Chapter 28
Alone at the kitchen table, with all the animals fed and occupied in their own pursuits – sleeping in the sun, or pecking for food – Julia decided that she would follow her excellent advice to Bob Jones and get a start on her own admin.
But her mind couldn’t focus. She kept coming back to all the unresolved questions about Basil Crow and Esmeralda Gray’s deaths.
The answer had to lie in the things that the two had in common.
But how did it all tie together? While Basil Crow was a man who had upset a few people, everything that Julia had heard and seen of Esmeralda indicated that she was well loved.
Julia thought back to the day she’d met Esmeralda, embarrassingly confusing her with Basil Crow’s ex-wife.
Julia blushed, remembering how she had followed Esmeralda into the bathroom to get a closer look and eavesdropped on her phone conversation, which she’d subsequently completely misinterpreted.
Her side of the conversation had sounded distinctly suspect.
‘Basil’s death doesn’t change the situation at all.
If anything, I have to be even more careful…
I’ve done my job…’ But it turned out she was talking to that birding charity about birds.
Birds.
It struck her that birds seemed to be something of a constant in this whole complicated situation.
They were considered in the environmental assessment, Esmeralda had mentioned them in a tense phone call, and Barbie Lincoln had been looking for rare birds when Julia had bumped into her on her walk.
It struck her that birds and their welfare were another thing that Basil and Esmeralda had in common.
It was not a robust connection, or a strong lead, to be sure.
But it was all Julia had, and she was going to find out if it took her anywhere.
Luckily, she knew exactly who to ask. She picked up her phone and hesitated, unsure of her next move.
She didn’t have Barbie Lincoln’s phone number, and besides, she barely knew the woman.
Furthermore, there was the problem that seemed to arise with some regularity: that the whole business of the murders, and the possible bird connection, was, in fact, none of Julia’s business.
She put the phone down on the kitchen table and went outside to think.
Jake, who had been dozing in the sun, stirred at the sound of the kitchen door opening.
He considered his options and then got to his feet, lumbering across the grass to greet her.
She patted his head distractedly while she thought about her own options.
What she needed was a coincidental meeting with Barbie Lincoln, she thought.
Fortunately Julia Bird was the master of manufacturing such meetings.
She remembered Barbie saying that she worked three mornings a week from home, and did her volunteer bird counts on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
Today was Tuesday. Julia looked at her watch.
It was ten o’clock. The world seemed to be aligned in such a way that she could nip out to the woods and see if she could spot Barbie bird-spotting.
‘“Spot Barbie bird-spotting” – try saying that three times fast,’ she said to Jake.
He didn’t. But he did fix his eyes on her, waiting to see if there was an outing in the offing.
‘All right, you can come. We’ll have a little walk.
But you might need to be a good boy and wait quietly while I talk to Barbie. ’
Jake was not one to sweat the details. The word ‘walk’ was enough to send him dashing for the door.
Julia’s binoculars resided in the games cupboard, next to the Scrabble box and the backgammon set.
It shamed her that this would be only their second outing since she’d bought them a year ago.
The backgammon and the Scrabble had been likewise languishing unused since Jess’s last visit from Hong Kong.
Perhaps they, too, would be put to use before long.
Jess would soon finish her degree and a visit would be on the cards.
She might even move back to England to live.
With the binoculars on the passenger seat of the car and Jake in the back seat, she set off on a search mission of her own.
Except she wasn’t looking for birds, she was looking for a birder.
Having parked the car, she slung the binoculars round her neck, attached Jake to a lead and walked into the woods, heading for the place where she’d seen Barbie on Sunday.
She stepped quietly, and listened to the bird song.
As her ear attuned to the sounds, she began to distinguish between the peeps and the squawks and the pretty trills.
She heard her own footfalls, and the sound of Jake’s paws padding on the path.
It was wonderfully calming and meditative, the sun dappling through the trees, and not a human-made sound to be heard.
Julia took her binoculars out of their case, brought them up to her eyes, and took a look around.
She could see nothing but blurry blobs of green and brown and blue.
She fiddled a bit with the central ring and managed to sharpen the blobs into something resembling trees.
A bit more fiddling and she could see the trees quite clearly.
She watched the leaves flutter and moved her binoculars left and right, hoping to see a bird. Not a single one appeared.
‘Hello, Julia.’
She’d been so much in her own world that Julia hadn’t noticed Barbie until she spoke, greeting Julia quietly. Julia put the binoculars down and looked up to see her a few feet away.
‘Oh, hello, Barbie,’ Julia said, keeping her voice low. ‘Are you looking for your rare bird?’
‘The Lesser Spotted Squawker. You can speak normally. I’ve been here all morning; I’m getting ready to leave.’
Julia saw that Barbie’s binoculars were back in their case, and she had a small backpack slung over one arm as if she was about to get going.
She took out a water bottle and had a sip. ‘It’s been a very exciting morning, though. Do you know, I think I might have spotted him?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. As I got here. It was only a fleeting glimpse, and I couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure. Too quick for a photograph, unfortunately. I’ll need to see him again to be certain, but they are so shy. I’ve been here two hours and no further sign of the bird.’
‘Barbie, what does it mean if you do find the birds for sure?’ asked Julia.
‘Well, there have been definite sightings. So at this point, we’re trying to get an idea of exactly where they are and how many.
Then we know what to do to protect them.
Birders for Britain is only a charity organisation; we have no official jurisdiction over anything.
We report all our findings to the environmental authorities.
It’s up to them to decide whether other action needs to be taken. ’
‘Like what sort of thing?’
‘Well, they might take steps to protect their habitat. Even control development in certain areas.’
‘If the Lesser Squawking Spotter—’
‘The Lesser Spotted Squawker,’ Barbie said with a smile, taking a last gulp of water and putting the bottle away.
‘Right. If the Lesser Spotted Squawker was found in a new area, might the environmental agencies take steps to protect it?’
‘Yes. They’ve even stopped development in some instances if there is even a suspicion that the bird is there.’
Julia’s heart raced. She knew that she had stumbled on something important. ‘Barbie,’ she said. There was a slight tremor in her voice. ‘Is the meadow in Berrywick one of those sites, by any chance?’
‘No,’ said Barbie, dashing Julia’s belief in her discovery. ‘The Lesser Spotted Squawker isn’t a meadow bird. It only lives in more wooded areas. That’s why it’s been so hard-hit. The habitat is very specific and under threat.’
‘Do you know which of the sites where the birds might be are proposed for development?’
‘Gosh, I can see that you really have taken an interest in these birds.’
‘Yes, well, I am interested in birds and nature. And, to be honest, I knew Esmeralda a little, and had some… acquaintance with Basil Crow, and the birds were important to them. I feel that everything is somehow connected to the birds.’
‘You mean the deaths?’ Barbie looked at her in surprise. ‘What could it have to do with the birds? They’re not violent birds! It’s the southern cassowary you’re thinking of…’
‘The what?’
‘Cassowary. A big, grumpy Australian emu-ish sort of thing, which isn’t found in Berrywick… thank goodness…’
Although intrigued, Julia stopped herself from asking more about this violent bird. Instead, she clarified, ‘It’s more a connection, not a suspicion of the birds themselves. I’m thinking aloud really.’
‘It’s true that the environmental officer was aware of this issue, and had undertaken to stop development where the birds are documented.
I’m simply a lowly volunteer with a pair of binoculars.
’ She swung the backpack round and hitched it up, ready to go.
‘I’d best be on my way. It’ll be time to fetch the twins before I know it. Bye, Julia.’
‘Bye.’
Left in the woods with Jake and the birdsong for company, Julia thought about what Barbie had told her.
The environmental officer – that would be Esmeralda – had been aware of the possibility of these rare squawkers being in the area.
Julia thought about Esmeralda’s overheard phone call.
It would seem that Basil had been the one to first raise the alarm about the birds.
Barbie had implied that the presence of the birds could bring a development to a standstill, potentially losing someone a lot of money.
And money, Julia knew, made people do very strange things.
Her instinct was to phone DI Hayley Gibson, but as she held her phone in her hand, fingers poised to make a call, she got cold feet.
What new information did she have, really, to offer the busy detective?
If she could only find out which of the development sites might have the squawkers on it, she could give Hayley something useful to work with.
And – it must be said – make sure she really was onto something, and wasn’t going to end up looking silly.
It was bad enough having to say the word ‘squawkers’ endlessly.
It was one of those words that sounded increasingly ridiculous the more you said it.
Squawk, squawkers, squawking… Julia remembered that she’d heard someone else say those ridiculous words recently. Overheard, in fact. Who was it? Julia closed her eyes for a moment, replaying the memory.
It was Mrs Murdoch! Julia had gone to look for the bathroom when she’d heard her talking on the phone.
Julia had assumed she’d been talking about humans complaining – squawking – but now that she thought about it, Mrs Murdoch, owner of Murdoch Enterprises, the property development company, might have been talking about the rare birds.
It was all starting to almost add up. She needed a few more bits of information – specifically, which properties Murdoch Enterprises was developing, and whether any of them were potential habitats for the Lesser Spotted Squawker.
She knew exactly who to call first. Someone who knew his way around the administration and record-keeping of the village and the county, from the zoning applications to the court records. And everything in between.
She dialled Jim McEnroe’s number.