A Siege of Bitterns

by Steve Burrows

  25

  If anyone was expecting the new leads about Lesser Marsh to speed the case to a conclusion, reality soon descended in a cloud of scholarly gloom. With Holland stationed at one desk, Maik at another, and Salter at a third, each wading through data on screens or in ancient ring binders, rushed over from various government departments in that morning’s mail, a successful resolution to the case could not have seemed farther away.

  Each officer was looking for the same thing, as directed by Jejeune when he had handed out the copies of the survey and various other research papers that morning: anything that suggested the marsh harboured a protected species.

  Sunlight flooded the room, filling the desks with pools of light.

  “Listen to this: ‘None of the several species of Odonata of north Norfolk known to have been suffering a precipitous decline in the last three decades were found to be present at this site.’ Thirty-one words to tell us something wasn’t there! What a load of bullshit.” Holland slapped the file down on his desk with a loud report. “Do I look like I want to be a scientist?” he asked the room in general. “I’ve never liked science, even in school. Nah, mate, drama class, all them potential models and actresses. Now that was a proper subject. Only the uglies took science. Think about it, did you ever see a good-looking scientist? What’s he got you doing, anyway?”

  “Pond life,” announced Salter in a way that made Maik smile to himself. “Aquatic invertebrates, to give them their proper title. I have to agree about one thing, though; these people do seem to take the long way round to say nothing.”

  Holland shook his head. “Why not ask Alwyn about this lot, for God’s sake?” he said. “I mean, the bloke is only the world’s leading expert on this stuff.”

  Maik looked up from his research. “Never you mind why, Constable. You just stick to your task and try to find something that would be worth preserving the marsh for. Remember, locally rare is good, threatened is better, but endangered is the jackpot word here. Besides, you know what they say. Get a good knowledge of marine life, and the world is your lobster.”

  If Maik was being honest, even he wasn’t entirely convinced about this line of inquiry. By now he was beginning to realize that, however unconventional his ideas may be, Jejeune usually had a reason for them, but that didn’t make Maik any more comfortable about how they were going about matters. Letting the bird lists go to Senior, for example. Typically, just as he himself was warming to the idea of the four-hundred list having some merit as a motive, Jejeune seemed to be distancing himself from it. But Maik had been watching carefully when Senior and the DCI were talking in the hide. There was something about Senior’s “hail fellow well met” routine that did not sit quite right with him. Perhaps a hint of underlying calculation that the joviality never quite managed to hide. Admittedly, Senior could hardly have gotten to the top of the pile in the competitive world of Norfolk birders without some ruthlessness. But was there something more? If there was, Maik couldn’t put his finger on it just at the moment. But that wouldn’t stop him looking. And while he was at it, there was something else that had been bothering him.

  “You know what I don’t get,” he said suddenly, to no one in particular. “All this talk about Brae’s honesty and integrity. The man was having an affair, cheating on his wife. I’m sure of it. And what’s more, he’d got form. He’d done it before.”

  “That’s just it though, Sarge. He hadn’t, had he?” said Salter. “He was perfectly up front about breaking up his first marriage. Everybody insists that they didn’t get together until after he had told his wife he was leaving her. He didn’t carry on behind her back. If it had to happen, any woman would rather have it be that way. Unhappiness you can handle. It’s the betrayal that cuts to the quick.”

  This was raw territory for Maik, and he was quiet for a moment with his memories of his mother’s perpetual sadness. But where else could Brae have been going at night? To study his beloved marsh? A bit dark for that. His thoughts turned toward Mandy, in the house alone, cradling the receiver in her hand after speaking to Alwyn. Mandy, vulnerable, sad, lonely. She knew, Maik was sure of it. But although infidelity had been responsible for more spousal deaths than he cared to think about, he didn’t buy it in this case. Unhappiness you can handle. This marsh-draining angle of Jejeune’s was flimsy, but even that, he had to admit, had more to it than a scorned wife, at least, this scorned wife. Still, he couldn’t shake the idea that Brae’s dishonesty and deceit would show up somewhere in the mix when they finally got a result.

  Jejeune entered the room carrying a Birds of Norfolk tome under his arm. Did he ever read anything else? He didn’t need to ask if they had found anything. They were under orders to find him as soon as anything, however tenuous, came up. “I’m waiting for a report; coastal flight patterns of shorebirds. Could you see that I get it the moment it comes in?”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Holland. He exchanged a sly glance with Maik. “This report, sir, is it anything to do with what we’re working on?”

  “There won’t be anything about it in those surveys, Constable. Which is exactly the point. There has been very little study done on how the coastal winds affect the birds’ altitude and flight patterns. Even less on how those factors might be disrupted by wind farms. It’s the sort of study one might have expected to be commissioned before final approval of a massive wind farm like this went through. But, in this case, it never was.”

  Holland and Maik exchanged glances again. Everyone knew the approval of Largemount’s farm had been fast-tracked, supported by the most emphatic of backings from Beverly Brennan. The numbers that had been bandied about at the time had been impressive — this many jobs, that much revenue. Not much of it had materialized yet, if it was ever going to, but it was easy to see why so much local support had fallen in behind the MP when she started promoting the idea. The thing was, despite the speed with which the proposal was pushed through, no one locally was in any doubt that it had all been done above board. It had been around the time of Beverly Brennan’s last election campaign and had been one of her major policy platforms. Brennan’s chief rival in the election was an unpleasant little man called Arthurs, not above spreading a rumour or two whether there was any truth to them or not. It was common knowledge he had been all over this process with a fine-tooth comb. If there had been even the slightest hint of impropriety, one regulation not met, one safety check skipped, he would have made it his life’s work to bring it to the public’s attention. But he had found nothing, and even after the local voters had sent him packing back to his construction business near Peterborough, even then, amid the parting shots and the sour grapes and the generally graceless exit from the public arena, he never once tried to hint that there was anything wrong with the approval process for Largemount’s wind farm project.

  Of course, Jejeune wasn’t around back then. He didn’t know all this history. But typically, rather than ask somebody who did, he had gone off on a tangent of his own. Holland would have been happy to let him waste his time just as a matter of course, but even Maik found himself thinking that if Jejeune was going to keep his team in the dark about so many things, then he only had himself to blame if he ended up following leads that turned into blind alleys.

  Jejeune gathered up a couple of reports that none of the others had managed to get around to yet. The telephone rang and Maik picked it up. He listened for a moment, his pen poised to take notes until he seemed to think better of it. Finally he asked the speaker to hold and, placing his hand over the receiver, swivelled in his chair to speak to Jejeune.

  “Quentin Senior. He seems to think he has found whatever it was that Brae was after.”

  “In the records? Is he sure?”

  “According to him, Brae couldn’t have missed it. Something to do with species. What should be there, but isn’t. He wanted to give me the particulars, but I thought he might be better telling you directly, it being birds and all.”

  Jejeune smiled. Maik wasn�
�t a man to shirk his responsibilites, but it had been clear from the look on his face in the hide that he had heard a good deal more about abraded feathers, scapulars, and bill lengths than he ever wanted to know.

  “He says he will put together a summary of his findings and fax it over to you, but he could give you the Rabbit Reader version over the phone now if you like.”

  Jejeune took the phone from Maik. Senior’s tone was as irrepressibly hearty as ever, booming his findings down the telephone line with his customary energy.

  “Catastrophic decline in some species at the marsh, Inspector. Three in particular, Knot, Sanderling, and Dunlin, over the past few years.”

  “And are you sure that would have been clear to Brae?”

  “Cameron couldn’t have missed it. Plain as the nose on your face. Years of consistent numbers, and then, whoosh, off a cliff.”

  “But there could be any number of explanations why a particular species no longer shows up at a site. Food sources, a population crash, adverse weather conditions along the migration route.”

  “Indeed, Inspector. But there’s only one reason to account for why the birds have stopped going to one particular marsh while they are still appearing in healthy numbers at Cley, Titchwell, and other spots up and down the coast. Or one obvious reason, anyway.”

  Jejeune replaced the receiver delicately, as if afraid that it might shatter on impact. A few facts and one deduction. It was all Jejeune generally needed to reach a conclusion. He couldn’t remember if he had thanked Senior at the end of their conversation. He probably had; politeness was instinctive with him. But even if he hadn’t, he was sure Senior would understand why he had been so preoccupied. And if he didn’t understand now, then he would in the very near future.

  26

  Lindy was at the kitchen counter when Jejeune entered. Small piles of chopped vegetables lay on the cutting board awaiting their fate in her crab and avocado medley. But Lindy was peering out the kitchen window at the vast blue horizon with the cottony clouds sitting low over the water’s surface. The long summer day was just beginning its descent toward evening and the shadows were lengthening on the grass leading to the cliff edge.

  Jejeune took off his jacket and draped it over one of the chairs around the kitchen table. He slumped into the chair and loosened his tie.

  “How did the interview go?” Lindy didn’t turn from the window as she spoke.

  “Fine. Airs in a couple of weeks, I think.”

  “I hope you weren’t condescending to Martin.”

  Still, the horizon seemed to hold her attention.

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  She turned to him. On him. “You don’t have to. You just give that look, the one you use at the bank sometimes or with the mobile phone company. Just because people aren’t as quick on the uptake as you doesn’t mean everybody else is stupid, you know.”

  Like all police officers, Jejeune had dealt with more than his share of deflected hostility and he had learned not take it personally. But he could not deny Lindy’s cold journalist’s eye in these matters either, and if she sometimes overstated her case in the throes of an emotional rush of blood, there was usually some substance behind her observations. Perhaps he was a bit off-handed in his dealings with the media occasionally. He made a note to watch his conduct more carefully in future.

  He wondered what was really bothering Lindy. Traffic? Work? Another run in with Eric, the Illiterate Halfwit Editor, all capitals, thank you. Jejeune knew how much she liked him, and how much his approval meant to her. If her relationship with Eric was deteriorating beyond their professional squabbles, it would be hard on her. But perhaps it was just something else. It had been a difficult time for her recently. There had been the party, and a couple of tight deadlines at the magazine. Whatever it was, Domenic knew this outburst would have been coming sometime tonight. Better now than later, when they had less time to resolve things before bedtime.

  “It’s a beautiful evening. Fancy a walk?” Jejeune asked, as if their conversation was still on the leeward side of her attack.

  “Heard about a good bird out there, have you?” But Lindy grabbed her jacket anyway, and without a backward glance at the piles of abandoned vegetables, they headed for the door.

  With the setting sun came a breeze off the water, but it carried the day’s warmth and he held their jackets loosely in his hands as they walked, side by side, in silence. They chose the path along the cliff edge, one of their favourites; a grassy track worn down by their footsteps, and those of others, between the carpet of yellow kidney vetch and those small white flowers they kept intending to identify. Forget-me-alreadys? Further out, seabirds skimmed along the surface of the water. Jejeune noted them but made no comment.

  The path drifted toward the edge of the cliff and then disappeared in a collapsed gully of untidy scree and rocks. They stopped on a small patch of open ground, worn smooth by sea watchers and picnickers. In the fading light, the sea had lost its blue. Now it was only a shimmering mirror of movement; light, transience, uncertainty. Its beauty was overwhelming.

  “Woman’s perspective,” said Jejeune when he was sure the wind and views had swept away the last of Lindy’s lingering anger. “A man is honest enough to break off a relationship before he starts a new one. Why does a man like that suddenly start a secret affair behind the new partner’s back?”

  Lindy turned to face Jejeune. Her skin was blushed with the wind coming in off the sea. She passed an elegant hand through her tousled hair to drag it back away from her face. “Who are we talking about, Dom? Someone we know?”

  Jejeune thought about keeping it in the hypothetical, as his police training wanted him to. But Lindy, standing on the edge of the cliff, with her arms hugged around her in the not so cold evening air, deserved something more.

  “Cameron Brae told his first wife he was leaving her, and who for, long before the fact. As far as I can tell, he kept nothing from her. And that, according to everybody I have spoken to, was perfectly in keeping with his character.”

  “But then Brae started cheating on Mandy Roquette?” Was Lindy’s half smile surprise, or something else? “Miss Party Animal herself? Girl of just about every middle-aged man’s dreams? My God, who with?”

  “No idea. But does it make any sense to you, at all? That he would do that? That way?”

  Lindy looked out at the sea. Relationships; the one mystery even Domenic Jejeune couldn’t unravel. She arranged her thoughts, reaching out for Jejeune’s hand so he would know her silence wasn’t distance. It was the inconsistency, she knew, that he needed to resolve. Behaviour and character. Brae past and Brae present. Brae, sadly, of no future.

  “Revenge,” she said quietly. “Sometimes, the deception is to punish the other party, for what they have done, what they haven’t done, all the promises they broke, the opportunities they caused you to miss. If Cameron Brae was having a secret affair this time, perhaps he wasn’t just unhappy. Perhaps he was blaming his wife for something.”

  The breeze picked up and they slipped on their jackets. The dying rays of the sun began to touch the undersides of the clouds, and they sat down together, Lindy leaning into him, feet dangling into the gully, to watch the show. Whatever it was that was troubling her, it had been subdued for now.

  On the rocky beach below, a single set of footprints disappeared off into the distance, the only sign that anyone else had ever trespassed on their private world.

  “I’ve solved the case,” he said.

  “Really?” She brushed her windswept hair back with her hand again, a casual gesture that set Domenic’s pulse racing. “I thought you were nowhere near a result. You really do play your cards close to your chest.”

  But he could tell that she was pleased for him, genuinely pleased. There would be more fanfare, more media plaudits. Domenic Jejeune, the star attraction again. And Lindy would be leading the cheers. But he couldn’t share her pride. In fact, there was no sensation for him at all, just an absenc
e where the unsolved mystery used to be.

  “So is this the part where you tell me you don’t want to do it anymore?” she said quietly.

  It was. But do what, exactly? Be a media celebrity, a boy wonder, the Great White Hope of the police force? Or be a policeman, a detective, at all? What he did want, he didn’t really know. He just knew it wasn’t this, dwelling in the darkness of other people’s psyches, sifting through the layers of deception, uncovering their lies, their duplicity, their crimes.

  “So what happens next?” asked Lindy, leaning away from him slightly so she could look into his face. “Back to Ontario? To the birding wonderlands of Point Pelee or Rondeau? Summers at Carden Plain and then off to Presqu’ile for the fall waders? You see, Dom, I have been paying attention. I know them all, those fabulous hotspots, those halcyon days of your youth, you and your brother and those endless seasons of birdwatching.”

  Despite her tone, Jejeune smiled wistfully. “It’s always a mistake to try to revisit your past.”

  “Even when the present leaves you so unfulfilled, and the future looks so bleak? What a desolate place your interior landscape must be, Mr. Jejeune.”

  Jejeune said nothing.

  “You need your police work, Dom. Really you do. I know you think you hate your job, but you’d be unhappy if you couldn’t do it anymore. Think about it. Half the police forces in England were looking for that girl, and you were the one who found her. Alive. Nobody else could have done that. And now you’ve done it again, solved a case with no clues, no leads, no suspects. You’re a detective, Dom, it’s what you do. And you’re good at it. Would it be so terrible to allow yourself to take a little bit of satisfaction from that?”

  Lindy was so beautiful when she abandoned herself to her certainty like this. What it would be like to be so convinced about something, anything, he couldn’t imagine. Of course, certainties were always easier when it was someone else’s life under the microscope. Ask her about her own future and she would withdraw into a moody introspection. But on the subject of Domenic Jejeune, Lindy was irrepressible. She held such great ambitions for him, he knew. He thought about Senior, huddled down on a bank, watching birds for a living. What need did he have for ambition? Perhaps ambition was just a luxury unhappy people wallowed in when all their other needs had been met.