A Siege of Bitterns

by Steve Burrows

  Normally, coastal drives like this were one of the great pleasures of living out here. Casually scanning the fields and hedgerows for a potential addition to his county list, his mind could remain blissfully unoccupied. But today, a number of gnarly questions turned the sights and sounds on this dark summer’s day into little more than background noise. Jejeune didn’t hold out much hope that his destination would do much to quell the disquiet, either.

  Jejeune pulled off the road and began a long, bumpy drive along a rutted cart track. Maik’s Mini was parked beneath a large oak tree at the far end, and Jejeune marvelled, as ever, at just how the sergeant managed to fold his formidable frame into the tiny car. Maik was leaning back on the front fender, his face turned toward the sky. Jejeune couldn’t hear whether there was an old Motown track coming from the CD player, but he wouldn’t have bet against it. As Jejeune got out of his car, the first heavy, coin-sized raindrops began to splatter on his windshield. He nodded briefly to Maik and the two men hurried up a well-travelled pathway between the trees just as the downpour began.

  Malcolm Brae’s cottage sat in a clearing, surrounded by the remains of an ancient apple orchard. In the sunshine the air would be alive with birdsong, but with their uncanny radar for weather systems, the birds had already taken cover. Only the sound of a high-speed drill was audible over the drumming of the rain. It was coming from a large barn beside the cottage. The detectives entered the barn without knocking and stood inside the doorway for a moment, shaking off the water from their jackets and shoes. The rain was hammering down on the metal roof with ferocious intensity now, threatening to drown out even the sound of the drill.

  Malcolm Brae was leaning over a makeshift workbench. He looked up when the two men entered, but continued working until he had finished his task before turning off the drill and taking off his safety goggles.

  “Chief Inspector. Questions, or answers?” Malcolm Brae was forced to shout above the noise of the rain. Somewhere in the distance, a thunderclap boomed.

  “The former, I’m afraid.” Jejeune had to move closer to make himself heard. “But we are beginning to narrow the field of suspects down quite considerably.”

  This was news to Maik, but he said nothing. As Malcolm Brae shifted his position to look at them, Maik could see what he had been working on. Instinctively, he placed a warning arm across Jejeune’s chest. Although it was broken down into its component parts, Maik had seen enough guns close up to recognize one in its raw form.

  “It’s perfectly harmless, Sergeant,” shouted Malcolm Brae. “I always remove the firing mechanisms while I’m working on them. I was just cleaning up the scrollwork on the face plate.”

  “I don’t see a locking steel cabinet anywhere, sir,” bellowed Maik in return. Another deafening thunderclap sounded overhead. Somewhere outside, the landscape was being lit up by a flash of lightning.

  Brae smiled indulgently. “I think you’ll find that requirement only applies to working firearms, Sergeant. As they are, disabled old Churchills like this are little more than glorified wall hangings. Which, of course, is exactly what the townies want. And before you ask, I do have all the requisite permits.” He picked up a grimy cloth and began wiping his hands. “Did you want to see me about anything in particular?”

  Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, Jejeune could see a number of old firearms in various states of disrepair, lying on surfaces or propped up against the walls. All had either the trigger mechanism or the firing pin removed. The intensity of the rain had increased, and Jejeune looked up, as if to satisfy himself that the roof wasn’t going to collapse under the deafening hammering.

  “I wonder, can you tell me a bit more about your last contact with your father? You said you had argued.”

  A flicker of sadness touched Brae’s eyes. “I tried to call him, on the night he died, but he didn’t answer his phone.” He paused, perhaps to let a loud passage of rain subside, perhaps for some other reason. “I wasn’t surprised. My father could be a very stubborn man. He wasn’t one to do the kiss and make up thing very easily.”

  “Can I ask what the row was about?” asked Jejeune, leaning closer to avoid shouting over the storm.

  “About? About nothing. About everything. About my being his son, and he being my father. I don’t think either of us was ever very comfortable with the arrangement.”

  Outside, two flashes of lightning were followed by two rapid thunderclaps.

  “Was there ever any conflict between your father and Peter Largemount over the wind farm?”

  Maik fought hard to conceal his bewilderment. As far as he knew, Largemount had a solid alibi and there was no evidence linking him with anything. He was certainly full of surprises, this DCI. But in Maik’s book, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  Brae shook his head. “Though he never publicly criticized the project, I know my father had some misgivings; he felt the potential impacts of the turbines on bats hadn’t been studied enough, for one thing. As for Largemount himself, my father couldn’t stand the man. Hardly surprising, really, chalk and cheese. I must confess, I did always find it rather curious that the two never butted heads over that wind farm.”

  “Mr. Largemount has some powerful allies. Perhaps your father recognized it was a battle he couldn’t win.”

  Brae looked at Jejeune quizzically. “You didn’t know my father, did you, Inspector? He relished those kinds of battles. In his earlier days, grinning Peter Largemount was exactly the kind of target he would have sought out.”

  Jejeune began to stroll around the barn. Maik had been sure it was coming. There were just too many interesting objects lying around for the inspector to have foregone his customary pottering. Jejeune lifted an old gun from its resting place and looked along its length.

  “A Powell, Inspector,” called Brae, “an 1895 Boxlock, with a Deeley pull down latch, in case you’re interested. Look at the exquisite detailing on the plate. You really can see how collectors consider them works of art.”

  Jejeune leaned the shotgun back against the wall. He was ready to find beauty in many things, but in some it was harder than others. “Disabled or not, this is not the most secure environment for firearms, Mr. Brae.”

  “I told you, I remove all the dangerous bits before I start working on them. Those you will find locked up in my safe in the cottage. I would like to build a workshop in there rather than work out here, but we can’t all afford to undertake English Heritage–style renovations, Chief Inspector.”

  Someone else who had heard about Jejeune’s plans for his cottage, thought Maik. Or his girlfriend’s plans, more likely. Even if Jejeune could claim it was the police force’s idea to transfer him here, he was still, in the eyes of the locals, just another one of those townies who had swanned up from the Big Smoke to snap up a prime piece of the Norfolk coastline, and, if not exactly act the part of the country squire, at least be close enough to the cliché to be tarnished by association.

  The intense, machine-gun drumming of the rain had eased off to a residual pattering on the roof. In the distance, the thunder was now just a faint rumble as the storm rolled its way across the countryside.

  “I understand your father left a lot of unfinished projects,” said Maik. “Any idea what will happen to them now?”

  “Mother may make some efforts with the charitable work, I imagine, but as far as the academic research …” Malcolm Brae shrugged. “Perhaps the university … I don’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t have any interest in pursuing your father’s work yourself? I understand you studied something similar at university.”

  Brae smiled sadly. “A generous way of putting it, Sergeant. My father was understandably delighted when I chose Conservation Biology as my discipline. Sadly, I’m afraid it was discipline that let me down in the end. My own. Another career opportunity lost to the demons of alcohol. Not exactly a unique tale of woe in our current society, I realize, but true nevertheless.”

  “That must have be
en a …”

  “Disappointment, Sergeant? Yes, my father was never able to disguise his true feelings very well — not that he tried too hard in the first place. I never touch the stuff now. But that’s horses and stable doors, unfortunately, as far as any academic career for me is concerned.”

  “And your … the current Mrs. Brae. She seems very keen that your father’s memory be preserved. I would imagine she would be interested in seeing his goals pursued.”

  “I doubt she knows much about father’s goals. Or anything else, for that matter. She certainly doesn’t have a clue about his environmental work. She couldn’t offer you a fact about my father’s studies if you offered her a new recording contract. A disapproving look, Sergeant? You have interviewed her. Am I wrong?”

  “Some of the ideas are quite complex, as I understand it.”

  “Really? Take care of the environment, and we might just have a healthy place to live in the future? Well beyond the realm of a Roquettes song, I realize, but hardly quantum physics. Does it not strike you as a somewhat strange relationship in the first place? People from her world only marry for three reasons: money, looks, or status. Despite my father’s success, money was clearly not a factor, certainly not the kind of money she’s used to. And without wishing to speak ill of … as it were, my father was no prize physical specimen. No, what she wanted from her marriage to my father was some veneer of intellectual status. Intelligence by association, however tenuous that association might be. Being with my father and his circle provided her the gravitas missing from her ridiculous previous existence. Really, I ask you, can there be anything more pathetic than a fading airhead starlet looking to be taken seriously?”

  “Hardly a crime, though, is it, wanting to improve your mind?” said Maik reasonably. “After all, not everyone gets a crack at a university education.”

  “But merely wishing to be thought clever, without putting in any of the requisite effort, there’s a word for that, isn’t there, Sergeant? Don’t be misled. My stepmother’s desire to make over her image has little to do with any genuine desire for greater knowledge.”

  How well had it gone down with the rest of the Saltmarsh cognoscenti, this quest of Mandy Roquette’s to be admitted into their little circle? It occurred to the listening Jejeune that she probably had more money than the rest of the Saltmarsh elite put together, and yet she had been conspicuously absent from the list of invitees to the Hunt Club function.

  “Your stepmother told the sergeant your father said he was working at the university,” said Jejeune casually. “Do you happen to know where she thought he was really going?”

  Malcolm looked puzzled.

  “Most people would just have said ‘he was working at the university.’ But he’s a very literal man, the sergeant,” said Jejeune, “not much given to linguistic license. If he states that Mrs. Brae used the word said, I have no doubt that is exactly how she put it. Said as in claimed you see. It doesn’t necessarily mean that she believed him. In fact, it suggests the opposite.”

  “Insecurity is a disease that can become an epidemic very rapidly, Inspector. I would suspect that after you have attended enough dinners where the conversation swirls around above your head all evening, it would be easy to start imagining all sorts of things. But I would say if my father was having an affair, it can only have been because he was not satisfied with his life inside of his marriage.”

  He paused and looked at the two men. The rain on the metal roof was barely audible now. But the sound still seemed to fill the barn.

  “You will let me know when that field of suspects gets narrowed down to one, won’t you?”

  Brae hefted the stock of the Churchill rifle back onto his workbench and reached for a jar of polish. A rich, sweet scent of oily resin filled the air. The detectives left him to his work.

  Jejeune sat in the Range Rover, looking out at the sky, an unbroken shroud of grey weeping gentle tears. “No metaphors, no similes, nothing,” Lindy had said after Maik had called in to the cottage to report on Brae’s weight. “It’s his army training, I suppose. All that precision and drilling.”

  Jejeune had not noticed it until she had pointed it out, but he supposed he had been unconsciously registering the sergeant’s speech patterns since. He sighed. Perhaps he had no business commenting in public on how his sergeant expressed himself. Still, it was too late now. The engine coughed into life, and Jejeune eased the Range Rover out toward the grey horizon.

  Maik sat in his own car for a long time, staring out through the veil of soft rain at the stunted, unkempt apple trees, with their fallen garlands of fruit beneath them. Just his imagination, running away with him. He snapped off the CD player. Sometimes even silken harmonies of The Temptations couldn’t soothe away the problems. So I speak plainly? Well how about this for plain speaking, then? If Jejeune thinks he can find a motive for murder in Mandy Brae’s suspicions about her husband’s infidelity, he is wrong. Whatever else she might have been, Mandy Brae was a loyal, loving wife. Maik was sure of it.

  14

  Archie Christian’s house was set well back from the road, but the long single-storey facade still set an imposing barrier between a visitor and the rest of the property. The house sat on a small rise, looking out over a vast expanse of flat, tilled soil. The wide porticoed entrance and lavish three-winged layout spoke to the affluence of the original owner, a landowner with a healthy share of the local onion trade.

  The wings ran off the house at ninety degrees from the main block, forming a three-sided courtyard behind the house. Along the back, forming the fourth side, was a long ramshackle greenhouse. A set of large padlocked gates connected each end of the greenhouse to the side wings of the house. When they were shut, as they were now, it formed a fully enclosed courtyard. For a man with Christian’s past, the setup could hardly have been better, well away from the prying eyes of the public and secure against unwanted visitors. Well, almost.

  A judas gate on one side gave under Maik’s attentions. “Appears to be open, sir. Can’t see why we can’t just go in, as long as we announce ourselves properly.”

  “Are we sure he’s here?” asked Jejeune.

  The sergeant shrugged. He had not called ahead. Archie Christian was not the sort of man to whom you gave advance notice of a police visit. Not if you wanted him to be at home when you got there.

  Jejeune looked skeptical, but followed Maik through the gate without comment. He noticed fresh tire tracks in the mud that didn’t match either the battered Transit van or the tan late-model Aston Martin, both of which were parked on the far side of the courtyard.

  A short, stocky man with a grey bouffant hairstyle and chiseled features came out of the greenhouse as the two detectives approached. He wore a silk shirt of alternating blue and purple stripes and grey trousers with a crease that could have cut through flesh. A thick coil of rolled gold chain glittered around his neck. Black patent leather shoes of a style Jejeune hadn’t seen for a generation completed the outfit. Judging by his appearance, whatever he was up to these days, Archie Christian wasn’t spending a lot of time in the onion fields.

  Christian walked toward them briskly, pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers. He had the exaggerated swagger and easy self-confidence of someone who was comfortable coming at you head on and standing right in your personal space. It was a useful trait to have, thought Jejeune, if you intended to do them bodily harm for non-payment of debts.

  “Blimey, Danny Maik. I thought they had sent you to the glue factory. Dodgy ticker, wasn’t it? Don’t look so surprised, old son. Lots of loose lips in the North Norfolk Constabulary, if you know who to ask.” He tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger and turned toward Jejeune. “And you must be the new bloke. The TV star.” Christian waved his hands in front of him like a bad impersonation of a vaudeville star. “So what is this then, promotion? Or purgatory? I mean, one of the kids still died, didn’t they? And if I remember rightly, there was a whisper that if things had
been handled differently.… Still I suppose we’ll never know, eh? At least you managed to save the important one, the Home Secretary’s daughter, that’s the main thing.”

  Maik made a move toward Christian, but Jejeune lifted his hand. It was a slight, almost imperceptible gesture, but it was enough to quell the storm brewing inside Danny Maik.

  “We’re making inquiries into the death of Cameron Brae,” said Jejeune evenly, “and your name came up.”

  “Now there’s a surprise.” Christian cast a glance at Maik. “Every time anybody gets so much as a parking ticket out here, my name comes up. Do you know why that is, Inspector Hollywood? Because your coppers down at the station are too bloody lazy to do their job. Instead of going out and looking for the real villains, they’d rather just sit on their fat arses in front of a computer screen and pull up the names of people in the area with a bit of history. Never mind that these people have been decent, law-abiding citizens for years. Well, I was here that night, all on my own. All night. We done?”

  “As a result,” continued Jejeune as if Christian hadn’t spoken, “we have a few questions to ask you.”

  “I don’t know anything,” said Christian.

  “Be a short interview, then, won’t it?” said Maik, matching Christian’s surly tone exactly. He indicated the greenhouse. “Mind if we have a look around inside, Archie? The DCI has never seen your little setup before.”

  Christian shrugged and led the men into the greenhouse. Most of the space to the left was dedicated to rows of tables with trays of plants arranged along them, and hanging down in luxuriant fronds from baskets suspended from beams above. But the entire right hand section of the structure had been converted into a sunroom. A large wicker sofa and two matching chairs surrounded a low bamboo coffee table, the furniture set to look out through the oversized windows at the vast flat quilt of fields beyond. Christian’s laptop sat on the table, the monitor having already retreated to his screensaver. Behind each chair was a wicker bookcase filled with the sort of bric-a-brac one might associate with the worst of seaside souvenir shop, and modern fiction, to Jejeune’s mind at least, of a similar pedigree. Separating the space from the rest of the greenhouse was a polished teak bar, trimmed with brass rails and flanked by two large bamboo screens. An impressive array of liquor stood against the mirrored back of the bar. Through a small gap between the screens, Jejeune could see a large bed. It looked like the glass in that part of the room had been painted over, creating a dark space not visible from anywhere but here.