A Cast of Falcons Read online

  Domenic turned back to the woman. “I’m sure your son wants to talk to you about what happened, but I know you’ll want to express your gratitude to this man for his quick thinking first.”

  Domenic stepped aside so she could see the driver now, his head bowed slightly, chin quivering.

  “Aye … well, thank you,” she said grudgingly, uncertainly.

  The driver turned to look at the woman. “I’m glad the boy is all right,” he said, his voice almost breaking. He reached out a hand and unsteadily put the van into gear again, inching cautiously over the gravel at first, barely above walking pace, slowly gathering speed. The crowd watched the van navigate through the gap in the stonewalled car park and then dispersed in a cloud of low murmurings.

  By the time Domenic and the woman reached them, Damian and the boy were lying on their backs on the grass, looking up into the sky. Domenic saw the woman’s look of alarm. “It’s fine,” he said, “he’s just showing him the Ravens.”

  As they approached, they could hear Damian’s voice speaking to the boy as if to an adult. “Watch this now,” he was saying, “the male will come alongside the female and then do a barrel roll, just like a fighter pilot.”

  The black bird executed a perfectly controlled dive out over the headland, twirling to fly upside down for a moment before swooping in at the last moment to fly alongside its partner again.

  At his mother’s approach, the boy stood up. The woman gathered him to her in a reassuring hug, smoothing the hair back from his brow delicately. The boy’s cheeks were smudged with dried tears, but he managed a brave smile for his mother. She looked across at Damian, who had also stood up. “You’ve a nasty wound on your arm,” said the woman. “Are you sure I can’t do anything? Get you a bandage, perhaps?”

  Damian looked down at the long bloody gash on his forearm, as if noticing it for the first time.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Domenic quickly. He turned to Damian. “There’s a first-aid kit in the car if you want to go and clean up.”

  Damian picked up on the cue. “Remember, ‘ caw’: crow, ‘ craaaw’: Raven,” he said by way of a goodbye to the boy. He headed off quickly, barely stopping to acknowledge the woman’s thanks as he passed. She hefted the other child up on her hip again.

  “Thank you doesn’t seem enough,” she said, watching Damian leave. “But what else can you say to someone who has …” The thought of what might have been seemed to overwhelm her and she fell silent.

  “Really, it’s fine,” Domenic assured her. “We’re just happy everything turned out okay.”

  He was almost at the Range Rover when the woman called after him. “Excuse me, sir. His name. I should at least know his name.”

  “Jejeune,” he said. “Domenic Jejeune.”

  12

  The two men emerged from the thatched hide and stood on the dirt path, surveying the land around them. Senior snapped up his bins, but by the time Eric had started to follow suit, Senior was already lowering them again. He smiled. “Unwritten rule of north Norfolk birding, Eric. If you’re not sure what it is, it’s a Wood Pigeon.”

  The two men turned at the sound of gravel crunching beneath a measured military gait, and Senior’s face broke into a guarded smile. “My, my, dear old Cley does seem to be attracting its share of non-birders these days.” He turned to Eric. “Forgive me, Sergeant Maik. This is Eric Chappell, Miss Hey’s editor at the magazine. He’s in the early throes of birding, and frankly, I could think of no better place to start than here. Even in its much changed state, Cley’s still a beautiful spot for a morning’s birding.”

  Maik looked around at the sun-dappled landscape. He found it hard to disagree. The light seemed to lie with a particular softness on the quietly moving waters this morning, and the gentle crush of the grasses moving in the breeze provided a soundtrack for the birdsong that filled the air. Calls of other, distant birds drifted toward them from high above, where they rode the currents to glide effortlessly out over the marsh.

  Senior continued to address Eric, as if a direct conversation with Danny Maik was something he might be wary of, though there was no reason Maik could think of for his caution.

  “Though I would describe the sergeant as slightly more of an agnostic than Miss Hey in birding terms, I cannot imagine he has come here for our peeps and spoonbills.” He raised his exuberant eyebrows in Maik’s direction.

  “Just out for a bit of fresh air.”

  Eric’s face showed interest, Senior’s more caution. A line of dark shapes trailed across the tops of the stunted grasses, wings beating fast. For once, Senior seemed disinclined to look. Perhaps he had already identified them. Or perhaps something else was occupying his thoughts. “Nothing to do with this dreadful business up on the prow at the Old Dairy, then?”

  “Prow?”

  “Public Right of Way. I trust your visit to Cley has nothing to do with that crime?”

  Maik nodded in recognition finally. His only previous encounters with Quentin Senior had been when the birder was the focus of a pointed investigation into his possible motives and alibi in a murder. Though the line of questioning had been a justifiable one, Maik acknowledged to himself that he might have some way to go to earn back the man’s goodwill.

  “No, nothing like that,” he said, sweeping his gaze across to include Eric in his assurances. “I thought I would see how the marsh was recovering. I’d heard that things were pretty bad down here after the storm.” Maik continued his gaze past the men, taking in the Cley landscape again, the swaying grasses, the glittering cells of water. “I must say, it looks fairly healthy now.”

  If Senior recognized that showing an interest, genuine or otherwise, in another man’s passion was a step toward reconciliation, his expression suggested he was ready to accept the sergeant’s olive branch. He didn’t strike Maik as a man who held grudges. You didn’t get a face as open and friendly as Senior’s if you spent a lifetime letting resentments fester behind it.

  “The winter storm of ’14 wreaked absolute devastation on the birding areas up and down the north Norfolk coast, as you are no doubt aware, Sergeant. But it seemed to save a particular wrath for Cley. The entire reserve was flooded with sea water. The original roof of that hide over there was found over two miles away. These other hides,” he indicated the one behind them, “were flooded all the way up to their thatched roofs.”

  Maik looked around. In the soft sunlight, it seemed impossible to imagine such devastation. “I saw that photo of the seal swimming along the coast road, what is that, nearly a half-mile inland? But everything seems to be coming back nicely.”

  Senior shook his head ruefully. “To the casual observer, perhaps. Vegetation is certainly returning, but whether it will have the same species composition as before remains to be seen.” Something approaching sadness flashed in Senior’s eyes. With the human costs and property damage, Maik had not really stopped to think about how the storm-wrought devastation of these areas would have impacted the birds. Or the birders. Senior surveyed the outlying landscape slowly, seeming to gather it into himself. It was as if he drew something from it, thought Maik, something spiritual that filled his senses, something that completed him, perhaps, in a way Maik could only guess at, but that seemed real enough for all that.

  “All that saltwater percolating into the ground must have had a tremendous impact on the soil invertebrates and root systems,” said Senior quietly. “One suspects Cley as we knew it may come back in time, but for a long while, it will be different — different habitat, different species.”

  Eric nodded sagely. “Some of the veteran birders here have already been telling me the wader numbers are down this season.”

  To Maik’s surprise, Senior managed to summon a soft smile. “Ah, complaints about numbers are a different matter, entirely, I’m afraid, Eric,” he said with a slight tilt of his head. “As you will come to discover in time.”

  Eric looked puzzled.

  “In truth, you are likely to hear si
milar complaints in all seasons in all birding locales. Nostalgia is as prevalent in birding as in any other area. Much as I’m told the sergeant here finds refuge in his music of a bygone era, the older we birders get, the better the birding used to be.”

  On another day, Maik might have taken issue with the bygone era comment, let alone refuge, but he was in the business of building bridges today and he let it slide.

  Senior turned to Eric. “Nevertheless,” he said, brightening with an act of will that was almost palpable, “still plenty to see.”

  “Got your bird guide at the ready, Mr. Chappell? No birder should be without one, I imagine.” Maik turned to Senior for confirmation.

  Senior took a moment to lift his bins and track a bird making a slow pass over the marsh. “Bar-tailed Godwit, Eric.”

  “On it,” confirmed Chappell, without lowering his bins. He was getting the birding parlance down, anyway, thought Maik, even if he suspected the new man’s skills wouldn’t be quite there yet. He waited as the two men tracked the bird’s lazy progress across the marsh.

  Senior lowered his bins and smiled. “Forgive me, Sergeant, but a bird like that is not something that can be taken for granted out here. Remarkable species, though. Do you know, a female Bar-tailed Godwit was recorded as having made a flight from Alaska to New Zealand in nine days?”

  “That’s a distance of more than ten thousand kilometres, Quentin,” said Eric, casting Senior a dubious glance. “That would be more than a thousand kilometres a day.”

  Senior nodded vigorously. “Nonstop, too. No food, no water, no rest. Birds can sleep during long-distance migration flights by shutting down one half of their brains at a time.”

  “Nonstop?” Even Maik felt compelled to question Senior’s story, bridge-building or not.

  “Tracked by satellite the entire way,” confirmed Senior. He shook his head in wonder. “Every time you think birds have lost the capacity to surprise you, they come up with something new. But, to your earlier point, Sergeant, you are quite correct. We will have to make sure Eric here gets himself a good bird guide. We all have our favourites. Some birders like photos, while others prefer composite drawings. Then, as you progress in things, Eric, there’ll be the specialties — immature gulls, migrating shorebirds, ducks in eclipse plumages. There really does seem to be a guide for every eventuality.”

  Maik nodded, trying to find a response that wouldn’t charge the information with too much significance.

  “Looks like you’ll be buying new, Mr. Chappell. A good bird guide sounds like something a birder would want to hang on to. I wouldn’t count on finding one in a used book store.” To Maik, the casualness seemed forced, overdone, but if Senior noticed it, he gave no sign.

  “It’s possible,” conceded the older man. “I attend meetings all the time where people have donated guides and bird books for one purpose or another. If, for whatever reason, someone considers a guide no longer relevant, then there is every reason to suspect it would find its way into a charity auction or a book giveaway of some kind.”

  Maik could see Senior readying himself for another contribution; a list of examples, perhaps, or a suggestion of one suitable for a birder of Eric’s level. Either way, it would be further pursuit of a subject Maik now wanted dead and buried. He turned to Eric. “I hear Lindy Hey is up for some award. For a piece in your magazine?”

  Perhaps not the smoothest topic change he’d ever engineered, but it achieved the desired effect.

  Eric nodded. “As I never tire of saying, we are all very proud of her. She’s a remarkable young woman, Sergeant, as you undoubtedly already know.” He shook his head, almost to himself. “Whenever I assign her a feature, she always says the same thing. ‘I’ll do the best I can.’ It’s become something of a gold standard at the magazine. When Lindy Hey does the best she can, then the rest of us are inevitably more than satisfied, thank you very much.”

  Maik drew himself up for one final look around the marsh. He had done all he could to ensure the conversations about Cley and Lindy would airbrush the other topic from the men’s memories in time. Perhaps he could have asked them to treat his casual inquiries about bird guides confidentially, but in his experience, few things fixed something in someone’s mind as effectively as asking them to forget it.

  “Well, I’ve kept you two from your birding long enough,” he said. He left the men surveying the landscape with their binoculars, and turned to begin making his way back along the gravel path toward his Mini in the car park, where the refuge of his Motown songs awaited him.

  13

  The brothers paused for a moment to take in the invigor­ating scent of the surrounding pine trees that drifted toward them on the soft breeze. The valley below them was bathed in a pale blue-grey light that promised the approach of evening. They had come down through the Spey Valley to look for Crested Tit, a bird Domenic had long coveted. Though he wouldn’t categorically rule out any bird appearing in north Norfolk, he was fairly sure he would never find a Crested Tit there. The conifer-clad hillsides on the lower reaches of the River Spey probably represented his best chance of seeing one, especially in the company of a bird finder of his brother’s pedigree. But for once, even Damian’s skills hadn’t been enough, and after a couple of hours of intensive searching among the pines, they conceded defeat and made their way back to the car.

  The argument started not long after they began driving again. Like many quarrels, its origins lay elsewhere, a related subject, perhaps, but no more than a gateway to the real conflict.

  “Labrador, Iceland, Scotland. It seems pretty clear De Laet was after Gyrfalcons specifically,” said Domenic. “Filling orders, you think?”

  Damian shrugged and took in the passing scenery. “All I know is, he was in a hurry to find them. The impression I got was that he needed one within a couple of days.”

  Domenic flashed a sideways glance at his brother. “That’s a pretty tall order for catching any wild falcon, but a Gyr?”

  Damian nodded in agreement. “And as much as I despised De Laet and what he did, he knew his trade. He would never have taken on a commission like that under normal circumstances.”

  A light breeze was moving the fields of golden barley on the hillsides. This was a different Scotland, a world away from the bleak ruggedness of the western Highlands, or the wind-scoured clifftops and pounding surf of Dunnet Head. This was a pastoral landscape, gentler, more tranquil. The scene seemed to mesmerize Damian and he continued looking at it for a long time. When he spoke, he did so without turning from the window.

  “I took his day pack.”

  Domenic careened The Beast onto the road’s gravel shoulder, rocking to a stop on the crest of a hill. The narrow road bent dangerously away from view in both directions, and an angry blast from a passing car protested the foolishness of Domenic’s manoeuvre.

  He spun on his brother. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked, unable to control his rising voice. “Not reporting what you saw is bad enough, but removing property from a dead body…. It’s a crime, Damian, an actual crime.” He turned his intense gaze away from his brother and stared out through the windshield, rubbing his forehead.

  Damian could see the tiny red blotches at the base of his brother’s cheeks, spreading even as he fought to contain his temper. Damian hadn’t thought about them in years. Whenever he had allowed himself to imagine a time when he saw his brother again, they hadn’t been arguing.

  Domenic turned to his brother, his eyes fixed on him, even as his mind was elsewhere, trying to find a way to undo the damage.

  “Do you realize how serious this is? Where is the pack now?”

  “I got rid of it, threw it off the dock in Ullapool. I didn’t know if De Laet had stored my contact info anywhere. He deleted his phone calls, but I didn’t know what police tech guys can do to get stuff like that back. There would have been calls from me …”

  “You destroyed evidence in a suspicious death?” Domenic pounded the steering wheel with t
he heel of his hand. “Why the hell would you do that, Dammy?” Domenic had not called his brother by his childhood nickname for many years. “What were you thinking?”

  “I can tell you everything that was in there,” Damian said defensively. “There were a couple of net traps, dho-gazzas they call them, a dead grouse for bait, two golf club covers, and his phone.”

  Domenic was shaking his head. “Even if you had held onto it until I came up…. You could have given it to me. I could have handled it.”

  “How? By telling the police what, exactly? I know you’re the darling of the Free World, Domenic, but even you can’t fix everything.”

  “I would have worked something out when I came. You know that.”

  “That’s just it. I didn’t know. That’s the point, Domenic, don’t you get it? I didn’t know if you’d come.”

  They had been shouting at each other, half-turned to face one another, but now silence fell between them like a guillotine blade. Damian had left a message; a message both of them knew Domenic would understand. His fugitive brother was here, in Scotland. Had they really drifted so far apart that Damian was unsure whether Domenic would come? Did he really think Domenic Jejeune would hear his brother’s cry for help and ignore it?

  They were sitting on the terrace of a rambling nineteenth-century guest house, nestled on a densely wooded slope that climbed sharply from the road below. In the distance, the river was a rippling mercury ribbon that caught the light as it ran over the rocky stones of its bed. Damian was staring at it, transfixed.