Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(3)
He picked up five papers that lay on the ground next to the Nissan and deposited them within the car's glove compartment from which they'd no doubt originally come. He swung the hatchback's door closed, thinking, No need to be untidy about things. Then he approached the steep old concrete steps that led down to the beach.
At the top of these steps, Ian paused. Even at this hour, the sky above him was a bright blue dome, unmarked by the presence of clouds, and the North Sea was tranquil with the calm of summer. A fog bank lay like a roll of cotton wool far out on the horizon, serving as distant background for a fishing boat—perhaps half a mile off shore—that chugged in the direction of Clacton. A flock of gulls surrounded this like gnats round fruit. More gulls, Ian saw, were buzzing along the waterline at clifftop height. They flew in his direction from the north, from Harwich, whose cranes Ian could glimpse even from this distance across Pennyhole Bay.
Ian thought of the birds as a welcoming committee, so intent did they seem upon him as a target. Indeed, they approached with such mindless determination that he found himself giving more than idle consideration to du Maurier's story, Hitchcock's film, and Tippi Hedren's avian torment. He was thinking about beating a hasty retreat—or at least doing something to shield his head—when as a single unit the birds arced and dived at a structure on the beach. This was a pillbox, a concrete fortification from World War II from which English troops had watched and waited to defend the country from Nazi invasion. The structure had once stood on the top of the Nez, but as time and the sea had washed away the cliffside, it now sat on the sand below.
Ian saw that other gulls were already doing their web-footed tap dance on the pillbox's roof. From a hexagonal opening on this same roof, where a machine gun placement once would have stood, more birds entered and exited the structure. They gabbled and cawed as if in communication, and their message seemed to pass telepathically to the birds off shore, for these began to leave the fishing boat and to head towards land.
Their decisive flight reminded Ian of a scene on the beach near Dover that he'd witnessed as a child. A big barking brute of a dog had been lured out to sea by a flock of similar birds. The dog had been playing at catching them from the water, but they had been deadly serious, and they'd circled farther and farther out into the sea until the poor animal was a quarter mile from the shore. No one's shouting or imprecations had brought the dog back. And no one had been able to control the birds. Had he not seen the gulls toying with the dog's ebbing strength—circling above him just out of his reach, cawing, approaching, then darting away—Ian would never have thought it reasonable to conclude that birds were creatures with murderous intentions. But he saw it that day, and he'd believed it ever since. And he always kept a respectful distance from them.
Now, however, he thought of that poor dog. It was obvious that the gulls were toying with something, and whatever that desolate something was, it was inside the old pillbox. Action was called for.
Ian descended the stairs. He said, “Hey, there! I say!” and he waved his arms. This did little to deter the gulls that bobbed on the guano-streaked concrete rooftop and flapped their wings minaciously. But Ian wasn't about to be put off. The long ago gulls in Dover had got the better of their canine pursuer, but these Balford gulls weren't about to get the better of Ian Armstrong.
He jogged in their direction. The pillbox was some twenty-five yards from the foot of the steps, and he was able to build up a fair amount of speed in that distance. Arms waving, he descended on the birds with a yowl, and he was pleased to see his efforts at intimidation bear fruit. The gulls took to the air, leaving Ian alone with the pillbox, and whatever it was that they had been investigating within it.
The entrance was a crawlhole less than three feet from the sand, the perfect height for a small seal to wriggle through, seeking shelter. And a seal was what Ian expected to find when he himself duck-walked through the short tunnel and emerged in the gloom of the pillbox's interior.
Cautiously, he stood. His head brushed the damp ceiling. A pervasive odour of seaweed and dying crustaceans seemed to rise from the ground and to seep from the walls. These were heavily embellished with graffiti, which at a glance appeared to be solely sexual in nature.
Light filtered in from embrasures, allowing Ian to note that the pillbox—which he'd never explored before this moment, despite his many trips to the Nez—was actually two concentric structures. It was like a doughnut, and an opening in its internal wall acted as access to its centre. This was what had attracted the gulls, and finding nothing of substance on the rubbish-strewn ground, it was towards this aperture that Ian moved, calling out, “Hello there? Anyone here?” without realising that an animal—wounded or otherwise—would hardly be likely to answer.
The air felt close. Outside, the cries of the birds rose and fell. As he reached the opening, Ian could hear wings flapping and webbed feet scuttling as the more intrepid gulls descended once again. This would not do, Ian thought grimly. He was the human, after all, master of the planet and king of all that he surveyed. It wasn't thinkable that a gang of hooligan birds could presume a dominance over him.
He said, “Shoo! Off with you! Get out of it! Get!” and burst into the open air of the pillbox's centre. Birds rocketed skyward. Ian's gaze followed their flight. He said, “That's better,” and pushed his coat sleeves towards his elbows to ready himself to deal with whatever the gulls had been tormenting.