A Siege of Bitterns

by Steve Burrows

  And there it was. In a single sentence, the two themes Domenic Jejeune would rather have avoided at all costs: his fame and his youth.

  “No point pussyfooting around, Domenic. It’s not as if they won’t have noticed, is it? Better get things out into the open, so they can come to terms with it and get on about their business. Glad to have you on board, of course, delighted, but the less disruptive your appointment turns out to be, the better all round. Agreed?”

  Agreed. But exactly how was it going to be better all round for him to have to prove himself once more against suspicions about his age and his reputation, instead of just getting on with his job? So even as Jejeune stepped forward to articulate, in that slightly accented, self-effacing style that the media loved, just how proud and privileged he felt to be a part of the North Norfolk Constabulary, which was itself renowned for its forward thinking and innovative approaches, he was aware that the job that lay ahead of him had suddenly become that much harder.

  He had noted their responses. Nothing overt, no rolling of the eyes, no smirks; but then, there hardly would have been with the formidable presence of the DCS by his side. But a slight stiffening of shoulders, the faintest turning away of a head; it was there if you knew what to look for. And Jejeune did. But could they see through his veneer, too? Could they tell, as he delivered his speech in a tone as smooth as melting chocolate, what was really in his heart? Could they sense his doubts and fears? His reluctance?

  Jejeune stole a glance now at Maik, still watching the recovery party. No, you weren’t there, he thought, but there would have been no shortage of people lining up to tell you about it. Like this one approaching now. Holland.

  “Terrible, eh, sir? And him a television personality, too. Did you know him at all?”

  Jejeune didn’t answer.

  “I’ve had a word with the man who found the body. Not much help.” Holland consulted his notebook. “Dr. Michael Porter. A local vet. He’s a bit cool, though, all the same. Just called us straight off and sat down and waited. Made no effort to get the body down, do CPR, nothing like that.”

  “No,” said Jejeune thoughtfully, “he wouldn’t have.”

  Holland looked at Maik.

  “He’s a vet,” said Maik. “He’d recognize a lost cause when he saw one.”

  “Still, you’d think he might try, if only for form’s sake. He was out here doing a bit of birdwatching when he found the body. Avid birder, apparently. He made a special trip tonight looking for something called a Bittern. Word is you do a bit of birding yourself, sir. Have you heard of that one?”

  “Avid. That’s what he said? Not a professional then.”

  Holland couldn’t suppress a smirk. “I don’t think he’s won any medals at it,” he said, cocking a sly grin toward Maik. “But he seems keen enough. He said he’d only been here about ten minutes. Parked his car on the far side, and walked around here with his dog.”

  “We’ve got his details, so what do you reckon, sir? Send him home?”

  “No,” said Jejeune, “not just yet.”

  Jejeune stared at the man sitting on a fold-up chair in the tent. Michael Porter looked unconcerned, distracted almost. A man used to pronouncing death; sure, confident, controlled. A man aware that he is at the centre of a great commotion and doing everything he can to portray himself as the soul of calm. He might still be fighting the shock of finding the body, but inwardly, Dr. Porter would surely be relishing this role.

  Jejeune approached the man and took a seat opposite him. Holland made the introductions.

  “So, what were you doing out here, Dr. Porter?” asked Jejeune amicably.

  “Birdwatching, I was hoping to get a Bittern. There’s some excellent habitat for them here, and one was reported in the area recently. I have actually covered all this with the constable, Chief Inspector.”

  “I meant what were you actually doing, under the guise of birdwatching?”

  “I beg your pardon. What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting that you are not telling us the truth about why you were here, Dr. Porter.” Jejeune indicated the mud-splattered dog lying contentedly beneath the vet’s chair. “No birder serious enough to make a special trip out here in the hopes of seeing a Bittern is going to allow his dog to go splashing around in the marsh and trundle unleashed up and down the pathways.”

  Jejeune paused, but Dr. Porter had nothing to say.

  “I have no reason to doubt that you are a birder.” Jejeune nodded toward the man’s binoculars, a pair of high-end Opticrons. “But that’s not why you came here tonight.”

  Porter’s anger was palpable. “This is ridiculous. No wonder people are reluctant to get involved these days. You try to help out, and this is the way you are treated.”

  Jejeune kept his stare fixed on the man, but Maik’s and Holland’s eyes were locked unwaveringly on the chief inspector. When he spoke slowly like this, his accent was all but undetectable.

  Jejeune sighed. “Dr. Porter,” he said, “the Bittern habitat you spoke of is over on the far side of the marsh, close to where you parked your car. There is virtually no cover at all on this side for a secretive bird like the Bittern. It’s far too open. And besides, anyone looking for a crepuscular species would have been in position long before you got here. So why were you here, Dr. Porter, if not to look for a Bittern? Would you please show the sergeant your mobile phone?”

  “I most certainly will not.”

  Jejeune leaned forward and spoke quietly and evenly, like a man explaining the rules of a game to a child. His tone was as calm and reasonable as before. “Dr. Porter, I need a clear picture of what happened here tonight, and at the moment, you are casting shadows. How deeply I have to dig into your personal affairs to get my clear picture is up to you.”

  Jejeune paused again, waiting to see if it would be enough.

  There was no physical indication that Dr. Porter had capitulated, no drooping of the shoulders, no slumping forward. He remained sitting upright, staring into the middle distance as resolutely as before. Only his voice changed. It was quieter now, less assertive.

  “I was meeting a man, he … I buy drugs from him. It’s not what you think. Medical supplies, for my practice. Acetylpromazine, Tranexamic Acid, that sort of thing. They’re incredibly expensive and, well, he gives me a good price. I … that is to say, they may not be stolen. I don’t ask. I don’t even know his name. He calls me, ID blocked, before we meet, just to confirm there are no problems. I waited for his call tonight and as soon as he rang off, I called the police about this awful business, I swear it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing. Just not to come. That there had been a murder and the police would be arriving shortly. That’s all. He said he was calling to cancel anyway. He said he would get in touch with me later. Then he hung up.”

  “He didn’t ask about the body?”

  The vet shook his head. He rubbed his face with his hands, letting his fingers run up into his hairline. Beneath the chair, the dog stirred into life and raised its head.

  “Please wait here.”

  Jejeune led Holland and Maik out of the tent and turned to face them. “Constable Holland, take Dr. Porter home and collect all the drugs he has bought from this man. Let’s see if we can trace the supplier through their batch numbers.”

  “You think there might be a connection?”

  “A man tells you a body has turned up at a place you are supposed to meet, and you don’t ask any questions. At all?”

  Maik reached for his own phone. “I’ll try to run a trace on that incoming call, shall I?”

  Jejeune pulled a face. “Anybody that cautious will be using a pay-as-you-go disposable, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to be sure. I’ll check what else we have here and then you and I can go on up to the house.”

  Jejeune marched off toward the crowd of officers still working the crime scene. The two men watched him go.

  Holland let out a long, theatrical
breath. “And just what the hell does crepuscular mean?”

  “It means,” said Maik, his eyes tracking the senior officer into the crowd, “that Chief Inspector Jejeune has just announced his arrival. I believe what you have just seen, young Holland, is the unusual sight of somebody auditioning for a role after they’ve already been given the part. Now get this bloke home and pick up those drugs.”

  4

  Dawn was still some way off when Jejeune and Maik climbed the small rise to the house. They entered from the garden and found themselves in the kitchen. A uniformed constable approached Maik and murmured quietly to him. If Jejeune was concerned that the officer had gone to the sergeant, rather than himself, he didn’t let it show. He paused to look back at the doorway, through which the killer had almost certainly led his victim on his final journey.

  “The wife is with her doctor, apparently,” said Maik. “Her personal assistant was wondering if our interview could wait. She can stay to give us her own statement, if necessary, but she would prefer to be upstairs, too. They have both been away for a couple of days. Just got back late last evening. Saw nothing, heard nothing. Oh, and the record company is asking to be kept informed of developments. Just as a courtesy.”

  Jejeune looked at the tall young woman hovering at the foot of the staircase. She was right out of the PA mould, impeccably dressed, pretty enough, but careful to keep it in check; presentable and professional, but not enough to take the shine off her boss. She had the right amount of detachment, too. She would use the word regrettably a lot when she told people they wouldn’t be seeing Ms. Brae today. And there would be the smile, the one that told them there was no room for argument. She knew enough not to smile at the two men now, but she conveyed her thanks with a slight nod as Jejeune waved her upstairs.

  The detectives went down a wide hallway into a large sitting room. Even to Maik’s untutored eye, there seemed a lack of balance in the furniture. Small, homely items, a well-worn chair, a battered side table, fought for space among the high-class furnishings, as if someone had tried to accommodate them long after the room had been expensively and professionally set up.

  A robust fire burned in a fireplace on the wall opposite the door. A brittle air of calm hung in the room, poised, as if the slightest disturbance might shatter it. In a wing-backed chair near the fire, a man’s profile was visible. He was gazing into the flames, his face pale, unclouded by expression. A uniformed constable standing near the doorway nodded his head subtly in the direction of the man. Jejeune motioned for Maik to take the lead. Perhaps it was some sort of test, like in the army. See what the chap’s made of, what? Maik was unconcerned. He would just do his job, and leave others to worry about the performance reviews. He approached the man and drew up a chair to sit beside him.

  “Malcolm Brae? I’m Sergeant Maik. Please accept my condolences. However, we do need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

  The man nodded without speaking.

  With a skill born of long practice, Maik walked him through the rudimentaries. Brae had come straight over as soon as the call came from the police. He had been at his own house, in his workshop, actually, finishing up a special order. Maik moved on to the secondary level inquiries, covering his points carefully, but not endowing any of them with particular significance. When had Malcolm Brae last seen his father? Was it normal for his father to be home alone in the evening? Anything special about this night of the week? Each question was met with a sullen, monosyllabic response, as if Malcolm Brae was determined to provide as little information as possible.

  Maik continued, unfazed. Had his father been involved in any disputes lately? Had there been any unfamiliar visitors or strangers hanging around the house, any hint at all that he might be in danger? “There’s no record of any police reports, you see, but with an … incident of this nature —”

  “It doesn’t appear to be a random attack. Is that what you’re saying? Yes, thank you, Sergeant, I had got that far on my own, actually.” Malcolm Brae turned to examine the flames again.

  “We can wait until later to do this if you like,” said Maik, in the same even tone as before, “but the quicker we fill in the gaps, the more likely it is we’ll be able to catch up with whoever did this.”

  With an effort, Brae drew his eyes from the fire and looked at Maik. “Gaps, Sergeant? Since the success of The Marsh Man, my father’s life has been pretty much a matter of public record, especially since his marriage to that woman. I can’t imagine there are too many gaps that have escaped the public’s attention.”

  Jejeune had begun a slow walk around the room, carefully examining the various artifacts as if he might know a thing or two about this quality of art. But Maik was pretty sure that he wasn’t letting it distract him from Brae’s answers. He turned his own attention back to Brae.

  “Your father courted controversy at times in his TV show; the proposal for the North Norfolk National Park, for example.”

  “Oh, yes, that. The dailies loved that one. Complete nonsense, of course. My father wasn’t above making an outrageous statement or two, if he thought it might attract publicity.”

  “Even the wrong kind?”

  Malcolm Brae leaned forward confidentially. “There is no wrong kind of publicity, Sergeant. Just ask my stepmother. Besides, it caused nothing more than a bit of bluster in a couple of editorials.” He spread his long white hands. “Nothing that I ever heard about, anyway.”

  “But others might have?”

  “My father’s wife was his confidant on personal matters. The rest of us generally just got warmed-over press releases. As for other secrets,” continued Malcolm Brae, “I’m sure my father would have entrusted those to his beloved marsh.”

  “He spent a lot of time there?”

  Malcolm Brae let out a short, angry bark. In another context, it might have been a laugh. “I think it’s fair to say that marsh saw more of him than any of us ever did. Everything else, the TV programs, the books, the wider environmental activism, they all grew out of his obsession with that place. Still, at least he really did care about his subject. I suppose that in itself made him unique among television presenters these days.”

  Jejeune’s tour of the room had brought him to an ornately paneled door on the far side. “Your father’s study?” he asked Malcolm Brae. He opened the door and entered without waiting for an answer.

  It was a surprisingly small room, with built-in bookcases around two walls and a faded oriental carpet on the floor beneath a dark cherrywood desk. A battered filing cabinet sat in a corner of the room. Jejeune could see nothing other than the mirrored reflection of the room through the darkened windows behind the desk, but he guessed that in daylight the view looked out over the marsh. And the willow trees.

  The desk, like the rest of the room, was tidy, but not immaculately so; a sheaf of papers loosely stacked in Brae’s in-tray, a slender black pen perched uncertainly in a holder, a silver letter opener roughly aligned with the top of a blotter. It was the desk of a man who liked order.

  Jejeune opened the drawers and found the same general order and organization. He looked at the desktop again, carefully. The pen had been returned to the holder upside down. Easily done, the two ends were virtually identical. The simple mistake of a busy man, preoccupied with getting on with his day-to-day affairs. Perhaps.

  He picked up the sheaf of papers from the in-tray. It was a collection of birdwatchers’ lists, records from local sites dating back for the previous five years or so. Most were computer printouts, but several were typed or even handwritten. All different hands, as far as Jejeune could tell.

  Brae’s day planner lay to the left of the blotter, opened at the page for the previous day. Jejeune lifted it and riffled back the pages from the previous few days. Amid the smattering of bird sightings and other observations about the marsh were several meticulously recorded appointments. Cameron Brae’s day was unlikely to involve missed engagements or forgotten assignments.

  At first, Jejeun
e thought he must have misread the entry, perhaps merged two words in the blur of flickering pages. He thumbed back urgently through the pages. There it was, from three days ago. He drew a deep breath. The pages of the day planner were divided into three columns, for morning, afternoon, and evening. Various entries were scattered over the page, a local hotel listed under “Breakfast,” initials at 6:30 in the evening. But in the centre column there was only one entry. It was underlined twice and circled in red: am.bittern.

  Jejeune looked back at the birdwatchers’ lists. It would take a long time to search through them all, longer than Jejeune had at the moment, but he would be willing to bet there were no other sightings of an American Bittern among them, underlined and circled in red, or otherwise. Eurasian Bitterns, such as Dr. Porter had claimed to have been searching for, certainly, but not American Bitterns. Lying in the tray beneath the bird lists was an Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map showing the marsh and surrounding areas in great detail. At a point on the northern boundary of the marsh, someone had marked a crude red X. To Jejeune’s eyes, the ink looked the same as that used for Brae’s circled diary entry. He took the upside-down pen out of the holder and scribbled on the blotter. Red.

  Jejeune turned to leave the room, but stopped suddenly and went back to the bird lists. He leafed through the top three again, carefully clipping each together when he had finished and replacing it in the pile. Coupled with the pen, it left him in no doubt. So you hang your victim out on public display, brazenly replace the ladder in the shed outside, but then try to hide the fact that you had ever been in this study. What sense did that make? But then, what sense did murder ever make?

  Jejeune stepped back through the open doorway, motioning to the constable.