A Cast of Falcons

by Steve Burrows

  “The Western Highlands?” she said, shrugging off her work bag and slumping into one of the armchairs in their living room. “Oh Dom, I wish I could go with you, but it’s this award thing. There are interviews and appearances and …”

  He smiled his understanding. In truth, he had gambled on the arrangements for the forthcoming awards ceremony preventing Lindy from being able to accompany him. If she’d tried to make it work, he would have thrown other obstacles in the way — extended the dates, invented some excuse that meant he had to travel alone. It was deception by intent, rather than by action, but it made him no less uneasy. They always said they told each other everything. They both knew that wasn’t strictly true, but all pretense of openness between them had changed with the call from Scotland. Jejeune hoped these deceptions would be small, and short-lived. But now they had started, he knew they would feed upon each other, and soon, perhaps, it would be too late to rein them in. He had managed to mask all these thoughts behind an attentive smile while Lindy rhapsodized about the scenic wonders that awaited him on the wild western coast of Scotland.

  “Each bend in the road, you think it can’t possibly get any better, and then, next turn, there’s another vista, even more breathtaking. The beauty is almost indescribable,” she’d said, tucking her feet beneath her in the chair. The word almost told Jejeune she was going to try anyway. From an award-nominated journalist, he would have expected no less. He smiled again and squeezed into the chair beside her. Even if he had not wanted to listen just then, he would have done so, as his penance. But he always enjoyed listening to Lindy when she was passionate about a subject. She fell in love with her topics, and her enthusiasm coursed through her accounts.

  “There’s a rawness about the landscape, a stark, rugged bleakness. The mountains, hills they call them up there, they look like old prize-fighters, all battered and craggy and purple-grey. Even the lowlands have a kind of formidable harshness to them, gorse and brambles and ankle-breaking rocks. And the winds, God, sometimes they hammer across the land with such force you’d swear they are going to pull what little bit of vegetation there is out by the roots.”

  “If you’re auditioning for the Scottish tourism board,” said Jejeune playfully. “I wouldn’t be expecting a recruitment call anytime soon.”

  “No, Dom, it’s wonderful,” she said earnestly. “It’s all those things, but I can truly say it is some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen. And considering what we have right outside our front door here in north Norfolk, that must tell you something.”

  It did. And Lindy had been right. Jejeune had seen it all and drunk it all in, every crag, every heath-clad valley bathed in the milky Highland light. As he was doing now, sitting in the passenger seat of the van on his journey up to Sgurr Fiona, driven up the sinuous coast road from Ullapool by an officer from the Highland Constabulary named Ian McLeod. “Though most call me Iron,” he had told Jejeune with a smile as he greeted him at the door of the local police station. It had been McLeod who had taken the report of the dead man at the base of Sgurr Fiona, going out to the scene himself to secure it and conduct the preliminary investigation. It had been McLeod, too, who had placed the call to the Saltmarsh Division’s main switchboard on his return and left the message for Domenic Jejeune, informing him that a bird guide bearing his name had been found in the pocket of the dead man’s jacket.

  That had been yesterday. And now, less than twenty-four hours since McLeod’s scanned image of the book’s flyleaf had appeared on Jejeune’s screen, here was the man himself, looking, he had surmised from McLeod’s somewhat startled expression, a good deal younger and less distinguished than the Scottish detective had been expecting. It was not an uncommon reaction from those who were meeting Jejeune for the first time. Even to himself, to have achieved so much and risen so high, so quickly, seemed at odds with the youthful face he saw staring back at him from the shaving mirror every morning. But McLeod had inquired only whether Jejeune was tired after his long drive, and whether he might prefer to wait until tomorrow to make the trip out to the scene. But Jejeune wouldn’t prefer to wait, thanks, and he would really appreciate it if they could go out to the scene right away. So they had.

  The going became more jarring as they turned off the main coast road and took a narrow roadway leading up toward the base of Sgurr Fiona. The track twisted between steep-sided valleys that opened onto heath land every bit as rugged and uncompro­mising as Lindy had described it. McLeod pointed straight ahead, where a dark cloud lurked low over the sea, already draping a grey curtain of rain across its surface. “Another storm coming in from the Atlantic. Don’t worry, though, she’s a way off yet. We’ve plenty of time to have a poke about when we get there. Mebbe even have a wee scramble up the Fiona.”

  “I imagine this area sees a lot of bad weather,” said Jejeune, looking out at the landscape rolling by. “It doesn’t look like the kind of place you’d want to sleep rough.”

  “She can get a bit damp up here at times, right enough,” agreed McLeod, breezing on by without ever stopping to consider if there might be more to Jejeune’s observation than mere chit-chat. “Wettest place in Britain, in fact, and most of the rain comes in on the horizontal. The winds are so strong they can make the waterfalls flow upward.” McLeod had his eyes on the twisting road and so he couldn’t see whether there was any skepticism in Jejeune’s look, but he was taking no chances. He took a weather-beaten hand from the steering wheel and laid it over his heart. “On my life.”

  “But the weather had nothing to do with the man’s death, you said.”

  McLeod gave his head an economical shake. “Even though he was wearing a top-quality waterproof jacket, the body was still soaked through by the time I got to it, but our medical examiner reckons he was well dead long before the rains came. Everything was consistent with a fall.” McLeod paused significantly. “He’s seen enough to know.”

  Jejeune nodded. “But you can’t say for sure how long he’d been there when he was found?”

  McLeod shook his head. “Can’t have been long, though. There were no signs of scavengers. Out in these parts, a deer can die and the Ravens and Hooded Crows will be on it before it hits the ground. This is us.” McLeod pulled the car off the road onto a flat patch of grass that showed the wear of life as an impromptu car park for hikers setting out on the local trails. Above them towered the granite mass of Sgurr Fiona, the thousand-metre “Fair Peak” that drew climbers from all corners of Britain and far beyond.

  They got out of the car and McLeod drew a generous helping of the clear mountain air into his lungs. “Just over there. Now, remember, I did tell you there was nothing much to see anymore.” He nodded toward a small cairn that looked as if it had been constructed very recently. Perhaps even to mark the spot, thought Jejeune; passing hikers paying their respects to one of their own?

  “Any idea what the man was doing out here?”

  “Climbing, we think.”

  “With no equipment?”

  McLeod shot him a look, one that told Jejeune he now suspected there might be something else behind his guest’s inquiries, a faint shadow of accusation, perhaps, that the Scottish police should have done more to find out about the man who had died at the foot of this formidable mountain. Jejeune didn’t mind. Anything that took McLeod’s attention away from the real reason for his questions was welcome.

  McLeod, though, had decided to let things slide, for now. “Your man wouldn’t have been the first to try his hand at a spot of free climbing up the Fiona.” He paused and looked up the sheer granite face towering above them. He shook his head. “He’ll not be the last, either. These peaks attract some world-class climbers and hikers. Most of them have the good sense to give the hills a bit of respect. But like all wild places, An Teallach attracts its fair share of nutters. The local search and rescue boys are forever plucking some idiot off a ledge dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Any squall comes in, and the poor fool would perish if they didn’t. We think this
one is probably just some cowboy who thought he’d come here to tame the Fiona, and she got the better of him.”

  No, thought Jejeune, that wasn’t what had happened. He didn’t know what had yet, but he suspected he would soon. And in the meantime, it was better to let Iron McLeod keep on believing this was all just some tragic accident.

  McLeod pulled on a nylon jacket and handed a spare one to Jejeune. “If you’re ready for a bit of a hike, I can show you something that will make it worth your while coming all the way up here.”

  Jejeune gestured for McLeod to lead on. Scrambling up the steep path in his faded jeans and heavy boots, McLeod didn’t look much like an on-duty policeman, but he did look like a man who fit these parts perfectly. Iron McLeod had the same uncompromising honesty as this landscape he clearly loved so much. It was a quality, perhaps, that Jejeune might have associated with himself, until the telephone call had come in. But the savage beauty of the wild Highland coastline was no place to be contemplating such things, and Jejeune instead concentrated on scrambling along behind his guide.

  After fifteen minutes of strenuous, relentless ascent, they paused on a small ledge. Jejeune bent over, hands on his knees. McLeod stood barrel-chested against the elements, gratefully drawing in lungfuls of the still mountain air. Recovered, he was ready to press on. “C’mon,” he urged, “we’re nearly there. Just up around the next bend. It’s worth the effort, believe me.”

  Jejeune followed the other man up the steep slope, his soft-soled shoes slipping occasionally on the scree scattered across the path. As they rounded a bend, he stopped suddenly. They were on a small promontory jutting out over a vast nothingness. In front of them, a spectacular vista of undulating purples and greens stretched off to a range of distant mountains, their peaks wreathed in mist. Broad shafts of sunlight broke through the cloud cover in one or two places, sending beams of light down onto the heathland. The fierce wind tugged at Jejeune’s hair and scoured his face, making his eyes water slightly. He looked across to McLeod, who was gazing out over the scene in silence. He was wearing an expression born of pure joy.

  “It’s magnificent,” said Jejeune.

  “Aye, you’ll no see a view like this without earning it, right enough,” said McLeod, raising his voice above the winds. “But I’ve climbed the Fiona in all seasons, in all kinds of weather. She never disappoints.”

  She, noted Jejeune. Another in McLeod’s harem of females out here: the hills, the elements, the landscape. But Jejeune had an antenna for misogyny, and he detected none in Iron McLeod. If his use of the feminine pronoun revealed anything about the man, it was the deep affection he held for these wild places. The two men stood on the edge of the rocky outcrop and looked out over the landscape in silence, watching the light play over grasses and shrubs as they were tossed around by the keening winds below. McLeod pointed to a thin ribbon of silver light on the horizon. “Can you see that over there, Inspector, away in the distance?”

  Jejeune leaned forward and squinted out over the ocean, but he could see nothing. He turned to McLeod and held out his hands, palms up.

  “Canada,” said McLeod with a smile. “C’mon, let’s sit a while and you can tell me what it is about this old bird guide of yours that’s special enough for you to drive all the way up here to get it.”

  Jejeune smiled back. No, I won’t tell you that, he thought. But I’ll tell you a plausible enough story that it won’t insult your intelligence.

  4

  DCI Jejeune would not be returning for another couple of days. The desk sergeant had not exactly averted his eyes when he delivered the news to Danny Maik, but he hadn’t been keen to let them linger too long under the sergeant’s flinty stare, either. He consequently greeted DCS Colleen Shepherd’s appearance in the doorway with more enthusiasm than she, or Maik, would normally have expected.

  Shepherd had already received the news, and was looking for someone to tell how she felt about it. She fixed Maik with a look. “Anything I should know about, Sergeant? I understand that he needs to sort out why this unknown man had a book with his name in it; but really, how long can it take to convince the local police that he knows nothing about it? The death up there is not suspicious in any way, is it?”

  Maik had received a call from a Sergeant McLeod just as Jejeune was making his way up to Scotland, and he had asked that very question, sergeant to sergeant. Which was the reason he was now able to confirm to Shepherd with such confidence that it was not.

  “And why on earth drive? He is aware we have air service to the wilds of Scotland, I take it? Even down here in the tiny backwater of north Norfolk.”

  Maik said nothing. Loyalty was about not saying anything that might get your superiors in trouble. It had nothing to do with inventing explanations for their irrational behaviour.

  “Walk with me,” she said, leading him along the hallway. It could have been one of those Americanisms she was so fond of, but it could have been a literal request. Shepherd was looking trim these days, fitter and better toned, the results of an exercise regimen she had pitched herself into, in the throes of yet another failed relationship. Maik wouldn’t have cared to speculate whether this newfound interest in her body shape was designed to improve Shepherd’s self-esteem, or her chances on the dating circuit, but it didn’t really matter much to him. His concern lay in the possibility of having to accompany his DCS on her rigorous daily walking circuit around the village streets. Maik regularly bemoaned the amount of paperwork that piled up on his desk during the course of a day, but he realized it might come in handy today if he needed an excuse to beg off from joining her.

  “I take it there’s still nothing to suggest anyone at the Old Dairy compound was involved in the Wayland murder?” she asked as they made their way along the corridor. Though she took a broad spectrum approach, both of them knew she was really only asking about one person.

  “Prince Yousef’s alibi remains firm, ma’am. A researcher who works up there is certain she saw Philip Wayland entering the woods at seven p.m.”

  Shepherd nodded. “And the prince was already in his helicopter by that time, in radio contact with ground control. So why does the Inspector want me to arrange an interview with him?”

  She stopped walking and turned to look at Maik intently. It was impossible to tell from her expression whether Jejeune had mentioned his doubts to her, those same misgivings he had carelessly tossed in amongst his last-minute instructions to Danny Maik as he rushed out the door: “This statement that puts the Prince in the clear, Sergeant,” Jejeune had said, shaking his head doubtfully. “I’d like a word with him, the moment I get back.”

  Maik responded frankly. “Perhaps it’s because Yousef’s the head of the operation up there.”

  “The de facto head,” said Shepherd, “in his older brother’s absence. I don’t think there’s any doubt that Prince Ibrahim is the real power behind the Old Dairy project. He’s coming over, by the way.”

  “The Crown Prince? Now there’s a coincidence.”

  Shepherd eyed Maik warily. “Not at all. From what I understand, Prince Ibrahim is about due for his biannual visit anyway, though no doubt he’ll want to assess what impact this murder investigation is going to have on the project. I’ve already told his representatives I don’t see any reason it should interfere with their day-to-day operations.”

  Her stare seemed to be challenging Maik to disagree, but he just gave a noncommittal tilt of his head. Shepherd waited, but when it became clear the sergeant wasn’t going to offer anything, she pressed.

  “Agreed?”

  “The investigative team are aware that neither the prince nor any other member of the Old Dairy Holdings board of directors are the focus of our inquiries at this time,” said Maik, reverting to the formal language that was his safety net when he was in danger of losing patience with his superiors.

  “So we’re still looking at the protesters, then. Somebody who didn’t like what Philip Wayland’s research was going to mean for th
e north Norfolk coastline.”

  He saw the uncertainty in her face. Was it a strong enough motive, she was asking, to kill someone, especially in such a disturbing, violent way? Neither missed the irony; had it been Domenic Jejeune positing such a theory, they would have had no qualms about pointing out how flimsy it was.

  “We didn’t find anything the first time we looked,” said Maik, trying hard to keep the note of exasperation from his voice. Shepherd’s interest in keeping the investigation away from a research facility in which an Emirati royal family held a controlling interest was understandable, but throwing up improbable leads in its place wasn’t making the sergeant’s temporary leadership role any easier.

  “Nevertheless, it’s our best avenue of approach at the moment. Plenty of angry people, feelings running high. Get in amongst them, Sergeant, shake them up. If you still can’t find anything, I might, just might be willing to consider the DCI’s request. But not until we have fully explored every other possible line of inquiry. Fully explored, Sergeant. Do I make myself clear?”

  Maik nodded, but it wasn’t the phrase she had emphasized that had caught his ear. It was another one. At the moment, thought Maik. Meaning until DCI Domenic Jejeune returned to take up the reins of the investigation. Before his absence, Maik had not really realized just what a sense of reassurance Jejeune brought to proceedings. Yes, he would likely haul them off in all kinds of improbable directions. Yes, there would be frustration and impatience at his unconventional, protocol-defying approach. But, beneath it all, there would be the same, single underlying refrain as always. I’ll get you there. Follow me, keep your faith, and I’ll deliver your killer. I will do it in my usual disinterested way. And it won’t mean a thing to me when I have. But I will do it .

  “Well, best be getting on with things,” said Maik brightly. It seemed unlikely now that Shepherd was going to insist he accompany her on her power-walk around Saltmarsh. He was fairly sure she had covered all her agenda items. All the same, it was better not to leave things to chance. “Full in-tray, as usual,” he added.