A Pitying of Doves

by Steve Burrows

  Perhaps Trueman had already detected something; a sudden change in the atmosphere, a shimmer in the ambient noise of the station. Certainly, in everybody’s later recollection, it seemed that he was already turning off his perch on the corner of Danny’s desk, half-standing even, by the time the heavy steel scissors reached Salter’s throat.

  The rest of the room turned as one, alerted by the wild scraping of the chairs and the crash of items falling from Salter’s desk as Maggie’s dramatic lunge swept them to the floor.

  “I want my babies back,” said Maggie, as quietly and calmly as if she was answering another of Salter’s questions. “They belong to me. I’ve got the paper.”

  From every corner of the room, frozen figures stared at the scene in silence, afraid to make the noise that might startle the scissor-wielding woman into catastrophic action. Maggie was leaning across the desk, supporting herself unsteadily on one trembling, mottled hand while the other jabbed the point of the scissors into Salter’s skin with each word she spoke.

  “Those birds are mine. I’ve got the paper to prove it.” As words, they were benign. But Maggie was getting agitated now. She reached up with her spare hand and snatched a handful of Salter’s blond hair, dragging the constable’s head closer to the scissors. A small bead of blood appeared at their point, threading its way over the pale skin of Salter’s throat like a teardrop. She gave a small sob and it seemed to spur Maggie into further action. She pulled Salter’s head closer now, tilting it, jerking her hair cruelly. She came around the desk and began to drive the scissors deeper, forcing Salter to crane her neck back, expose her throat, to prevent the steel points from piercing deeper into the flesh. More blood flowed.

  Behind Maggie, Maik was up and moving. Holland, too. But they were behind desks, farther to go. Trueman was closer. Trueman, first among alphas, there so swiftly you wondered how he had covered so much ground without anyone noticing.

  “They took them away,” said Maggie. Now her voice began to rise, shrill with anger, control sliding away. “They can’t do that. Those birds belong to me. They are my property. I’ve got the paper.” She steadied herself to plunge the scissors in.

  With a blur of action, Trueman reached one arm inside Maggie’s extended weapon hand and slid his other under her other arm, spinning her rapidly toward him in a move of almost ballet-like grace. A clump of Salter’s blond hair came away, trapped between Maggie’s fingers. With a deft flick of Maggie’s wrist, Trueman romanced the scissors from the woman’s hand, closing a restraining arm around the frail body at the same time, pinning her arms to her side. Maggie looked confused, eyes darting wildly around, as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. She made no attempt to free herself from Trueman’s hold, futile as that would have been.

  “All right, my love, you just settle down,” said Trueman softly. “You go with these nice people. They are going to help you work things out.” He nodded for two officers to come forward and handed Maggie’s unresisting, limp form to them. Each placed a restraining hand on one arm and Maggie was shuffled out of the room toward the holding cells.

  In the collective exhalation of pent-up breath and excited conversation, it would have been easy to miss what happened next, but Maik was watching for it. Trueman was beside Salter in seconds. She was still wide-eyed with fear, her skin pale and paling, except for two red blotches on her cheeks.

  “I didn’t … I didn’t see it coming,” she said. “I should have …”

  Maik knew it wasn’t the assault that had unnerved her. In her job, Salter was well used to the occasional bout of violence, and was more than capable of defending herself. It was the irrationality of the attack, the unpredictability. One minute you’re having a conversation with somebody, the next you have pointed steel digging into your throat. No amount of training can prepare you for that. Maik would have told Salter this, and more, but Trueman was already there, leaning in close, comforting her.

  “All I could think about was Max,” said Salter, in a voice far removed from the present.

  “Of course,” said Trueman. He dabbed at the thin trail of blood from her neck with a tissue. “Listen, Lauren is it? If you had thought of anything else, you wouldn’t be normal. So tell me about this Max. This him here?” He picked up a photograph that had fallen to the floor in the struggle and set it back on her desk.

  She nodded. “My son, he’s seven.” She breathed deeply, trying to get herself back under control.

  “I’ll bet he’s a handful. They’re into everything at that age, aren’t they? Has he got a favourite football team yet? I hope it’s not Norwich. You tell him from me he’s in for a world of disappointment if he chooses to follow that lot.”

  And more of the same, as he helped her to her feet and walked her over to the doorway, hand on her shoulder, the reassurance of physical contact. At the door, Trueman handed her off to a female officer, to lead her, hand on arm, to the cafeteria, for the magic elixir of a restorative cup of tea while they awaited the arrival of the medical officer.

  Maik had seen it before. Keep engaging. The mind, the verbals, then the kinetics — the standing, the walking, the holding — all the normal things, to re-establish balance, put the trauma back in its box. It happened, it’s over, let’s get back to normal. Still, as a piece of performance art, it was impressive, and Colleen Shepherd, in particular, seemed to look at Trueman with new eyes as he resumed his seat at Maik’s desk.

  “Well, I suppose this answers the question of whether Maggie Wylde could have killed someone,” she said.

  Maik was fairly sure that if Inspector Jejeune was here he would have pointed out that the question was not whether Maggie could have killed the two people in the sanctuary, but whether she did.

  “All this over a couple of doves,” said Holland to nobody in particular.

  Trueman rolled his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. He wasn’t saying anything. But such was the bond between himself and Danny Maik, he didn’t need to.

  11

  Sir Michael Hillier attended to his constituency matters from a suite of lavishly appointed offices overlooking the main square of Saltmarsh. Though Jejeune doubted that many of Hillier’s constituents knew the extent of this luxury, he suspected few would have begrudged the MP his comforts. He was popular with the local voters, and an enthusiastic supporter of all things Saltmarsh and north Norfolk. This included its police force.

  Hillier was standing at the window, seemingly absorbed by the Saltmarsh skyline, when Jejeune entered. He turned to greet the detective. Though Jejeune could not imagine the number of people Hillier would see on any given day, the MP had mastered that upper class affectation of implying that his guest’s arrival was of singular importance.

  “Inspector, thank you so much for coming,” he said in a deep voice, rich with breeding. He had a long, distinguished face, framed by white hair, cut to a shaggy length just the right side of unruly. Exuberant grey eyebrows that seemed to have a life of their own sprouted from behind a pair of heavy, black-rimmed glasses that were perched on the end of Hillier’s nose, as if to emphasize the idea that he didn’t normally wear such contraptions. Hillier was wearing a navy blue suit with a broad white pinstripe that merely served to further define his thin, over-tall frame. As he approached in greeting, Jejeune noted the politician’s slight stoop, seeming to begin around the shoulder blades. The early onset of scoliosis, he suspected.

  “Would you care for coffee?”

  In eschewing the traditional offering of tea, the MP was no doubt trying to accommodate what he imagined to be Jejeune’s Canadian tastes. But in the detective’s experience, institutional coffee in Britain was always an adventure, and at its frequent worst it could be a deeply regrettable experience. If Hillier had any thoughts about Jejeune’s refusal, he gave no sign.

  “I have been asked to convey personal greetings from the Home Secretary, and his daughter. She’s doing wonderfully well, these days, I understand. Thankfully, she seems to have been
able to put the whole terrible business behind her. Engaged now, as you may have heard.”

  Jejeune had, through the dailies, though he wasn’t expecting an invitation to the wedding. Reminding everybody on her wedding day of the debt the bride owed to another man hardly seemed like the ideal way to start a happy marriage.

  Hillier seemed to read the thought in Jejeune’s face. “I can assure you, Inspector, no one in the government is likely to forget your efforts in bringing about that young lady’s safe return. Believe it or not, politicians see themselves as something of a family. A bit like the police, in a way, I suppose. A little more self-absorbed, perhaps, and a damn sight pettier, I shouldn’t wonder. But in the end, when it’s one of our own, we all rally round. Her ordeal affected us all greatly.”

  Jejeune acknowledged the comments about the case that had first brought him national recognition, but said nothing further. He was still trying to assess the man standing across from him. Having achieved the knighthood he had doubtless spent the better part of his career chasing, Sir Michael Hillier seemed content to dedicate himself to the common good these days, largely because he had nothing else left to occupy his time. Jejeune suspected that Hillier’s new role would provide more than enough opportunities. He had been appointed assistant minister with the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs: an “emeritus position,” the less kind newspaper reports said. But they may not have been entirely wrong. The new minister, a raw recruit with good looks in place of any actual political experience, had made a sure-footed start to the DEFRA portfolio, and the political commentators suspected they could already detect Hillier’s steadying hand at work in the shadows.

  Hillier sat at his desk and extended a hand that invited Jejeune to do likewise. “I do apologize for your having to come over like this. The DAC thought it might be wise to have a word. Bit of an Intro to Politics course, if you like.”

  Hillier flashed a smile to rob the words of any offence. To some, the inspector’s meteoric rise through ranks might have suggested Jejeune already had a rudimentary grasp of politics, at least those of the U.K. police service. What was of more interest to Jejeune was the fact that Hillier was taking great pains to point out that this meeting being held at the deputy assistant commissioner’s behest, when DCS Shepherd had indicated the summons had come directly from Hillier’s office. In Jejeune’s experience, any time someone in authority was unwilling to take ownership for something, it didn’t bode well for those lower down the food chain.

  “Regarding this business of the murders in the bird sanctuary. There are a couple of ground rules Her Majesty’s government would like to lay down, if we may.”

  Even after so many years in England, the exquisite politeness of those in high office was something that still occasionally took Jejeune by surprise. The nation’s statesmen spent so much time polishing their manners to a blinding sheen that it was a wonder they had ever found the time to establish a global empire. But politely stated or not, Hillier’s meaning was clear. And Ramon Santos, the inspector was sure, was going to be one of the principal ground rules, possibly the only one.

  “Frankly, diplomatic matters involving crimes on foreign soil are such a dog’s dinner. The boundaries can be remarkably fuzzy in matters like this. For that reason, we usually err on the side of caution. So perhaps you could walk me through this, Inspector. You seem to believe the diplomatic attaché was involved in criminal activity when he met his death?”

  Matters like this? Usually? How often did this sort of this happen? But even if Hillier’s statement raised some questions, there was one word that the detective had no trouble understanding: caution.

  Jejeune reviewed his misgivings about the rental car and the false ID, careful not to give any one detail the extra significance that might cause Hillier to seize upon it. As he spoke, Jejeune watched the MP’s features carefully, looking for signs that might betray a reaction — disapproval, surprise, anger even. Instead, he got the impression that Hillier had already heard it all before. Jejeune ended his summary by stressing he had nothing specific linking Santos to the attempted theft of the doves.

  Hillier nodded thoughtfully. “And whether or not he was involved in any criminal activity, that’s not to say the poor chap deserved what he got, of course. His death is still a tragic and deeply regrettable incident.”

  The MP slipped into the detached cadence of his profession so naturally Jejeune wondered whether he would still be even capable of tapping into his own emotions anymore, much less expressing them.

  “D’you think the girl was involved, too?” he asked, looking up at Jejeune.

  “There’s nothing to suggest so.”

  Hillier shook his head. “She was quite driven, I understand. I wonder, is there anything more tragic than a young life robbed of its chance to reach its full potential?”

  Jejeune’s expression suggested that he, too, had visited this question. He knew that, in a way, his work was society’s attempt to redress losses like this, to seek compensation for what had been taken from it. But for him, solving Phoebe Hunter’s murder would not restore any kind of balance. What could counteract the lost promise of this girl’s life, of any life?

  “The Mexican press is portraying the murder of Ramon Santos as further proof that our once great empire is slipping into terminal decline,” said Hillier suddenly. “Murderous psychopaths on every street corner, cities degenerating into dens of violence and drug-fuelled mayhem. Nothing personal in it, of course. We’re just as bad when a British citizen dies overseas. Any time a nation can focus attention on the ills of another, it takes the spotlight off its own domestic problems.” Hillier sighed. “To exploit the death of a young man like this no doubt appears unseemly. In truth, you are probably right. The more immediate concern, however, is of some weak, or worse, overly ambitious, politician, theirs or ours, getting stampeded into an ill-advised course of action just to satisfy public opinion.”

  Hillier had a disconcerting way of slipping into silence after making a point, as if considering it with a view to convincing himself of its validity. Jejeune, who also knew a thing or two about the value of staying silent, tried to exude an eternity of patience as he waited for Hillier to resume his comments. Through the window behind the politician, Jejeune could see the light clouds scudding across a grey sky. On the far side of the square, the steeple of Saltmarsh’s fifteenth-century church dominated the skyline. “The point is,” said Hillier finally, “any suggestion that Santos was involved in criminal activity would obviously be subject to the most intense scrutiny. We would need to be absolutely certain of our ground if we were to make such a claim. Absolutely certain.”

  Jejeune did not need the repetition to understand Hillier’s point. But absolute certainty was not a fantasy that even sentencing judges allowed themselves to indulge in, much less police detectives. Was Hillier advising Jejeune to discontinue this line of inquiry? Or was he encouraging him to gather more evidence, in an attempt to prove the connection beyond all reasonable doubt? It was perhaps a testament to the other man’s finely honed political skills that Jejeune really wasn’t sure.

  Sir Michael Hillier was far too experienced a politician to be thrown by Jejeune’s studied silence. Whether or not it was the reaction he had been aiming for, it seemed to suit him. He rose from his desk and went to stand at the window, his back to Jejeune. “D’you know, I’ve been thinking about this dove business,” he said without turning around. “I’m wondering if there could possibly be anything symbolic in it. As you may or may not be aware, Inspector, doves feature quite prominently in classical literature, eternal symbols of love and peace and all that.”

  How they loved their classics, thought Jejeune. It was understandable, he supposed, this link with the past, especially in this part of the world. In the square below, people walked in the shadow of that church’s centuries-old steeple without a second thought. Perhaps Hillier could be forgiven for his disparaging view of the education system in Canada, a coun
try whose constitution was barely a single generation old.

  The horizon apparently no longer worthy of his attention, Hillier turned around. “Anyone looking into that aspect of things, I wonder?”

  Jejeune managed to hide his exasperation. In his experience, members of the public could rarely refrain from offering a theory on a murder case. The difference was, those in high office expected theirs to be actively considered. On this occasion, Jejeune suspected that Hillier was offering out of a genuine desire to be helpful rather than any self-aggrandizement. But that did not make it easier for Jejeune to look like he was taking it seriously. “I’ll certainly have someone check it out,” he said, in a tone that those familiar with the detective might recognize as signifying it would not be a priority.

  “Just a thought, mind,” concluded Hillier, flapping a dismissive hand. He shifted gears once again. Jejeune was used to such disconcerting lurches in interviews. It was just that he was usually the one employing them. “You see, any allegation of criminal activity on the part of Santos would profoundly change the narrative. Now, no doubt both governments would find it easier to reach a clear-minded solution without the sort of background noise the Mexican media is currently providing. So, of course, the right sort of result in this case would certainly be most welcome.”

  The right sort, noted Domenic. Not even a particular result, just as long as certain others were avoided. Through the window behind Hillier, he could still see the dappled rooftops of Saltmarsh. But it was another landscape that occupied Jejeune’s thoughts, one of warm, earthy tones and red soil and dazzling African sunlight. One where the challenges were overt and the requirements were clear, unfettered by vested interests and dangerous, veiled agendas. What would it be like to operate in such a landscape? he wondered.

  There was a discreet knock at the door and an assistant entered meekly. “Your eleven o’clock, Minister.”

  The choreography was not lost on Jejeune. Hillier rounded the desk with a suitably resigned expression. He extended a hand to shake Jejeune’s. “Thank you for coming, Inspector. Do let me know if this business about dove symbolism turns out to be anything,” he said. “And be sure you tell DCS Shepherd from whence it came. We can’t have you claiming it was all your idea, can we?”