A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  “No, Sergeant, leave it. It’s fine.”

  He turned to look out the window at the passing countryside. Maik knew the outburst wasn’t really about Mary Wells. But then again, he doubted it was about a bad day at the office either. The DCI had experienced bad days before, without ever showing this kind of reaction. Plenty of them. They both had. In fact, Maik was hardly going to put a circle around today’s date on the calendar himself. Solicitous questions from DCS Shepherd into his well-being had a way of making Danny’s day turn sour in a hurry.

  “You’re sure you’re okay, Sergeant,” Shepherd had asked earlier that morning, her concern genuine, but no less annoying for all that. “No need to talk to anybody about what happened? I can book you an appointment if necessary.”

  “I got a bit wet, that’s all. It was nothing. I’m fine.”

  “But you have a fear of boats, I understand. It must have been traumatic for you.”

  Maik had sighed irritably. This was how rumours got started. “I don’t particularly like being on boats, but I’m not afraid of them. I don’t much like the current Norwich City lineup either, but I wouldn’t say it scares me. Mind you, that defence they’ve got at the moment …”

  But Shepherd wasn’t buying levity. This was her element, caring for her staff, showing compassion, making sure they were fit for the job.

  “It’s just you’ve been in the wars a bit recently. The head …” She touched her own. “Everything still okay there, I take it?”

  “Still got just the one,” said Maik. He had recently had stitches removed from a severe gash near the crown of his head, received when he tried to arrest a suspect, and Salter hadn’t been the only the only one surreptitiously watching Danny Maik’s gait and speech for signs of lingering effects.

  She nodded. “And the other business?” she tapped her fingers delicately against her sternum, the protector of the heart. Against external threats, anyway.

  “Still just the one of those, too.”

  Maik’s pleasant smile indicated that he wouldn’t be answering any more questions about a heart condition that it took all of his willpower to even acknowledge, let alone discuss. To her credit, Shepherd read the signal immediately.

  “Well,” she said, switching gears, “all I can say is thank God you had the good sense to take another officer with you. I need hardly point out how this reinforces the importance of having backup on these kinds of operations.”

  But hardly needing to point something out was Shepherd-speak for telling him she would be soon be giving them all a lecture about the importance of staying partnered up whenever they went out on a call. Maik had felt another sigh building. As if he didn’t feel bad enough, now he was saddled with the knowledge that he would be responsible for inflicting one of Shepherd’s pep talks on them all.

  “So what are we going to be doing up here?” Maik asked, as casually as he could manage. It took Jejeune some time to turn from his examination of the fields.

  “Chancing our arms, Sergeant. Trying to see if we can make something happen.”

  There were probably responses that could have made Maik feel worse, but just at the moment, he couldn’t come up with any.

  “It’s the inconsistency. I’m not getting the same story from the people at the Old Dairy. Prince Yousef claims never to have seen Wayland’s proposal, and yet Catherine Weil appears to know a great deal about it. El-Taleb claims they were not given the time to consider it, not the chance, Sergeant, the time. You see my problem?”

  “Still, sir, el-Taleb’s English, as fluent as it is, it’s an easy mistake to make.”

  Jejeune made a face to suggest he wasn’t convinced.

  Maik drove for a moment in silence, the music turned so low only the heartbeat of the rhythm section was audible. “The person playing bass on this track, it’s a man named James Jamerson,” he said.

  Jejeune looked less than interested.

  “He was Motown’s top bass player in the sixties. I mean, widely acclaimed as being one of the best there has ever been. He played on a lot of great songs.” Maik paused and looked at Jejeune for emphasis. “A lot. Around the same time, though, there was a top-flight session musician by the name of Carole Kaye, and she claimed she had played bass on some of these same songs.”

  “Awkward,” said Jejeune, perhaps more interested than he expected himself to be. “So who was lying?”

  “Neither of them. It turns out Carole Kaye played on recordings of some tunes to be used on shows on the West Coast and Jamerson played on the recordings for the tracks in Detroit. Of course, the story goes a bit deeper than that. You can only have one original recording. But the thing is, essentially, sometimes there are versions of the truth. Perhaps each person at the Old Dairy is only stating the version they know.”

  Jejeune thought for a moment. “Then I’d say we need to get up to the Old Dairy compound as quickly as possible, Sergeant.”

  Maik sighed. It was typical of his luck that introducing a harmless topic like the Motown bass controversy had now, in some strange way, led to this urgency for them to get to the Old Dairy, in direct contravention of DCS Shepherd’s directive to him that morning.

  “Everything fine with the inspector?” The segue from the value of partners had not been subtle, but then, Maik doubted Shepherd had intended it to be. “He doesn’t seem a little bit guarded to you, secretive?”

  “More than usual, you mean?”

  He had given her as innocent a stare as he could manage.

  She had returned it with a casual smile. “He does so like his obtuse angles,” she said.

  “They say he’s at his best when he’s thinking laterally.”

  Plain-speaking Danny Maik reverting to reportage might have been a sign of something, even if neither of them seemed sure quite what it was. Shepherd had picked up a paper from her desk, as if she might want to diffuse the directness of her next question. If so, she had thought better of it at the last moment, laying it down again and fixing Danny with a look from over her glasses.

  “You don’t think he’s distracted by anything?”

  “Anything?” Maik shifted his eyes a little from Shepherd’s gaze, as if he was trying to will the conversation to another place. But this morning, DCI Colleen Shepherd was not for turning.

  “This business with the Kazakh woman, and this man, the birder. He seems to want to not pursue it. Any idea why?”

  “No,” said Danny. There were a couple of half-formed thoughts, perhaps. But nothing that Danny Maik would classify as a fully-fledged theory.

  “Do you think he needs some time off?” Shepherd was staring at him when he finally looked up again.

  “I think he needs some answers.”

  She had treated him to one of her special looks, as if suspecting behind all these short responses a desire to avoid telling her something more. “You know he wants permission to go back up to the compound? He doesn’t have anything, does he? Anything firmly tying Prince Yousef to Wayland’s murder?”

  “No ma’am, he doesn’t.”

  Shepherd mulled this over for a few moments. “I want you to stay close, keep him out of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Maik had asked warily.

  She looked down at her desk and then back up directly into his eyes. “He’s a wonderful detective, Sergeant, but he doesn’t always seem to understand where his own best interests lie. If he even looks as if he’s about to go up there and accuse the prince of being involved in Wayland’s murder, I expect you to do something about it.”

  Shepherd had a way of ending interviews sometimes that left Danny Maik wondering if there was any more to come. He hovered uncertainly for a few seconds before making his way to the door.

  “By the way,” she said, not bothering to look up from her correspondence, “in case you were wondering, we won’t be docking your pay for dropping an expensive piece of police kit in the drink.”

  Maik had toyed with the idea of telling her that he knew exactly
where the video camera was, if she fancied going to retrieve it. But instead he just left her office, her instructions still ringing in his ears.

  Jejeune’s studied silence as they drove unnerved Danny Maik. The DCI often sat beside him without speaking, scanning the passing countryside for any birds that might be up and flitting about. But this was different. There was an edge to this quiet, a brooding, troubled intensity that went beyond Jejeune simply mulling things over. He had seen the DCI like this before, and it meant he was close to something. But what?

  Maik didn’t like babysitting jobs at the best of times, but this one Shepherd had saddled him with had the potential to go wrong on so many levels that he found it easier just to push the possibilities to the back of his mind. Even with a normally functioning Jejeune, matters were never quite as straightforward as you might like them to be. The DCI’s erratic attention span and wild theories often led them into territory where they had no right straying. Maik had the scars to prove it. But trying to intercept a Domenic Jejeune in this distracted, unpredictable mood from embarking on his latest attempt at career suicide was going to be doubly difficult. DCI Jejeune was, in Maik’s considered opinion, teetering on a tightrope these days. And the high winds were blowing.

  As Maik negotiated a tight left onto the narrow single-lane road that led out to the Old Dairy compound, he tried the same nonchalant vein he had struck earlier. “I just wanted to confirm, sir, we haven’t come across any evidence tying anybody up here to Philip Wayland’s murder?”

  Having given Shepherd a bulletproof assurance a scant few hours ago, Maik thought it might be nice to find out whether it was true. But far from reassuring Maik, the strange, almost disconnected way Jejeune delivered his answer left him feeling more uneasy than ever.

  “Not yet. But we haven’t quite finished looking.”

  46

  Later, Maik recalled the steely determination in Jejeune’s face. That should have told him something about how the DCI intended to go about matters. A confrontation was his guess, a full-frontal assault on Prince Yousef that might shake something loose. If he failed, this gambit was likely to have diplomatic consequences beyond DCS Shepherd’s worst nightmares. A call to her would be Maik’s first act when he parked the car at the Old Dairy compound.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” he announced, as he turned off the road onto the driveway leading up to the Old Dairy’s gates. A large crowd of protesters had gathered at the entrance to the facility, but there was no aimless milling around, no sporadic chants, feeding off each other, morphing into an almost festive, party-like atmosphere. Instead a mood of uneasy stillness hung over the crowd, a menacing hush, as if they were marshalled in anticipation of something, like gunpowder packed into a barrel, waiting for a spark. Maik swung the Mini into the car park and nodded at the fence. “I’ll call for support. I’ll meet you in there.”

  Jejeune made his way through the crowd and flashed his badge at the guard manning the small pedestrian gate.

  “The Crown Prince is leaving,” the man said. “He returns home today.” Jejeune turned as the crunch of car tires on gravel announced the arrival of the Phantom behind him. As the gates swung open, the crowd surged forward and the wire fence heaved with the crush of bodies. Jejeune was swept along with the movement, but as he passed the car he caught a flash of a second silhouette in the back seat: Yousef. Prince Ibrahim was going to spirit his younger brother out of the country with him, denying Jejeune the chance for an interview. Jejeune spun from the fence and tried to force his way back through the crowd, making for the roadway. He looked above the sea of heads for Danny Maik, and saw him approaching at a jog, but still too far away to hear a call over the noise of the angry crowd.

  The protesters began hammering ferociously against the side of the car as it inched through the crowd, rocking it on its suspension. From somewhere, a wooden stake emerged and smashed violently against the roof, splintering on impact. A demonstrator draped herself across the radiator grille, forcing the driver to stop. A team of expensively suited bodyguards moved in to remove her, and the crowd crushed in around them in protest. Jejeune inched his way to the car and pressed his warrant card against the window. To both his and the crowd’s astonishment, the door opened and Crown Prince Ibrahim got out. He gazed imperiously around at the gathering, looking not in the least bit intimidated. His bearing stilled the mob to silence and they backed off slightly.

  “I need to speak to your brother, Your Excellency.”

  Prince Ibrahim’s calm was unnerving. Jejeune had known other powerbrokers, but their power lay in their associations, their positions, their possessions. Stripped of these, they were just people, and every one Jejeune had known was still afraid of something, some force or entity greater than themselves. The prince had the same attributes of these other men, but if he had any of their demons, he kept them very well hidden. There was a cold, composed, self-assurance about this man that suggested he knew the full range of his powers, and he would have no hesitation in using them.

  “My brother is accompanying me to a business meeting. His legal representatives will contact you in due course.”

  “I have questions for him regarding a murder inquiry. He cannot leave this country until I have spoken to him.” Jejeune’s tone was urgent, compelling. He realized this was the only chance he was going to get. Everything hinged on these next few moments.

  “We have many things of importance to deal with. I can give this matter no more consideration.” He turned to re-enter the car.

  But Domenic Jejeune wouldn’t allow anyone to treat murder victims as inconveniences. No one had enough power, enough influence, enough wealth, to step over dead bodies and continue on with their life unconcerned.

  “Three people are dead, Excellency,” he shouted angrily, loud enough even for people farther away in the crowd to hear, “and you and your brother will afford them the dignity of your consideration.”

  “Three?” The prince tilted his head to one side slightly. “I know of only two, a woman who did not work at the project and a man who was passing through my property.”

  “A man who used to work for you. Your brother has no alibi for the night Philip Wayland died. No one seems able to tell us where he was the night a man who abandoned your project in favour of a rival one was murdered.”

  A strange light seemed to flicker for a moment in the prince’s dark eyes, a hint of something Jejeune didn’t recognize.

  “You have a reputation as an excellent detective, Inspector, but I wonder if you always understand why a person acts the way they do. In this case, particularly, I think, you do not.”

  “Was Philip Wayland’s defection just an act of betrayal? Or was it something more pragmatic. His departure compromised your project, didn’t it? Possibly even gave the edge to someone else? I can’t imagine the House of al-Haladin taking the potential loss of a billion pound project lightly. Some might even see Philip Wayland’s actions as worthy of vengeance.”

  The prince’s face darkened with anger. “I will listen to no more of your insults.” He spun on his heel and began to make his way back to the car.

  From the periphery of the crowd, Maik had watched the exchange warily. There was desperation in Jejeune’s face, a recognition that if he allowed these men to leave, it would all be over, his case, his search for justice in Philip Wayland’s death. Somebody needed to rein the DCI in, but Danny was too far away, on the far side of the crowd, with thirty bodies between him and Jejeune. Maik noticed a bearded man behind Jejeune beginning to sidle closer to the confrontation, looking more intense than the rest of the protesters, more focused.

  Perhaps Jejeune was not the first to move toward the prince. Perhaps there was a slight surge to crowd in around him as he turned to get back in the car, and the detective was simply carried forward by the other bodies. Amongst all the jostling, it was hard to tell. But it was Jejeune’s hand that reached out for the prince’s shoulder. Maik was sure of that. The action seemed to
explode in slow motion. Maik saw the prince’s muscular bodyguard reach around the DCI’s throat and fasten him in a chokehold. He saw the inspector’s knees buckle and watched him sink to the ground.

  Maik flailed his arms, pushing bodies frantically out of the way in an effort to reach his DCI, but the crowd was packed so tightly, the people had nowhere to go. He shrugged his arms high to swim through the mass of bodies, but he made no headway and was carried away by the ebb of the swaying crowd until he, too, lost his footing and stumbled back into the people behind him. Maik heard a sharp crack and the sounds of a scuffle. A rush of alarm rose; cries and shouts. A car door slammed and the sound of an engine revving at high speed caused further panic, as people dived away from the moving vehicle. By the time he was upright again, Maik could see the scarlet of blood and hear the gasps of horror. He put his head down, burrowing through the crowd, parting them now with an irresistible force, to get to his DCI.

  The blood had forced everyone back a step or two, and there was a small space around the two men. Jejeune was on one knee, holding a hand against his throat. Beside him, the guard who had grabbed him had sunk to the ground. Blood was streaming from his eyebrow and nose. A second bodyguard arrived at the edge of the circle at the same time as Maik. He reached under his armpit and withdrew a pistol. Maik lunged for him, both hands reaching for the gun arm and stretching it into the sky. He stomped a vicious kick into the inside of the man’s knee and snapped an elbow back into his jaw, twisting the gun away from the guard’s hand as he crumpled to the ground.

  The sight of the gun caused panic in the crowd and people recoiled, stumbling as they fell back, spinning off each other in a desperate rush to get away, only to meet the wall of others crushing in.

  “Stay where you are. We are police officers. You are not in any danger now.”

  Maik’s bellow seemed to freeze them all in their tracks. Holding the gun low in one hand, he grabbed Jejeune’s arm and helped him to his feet. The two bodyguards lay on the ground. Neither made any move to get up. The Rolls was already out of sight, a faint haze of dust and distant hum of a rapidly retreating engine its only legacy.