A Siege of Bitterns

by Steve Burrows

  “I think you had him at Oystercatchers,” she said. “But surely, you’re only talking about short-term contract positions. And, I mean, not to be blunt or anything, but ministry studies are notoriously underfunded. I can’t imagine someone being able to do this as a full-time job.” At least somebody should be fighting Domenic’s inclination to chuck his police career away so he could become a paid birder. Besides, there was no point in having a reputation as a feisty journalist if you weren’t going to trot it out occasionally.

  Senior smiled delightedly.

  “Well, it doesn’t pay as well as a chief inspector, certainly, but with the birding tours, the odd lecture, a pittance from the university grants committee…. Thankfully, my humble abode was paid off about four generations ago. A crust and a curd is enough to keep body and soul together. As long as Woodforde’s don’t keep raising the price of the Wherry, I should have enough to see me into my dotage. That’s the beautiful thing about birding, my dear, it’s so remarkably inexpensive. The greatest show on earth, sun up to sun down, all for the cost of a pair of binoculars.”

  He tapped his own battered Zeiss Jenoptems, and gave Lindy another of his wonderful yellow smiles. From the far side of the marsh a couple waved, and Senior waved back. “Canadians, over here on a birding holiday. They were telling me about a spot called Thickson’s Woods, a little east of Toronto. Ever hear of it?”

  Jejeune thought he had, though he had never been there.

  “The chap claimed Ian Fleming would most likely have birded there. It’s right next to Camp X, apparently, on the shores of Lake Ontario, where he did all that hush-hush training in the war. Well, we all know Fleming was a birder. Took the name James Bond from the author of a bird guide, of course, but I would say that claim was a bit circumstantial, eh, Inspector? Still, one never knows. I love to hear stories like that. Just goes to show, even the smallest of birding spots have their own bit of history.”

  “Few as storied as this coast, though, as I understand it,” said Lindy. There was something lovely about this man’s passion for birding, and Lindy, almost despite herself, couldn’t resist the urge to prolong his enthusiasm.

  “Indeed,” said Senior brightly. “D’ye know, there are written bird records for this area going back over a thousand years.” He held up a hand, as if anticipating a protest. “All right, I’ll grant you, most of those early accounts were more to do with what was going to end up on the dinner table. I say biodiversity list, you say menu, but still, it’s an impressive claim.”

  As much as he would have liked to allow Senior to continue with Lindy’s birding seminar, Jejeune had a number of pressing matters to cover. “About those records?”

  “Nothing yet, I’m afraid, Inspector. Other than the deliberate mistake, that is. Spot it? For the moment I’d thought perhaps you’d done it yourself. Wondered if they did things a little differently in Canada.”

  It was likely that Senior was joking, but Lindy knew that, for some reason, his opinion of Domenic’s birding skills was very important to Dom. She could see he was fighting the urge to protest his innocence.

  Senior turned to Lindy. “One of the families was in the wrong order,” he said. He fished out his battered bird guide and riffled through the pages to make his point. “Each order of birds has certain families within it. Among the Ciconiiformes, for example, we have Ardeidae, our friends the bitterns, and also Ciconiidae, the storks. But, sandpipers, the Scolopacidae are part of Charadriiformes, so what on earth were they doing in amongst the Gruiformes order, the rails, moorhens, and suchlike?”

  “Is it significant, do you think?” asked Lindy.

  “Well, it’s not for me to tell the inspector his business, of course. All I will say is that Cameron would never have made a mistake like that. Of course, I’m sure your young man is far too clever to have missed any of this himself.”

  Lindy knew Jejeune wasn’t all that comfortable discussing just how clever he was, and she wasn’t surprised that he let Senior’s comment pass.

  The joy melted from Senior’s eyes. Whatever it was he had wanted to say earlier, he was going to get around to it now.

  “Bad news on the Ivory Gull sighting, I’m afraid, Inspector. I’m hearing the committee won’t be able to validate it. Without photographic evidence, and in the absence of a corroborating report … I’m sure you understand.”

  Senior had couched the news as delicately as possible, but the message was clear. Domenic Jejeune did not have sufficient prestige among the local birding community to have a report accepted at face value. Out here a reputation like that could take decades to earn.

  “No reflection on your skills, I assure you,” continued Senior. “It’s just that, well, to be frank, one or two of the members are concerned about the number of rarities being reported lately. The committee is keen to ensure we don’t harm our reputation. This month alone there has been Duncan’s Slender-billed Gull, which at least appears genuine. But then, right on the back of it we had this business with the Semi-palmated Sandpiper that wasn’t. Somehow it got out onto the wires as a confirmed sighting and now the committee is in the uncomfortable process of having to rescind it. The Ivory Gull, as you know, has already made its way out into the wider world, and I’m afraid validating another unsubstantiated first record in the same week as the Semi-palm debacle, well … you can see …”

  “Of course,” said Jejeune. “It’s not important.”

  But Lindy could tell that it was. And while the two men stood in silence, she reflected on fascinating complexities of the man who shared her life. Here was someone who had been singled out for praise by the Home Secretary, who had been fêted by the national media for his role in solving a high-profile murder case. And yet to the untrained eye it had all simply washed over him, leaving not the faintest residue. But this, this smallest of slights from a tiny birdwatching committee on the edge of nowhere, had cut him to the quick. She felt a protective urge well within her, but she had no idea what to offer as support.

  The men traded birding small talk, but the conversation was transparently forced on both sides, and it was clear that each wanted to go his separate way, to escape, if possible, the lingering tang of discomfort that Senior’s news had brought.

  “Well, I must be off,” said Senior finally. “Something will be out there waiting for me. You never know what, but you always know it’s going to be wonderful.” And with a wave of his giant hand, he was gone.

  “It doesn’t matter, Dom,” said Lindy, watching Senior’s retreating form as far as the bend in the path. “You know what you saw. Maybe it will show up again. Or maybe you’ll find this other bird, the one that Brae saw. The American Bittern. That would teach them, wouldn’t it?”

  Jejeune stopped to look over the mudflats and pulled the bins up sharply to his eyes, but Lindy sensed it was more to avoid eye contact than to view some phantom movement out over the water. The wind was beginning to pick up and she gathered her light jacket around her. “I’m going back to the car. Stay a while, if you like. I have a book to read. I’ll be fine.”

  Jejeune watched her leave and then turned again to look out over the flat landscape. He watched as two incoming Mallards rowed hard against the gathering breezes, and his thoughts drifted once again to the earliest peoples to have called this area home. For all their contact with nature, they would still have been prey to human emotions: sadness, melancholy, disappointment. But what of other, darker human forces: treachery, jealousy, anger. Did those throb in the hearts of these people? Did they shape their actions, and reactions? He knew that there was anthropological evidence to suggest that there were murders back then. But over what? Partners, territory, possessions? Motives as old as human existence. But where were they in Cameron Brae’s story? Like everything else, missing.

  His thoughts turned to Quentin Senior. Jejeune had purposely avoided mentioning the mistake when he gave him the lists. Like Brae, Senior was far too good a birder to make an error like that under normal circumst
ances, but panic, especially murder-induced panic, could play havoc with a man’s composure. But would Senior now so brashly draw it to Jejeune’s attention, if he had been the one who incorrectly replaced the wader family list? It wasn’t absolute proof that Senior was innocent, but was a brave gambit if not. Here we go again, thought Jejeune, the willingness to interpret grey areas in a suspect’s favour. That was the problem with the truth. You only got to believe one version. The last time he had abandoned his objectivity and invested himself in a suspect’s innocence, the results had made him vow to remain detached forever more. Would he ever learn? With a sigh, Jejeune turned away from the coastline and began a slow walk toward the car.

  21

  “You can keep up this surveillance all night, but I’m pretty sure this lot all have alibis for the time of the murder.”

  Lindy thrust a glass of wine into Jejeune’s hand and kissed his cheek. It was true, he was watching them. It was something he did, instinctively, whenever he was in a crowd. Find a spot, a wall, a corner, a nineteenth-century oak beam, and watch. Watch the interplay of people, their unguarded expressions, their gestures, their body language. But if Domenic Jejeune could readily acknowledge that he was, by trade, a watcher, he could not have explained what it was that he was looking for. Perhaps it was just another way of trying to understand human nature. But Lindy was right. Tonight was not the time. Tonight was for soft banter and lighthearted humour, and immersing himself in the waves of genial good feeling that were swirling around his living room. But even here, in his own home, he couldn’t let his guard down entirely. And if not here, he wondered with a slight sadness, when could he ever?

  The small dinner party, he noticed, had somehow morphed into a gathering for twenty people or more. Apparently, a trip out into the wilds of north Norfolk did not hold the terrors that Domenic had hoped it might. In truth, he had deliberately avoided contact with most of these people for some time. But it was not, as had been assumed, because Domenic had outgrown the ‘little people,’ as they now referred to themselves. He simply found himself all too frequently put in the position of having to somehow explain his success. Nobody much mentioned his failure anymore. It was almost as if it was seen as bad form to bring it up. So people just tiptoed around it, wondering instead where all his marvellous insights came from, how he made those wonderful, vital links in his cases. But Domenic didn’t tiptoe around his past failure. For him, it was a constant companion.

  However, he had become aware, they both had, of an undercurrent of resentment as his refusals and regrets became a predictable pattern. Tonight, he hoped, would go some way to restoring Lindy, at least, to the group’s good graces.

  Jejeune watched her gliding effortlessly between the little knots of people crowded into their front room. She was among her friends here. Their friends, he reminded himself. Only not really. This group had been together since college, for the most part, long before Domenic had entered the scene. Looking around the room, other latecomers were easy enough to spot, standing on the fringes, smiling valiantly, trying too hard to break into the conversation. If he was honest, he had always struggled to find common ground with Lindy’s circle of friends. It was tacitly understood that his work was off limits as a topic of conversation, and while that didn’t stop them trying, Jejeune did little to encourage any questions that went down that route. And while he enjoyed the occasional bon mot himself, he didn’t really share their desire to elevate witty ripostes into an art form. So that left birding. Out of politeness, one or two of the circle usually inquired about his latest forays, but like all hobbies, there was only so far you could progress into the subject without running up against the specifics. Cue the awkward silences, and the anxious glances around the room for other conversations to join. Domenic realized that without the allure of his job, he would have long ago faced excommunication from this group anyway. It was, he knew, the potential thrill of forbidden secrets that drew them to him. He understood. It was hard wired into all of us. It was the same with Lindy’s work, their fascination with the inside story, all the hidden dirt on her latest investigations.

  There was a sudden explosion of laughter as Lindy scored a direct hit. She had dismissed a proponent of a monorail system as having a one-track mind. A burst of spontaneous applause had even erupted from one or two of the group, and she was now basking in the glow. Dom wasn’t even sure it was an original line. He thought the two of them had seen it somewhere — an email, perhaps. But what did it matter? He eased himself off the oak beam and moved into the room to join the throng. Observations on hold, time for some fieldwork.

  Even if Jejeune was now adept at gently shifting conversations away from his work, there were other topics outside his comfort zone, and one was on the horizon now: the wine. Knowledgeable comments were beginning to build, and Domenic could sense that someone was soon going to be seeking his input. What was this one that Lindy had chosen? Some kind of reptile?

  “Lizard Point,” supplied a man in a leather jacket leaning into the circle.

  Jejeune breathed a sigh of relief, Thank you, Martin. But his gratitude was short-lived. Because Martin’s invoice wasn’t long in coming.

  “Listen, Dom. I was chatting to Lindy the other day, and she mentioned that the time might be better just now to ask you about that brief stint on the show.”

  The ‘show’ was the current affairs program Martin produced for one of the independent networks. They had discussed Domenic’s appearance before, but he had always been able to find reasons to avoid it. Martin stared at him frankly through his gold rimmed spectacles. Wiry black hair, greying at the temples, framed a lean face with sharp features. For a slightly built man, the producer had a remarkably confident presence, standing square to Jejeune with his wine glass held to attention at his chest.

  “A colleague of mine has some fascinating theories on criminal behavior. I think it would make very good TV,” said Jejeune. “I could put you in touch.”

  “Yes, only part of this segment’s appeal would be that it featured you, specifically, you see. Domenic Jejeune: Flavour of the Month, and all that. It would be your insights, your approach that the public would want to hear.”

  Jejeune glanced around the room like a man looking for a hidden passageway. He saw Lindy again, stunning in her plain blue dress, with just a simple gold necklace and earrings to set it off. The jewellery was a gift from him, but he didn’t recognize the dress. He wondered if she had bought it just for tonight. When had she found the time to go shopping? He realized that there were great gaps in Lindy’s day, her life, about which he knew nothing. She sensed him watching and rippled her fingers in a wave. He smiled back.

  Martin had given her some helpful leads early on in her career, and it would mean a lot to Lindy to repay the debt. Jejeune sighed inwardly. What did it matter, really? The segment would not change anything, for better or worse.

  Martin was too experienced to miss the signs. He had closed many deals like this one, and had begun his thanks even before Jejeune had voiced his agreement. There was just a hint of triumph in Martin’s smile as he wheeled away to savour his coup.

  Domenic drifted slowly over to where Lindy was holding court. She was telling the assembled crowd about her latest feature for the magazine. He stayed at the edge of the circle, just outside it.

  “Honestly, I sometimes think people would be more interested in a story about no corruption.” Lindy dragged her hand across an imaginary banner headline. “Honest Financier Found: Taxidermist Called Immediately. What do you think? Oh God, I love this song.”

  He watched her, so full of life and so connected to her emotions, swaying gently, with her wine glass cradled to her chest, eyes half closed, dreamily immersing herself in the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song. What could a young, vibrant, angst-free creature find in music whose sole purpose, it seemed to Jejeune, was to take away your will to live? Human tastes, he thought; a mystery far beyond the abilities of a simple policeman.

  She opened
her eyes and saw him watching her. She came over, popping a samphire spring roll in his mouth as she arrived. Lindy had taken on the food preparations for the party with zeal, and some of the dishes, such as the tempura oyster, had been a big hit. The mussel crumble had gone down well, too, even if one of the group had already christened it “mustn’t grumble.” But others, like the cockle fritters and this samphire concoction, had been less successful. Still, he doubted that the success, or otherwise, of her culinary efforts would matter to Lindy tonight. She was enjoying herself, and she was determined to see that everyone else was, too. And that included him.

  “So, anyone mention your job yet?”

  “One or two.”

  “It’s a compliment, Dom. Your work is interesting, and people know you are good at it. I know it’s uncomfortable for you, but they mean well. By the way, Simon and Nancy are staying over. I thought we could take them up to Heacham in the morning. We can have breakfast on the way.”

  Jejeune didn’t disagree, though in his opinion, the undeniable beauty of the Norfolk Lavender Farm paled in comparison to the sight of the sea lavender that turned the marshes into a spectacular carpet of purple at this time of year. But he supposed he understood why Lindy would want to steer their overnight guests more toward tourist sites than birding ones.

  She looked sad and paused for a moment, as if unsure if she should continue. “You’ve been thinking about that man, haven’t you? Senior. I saw the look on your face. You think you just want to pack it all in and do the same thing. But that’s not you, Dom. You solve crimes. It’s what you are good at. It’s what you were meant to do.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Really.”

  “But that’s just it. It does. I can tell. It matters more than your bloody job. And all you can do is pretend that it doesn’t because everyone has built this little box around you called ‘Detective Genius,’ and now you are trapped inside. But I see how you come alive when you are birding, how much more enthusiastic you are, how much more excited. I never see that when you are going out to work.”