejeune. “Unless Xandria Grey mentioned any interest Wayland might have had in Gyrfalcons?” He looked across at Maik.

  “I don’t remember it coming up in conversation,” said Maik drily. “Perhaps you can ask her yourself when we get there.”

  “Perhaps,” said Jejeune. “Oh, and Sergeant, if you are going to play that old music all the time, I wonder if we could dial down just a little on the volume.”

  When the detectives entered the room, Xandria Grey looked up from behind a desk piled high with papers, though to Jejeune’s eye, the workload wa
s not much diminished from the last time they were here. Perhaps she was using the activity as a shield, a place of refuge from her sorrow. She was not achieving anything, likely not even trying to, but the simple act of being here, in this office, with its panacea of familiar tasks and duties, was like a blanket that she could gather about her, as a barrier against the awful reality of the world outside. Jejeune wondered if he could ever draw such solace from his own work? In truth, he had never had much need to find out. Though he sometimes tired of hearing what a charmed life he led, blessed, as his brother and others kept reminding him, he knew, too, there was an element of truth to the claims. Only once had the world wounded him beyond healing, dealt him an unbearable sadness. And where did he go when those memories gathered and threatened to engulf him? Where did he seek his escape from the desolation that crept in, so frequently in those early days, and now, perhaps not so often, but still, at times, with devastating intensity? To wild open spaces; to wind-ragged heathlands where he might see a Kestrel balancing on the updrafts, or to blustery coastlines, where gulls rode onshore breezes and issued their keening cries. To woods, alive with birdsong, or wetlands with their stillness and their stealth. To places where he would find birds to snatch away his gathering despair and pour their light into the spaces that remained, filling him with hope again, reminding him of the pleasures that life could hold. But never work. He never turned to the business of murder and motives for his solace. His police career, Domenic Jejeune knew, would never offer him that.

  “News?” asked Grey, half-hopefully. But there was a guardedness to her optimism, as if even news of progress might bring more pain.

  Jejeune shook his head regretfully. “More questions, I’m afraid,” he said, “about Mr. Wayland’s work. The idea of using phytoplankton to sequester captured carbon, it’s attractive to climate control experts on a number of levels, I imagine.”

  Grey nodded. “Cost, for one. And it’s far less environ­mentally invasive. Most important to Philip, though, was that, once established, it would be an easy technology to export to other parts of the world, where the need to control carbon emissions is going to be even greater than in the West.”