When We Have Wings

by Claire Corbett

‘What was it?’ I said through my teeth.

  ‘She agreed to nurse the baby.’

  I blinked. ‘Nurse him,’ I said. ‘With milk, you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harper, ‘that’s exactly what I mean.’

  ‘How?’ I said.

  ‘The usual way.’

  ‘I mean, how—’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Harper, waving away the question. ‘A few injections. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I see. And you’d know which doctors are willing to do this?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. Assuming a doctor was involved at all.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest you would know any doctors unscrupulous enough to carry out this procedure on such a young girl without consent from parents or a legal guardian. And said legal guardian is, in this case, the government. In the person of the Minister for Child and Family Services.’

  What a pleasure to see the self-possessed Mrs Harper gape at me. She was so stunned she left it too late to try the outraged I don’t know what you’re talking about routine.

  I’d seen there were no Almonds in Pandanus and guessed Peri was a foster child, a ward of the state. Harper’s expression was telling me I’d guessed right. There were no parents to look out for the poor kid, to object to her being used as a milk cow. The absence of protectors in Peri’s life had made her useful to Harper.

  Harper paled, then reddened, but I was smiling; this was my first real break in this case.

  Harper recovered quickly and stood up. ‘I’m sure I’ve taken up enough of your valuable time today,’ she said, ushering me to the door. ‘Thank you so much for taking the trouble to speak with me. I wish you the best of luck finding that poor child. After all, that’s what matters, isn’t it?’

  As I left I wondered which poor child she had been referring to.

  Outside Little Angels, in the intensifying heat under the deep summer shade of mango and avocado trees, I checked my watch. Time was passing; it was now eleven am. At least I had something to show for my interview with Harper. I now knew which of my contacts to use in following the lead she had given me.

  I rang Cam but her number had been diverted to a co-worker. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the co-worker, ‘Cam’s unavailable today. Departmental business. She will check her messages at lunchtime.’

  I thanked the colleague and sent Cam a message.

  I stared at the fliers looping like swallows over and between the towers as I waited for my takeaway coffee from the Daedalus Cafe. The air vibrated with the rush of wings. A tour group appeared around the side of the roofless building in front of me, floating there in the middle of a concrete ravine, a flock of giant butterflies outlined in pinks and yellows against the dark buildings. As a gust of wind rattled the trees I could hear their startled shrieks of laughter as they were blown sideways.

  It was alarming to be around so many large flying creatures. Out of the corner of my eye I’d see a huge shape zoom past, hear the whirl of sound, and my heart would lurch, adrenaline surging into my blood before I could register the form as a flier. What ancient panic were the fliers triggering in me?

  I headed for my next interview, absorbing as I walked more of the strangeness that was Flierville, which was so much more overwhelming, even frightening, than I’d expected. Everywhere I looked, craning my neck till it hurt, I saw adaptations for fliers: landing platforms, open balconies and entrances high on the sides of buildings. These towers were half open to the elements, with enormous windows and double doors ajar so that the fliers could arrow directly into their executive suites. Did these towers even have lifts? Their occupants just flew straight to their floor. Maybe there’d be a solitary goods lift, powered by the solar collectors which made up the paint and glassy surfaces of these buildings. All towers had wind generators; the landing sites for the fliers were well away from these. I supposed tangling with even the smallest wind generator could be lethal for a flier.

  My stomach lurched at the sight of knots of fliers standing around casually on the edges of platforms and balconies without railings, like the one at Chesshyre’s house, sipping their coffee or tea and chatting forty, fifty, sixty storeys high in the air.

  An especially remarkable tower soared up ahead of me, dripping with greenery. It looked like a roofless weathered ruin crumbling unevenly back to the ground, its sides streaked with verdigris and start- ling veins and smudges of gold. I’d thought using metal-fixing bacteria to grow a patina of real gold on your tiles or roof was vulgar but I was wrong. Here were architects who knew how to use them. The deep glow of its green and gold was as pleasurable to the eyes as a pure hit of coffee or chocolate is to the tongue. This was the Newater building, built two years earlier by Kohn Chesshyre Li.

  A young flier passed me, heading for the Wings of Desire salon on the ground floor of the Newater tower. Meeting Avis should have prepared me for the sight of this virtually naked yet chic woman, clad only in a few bits of strategically placed fibre, who stopped abruptly at the salon door and fished out a comb. Right there she preened her wings, as she might have freshened her lipstick. As she twisted to get at some hard-to-reach feathers, the muscles of her arms and back moved under her skin.

  Only fliers were dressed, or rather undressed, in this way. The luminous skin around me was not titillating, because there was no trace of shame or its twin, brazenness. They were not daring you to look; they were as oblivious as statues. In naked Majesty seem’d Lords of all . . .

  Other fashionable young fliers were entering Wings of Desire, which looked both clinical and luxurious with its hard pale surfaces smeared with brilliant drips and sprays of colour. Clients settled into reclining chairs and unfolded their wings, draping them over padded frames so that the technicians could get to work. One young woman with white wings perched as if carved from marble while each feather was outlined in sparkling dusts by a crowd of attendants wielding tiny airbrushes and pots of paste and powder. The process would take hours and by the end she would be spectacular. Perhaps she was a bride. An assistant bustled over and the dazzling smudges on the walls and floor were wiped up and brushed away.

  So this was the world Peri Almond had aspired to. According to Harper, she’d become a wet nurse in exchange for wings. She hadn’t exactly said that, I reminded myself. Careful, Fowler. Don’t jump to conclusions.

  The question nagged at me. Why would Peri take baby Hugo? Running away with Hugo did not fit with her desire to be part of this world. Understanding her motive was my key to finding her. Avis had twittered on about Wild fliers. Had the treatments turned Peri Almond Wild? I looked up ‘Wild fliers’ but the references I could skim quickly were anecdotal, mostly hearsay along the lines of ‘my neighbour’s brother-in-law disappeared after taking too much Zefiryn’. There were a few blurred images snapped from far away in failing light; the Wild appeared to colonise the same shadowy recess in the minds of fliers that Bigfoot traditionally laid claim to in the rest of us. I thought of the security footage, Peri’s pale, anxious face, the gentle way she stroked Hugo’s hair. She didn’t look Wild. Time to examine the next piece of my puzzle.

  Risky, going behind my clients’ backs this early in the game. It showed how little I trusted them.

  Dr Eliseev ran his fashionable practice with six other doctors in the largest building in Flierville, a soaring needle of a tower. Huge ice-blue letters glowed right down the side of the tower: Diomedea. Once inside Eliseev’s waiting room, I looked it up. Well, there it was, the biggest of the big pharma, working at the cutting edge of research on Flight. Of course Eliseev would work somewhere within its embrace. A slew of current articles swept across my slick, everything from technical journals describing clinical trials to mainstream news stories on improvements in treatments. The most recent was an item on upcoming hearings for the company as it sought listing on the pharmaceutical benefits schedule for a drug called Z
efiryn. I had no time to read more before I was received by Eliseev in his rooms.

  Eliseev, a non-flier like Harper, was younger than I’d expected, fit-looking, with thick fair hair fading to grey at the edges. Quite properly he wouldn’t tell me anything about his patients but his face went white when I told him Peri and Hugo were missing. He struggled for composure as he said, ‘They’ve told me nothing of this.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘They’re keeping it quiet.’ I kept my voice and gaze steady, not wanting to betray how curious I found his reaction. What I’d said had clearly upset him. Why?

  ‘I’ve been told Peri was used to wet-nurse baby Hugo,’ I said. ‘Would you know anything about that?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Eliseev snapped. ‘No responsible doctor would be party to a procedure like that on such a young girl.’

  ‘I presume you’re saying that you are a responsible doctor then?’

  Eliseev’s expression hardened. He stood up, obviously intending to cut the interview short but I didn’t cooperate. Instead I leaned back in my chair and gazed around his office, then entered a few notes into my slick. The worry lines on Eliseev’s forehead deepened.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about Peri’s transition to Flight while working for the Katon-Chesshyres?’

  He shook his head, still waiting for me to leave his office.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about fliers turning Wild, Dr Eliseev?’

  The lines on Eliseev’s face relaxed a fraction. He said, ‘There is someone you should speak to. I’ll give you contact details for Flight Specialist Dr Ruokonen.’ So this was his way of getting me out of his office. Offering me another, better doctor. A specialist.

  I tried once more. ‘Do you have any idea why Peri took Hugo? For god’s sake, at least tell me whether you think he’s in danger.’

  Again, Eliseev looked stricken. He said in a near-whisper, ‘I have no reason to think baby Hugo is in danger but speculation is pointless.’

  From Eliseev, that rated as a monologue. I ground my teeth: he knew something, he bloody well knew something, but he sure wasn’t telling me.

  He was at the door, waiting to usher me out.

  ‘Thank you, Dr Eliseev. You’ve been a great help.’ He looked rattled by that, as I’d intended. He hadn’t been any help and yet his behaviour, even more than Harper’s, convinced me the Katon- Chesshyres had something to hide. You’re just another lackey to the rich, I felt like snarling at him as I left. Just another tool like me and Harper, a little further up the pecking order, that’s all.

  Eliseev followed me out of his room. ‘Mira . . . Mira.’ He snapped his fingers at a middle-aged woman in a pink blouse at the reception desk.

  The woman looked up, startled. ‘Dr Eliseev?’

  ‘Dr Ruokonen’s details for Mr Fowler here. Schedule two fee.’ Before the woman, Mira Kahdr according to her security tag, had time to respond, Eliseev disappeared back to his room. Mira held out her hand for my slick. Eliseev was extracting his revenge, I supposed, by charging me for a long consultation. Too bad. That expense was going straight back to Chesshyre.

  Mira’s lips set into a line. Was Eliseev’s rudeness habitual? I’d assumed he was taking out his annoyance with me on her. Sometimes it was useful to pressure people like him, especially when they were used to respect.

  ‘Good day so far?’ I said.

  Mira looked up, rolled her eyes.

  ‘Guess it’ll be a long one,’ I said.

  ‘Always is,’ Mira sighed. ‘Probably till nine or so.’

  ‘Dr Eliseev works long hours, eh?’

  ‘Well, you know fliers. Busy people. Here you go.’ Mira smiled briefly as she returned my slick.

  I stared at a small personal slick near Mira’s work screen, cycling through images of a girl with two long plaits. Eleven, maybe twelve, wearing an expensive-looking maroon and gold uniform. What sort of sacrifices was Mira making to send her there? I made a mental note of the uniform colours, the motto on her badge. Per Ardua ad Astra. Jesus, show me a school that didn’t have a variation on that motto.

  ‘Your daughter?’ I said. Mira nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s hard working long days when you’ve got kids.’ I pulled out my slick, leaned over and showed her a photo of Thomas. In spite of herself, she looked.

  ‘Sweet,’ Mira said. ‘You’re seeing Dr Ruokonen about him?’

  ‘Yes.’ As soon as I’d said it, it became true. Ruokonen would be my expert guide to the world of Flight, useful not merely for this case but also in my dilemma over Thomas. ‘Is she any good?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mira. ‘The best.’

  There was one more person I needed to see in the centre of the City.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Henryk as if he’d found that elusive parcel bomb he’d been searching for. I followed him into his old police station, a heritage-listed stone confection with crenellated roofline sitting on the edge of the other CBD, the non-flier one situated around Central Lines. Just spending the morning in Flierville had recalibrated my vision, making the rest of the City look shabbier. Usually I didn’t even notice the kampungs of plastic sheeting and packing cases cobbled together under the light-rail stanchions but now they impressed themselves on me as if I was seeing them for the first time.

  As I mounted the steps into the station, my eyes still on the kampung, I saw a woman in a suit usher her neatly uniformed daughter beyond the periphery of the slum and vanish into its depths. You didn’t get to live in this kampung, also called Central Lines, without a good job. These were the aristocrats of the slum-dwellers, with valid work permits and even permanent residency.

  Central Lines would be so easy for a runaway to disappear into but then it struck me I was still not truly imagining Peri’s situation—the thought hit me with such force that I pulled up short for a second. Of course. I’d been thinking of Peri’s wings as a complicating factor in the case but now I realised they were the biggest advantage I had. Yes, Peri could fly, but the one thing she could not do was be inconspicuous. She could not disappear easily anywhere in the City and she could not melt into the kampungs or Edge City at all.

  Henryk, walking ahead of me into the cooler stone corridor of the station, looked tall and hard-edged in his funereal suit, his dark hair cut more precisely than usual, every line more distinct against the world. He looked tired, older since I’d last seen him, the frown lines between his eyes suddenly permanent.

  ‘Haven’t seen you since your last promotion,’ I said. ‘Superintendant. Local Area Command. I’m impressed.’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ said Henryk. ‘That just means my persecution comes from a higher place. Never realised how much wear and tear Deakin used to save me. Thought he was such a prick when I was but a humble crime manager. So, to what do I owe the honour?’

  ‘Ha,’ I said. ‘Looking sharp despite that Crown of Thorns. How are you?’

  ‘My Crown of Thorns is regulation. Standard issue and up to code, thank you. I look like an undertaker because I’ve spent the morning waiting to be hauled into the minister’s office for ritual castration, along with no fewer than two assistant commissioners and the deputy. I work for the force. How bad could I be? I need a decent tenant for my investment property and a long holiday.’

  The undertaker crack reminded me. ‘I’ve got a good one for you,’ I said. ‘Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.’

  Henryk smiled. ‘Yes. This existence of ours—transient as autumn clouds. A lifetime is a flash of lightning in the sky. Rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain.’

  It was our old game, a grim game we’d played when we’d been cops together. Find as many sayings about death as you can. Death is always standing right there, just behind your left shoulder. I guess like so many cops and doctors we’d hoped a jocular familiari
ty with death would take some of the sting and terror out of proximity. Can’t say it worked for me but Henryk favoured the Zen approach so maybe it helped him.

  ‘Yes, it is, my life is definitely rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain. Henryk, I need a favour.’

  ‘Of course you do. When else do I ever see my ex-colleagues?’

  I ignored that jibe as I always did and followed Henryk into his office.

  ‘Speaking of which, how’s Wilson?’

  ‘Loving the freelance life,’ I said. Wilson was an IT technician who’d worked for us. ‘I don’t see him. No-one sees him. I don’t even speak to him. He never leaves his room. I just message him when I need him.’

  ‘Boy’s a bloody hikikomori,’ said Henryk. He sat down. ‘I can grant you one wish. And ten minutes. Use them well.’

  He took out his slick, looked at a message, put it away. Almost immediately he took it out again, put it away again.

  ‘Urgent?’

  ‘Every second of every day.’

  I thought of Sunil calling me early Sunday morning: twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, mate. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ I mimed hammering a nail into a cross.

  Henryk laughed. I came around behind his desk and looked over his shoulder at his screen. Messages rolled in for him without pause. ‘Jesus wept,’ I said. ‘Would you see if there’s anything on a Peri Almond? Especially in relation to a nanny agency called Little Angels. Can you cross-reference with CaFS yet?’

  Henryk made a face. ‘Sure I can. And look, there’s a pig flying past my window right now.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s a no.’

  Henryk almost smiled. ‘Nearly got you. Theoretically, with permission we can access CaFS records, but in practice it’s usually not worth the trouble.’

  As Henryk spoke he searched databases I could not access. I outlined the case. When I described the footage of Peri fleeing with Hugo he raised his fine dark head and narrowed his eyes. ‘Hope you know what you’re doing, Zeke. Shouldn’t you hand this over to us?’