A Cast of Falcons (7 page)

T
he
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 similar 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.

T
he
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 the 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?

T
hey 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.

After their argument, they had driven, unspeaking, following the river as it traced its way between fields until they reached the grey granite village of Aberlour.

“Food,” Domenic had announced, pulling into the forecourt of the hotel. A drink with their meal had morphed into two, and then a decision to stay the night, giving them time to ease their raw nerves in the tranquility of the cool pine trees.

Domenic took a sip of his whisky, the smooth single malt swirling golden in the glass. He peered at his brother over the rim.
Why are you here?
he wondered. Because as genuine as Damian's love for birds was, and how great his desire to keep them from the clutches of a man like Jack de Laet, there had always been a strong element of self-interest about Damian, too. The man Domenic knew, used to know, would not have left the relative security of his home country and risked entering Scotland illegally unless there was a compelling reason for doing so.

Damian took a slow drink of his own whisky and surveyed the forested hillsides all around them. “New Scotland,” he said. “Do you remember that area on the north shore of Lake Erie, around by Rondeau? That's what they called it — New Scotland. Billiard table–flat farmlands as far as the eye can see. Not sure where they were thinking of when they named it, but it doesn't look like any part of Scotland I've seen so far,” said Damian ironically.

Domenic smiled and Damian let his look linger on it for a while. It was sincere, genuine; a once-familiar sight he had long missed. He toyed with his whisky glass. They would both be content to let their conversation stay out here, he knew, with birds and birding sites, letting the residue of their argument evaporate into the evening breezes.

Damian drained his glass with a flourish and looked around for their hostess for a refill. “Too bad you dipped on your Crested Tit. We could go back and try again tomorrow, if you like.”

Domenic shook his head. “We have a long way to go. We need to get an early start.” He gave his brother's empty whisky glass a significant glance. “And that means not hanging about looking for Crested Tits until the distilleries open.”

Damian looked suitably sheepish. “You're sure you don't want to reconsider?” He spread out his hands, encompassing the entire valley in his gesture. “Speyside. This is the promised land for single malt lovers, Dom. Glenfiddich, The Macallan, Cardhu, all pretty much within stumbling distance of one another.”

Domenic offered an apologetic smile. “You'll just have to pay your respects to the holy trinity some other time.”

Damian sucked in a breath and shook his head in mock disapproval. “Such blasphemy. Madame Beauchemin would not be happy with you, young Domenic, though you would doubtless be forgiven unconditionally, while I was punished instead, for filling your head with evil notions in the first place.”

“I don't remember it being like that.”

Damian let out a derisive snort. “You're joking, right? Those teachers at our school carried on as if they all thought you had been born in a manger. I, on the other hand, was the spawn of Satan.”

Domenic smiled. It had been a constant refrain through their childhood, Domenic leading his charmed life, while all the world's wrongs fell on his older brother's shoulders. In truth, it had always seemed to Domenic that life had treated them both pretty even-handedly. But then, in truth, it was always easier to notice life's injustices if you were the victim of them.

“So what's this I hear about you listing an Azure-winged Magpie in the U.K.?”

A sudden change of subject had always signalled that Damian was ready to move on. Often it had been from some uncomfortable situation in the present, but now, Domenic got the impression it might be the past Damian was so anxious to leave behind.

“I didn't find it,” said Domenic. “I just happened to be there.”

“Doesn't matter. It was a major sighting. And my little brother snagged it. Very proud to hear that, I was.” Both men waited until it was clear Domenic wasn't going to add anything further. “I heard you were in St. Lucia, too,” said Damian warily. “Any particular reason?”

“Lindy knew I had a friend down there. She thought I might like to see him, so she booked a vacation for us.”

Damian nodded slowly. “And did Traz find you the endemics?”

Domenic tilted a hand. “Most of them. Not the parrot.”

“You missed the St. Lucia Amazon? Jeez, Dom, all you have to do is stand on the Des Cartiers Trail and they'll practically come right to you.”

“Like the chickadees at Lynde Shores, you mean? Maybe I should have just put some seed in my hand.”

“Lynde Shores,” said Damian wistfully. A quiet fell over them. For a moment, the two men were boys, wandering wide-eyed among the tall white pines, the path beneath them dappled with the filtered sunlight of summer. Or perhaps, still holding patches of late winter snow at the bases of the trees, as they peered up looking for owls or searched the woodpiles for Winter Wrens. Moments of such innocence, such connection. That two brothers could come from there to the wrath they had shared so recently seemed inconceivable.

Damian eased forward across the table, as if he had judged the mood between them, and found forgiveness in the returning peace. “I didn't tell you everything in the car.”

Domenic pushed his glass away angrily, but when he looked up, there was no defiance in Damian's expression, no readiness for argument. Just a crumpled sheet of paper, torn from the bottom of a page of a cheap lined notebook, held between the fingers of a hand extended across the table.

Domenic carefully unfurled the paper. On it was scrawled a series of digits.

“There was one missed call on De Laet's phone, nothing else incoming or outgoing. From the time on the call log, he was dead before it came in. I took down the number.”

Domenic stared at the paper for a long time. Most of the number was unknown to him, but the first few digits were ones he knew well: 01263. It was the area code for north Norfolk.