“I’m going on up ahead a little way, see what I can find,” said Jejeune.
“Knock yourself out,” Traz called after him. “I’ll shout if anything interesting drops in back here.”
They watched him until he had disappeared around a bend in the trail and off into the thick curtain of green.
“So, is he the same as you remember him?” asked Lindy.
Traz considered the question seriously. “A little more subdued maybe. That boy who died, when he found that politician’s daughter, that sort of thing would stay with the Domenic Jejeune I knew.”
“He doesn’t say much,” said Lindy, “but he still thinks about it. It was getting better, I think …”
“Until this new kid, Waters?” Traz saw Lindy’s expression of surprise. “I try to follow his cases as much as I can. Whatever you do, don’t tell him, though,” he said with a lopsided grin.
Lindy nodded. “Waters was about the same age. Dom’s not conflicted over his death, particularly, but it brought back, you know, memories … I think.… I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “He doesn’t talk about it much.”
“That sounds like our boy.”
“But something else has been bothering him since he’s been here. He seems on edge sometimes, uneasy. He even seemed a bit reluctant to come here in the first place, and he’s had me book everything — the hotel, the car — in my name.”
From up on the trail, they heard the sound of Dom’s footfalls returning. Traz turned as he came into sight. “Maybe he’s just worried about the media following him around if they find out he’s here. He’s a pretty well-known guy these days. YouTube, the Net. It could be that.”
Lindy didn’t know if Traz had a girlfriend, but if he did, she certainly hoped he didn’t try to deceive her very often. He was even worse at it than Dom. Well, as bad anyway.
“Oh, hey,” said Traz suddenly. “Looks like Dom’s on something up there.”
He got to his feet and quickly crossed to the far side of the trail, where he joined Domenic near the edge of a steep drop-off. The two men began staring intently across the valley through their binoculars. Possibly Dom had found something of note. But Traz spent his days in these forests, and had undoubtedly seen most things here a hundred times. So he must have thought Domenic was on something pretty spectacular indeed. Unless there was another reason he had found it necessary to interrupt his conversation so abruptly and put some distance between him and Lindy.
Jejeune was quiet on the drive back. Though they had enjoyed a good day of birding — productive, Dom called it — they had not seen the St. Lucia Parrot, or St. Lucia Amazon, as Traz corrected them. He had heard one calling far off, deep in the forest, and Traz had pointed it out to them. Dom had sportingly pretended it was enough. But he had fooled no one. Looking at the studious intensity on his face as he negotiated the winding mountain roads, Lindy wondered if there might be something else on his mind, though.
As she began to shrug off her hiking things in the cool comfort of the air-conditioned room, Jejeune walked out onto the balcony and stood staring out at the sea. Lindy joined him and handed him a cold beer from the bar fridge. They sat on their cane chairs, cradling beers and listening to the warm evening breeze stirring the fronds of the palm trees below. Lindy put her bare feet up on the balcony rail.
“So, what do you think of Traz?” asked Jejeune.
It was his way of saying he didn’t want to talk about anything else, and Lindy didn’t push it. There was no point in spoiling a beautiful Caribbean evening. “I like him,” she said. “He’s fun. Plus, of course, he’s so clean. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who managed to stay so neat and tidy.”
Jejeune laughed. “Yeah, he’s always been like that, even in college. He’s just one of those people that dirt never seems to stick to.”
“It’s good to see you two together,” she said simply.
Jejeune swigged on his beer and nodded. “Yeah, it’s nice to see him doing so well down here.”
He fell silent, staring out over the sea again. On the horizon, the sky was turning a spectacular shade of orange as the sun bade the island goodbye for another day. But Domenic’s gaze seemed to rest far short of the sunset, somewhere in the middle distance. He was thinking about what Traz had said, she knew, about the knowledge of the place, for which all the research and learning and studying could not substitute. It would take a long time to acquire that knowledge — time Domenic no longer had.
Lindy took his hand and squeezed it gently. “Is everything okay?”
He smiled at her. “A cold beer and a sunset like this?”
“And me,” added Lindy.
“And you,” agreed Jejeune. “Apart from a St. Lucia Amazon sighting, what else could a man possibly ask for?”
43
Maik had brought Tony Holland along, not so much for company but because he thought Holland’s past connection with the family might come in handy when he spoke with Jordan Waters’s mother. As before, he had made no mention to DCS Shepherd of where he was going, and he had been equally forgetful about informing Holland whose errand they were on. They had driven out together in Maik’s Mini, chatting amicably enough until the moment when Holland had asked the name of the song that was playing.
“‘Heatwave,’” said Maik.
“I heard my granddad mention this one,” said Holland. “It was one of his favourites. He loved all those old Ethel Merman show tunes.”
With a consummate wind-up artist like Holland, you could never be sure whether he had genuinely confused Martha Reeves’s doo-wop classic with the 1930s Irving Berlin song. But to even compare Pistol Allen’s driving backbeat and Mike Terry’s scintillating sax work with a ditty about a can-can dancer who started a heatwave by letting her seat wave was enough to cause Maik to give Holland one of his special stares. They had completed the rest of the journey in silence.
“Anthony,” Mrs. Waters had said in surprise when she answered the door, “it’s good of you to stop by. Come in. Let me get you and your friend a nice cup of tea.”
Which is why Tony Holland and his friend were now sitting side by side on a chintz sofa in a tiny room at the front of the house, waiting for this small, huddled woman to reappear from the kitchen where she had gone, popped was her word, to put the kettle on.
Danny Maik was comfortable being the lead at a questioning. Basically, he thought wryly, all you had to do was think about Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune’s technique and do the opposite. Sit still, pay attention, and ask questions. But Maik didn’t mind giving Tony Holland a bit of leeway in this interview, either. Holland was, after all, well acquainted with Mrs. Waters, even if he hadn’t realized until now quite how well acquainted.
She returned with tea and an assortment of biscuits arranged on a floral plate with a chip in the rim. Even at times like this, thought Maik, even in her grief, such care, such kindness.
“I’m glad you came, Anthony,” she said pouring the tea and handing them their cups. The two policemen cradled them as they looked for a place to set them down. The cups were the same pattern as the plate. Perhaps the saucers had not survived the journey down through the ages.
Mrs. Waters seemed not to notice. She settled back into her worn, overstuffed armchair with its quilted blanket draped over the back, and stared blankly into the empty fireplace. “At a time like this, it’s nice to remember the good days.” She turned to Maik. “Thick as thieves, the two of them were, Sergeant, back in the day. Of course, they drifted apart later on, when Anthony joined the police, but for a time, they were a proper couple of cowboys. Just lads being lads, though, I suppose.”
Holland looked uncomfortable. He turned to take in the room, frozen in a time from another era. It would have looked like this back then, guessed Maik; such a comfortable, normal base of operations for two young cowboys to launch two such divergent careers.
“I hear you have arrested the man who took our poor Jordan.” She shook her head and
looked at Maik through watery grey eyes from which all anger had long since gone. Now there was only sorrow, and a strange kind of sadness mixed with bewilderment. “How could anybody do it? Will you ask him that for me? This man. Will you look him in the eyes and ask him how he could do something like this?”
She seemed to sense Maik’s compassion, his ability to share her loss, however slightly, as someone who, too, had seen young men buried before their time.
“Those questions will be asked as part of the formal arrest and charge process,” said Maik, tempering the formality of the words with just the right amount of personal investment. “We still have a couple of other matters to clear up, if you feel up to it.”
She seemed surprised “About our Jordan? I’m afraid he didn’t tell me very much about what was going on in his life, but anything I can do to help.”
“Did your son happen to mention that he might be coming into some money soon, anything like that?”
Mrs. Waters shook her head. “Not in so many words. He did ask me if I still wanted to see Athens before I died. He said he was going to take me. Just me and him, he said, the two of us together.” She paused for a moment. “I would have liked that,” she said, nodding to herself. “We never had a proper holiday together. And now we never shall.” A flicker of sadness crossed her features. She was rocking back and forth in her chair, Maik realized, the movement so slight it was barely noticeable. “But how was he going to manage that on his money? Still, you know Jordan, Anthony, always the dreamer.” Not for the first time, her eyes flickered toward the doorway, watching for a son who would never walk through it again.
“What did Jordan do when he wasn’t working at the sanctuary, Mrs. W?” asked Holland. “Where did he spend his time?”
“He was mostly down that club the two of you used to hang out at. They’ve reopened it now, you know. They call it The Retro, whatever that means.”
“Retro,” said Holland. He shook his head. “My youth, somebody else’s nostalgia. Now I know how the sarge must feel when Downton Abbey comes on.”
He offered a cheeky grin at Maik, whose own expression suggested that while he wouldn’t be wholly opposed to the idea of Holland giving up his day job, he probably shouldn’t do it for a career in comedy.
“Don’t you pay any attention to him, Sergeant. That’s how they are these days. No respect for their elders.” But it was all said with a kindly smile, one which morphed into soft sorrow as a thought visited her briefly. “Jordan was just the same, bless him. But he didn’t mean anything by it. He was a good boy at heart, Anthony. You know that. A bit wild, but a good boy at heart.”
Holland shook his blond locks. “No, he wasn’t, Mrs. W. We had some good times together in those early days, but if there was ever any trouble around, Jordan would find it. Or vice versa. Jordan was a lot of things, Mrs W., but he was never a good boy.”
A flash of pain crossed her features. “No, you’re right. But it wasn’t all his fault. He never had much of a father. He was hardly ever around, and when he was, he was not a good influence on young Jordan.”
Holland nodded in agreement. “You know, I never really cared for Mr. Waters.”
“Nor did I, truth be told,” said Mrs. Waters. “He was a bad one, and I suppose the apple never falls far from the tree. But this business the police suspect Jordan of, you know he would never harm a girl, Anthony, you know that.”
Holland was silent, but he couldn’t resist a sidelong glance at Danny.
“Jordan never mentioned that he was seeing an older woman, did he?” asked Maik. “He never came home with any presents, carvings, wood sculptures, anything like that?”
Mrs. Waters shook her head, bemused. “No. I don’t think he was, well, attracted to older women.”
Maik nodded, mentally checking off the last item on the list Jejeune had given him.
“I think he really liked that girl he worked with, to tell you the truth,” said Mrs. Waters. “I could tell by the way he talked about her. Who knows, if he had met her earlier, instead of running about all over the place…. Well, look who I’m talking to. The two of you were as bad as each other. This should make you think, Anthony, about that lifestyle of yours. It’s not healthy, and besides, what kind of a future is there in it, running around from one girl to the next all the time?”
Maik stirred uneasily but Holland made a point of ignoring his sergeant’s presence. “I had one mom, thanks, Mrs. W.,” he said with more than a touch of bitterness. “She wasn’t much good at it, but one was enough.”
Maik, who had found something in his notebook to occupy his attention during the exchange, decided now might be a good time to give Constable Holland a few moments to recover himself. He thanked Mrs. Waters for her help and left to wait outside.
He was leaning by the Mini, fiddling with a side mirror that didn’t need any attention, when Holland emerged from the house. He didn’t meet the sergeant’s eyes for a moment and Danny waited until Holland had regained his composure. This being Holland, it didn’t take long.
“This Jordan Waters, you didn’t say you knew him that well, Constable.”
“I did, Sarge,” said Holland simply. “More than once. It’s just that nobody was listening.”
“Well enough to think he was incapable of murder.” It wasn’t a question, but Holland treated it with his customary wariness just the same. When you didn’t know where Danny Maik was going, it was a good idea to leave your options open.
“I would have said no. I realize everything points that way: the fingernail, the phone call. I can’t just ignore all the evidence. I’d be as bad as…. But murder?” He shook his head. “I know you’ve heard it all before, Sarge, but I don’t see it. It’s not in him to murder anybody.”
Not murder, perhaps, thought Maik. But killing; now that’s a different thing. To protect someone, to save the one you love, everyone’s got that in them, somewhere deep down inside. Anybody could kill, if the motivation was strong enough.
Holland took Maik’s silence as disapproval. “It does sound like he had a buyer lined up for the birds, though. That trip to Athens and all. Although, let’s just say, if Jordan Waters was going to Greece, I doubt he would have left a forwarding address. Take his mother as cover to avoid any suspicion, send her back alone after a couple of weeks and disappear among the Ouzo and bronzed bodies on the local beaches. Now that sounds more like the Jordan Waters I knew.”
Maik stood for a moment beside the car. He had gotten Inspector Jejeune most of his answers, but none of them seemed to have any impact on the overall outcome of the case. Only one more question remained. But the answer to that one, he suspected, might change things a lot.
44
Danny sat across from Lauren Salter in the pub. Even though it was a beautiful spring morning outside, he had chosen this inside table, in a quiet corner, tucked away near a window.
“So,” said Salter brightly. “It looks like it’s all wrapped up, then.”
Danny took a slow draw on his beer, “It looks that way.”
“It didn’t turn out to be Maggie, after all.” It was a simple statement, obvious, unnecessary. But Salter meant something more by it, and Danny understood. How could they have ever considered a frail little thing like Maggie Wylde as having the strength to shove Phoebe Hunter onto that branch with enough force to impale her? Maggie, now dribbling into her soup in a secure facility, waiting for her court date on a charge of assaulting a police officer, so she could tell the judge how much she loved her babies and wanted them back. It was a sign of how desperate they had been to solve this case in the beginning, all of them, for their different reasons. And now it was over. But if so, why was this unregistered phone burning a hole in Danny’s pocket, waiting for Jejeune’s call?
Maik reached for his beer glass and spun it slowly. He spoke without raising his eyes. “Constable … Lauren, I’ve got something to talk to you about.” He paused. Was he waiting for her to say something, encourage him on? Salter’s u
ncertainty kept her silent.
“The thing is, for some of us ex-military types, relationships can be difficult. Some take to it like ducks to water, of course. Great husbands, great dads, but for others it’s just not that easy.” He was looking around the pub now, at the comings and goings of the mid-morning traffic. Why was it so difficult for him to look at her? Was it because of what he was leading up to, what he was going to say next? Salter’s heart jolted. Her mouth felt dry.
“The thing is, being in the military, it can give you a bit of a different view of things. You learn to see things on more of a day-to-day basis. Grab what you can now in case it gets taken away from you tomorrow. It’s the same with relationships. Carpe femina, I heard Guy Trueman call it once.” For the first time, Maik looked at her. He tried a grin that didn’t quite come off, but Salter met him half way.
Carpe femina. Tony Holland would like that, she thought. Though he’d want it translated into English — seize the skirt or something like that. But where was Danny going with this?
She reached for her wine but thought better of it. She would just sit still and wait. Hope. Pray.
“As you can see, I’m not much good at this sort of thing,” said Maik. He took a long time taking a drink of his beer.
“No, Sarge … Danny, you’re doing fine.”
Why did she have to wear this ratty old two-piece today? She should have dressed up a bit, a nice blouse and skirt. If only she’d known.
A Pitying of Doves Page 27