A Cast of Falcons (6 page)

A needle in a haystack. About right, he thought. Protesters, colleagues, acquaintances, even strangers who had crossed Philip Wayland's path. His killer could be anyone among them. It would be the DCI's haystack soon. But he had something to do before Jejeune returned. It wasn't something that he was particularly looking forward to, but then, that was about par for the course for Danny Maik these days.

D
amian
Jejeune's head snapped around and he turned back to Domenic. “Did I just see a surfboard on that car?”

Domenic checked the rear-view and nodded. “Apparently, the north coast of Scotland is one of the surfing hotspots of Britain, particularly the area around John O'Groats.”

“Why not?” asked Damian ironically, “I know the first thing I think of when I see menacing skies and seas the colour of lead is ‘surfing Mecca.' I'm surprised the Beach Boys never mentioned it.” He looked across at his brother. “You're serious? I mean, what would possess them to go out on a day like today? Are they crazy?”

Domenic inclined his head. “They go out in all kinds of weather. And they spend a fortune on it, too. Surfers will travel hundreds of miles just to catch that one perfect wave.”

Damian shook his head slowly. “I'm sorry, I just don't get it.”

“Me neither,” agreed Domenic, “but what can you say? Some people get a little obsessive about their hobbies, I guess.”

He slowed down as they passed a series of large grassy mounds on their left, and wheeled the big Range Rover off the main road, following the narrow track signposted for Dunnet. It was already after noon, but neither man regretted the day they had spent driving along the north coast of Scotland. They had taken the route north from Ullapool, up through the high hill country of Lochinvar, where the towering black crags pushed through green skin of gently sloping foothills. Farther on, as they traced their way east along the coast road, a gradual softening of the landscape had begun to take hold. Fern-clad valleys and fields of bracken tumbled toward the northern shore, before the terrain levelled out still more, in a succession of wide, flat tidal estuaries; Tongue, Coldbackie, Bettyhill, that had led them finally to this tamer, cultivated area on the northeastern tip of Scotland.

They had stopped only once, just outside Kylesku, in the shadow of a mighty column of granite that rose out of the foothills like a pair of praying hands, losing its fingertips in the blankets of cloud that seemed ever-present in those parts. Jejeune had pulled off the road to call the station, to let them know he would still be one more day. He turned off his phone just as Damian returned from exploring the landscape.

“Coping okay without you?”

“I should be there,” said Domenic solemnly, “but to be this close to Dunnet Head and miss it …” he shook his head. “They're a good team, they'll find whatever is there to be found,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. He stared out over the landscape; this bleak, rugged terrain the guidebooks described as
barren
but was really anything but, if only you could be patient enough to wait, to watch; for the Linnets, the grouse, the eagles.

“You didn't mention the white Gyrfalcon,” he said quietly.

Damian sat beside him and the two gazed out over the land. Somehow, it had always been easier for the two of them to talk like this, side by side, not facing each other. “I wasn't sure whether McLeod knew about it, but if he did, you needed to look suitably surprised. You never were the greatest actor, Domino. I think all good actors need a little bit of dishonesty in their souls, and you've never really had that, have you? Not even as a kid. Besides, I could already tell you had a lot of respect for this McLeod. I thought it would be easier if you didn't have to lie to him.”

“You think it came from Iceland?”

Damian nodded. “It's where most of the white ones are found. Icelandic Gyrfalcons don't normally migrate, but there's been a lot of volcanic activity up there lately, and it seems to have set some of them on the move.”

“Do you think that's why De Laet was there?”

“I know it was. I think it may have even been the Gyr that knocked him off the rock face, especially if she had a nest up there. She's been on territory a while. It's possible. Can you imagine that?”

Nesting Gyrfalcons in Scotland. Domenic let his mind play over the idea for a moment. He realized his brother had gone quiet.

“It must have been hard to watch. They say talking about it can help sometimes.”

“Did it help you?” asked Damian simply.

No,
thought Jejeune,
it didn't
. But that had been different. In the case involving the Home Secretary's daughter, he could trace the death of the boy directly to his own actions. Damian wasn't responsible for this man's death, or at least he claimed he wasn't. He had merely witnessed it. But perhaps it was the connection with a death that really mattered, the proximity to it. Perhaps it was that which caused the guilt, whether you were responsible or not. “Come on,” he said, standing up, “the birds of Dunnet Head are waiting for us.”

A
tour bus pulled up and disgorged its passengers, most heading directly for the Dunnet Head lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson's grandfather. It was an attraction, certainly, but how could it compare with the magnificent cliffs just beside it, teeming with calling Kittiwakes and a circus of Puffins, as Skuas majestically carved the skies overhead?

“Some racket,” said Damian. He and Domenic were sitting on rocks near the edge of the cliff, above a deafening cacophony of bird sounds — territorial calls, mostly, or the cries of returning birds trying to locate their mates in the cliff-side colonies. Both knew there were matters to be discussed between them, possibly
confronted
was a better word. But the wild, unmitigated beauty of this ragged coastline was not the place to trouble one's soul with such things, so they simply stared out in contented silence, watching the birds dive-bombing the wild seas as the crashing waves broke on the rocks in explosions of fine grey spray.

A harsh, guttural call alerted the brothers to the presence of a pair of Ravens overhead, and the men craned their necks back to watch the birds in their dazzling, exuberant courtship flight. Domenic drew his gaze away, warily eying the bus crowd, now milling around aimlessly in the car park. “We should probably be going,” he said. As irrational as it was, he was concerned that with so many people around, someone might recognize his brother. Police cases he knew of had turned on such wild, coincidental sightings.

Damian seemed to understand. With a final glance out over the roiling seas and the vibrant, pulsating bird cliffs of Dunnet Head, the two men stood and turned reluctantly to begin making their way back to the Range Rover. They were halfway there when Damian broke into a sprint. A dark van was trundling slowly across the car park. From the far side, a woman with a baby on her hip screamed. Damian disappeared in front of the van, and then Domenic heard a sickening thud as the vehicle jerked to a sudden stop.

By the time Domenic got there, the woman was bending over Damian. In his arms was a young boy of about five. Alarm rose in Domenic as he saw the blood, but subsided when he realized it was from Damian's forearm, which had been scraped raw by the contact with the gravel car park. “He's okay,” Damian told the mother. “Just a little scared, that's all. I'll take him over there for you.” He nodded to a patch of grass near the stone wall and rolled to his knees, still clutching the boy in his arms.

The natural impulse to comfort her child compromised, the woman's shock morphed into anger instead, and she rounded on the van's driver, an elderly man wearing thick glasses. Her eyes were wild with fury. “You bloody old fool,” she screamed at him through the open driver's window. “You should watch where you're going!”

“I didn't see him,” said the man defensively. He sounded dazed, shaken. “What was he doing in the middle of the car park, anyway? You should keep better control over your young ones.”

The woman hefted the baby up on her hip and squared herself to the car window, as if preparing herself for further confrontation. Some of the bus passengers had arrived by now, gathering in a small half-circle around them. From other parts of the car park, people were drifting over to see what was going on. The small crowd was beginning to build. There would be many mobile phones among them, Domenic knew. He stepped between the pair, blocking the woman's view of the driver. He locked her eyes with his own.

“Your son is safe,” he said quietly, engaging her, taking her focus away from anything else. His voice was calm and reassuring. “He was crying because he's afraid, but he is unharmed.”

“No thanks to this idiot.” She was shaking now, trembling, the baby on her hip rocking slightly with the movement. “He could have been killed.” She put her free hand to her mouth, and tears started to her eyes as the realization took hold. Her body seemed to melt slightly, and for a second Domenic was afraid she might faint. He reached forward to steady her. The crowd was watching them intently. No one had reached for a phone yet, but he knew he had only seconds before an electronic pulse of some kind went out from this scene: Instagram. YouTube. The police.

“Your son is safe,” said Domenic again. “This man reacted quickly. We should thank him for that.” His voice was soothing, calm, the voice of reason. He turned to the man now, still blocking the view between the two. “You did well, sir, to stop like that.”

“I never saw the wee lad.” There were tears in the old man's eyes, too, now, behind the glasses. “If I hadn't caught sight o' that man out the corner of my eye, going past the front of the van like that …” He gripped the steering wheel tightly, staring out through the windscreen with unseeing eyes. Domenic realized for the first time that the van was still in gear. The man's foot must be on the brake. He reached in through the window and jammed the column shift into Park. The man didn't move. In the back of the van, Domenic saw an old chair, now lying on its back — the noise, he realized, the
thud
, the one he had thought was his brother, and the woman had thought was her child.

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 stone-walled 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.”