“Professional differences,” said Holland. “When you asked her the reason she and Wayland split up, that’s what she said, wasn’t it? But what bigger professional difference is there than you believing in something as much as Wayland did, when the woman who works right beside you every day thinks it’s all a bunch of crap.”
“So you’re saying Wayland thought it would be easier for Weil to give up something she never really believed in in the first place?” asked Salter skeptically.
Maik nodded. “He saw her disaffection, her disillusionment, and he thought that meant she would be willing to help him. A man with morality like Wayland’s — flexible, convenient, easily abandoned when the circumstances called for it — I don’t think he understood how she could disrespect her employers, consider the work on carbon storage a waste of time, yet still be prepared to protect it, simply because it was the right thing to do. It must take a special kind of integrity to do that —”
He stopped short and was quiet. The rest of the team waited a long time for someone to venture into the space he had left. In the end, it was Holland who broke the silence.
“But why murder him? She could have just refused to help him.”
“It was the fact that he asked her,” said Salter. “Wayland couldn’t have told her any more plainly that he had no regard for her — no respect, either personally or professionally — if he’d flown a banner over the Old Dairy from the back of Yousef al-Haladin’s helicopter. Catherine Weil is no fool, and she wouldn’t stand for being treated like one.”
“So those little tabs things you were going on about, the one he called his DNA markers,” said Holland. “He was getting his material ready so he could just slot the stuff in as soon as Weil gave it to him?” He shook his head. “He was certainly confident enough that he would be able to convince her. Talk about misreading somebody.”
“I think he misjudged Catherine Weil, on a lot of levels,” said Maik. “But then, he’s not on his own in that regard.”
53
There was an aura about Colleen Shepherd that Jejeune had never seen before. She shifted uneasily in the passenger seat of the Range Rover, greeting all attempts at conversation with monosyllabic, distracted responses, until he eventually stopped trying, sensing correctly that she would lapse into silence the moment she could. It might have been nervousness, perhaps, venturing out into the field for the first time in as long as anyone could remember. And certainly, el-Taleb was well-connected enough, even in the absence of his royal protectors, to warrant special care in handling and processing. But nervousness had always manifested itself in Colleen Shepherd as energy, or a constant fretting and fussing over details she had already confirmed a thousand times. Now there was only a dark edginess, as if she was entering a place she didn’t want to go, a haunted house that held who-knew-what horrors.
Jejeune spent the rest of the journey on his Bluetooth, confidentially confirming el-Taleb’s location, first with the receptionist at the Old Dairy and then with a worker at the helicopter maintenance shed at Cromer. He pulled the Range Rover off the dirt track and bounced up into the ragged, untilled field where the makeshift helicopter pad was located.
“I’ll park here,” Jejeune said unnecessarily, for something to say. He put The Beast into reverse and tucked it neatly in beside a bramble hedgerow. “When el-Taleb comes in, we can drive across to pick him up.” Jejeune looked at his phone and then at his watch. “He should be landing soon. He’s already on his way, and flying time back here is only about ten minutes.”
“Does he know that we’ll be here? Or why?”
Jejeune shook his head. “He’ll think he’s in the clear now that Yousef has gone. His guard will be down.” He paused and took a moment to look at the surrounding fields, bathed in gentle sunlight. It was a clear day, with faint trails of white clouds high in a pale blue sky. The birdsong came from the skies, too, from Skylarks and Meadow Pipits. Jejeune watched one spiral up, piping its beautiful rolling trill as it descended again.
“You’re sure it was the prince who killed Darla Doherty, Domenic? It wasn’t el-Taleb?”
Jejeune shook his head. “He couldn’t have. He had no gauntlet, no protective gear. No one could control a Gyrfalcon without them. I think Yousef hooded the falcon to subdue it, before dragging its talons across Doherty’s neck. A surprise attack, most likely, while she was turned away, distracted. Then el-Taleb flew him to the Palm Court in the helicopter while he changed clothes and got rid of the falconer’s equipment. Everybody assumed Yousef had gone there by car because the helicopter was here, but I think el-Taleb flew it back after dropping him off. He had keys with him, in the field. They must have been from the helicopter.”
Shepherd nodded. “And then he reports having witnessed her accident, knowing there is nothing at the scene to tie him to the crime in any way, and he can have an ongoing, unbroken video record to show he couldn’t have gotten rid of anything.” She shook her head in what could have been admiration, of a sort.
“It was all planned in advance,” said Jejeune. “It was why we were granted our audience with Yousef at the Palm Court. What better alibi could he have? Not only was he in another place, he was with two senior police detectives at the time.”
Shepherd looked across at Jejeune. She seemed sad, tired. “Domenic, I need you to tell me about John Damian.”
Jejeune gripped the steering wheel in both hands and stared out through the screen in front of him. This was why she was here. Shepherd, out on a field operation, with Maik and the others, Holland, Salter, left behind to do … what? Anything. Nothing. Just something that would keep them away from Domenic Jejeune as his world collapsed around him, as the dust and rubble of the lies and half-truths and evasions finally poured in, ready to bury him, suffocate him, swallow him whole.
“I know …”
The noise from blades sounded so close, they both flinched. The helicopter skimmed the top of the hedgerow, barely missing the Range Rover. It was the cavalier flying of someone who had done this many times, someone free of controls and constraints. The flight of a man with nothing to fear.
Until he saw the vehicle.
“What the hell’s he doing?” shouted Shepherd as the helicopter lurched wildly to the left.
“He’s seen us. He’s trying to get away.” Jejeune fired up the Range Rover and slammed it into gear. The helicopter, still low to the ground, was close to righting itself as it sped away across the field.
“I thought you said he wouldn’t know why we were here.”
The only reason I would need to come onto this property again, Mr. el-Taleb , would be to make an arrest, thought Jejeune, burning at the memory of his own bravado. “We have to stop him before he gets over the treeline. If he stays low, air traffic won’t be able to track him and we’ll lose him.”
Shepherd reached for Jejeune’s radio as the Range Rover shuddered over the uneven terrain. “I’ll have uniforms get cars along the coast road.”
The helicopter was closing in on the far stand of trees. Jejeune sped along beneath him, looking up, watching every dip and swerve as el-Taleb fought for altitude. The trees were approaching fast, hurtling toward them both. The helicopter seemed to falter, and then with a final heaving effort, rose almost vertically and crested the treeline. It had made it to safety, to freedom. But at the last moment, it tilted. The left-hand runner clipped the top of a giant beech, the tallest tree in the stand. For a moment the giant metal bird seemed to stall in the sky. Then it eased over on its axis, driven by the rear rotor into a cartwheeling spin that drove it down on the far side of the trees. From behind the screen of foliage came an earth-shaking explosion and an orange fireball that swelled and heaved into a cloud of thick black smoke.
Jejeune slewed the Range Rover to a halt and sprinted to the boundary hedge, hurtling through it, oblivious to the scratches and snags as he passed. But he was driven back, forearm raised to his face, by the intensity of the heat and the flames arcing out as the sizzlin
g metal cracked and spat in front of him.
Somewhere through the roaring of the flames, he heard his name being called. He backed away from the wreckage, unable to drag his eyes away from the carnage of the burning helicopter until he reached the hedgerow. He turned to see Shepherd through the tangle of branches. She was searching his eyes, for hope, for a miracle. He offered her nothing, but his sloping shoulders told her what she already knew. There would be no miracles today.
The acrid smoke was making his eyes water as it drifted toward him. He could hear the first sounds of the sirens racing along the coast road. Shepherd, from his car phone, he thought dimly. He looked at his DCS, standing forlornly in the field behind the hedgerow, the one that he had so easily crashed his way through just a few moments before. Now it seemed such an impenetrable barrier, barring his way back to the other place, to where his life had been before he crossed over to this side. His thoughts were coming irrationally, and one of them was whether he would ever be able to cross this barrier again, ever go back to where he used to be. He turned away from Shepherd and wandered back toward the wreckage, standing for a long time, watching as the orange-yellow flames continued to reach up, licking the carcass of the helicopter like a hungry animal. He was sitting down on the grass now, he realized, unable to remember when he had done so. The heat from the flames was less intense here, but still reaching him. He stared at the burning wreckage, unable to move, unable to help. He was still there when the first of the fire engines pulled up and two fire officers came over to escort him to safety.
54
This time, there wasn’t any playfulness in Catherine Weil’s ice-blue eyes when she opened the door. And Constable Salter suspected that there wouldn’t have been even if Danny had come here on his own.
They stepped inside the small flat and stood before her formally. A woman of Weil’s intelligence wouldn’t need to have the situation explained to her, but Salter did it anyway. She told her they were conducting the interview as a precursor to obtaining a warrant for a search of these premises: her flat.
“A warrant? What on earth are you looking for?” Weil turned her eyes on Maik, but Danny looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world than this tiny, over-neat flat. That was okay. Salter would do what needed to be done.
“We will come to that, Ms. Weil. We are now prepared to accept that the man you saw in the woods that night was Philip Wayland.”
Weil looked to be readying herself for a triumphant response, but at the last moment, seemed to check herself.
“You knew it was Mr. Wayland, because you had arranged to meet him there.”
“No,” she said quickly. She lowered her eyes. It was the first time Maik could ever remember her failing to meet anyone’s gaze; the first lie, the crack in the dam. The rest of the deceit, the evasions, would follow now, spilling out before them like blood, filling the room with their rancid odour. How much he hated this job at times. But the old soldier in him was still on duty, reminding him to stand up straight, stare ahead, and show no emotion. And like the good soldier he was, Danny Maik obeyed.
“He had asked you to meet him, and you suspected you knew why,” continued Salter. “But you went along anyway.”
“No!” shouted Weil, so abruptly it made Maik start. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did,” insisted Salter. “He was going to ask you to steal his research from the Old Dairy databases. And you were prepared to go along with it.”
“No,” she said again. Weil dropped her eyes and a single tear escaped down her cheek. “Yes,” she said softly. “He was going to ask me to give him his research, so he and his girlfriend could work on it together. Meet me, Catherine,” she recited, “ it’s for the greater good, Catherine, for the benefit of so many. Personal morality and considerations shouldn’t come into it. We should be above all that. As if he was ever going to get anywhere working with Xandria Grey, whether he had the Old Dairy data or not.”
“What happened when you met him?” asked Maik softly.
Weil shook her head. Her red hair was like a veil, cascading down over her, shrouding her. She looked so frail, so broken. Salter was sure it was all Danny Maik could do to stop himself from reaching out a hand to her.
“I didn’t. I was on my way to meet him, but at the last moment, I realized I couldn’t do what he wanted me to. Philip could be so persuasive. His passion about his project, it overwhelmed you. I knew if I let myself talk to him, I wouldn’t be able to say no. I knew I couldn’t allow myself to meet him.”
Salter was silent for a moment. Danny had gone walkabout. Nothing on the scale of the grand tours Jejeune undertook, but enough to distance himself from the spectacle of Catherine Weil, shattering like glass before his eyes.
“But you didn’t leave, did you, Ms. Weil? You stayed on, and waited. Waited until Philip arrived.”
“I wanted to see him, as he made his way down there, to where we were supposed to be meeting, by the sign. I just wanted to see if there was any hesitation, any contrition, any indication at all that he felt badly about what he intended to ask me to do. Or was it just the same old Philip; project first, everything else nowhere.” She flashed her eyes at Maik, “Collateral damage, isn’t that what you called us, Sergeant, the by-product of other people’s thoughtlessness. I just wandered around for a while in the woods. I couldn’t think properly. And then I left.”
Inspector Jejeune was so measured, so careful in his approach. He constructed his case block by block, allowing the suspects to supply the mortar with their own mistakes, their inconsistencies, until they suddenly realized they had built a wall around themselves from which they could not escape. But this was Lauren Salter, doing the heavy lifting because Danny Maik was standing as far away as he could manage in this small flat, as animated as a tailor’s dummy. So Danny and the DCI and the whole bloody lot of them would just have to put up with Lauren Salter making the best fist of things she could.
“You killed him, Ms. Weil. You followed him and you killed him. And you thought you’d left no evidence. But there may be some.”
The statement was so surprising Maik snapped his head round to look at Salter.
Weil looked shocked, puzzled.
“Philip Wayland was carrying a shoulder bag when he died. We have it and we’re testing it for your fingerprints.”
Weil shifted uncomfortably. “This is ridiculous,” she said, but the defiance was gone from her now. She was nervous, afraid. “He’s had that bag for years. We worked side by side. Of course my bloody prints could be on it. But it would be from months ago, years.”
“Unfortunately, unless they’re overlaid with others, there’s no way to tell how long fingerprints have been on an object,” said Salter. “If we found a clean set of your prints on the bag, Ms. Weil, Catherine, it would be up to a jury to decide how long they’d been there. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“Philip had his bag with him that night?” Weil retreated into silence again, but it was more thoughtful now, more measured. Not at all the sullen defiance of earlier. Maik watched the expression on her face with interest.
“It’s not looking particularly good for you,” said Salter. “You have motive, opportunity. You’ve admitted to being at the scene, seeing Mr. Wayland there, even. Following him.”
“I don’t want to tell you your job, Constable.” Weil’s sarcasm had an edge to it. From somewhere she had rediscovered her fire. “But unless you have some actual evidence, I don’t believe there is any reason I should let you stay.”
Salter looked across at Maik, still staring thoughtfully at Weil. Even he should be sensing the turning of the tide. Weil was no longer on the defensive, no longer cowed, vulnerable. It was time for him to step in. But he didn’t move.
“We will return with a warrant to search your flat, your car, your work area. We know what we are looking for and we won’t stop until we find it.”
The weapon, perhaps, she meant, or a fragment of blood-stained wood chip
from the path that had clung to Weil as she left the scene. Anything.
Weil shrugged easily. “Whatever you find,” she said, boldness fully restored now, “I can assure you, it will not connect me to Philip’s murder.”
“Any DNA might be enough for a jury. A long red hair, even, with Mr. Wayland’s blood on it. Would you be willing to gamble there would be nothing? If we find anything at all, there’ll be no further need for any co-operation.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She turned to Maik, who had watched her metamorphosis back to her old assured self with something approaching wonder, and was standing there now wide-eyed and uncertain. “What do you think, Sergeant Maik? On the off-chance the constable’s pie-in-the-sky wishes don’t pan out, do you think you have enough to charge me?”
“No,” said Danny.”
Salter stirred, half-turning to him in anger. “Sir, it would only take a couple of hours to get a warrant. I could organize the search of this place myself.”
But Maik wouldn’t stop staring at Weil.
Salter shook her head in anger and frustration. In the long series of missteps that had dogged the Saltmarsh Police Department in this case, this was the worst of all. And she was unable to stop it.
“Sarge, I believe we have enough reasonable suspicion to hold Ms. Weil, at least for a short time.”
“No, Constable.” Maik shook his head slowly. “Not enough. Not reasonable.”
But there is Danny, thought Salter, sadly. If only you dared to see it. If only you wanted there to be.
She said nothing as they left the flat, nor even as they approached the Mini. Without a word, she carried on past the car. Danny watched her leave, feeling more alone than he had felt for a very long time.
55
Tony Holland drove. In the end, that was what it came down to. Holland drove, and Maik sat in the passenger seat. Whether it would have been any different if they had taken the sergeant’s Mini, whether there would there have been less suffering, less damage in the end, Maik couldn’t have said. But when Shepherd dispatched them to Jejeune’s house as fast as possible, it was inevitable that the two men would have chosen Holland’s Audi. He had the tires squealing out of the car park before Maik even had his seatbelt on.
A Cast of Falcons Page 31
