A Pitying of Doves

by Steve Burrows

  “It’s quite clear you’ve never spent any time in an English comprehensive school,” said Shepherd drily. She checked her mirrors and moved out to accelerate past a tractor trundling along. Jejeune jerked back in his seat a little as the car leaped to obey her command. In an instant they were past the tractor and Shepherd eased the car back into the curb lane, backing off the accelerator. A little.

  “So what? We think he pinched his early stuff and Phoebe Hunter found out. Just the sort of thing to base a relationship on — one in which he helps out her career while she helps out his mid-life crisis.”

  “That’s the thing,” said Jejeune. “According to the Chair, there was no suggestion of any impropriety between Nyce and Phoebe Hunter. None at all.”

  “Which just means he’s careful,” said Shepherd, “or clever …”

  “Or innocent,” said Jejeune. “There was some kind of relationship between them, clearly, but, I don’t know …” Jejeune shook his head. “His reaction. It seems, well … wrong for a distraught lover.”

  “Wrong? What exactly is the right kind of reaction? You could argue that Efren Hidalgo’s reaction is not normal. Grief is not a normal human condition, Domenic.”

  “True. But Hidalgo’s is mixed with remorse, for failing to protect someone who was his responsibility. Nyce’s response doesn’t seem to have any connection to Phoebe Hunter’s death. It’s more like anger, bitterness.”

  “It’s all very well for you, Domenic, in a nice stable relationship with a wonderful young woman, but for some of us who are … well, I’m just not sure that affairs of the heart are as easily encompassed by your normal sweeping generalizations, that’s all.”

  Shepherd checked her mirror again before moving out to pick off another hapless curb-crawling victim and drifting effortlessly back into her lane again. The rural landscape had gradually given way to small outcroppings of residential development, following the meandering course of a wide, flat river. A pretty pub appeared on the horizon and moments later Shepherd wheeled the Jag into the forecourt.

  Shepherd parked and removed her sunglasses, slipping them into her handbag along with the car keys. “Come on, you can buy me a white wine. I need one after the morning I’ve had,” she said. “And come to think of it, you look like you could do with a drink, too.”

  29

  “I’m not sure this is a panini,” said Jejeune, dubiously regarding the sandwich on the plate in front of him. A placard outside the pub suggested that the building had been around since the time John Cabot set off on his first voyage of discovery to Jejeune’s homeland, but the pub’s menu reflected Britain’s embrace of all things modern and foreign.

  “Of course it’s not a panini. Do you think the locals would stand for prices like these if the sandwiches didn’t have foreign names? Besides, I didn’t bring you here for the food. I thought you would like these.”

  She nodded toward the water just beyond the patio on which they were sitting. A flotilla of Mute Swans were drifting sedately past, perhaps as many as thirty of them. Jejeune was aware that he shouldn’t approve of this; birds living off an artificial food supply of bread thrown to them by the pub’s customers. It couldn’t be good for the river’s natural ecosystem either. But almost despite himself, he found the beauty of the birds mesmerizing — their pure white plumage, the noble bearing of those sensuously curved necks. Watching them now, it was impossible not to admire the majesty of the effortless gliding over the surface of the dark water.

  “What do they call a flock of swans anyway?” asked Shepherd, watching them as intently as Jejeune.

  “A lamentation is one common term. Some people say a bevy.”

  DCS held up her glass. “A bevy, then” she said, taking a drink. She leaned back slightly, as if to take in the view — the water, the cottages on the far bank, the people at the other tables basking in the weak spring sunshine.

  “You might be interested to know that Constable Holland, too, is less than convinced that Nyce’s attempt to kill Waters is the revenge of an anguished lover. He came to see me a couple of days ago. God knows where you were. Busy, I suppose, or off birding somewhere. He wondered if perhaps you might have overplayed your hand a little when you questioned Nyce, and inadvertently identified Waters as our prime suspect.” She held up her hand. “Yes, I know, I’ve already spoken to Danny Maik. But even if you didn’t mention Waters by name, it’s possible that Nyce picked up on it. Don’t give me that look, Domenic. It happens. Nyce is a very bright chap. A university professor, for God’s sake. You can’t always be the cleverest person in the room, you know. If he was able to identify Waters as our suspect, well …”

  “Well, what?” asked Jejeune defensively. “If Nyce could give us our suspect, albeit dead, then we could all just pack our bags and go home?”

  “Holland does have a point. There are plenty of questions that wouldn’t ever be asked if we had our number one suspect on a slab in the mortuary. It might well be enough to justify closing the case. After all, who is going to keep digging if we already believe we have our man?” She spared Jejeune the details of Holland’s mischievous, conspiratorial glance at this point, the one that had seemed to say, “except perhaps, for one pain-in-the-arse Canadian chief inspector.”

  Shepherd took a sip of her wine and watched the swans float along the river. “All swans in Britain are the property of the queen, aren’t they?” she asked.

  Jejeune nodded. “All unmarked swans in open water, I believe it is. I doubt she cares much, though.”

  But you do, thought Shepherd. The custody of these wild birds matters a lot more to you than this bloody job ever will. “Of course,” she said, “this business about Nyce all comes about because Holland is absolutely convinced that this Jordan Waters is no killer. Ergo, he needs to find someone else who is. I’m not sure how much stock we can put into Holland’s intuition, to be honest. Guy Trueman tells me he’s seen boys you would trust to babysit your children turn into ruthless killing machines when the circumstances called for it. Personally, I think almost anyone would be capable of killing in certain situations. But either way, it’s one more reason you need to find Jordan Waters. And quick.”

  Shepherd paused to look out over the water again. She seemed to reach a decision, and when she began speaking again, she did so slowly, quietly, as if she didn’t quite trust her voice to convey her thoughts out in the open like this.

  “It has been made clear to me in no uncertain terms that Ramon Santos should no longer be considered a person of interest in this case.”

  Jejeune was quiet, watching the swans, not looking at her as she spoke.

  “The irony is, of course, that they would love him to be involved,” said Shepherd. “It would take a lot of pressure off the Home Office diplomatically, to have a Mexican suspect tied to all this. But it means if you were to make a case for Santos’s involvement, however small or tenuous that involvement might be, they would seize upon it. They would take the idea that Santos was somehow complicit in his own death as fact, Domenic. They would blow it up and announce it as certainty, remove any suggestion that Santos was just an innocent victim of a crazy, drug-addled Brit. They wouldn’t be content to let you go out into the press and say it’s just a theory, just another one of your convoluted thinking-out-loud exercises. They would be looking to nail this idea to you like a cross. You would need to be able to prove a connection unequivocally. And I don’t think can do that, can you?”

  Jejeune still said nothing.

  “I know you rather too well to expect that you’re going to let this line of investigation go, Domenic, regardless of what I, or Michael Hillier, or DAC Peter Albrecht might feel is in your best interests. So I suggest you bury it in an avalanche of other inquiries for now. But I won’t wait forever. If you don’t bring me something soon, this avenue of investigation will be closed. Permanently. Understood?”

  She tilted her wine glass back to drain it before standing and gathering in Jejeune’s glass. “My shout,
I believe.” She saw his look. “Relax. The boys from Norwich will be here at any moment to take the keys to the Jag from me. Tony Holland said he will meet us here and take us back in the Audi. He’s in town, seeing some new girlfriend, no doubt.”

  Jejeune drew a breath. Relax? Holland threw his Audi A5 around these narrow lanes in a way that would make the DCS look like a Sunday morning grandmother. It said something about Jejeune’s predicament when he was half-hoping Shepherd might ask if she could drive the Audi back herself.

  “That drink?”

  “Can you see if they have any Crown Royal?”

  “Premium Canadian rye in the middle of the day, Inspector Jejeune? Are you sure you don’t want me to make it a double?”

  If there was any faint sarcasm behind the DCS’s question, Jejeune seemed to have missed it. With the prospect of the daredevil automotive feats that awaited him on the drive home, he was half considering asking Shepherd if she would mind just bringing the bottle.

  30

  Wraiths of mist lay across the lowlying countryside like twisted ribbons, leaving heavy dew that held the police officers’ footprints long after they had passed across the wet grass. The early-morning fret was more common in the autumn, but a cool spring morning like this one could still produce a good covering.

  By now, the man’s body had been recovered from the narrow culvert and hauled up to lie on the gravel road. Although Jejeune normally made a point of seeing bodies where they lay before they were moved, it would have been pointless to leave the bent, battered body of Jordan Waters where it was. The DCI couldn’t have seen anything by looking into the darkness of the culvert, and there was not enough room for anyone to have gotten in alongside the body. Besides, cause of death was obvious enough, even for someone normally as cautious about jumping to conclusions as Danny Maik. A single stab wound to the chest. The other cuts and scrapes would be the result of the body having been dragged to the end of the culvert and shoved in.

  There was a slight tremor of disturbance at the perimeter of the crime scene and Maik looked up to see Jejeune ducking under the blue-and-white tape. He watched him approach with his usual easy stride, taking in everything along the way, missing nothing, and all the while seeming as if he didn’t have the slightest interest in this case, or any other.

  “Found by a man taking his dog for an early-morning walk,” said Danny as Jejeune drew near. “He saw the car and the pool of blood. His dog got the scent and led him toward the culvert, but the man stopped when he saw where it was leading. Understandable, I suppose. He said he had an idea what he might find and he wanted to spare himself the sight.”

  “Wise man,” said Jejeune. He looked around at the mist-draped landscape emerging slightly through the morning light. “How far are we from the Obregón’s property here?”

  Maik nodded his head slightly in admiration. They banged on a lot at the station about Jejeune not being from around these parts, but he certainly had his geography right when it mattered.

  “A couple of miles. The car is registered to Waters’s mother. No trace of the birds.”

  Jejeune nodded. “Any idea on a time of death?”

  “The ME hasn’t arrived yet, but the wound …” Maik made a face. “I’ve seen them like this. I’d say a couple of hours, three at the most. Let’s say early this morning, at least, rather than last night. I’d imagine the body hadn’t been there all that long when the man came upon the car.”

  “A single knife wound?”

  Maik nodded. “But something big. Carving knife, hunting knife maybe.”

  Not a pocket knife, he was implying, though he would have called it a penknife anyway. In any case, not the sort of thing someone might carry around with them on a casual basis. Something that you would choose with care, and bring with you deliberately to do a specific job you had in mind.

  Jejeune walked back and stood over the body of the dead man.

  “I asked a couple of uniforms to drop round and invite David Nyce to come into the station for a chat. I thought you might have wanted a word,” Maik said.

  Jejeune raised an eyebrow.

  “He’s not at home,” said Maik. “His neighbours haven’t seen him for days.”

  “I see.” The DCI seemed preoccupied with thoughts beyond the news Maik was delivering. “Mr. Waters,” Jejeune gestured toward the body. “I wonder, could we …”

  Maik looked down at the body. It had been placed in a way that skewed the head round at a grotesque, unnatural angle. The pose was similar to the one in the photos Maik had seen of a young man who had died in another case Jejeune had worked on. Jordan Waters was almost the same age and build as the boy who had died when Jejeune had rescued the Home Secretary’s daughter. Jejeune had waited, then, that was all Maik knew. Jejeune had waited and no one knew why. He had never explained it, and in all the euphoria over the girl’s rescue people had forgotten to keep asking. There would have been a reason, a good one, but for a man like Jejeune, perhaps that wouldn’t have been enough, despite the world telling him he was free of blame. It was why he was able to speak so compellingly to Lauren Salter, tell her all about guilt and how it would never let you go. Jejeune was a clever lad; one of the cleverest Maik had ever worked with. In most things, he was sensible and well-grounded enough that Danny would have trusted his judgment without question. But guilt in one area, he knew, could spread like a disease, and he would be on the lookout to ensure the DCI knew that there was only one person responsible for Jordan Waters’s death, and that was the person who had stabbed him and shoved him into this culvert. Maik placed his latex-gloved hands gently under the dead man’s lolling head and straightened it.

  With the sun rising higher, the mist was slowly releasing its grip on the land, clinging on only in the valleys and depressions that disappeared off in the direction of the Obregóns’ property. A Curlew flapped lazily over the fields, issuing a single mournful cry as it passed. Otherwise, birdsong was absent. Perhaps they, too, felt the vague sense of unease that the sea mist brought to this place.

  “I’ll go and see the Obregóns,” said Jejeune. “You can stay on here until SOCO and the ME arrive.”

  “No need,” said Maik, “they’ll know what to do. I’ll come with you.” Maik hadn’t intended to make it sound like he was offering protection against a man who knew no fear, but sometimes, trying to couch things too delicately only made matters worse.

  Jejeune called over one of the uniformed constables. “I assume nobody has let Jordan Waters’s mother know about this yet,” he said. “I think somebody local might be best.”

  Maik knew it wasn’t a case of Jejeune shirking the responsibility, merely another example of his sensitivity, trying to find a way to soften the blow of the stark, terrible darkness a son’s mother was about to descend into. But the constable hesitated for a moment, looking at Danny Maik before wordlessly walking away and getting into his car.

  What am I doing here, thought Jejeune, when they turn to Maik whenever they need direction? He looked around him at the mist-wreathed fields. He was still not a part of this place, he realized, no matter how much he loved the coastal landscapes and the birds and the big, open skies. He wondered if he ever would be.

  31

  “I never did ask, what with all the excitement over Lauren … Constable Salter … and all. Did you ever see that rare bird of yours, the crake?”

  “No,” said Jejeune, looking out at the passing fields. For once, there was no music coming from the audio system in Maik’s Mini. Combined with the sergeant’s rare foray into small talk, it was a sign that he was concerned about coming up against Gabriel Obregón again. Not afraid. Jejeune suspected that word was almost as foreign to Maik’s vocabulary as it was to Obregón’s. But police training was designed for situations, and people, with patterns of behaviour that could be anticipated. It was unpredictability that worried police officers most. And a man like Gabriel Obregón, who was incapable of knowing fear, was about as unpredictable as they come.
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  “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem as, well … pleased, as I thought you might be. You said it was a very rare find.” Maik had been with Jejeune a couple of times when he had seen rare birds, and witnessed the DCI’s shiny-eyed excitement first hand. A thought seemed to strike him. “The rare bird lot, Carrie Pritchard and the rest, are they refusing to accept the record? I did hear the call. If you played me a tape, I might be able to verify it, if that would help.”

  Jejeune smiled his thanks. Maik had been around when Jejeune had his Ivory Gull sighting rejected. Despite Jejeune’s protestations to the contrary, the sergeant had obviously picked up how disappointed his DCI had been at the time.

  “I have reported it, but I won’t be adding it to my own life list,” said Jejeune simply. He shrugged. “It’s just a personal choice. To list a bird for the first time ever based solely on a noise somewhere in the middle of a marsh …? It doesn’t seem … well, enough, somehow.”

  Not for the first time, the vagaries of Jejeune’s pastime left Maik befuddled. Shouldn’t there be some standard set of guidelines that everybody followed? Either hearing a bird counted or it didn’t. How could you keep score, have lists and what-not, if everybody just made up their own rules as they went along? But Jejeune’s mood, he suspected, had roots beyond failed bird sightings. A young man had been murdered, and no amount of small talk was going to take the DCI’s mind off that. Death scarred him, each one carving a little deeper into the soft tissue of his humanity. There were days when Maik wondered just what would happen when there was no more flesh to tear at, when the DCI had nothing else left to give to the job. What then? Maik wasn’t sure, but he had more than a passing interest in the question. His own future, he knew, rested just as much upon the answer as Jejeune’s did.