A Cast of Falcons (23 page)

L
indy
entered the cottage with her customary post-work relief and shrugged her shoulder bag onto a chair.

“You birders have a lot to answer for,” she said in a tone that Damian was unsure how to interpret. He looked up from the book he was reading with a puzzled expression.

“Taking a nice, well-balanced, rational man like Eric and turning him into a raving lunatic,” she said. “He's talking about going to Hong Kong to see some bird, only he claims he has to go on April 18. He is joking, I take it.”

Damian shrugged. “When we were kids we had a Baltimore Oriole show up on the same bush on the same day three years in a row. May 8.” He smiled at the memory. “I wonder if Domenic remembers that. He was so excited by the third year he kept asking me every day when May the eighth was coming. He was so small then, he couldn't even read a calendar properly. What bird is it?”

“A Spoon-bellied Sandpiper? Does that sound right?”

Damian laughed. “Now, that's a bird I would like to see, but I think Eric will be going after a Spoon-billed Sandpiper.” He inclined his head. “It's a good bird.”

“But you wouldn't travel to Hong Kong to see it?”

“What, me? No. You kidding? That's crazy.”

Lindy regarded him suspiciously for a moment. “Because you've already seen one, right?”

“A couple,” admitted Damian sheepishly.

She slumped into a chair opposite him. “So what bird would you travel halfway round the world to see, I wonder?”

Damian gave it some thought. “There's a few, but probably top of the list would be the Floreana Mockingbird.”

“Never heard of it,” she said.

“Few have, which seems a little unfair, considering it's probably the single most important bird in the history of modern science.”

Lindy's eyes widened and she sat forward slightly.

“It was the Floreana Mockingbird that led Darwin to the first step on his theory of natural selection,” said Damian simply.

“But that was the Galapagos finches, surely? I mean even I remember that from university.”

Damian shook his head. “Darwin saw the finches, but it was the difference between the mockingbirds on the Galapagos island of Floreana and a nearby island called Chatham that he suspected undermined the ‘stability of species' as he called it. Of course, if anybody ever comes up with a sighting of a Spoon-bellied Sandpiper, I'm on the next plane. In fact, I think I'm going to make that my new Twitter handle.”

Before Lindy could comment, they heard a car door closing outside. A look of relief crossed her face. “Thank God. He said he might go up to the Old Dairy compound again, but it looks like he changed his mind.”

Damian was puzzled.

“It was a strange mood up there last time,” said Lindy. “Ugly. There were some nasty undercurrents with those protesters. I worry about him going up there again, about what might happen if things get out of control. Somebody could get hurt.”

Domenic opened the door, but for once there was no smile for Lindy. For anybody. He looked directly at Damian. “Fancy a walk?”

“Not particularly,” said Damian, turning his eyes back to his book. Whatever it was that had Domenic seething, Damian seemed to know what it was.

“Damian's been telling me about the Floreana Mockingbird,” said Lindy innocently, trying to dispel the tension. “Did you know about this?”

Domenic nodded but it was clear he wasn't going to buy into any distraction. “We should talk,” he said to his brother.

Lindy could see now that there was going to be no way of derailing the confrontation. She picked up her bag and swung her car keys around her finger. “I'm just going to pop out to the shops for a few things. I shouldn't be more than about an hour,” she said, giving the men a timeline. As soon as the door closed behind her, Domenic rounded on his brother.

“Are you out of your mind?”

If Damian was going to protest ignorance, or innocence, Domenic was in no mood to give him a chance. “You were seen, Damian, talking to Tamilya Aliyev. Seen by a police officer.”

Panic creased Damian's features and he involuntarily flashed a glance out the window, in case an arrest team had followed Domenic, or perhaps even accompanied him.

Domenic read the signs. “I can't protect you, Damian. If they find you here, I'm going to be in the next cell. Do you know how much harm you could have done?”

“To what, your pride? I was trying to help,” said Damian simply. He wasn't defensive, but there was no contrition in his statement either.

“I don't need any help.”

“You do, Domenic. You're completely on the wrong track. About the girl, about the birds, everything.”

“What, so now you're an expert in police investigations, too? Why did Aliyev agree to talk to you anyway?”

Damian shrugged evasively. “Maybe she got the impression through a draft email that I could help her get some birds.” He didn't smile. “They weren't stealing the prince's Gyrfalcons, Dom. The Kazakhs are only interested in wild birds. They don't want captive ones.”

“They seemed happy enough to take the prince's white Gyr.”

Damian shook his head. “No,” he said. “White Gyrfalcons are not what they want. Black. That's what they're after, the darker the better. Why do you think we were up in Labrador? That's where the dark Gyrs are.”

Domenic considered this news, the information taking the edge off his anger.

“Then why the sudden need for a white one?” he asked. “Iceland. Scotland. You said he intended to bring that bird to north Norfolk. What was that all about? Unless De Laet had more than one customer.”

Damian tapped his lips with his forefinger. “I can't explain that. He wasn't in touch with anybody except the Kazakhs, as far as I know. But Aliyev said they would never pay the premium De Laet would want for a wild white Gyrfalcon.” He paused and looked at his brother. “It's about passports. De Laet somehow convinced Doherty to provide them, so the Kazakhs could transport the wild Gyrs he got for them into their country. As soon as the birds arrived safely in Kazakhstan, the passports were returned to the Old Dairy, and no one was any the wiser.”

“So what went wrong?”

“The Kazakhs paid for two birds, but there was a foul-up in the delivery schedule, and De Laet had to hold onto them for a while. Eventually the Kazakhs gave him the green light, but the birds were never sent. Aliyev came over to find out why.” He paused significantly. “This is a dangerous business, Dom. The places some of these people come from, they're like the Wild West. They don't have a lot of respect for law and order. They don't see an unarmed police force as some quaint reminder of an earlier, more innocent time, they see it as a sign they have the advantage.”

“Thanks, Damian,” said Domenic sarcastically. “I have travelled a bit you know.”

“Yeah, but seeing the world through the windows of the local Sheraton is not quite the same as being on the ground in these places.”

It was the kind of remark that would have sent Domenic into a tailspin when they were growing up, but now, despite his anger, he was able to see Damian's words for what they were, a manifestation of his older brother's genuine concern for him.

Damian's tone softened. “I'm just saying you need to be careful, that's all. There's a lot of bad money out there, money from sources you don't even want to think about. I think the Kazakhs have taken the soft approach so far because this is dream arrangement. Trapping wild birds is the easy part. It's smuggling them across borders that takes the real work. To be able to waltz birds through Almaty Airport on a passport, that's an arrangement worth protecting. But as soon as they find out De Laet's gone, and their chances of getting any more birds have gone with him, they're going to have nothing to lose. If they start throwing their weight around to get what they've already paid for, people could get hurt.”

“Perhaps they already have.”

Damian shook his head slowly. “Aliyev didn't kill that girl, Domenic. I know what that feels like …”

“Stop, Damian.”

“I know, Domenic, and I'm telling you, she's not carrying that around with her. I could see it in her eyes.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“I don't know how we got here, Domenic, you and I. Sometimes, our past, those days we spent as kids, it all seems so far away it's like it never even happened.” He shook his head. “I was telling Lindy about that Baltimore Oriole that came back to our garden year after year. Remember?”

Domenic nodded and seemed to peer into the past. “May ninth, three years in a row.”

Damian didn't bother correcting him. It wasn't another argument he was looking for, merely a return to an earlier time, a time of innocence, when they had both been facing the world from the same side, before life and its labyrinthine ways had come between them. “A miracle of timing, Mom called it. Remember?”

“Timing,” said Domenic, nodding slightly to himself. And then again, more significantly, “Timing.”

And then, Damian knew his brother wasn't back in their childhood garden anymore. Domenic Jejeune had just closed in on a killer.

L
indy
was sitting in the living room, her feet tucked beneath her on the couch as Domenic came in. She surreptitiously stashed her reading material away, but she knew he had seen it and she smiled guiltily. Her article, reread for the umpteenth time. Despite her ongoing protestations, he knew it meant a great deal to her to win the award. It would be a justification, of sorts, that she had made the right choice. Following the glare of public recognition that had accompanied her coverage of Domenic's case involving the Home Secretary's daughter, Lindy had been offered a number of high-profile positions. Her decision to abandon the frenzied world of national newspaper journalism for the opportunity to do more in-depth pieces with a smaller magazine had surprised most, and outraged some, and the lean years that had followed had often left her squirming with self-doubt about her choice. Though this nomination had raised her profile nationally again, Domenic knew that, in the competitive world of journalism, only winning the award would truly establish her place once more among the industry's elite.

“Okay if I turn this off?” He crossed the room and consigned another vapid Canadian one-hit wonder to silence.

“Damian?” he asked, to spare her the effort of acknowledging her reading material.

“Out for a walk. I feel so sorry for him at times, cooped up in here. You can see him almost pacing back and forth to get back out there. It's like he's in captivity. By the way, ‘Disturbing Mental Image Alert'.” She splayed her fingers out at him like blinking neon sign. “I think my boss and your boss may be hooking up sometime soon.”

Jejeune's eyes widened. Lindy nodded in confirmation. “Eric sidled up to me and asked in an ever-so-casual way whether you might be able to get him Colleen Shepherd's phone number.”

“Could it be about a story for the magazine?”

Lindy gave him an exasperated look. “Since he's the senior editor of one of the country's leading magazines, I think we can assume he'd know the police department has a Press Office to handle requests like that.”

“I've always thought of Eric as a man who seemed more comfortable in the company of attached women,” said Domenic.

“Some men are like that. Perhaps he's always just enjoyed the comfort of knowing he doesn't have to try, if they're already taken. In truth, it's unlike him to take such a direct approach. Like his birding, he seems ready to get serious in a hurry. Perhaps he's reached that stage of life where he realizes he might only get one more shot at things.”

She could only smile at the look of anguish on his face. “Cheer up, Dom, I sincerely doubt they'll wile away their evenings talking about us. It may come as something of a shock to you, but the world doesn't entirely revolve around DCI Domenic Jejeune.” A thought seemed to strike her. “Isn't it funny how she always seems drawn to the same kind of man — confident, powerful, charming?”

Jejeune nodded sadly. “And it always seems to turn out so badly for her.” He paused for a moment. “Do you think that's always the case, that a person tends to be attracted to the same type of partner? That after one relationship, they might move on to somebody else who is similar in a lot of ways?”

Lindy let her beautiful eyes rest on Domenic in a long, unblinking stare. “My, what an interesting question, Inspector Jejeune! Santayana said those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Is that what you're afraid of? Damian hasn't covered the chapters on your love life back in Canada, in case you were wondering — at least not yet. Or have I got this backward? Should I be worried that you're going to leave me for a younger and more beautiful version of myself?”

“I'm hardly likely to leave you for an older, uglier version, am I?”

Lindy pressed her forefinger to her lips and then wagged it at Domenic. “There are right answers, Inspector Jejeune, and there are wrong answers,” she said archly “And then, there are
wrong
answers.” She looked up and saw that something was troubling him. He sat in a chair opposite her. It was what he did when they needed to speak, and Lindy recognized the signs. She deliberately didn't change her relaxed pose; the less formal she was, the less guarded he was likely to be.

“He's asked you, hasn't he? Damian. What he risked coming from Canada to ask, on a boat across the North Atlantic?” She smiled to let him see how pleased she was with herself at having been able to piece so much of this together already.

Jejeune turned to look out the window. The tree where the Nightingale had been was dancing in the breeze, but there was no bird among the leaves today.

“He's asked. But I can't help him.”

“You must. Whatever he did, whatever kind of a mistake he made, it shouldn't be allowed to ruin someone's life to the point he has to skulk around indoors like this, not even able to let his family know where he is, or even that he's safe? Whatever it is he's asking you to do, can it be worse than that?”

She looked at him, torn by what she took to be his turmoil at having to choose between his duty as a policeman and that as a brother. She suspected he had never held anything but the strictly legal point of view and was tormented now by the knowledge that he had to abandon the principles he had held dear for so long. The agony she felt for him was almost like a physical pain. “It's an awful choice, Dom, I know. No one should ever have to face it. But he's your brother, and he needs your help. You can't let him down. I understand, I really do.”

But he knew she didn't.

“He wants me to broker a deal for him,” he said quietly, staring into the space between them, “to save him from being extradited to Colombia.”

“Extradited?” Lindy unfurled her legs and sat forward intently now. “They don't do that for bits and pieces, Dom. Extradited on what charge?”

“Manslaughter. He's wanted in connection with the deaths of four people.”

He reached out for her, but she rushed past him, tears seeming to have come from nowhere. The front door smashed open as she fled. He left it swinging wide, too crushed to go after her, too crushed even to rise.

J
ejeune paced in their narrow kitchen and checked his watch again. He glanced out the window, at the blue expanse of the sea, stretching out to infinity. He had determined to give her five minutes before venturing after her, but now that time was up, he decided on two more. He watched the time disappear second by second, refusing to move until the second hand swept past the twelve. It was a tiny, pathetic display of resolve, as if the extra few seconds might make the difference, might bring back the Lindy he may have lost. Forever.

S
he was on the cliff path looking out to sea, where he knew she would be. It was where she went for solitude, for comfort, perhaps for certainty, too. He came up beside her tentatively. She didn't turn her head, although he knew she'd sensed his approach. He stood beside her for a moment, silent, uncertain, before reaching down for her hand, fearing the rejection that would burn his skin like acid. But she let him take it and he felt the kind, precious warmth of her fingers as they entwined his own.

“I'm so sorry,” he said.

But for what? For the deceit, or for the callous, cruel revelation of it? For the pain he had caused her? Or for being himself at this moment, when he felt she might have preferred the presence of just about anyone else by her side?

Lindy said nothing. He risked a glance across at her and saw traces of tears still on her cheeks. Was she waiting for the onshore winds to dry them? Or was she waiting for Domenic to make them go away, by telling her that none of it was true, that it was all just some nightmare, and the innocent, blissful life the two of them had built in this windswept hilltop was still intact, as pure and as perfect as before?

“He led a personalized tour into an area designated as off-limits by the Colombian government. The man was sick. Damian's group made contact with a small band of indigenous people, and four of them died later from contracting the illness.”

Lindy stared out resolutely over the sea, but something in her changed, a slight relaxing in the tension. “You can't call that manslaughter.”

“It's what the Colombian government calls it. Foreigners were expressly forbidden from visiting that area. Damian had even applied for a permit and been denied one. He entered the region anyway. And he did it for money. The man died shortly after from his illness, and the local guide is nowhere to be found. Damian was the only target the authorities had left.”

It was getting cold now and Lindy had no jacket on, but neither made a move to go back to the cottage. It was as if they both sensed that they could not return there now, to the life they used to have, until they had discussed this thing that threatened to take it away from them.

Lindy shook her head. “This doesn't sound right. It's such a massive over-reaction. As heartbreaking as the deaths of these poor people were, surely anybody could see that this was completely innocent.” She shook her head again. “It isn't manslaughter in any sense that I understand the word.”

“It was just months after the Colombian government had issued a very public apology to the Witoto people, acknow­ledging their horrific treatment at the hands of the rubber barons in the early days of the rubber industry in that area. The government undoubtedly saw the chance to prosecute an unscrupulous foreigner as a heaven-sent opportunity to prove they were taking Native rights seriously, and actively trying to protect them.”

“It sounds like the trial would have been a foregone conclusion,” said Lindy. “I can't imagine how terrifying it must have been for Damian to go into a courtroom knowing the verdict had already been decided.”

Domenic shook his head. “There was no trial. Damian got wind of the charges and fled the country. He's smart, he's resourceful; he knows the culture and the language in that part of the world. He made it all the way to St. Lucia, but he was found there and arrested. I heard he confessed to his crimes when they picked him up.”

She turned to him, incredulous. “You heard?”

“I hadn't seen him since this all happened, until a few days ago. But I know he escaped from custody before the St. Lucian government could extradite him to Colombia. There's been a warrant out for his arrest since then.”

Lindy was quiet for a long time. A blustery wind picked up off the sea and brought its coolness over the clifftop. “He confessed?” she said finally.

Jejeune nodded, but he could find nothing more to say.

“You have to do it, Dom. You have to help him.”

Did he? Jejeune said nothing. His brother had spent a long time running from the knowledge that he was responsible for the deaths of four people. But Domenic was fairly sure that, one way or the other, his days of running were coming to an end.