A Shimmer of Hummingbirds

by Steve Burrows

  So Domenic would make sure Laraby arrested the true killer. He would even do it the right way, allowing Danny Maik to bring Laraby to the clues, so no one would see any flaws in the investigation procedure, no one might wonder from where this new insight of DI Laraby’s had magically appeared. A murderer would be brought to justice, and Marvin Laraby would reap the rewards of a new position at Saltmarsh. And Domenic Jejeune would face the consequences of his choice. Lindy supposed she had always known he would.

  Darkness had started to creep in at the edges of the landscape, and now that the sun had left the sky, Lindy was cold. But she didn’t move. She would stand here for as long as he was here. Or anywhere, for that matter.

  It was a few moments before Jejeune was able to tear himself away from the view, the sky, the sea.

  “What will happen to us?” Her heart skipped a beat. She waited for the words with dread. Home. Canada. Us? None of them came.

  Jejeune shrugged. “I’ll be offered Minton. It will be up to me to accept. Or not. Us,” he added hurriedly. “It will be up to us to decide.”

  Minton. The desolation of a brand new purpose-built bedroom community. Clean, convenient, soulless. And with it, the prospect of much more time away from each other, as Domenic was forced to go away on long-distance drives to see his birds now, possibly even overnighters, while she stayed closer to home to weave her journalistic magic for the good readers of Minton. She didn’t know how long it would be before the arrangement became as unbearable to him as the prospect already was to her, but she knew it would, one day. And what then? Canada back on the radar suddenly? With Lindy in tow? Without? She stepped forward and intertwined her fingers with Jejeune’s.

  “So, Minton, then,” she said, so brightly it sounded like a punch line. She couldn’t even tell him how she truly felt about the prospect. He looked so crushed, so devastated to be leaving this place that he loved. She could not bear to make him feel worse. “We’ll go there and make a fresh start, shall we? Turn ’em on their heads: Dom and Lindy, boy wonder copper and ace journo. Poor buggers, they’ll never know what hit them.”

  “A new start,” he said, with a bravery that almost brought her to tears. And yet, he would come back to life. She could see it in him, even now. He would survive this. They would survive this, as long as they were together.

  “I think I’ve at least earned the right to know.” Lindy was going to keep the bubbly side going, pressing down the darkness until she was alone and she could let it rise and have its freedom, tearing her apart until the next time she had to pretend to be happy for Dom.

  Jejeune pulled away slightly to better look at her. “To know what?”

  “Not what, who. Who is responsible for all this packing I’ve got to look forward to in the next few weeks? Who was wearing that disguise?”

  Jejeune took one final look out over the sea, dark now, indistinguishable from the black mass of the night sky above it.

  He turned to Lindy and offered her the faintest of smiles. “No one.”

  50

  They were at the testing facility at first light. The Drone Zone the team was calling it, and if the pedant in Maik could have pointed out it was actually a series of separate zones, rather than one large one, the name had a nice ring to it. It would be a handy short form for an arrest report, too. If it was ever needed.

  Laraby was waiting at the top of the metal steps, blowing into his cupped hands, when Maik pulled up in the Range Rover. He had his collar turned up against the cold, but he was still leaning into the doorway, trying to escape the worst of the winds. Apart from the gleaming rented Jaguar, Amendal’s vehicle was the only other car parked outside the Drone Zone, so it was no surprise that it was the doctor himself who opened the door when they rang the bell.

  “Not a lot of time today, gents,” he said. “Big presentation in Norwich this afternoon. Progress report.” The doctor had at least made some concession to the formality of the forthcoming occasion. He was wearing a white shirt with a collar and a dark red tie, worn with the knot about six inches below his throat. If neither item had ever seen a steam iron raised in anger, they were at least clean.

  Laraby might have commented on the dangers of setting time limits on police interviews, as he had done on their last visit, but this time he had no idea how long things would take. Danny Maik had come up with the urgent need to visit, and as yet, he hadn’t told his DI why.

  “And will it be positive, this progress report you’re giving?” asked Danny.

  “Extremely. We’re on the verge of a live trial of the first stage. It means we’re streets ahead of any of our competitors.”

  “Really?” said Laraby. “Now that’s interesting. I’d heard another company was running neck and neck with you now. I’d heard you gave up all the ground you had on the others when you had to go back and write those algorithms. All because you lost the chance to test on that property you wanted from the IV League.”

  He paused and stared at Amendal while Maik looked on with interest. He’d been intending to run the show today, setting the agenda he needed. But perhaps he’d underestimated Laraby’s ability to get there by himself, after all. He was certainly asking some of the right questions.

  “There’s a lot of money at stake in this field, isn’t there?” asked Laraby.

  Amendal shook his head. “That’s not why I’m doing it.”

  “Nevertheless, you are the principal stakeholder in Picaflor. You stand to make a tidy sum if the project ever becomes viable.”

  “It will,” said Amendal with a certainty that had Maik regarding him carefully. “So yes, it’s true. I’m likely to be worth a considerable amount of money in the next couple of years.” He looked at his phone’s time display and turned to them both. “Look, guys …” he said in a tone that was pleading for reason.

  “Just a couple more questions, and we’ll be on our way,” said Maik evenly. Whether this was a concession to the time limit imposed by Amendal, Laraby couldn’t say. But somehow, he doubted it.

  “I just wanted to confirm, sir,” began Maik, “the day you distributed the drones to the IV League members, they were all there, in person?”

  Amendal nodded. “We were all on James’s boat. Though …” He hesitated and tilted his head from side to side slightly. “Well, I’m not sure how accurate you guys have to be in your reports.”

  “Let’s say extremely for now, shall we?” said Laraby, leaning forward with interest.

  “Okay, strictly speaking, James distributed them. I took them in, five, in boxes, but I set them on the counter. James was the one who handed them out to each person.”

  Laraby looked at Amendal carefully, trying to judge whether he was serious or just trying to wind them up. He suspected Danny would be halfway to breaking this clown in two, having driven all the way out here to listen to this rubbish. But when he checked on his sergeant, Danny was smiling benignly, waiting to get on with things, ready to move on to the next question.

  “And you’d say the mood was positive, would you? They all seemed in favour of the project, ready to invest?”

  “Absolutely.” Amendal nodded vehemently. “They were enthusiastic, engaged, asked a couple of really good questions.” He checked himself in mid-flight. “Except that Moncrieff guy. But I got the impression it wasn’t the project he was opposed to, or the investment. He just seemed to have a pretty negative take on technology as a whole, and drones in particular.” Amendal raised his shoulders a touch. “You know the type, slumped over a half of brown ale in a pub, telling everybody how he doesn’t ‘get’ smartphones or social media.” Amendal shook his head, in apparent disbelief that such dinosaurs could continue to exist in the modern world.

  “Do you remember what the weather was like that day?”

  Laraby looked at Maik in astonishment, but Amendal fielded the question without hesitation. “As a matter of fact, I do. It was belting down with rain. I remember James made us all tea and we sat around inside the cabin and listene
d to it hammering on the deck above. It was quite cool, actually.”

  “Okay, sir,” said Maik, folding away his notepad. “That will be all. Unless the DI has some questions?”

  The DI didn’t. Not for Amendal, at least.

  He stopped on the metal steps outside the door to the Drone Zone and turned to Maik. “Why are we here, Sergeant?”

  Maik shrugged his big shoulders easily. “Just a thought, sir. I was looking for an explanation as to how James’s prints could have appeared on the coat, yet on nothing else in that disguise bag. If it had been nice weather, we might have been able to make a case that one of them, wearing gloves, could have just carried the jacket over their arm and given it to James to hang up when they got on the boat.” He shrugged. “But it’s hardly likely anyone would go unnoticed if they were carrying a coat in the middle of a downpour. Never mind, it was just an idea.”

  Laraby held up a hand. “Hang on a minute. That photo Oakes took over to James. What date was that?”

  Maik made a production of looking in his notebook. “The ninth. It was a Tuesday.”

  “Come with me.”

  Amendal looked up in surprise as the two detectives entered. “Guys, I told you …”

  “Have you got a record of local weather conditions in that office of yours?” asked Laraby, nodding at Amendal’s phone.

  “Of course.”

  “Tuesday the ninth of October?”

  Amendal hit a couple of keys. “Sunshine, clear skies, eight­een degrees.”

  The men were outside again before their thanks had stopped ringing in the doctor’s ears.

  “So that’s one piece of the evidence against James gone up in smoke,” said Laraby as they descended the metal stairs to their cars. “Let’s see what we can come up with on the rest.”

  “Sir, the beard in that bag. When we rechecked, the forensic report actually says there was no trace of DNA, not even the faintest sign.”

  “On a beard that somebody has had glued to their face? There’s only one possible way there could be no DNA on there at all, surely? And you know what that means, Sergeant.”

  He did. And he had done for a while. Connor James wasn’t guilty. And now they both knew who was.

  Laraby stopped by the door of his Jag and turned to Maik. “We’ll make the arrest tomorrow. I’ll get going on processing James for release as soon as I get back to the station.”

  Maik moved uneasily. “We could go to make that arrest later on today, sir. There’s still plenty of time.”

  “No, we need to get this right, Sergeant. I’ve got to make sure I’ve got all the answers before we move. Because something tells me DCS Shepherd is going to have more than a few questions. Tomorrow morning, bright and early.”

  Maik leaned on the Range Rover, watching the Jaguar disappear down the bumpy track that led to the main road. He was thinking about the news he had heard on the way over. Ray Hayes had been seen again. He knew, without a doubt, if DCI Jejeune was going after him at all, it would be tomorrow. Maik looked back at the vast white wall of the Drone Zone testing facility. Inside, Dr. Josh Amendal was working his miracles with technology. He was one of the brightest people Maik had ever come across. Perhaps he could help the sergeant with his problem. Perhaps Dr. Amendal could devise a way for Danny Maik to be in two places at the same time.

  51

  The sighting was twenty-four hours old, but it had a lot of good elements to it. The target was on foot and going about normal activities. He wasn’t buying supplies for a trip, or hoarding dry foods for a long stay out of sight somewhere. He wasn’t frequenting the kind of areas where a copper’s inquiries might be met with only a sullen silence, or worse, outright disinformation. The man fitting the description of Ray Hayes was wandering the streets of Elvery with the air of someone who planned on staying there for a while. Both Jejeune and Maik would take that kind of sighting over one five minutes old that told them a suspect was on the run and desperate. Every time.

  Maik eased the Range Rover into the parking space beside the small church and switched off the engine. Jejeune looked across at him. He felt as if he should say something to the sergeant; offer him one last chance not to be here, to be risking his career in this way. He knew Danny wasn’t a man of second thoughts. He had committed to helping his DCI and he would do so now, until the end. But still, there was something in Jejeune that wanted to let the sergeant know, one last time, that the door was still open for him. It wasn’t too late.

  His eyes met Maik’s, and he saw the faintest traces of an ironic grin on the sergeant’s face.

  “Nice day for it,” said Maik, getting out of the car.

  It was. A clear blue sky arced over the quiet village and the air was crisp and clean. There was a gentle, lilting backdrop of village noises, but otherwise nothing disturbed the peacefulness of the church grounds. Jejeune stood for a moment in the car park and looked at the tiny church sitting in the bright sunlight. He never felt more foreign than when he was confronted by these small manifestations of England’s storied past. Parts of the nave of this church dated back to centuries before the first Europeans had set foot on his homeland; a stone structure built as a place of worship on this carefully selected site when his own country was still tree-clad and inhabited only by people whose temples of worship were the forests and the fields themselves.

  He took a deep breath, drawing in a lungful of cool, fresh air. Like the sighting itself, the circumstances held promise. The priest was a known supporter of reformed criminals and second chancers, and the church had a reputation as a sanctuary for those who sought refuge from the world’s hardships.

  Maik had been leaning on the low metal railing, peering into the graveyard at the headstones, row upon row, lost in his own thoughts. He joined Jejeune and they made their way to the doors of the church. Neither man had any expectation that Hayes would be here at the moment, but the spot of the last-known sighting was as good a place as any to begin their search. And wait. Nevertheless, the side door and the front door were not in sight of each other, and it would be easy enough for someone to slip out undetected if both officers went in one of the doors together. Maik peeled away wordlessly to stand in the arched doorway of the side door. He could resume his contemplation of the graveyard from here, albeit from a distance.

  Jejeune entered the front door of the church cautiously. The quiet inside wrapped itself around him, settling him to its peace. Along the aisle, the worn tiles were dappled with light, multicoloured swatches from the stained glass windows that lined the nave. The past deeds of long-forgotten men, he thought, commemorated in light. Who were they, these sheriffs and lords and magistrates, these protectors of society, these upholders of the law? Had they faced these same choices Jejeune was facing today? Perhaps they had. Perhaps everything came down to a choice between two options: to act or not to act. He had chosen to act today, to protect society, to uphold the law, even if it was not in a way DCS Colleen Shepherd or any police conduct review board might understand.

  Jejeune had no idea what he might do when he saw Ray Hayes. The only thing he was sure about was that he would know. When he looked into Hayes’s eyes, he would be able to tell, without any doubt, whether he was guilty. And Hayes would know something, too, from looking back into Jejeune’s eyes. He would see exactly what lengths the detective was prepared to go to in order to protect the woman he loved. And then the rest would be up to Hayes.

  At the far end of the church was a small altar, dressed in white, flanked by two elaborately carved oak screens. Delicate filigree work traced across their tops. Jejeune could see doors leading off either side of the altar space. The vestry would be one. The other, he didn’t know. A priest was bending toward a low table off to one side, facing away from Jejeune. The echo of the detective’s footsteps rolled around the vaulted ceiling, alerting the priest to his approach.

  Jejeune stopped at the raised dais, observing the sacred boundary marked by the low wooden railing. “Good morning. My name
is Domenic Jejeune. I’m a police inspector.”

  The priest inclined her head. “I am Reverend Jane. Welcome to St. Margaret’s. I make it a point to know the police officers in the area. I don’t believe you are one of them.” She held him with steady blue eyes.

  “I’m wondering if a stranger has been here recently, someone else not from this parish.”

  The priest had straightened but not approached, as you might to welcome a visitor. There was a hint of defensiveness in the way she held her arms, slightly tucked up against her sides, and a judicious set to her expression. It suggested you could expect a fair hearing from her, but there was self-righteousness, too, that would go some way to eliminating any recriminations about any decision she made.

  Jejeune heard a faint creak from somewhere; just an old building warming its bones in the sun, perhaps? He let his eyes wander slowly across the chancel, but he could detect no movement, no strange shadows.

  “The church attracts its share of visitors,” said Reverend Jane. “As you can see, it’s a remarkably well-preserved example of late-Norman ecclesiastical architecture.” She moved easily across the altar dais, her robes of office flowing gracefully around her. She seemed perfectly suited to her role. But her smile could not conceal the truth. Hayes had been here, or if not him, someone else who had been seeking sanctuary from the authorities.