The defining moments of our lives come upon us so suddenly, thought Maik as DCS Colleen Shepherd entered the Incident Room. No warning, no time to plan, all you were left with to confront such moments were your instincts. But the consequences of your decisions could last a lifetime; in this case, the loss of a career, a reputation, of most things that Maik held on to, that defined him. All this weighed against a young woman’s life, decided in the time it took a human heart to skip a single beat.
Maik should have told Shepherd about Lindy. He should have reported the phone call; even reported his suspicions prior to it, when she disappeared. The DCS shared Maik’s concern for Jejeune’s girlfriend and was every bit as invested in her safety. She shared, too, Maik’s desire to see Hayes arrested, clearing the way for the DCI’s return to Saltmarsh. But the thing she didn’t share was Danny’s guilt. Inviting Shepherd and the team into his own personal quest for redemption would have made a lot of sense. They could cover a lot more ground than one man acting alone. But people made mistakes. Maik was living proof of that. He trusted his colleagues’ professionalism and their discretion, but it may only take one small slip to trigger Hayes into taking the action he’d threatened. It was a chance Danny Maik wasn’t prepared to take.
He leaned forward and turned the volume down on his computer, reducing the silken harmonies of the Four Tops to a whisper. “I was wondering if Mr. Chappell might be in town, ma’am,” he said as casually as he had ever said anything. But he stepped his tone up immediately. Like Danny himself, Colleen Shepherd had a finely-honed detector for deceit, and excessive nonchalance was often a key. “I ran across Quentin Senior and he mentioned asking him about a bird.”
Shepherd looked like she might be about to ask exactly where on earth Danny and the single most dedicated birder in Saltmarsh might have crossed paths, but she chose instead to let her eyes play across the mass of loose papers and open files on Danny’s desk. If something had taken him out to one of Senior’s birding haunts, it wasn’t free time.
“Eric’s in Scotland at the moment. He’s over the moon because he happened to be already on Fair Isle in the Shetlands when a Song Sparrow was found there. It’s a rarity from the inspector’s part of the world, apparently. Eric tells me at least five chartered planes have already flown in to see it. Can you believe it, renting a plane to go all the way up to Scotland to see a sparrow?” She shook her head in a show of the bewilderment she knew Maik shared at the eccentricities of the birders in their lives. “I came in to see if you had managed to catch up with Lindy. I understand you were asking around recently to see if anyone had heard from her.”
Maik paused.
Defining moments.
“I spoke to her yesterday,” he said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Shepherd with evident relief.
“She’s not come to any harm, then?”
Shepherd knew from experience that Maik could take terseness to a whole new level when something set him off. Generally, though, Danny Maik remained, well, Danny Maik — hardly verbose but not offhand either. “Is something the matter, Sergeant?”
Yes, very much so.
“I think it’s time for the truth, don’t you?” she said. “About Ray Hayes.”
Maik froze. He had been prepared to sacrifice his career, and even his own cherished personal integrity, too, if it meant keeping his secrets about Lindy. But he hadn’t expected the reckoning to come so swiftly. Though he knew no apology could undo the damage, he felt compelled to offer at least an explanation. But before he could speak, to set in motion the slow downward spiral towards the destruction of everything he had come to represent, Shepherd continued.
“I understand how upset you are at the decision to terminate the search for Hayes. I’m devastated, too, truth be told, by the thought that DCI Jejeune will no longer be here with us. But we must move on, Sergeant, all of us. So, I’ll ask you once more, formally, and then we’ll draw a line under the matter. Do you, at this time, Sergeant Maik, have any idea of Ray Hayes’s whereabouts?”
The defining moments of our lives.
“No, ma’am. I do not.”
“Very well. Then your assignment is over. Submit your final report to me and we’ll close the file. You can join Sergeant Salter’s investigation. But only a supporting role for now, Danny.” Shepherd gave him a cautioning look. “I’d like to give her a chance to get things right, even if she does seem to be spinning her wheels a bit at the moment. As I understand it, this Albert Ross seems to be our most likely suspect. Are you aware of any reason she hasn’t yet had him in here for a chat?”
“I don’t think she wants it to be him,” said Maik simply.
“Too easy, you mean? She doesn’t want it to appear like she’s just latching on to the first suspect that comes along?” Shepherd nodded. It was an understandable concern for a new sergeant in her first case, if not an entirely professional one. “Talk to her about it, Danny. Tell her sometimes it is as straightforward as it seems to be, and the guilty party does just fall into our laps like this. Not as often as we’d like, it must be said, but it happens. Easy or not, if Ross is our man, I want him in custody as soon as possible.” She consulted her watch. “I should be off. Eric will be calling me later. He’ll want to regale me with a blow-by-blow account of his sparrow sighting once again, no doubt. I’ll ask him to get in touch with Quentin Senior.”
“I don’t think there’s any urgency, ma’am,” said Maik smoothly. Deceit wrapped you in its embrace so quickly, he thought. It just kept on drawing you in until it slowly suffocated you. His resolve faltered, and he teetered on the brink of opening up to Shepherd. He knew if she had been looking directly at him with that steely, unblinking gaze of hers, he would have done. But she was focused on his laptop instead. The direction of a single gaze. The defining moments of our lives existed in such small details sometimes.
“Your song is over,” said Shepherd. “It’s not like you to have nothing else cued up. I suppose Senior wanted to speak to Eric to congratulate him on seeing this sparrow of his. There’s no doubt he will have already heard about it. That rare bird network puts our own national alert systems to shame.”
Maik shook his head. “I think it might have been about a national bird for Hong Kong.”
Shepherd smiled and nodded slowly to herself. “Ah, yes. The crane.”
Maik’s astonishment was so profound, he couldn’t speak, but Shepherd interpreted his expression merely as interest. “Eric’s little joke,” she explained. “He was in Hong Kong during the boom years, when it seemed like every tiny patch of land had a building project on it. He told me he could look out of his office window and see nothing but construction cranes in every direction. He said if he was ever asked to nominate a national bird for Hong Kong, it would be the crane.”
“The crane,” said Maik. It was all he could manage at the moment. He cued up a song to give him a moment to bring his breathing back under control. “I can’t imagine they’d be all that common in this country,” he said, letting the computer task absorb all of his attention. “The actual birds, I mean, not the building equipment.”
“I’ve never seen one,” said Shepherd. “But I know Eric has. I believe they’re a migratory species.” She exchanged a glance with Maik to acknowledge how much birding information the two of them had absorbed simply by being within earshot when their birding associates were chatting. The opening strains of “Baby I Need Your Loving” rose from Maik’s computer. “This is the same song you’ve just played, Sergeant. Are you sure there’s nothing the matter?”
Maik ignored the question. “Would Eric have mentioned this joke of his at the office, I wonder?”
“Oh, I should imagine so. Like most men, Eric is particularly proud of his own witticisms. He seems to consider it his duty to share them with as many people as possible, usually several times.”
Maik’s mind was racing. If cranes were migratory, it meant Lindy could have seen one just about anywhere in Britain as it flew over. But perhaps Quentin Senior could narrow Maik’s search down to some of the most likely spots. It was a big ask, but it was a glimmer of opportunity, and Danny had to pursue it.
“Keep me informed.” Shepherd’s comment snapped Maik back to the present. “About any new developments in Sergeant Salter’s case. Not behind her back, of course, but she seems to have inherited a disturbing trend of providing as few details as possible about what she’s up to.” Shepherd smiled. “I can’t imagine where she would have picked that up from. Oh, and remember to submit that final report, so we can close out the Hayes investigation.”
Maik shut his laptop the second Shepherd had disappeared from view. He stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. That report was going to have to wait. Right now, Maik had to search for a crane with an intensity he knew no birder would ever match.