A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  Damian shook his head. “Furniture-maker. Woodworker, he calls it. More like a miracle worker. You should see the wedding gift he made for Suzette and Roy; a rosewood dining room set. It was an absolute work of art.”

  “Perhaps I should have a word with Dom. We could use a new dining room set,” said Lindy. She closed her mouth abruptly, but not quickly enough. She turned back to her folding as the silence settled around them. Damian’s softening expression showed he shared her embarrassment.

  “He wouldn’t mention anything like that to me, Lindy. Something as big as his plans for the future, what they were, who they involved. He would keep those things as close to his chest as possible.”

  “Sure,” she said, still unable to turn around and face him fully. Damian let her have her silence, her time. She picked up the clothes and made her way into the bedroom to begin putting them away. Damian trotted along behind her like an obedient puppy.

  “So tell me,” she said, facing the closet, “what’s Newfoundland like? I’d love to see it. How could you not be interested in seeing a place they call The Rock.”

  He was willing to follow wherever her path out of her discomfort led them. “I think it must be what heaven looks like,” he said. “Not that I’ll ever know, sinner that I am. But you sit on a grassy clifftop looking out at the sea and the sky and the land all around you, and you find yourself thinking that it’s so wild, so perfect, it’s hard to imagine there could ever be anywhere better.”

  “Dom says it can get a lot of snow,” she said, still busying herself meticulously hanging up clothes. Lindy Hey, award-nominated columnist, turning to the safe harbour of the weather as a topic. She still couldn’t quite bring herself to face him, and he felt a pang of sympathy for her humiliation.

  “You know what I like about snow?” said Damian. “It’s stealth. You can be sitting there in front of a fire with a whisky and a good book, and look up a few hours later and snow has covered everything, completely blanketed the landscape for as far as your eyes can see, possibly even moved on by then, and you never sensed it coming or going.” His efforts to drag the conversation back to the light side were almost tangible. But Lindy wasn’t ready to join him there yet. She turned and lingered for a moment longer with the discomfort of her earlier comment. He saw her expression and knew they had both exhausted the small talk.

  “What I said, earlier,” he said awkwardly, “you shouldn’t read anything into it. He guards his feelings from everyone. Even this kid who died. Even something as big as that, he has never talked to me about it.”

  “Then you’ll need to get to the end of a very long line,” said Lindy, not even pretending that the laundry held her interest anymore. “The thing that people don’t realize is that it wasn’t all good, that time. I mean, I know he was genuinely elated to be able to return the Home Secretary’s daughter to her family. My God, who wouldn’t be? But there were other things going on. There was talk of this promotion, some award he was going to get. The media wouldn’t leave him alone. There was even some stupid bird sighting that got everybody bent out of shape.”

  Damian nodded. “Azure-winged Magpie. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about that either.”

  Lindy shook her head. “I think it’s all mixed up with everything else that was happening at that time. He can’t separate out the good bits without bringing back the not-so-good memories. I don’t know if he ever will. Come on,” she said, brightening, “let’s see if you can work some of your wizardry in the kitchen. I’ll let you make me more of those beaver tails, if you like.” She gave him a brave smile, and Damian rewarded her efforts with one of his own.

  “All I can tell you is I’ve never seen him happier, Lindy. Ever.”

  Lindy turned back to pick up the empty laundry basket. Whether Damian’s praise was enough didn’t really matter. For the foreseeable future at least, it was all she was likely to get, so it was going to have to do.

  32

  They were in the car park of the station, the three of them, gathered in the sunshine beneath a cloudless blue sky. Holland was idly pushing mud off one of the Audi’s wheel wells with his foot. Salter saw that he was smoking again.

  “Hardly matters now, does it?” he said ironically.

  “If Darla talked to you about stopping smoking, Tony, it was for you, not her. She wanted you to care about your health, because she cared about you.”

  He looked at the glowing end of the cigarette, but didn’t extinguish it. “So which one do you fancy, Yousef or Taleb?”

  It may have been misdirection, but it was a topic they would have normally discussed anyway, out here in the car park like this, before they headed out for the day, having received the considered wisdom of Domenic Jejeune, via Danny Maik’s presentation, on the progress of the case so far.

  Salter shook her head. “We’ve gone from no suspect to two viable ones in the blink of an eye.” Holland shot her a glance and she reddened, but it was too late. No one who knew Danny Maik would have described him as thin-skinned, but there was no doubting the fact that any reference to the lack of progress under his temporary leadership still struck a nerve.

  “At the very least, I think we need some sort of explanation as to how some rotary-blade cowboy like el-Taleb rises above a bright woman like Catherine Weil to head the project,” said Maik.

  “Perhaps you’re overlooking the obvious, Sarge. A woman in a heavily male-dominated environment.” She offered a half-hearted smile. “Or perhaps she’s just not as bright as everybody seems to think. After all, we only have her own word for how clever she is.”

  Maik shook his head, missing the undercurrent. “Even so, the couple of times I’ve seen her, she’s seemed about as straightforward as anybody you’re likely to meet. I have no reason to doubt her account of what she saw that night,” said Maik.

  And in her long flowing locks and her lithe dancer’s body, a couple of very good reasons for believing her, Salter’s tart look seemed to say. “Catherine Weil’s statement can’t be corroborated by anyone else,” she said, with particular emphasis. “The prince is her employer. He provides the funding for her to continue her research, a well-paid position with access to the best facilities and equipment money can buy. She has a lot to lose if he’s found guilty.” Salter cast a sidelong glance in Maik’s direction. “You know, there’s always been something about her attitude toward the Old Dairy project that doesn’t sit right with me. You’re that unhappy somewhere, you leave. End of.”

  Maik inclined his head. “Still…. Now el-Taleb, on the other hand. That, for me, is a possibility.”

  “Motive?” asked Holland, not entirely interested. “This personal honour thing?” His expression told Maik what he thought of the idea.

  Maik shook his head. “Perhaps not. The DCI seems pretty sure that, one way or another, Philip Wayland intended to get his hands on the research data he knew existed at the Old Dairy. In his eyes, it belonged to him, never mind that he had signed an intellectual property agreement. Perhaps he demanded it back from el-Taleb. Perhaps he had other plans for acquiring it and el-Taleb found out. All we know for sure is that el-Taleb wouldn’t have been prepared to let that data go under any circumstances. Just how far he would have been willing to go to protect it, though …”

  Holland stirred slightly. “No matter how many safeguards and firewalls you put on electronic data, there’s always someone who can hack around them, with the right amount of expertise.”

  They all fell silent with their thoughts. Danny Maik’s, at least, revolved around the idea that somebody like Philip Wayland didn’t have that kind of expertise. If he was going to go that route, he would have needed help.

  “You know,” said Salter, emerging from her own ruminations, “that sign Wayland was found under, PRIVATE PROPERTY. Read one way, it could be a message of some kind.”

  Maik sighed inwardly. Why did people feel the need to constantly keep seeking some sort of symbolic significance for death, to keep looking for other explana
tions, for other, parallel universes to tie these tragic events to? Was it perhaps to soften the terrible reality of what it was, the signal of the end of civilization, the point at which we ceased to be humans, taking the life of another member of our species, not for protection, or defence, but merely for gain? A motive like that did not deserve the dignity of metaphor or symbolism, only the harsh light of reality shining on it, on the killer, on us, as humans, reflecting what we truly were, and what we were capable of.

  The silence that followed Salter’s comment lasted a long time. It was still intact when Jejeune appeared in the doorway at the top of the steps.

  “Ah, Constable Holland. I thought you should know that the ME’s report has just come back. Dr. Jonus’s conclusion is that there is no evidence that Darla Doherty’s death was anything other than misadventure.” Jejeune was suddenly uncomfortable to be delivering news from up on high like this. He descended the steps and joined the group. “She appears to have pulled the lure too close and the falcon struck her, over her shoulder, from behind.” The news was greeted by Holland with silence. “She wouldn’t even have seen it coming,” Jejeune added lamely. “It would have been very quick.”

  “Bleeding to death from a severed carotid usually is,” said Holland. Maik gave him a look that seemed to help him remember who he was talking to, and Holland dialed down his tone. “About the bird, sir …”

  “I don’t know if it will be euthanized. DCS Shepherd has been pushing for it, but there is no precedent anyone can find. I have to tell you, it does look like the prince would challenge any attempt to have the bird put down. The Assistant Deputy Commissioner has already heard from his legal team, asking if he knew what the ruling was likely to be.”

  “I’d like to request not, if I have any say.” Both Salter and Maik looked surprised, Jejeune less so. “It’s not what Darla would have wanted. She loved those birds. She would just stand there and watch them, soaring, diving, swooping in. There was this kind of look on her face …” Holland seemed to gather himself a little. “Anyway, I just know she wouldn’t want the bird to be put to death, that’s all. Tell me,” he said, drawing on his cigarette and looking at Jejeune frankly, “this Taleb, are we also looking into any possible role he might have in Darla’s death?” He rested his gaze on Jejeune, but it was Maik who shook his head in answer.

  “Tech has confirmed there’s no break in the iPhone footage at all, Constable. Mr. el-Taleb was seen leaving the building less than two minutes before the recording started, and in keeping his phone recording throughout, he has inadvertently proved conclusively that he couldn’t have been involved.”

  “It was an accident, Tony,” said Salter reasonably. “Nobody could have left from there after killing Darla without being detected, unless they went across Doherty’s land or arrived by boat and came up from the shoreline. Nobody has come up with any sightings. We’ve asked.”

  There was something in the way Holland angrily drew on his cigarette that suggested however ready he might be to exonerate the bird, he wasn’t prepared to grant the same privilege to humans just yet. He shook his head. “This wasn’t an accident; there’s more to it.”

  “Sometimes it seems that way,” said Salter, trying, in her own gentle way to make him see just where the boundaries of logic lay. “Perhaps we even want it to be that way. If there is a reason, then it’s not so senseless, not such a random twist of fate. But that’s what it was in this case, Tony. Honestly.”

  He was adamant. “No, this is not what it looks like. She was genuinely afraid.”

  “They all were,” said Salter. “There was the murder up there, and then that breakin recently…. But however much you would like to think there is something more sinister behind this, there isn’t. We’ve looked at it, all of us, and there is no way any third party could have been involved in this. Martin Jonus is an excellent ME, not to mention the most cautious human being you will ever meet. If there was anything there to suggest it wasn’t how it looked, that the scene had been staged, or the evidence manipulated in some way, he would find it. You know he would.”

  But Holland seemed not to hear. “You know the last thing she said to me? ‘I’m scared, Tony’. And I told her not to worry. Like it was all going to be okay, like I was going to be able to protect her. And now, she’s lying on a steel table in a mortuary. How’s that for protecting somebody?” he asked bitterly, flicking his cigarette away in disgust.

  “It’s not your fault, Tony,” said Salter gently. “You have to let this go.”

  Holland shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I did some internet research about these Gyrfalcons. Turns out there’s a very healthy underground trade in smuggling them. Some birds were recovered at Moscow airport a few years ago. You know what black market value the officials put on these Gyrfalcons taken from the wild? Fifty-thousand U.S. dollars each.”

  The personal investment in this case seemed to have given Holland an edge. There was intensity to his tone, a righteousness none of them had ever heard from him before.

  “The thing is, some countries have a particularly dodgy rep for this kind of thing — Russia, China, Indonesia — so I went and checked with local tourism registrations. It turns out there is only one visitor here in Saltmarsh at the moment who’s travelling on a passport from any of the top five countries involved in Gyrfalcon smuggling. A Kazakh national, Tamilya Aliyev.”

  Jejeune had already been reeling from the news that Holland wanted to look into the Gyrfalcon angle when the constable delivered the news that he now had a solid lead. Jejeune had no idea what connections he might uncover, to Jack de Laet, or beyond. Perhaps there were none to be found, but the longer this case went on, the less he found himself believing this. He knew he would either have to shut down Holland’s investigation or get to the evidence before him. But at this point, he had no idea how he would be able to do either, especially with Sergeant Maik so ready to praise the constable’s initiative.

  “Impressive work,” said Maik. “I presume you have plans to go and talk to this Kazakh national. Do you want me to come along when you see him?”

  “Her, it’s a woman. I’ll go on my own first. She’s been off somewhere for a couple of days, but she’s booked back into the hotel again for tomorrow. Let’s wait and see what she has to say for herself. If I don’t like her answers about the day Darla was killed, maybe I can ask you to come along and we can make things a bit more formal.”

  “Answers to what, specifically, about that day?” asked Jejeune. He had recovered enough to consider correcting Holland, the day Darla died. But the constable was right; she had been killed, though not by any Kazakh tourist. Jejeune was all but certain of that.

  “Aliyev arrived here the day before the breakin, and she left on her mystery trip the day after Darla was killed.”

  Killed. Holland’s use of the word was a result of the guilt he felt, Jejeune realized, like all this activity, this misplaced suspicion, his conviction that there was more to Darla Doherty’s death. Holland believed he could have saved the girl, and the DCI knew only too well what came next; the terrible sinking hopelessness, the remorse, the self-recriminations. If only he had done more, Holland was thinking. She had complained about feeling unsafe and he had done nothing. He could have saved her, but he had not.

  Jejeune looked sideways to find Maik staring at him. Did he recognize it, too, and perhaps believe this brand of guilt was the same as Jejeune’s? It wasn’t. Holland’s was grief, nothing more. He could not have done anything else, and in time he would come to realize this. Peace, of a sort, would visit him again. But Jejeune’s guilt was grounded in the facts. It had been in his power to act, and he had not done so. And as a result, the boy had died. As heartbreaking as Darla Doherty’s death was, there was no one to blame for it, no one to be held accountable. No matter how much Tony Holland was willing them all to see it otherwise, her death had come as the result of a terrible accident, a tragic, freak event, but an accident nevertheless. Jejeune was co
nvinced of it.

  33

  The creamy globe of the moon had been cut in half by a cloud drifting in front of it, leaving only the lower section visible as a perfect semicircle.

  “Look at that, Dom,” his brother urged. “In all my travels, I’ve never seen anything like it. Every day is something new here. Every night, too. It’s magical.”

  “Now you’re getting the picture,” said Domenic.

  He took his coffee and joined his brother at the rail, the porch perched like an open-air stage on the edge of the cliff behind the cottage. The reflection of the moon laid a liquid trail on the dark waters, like a pathway to a promise. On the horizon, a bank of dark grey clouds sat low. The early-warning signs of a coming night storm ran a gentle ripple through a wind chime somewhere close, and Domenic felt a momentary buffeting of the wind coming in from the sea. On the water, two lights burned bravely against the gathering gloom. Fishing boats, approaching Saltmarsh from different directions, each eager to reach the safe harbour before the storm came.

  “How did you get here, Damian?”

  Damian’s safe response had always been the flippant one, and he sought its refuge now.

  “You brought me, remember, Domino. In that ugly old beast of yours.”

  Domenic waited. Not getting exasperated, or punching his brother on the shoulder, or storming off to tell their parents. Those days had gone, lost to time, like so much of the past between them. Together, the brothers watched as the scudding clouds swallowed up more of the moon, leaving only a ghostly, translucent light shining through.

  “You don’t need to know, Dom.”

  “I do.”

  Damian sighed. “When a foreign vessel comes into port, the coastguard can issue shore passes for the crew, as long as a local escort, usually a volunteer of some kind, accompanies them through the port facility. It gives the sailors a chance to go shopping, maybe, or just have a poke around the town.” He paused. Even though Domenic was still looking out over the sea, Damian knew his brother was absorbing every word. More, he was examining the information for its nuances, the tremors that ran beneath its skin.