A Siege of Bitterns

by Steve Burrows

  All around the room, evidence of Christian’s outlandish taste screeched at them. Nothing could have been more out of place in the tranquil pastels of the Norfolk countryside, and Christian seemed intent on making sure it was so. If you won’t have me in your inner circle, he seemed to be saying, then you can just bloody well put up with me being on the outside making a spectacle of myself.

  Christian stared insolently at the two policemen, challenging them to begin. By now, Maik was beginning to get the idea of the pattern the interview was going to take. He would take the lead, while Jejeune pottered around examining the furniture until he felt like making a contribution. Maik found this constant fiddling irritating, and for the interviewee, it must have been as distracting as hell. But then again, perhaps that was the point. One thing certainly seemed to be becoming clear. Domenic Jejeune rarely did anything without a reason.

  On the draining board near the bar were two glasses, still wet.

  “Been entertaining, Archie?” asked Maik.

  “A punter. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “I’ll tell you what is my business: the run-ins you’ve had with the victim. There was a fair few of them, wasn’t there, Archie? Public set-tos, claims and counter-claims, harassment, threatening behaviour. It was all there on the computer screen when I sat there checking it out this morning.”

  “We had our differences of opinion. I wanted to get a backhoe in to pull up some hedgerows. I needed permission, because it was a public right of way. But Brae opposed it. ‘In contravention of existing by-laws,’” quoted Christian in what was meant to be the lofty tones of a solicitor. “By-laws, my arse. It was just showboating. Local greenie takes on the big, bad businessman. So yeah, we had a history, me and him.”

  “Not like you to worry about planning permission. In the old days you would have just ripped up those hedges without a second thought.”

  “Yeah, well, this was different, wannit? I was looking at setting up a GM project on my land. Plenty of investors were interested so the lawyers wanted everything done above board. Only somehow, Brae got wind of my plans. Mobilized the local bumpkins, and that was that.”

  Christian pulled out his BlackBerry and checked it. If it had vibrated, neither Maik nor Jejeune had heard it. Satisfied, or not, Christian turned and tossed the device onto the table beside his computer.

  “So what happened?”

  “Made such a fuss, the investors lost interest. GM’s a dodgy prospect anyway; last thing they wanted was a big song and dance attracting negative publicity. Brae knew exactly how to play it. So they pulled out and went somewhere else, somewhere with a bit more progressive ideas. Suffolk, I think.”

  “And the threats?”

  “He started a whispering campaign with the investors. About me, my background. Not enough he was killing off a highly profitable enterprise. I told him to lay off, that’s all.”

  “Not quite all, though, was it Archie?” said Maik. “You said you’d do him. And you said it in front of witnesses. Not very clever that.”

  “Yeah, well, that wasn’t really me talking, was it? It was the old Greene King. I’d had a bit of luck on the gee-gees at Folksham and I was out celebrating. I saw him in the car park as I was coming out of the pub. We exchanged a few pleasantries and went our separate ways. And that’s all there was to it.”

  “Except now the man you threatened is dead,” said Maik, “and you don’t seem to have an alibi for the night in question.”

  “No, I don’t have an alibi. And let me tell you what you don’t have. You don’t have any reason to zero in on me. Don’t you be fooled by that softly, softly crap Brae showed on TV. He was a calculating bastard, out to stop anybody who wanted to make a decent living if it involved using any of his bloody ‘green spaces.’ There will be plenty of people glad to see the back of him, take my word.”

  “Just what is your business these days, Mr. Christian?” asked Jejeune, apparently taking an interest in proceedings for the first time.

  “I’m a consultant.”

  “At Folksham Race Course?”

  Christian shrugged. “Among other places. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “And what do people consult you about, exactly?”

  “They want me to whisper to their horses. Get them to run faster. You pair done? I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on.”

  Jejeune noticed the momentary flicker in Maik’s features. He had good ears, the sergeant.

  “You can see, Mr. Christian, Archie, how a history of conflict with the victim could put you in the frame for this.”

  Christian’s sneer at Jejeune held real malevolence. “Oh yeah. Bleedin’ obvious, innit? We have a bit of a ding dong. He hurts my feelings, so I do him in. Then I think to myself, the best thing you can do here, old son, is to hang his body from a fakkin great tree. Nobody will ever suspect you. I mean, it’s not as if the two of you have been having a public dispute, and he’s slagged you off every chance he got.” Christian fixed Jejeune with a cold-eyed stare. “Is that what passes for brains in the police force these days? You’re as bad as these Earth Front nutters who keep giving me all these threats and nasty phone calls.”

  “Threats?”

  “They think, like you, that I’ve got nothing better to do than string up old men from trees. That’s how it was, though, taking him on. Never mind you was in the right legally, morally, whatever. As far as the public round here was concerned, opposing Cameron Brae was like kicking Bambi to death.”

  “Are you asking for police protection, Archie?” Maik asked with feigned concern.

  “From a few kids with acne all over their faces? Do me a favour. Besides, what kind of protection am I going to get from a useless invalid with a bad heart and a pretty boy who talks funny?”

  Maik closed the distance between them. His face had darkened with the effort of keeping control. “Mind your manners, Archie. Your act might impress some over-the-top greenies, but I’ve seen genuine hard men in my time. You don’t even come close.”

  Christian smiled pleasantly. He had spent his formative years facing down situations like this in pubs and snooker halls throughout the east end of London. You didn’t flinch, not if you wanted to come back tomorrow.

  “You want to watch it, a man in your condition, getting all agitated like that. Understandable, though, I suppose. Must make you feel a bit impotent, this dodgy heart business. Perhaps you should think about early retirement. But then what kind of a life would that be, eh? Nitro pills, and nights in front of the telly with your slippers and a glass of warm milk? Not much of a prospect for an Action Man like you, is it, Danny boy?” A thought seemed to strike him. “Here, listen, when the old ticker does finally give out, can you ask somebody from the station to let me know? I’d like to say a few words at the funeral.”

  Maik moved closer to Christian, and leaned closer still. “They’ll be putting you in the ground long before me, Archie. You like a flutter, bet on that.”

  Neither man batted an eye, even though their stares were locked less than a handspan apart.

  “Don’t try throwing your weight around here, Danny boy. You want to intimidate people, you should have stuck to waterboarding Arabs in the desert. Exporting democracy for fun and profit, eh? Well, we don’t stand for that kind of thing round here, am I right, Chief Inspector? It’s all about rights in this part of the world, and I’ve got ’em. So don’t come back here unless you’ve got a warrant. And you won’t get one ’cause you got nothing. No motive, no opportunity, no witnesses. So piss off.”

  Outside, Jejeune paused to look around the courtyard before getting into the car. He waited until they were well along the driveway before he spoke.

  “I don’t like my officers threatening members of the public, Sergeant. Not even a little bit. Besides, anybody who didn’t commit the crime can potentially offer us assistance in solving it.”

  “Assistance?” Maik couldn’t suppress a derisive laugh. “I don’t think Arc
hie Christian does ‘assistance.’ What makes you think he didn’t do it, anyway? He’s certainly got the means, and without an alibi, we have to assume opportunity. And despite what he says, public ridicule and harassment would be motive aplenty for Archie, even without the lost income from the GM business. If you’re worried about the weight thing, Christian’s got the head for numbers. Lightning fast on odds calculations at the track.”

  Jejeune shrugged a little. “The calculations are not so much the issue. You still need a branch of the right height. That willow tree had at least eight boughs strong enough to take a noose, but only one of them was the right height to kill Brae cleanly.”

  “Odds of seven-to-one wouldn’t faze Archie,” said Maik. “But I take your point. It’s all a bit fussy for an old-school villain like him. I don’t know if he would have the patience for something like this. That said, I wouldn’t put anything past him. He’s a lot of things, is Archie Christian, but stupid isn’t one of them.”

  “Still, it wasn’t an entirely wasted trip, was it?”

  “His job, you mean? You want me to follow up with the vet?” Maik obviously relished the idea, but Jejeune shook his head.

  “Let’s leave that for a while. I still think Mr. Christian knows more than he is saying about this case. We might need his assistance yet. And now we know how to get it.”

  Jejeune saw a smile touch the corners of Maik’s lips. He had handled himself well back there, the sergeant, picked up on the cues very nicely. They had combined smoothly and ended up with a productive interview. Teamwork, some might have called it. Except for that, you needed team players. And that’s not us, is it, Sergeant? Not quite ready for the group hug yet, are we?

  15

  “So, Sergeant Attenborough, got your RSPB membership form in yet?”

  Holland entered Maik’s workspace holding a sandwich in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. The cubicle was a small, bright space separated from the rest of the office by a pair of dividers that came out perpendicularly from the back wall. Holland set his tea down on the window ledge and reached over to pick up a file that was fighting for space on a desk piled high with books, papers, forms, and coffee mugs.

  “Birders?” he said through a mouth full of chicken salad. “Gah, these anoraks and their lists. They’re worse than trainspotters. Probably got their own secret handshake, too, like that Star Trek bunch. Nanoo, Nanoo.”

  On the other side of the dividers, the room hummed with undefined activity, but Maik had spent most of this day and the previous one on the phone with members of the local birding community. And his mood hadn’t been lightened any by a flying visit from the DCS, on her way through the squad room to who knew where.

  “It’s a difficult one in these parts, isn’t it, Sergeant?” she’d said. “I suspect it’s going to be necessary to remind our birding friends what is a right and what is a privilege. The local community is very supportive when they close off the beach at Blakeney Point, to protect the nesting sites of those … birds. You might want to remind them of that.”

  “Sandwich Terns, ma’am. I have mentioned it,” said Maik, who liked to be told how to do his job about as much as anyone else.

  “Good, good.” If Shepherd had any thoughts on Jejeune’s use of key personnel this way, in the middle of a high-priority murder investigation, she was keeping them to herself. She leaned in close and Maik caught a scent of something sweet and expensive. She was certainly taking good care of herself these days, the DCS.

  “And you’re doing okay, yourself, Sergeant? Physically, I mean. Not feeling the strain or anything.”

  “The files aren’t all that heavy,” said Maik flatly.

  “Yes, well, please tread lightly, however you proceed. Keep in mind that birders are a very important part of our community, and there are some highly placed citizens among them. Let’s not turn this into one of your usual us-and-them routines. We all need to be on the same side going forward.”

  As opposed to going backward, Maik supposed. He had contempt for modern idioms at the best of times, but reserved special scorn for idiotic redundancies like this. But she did have a point. Far from being contrite about their harassment of Peter Largemount, the birders that Maik had spoken to thus far were, to a person, outraged that they were not being allowed on the land to search for the Ivory Gull. Some had inquired about the laws on public thoroughfares, others what sort of sentence they might be looking at for trespassing. Still others were interested in a landowner’s rights concerning forcible denial of entry, and their own rights with regards to defending themselves, should it come to that. In Maik’s experience, birders normally respected the rights and property of local landowners with equanimity, but since seeing an Ivory Gull was an opportunity that was unlikely to occur again in anyone’s lifetime, the prevailing sentiment seemed to be that it would be far better to ask for forgiveness afterward than for permission beforehand.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. This was the most concentrated area of dedicated birders in the country, possibly in the world. A disproportionately high number of birding experts lived around here, drawn by the variety of species, and the expertise and insights of others of their ilk. Maik had encountered local birders often enough over the years, and had witnessed first-hand their relentless intensity. He knew that even if he didn’t share their passion, it would be a mistake to underestimate their commitment to their hobby. But even he was surprised by the depth of feeling he was encountering today. If he was not yet ready to embrace the four-hundred list as a valid motive for Brae’s murder, by now Maik was at least some way closer to understanding how Jejeune could consider it.

  He picked up the various emails, messages, and letters Largemount had provided and considered them once again. For the most part it was transparent outrage and bluster, nasty but not vitriolic. But two of the threats worried him. They were colder, more calculated, a lot more careful in what they promised and how they were worded. And they weren’t signed. Those he set aside for further consideration.

  Holland riffled through the list of local birders, a veritable who’s who of Saltmarsh society. “I just don’t get it. I mean, I like birds, I suppose. I like to see them flying around, hear them singing and all that, but species and subspecies and migration patterns and distribution maps. Why bother with all that crap?”

  Maik shrugged. “I don’t know, the same as any hobby, I suppose. The more you know, the more you want to know.”

  But there were other reasons for immersing yourself in a hobby. Maik had known a lot of policemen who had sought outside interests as a way of dealing with the stresses of the job. Sports, vintage cars. And of course, the bottle. Some just needed an outlet, any outlet.

  Holland flipped the file back onto the desk. “And all this extra work you’re having to do is because of a bird he found? A seagull? On the beach? Blimey, no wonder he’s up for detective of the year. You must be well pleased to have gotten roped into this.”

  “It’s caused a fuss, I know that much. I spent as much time discussing that bird yesterday as anything else. Did I see it myself? Did it have such and such markings? Did he get photographs? I even got a call from the Netherlands about it.”

  “From what I hear, the locals don’t think it was a, whatever it is, Ivory Gull. They think he’s just trying to make a name for himself. Done the opposite, though, made a right rickets of his reputation with the local birders, apparently. None of them has reported seeing it, have they?”

  “The Rare Birds Committee said the only bird in this area pending verification at the moment is an Egyptian Vulture. There’s a Baikal Teal, too, but that is an old chestnut that surfaces every couple of years or so, apparently. Usually an escape.”

  Holland’s mouth fell open in mid-chew. “Steady on, Sarge, you’ll be out there in your anorak and camouflage trousers before long, you keep this up. Not cool, not cool at all.”

  “If I wanted to be cool, I’d open the window,” said Maik testily.

&nbs
p; “Still, I suppose it’s a nice break from bashing your head against a brick wall on this case. Any idea where he’s going with it?”

  Maik shook his head. Having counted out the family, and gotten nothing especially useful from either Largemount or Christian, he had no idea what lines of inquiry Jejeune would be pursuing now. Maik was still uneasy about the cavalier way they had eliminated so many potential suspects just on Jejeune’s say so. But the inspector had such a way of putting his point across, so positive and matter-of-fact, you almost felt compelled to go along with him. Of course it was possible that Jejeune was just streets ahead of everybody else on this, but for the life of him, Maik couldn’t see where they were heading next.

  Seeing Maik preoccupied with his own thoughts, Holland started to leave. Suddenly he turned around. “Here, Sarge, you’re starting to fancy yourself as a bit of a birder, have a go at this one.”

  Maik looked up to see Holland holding his chicken sandwich, open-faced in front of him.

  “So what do you reckon, Leghorn or Rhode Island Red?”

  16

  DCS Shepherd tapped on the door to Jejeune’s office. “Report of firearms discharge on Peter Largemount’s property. Domenic, with me, please.”

  By the time Jejeune had grabbed his jacket, the DCS was halfway down the corridor. There was no time to question if Sergeant Maik should accompany them. There was little point, either, since it was clear the DCS would be handling this one. The sergeant would just have to continue with his phone calls.