A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

by Steve Burrows

  Bogota seemed a long way away now, but the trip to El Paujil had been an enlightening one. Signs of national pride were everywhere along their route; even in the smallest villages flags flew and walls and lampposts were painted in the tricolour yellow, red, and blue. But the chain of police and army checkpoints were sobering reminders of the country’s troubled past, and perhaps even offered an explanation of sorts for the new outpouring of patriotism.

  Traz was stirring a coffee, deep in thought, when Jejeune approached the breakfast buffet. “The group at the next table,” he said in a low voice, “they’ve been talking about that guide, Mariel. She was the tour leader when a couple of them came here before. They make her sound pretty good, JJ. Phenomenal, in fact.”

  Jejeune was quiet. They both knew birding, like every other pastime, acquired its share of giants, beings touched with greatness, who strode their world like princes. World-class birders, he had heard them called, as if it was some standard you could reach if only you worked long enough, diligently enough. Perhaps it was. Jejeune poured himself a coffee and cast an eye at the table, where Armando had joined the group and was now talking to them earnestly. “Is that what they’re discussing now?”

  Traz shook his head, but kept his voice low. “He’s giving them his I’m here for you speech. You know: you are my clients, my job is to make you happy. If you need anything, just ask and I will make it happen. He pulled a face. “If he works as hard finding us birds as he does on getting his tip, we’ll hit six hundred species on this trip.”

  The two men took a table on the far side of the patio. Traz nodded at Thea as he saw her approaching along the gravel pathway. “Straight for me.” He shook his head in mock pity. “I almost feel sorry for her. Poor woman can’t help herself, so strong is the attraction.”

  “Like a moth to a low-wattage bulb,” said Jejeune, suddenly finding something in his arepa that was worthy of his attention. He doubted Traz could have given Thea a warmer welcoming smile if she was bringing him money.

  “Your father not joining us?” Traz didn’t sound overly distressed by the prospect.

  “He has some calls to make call.” Her resigned expression suggested a well-established pattern. She made her way over to the buffet table and Traz watched her go.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said to Jejeune, like a man suddenly remembering something important, “I’m going to need that book back. I’ve promised it to her.”

  “The book you brought all the way to Colombia to give to me? As a gift?”

  “Yeah, well let’s just say it’s been re-gifted. She was very grateful. She said she’s been looking everywhere for one. Besides, you still have the first edition.”

  “You said it was useless.”

  “No. It’ll be fine for someone of your level.”

  Traz rose to greet the returning Thea, but Armando intercepted her, reaching out to relieve her of her plate and following her to the table. He set the plate before her with a flourish and a winning smile as she took her seat. Jejeune noticed Traz’s own smile had dimmed considerably.

  “You enjoyed your visit to Casa de Colibries?” asked Armando pleasantly. “Though I’m told you missed the Sword-billed Hummingbird. This is very sad.”

  “We did okay,” said Traz with a defensive petulance that made Jejeune smile. “We saw plenty.”

  Armando inclined his head slightly. “Still, it is a shame you could not see this bird. It would leave you,” he turned to Thea and touched his bunched fingers to his lips, “sin aliento.”

  “Breathless.” Thea let the word roll sensuously around in her mouth. “Can something really be so beautiful that it takes away your breath, I wonder?”

  Armando placed a flat palm against his heart. “Speaking for myself, I think I can say that it can.”

  “Chulo,” announced Traz. Jejeune was already familiar with the Colombian slang for the Black Vulture, but when he searched the skies, there was no bird to be seen. Besides, if Traz had seen one, he’d managed to do so without looking up. Armando seemed not to notice. He rose and treated them all to another of his lizard smiles. “Excuse me, I must get things ready for our hike. Departure in twenty minutes. Okay?”

  Jejeune noticed he had not bothered with an English translation of his speech to the other group. Maybe he just thought the better tips would be coming from the Spanish birders.

  The hike was well-chosen for so early on the tour; the modest grades and well-groomed trails provided a gentle introduction for a group still coming to terms with the rigours of rainforest birding. It meant that the more elusive birds of the deeper cover would almost certainly not be found today, but a continuing procession of flycatchers and seed-eaters carried the group along contentedly from one sighting to the next, and the occasional company of raucously screeching Blue-Headed Parrots overhead offered enough tropical flavour to keep everyone fully engaged.

  Jejeune was at the back of the pack. He had been hiking alone for some time; pausing occasionally to peer into the deep tangles of leaves and vines that lined the edges of the trails, looking for telltale flickers of movement. Traz had moved ahead to chat to Thea, and grudgingly, her father, and had kept pace with the slow but steady progress of the rest of the group. They were still within sight, but the distance was widening.

  The overloud crashing of a falling Cecropia leaf caused Jejeune to raise his binoculars and look up into the canopy. A passerine flittered through the branches briefly, but backlit and silent, it was impossible for him to identify the bird.

  “White-bearded Manakin.” Armando’s voice startled Jejeune and he snapped his bins down swiftly. “A good bird,” acknowledged the guide. “You did well to find it. This is not like birding in England, I think. It is challenging, no?”

  “It is challenging, yes,” said Jejeune with a smile.

  “This is secondary growth, denser and darker than much of the primary forest cover. It seems impossible that we can find birds in this. But your eyes will soon become accustomed to it. The birds are here. You will see them.” Armando paused, perhaps to listen to a faint bird call. If so, he failed to identify it to Jejeune. “But other things you are looking for,” he shook his head, “these you will not find.”

  Jejeune straightened and looked at the guide. “And what might those be?”

  The rest of the group had trudged on ahead and were about to disappear around a bend in the trail, but Armando showed no interest in them. His focus was fixed on Jejeune.

  “Excuses to take away your brother’s guilt.”

  The faintest of breezes stirred the vegetation. The group had disappeared from view. It was just the two of them, standing opposite each other on this exposed path, the morning sun warm on their shoulders. A call, possibly the one Armando had heard earlier, came to them now from somewhere in the forest. “White-tipped Quetzal,” said Armando. “A beautiful bird, but very far off.” He paused. “Your presence brings back bad memories for this company, Inspector. For the guides, too. If you had to come to Colombia at all, it would have been better if you had not chosen to tour with Mas Aves.”

  “The company could have refused to take my booking,” Jejeune pointed out reasonably.

  “They wish to show they have nothing to hide. But many people feel ashamed that they did not do more to stop your brother. Your presence raises again feelings of guilt in them.” He shook his head, like a man trying to free himself of such thoughts. “The truth is there is only one person to blame for your brother’s crime. He is the person who took the sick man to Chiribiquete, despite being denied a permit by the authorities for them to travel to the area.”

  “I am simply trying to understand the whole picture, what caused him to do what he did.” Jejeune realized his own undeclared motives were unfurling before him as he spoke. He was beginning to understand, finally, his purpose in coming here.

  “Your brother was being paid three hundred dollars a day. This is a great deal of money for any guide, even the very best. To take this man to Chiribiquete
would have been a seven-day journey. That is a lot of money to lose.” Armando looked at Jejeune. “The moment he took a sick man into the land of the Karijona, your brother became responsible for the deaths of those four indigenous people. This is your whole picture, Inspector Jejeune.”

  Armando spoke dispassionately, almost kindly, but he left his eyes on Jejeune for a long time after he finished speaking. Jejeune let his own gaze wander up the trail to where the others had so recently departed from view.

  “You are right,” said Armando. “I must catch up with the group. If you are here to find birds, Inspector Jejeune, I will do all I can to help you.”

  But if not? Armando did not need to finish the sentence. Jejeune would get no help in trying to find someone to lessen his brother’s guilt. The detective understood. He had no reason to expect anyone else would want to see Damian escape justice. Perhaps not even his brother himself.

  The sudden noise in the undergrowth had both men turning together to see a large iguana trundling clumsily through the leaf litter. In a world where so many creatures moved stealthily and silently, the animal’s ungainly progress seemed recklessly out of place.

  “Please do not fall too far behind the rest of the group, Inspector,” said Armando as he turned to leave. “The rainforest can hold many dangers for the unwary.”

  Jejeune detected no hint of threat in the air on this warm tropical morning. But then again, Armando knew this rainforest far better than he did. Perhaps there were dangers the detective just couldn’t see.

  Armando didn’t join the group for dinner, but his comments circled Jejeune’s mind in an unending loop as he sat at the table with Traz. His silence didn’t go unnoticed, and his friend understood its cause. Jejeune had confided in him the essence of his conversation with the guide as soon as he had returned to the lodge. Traz had known Damian for a long time. If anyone could judge Armando’s views on Domenic’s brother, it was him.

  “It’s just talk, JJ. I mean, okay, we both know about Damian and money. But there’s no way he would have taken that man into Karijona territory if he had known he was sick, no matter how much money was on offer. You know that.”

  Did he? Jejeune looked beyond Traz into the velvety darkness that had descended around the lodge, listening to the trills and buzzing of a thousand different insects. The air retained the remnants of the day’s warmth, but Jejeune could draw no comfort from the tropical evening. He left the remains of his beer and bade the group goodnight, leaving Traz to sidle toward Thea’s table, brandishing the Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia, Second Edition like a trophy.

  Traz wasn’t long in following Jejeune to the room, but his friend was already in bed when he arrived.

  “I think it’s fair to say she was impressed,” said Traz with a wide grin. “Just so you know, I’m going to suggest the two of us take a stroll on the north road tomorrow night, just to give the book a trial run.” He gave his friend a look of exaggerated innocence.

  “There are supposed to be Lyre-tailed Nightjars up on that road. Maybe I’ll come along.”

  “No, you won’t. And I wouldn’t wait up either.” Traz sat on the edge of his bed and lapsed into silence, as if he was considering telling Jejeune something important, but had not yet reconciled himself to it.

  “What?” asked Jejeune.

  “You know why Walden was so interested in how we came to choose this tour company?” asked Traz quietly. “Because he’s a shareholder. I heard Thea mention it to him on the trek this afternoon.”

  Jejeune nodded slowly. Of course. How else would he be in a position to advise Mas Aves what to put on its website? And who could have told Armando they had missed the Sword-billed Hummingbird at Casa de Colibries? It explained, too, the strange atmosphere that had shrouded their day there, the feeling of being scrutinized by Walden. Jejeune wondered how long it would have taken him to put the pieces together if Traz hadn’t uncovered this information. Important or not, he couldn’t shake the feeling these were details he should have picked up on himself, much earlier.

  Traz climbed into bed and switched off the light. “I wouldn’t read too much into it, JJ,” he said. “I imagine the company just wants to be sure if you have any questions, there is someone close at hand to answer them.” He gave an elaborate yawn. “Anyway, we’d better get some sleep. I hear it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Traz didn’t offer any further details, and he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. But Domenic Jejeune stayed awake for a long time, staring into the darkness above his bunk. Thinking.

  14

  It could have been a plinth, a grey slab of granite set on the cliff edge sometime in north Norfolk’s wayfaring past. But it moved as the two officers approached, half-turned toward them, and Salter could make out the shape of a person in a long grey duffle coat. Having acknowledged their presence, the woman turned back to resume her study of the sea. Laraby and Salter continued over the hard, uneven ground toward her, heads bowed against the fierce winds coming in off the water. On either side of them, row upon row of low white stakes stretched out over the undulating land like half-finished crosses on some vast burial ground. Looking closer, Salter could see each stake had a small sapling tethered to it, though the trees were too short yet to be troubled by the winds. Their wrath was saved for taller targets. Like people.

  “How’s your mouth, everything all healed okay?” asked Laraby as they walked. “I get the impression Sergeant Maik was mortified about what happened.”

  Salter’s top lip was still puffy and she touched it gingerly. “It’s fine,” she said. “Cheaper than collagen, anyway.”

  Laraby smiled. “Ever think of moving up the ladder to Sergeant yourself?” he asked casually. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of ambition.”

  The elements disguised any surprise Salter might have felt at Laraby’s inquiry, but she still took a second to compose her response. “It’s always been in the back of my mind, I suppose, but it’s not what I’d call a priority at the moment, what with my son Max and all.”

  Laraby seemed to consider the constable’s answer warily. “Well, if you ever do decide, here’s a bit of advice; get yourself a specialty. The service loves a specialist these days. You could do worse than this drone business. Most officers treat any new technology like it’s radioactive. You become a specialist in this stuff, and you’ll find yourself in demand.”

  “Noted.” Her tone suggested the topic was closed, and Laraby received the message.

  As they approached the woman, Laraby called out her name and his own, but Amelia Welbourne didn’t turn from the sea. Perhaps the DI’s words had been snatched away by the wind. The two police officers joined her, standing shoulder to shoulder, watching the heaving mass of olive water twist into mounds, spewing out great spumes of white foam as they exploded back into nothingness.

  “It was a storm like this that exposed the underwater forest,” said the woman without turning from her vigil. Laraby’s expression suggested he was searching for metaphors in her words, but Salter knew what she was referring to.

  “An ancient forest, sir, about ten thousand years old, they think. Some divers discovered the remnants of it when a storm shifted the sand on the sea bed.” She turned to Welbourne. “It’s just off here somewhere, isn’t it?”

  Welbourne raised her arm and pointed to the southeast. “About two hundred metres offshore. It was called Doggerland, an immense oak forest that once stretched all the way to the continent.” Welbourne’s eyes continued to play over the rolling waters. She was tall but small-boned, and the combination gave her frame a particular kind of frailty. And while Salter suspected all three of them had high colour in their faces at the moment from the sharp bite of the wind, Welbourne’s looked of a more permanent sort. There were traces of the same red blushing on her neck when the winds whipped her mousy hair away. Her overall appearance suggested a delicate constitution, of the sort that might be tested to the limits by the demands of managin
g a large property like Sylvan Ridge.

  “Any particular reason you’re out here on a day like this, Ms. Welbourne? Looking for something special out there?” Laraby had to raise his voice over the blustery wind, but he managed to keep the tone pleasant.

  “I walk my property every day, Inspector,” she called back, “in all seasons, rain or shine. This land has been in the Welbourne family for many generations. It is a part of us, and we, a part of it. I owe it a duty of care.”

  There was a resolve in her voice that made Salter rethink her earlier assessment. Determination went a long way toward the success of any enterprise, and the Welbournes must have had a fair supply of it to be able to hang on to a vast swath of north Norfolk like Sylvan Ridge for centuries. A sudden gust of wind took Salter off guard and rocked her sharply.

  “We are investigating the murder of Erin Dawes,” said Laraby. “We know you were part of an investment group with her, the IV League.” Having declared exactly where he stood, the detective fell silent. He knew the information would influence whatever Amelia Welbourne chose to tell them now. And that suited him perfectly. Less messing about with irrelevances that way.

  “Indeed, we were both part of the group,” she conceded carefully, “but I had no dealings with Erin Dawes beyond that. Not personally, not professionally.” Welbourne wore the expression of someone who believed an expensive education and well-established pedigree might inure one from this sort of prying. “That said, I shall be forever grateful to her for bringing us this wonderful opportunity.”

  “The Picaflor project, you mean?” Salter stole a glance at Laraby. “You were enthusiastic about it, then?”

  Welbourne turned from the sea, a strand of her hair almost hitting the detective in the face as it whipped around in the wind, causing him to snap his head away sharply. “The chance to reforest areas on a large scale? The loss of our forests is one of the great catastrophes of our age. I have rarely been so proud to be involved in helping a new project get established.”