A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  “Mind if I join you?” Maik rested his hip against the other end of the picnic table and raised a cardboard cup in salute as the other man looked across. He glanced at the lawns as if to suggest there might be other tables, any other table, Maik could have chosen.

  In the end he gave a small shrug. “Sure.”

  Maik climbed up and sat on the table; a bookend to the man on the other end. “They tell me this is the best place in town for a decent cup of coffee,” said Maik, indicating the cup cradled between the man’s clasped hands. “Is it any good?”

  The man looked down into his cup a moment before answering. “Not bad, unless you’re a coffee connoisseur.”

  “Me?” Maik gave an easy laugh. “No, I’m a tea man. My boss, though, he likes his coffee. He’s from Canada.”

  If Maik hadn’t been looking for it, the slight tensing would have been easy to miss. The two of them sat for a moment in silence, sipping their drinks thoughtfully and staring out as the ducks went about their business, completely unconcerned by the scrutiny of the men perched above them.

  “Beautiful colours, those on the right,” said Maik. “Shelducks, aren’t they?”

  “Shovelers. There are some Shelducks here, though, over on the far bank.”

  Maik nodded. “And those with the white stripe on their heads?”

  “Eurasian Wigeon.” The man corrected himself. “Wigeon.”

  “Some life they’ve got, pottering about all day, find a bit of food, have a rest now and again. Not a care in the world, I should imagine. Pity we can’t all have lives like that, eh? My name’s Danny, by the way.” He leaned across the table and extended a hand in a way that left the other man no opportunity to refuse it. He received a hand in return, but no name to go with it, until his own lingering grip made it uncomfortable.

  “John,” said the other man. “Nice to meet you, Danny, but I must be going.”

  “My boss, this Canadian bloke, he likes to sit like this, up high,” said Maik, as if John hadn’t spoken. “I never realized what a perspective it gives you until now.” He turned to look at the man in a way that stilled his move to rise.

  “You’re Canadian, aren’t you?”

  “North American. Canadian, yes,” said Damian finally, relenting under the other man’s questioning stare. Over Maik’s shoulder, Damian eyed the doorway to the café, as if he might be regretting his decision to sit at this table so far away from it, especially now that the formidable frame of Sergeant Danny Maik had settled himself in between.

  “Forgive all the questions,” said Danny amicably. “Can’t help myself sometimes. It’s my job, see. I’m a police officer.”

  Damian Jejeune must have spent large parts of his recent life controlling his reactions to uncomfortable situations. “A detective?”

  “On my good days,” said Maik with an easy smile. “You know a lot about birds. You wouldn’t be the one who found that rare bird they’re all talking about — the Franklin’s Seagull?”

  “Gull.” Damian shrugged uncomfortably. “Sometimes you get lucky.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Maik nodded, as if recalling some dim memory in his past when he had been lucky himself. “It certainly seems to have caused a flap.” Comedy wasn’t Maik’s forte and his apologetic smile seemed to acknowledge as much. The other man, though, seemed to have little time for humour anyway. He looked wary, guarded, ill at ease. Maik recognized the signs. It was the look of a hunted man.

  A silence fell between them, but Maik was relaxed. This man wasn’t going to run. If he took a stand, he might be a handful. He had a nasty bruise on his forehead that suggested he had seen a bit of action recently. And Danny knew exactly where. But his years of experience told him the man wasn’t going anywhere. He was too clever, too experienced. He would be looking for another way out instead of making a run for it.

  “This boss of mine I told you about, this Canadian, he’s a detective, too. Chief Inspector, as a matter of fact. He’s a good man. I’ve got a lot of time for him.”

  Danny waited, but the other man seemed unable to find anything to say. He continued staring straight ahead, at the water, and the ducks, and the idyllic man-made landscape.

  “I’ll tell you the kind of man he is,” said Danny. “Not all that long after he came here, I was taken ill on the job. Fine now, thanks,” he said with a terse smile. “The thing is, at the time, it was touch and go whether I would be able to keep my job. I knew I was still up to it, but the brass don’t always see things the way you’d like them to, do they? Certainly not in my line of work.”

  Perhaps Danny was asking what the man’s occupation was, perhaps he wasn’t. The Shovelers drifted off nearer the far shore and the man’s eyes tracked them. But Danny was fairly sure he still had his attention.

  “In the end, it all came down to the inspector’s word. And he made it his business to see things worked out all right for me. Now why would he do that, I wondered? As I said, we’d only just met. But that’s the way he is, see? When push comes to shove, he’ll put himself on the line for you. Loyalty. It doesn’t seem as easy to find as it used to be. Certainly not like that. I’m from an army background, myself. You learn to value the people you can rely on in that way.”

  Something in Damian’s expression had changed. The concern was still there, but the alarm, the look of panic, had gone, replaced by something else. Sadness? Regret? Danny wasn’t sure. But he knew it was time to close in.

  “So, as I say, I’ve got a lot of time for this Chief Inspector of mine. And if he wants to tell me he doesn’t know any other Canadians who happen to be visiting, other birders, I’ve got no reason to think otherwise. The thing is, he’s not been his normal self lately. I think something is bothering him, and I don’t think it’s his work. I wouldn’t like to think it was because somebody he knew was putting him in a difficult situation. The thing about loyalty like his is, it would be easy to take advantage of it, if you know what I mean.”

  Damian was silent so long Maik thought he had resolved not to speak at all, that he was waiting until he was sure Danny had said his piece before deciding what his next move would be. But Damian finally swivelled around and looked at him directly.

  Maik realized this was not Domenic Jejeune’s face he was looking into. This man had been down a long, hard road. Not as long and hard as Maik’s own, perhaps, but enough of one that it had left its scars. The man facing him now wouldn’t be inclined to take anybody’s advice. Not unless he wanted to. For a long moment, the uncertainty hung between the two men like a physical force.

  “This boss of yours,” said Damian quietly. “I guess he has no family over here?”

  Maik eyed Damian warily. “None that I’m aware of, sir.”

  Damian nodded slowly. “The world can come at you from a lot of different directions, Danny. It must be difficult for his family, I imagine, him being so far away. I’m sure they care about him, too, and they’d want to watch out for him if they could. But maybe they can’t, for whatever reason.” He looked out over the water again and then back to Danny. “If that was the case, if they couldn’t be around for him themselves, I’m guessing they would be very grateful to know there was somebody like you out here, looking out for his best interests. It would make them feel, you know, better about things.”

  Danny Maik sat in silence for a long time. He was looking at the water, at the ducks gliding over its surface in what seemed to him to be such aimless pursuits, but were, surely, full of purpose for the birds themselves. He drained his now-cold tea and crushed the cup in his powerful hand. “I’d better be going,” he announced, climbing off the table. “Enjoy the rest of your time in the U.K., John. Going to be a long stay, is it?”

  Damian shook his head regretfully. “I’ll be moving on soon.” He looked out over the lake and the soft green lawns surrounding it, dappled by the faintest pockets of shadow from the high, wispy clouds. “Pity though. If things were different, I’m pretty sure I could get to like it here.”

/>   50

  When Domenic wandered past the kitchen, he heard the sounds of food preparation, plates being laid out, something frying in a pan. Domenic didn’t look in. He knew Lindy would go in to help Damian make the breakfast as soon as she finished her shower.

  Domenic went into the study and sat behind his desk, drawing a file toward him. Work, a refuge from the problems of the world, as it was for Xandria Grey, perhaps? Only it wasn’t working for her. Would he have more success? His mind was churning, a whirling vortex of Swallows and Gyrfalcons and Edward de Vere. Of canvas bags and satchels and thousand-year-old nests. But he couldn’t stop any of it long enough to grasp it clearly, and he was terrified it would all spin away into nothingness before he could make sense of it.

  He heard footsteps coming along the hallway, but it was not the usual barefoot padding of Lindy bringing him his coffee. He hadn’t realized how much he missed that sound, how much it meant to him, how much it had become a part of their morning ritual. Damian appeared in the doorway. He set a mug on the corner of Domenic’s desk. “Breakfast in about twenty. How was the walk last night? Any Nightjars?”

  Domenic shook his head. There was no point in describing the wild, desolate beauty of Dershingham Bog to his brother, who would never have the opportunity to experience it for himself. There was furtiveness about Damian this morning, he noticed, the same kind of guarded attitude that Danny Maik has shown the day before, when he returned from a short unexplained trip. Somewhere local, based on the time he was gone, but beyond that Jejeune had no idea what could have called his sergeant away so urgently. And Maik apparently had no intention of telling him.

  “I think I know what happened to the Kazakh’s Gyrfalcons,” said Domenic to his brother quietly. “I believe they’re at the prince’s facility.”

  Damian sat in a chair across the desk from his brother. “I thought you told me there were only fourteen birds up there, the number the prince has always had. And they were all satellite tagged.”

  Domenic nodded. “But I think only twelve signals are from live birds. I believe De Laet and Doherty had to store some wild birds in the Old Dairy facility at some point, and two of the prince’s falcons got infected and died — one white and one grey.”

  Damian pulled a face. “It’s possible. Those wild birds could have carried any number of parasites to which the captive ones would have had no resistance.”

  “If the dead falcons were buried in very shallow soil near the facility, their tags would still transmit, and the signals would still come from the same coordinates,” said Domenic. “I thought you might like to know, given your interest in all this.”

  Music came from the kitchen. “Hallelujah,” one of Lindy’s favourites, telling them she was up and ready to assume control of breakfast. Damian listened for a moment. “I’ll probably have them play Leonard Cohen at my funeral,” he said. “That way, I won’t feel quite so bad that I can’t be there.”

  Once, the brothers would have shared a laugh at the mis­chievous slight, but now Domenic met it only with a sad expression. “None of it was ever a coincidence, was it Damian? You coming here? Your connection to Jack de Laet?”

  “The first part was,” said Damian quietly. “Meeting Jack in a bar in St. John’s and him telling me he was looking for Gyrfalcons. But after that, after the liquor got talking and he told me he knew how to smuggle birds into the U.K.” Damian shook his head. “I went home that night and thought about it. If he could do it with birds, he could do it with people. And if I could just get over here to see you again, to talk to you…. No, by that time, it was a plan. I became Jack’s best friend in a hurry, a bird guide who could find him his Gyrfalcons, somebody who would be happy to accompany him to Labrador, Iceland, hell, even to the U.K.”

  In the kitchen, Lindy had cranked up the music, perhaps to let them know she would be staying out there, keeping herself busy with toast and eggs and bacon, leaving the brothers to speak in here. Privately.

  But they didn’t speak. Damian couldn’t find a way to ask, and Domenic seemed incapable of breaking the silence himself. Damian picked up the copy of King Lear from the corner of the desk and riffled through it idly. “This case you’re working on, do you think the younger brother ever wonders what life would have been like for him if the birth order had been different?”

  Domenic looked down at his desk for a moment, as if looking for an answer in the swirling patterns of the dark wood grain. “We all want somebody else’s life, I suspect, or a better version of our own, at least. But it’s probably easier to take if society has already conditioned you to your fate. It’s not always the hopes for another life that disappoint us, so much as the failure to live the one we expected.”

  Damian smiled at his brother. “You always were able to see the world in black and white. I admired that about you. Envied you a bit, too, I suppose.”

  Domenic was silent for a moment. He gave his brother a sad smile. “I’m glad you came, Damian. It’s been good to see you. I just wish the circumstances were, you know …”

  “Yeah, but, let’s face it, if the circumstances were different, I probably wouldn’t be here at all.”

  Domenic looked away, and Damian knew his brother was going to refuse him. They had shared the unspoken com­munication of siblings when they were children, and now, when it mattered most, it was as strong as it ever had been. Despite his disappointment, Damian knew he needed to spare his brother from the pain of guilt.

  “It’s okay, Dom. Really. I’ll get out of here as soon as I can.”

  “There’s no rush. Stay a couple more days. Till the weekend, at least.”

  Damian laid down the book and picked up a photograph from the desk, grateful for somewhere else to rest his eyes.

  “Evidence?”

  Domenic shook his head. “Loose ends. It a screen grab from the phone of the man who witnessed the Gyrfalcon attack.” The small talk, the unrelated matters, this was where they would find their safe harbour now.

  Damian tapped the photo against his fingertips and then looked at it once again. “Gyrfalcon,” he said, “such a beautiful bird. The ultimate hunter. Raw power, wrapped up in a lethal package.”

  Domenic nodded. “That grab was taken about five seconds after the bird struck that woman. Look at it, no remorse, no regret, no concern at all for what it has just done.” He shook his head slightly.

  “You sure?” Damian held it closer to his eyes and stared at it intently.

  “A guy called el-Taleb starting filming seconds after it attacked. The bird had just landed after striking the handler.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Damian uncertainly. He came around the desk and stood next to his brother, holding the photograph in front of them both. “Take another look.”

  Domenic stared hard at the photograph, as he had done many times. But he saw nothing now he had not seen before. He half-turned to his brother and looked up at him, shrugging.

  Damian leaned forward and tapped the photo with the finger of his other hand. Not the principal part of the image, but off to one side, in the background. “These white patches on the ground, beyond the hedgerow,” he said.

  “That’s Niall Doherty’s property. A crop of some sort, maybe.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Damian again. And now, looking closer, neither did Domenic.

  51

  Colleen Shepherd looked around the dark interior uncertainly. “This is the first time I’ve been in one of these,” she said. “Is there anything in particular I should be doing?”

  “You mean crossing yourself and genuflecting?” asked Eric with a smile. “I suppose you could if you wanted to. Most people just sit down and open one of the slats, though.”

  “Hide etiquette consists mainly of sitting still and keeping quiet,” said Senior. “These days so many people seem to twitter on about things — new birding software and apps and such. I can remember when people in hides just talked about birds, if they talked at all.” Quentin Senior seemed
to realize his faux pas, and hurried into an apology. “Forgive me, Superintendent. I was speaking in general terms. I’m delighted you’ve come to join us.”

  Shepherd smiled. She might have asked him to follow Eric’s lead and call her Colleen, but as long as she had known Quentin Senior, he had possessed an almost religious reverence for official titles, and she suspected she would remain “Superintendent” to the older man whether she wanted to or not.

  “First Sergeant Maik, and now our distinguished DCS dropping in on us,” said Eric playfully. “The wonders of Cley Marshes are clearly starting to register with the North Norfolk Constabulary. Do we have Inspector Jejeune to thank, I wonder?”

  “Danny Maik was here? He never mentioned it.”

  Senior nodded, drawing his eyes away from his survey of the waters long enough to look at Shepherd.

  “Some time ago, yes. Though not to watch birds, I regret to say. Some tittle-tattle about this and that. Said he was wondering how Cley was recovering after the flooding.”

  Said, registered Shepherd. For all his country duffer affectations, Quentin Senior, she knew, remained a remarkably astute observer of things besides birds.

  “Can we assume the same is true of you, Colleen?” asked Eric. “Or might one dare to hope that you are taking an interest in birds yourself?” He smiled gallantly, in a way that made Shepherd glad he was here. It went some small way to mitigating the unease her real motive was causing her.

  “Please, do take a seat, Superintendent,” said Senior. “I trust you can at least stay for a few moments to savour the beauty of a sunlit morning on the marshes?” He waved a hand toward the letterbox landscape beyond the viewing window. Shepherd peered at the wooden bench in the half-light and toyed with the idea of brushing it off first, but feeling both men’s eyes on her, she daintily stepped over the bench and took a seat between them.