A Pitying of Doves

by Steve Burrows

  Her heart was pounding as if it might explode out of her chest. She could hardly breathe. Danny was staring at his hands splayed out on the table in front of him. Scarred, battle-hardened hands that had protected him from who knew what horrors. She looked at them, too. Would they be capable of tenderness? she wondered.

  All at once she was thirteen again, sitting across from Ashley Morgan in the park, spotty, gangly Ashley Morgan, waiting for him to stop faffing about and get to the part where he invited her to go to the dance with him, so she could smile and say yes and set her heart free to sing with joy.

  Come on, Danny, get to the part you brought me here for. Ask! We can work out the fine print later.

  “As I say, even if we want to get into a relationship, some of us, we might not know how to go about it properly. Things could get messy, even if there was no intent.” He raised his head again but turned to stare out of the window beside them. “Guy Trueman, for example,” said Danny quietly, not looking at her. “I’d trust him with my life, but in a relationship with someone I cared about …” He shook his head.

  Guy Trueman? Why were they talking about Guy Trueman?

  Salter searched her memory for any hint she may have given that she was interested in Trueman. She was staring at Danny now, unable to unlock her gaze from him. But he didn’t notice, couldn’t notice. He was still staring out the window.

  “Guy and the DCS are starting to see a lot of each other.” Maik held up a hand as if to ward off an objection. “I’m not saying there’s anything in it, or that it will lead anywhere, but, well, she’s not had the best of luck with her leading men in the past.”

  Finally, he looked at her, a wan smile on his face. Salter continued to stare at him, smiling back, showing nothing of an internal landscape turning to dust as empires of dreams collapsed in on themselves.

  “I was wondering if you could have a quiet word with her, just to put her on guard a bit. I wouldn’t normally go anywhere near anything like this, as you know, but … I just wouldn’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

  Too late for that, Danny, much too late for that.

  But Constable Lauren Salter just sipped on her drink and smiled easily at this clumsy ex-military type who had just casually carpet-bombed her emotions.

  “Relationship counselling, Sargeant Maik? Bit of a new line for you, isn’t it?” It sounded like the voice of another person, distant, frail. “Sure, Sarge, leave it with me.” She drank her wine again, drained it. “I’d better be getting back.”

  She left hurriedly, taking her crushed hopes and her trampled dreams with her, to a place where even an Extra Super Power Hug from Max might not be enough to mend a broken heart tonight. And if Davy Salter walked past her bedroom later that evening and noticed her sadness, how was he to know that it wasn’t the flashbacks of her attack now, or her accident with the van? How was he to know that his little girl’s anguish was coming from a completely different cause this time?

  Maik was sipping his beer thoughtfully, musing about Salter’s sudden need to depart in such a hurry, when his phone rang. It was Jejeune. The men didn’t waste much time on pleasantries. Maik started slowly. He knew what he had found, but he didn’t know what it meant. Not yet, though he suspected he soon would.

  “No record of any car rental at all, not even as far out as Norwich. And Nyce didn’t borrow one from any of his friends, either. I checked. So what now?”

  There was a silence for a moment from Jejeune’s end. “We need to stop DCS Shepherd from bringing a charge of murder against Nyce,” he said finally.

  Maik’s own silence suggested that it might be a touch difficult. “She has his confession,” he said eventually. “With respect, sir, she’s going to need something more than just your say so before she’s willing to give that up. Especially in this case.”

  “David Nyce’s car was already in our pound when Waters was murdered. He had no way of getting all the way out to the Obregón property, and certainly no way to have driven away after, thinking about how he had just murdered somebody. Nyce was never at the scene of Waters’s murder. It was Constable Salter he saw, at Carter’s Bridge. It was that scene he was watching, probably from that hill to the west. He must have seen Salter being loaded into an ambulance and thought it was Waters. With the fret, the fog around, he couldn’t have had a clear view from any great distance, so he just pieced together what he thought had happened.”

  Across the miles, Maik nodded to himself. And after, Nyce had retired to his cottage, gone dark, as they said in the military these days, off the grid. He would not have heard any news updates about the incident at Carter’s Bridge. Or Waters’s murder. His only truth would be that which he thought he already knew.

  “Remember his question to us? ‘Will the charge be murder?’ He thought whoever had been taken away in that ambulance had died later, of his injuries. And he thought it was Jordan Waters.”

  Maik did remember that question, the strange cadence of it, and the unusual syntax. Now, isolated like this, it seemed so bloody obvious. But at the time, it had been just a few more words in a miasma of others. Only Jejeune could have picked them out of that jumble and found their significance.

  “There’s something else, too. Nyce told me that he hadn’t planned to kill Waters, but the killer took a large knife.”

  “Nyce has a pretty powerful motive for lying, sir. He was trying to duck a charge of premeditated murder.”

  “Not when he was on the ledge,” said Jejeune. “He was expecting to die. He was dictating his suicide note to me. I just can’t see why anybody would lie under circumstances like that.”

  There was another long pause. “Shepherd might buy it,” conceded Maik carefully. “But she won’t be happy. Not unless you have someone else in mind to offer her in exchange?”

  Jejeune was silent for a long time. “Not yet,” he said finally. “But I believe I will have soon.”

  45

  Domenic Jejeune was quiet as they followed the narrow, winding road up into the hills. Up here, away from the tourist facilities that fringed the island’s coastline, life in St. Lucia took on a more pragmatic edge. Village after village appeared along the fringes of the road, as if they had sprung up from so much broadcast seed. Each bore the scars of the harsh reality of trying to eke out a living in the hinterland of a tropical paradise.

  Lindy knew that, for once, Dom’s silence was not because he was thinking about the case. Traz had passed sentence on Dom’s dream, and he was coming to terms with it. She had woken in the night and seen him sitting out on the balcony, tipped back in the cane chair with his feet on the railing. He was sitting perfectly still, just staring out over the black sea into the darkness, into nothing. The brave sadness of a man watching something precious disappear. They should discuss it, she knew. It needed to be talked about. She didn’t want to spoil their holiday, but not to acknowledge something this big seemed awkward, ridiculous, not at all how serious partners went about handling difficult subjects.

  She turned on the radio; the local news channel in English. It was the standard fare of human commerce everywhere — unfairness, inequality, injustice. And behind it all somewhere, a plea for someone to put it all right.

  “Can you find any music?” asked Jejeune pleasantly.

  So quickly? she thought. To put it behind him? Perhaps he had known all along, in his heart of hearts. Perhaps he just needed to hear it once, from someone he trusted, before he was prepared to let it go. But if he was going to put his disappointment behind him for the moment, to get on with the business of relentlessly enjoying the rest of their holiday, then so would she. They could discuss his broken dreams later, once they returned home, once paradise was no more than a memory.

  They found Traz standing on the edge of the car park. “Morning,” he said. “You might want to check that trail down there,” he told Jejeune, pointing. “I heard a couple of interesting things on the way in.”

  With a look at Lindy and a smile, Jejeune set of
f down the track. “Come on,” said Traz. “There’s something I want to show you while he’s off chasing the avifauna of St. Lucia.”

  They climbed a steep path that led up off the main trail, the stones still slick with the early-morning moisture. It required concentration and neither of them spoke until they reached the top. They emerged into a small clearing. It was like a stage, no more than twenty feet in diameter. All around them dense green vegetation crowded in, so much so that Lindy couldn’t even see the trailhead they had just stepped off. But out in front of them there was a gap in the foliage and the vista was open. Far below in the distance a tiny blue bay glittered in the sunshine.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Traz. “That’s St. Francis’s Bay down there. The only way in or out is by boat. Hardly anybody knows about it. I try to keep it that way.”

  “But you’d share your secret with Dom, of course,” said Lindy, looking out over the landscape. “Just like he’d share his secrets with you.” She realized that if ever there was going to be a window into Domenic’s past, it would be here, with his good friend, in this exotic place, with its island rhythms and its tropical cadences so different from the orderly elegance of the north Norfolk coast and its polite restraint and its decorum and its careful observations of other people’s privacy. It would be here she would need to push for answers. Here or nowhere.

  “I don’t know him like I used to,” said Traz guardedly. He turned to look at the trees behind them, or anywhere, it seemed, that wasn’t Lindy’s eyes. “It’s been a long time, you know, a lot has happened to both of us. All I can tell you is, if it was me and I found myself in the middle of something good, I wouldn’t want to risk losing it. I mean, I wouldn’t want something that happened in the past to be a problem.”

  “You mean his brother, don’t you? What happened, Traz?”

  He looked at her finally. “Look, Lindy. It’s not my place. All I can tell you is he got himself into some trouble down here.”

  “Here in St. Lucia?”

  “Here, Peru, a couple of other places in between.” Traz held up a hand. “Nobody thinks Dom was involved, but the Jejeune name, it doesn’t have the greatest pedigree in this part of the world.”

  She nodded. It had been there, she recognized now, in that first greeting. She had a good ear for such nuances, honed by years of interviews with subjects, when the truth was evasive, masked by other things. And if she had wondered at the time whether she had just imagined it, she was convinced now that she had not. What the hell are you doing here? Traz’s question, the emphasis on the last word, not the pronoun. Not a surprise that Domenic had appeared, but that he had come here, to this place of such painful associations for him? And I brought him here, she thought. Why on earth didn’t he say anything?

  “If he hasn’t talked about it to you, I suppose he just wants to be sure he’s not going to be judged on the basis of his brother’s actions, that’s all.”

  “He should bloody well know that already,” said Lindy, anger rising within her.

  “Maybe,” said Traz reasonably, “but it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

  Lindy looked at Traz, but his eyes were fixed on the landscape again. There would be no more, she knew. He had gone as far as his kind of friendship would allow, perhaps farther. It would be up to her to take it from here. If she wanted to. If she dared to.

  They stood for a few moments more, looking out at the view, though neither was really seeing it anymore. Then they began to scramble back down the steep path. Jejeune was waiting for them at the bottom. “Antillean Crested Hummingbird, Grey Trembler, and Pearly-eyed Thrasher,” he announced with a grin. “A grackle, as well. I suspect Carib rather than Greater Antillean.”

  “Ya think?” asked Traz with heavy sarcasm.

  Jejeune looked perplexed.

  “St. Lucia’s in the Lesser Antilles. The Greater Antillean Grackle is found in, well, the clue is kind of in the name.”

  Lindy loved the way Traz bantered with Domenic. He was the first person she had ever met who was not in awe of his intellect in some way, who didn’t seem to revere his intelligence or his knowledge. Domenic Jejeune was, to Traz, just a friend from college, and that seemed to suit them both. Perfectly.

  “Are you this good with the birds of north Norfolk?” asked Traz with a smile. “Maybe I should come over and give you a hand.”

  “You’d love it,” said Jejeune. “It has some of the widest, emptiest beaches you’ll ever see, and the skies can throw you a million different moods. And the bird life, Traz. It’s incredible. Tens of thousands of Knots, as many Pink-footed Geese. When they take off against a red sunrise, words can’t do it justice. It’s as amazing as anything I’ve ever seen.”

  This is a man talking about a home he loves, thought Lindy, a place he wants to stay. Dom was trying so hard to be that person today, to want to be there forever and never go off on research trips to Africa. But even if he couldn’t quite sell the sincerity yet, she loved him so much for trying that she thought her heart would burst.

  “I talked to my friend last night,” said Traz. “He didn’t know much about Socorro Doves, but that island sounds like a pretty interesting place. I guess they’re into a pretty heavy eradication program out there.”

  “Just as you predicted,” said Lindy, all joy now, despite the heat and the humidity and the troubling shadow of Traz’s revelations. “Clever old you.” She turned to Traz. “Dom said they’d try to get rid of the cats and rats to save the other endemics.”

  “Not just rats and cats, though. Sheep and goats, too.”

  “Farm animals?” asked Lindy, “What’s wrong with these people, nothing else left to kill out there?”

  But Jejeune was staring at Traz with an intensity that she recognized all too well, and Lindy was aware she had missed something important.

  “Sheep and goats?” he confirmed.

  Traz nodded. “I could have told them they’re probably wasting their time, but strangely, the Mexican conservation authorities didn’t think to consult some nobody bird researcher working in the middle of the Caribbean about any of this.” He shrugged. “Their loss.”

  Jejeune was quiet for a moment, and Lindy and Traz stood on either side of him on the trail in an awkward, suspended silence. But she knew. Whatever it was that Jejeune had heard in Traz’s report, Lindy knew it had made a difference. The difference. Dom had put things together and now he would hone in on his target like an arrow. Nothing else would matter — not birds, not St. Lucia, not his brother’s past. How could Dom say this was not his calling, when the solution to a case consumed him so completely like this?

  Jejeune had taken out his phone and was holding it aloft as he headed for a clearing on the edge of the trail. “Any chance of a signal up here?”

  Traz shrugged. “On a good day, with the winds blowing in the right direction and the clouds just so, maybe the faintest signs of life. Otherwise, the only bars you’re going to get out here serve cold beer, and the nearest one of them is about a mile away.”

  Jejeune returned and turned to Lindy. “We have to go. Come on.” He flapped a hand at Traz as he hurried away down the trail. “Take care, Traz.” A thought seemed to strike him and he stopped so suddenly Lindy almost bumped into him. He returned and extended a hand. “It’s been, you know …”

  Traz nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

  46

  Jejeune did not wait to get back to the hotel. He drove with the phone in his hand as he gripped the steering wheel, risking a brief glance whenever the steep, winding road down the mountainside straightened out for a moment. As soon as he saw bars appear, he pulled over into a small siding and dialled.

  Danny Maik answered on the second ring.

  “What do you see when you look around you, Sergeant?”

  “The dashboard of my Mini. Cars parked around me. Constable Holland sneaking a quick smoke round a corner. I’m okay to have a quiet conversation, if that’s what you’re asking.”

&
nbsp; There was a heartbeat of hesitation, so rare in Dom that Lindy looked at him, concerned. From their vantage point, Jejeune could see the sparkling turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea far below. North Norfolk seemed a long way off, an impossibly long distance from this spot up here in these mountains to a place where he needed to destroy something that could never be repaired.

  “We need to arrest Guy Trueman.”

  There was a long silence, but Jejeune didn’t need to ask if Maik was still there.

  “Charges?” The voice sounded distant, defeated.

  “None yet. But he wasn’t in that hotel room the morning Waters was murdered. You need to arrange to have him arrested immediately and taken into custody.”

  “I don’t need to arrange it.” Maik sounded angry now, bitter. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  It was Jejeune’s turn to be silent. Was there something in his sergeant’s voice that suggested he had known this, already found the flaw in Trueman’s alibi, if only he had been willing to let himself recognize it. Perhaps it was a mistake to let Maik handle this, to let him place this burden on himself. Jejeune’s thoughts flickered to Traz. Could anyone set aside their shared past at a moment’s notice, place it in a box and put it on a shelf, just like that?

  “The thing is, we’ll need to offer Efren Hidalgo blanket protection right away. This is very important, from the exact moment Trueman is taken into custody. Even if Hidalgo protests, do not take no for an answer, and make sure whoever is on duty does not let him out of their sight. As soon as you can, I’d like you to get over there and take over his protection detail personally.”

  Maik had recovered his composure by the next time he spoke.

  “If you could just specify the nature of the threat, sir, or at least which direction we are supposed to be looking …”

  “Just stay close, Sergeant, as close as you possibly can. Night and day. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Maik cradled the folded mobile phone with exaggerated care, as if afraid of crushing it to dust in his large, powerful hands. He sat in the tiny car, taking in what he had to do, the enormity of it growing by the second now that the initial shock had worn off. He remained still, staring down at the phone, taking a few minutes to regain his composure. Drawing a breath, he got out of the car and looked around him. The car park was empty. Holland had finished his smoke and sloped off back into the station unobserved. Somewhere across two continents, across an ocean and the infinite spaces in between, Danny Maik recognized that there was more than one reason Inspector Jejeune had asked if his sergeant was somewhere quiet when he took the phone call.