The Lovebirds

by Cressida McLaughlin

  ‘I’m not worried,’ Abby said. ‘I trust you, remember? Was she grateful?’

  ‘She was. She was very pleasant and asked how I was getting on. I told her things were looking up, that the writing was going well and my ideas were flowing. I didn’t tell her who’d given me the much-needed kick up the backside. From what you’ve said I wasn’t sure she’d be pleased to hear you were deviating from your one true purpose in life.’

  Abby grinned. ‘No, she wouldn’t like that. I’m glad if I’ve helped though, with … things.’

  ‘And now you’re solving my corpse dilemma too. Where next?’

  ‘The heron hide. There’s a lot of knotty undergrowth, and some impressive gorse close to the lagoon. Obviously, the killer would get scratched to bits offloading the body, but that would be worth it to make the location almost undiscoverable.’

  ‘Almost being the optimum word. It needs to be found eventually, or my plot rather stalls.’

  ‘Noted,’ Abby said, and he shot her a look, which she parried with a sweet smile. ‘I’m starting to get into this.’

  Jack raised a single eyebrow, managing cynical and sexy all at once, and Abby had to turn away.

  The weather remained stubbornly miserable as she led him on a grand tour, sneaking in details about the wildlife and the recent sightings, as well as showing him where she thought a body could be hidden, or where a discovery would be dramatic. Not that, she reasoned, it would ever be undramatic to come across a corpse when you were out for a relaxing stroll.

  ‘And the thing about a nature reserve,’ she said, as they left the kingfisher hide, ‘is that it can’t be locked away. We only man the visitor centre during certain hours, and it’s not as if we can fence the whole place off. So, with a powerful torch and balls of steel, you could drive your car into the car park and make your own way down here at three in the morning, hefting a body over your shoulder. Or if you’d cut it into pieces, even better!’

  ‘Just how long have you been puzzling this over?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Since you asked me, two weeks ago, after the house of birds and butterflies.’ She couldn’t think of it as Swallowtail House any more. His new name for it, somehow so symbolic of the afternoon they had spent together, had pushed the other one aside. ‘Are you inspired?’

  ‘Very,’ he said. ‘It’s a shame we don’t get vultures in this country. I’d like the body to be found in a particularly grizzly state.’ He narrowed his eyes, and Abby wondered if he was teasing her. Surely, he already knew a lot about body decomposition from researching previous books?

  ‘British wildlife will do that almost as well as a vulture, given enough time,’ she said. ‘Foxes, crows, magpies – obviously I’ve not seen them eating human remains, but they’ll go after carrion. Not to mention all the insects that will devour it. Slowly. In different groups, like people waiting their turn for a wedding buffet. Ugh.’ She shuddered. ‘Shall we go on?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to?’ He sounded concerned, but Abby didn’t believe it. He was pushing her buttons, as if he wasn’t happy without some kind of battle between them.

  ‘We haven’t been to the forest hide,’ she said briskly. ‘And of course I want to continue, I’m not remotely squeamish.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ There was definite amusement in his voice.

  Feeling her hackles rise, along with a sort of nostalgia at finding Jack infuriating all over again, Abby stomped off towards their final destination.

  The forest hide sat on stilts, snuggling into the woodland canopy, and with glimpses of the lagoon through breaks in the trees. They passed a couple of seasoned birdwatchers on the way and exchanged greetings.

  ‘It’s a bit quiet up there today,’ one of them said cheerfully. ‘Still, it’s respite from the cold.’

  They climbed the ladder, Abby going first, aware of Jack following her and where his eye level might be. The hide was empty, the wooden floor creaking beneath them. She had replaced all the posters at the end of the previous summer and they looked glossy and professional, listing the species regularly found in that particular habitat. Each hide also had a whiteboard and a pen attached with string, so visitors could add what they’d seen. It currently read:

  Two siskins

  A nuthatch

  Bullfinches

  Four Blue tits

  Several long-tailed tits

  Abby felt a surge of pride, as she always did, at the variety of wildlife people could see on the reserve. She sat on a bench and opened three of the hatches so that birdsong and the wind, more blustery up in the trees, slipped into the space. She recognized the high-pitched, upward-swooping call of the nuthatch, the peeps of tits as they twirled on branches.Jack was walking around the hide, prowling almost, and it struck her how like a wild animal he was; quiet, dark, a little bit threatening. But also sleek and beautiful, his thick hair so strokable, though she had yet to run her fingers through it. Suddenly, it became her utmost desire.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, and it came out pinched and high, like a schoolmistress. She cleared her throat as Jack gave her an amused glance.

  ‘What are we looking at?’ he asked, stretching his long legs over the bench, sitting close enough that she could feel his warmth alongside her.

  ‘This. What do you think?’ She indicated the whispering trees and heard a woodpecker’s rat-tat-tat in the distance. ‘If your character was up here looking for birds, they could easily spot a crumpled shape, or a leg sticking out. Look there, below that huge tree root, or over near those reeds. This viewpoint, it gives you so much more – so much clarity.’

  She wasn’t really talking about finding bodies any more. This was her favourite spot on the reserve, sitting amongst trees that had grown from a seed or an acorn hundreds of years ago, giving her a sense of perspective. It was like looking at a sky dark with stars, watching meteors shoot, Disney-like, across it. She felt insignificant, knowing that saving these trees, and all the species that lived in them, the plants that grew at their feet or up their trunks – was so much more important than she was.

  When she had first got the job and moved to Meadowgreen, she had spent a lot of time in this hide, amazed that this was what she was charged with looking after, with promoting. It was a hundred times more inspiring than her previous job working as an administrator in Bury St Edmunds, even though it had been for a wildlife charity. She had been helping nature, but she never got to immerse herself in it.

  Here, she had found a new, perfect life to slot herself into. It was a small life, but one that she relished. Recently it felt like it had become unwieldy, out of control. The main culprit was sitting next to her, and as she allowed herself to look at him, at the shiver-quick flash of his eyelashes as he blinked, his taught, smooth jaw, and the dark hair reaching the neckline of his jacket, she realized she didn’t mind. In fact, the thought of Jack Westcoat not being in her life and making it more complicated made her feel hollow.

  He turned towards her. ‘What?’ he asked softly, and it was as if the view had sent him away too, dragging up thoughts that she would never know.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked again.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he admitted. ‘Almost too good to hide a body in.’

  ‘What about the contrast with life and death that you were talking about before?’

  ‘I’m going to have a body discovered here – a fictional here – but that tributary is just what I was after. This place doesn’t deserve that.’

  ‘Jack Westcoat,’ she said lightly. ‘Are you starting to appreciate the wonders of our natural habitat?’

  He turned back to the view, a smile chinking the dimple in his cheek. ‘Possibly,’ he said, then he leaned forward, the shiny material of his jacket rubbing against her arm. ‘What the hell is that? Is it a robin on steroids?’

  Abby followed his sightline. ‘It’s a male bullfinch. They used to be really common around here, like the blue tits and chaffinches, but their numbers have fallen dramatically
. It’s always lovely to see one.’

  ‘I guess they’re not great at camouflage,’ Jack said. ‘You’re sure it hasn’t been dipped in red paint?’

  She laughed. ‘Listen. Hear that finchy peep – two short blasts? That’s him singing.’

  ‘Sounds a bit like my old PE teacher; he was always over-zealous with his whistle.’

  Abby tried to hold it in but could only manage a few moments, and then she was laughing so hard she had to turn away from the hatch so she didn’t disturb anything. ‘That sounds so wrong,’ she said. ‘I don’t even want to know.’

  ‘What?’ Jack asked. ‘What did I say?’ His voice was rough, and then a moment later he was laughing too. ‘God. It wasn’t like that at all.’

  ‘You’re sure? Because PE teachers don’t have a particularly good reputation, and I would have thought at posh boys’ schools it would be even worse.’

  ‘What makes you think I went to a posh boys’ school?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jack. Where else would you have gone?’

  He scrutinized her, his laughter gone, and she thought she had offended him, but then he shrugged and rubbed his jaw. ‘None of us choose the way we’re brought up.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said, suddenly feeling awful for judging him, fitting him into a box, and thinking how much she had been shaped by her own upbringing. She wasn’t in a position to make jokes about other people’s. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologize. Hey, what is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She couldn’t meet his gaze.

  ‘Abby?’ He touched her chin with two fingers and tipped it up so she was looking at him. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘It wasn’t you.’

  He frowned, his eyes flaring with frustration. ‘I want you to be able to talk to me, to trust me. I’ve never claimed to be perfect, but if you’re prepared to see past what I’ve done and give me a chance—’

  Abby’s phone buzzed frantically in her pocket and she pulled it out, seeing Rosa’s name on the screen.

  ‘Rosa?’

  Her friend’s voice was a harsh whisper. ’Abby, where are you? You’ve been hours! Penelope’s on the warpath and some journalist has turned up to see you about the murmuration event. She is going to literally spit feathers if you don’t appear soon. Have you fallen in a ditch?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Abby said, although that had come close to being her fate. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes. Please keep her distracted for me.’

  ‘Keep Penelope distracted? Are you serious?’

  ‘Seven minutes, Rosa.’ She was standing before she’d hung up. ‘Shit shit shit. We have to go.’

  Jack held the door open for her. ‘Have I got you in trouble?’

  ‘It isn’t your fault,’ Abby said, hurrying down the stairs. ‘I chose to do this on a work day, I’m the one who’s getting carried away.’

  ‘Carried away? With what?’

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs. ‘Was that OK? Do you have all you need for your book?’

  Jack nodded. ‘It’s been great. When will I—’ His voice caught, snagging on his next words. ‘When will I see you again?’

  Abby swallowed. She couldn’t – she’d let him lead her off course enough, at least for the time being. ‘The twenty-eighth,’ she said. ‘Come to my murmuration event. The local paper is going to cover it, but it’s at dusk and you could wear a hat … I’d like you to see it. If everything goes to plan, it’ll be beautiful.’

  For a moment she thought he was going to turn her down, and she wouldn’t have blamed him. There would be publicity, lots of visitors, and even though their focus would be elsewhere it might still be too much.

  ‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘But now, shouldn’t you be running?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely. Running. Right. Bye Jack, see you soon.’ She wondered whether to kiss his cheek, thought better of it and squeezed his hand, her body reacting with thrilled goose bumps. She turned and, leaving the bullfinch, nuthatch and Jack Westcoat behind, raced to the visitor centre, hoping she still had a job to return to.

  Abby led the group of seventy-five people carefully down the path as the sun was setting, the icy, cloudless blue gradually being consumed by pink and purple. The weather was colder than it had been in days, so any mud that might have sucked people’s shoes in was hidden deep below frozen, solid earth. In the woodland, in patches where the sunshine had failed to reach during the day, the glisten of frost remained, and Abby worried that anyone without a hat or gloves would get instant hypothermia.

  At this time of year, the murmuration was a semi-regular occurrence, and Meadowsweet was ideally placed, close to where the starlings made their roosts for the night. She had come down to this spot each evening for the last week, and had watched them perform, so she was hopeful that tonight would be the same. It was freezing, but everything was perfectly set up.

  And still, she couldn’t forget Penelope’s heavy stare when she had bolted back to the visitor centre after her walk with Jack. She’d barely said a word, which had made it worse, as if Abby’s absence was too much for her to talk about. Abby had given her attention to Brad Kennedy, turning on the charm so that he would be drawn in, enthralled by her idea. It must have worked, because the piece was positive and the phone had rung with people wanting to buy tickets for days afterwards.

  After that, Abby had made a pact to herself. She wouldn’t see, write to, or even think about Jack Westcoat until after the event was over. She had been letting him distract her, and it was starting to impact on her job.

  ‘There was a thick brown envelope in the post this morning,’ Rosa had said later that Valentine’s day, once the journalist had gone and the two of them had carved out a five-minute break for one of Stephan’s hot chocolates. ‘It looked official, and Penelope snatched it out of my hands immediately. I don’t think it was just you not being there that made her so angry.’

  ‘But she wasn’t angry, was she? She was … cold,’ Abby had said, shuddering. ‘I’ve never seen her so emotionless.’

  ‘I wonder if it was something about the estate.’ Rosa had shrugged. ‘If there’s more behind her need to boost numbers than simply Wild Wonders which, after all, doesn’t seem to have sucked all the visitors away.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking that for a while. There’s more to this than she’s letting on. I wish she’d tell us. How can we help her if we don’t know the size of the problem?’

  ‘But if it is that dire, and it might affect the future of the reserve along with our jobs, maybe she wants to keep it from us so that we don’t worry. It’s commendable, but also stupid.’

  ‘We have to work extra hard then,’ Abby had said, nodding decisively.

  Rosa had looked like she was about to ask something, her full lips parted, but then she’d simply smiled and nodded her agreement.

  That conversation, along with Penelope’s dark expression, had stayed firmly at the forefront of her mind for the last two weeks. Now, she brought everyone to the edge of the field, turned to face them and took a deep breath.

  ‘Good evening everyone,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming to our special event. I’m Abby Field, the activity coordinator at Meadowsweet Nature Reserve. I had hoped, with it being March tomorrow, that the weather would have been kinder, but as it is we’ve got below freezing temperatures and clear skies, so I hope you’re all layered up and ready for one of this area’s most outstanding natural spectacles. It should start any minute now, so keep looking behind me.

  ‘A murmuration of starlings, the sight as beautiful as the name, is when a flock of hundreds, sometimes thousands of the birds get together and perform an incredible, aerobatic sky display, changing direction as one, even though they’ve not practised beforehand. Imagine a synchronized swimming team having those skills!’

  She looked over the crowd as they laughed gently. It included Octavia and Jonny, sisters Karen and Joyce, Joyce’s white stick bright in the gloom, and many other faces Abby didn’t kno
w. Brad Kennedy was there, alongside a photographer, both of them looking distinctly uncomfortable, probably more used to covering indoor events and summer fetes. Rosa, Stephan, Gavin and Marek had all agreed to stay due to the large numbers, and Abby felt well supported as she answered questions and waited for the main attraction.

  She couldn’t help scanning the faces to see if Jack was there, but if he had decided to come, he’d obviously taken her advice and disguised himself. Anyway, she wasn’t allowed to think about him. Even when his note had arrived at reception the day after their walk, thanking her and apologizing for any problems he may have caused, she had given it only a cursory glance and put it in her handbag, ready to tuck inside UK Flora and Fauna with the others.

  Turning her attention back to her audience, she explained what was known about why the starlings behaved this way, unease churning in her stomach when the skies remained quiet behind her. She glanced at Rosa, then Gavin, their smiles reassuring, but she could see her own uncertainty reflected in their eyes. Was this the one night they wouldn’t do it? Had they found somewhere else to roost? Brad Kennedy was looking on expectantly, stamping his feet against the cold, and there were some younger, eager faces at the front of the group.

  What if she let them down? She glanced behind her, the sunset beautiful but empty of birds, and nerves began to take over. She scanned the crowd again, and this time she saw him. His tall frame, a thick woollen beanie hat covering his hair, but those blue eyes, the gentle smile he gave her, were unmistakable. She risked a quick smile back, took a deep breath and projected her voice.

  ‘Obviously, as with all natural events, we can make as many educated guesses as we like and examine patterns of behaviour, but we can never predict exactly what will happen. Nature has a way of surprising us, often in the most wonderful way, but sometimes, we do get disappointed. But I hope you’ll agree that the sunset is stunning, so if you …’

  People had begun to murmur, focusing on the view beyond her, no longer listening, and Abby could hear that familiar chatter, peppered with high-pitched screeches and trilling. She turned. The sun was descending, the sky a pink and purple canvas, and dancing, centre stage, was a murmuration of starlings, diving and weaving, changing direction at a moment’s notice. Abby was mesmerized, and she knew she wasn’t the only one. She heard the photographer snapping away, and hoped he could get some good pictures, even in such low light.