A Pitying of Doves (30 page)

L
auren
Salter was waiting at the gate. She hurried over. “We have a situation, sir. It's Danny — Sergeant Maik. He's been injured. We don't know how badly. We have a car waiting. We have to go now.”

Without waiting for an answer she began sprinting through the concourse, passing the startled travellers. Jejeune kept pace easily, Lindy, too, with her lithe athlete's stride.

Salter's police car was parked at the doors of the terminal, lights spiralling their warning to everyone. She drove fast. As the outskirts of London sped by and they headed toward the city proper, Lindy heard only snippets of the conversation in the front seat. Salter, eyes locked on the road, answering only what Jejeune asked, wanting to give him the complete picture, but afraid to let her mind wander over what exactly the complete picture might be, the horrors it might hold. Instead, she put her emotions into her driving, speeding the car through the labyrinth of London streets until they reached their Mayfair destination.

She pulled sharply up to the curb outside a white building with delicate small-paned windows, four storeys high. Other police cars were already there, ambulances too. Even a fire engine stood at the ready, its long ladder primed for use. The narrow street was barricaded at both ends. Uniformed officers in yellow coats shepherded onlookers to the far side, where a small but growing crowd was gathering.

For a second, Lindy thought she detected a slight hesitation before Domenic reached for the door. But Salter wasn't waiting. Danny was inside, and he was injured. That was enough for her. And then, suddenly, Jejeune was out of the car, too, disappearing from sight through the elegant doorway. As Lindy tried to follow him up the steps, only to have her way politely but firmly barred by a uniformed officer, she knew that the thing Domenic had feared throughout their flight awaited him here, on the other side of these doors to the Mexican Consulate.

T
he morning sun was still low in the sky over this part of West London, painting long shadows on the ground far below. But no one on the rooftop was taking in the view. It was the scene before them that held all their attention, the same scene that had stopped Jejeune and Salter literally in their tracks as the doors of the service lift had opened.

At first glance, it seemed to be a wire aviary. At least that was what Jejeune had taken it for, a large cage, slightly hidden behind the massive air conditioning unit on the roof. But then he saw the transformer and generators inside, and he realized it was a safety cage, a perimeter of wire fencing encompassing an auxiliary power supply, one that ensured the Mexican Consulate would have electricity to run emergency services if the mains supply was ever interrupted accidentally. Or otherwise. The entrance gate of the cage appeared to be locked by a handcuff bracelet. There were two figures inside the cage. One of them was slumped on the floor, attached to the other handcuff bracelet: Danny Maik.

“You have come, Inspector. This is good. Now it is time to end this matter, I think.”

Efren Hidalgo's voice was weary. He looked dishevelled, his immaculately groomed hair tousled by the wind up here, his open shirt torn and stained. On the floor of the cage at Hidalgo's feet, Jejeune could see a pool of dark fluid. He saw a deep gash on Maik's slumped head, the hair around it matted and wet. A sharp intake of breath at his side told him Salter had seen it, too.

“You have done brilliantly, as they say in this country. Unfortunately, however, it has brought us to this.” Hidalgo looked around the small cage and gestured helplessly with his left arm. He was holding something in his right hand, dangling by his side, but Jejeune couldn't see what it was. Maik looked like he might be conscious, but if so, he wasn't making an attempt to get up. He was still sprawled on the floor of the cage, his left arm extended up awkwardly to the height at which Hidalgo had handcuffed it to the wire gate. His face was bathed in the blood from his wound. There was a lot of it.

Salter and the other policemen on the roof had begun to stir. Previously frozen, it was as if they had become emboldened by Jejeune's appearance, somebody who could talk to this person, engage this madman who was locked in a cage with a police sergeant he had handcuffed as his prisoner. Holland and two other officers began to move stealthily, ready to take up strategic positions. But Jejeune saw Hidalgo's eyes flicker toward them and he stilled their movements with a gesture of his hand.

“I think there is no way for us to resolve this situation, but I would like us to talk for a while.” Hidalgo gestured around at the rooftop. “I do not think either one of us can have anything more pressing.”

Jejeune said nothing. He had used Hidalgo's speech to make his way slowly toward the cage. He stood before it now, looking in. At the back, on the floor behind Hidalgo, tucked under a low concrete shelf, Jejeune could see a small cage with two birds in it.

“My sergeant needs emergency medical treatment, Counsellor. You must allow us to come in and help him.”

Hidalgo's eyes reflected his inner sorrow. “I am sorry for the injuries your sergeant has suffered. I did not intend to harm him. This you must believe. I added a sedative to his water bottle. It should have rendered him unconscious for the short time I needed. But he saw that I had come up here and, drugged as he was, he followed me. I did not know if he had seen the birds, but I could not take the chance.” Hidalgo shook his head sadly. “Even after I had struck him, he somehow found the strength to lock the gate with his handcuffs and throw the keys outside.” He looked down at Maik. “Your sergeant, my Ramon. I wonder, Inspector, do we deserve the loyalty of men such as these?”

Jejeune looked at Maik, too. Men like this knew better than to offer their loyalty to people. It was to ideals that they stayed loyal; ideals of fairness and truth and justice. He could see the handcuff keys lying on the ground just outside the cage. There would have been a second blow, he realized, to subdue Maik further, to allow Hidalgo to fasten the other end of the handcuffs onto his wrist. Two blows, it explained the amount of blood. But Jejeune couldn't see the second wound. And that worried him.

Suddenly, Salter burst forward, ready to make a grab for the keys, but Jejeune put an arm out to stop her. He could see the heavy wrench lying on the floor at Hidalgo's feet. But it was the weapon in Hidalgo's right hand that had the DCI's attention.

Hidalgo raised the loose cable he had been holding down by his side. It writhed and spat like an angry serpent, sparks flying from it as the electricity arced toward a metal plate, hissing as they burnt out. “I will, of course, not allow anyone to touch those keys, or approach the cage. When this ends, it will do so as I decide. You will allow me this, I think.”

The cable writhed in his hands again, and his meaning was clear. One touch against the wire fence and four hundred kilovolts of electricity would course through Danny Maik's body.

“My sergeant needs medical treatment, Counsellor,” repeated Jejeune. “There can be no discussions of any kind until he receives help.”

But Hidalgo was in some other place, not listening, merely regarding Maik with his sad, sorrowful eyes. “I asked only for ten minutes of privacy, but he said your instructions were that I should never be left alone. This was when I realized that you knew. After that, it was simply a matter of waiting, was it not, Inspector? Waiting to see who would give in first, who would care most about the welfare of the birds.”

Hidalgo spread his hands, the cable missing the fence by a hair's breadth. He didn't seem to notice, or perhaps care. “So intelligent, Inspector, leaving me no alternative but to relinquish my diplomatic immunity in order to save the doves. I was quite sure you would relent, that you would not be willing to sacrifice the life of these birds, to starve them to death, to force my hand. But as it got later and later, I realized I was wrong. I had misjudged your priorities. Your commitment to your profession was stronger. I do wonder, though, could you have lived with the idea that you had been responsible for the deaths of two such important birds?”

Salter stirred. She needed to get to Danny, to save him. If Jejeune could not do it through talk, she would do it by action. She tried to judge the distance to the keys, calculate the time it would take to get to Danny, unlock his handcuff, save him.
Too long.
She needed Hidalgo away from the fence. Jejeune was approaching the cage now, closer, more purposefully. Had he realized it, too? Was he working toward a distraction?

“Close enough, Inspector. I am sure you will have the good grace to spare me the details of how you discovered my guilt, but please permit me to ask one thing. How long have you known? It is strange. The idea that you knew I was lying when we spoke distresses me almost more than anything else.”

Politicians and diplomats,
thought Jejeune. Getting caught in lies seemed to be the biggest sin of all.

“After our walk around Regent's Park,” said Jejeune, “the second time. You stopped at all the same spots. You were looking in places where you had seen things before: Chiffchaff, Smew, Ring Ouzel; birds you had recorded in
your
guide. You couldn't help yourself. It's a birder's reflex. We follow the same routes, check the same places. I compared the places we stopped with the sightings you had listed. They all matched.”

“Such a small thing,” said Hidalgo quietly.

But enough, the watching officers knew. Enough to get Jejeune looking in the right direction, to begin asking all those what ifs. And then, it was all just a matter of time. He was like one of those water dowsers, always twitching and twisting in the right direction, not perhaps heading straight for his target, but always inching ever closer, drawn inexorably by some primeval gift, as inexplicable and mysterious as the water dowser's craft itself.

Jejeune took another step toward the cage, and the four hundred kilovolts of death that Hidalgo held in his hand. The diplomat watched him carefully but made no move to raise the cable.

Salter stirred almost imperceptibly.
That's it, sir; you keep his eyes on you. So I can reach those keys and get to Danny, get him away from the wire, away from danger
. But she knew she never could. Hidalgo would touch the cable to the wire as much by instinct as anything else if she moved. She knew there would be no time. She couldn't leave Danny like this, at the mercy of a madman who had already declared he was going to kill himself, kill them both. But she couldn't save him either.

Salter readied herself to move, but it was Jejeune who took a final step forward. He extended his arms to his sides and linked his fingers through the chain-link fence.

Hidalgo hesitated, unsure what to do, the cable hanging loosely at his side. Jejeune locked his eyes onto Hidalgo's, knowing that he had to. If he let their gazes slip apart, even for a moment, it could mean death for all of them.

“Please step back, Inspector.” Hidalgo seemed on the verge of tears, his eyes watery, his lips trembling.

But they knew that Jejeune would never do that, Holland and Salter and the others. They knew Jejeune would never unfurl his fingers from the fence and step back to safety. Not while Danny Maik was still shackled to the same fence. He would stay there, his face inches from the wire, staring at Hidalgo, imploring him not to raise the cable, not to commit the one final act of madness, of despair, that seemed his only exit from this nightmare he had brought upon himself.

“I do not want to harm you, Inspector.” Hidalgo was almost weeping now, with frustration, with regret. “I have caused enough pain. There is no other way for me, or for this brave man here. It is the price we must pay for the situation we find ourselves in, the situation I have brought upon us all. But it does not deserve your sacrifice as well.”

He was close to the edge. Salter could see it. Surely, Jejeune must see it, too. Hidalgo gripped the fence with his own free hand now, the black, writhing serpent of the cable sputtering as the exposed terminals arced to the wire again. The act may not even be deliberate now. The slightest gust of wind could tug the cable, bow the wire fence. It would not matter. The result would be the same.

“If we die on this rooftop tonight, so will your dream,” said Jejeune quietly. “The birds will be taken away and given to a private collector, a petting zoo, somewhere, anywhere. Those doves will die in captivity, Señor Hidalgo, their precious, pure genetic material will be lost forever. But if we walk down from this place together, you and me and the sergeant, I give you my word I will not let that happen. I will make sure the birds go to a Socorro Dove captive breeding program, as you intended. They will contribute to the gene pool, strengthen it, and one day, their offspring will return to Socorro Island. That was what you wanted, wasn't it? To see the species reintroduced into the wild, to restore one small piece of Mexico's lost heritage. That's what all this has been about.”