A Siege of Bitterns

by Steve Burrows

  Maik tried his best to look engaged, but he was nevertheless relieved when the other man backed away from the scope. “Could be right, Quentin, faint, but the braces could be there, in this light.”

  There were subdued mutterings as the birders reconsidered their points of view, and before long the hide had reached a consensus that the bird was, after all, a Little Stint, albeit one with abraded feathers. Jejeune’s reluctance to get involved in the initial excitement seemed justified now, but he sensed that, unfairly or not, his own relationship with the local birding community had hardly been enhanced by the way Maik’s prosaic approach to birding had brought them all down to earth.

  There was a rustle of activity as the men packed up their equipment and began to vacate the hide.

  “Looks like it’s only one lifer for you this week, then,” said the last of the departing birders to Jejeune before the door banged shut behind him. Only Maik, Senior, and Jejeune remained in the semi-darkness of the hide.

  Senior nodded toward the door. “I hope you’ll forgive them, Inspector,” he said with an apologetic smile. “A bit of the old green-eyes, I’m afraid. Part of them wants to believe the Ivory Gull in spite of themselves, and they can’t bear the thought that they might have missed out on it simply because Peter Largemount refused them access to his land. That and they’re all a bit nervous, quite frankly. Understandably, of course.”

  “Nervous?”

  “About their records. What they might have revealed.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Within a week of asking for everybody’s records, Cameron was dead. You can see how some of the chaps think there might be a connection between the two. Absolute tosh as far as I’m concerned, but folklore and superstition have long played a role in these parts, and there’s still a surprising affinity for that sort of thing if you scratch below the surface. It doesn’t take much for people around here to start adding up two and two and coming up with voodoo.” He winked at the detective.

  “And you still have no idea what he would have been looking for in those records.”

  Senior looked at him frankly. Even in the subdued light of the hide, the intensity of his blue eyes was quite startling. “As I’ve already told you, no. I was hoping he might tell me the next time we spoke.”

  “Do you think he would have?”

  “I should have thought so. We were fierce competitors in the four-hundred race, certainly, but there was none of that acrimonious nonsense you may have heard about in other birding competitions.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “No, I’m sure he would have been willing to share his thoughts with me, had he been given the chance.”

  “Could Brae’s concern have been something about the four-hundred list, perhaps? The veracity of some of the records?” Maik tried to make it sound casual, but the implication was clear.

  “If it was to do with false entries, I would have been especially interested in his findings, for obvious reasons. But I suppose we shall never know. And yet, you know, there was something troubling him. I called him to ask when we might be able to get the records back. He sounded a bit odd, frankly. Didn’t say a lot, but it was definitely there, if you knew him well enough. Uneasy. Yes, that would be the word.”

  Jejeune was silent. Maik waited to see where the inspector wanted to go with this. It seemed like the first thing they had come across in a long time that was worth pursuing. But whatever Jejeune made of this news, it apparently wasn’t enough to warrant a comment. Maik stepped into the breach instead.

  “It seems strange, Mr. Senior, that somebody with your obvious love of the subject would resign from the county Rare Birds Committee. Can I ask why that was?”

  “Optics, Sergeant, I believe they call it these days. Wouldn’t do, me up near the top of the list and still deciding whose sightings would count and whose wouldn’t. Wouldn’t do at all. I offered, they accepted, end of story. There were plenty of good birders to take my place, and in Carrie Fairchild I really do believe they got one of the best.”

  “I was speaking to Ms. Fairchild just the other day, as a matter of fact,” said Maik. “She tells me the committee would almost certainly have accepted a record from Cameron Brae solely on his say so. That means he may have been able to count that American Bittern, after all.”

  “Really?” Senior considered the possibility. “Normally it would be out of the question, of course, but given Cameron’s reputation, and his status in the birding community, I suppose if he had actively insisted on it, there would be enough votes on the committee to push it through. Celebrity is as seductive there as anywhere, Sergeant.”

  “And if you still had a vote?”

  “Me? Ah well, I’m from the old school, Sergeant. A man’s word is good enough for me. Depending on the man, of course.”

  “In that case,” said Jejeune thoughtfully, “there could be another reason he didn’t report it right away.”

  “Trying to suppress it, you mean? Wait until he was sure the bird was gone, and then insist on counting it?” Senior shook his head vehemently. “Not Cameron’s style at all, Inspector. The last thing he would have wanted was an asterisk by his list, literal or otherwise. To insist on counting a bird that no one else had been given the chance to see, had actually been cheated out of seeing? Well, turn the old victory champagne to vinegar in the mouth, wouldn’t it, one would have thought.”

  Senior nodded at Maik, who was standing at the door with his hand on the latch. “Your sergeant looks as if he has had about all the birding excitement he can stand for one day. I wonder, do you think you will be able to release the records soon? I know the members will be keen to have them back. They represent years of work, and even if most of the lists have already been backed up on computers by now, I’m sure the blood, sweat, and tear-stained originals would still hold great sentimental value for them.” A thought seemed to strike him. “You know, if you sent those lists over, I could have a quick look through them myself before I handed them back. I know the people and the places, and the birds, of course. If anything out of the ordinary jumped out, I might be able to spot it.”

  “That would be very helpful,” said Jejeune with not very much thought at all. “I’ll have them sent over.”

  Maik was quiet on their way back to the car. His silence suited Jejeune, who was casually scanning the mudflats and scrapes for odd shapes or flickers of movement. Had he inquired what was on Maik’s mind, the sergeant wasn’t sure how he would have answered. If, just if, Jejeune was onto something with this four-hundred list theory, how much sense did it make to hand over the most important piece of evidence to one of the people who stood to gain the most from the crime? Jejeune appeared to have eliminated Senior as a suspect purely on the basis of him being a fellow birder, an approach that seemed to Maik to be about as logical as the good chap theory that had failed so spectacularly for MI6 over the years. Why didn’t this DCI just let the evidence take its course, instead of simply writing off suspects on gut instinct? First the family, then Christian, and now apparently Senior.

  And yet, Jejeune had jumped at Senior’s offer so quickly, you couldn’t help wondering if it was what he had had in mind all along. So either Jejeune was becoming distracted by all this talk of rarities and sightings, or there was a lot more going on in his mind than a simple sergeant like Danny Maik could work out. Whichever it was, Danny was grateful for the opportunity to keep his thoughts to himself. For now, at least.

  18

  If it had been a novelty at first, this constant flitting around, it was starting to wear a bit thin now. It could always be the caffeine, Maik supposed; those Canadians certainly loved their coffee, but he doubted the DCI’s perpetual motion could be put down solely to a few alkaloid jitters. Yet here he was again now, perched first on a desk on one side of the incident room, and now the other. Not much knocked Danny Maik off his stride, but he could see how Jejeune’s constant fidgeting could irk some of the others, if only because they couldn’t be sure where he was, or who
he was watching, at any given time. The result, Maik had to admit, was a good deal more attention being paid in these briefings than he had seen for a long time.

  They had gathered expecting to hear the contents of a new report from the M.E., which promised an update on the time of death. But that had been shouldered offstage by the news that Maik had just delivered to them like a bolt from the heavens. The watch had been returned.

  “I don’t get it,” said Holland. “I mean, that’s a flash piece of hardware to be sending back without being asked.”

  No one else got it either. Murderers sometimes took trophies, but they did not, in the department’s collective experience, return them a couple of days later, carefully wrapped in tissue, via the victim’s mailbox.

  Jejeune felt sets of eyes turning his way by increments, but he had no more idea than anyone else of the significance of this development. It was too important a piece of the puzzle to be ignored, and yet it seemed so out of keeping with the rest of the attack, Jejeune had no idea where it could fit in. He had noticed that neither Brae nor Mandy wore a wedding band, so was the watch the next best thing to taunt the widow with? Was Maik onto something with his theory of a deranged stalker targeting Mandy Brae? Jejeune had little doubt that she was safe for now. Maik had already set up a security detail for her. But Mandy Brae couldn’t live like that forever. Sooner or later she would tire of the protection and venture out on her own. And when that happened, she could be in a lot of danger. The only way of preventing that was to catch this killer quickly. And perhaps, with the appearance in the doorway of the young constable with another file, they were about to get just a little closer. The constable handed the file over to Maik without a second glance at Jejeune.

  “Right,” Maik announced to the room at large, “based on the M.E.’s closer examination, we now have a more precise time of death. Still more or less instantaneous, but now fixed within an hour either side of eight p.m. Help anybody? Or otherwise?”

  “Archie Christian is still in the frame,” said Holland. “And his run-ins with Brae were a bit more than just a candid exchange of ideas, too. Even before the incident outside the pub, there was a report of a confrontation at Brae’s house. Christian went over there after the GM contract was cancelled. Apparently, he lost a shedload of money and he made no secret of who he thought was responsible.”

  “So that’s motive and opportunity,” mused Maik, doing his best to ignore Jejeune, who was now handing him back the report, having come forward to take a quick glance at it. “Archie Christian is starting to slip into the picture very nicely.”

  Maik could see that Holland liked the way this was going. If Jejeune continued to ignore standard police procedures and dismiss suspects in order to push his bird list agenda, there would almost certainly be a day of reckoning coming. As far as Holland was concerned, Archie Christian’s guilt or innocence probably didn’t matter much one way or the other. But the good, solid police work took you in a more or less direct line to Christian, and the constable would be happy to be on record as the one who had pointed that out when the DCS was casting around asking where it had all gone wrong.

  Salter flipped back through the notes on her yellow foolscap pad. She shifted uncomfortably. “Erm, Peter Largemount didn’t get to his speaking engagement until just after 7:30. According to those who have caught his act before, he usually likes to arrive early for these things and have a couple of steadiers at the bar. When he wasn’t there at his usual time, the MC phoned Largemount’s house and cell but got no answer. Largemount eventually came flying in just before he was due to speak. Well flustered, by all accounts, although he put on a good show once he got started.”

  Maik nodded to himself. Murder in Saltmarsh and cocktails in Norwich half an hour later? Possible, if you knew what you were doing. Maik had seen the way Largemount threw his big Bentley around, and it was apparent he had no great affection for speed limits. If you were lucky enough, or good enough, Saltmarsh to Norwich in thirty minutes could be done. Of course, if you were going to go to all the trouble of manufacturing yourself an alibi, it seemed beyond careless to leave a hole in it this big.

  “And, er, you had asked me if there had been any recent changes in Peter Largemount’s financials.”

  Maik was looking down at the M.E.’s report as she spoke, but he knew who Salter was addressing. Maik hadn’t asked her anything about Largemount, and it obviously wouldn’t have been Holland. No, it was the DCI who liked Largemount. He had had his eye on him from the beginning. This was ridiculous. You couldn’t have a murder squad all pulling in different directions like this. Him looking at Senior, Holland going for Christian, and the DCI after Largemount. What about Salter, did she have a favourite? Or was she just content to sift through the reports and offer up the details.

  “I don’t know if it’s relevant,” continued Salter, “but Largemount is trying to raise some cash, so he is looking at a new share issue. Since the wind farm productivity is not up to full capacity yet, according to Finance, the only way he could really justify the new issue is if he was to increase his operations. He’s proposing a thirty percent expansion.”

  “How is he going to manage that?” asked Holland. “The only land he’s got left is Lesser Marsh.”

  Enter Brae’s request for that earlier biodiversity survey, thought Maik. He flashed a glance at Jejeune, but the DCI was already there. Still, Maik was pleased with himself. Sometimes, it took the old fella a moment or two to catch up, but he usually got there in the end.

  “The thing is,” continued Salter, “even though Lesser Marsh is on private land, any proposal to drain it would need significant political backing. Thanks to people like Cameron Brae, there’s a lot more awareness out there now about the ecological value of wetlands. Only it looks like Largemount’s already got some high-level support in place. When the IPO of the company was first floated, a feasibility study for draining Lesser Marsh was included, and the expansion plan received tacit support from …”

  “Beverly Brennan,” said Jejeune, just loud enough for the others to hear. He tapped his index finger against his lips. “So Brae doesn’t oppose the wind farm in the first place, though nobody seems to know quite why,” he said. “But perhaps this time he decides enough is enough. This is where he makes his stand.”

  “The Marsh Man facing the possibility of a wetland practically on his own doorstep being drained for development. That would certainly be enough to get Brae up in arms. And we know how adept he was at mobilizing opposition groups and rallying public support to bring an issue to national attention,” said Salter. “With Brae’s weight behind the protests, suddenly it’s not a rubber-stamp approval anymore, even if it is on private land.”

  Maik considered the idea. As a motive for murder it was weak. Still, it probably had as much going for it as a race to see four hundred birds.

  The door opened and DCS Shepherd leaned in, one hand on the doorknob and the other supporting herself on the door jamb. It was a dynamic pose, very American cop show, although one day, thought Maik, if she wasn’t careful, she was going to pop right out of one of those silk blouses, and that would add a different kind of drama to her entrance entirely.

  Shepherd was wearing the expression of someone who had recently spent a lot of time assuring people about things she was now finding might not be possible, after all. She looked over her spectacles at Jejeune, still perched on his desk at the side of the room, as if she felt he might be a long way from the action. She turned her attention to the incident board. No new additions. But then, no one had been eliminated yet, either.

  “I thought Peter Largemount was in the clear. That dinner thing in Norwich.”

  “The M.E.’s report has revised the possible time of death, Ma’am. It puts him back in the picture.”

  Maik was never less than courteous to any superior officer, but he remained wary of this one. She spent half her time telling everybody how much she trusted them to get on with things, and the other half check
ing up on them.

  She crooked a finger toward Jejeune and waited patiently while he joined her in the corridor. “Every time I think we have taken a step forward with this case, we seem to end up two steps further behind,” she said, by way of an opening gambit. “Now I don’t know why Peter Largemount has suddenly sprung back into the picture, and I don’t much care. I understood you were pursuing this business about bird lists. Do you have any more on that?”

  Jejeune looked at the DCS for a long moment, and when he spoke it was as if he was choosing his words with extra caution. The exaggerated care slowed the delivery to a trickle.

  “I know for certain that Brae was looking at records of marsh birds in the area, waders specifically,” he conceded carefully, “and it now seems that Largemount has made inquiries about the feasibility of draining Lesser Marsh to expand his operations. A connection between the two seems possible, at least.”

  It was Shepherd’s turn to be silent for a moment. “This bird angle, whatever it is, is it a viable line of inquiry? Because if it’s not, we need to establish that before we waste any more time on it. I want you to pursue it, Domenic, and decide one way or the other. If I have to go before the DAC and defend the idea of local citizens killing one another over a list of birds, I want to know we’re not going to end up looking like idiots when it’s all said and done. Firm it up for me, will you, Domenic, before we go off chasing any more shadows.”

  Jejeune wouldn’t have minded doing just that, but it was going to be a lot harder than it sounded, putting any meat on those bones. And in the mean time, pursuing any other lines of inquiry, such as the links between Brae’s interest in waders and Peter Largemount’s development plans, would have to be put on the back burner. Or was that what Shepherd intended?

  She turned a solicitous look on Jejeune. “And you’re sure everything is okay? Personally, I mean? You just seem a little, well … subdued. This case not got you down, or anything?”