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Horsfield and the scientists and interrogators of DEFRA arrived, with two cars worth of local journalists in tow, trailed by the BBC van, which had fallen behind in traffic out of Bristol.
Someone at DEFRA had anonymously tipped off the press association and the BBC. It was a small story, but it was late July. The politics had just ended for the summer and there had yet to be any great natural disasters for the season. The news was slow. Horsfield had rather liked the idea of the presence of the media, having long thought that her job would make excellent reality television. She was a firm believer in the notion of government doing what it could to make money commercially, then ploughing the money back into the public purse. She had, so far unsuccessfully, lobbied her chain of command to allow her to contact various television channels with her reality television idea. The Curious Case of the Dead Birds At The Vineyard seemed like a perfect opportunity for her to market herself to the wider television world. Already, she wondered if there might be enough in the story to make a book out of it; or, at any rate, a magazine article worthy of the New Yorker.
Her assistant, Marks, who was driving, parked the car in the shade of an old oak tree, under her direction, to keep the car out of the sun. In the back seat of the government car was a vet, to further investigate the mystery of the dead birds, and a botanist, to further examine the vines to ensure that they had not been sprayed with any banned substances.
When arriving at Pitt’s vineyard the first time, Horsfield had used one of her office’s Astras to make the trip. On this second occasion, knowing that the media were going to be in tow, and wanting to make her arrival more imposing, she had requested, and received, the office Jaguar.
The menagerie of government and media people emerged from the cars and stood in the shade or sun of a warm summer’s day. Jenkins had heard the pack coming up the driveway and was already walking down from the office, accompanied by Blain, the new right hand man.
Horsfield was playing the part of general as well as media facilitator – there would be no one else giving directions – and was establishing the best place to be standing in relation to the angle of the sun when the television cameras captured images of her first meeting with Pitt. She was annoyed that the television van had been unable to keep pace, and watched the slow walk of Jenkins towards them with some disappointment.
Already the photographers were starting to work. The farmhouse, the vines, the trees, the government enforcer standing beside her Jaguar. Daisy’s face appeared at the window, and two of the photographers got a wonderful ghostly image before she retreated out of sight.
Jenkins approached, nervous apprehension mixing with excitement. The media were converging on the vineyard and he was in charge. Slightly disappointed not to see the television cameras.
As he extended his hand to Horsfield, he suddenly wondered if Pitt had left him with a sinking ship. It had not occurred to him in the previous two days, it all happening so fast, and having been so taken aback by Pitt’s requests. Perhaps Pitt knew that everything was about to fold; perhaps he knew exactly why the birds had been dying, and, when they were found out, the vineyard would be closed down and the entire business would be ruined. Perhaps Pitt had made Jenkins captain of the Titanic, an hour after it had hit the iceberg.
Horsfield shook Jenkins’s hand, knowing that if the television cameras had been there to capture the moment when she stamped her complete authority on proceedings, she would have ignored it.
‘Mr Jenkins,’ said Horsfield. ‘You’ve been expecting us.’
‘Yes,’ said Jenkins, somewhat stiffly.
She turned and waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the members of the press, most of whom were standing around beneath the trees, hoping to be the first to spot a bird, so that they could puncture the story. The usual peculiar combination of wanting there to be a story, and wanting to debunk it at the same time.
‘The media got word of it, somehow,’ she said. ‘It’s a dreadful bore, but we get used to it.’
She glanced back down the driveway and was relieved to see the television van coming towards them. Jenkins, whose nerves had quickly begun to settle, once more found his stomach twisting.
‘Ah,’ said Horsfield, as if slightly put out by the arrival of television, ‘cameras. Oh dear. Well, we might as well wait until they get set up, or else they’ll just want us to do it all again. You know what they’re like. Fake everything.’
Jenkins turned and gave Blain a look. Blain was smiling. He was going to be on television and was quite happy about it. He’d already been working on his persona, and had decided to go for the cheeky, slightly flirtatious, good-natured soul who really knew far more about the wine business than people would be expecting. It would be a subtle but engaging blend of light and depth.
‘Is Mr Pitt out amongst the vines?’ asked Horsfield, casting a glance in that direction, but without really taking her eyes off the van as it approached and came to a stop. ‘Or is he in the house?’
She looked at the kitchen windows, thought she saw some movement. Presumed it would be the hired help; the one she’d had the phone call about.
‘Mr Pitt’s not here,’ said Jenkins.
‘What?’
She turned quickly. This trip, the television cameras, had been planned to revolve so much around Pitt. He was to have been a perfect foil for her quick-witted acerbity. The dour businessman made foolish by the cunning government inspector.
‘He’s coming shortly?’ she said, looking at Jenkins as if the very notion of Pitt not being there carried inordinate levels of impertinence.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jenkins. ‘I’m not sure where he’s gone, but he asked me to deal with you when you came, so I presume he won’t be here. Maybe he told Mrs Pitt,’ he added, indicating the farmhouse, and knowing full well that there was little chance of that.
Finally, Horsfield turned her back on the television van, as the cameraman began to unload his equipment.
‘That really is most unacceptable,’ she said. ‘I wanted to see the captain, not the cabin boy.’
The comment fizzed from her lips. Immediately she wished she’d saved it for the cameras, thinking it rather clever. Jenkins found that any excitement or discomfort at the presence of government inspectors disappeared.
She glowered at Jenkins, then turned and walked swiftly away to speak to the roving television reporter, who had just emerged from the van, a pair of sunglasses lodged in his hair.
‘Cabin boy,’ said Blain, smiling, and tapping Jenkins on the arm.
‘What does that make you?’ said Jenkins without looking at him, keeping a firm eye on Horsfield.
Blain sighed, already thinking that this might not be as much fun as he’d been hoping.
‘Toilet cleaner, I expect,’ he muttered quietly.
Jenkins smiled grimly and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘It’s good that we all know where we belong,’ he said.
*
Some necessary questions had been asked off-camera, various set-ups and angles had been tried. Horsfield had suggested that really she ought to be the focal point of the story and Brian, the man from the BBC, had happily gone along with it, knowing full well that they could edit it how they pleased once they were back at the studio. An hour talking on camera to Horsfield coupled with thirty seconds on camera to Jenkins, could easily translate on transmission to thirty seconds talking to them both.
The intention was a short interview with Horsfield, with the vines as a backdrop, and then they would go roving through the vineyard, as the scientist and the vet searched for clues in amongst the vines.
A warm summer’s late morning, insects in the air.
‘Is this the strangest thing you’ve ever come across in all your years as a government enforcer?’ asked the man from the BBC.
It was Horsfield herself who had inserted the term government enforcer into Brian’s vocabulary. Brian, while wary of Horsfield as someone who clearly wanted the report to be about her, rather than him, had at least enjoyed the term and was happy to run with it.
‘Well, Brian,’ she began, as if about to deliver a football report on a Saturday afternoon, ‘I don’t know if I’d go that far. One comes across the most bizarre things in one’s line of work. Certainly, however, this dead bird assignment is very strange and quite unique.’
‘How were you first alerted to the problem? Is it true that you were called in by the vineyard owner?’
‘I’m not sure that you can say that. Rarely in this line of work does one come across helpfulness to any great degree. One does find oneself... finds oneself battling against forces that... against forces...’
She finally stopped, distracted by the persistent psst! from the soundman, whose name she had not taken the time to learn. She and Brian looked at him curiously.
It was Tony the soundman, who had been working for the BBC for over twenty-five years, who first heard it. Perhaps the microphone and the earphones he was wearing helped. Perhaps he was just naturally more attuned to hearing noises that seemed out of place.
This particular noise would not normally have been out of place on a warm day in an English summer beneath a small copse. However, these men had been brought here expecting near silence, and when they’d first arrived, that was what they’d had: nothing, but the sound of insects.
They stood quietly, straining to hear what it was that Tony could hear. Jenkins was first to catch on; he had almost been expecting it. Hadn’t Pitt said that the birds would return? Blain noticed soon after, picking up on Jenkins’s smile. Around the small group of pressmen and government inspectors the recognition grew.
The shrill whistle of a nuthatch. Only three of the small group of twelve actually knew the species of bird, but there was no mistaking the sound. There was a bird in the trees.
The camera pointed up towards the leaves, all eyes were raised to the trees or the sky. Horsfield had stopped talking; the man from the BBC had lost interest in her anyway. One of the reporters saw it first and pointed silently. Everyone looked. A small blue-grey bird with chestnut sides and a black stripe on its head.
‘Isn’t that a bird?’ said the BBC man.
Jenkins was smiling.
‘Well, no one said they didn’t get birds,’ said Horsfield shrilly. ‘It’ll be dead in a minute.’
The vet thought the bird looked fine, and it sounded happy. It was not whistling in any kind of distress. The soundman slipped his earphones back on to see if he could hear any other sign of birdlife.
‘Is that right?’ said the BBC man to Jenkins. ‘Is it about to die? You know, because it would be great if we could get an actual shot on camera of a bird dying. That would be terrific.’
‘That’s the shot you’ll get,’ said Horsfield.
‘Excellent,’ said one of the assembled press.
Jenkins laughed, but he was happy, not laughing at the conversation that was taking place.
‘What?’ snapped Horsfield.
‘Is it going to die?’ asked the BBC man. ‘Will it die? We will get that shot?’
Jenkins shook his head. He was looking up at the bird, smiling, thinking about Pitt and his extraordinary prescience, which he really did not believe had anything to do with any prior knowledge on what had been keeping the birds away.
‘We haven’t seen a bird here in six weeks. The dead ones were all at the beginning, and we never saw them alive beforehand. They must have been here already when it started.’
‘So what does that mean?’ asked the BBC fellow.
The soundman pointed up into the trees again, a little further to the left. They all stopped and listened, and now, quite distinct, was the peculiar chirrup of the great tit. One of the reporters groaned, muttered, ‘Bloody waste of time. Bloody birds all over the place.’
Horsfield stared angrily at Jenkins.
‘That’s a different bird,’ said the BBC man. ‘Really, what does it mean?’
‘The birds are back,’ said Jenkins. ‘The birds are back.’