Curtis took Claudette’s hands in his. “Listen, I am so glad you told us about Dux. It means they will have no reason to hold Mistle any more. Can I ask you another question?”
“Yes, but hurry. Yang will soon come back and terminate our conversation. We are never allowed to talk to others for long.”
“Do you know where they send the women who get pregnant at Xlesky Street?”
“I heard about your success,” she said, smiling. “Congratulations.”
Curtis looked at her pleadingly. “Where do they go?”
“To several different houses on the mainland, either in the country or in the city. Some are even sent overseas. But I know you’re asking about 17, aren’t you?”
“How did, oh never mind. Yes, I am, Claudette. I want to know where she is.”
“We are forbidden to disclose that side of the business. You have fulfilled your contract.”
“I know all that, but please tell me. I’m half-Human and I have feelings. She’s carrying our child.”
“We are taught that the child in the womb is a Ryxin child, no more and no less. You have no claims, Curtis.”
He couldn’t believe Claudette had been brain-washed so thoroughly. “But surely it won’t hurt for me to know? I want to see her.”
Just then the sound of a door being slammed shut somewhere in the house startled them.
“It’s Yang,” Claudette said. “Listen, I’ll tell you, but please don’t ever say it was me. I could be disappeared for telling you.”
“I won’t say anything. Hurry, tell me.”
They heard footsteps approaching.
“It’s at 105 Lenixx, about a ten-minute walk from Xlesky Street. 17 would have been taken there, and she’ll be sent back to Xlesky Street to get pregnant again once she’s given birth. The Lenixx Street house is surrounded by a very high electric fence.”
They all listened as Yang came closer down the hall. “Your time is now up, Mrs Peace,” she called. “The Master is coming to see you today and will be here in about ten minutes.”
Claudette looked frightened again. “Thank you, Yang, I will go and get ready.”
Curtis fished the listening device out of his boot and placed it back under the vase.
“Goodbye, Claudette. We’d like to come and see you again. Can we do that?”
“Yes, please come back,” she whispered. “I want to get out of here.”
CHAPTER 28
“I’d like to buy some peppermints,” Curtis said as they rounded a corner and came upon a small group of shops.
They had just left the ferry terminal after a rough crossing to the mainland. The decision to find the Home for Single Mothers at 105 Lenixx Street had been made at six that morning after they had both risen early and found themselves in the kitchen at the same time, thirsting for black, sweet coffee.
There were people everywhere, coming and going, cars stopping, and doors slamming.
“There’s a dairy just here,” Janux said and they both went in, almost colliding with a woman coming out pushing a pram.
“Hello, Curtis,” the woman said and he stopped dead. Janux could have sworn his face had turned into a white paper mask, the change was so sudden.
“Marzy, how are you?” he stammered and looked down into the pram.
“I’m fine,” she said. “This is my boy, Sam.”
Curtis didn’t respond and Janux was aware of the tension in the air. It was as if time had stopped and the three of them stood there silently, doing nothing for what seemed ages but was really only a few seconds.
“He’s a fine boy,” Curtis finally said as a tall man appeared out of nowhere. He looked brutish, with arm muscles like tree trunks blowing up the arms of his tee shirt.
“C’mon, Marzy,” he demanded gruffly. “We’re running late.”
Curtis’s eyes were fixed on Marzy’s face. Janux was alarmed at how stricken he looked.
When they finally left the shop with two packets of extra strong peppermints they stopped to tear open one of the bags.
“I can’t believe how Marzy has changed,” he said, shoving two peppermints into his mouth.
“She looked as if she had seen a ghost when she realised it was you,” Janux said, really concerned at the intensity of the encounter.
“She probably had. I had to reinvent myself after she left, and remodel my heart.”
“Hey, I didn’t know you then, but you know what? I have the same problem. Just who am I now?”
“Yeah, which brings me back to reality. Just why are we going to Lenixx Street today?”
Janux had been thinking the same thing. “Your baby, remember? This baby really is yours and you want to know what’s going to happen to it, right?”
“But hold on a minute. You’re my client and it’s your case we’re supposed to be working on. For Kieran’s sake, tell me where I went wrong.” Suddenly Curtis felt totally useless. He wasn’t being fair to Janux, who was after all his client - and more importantly his first ever client.
By now they had reached Lenixx Street. Janux fished out her map.
“I’m trying to think of a way of getting in.” Curtis took out his hip flask and had a long drink. “I plan to come back at night and climb over the wall.”
As they lingered near the entrance there was a low growling sound.
“Dogs,” Janux whispered. “More than one.”
Curtis studied the thick, solid looking wooden door at the entrance. There were no windows in either the door or the walls. The whole place was like a barricaded fortress. He looked to the top of the wall and saw spikes, and thin, almost invisible wires - no doubt electrified as Claudette had said.
“I want to see 17 to find out if she’s okay,” he said, suddenly going up to the door and hammering on it. Nothing happened. He wanted to save their baby. Perhaps other fathers also felt the same way, hence the ultra security surrounding 105 Lenixx.
“Look, there’s a button. You have to tell them who you are and what you want,” Janux said.
Curtis obediently pressed the button. “My name is breeding mate 35 and I’ve come to see my breeding mate 17. I already have permission to see her.” He didn’t care if it was a lie.
A metallic sounding woman’s voice answered. “We have no numbers here. All numbers who come from RBP houses are immediately given a new name when they find they are going to produce a beautiful Ryxin baby.”
“Then please tell me her new name,” Curtis begged.
“I’m very sorry, sir, but that is not for us to know. They come here under their new name. We are not told what their former breeding number was. Please find out her name first and then we will consider whether or not you have visiting rights.”
There was a click and Curtis turned away. “They’ve thought of everything,” he said. “How am I going to find out 17’s new name?”
“At Xlesky Street?”
“No, Mrs Gortix is tighter than a clam. Those controllers are given orders not to divulge anything about any of the women who have been or are there now. It’s all business to them, believe me. There’s no emotion involved in the psyche of these people.”
On the ferry ride home Janux was unusually quiet. “Can’t you just forget about her?” she said.
“Forget who, Marzy or 17?”
“I meant 17. She’s not worth it.”
“She’s carrying my child. Let’s go to the Deer’s Antlers when we get back,” he said, walking away to gaze into the churning sea.
“I feel sorry for you,” Janux said.
“Don’t. I can handle this.”
“You know what?” she said.
“Yes?”
“Let’s at least get Mistle out of prison. She doesn’t have anyone else to care. Can’t you tell Siegfried?”
Curtis knew she was right. Siegfried was after all the Mayor of Muritai.
He asked her, “So what about Lion? Was he really the one who murdered Roscoe?” He watched to see what she really thought. He saw
her hands clench into fists. It was her turn for a churning stomach Curtis realised with a sense of satisfaction.
“I guess we’ll never know. Are you going to close the file on Roscoe now?”
“Of course not. The case isn’t yet solved and I want more than hearsay. My client deserves better than that.” She smiled at him then. “My assistant and I are still working on the case,” he added looking into her beautiful green eyes.
“Let’s go see the mayor then,” Janux said, steering him skilfully past the Deer’s Antlers as they walked to his car from the ferry terminal.
“Did you notice anyone familiar on the ferry?” Curtis asked.
“No.”
“One of the short-ass, muscle-bound pure-bloods we encountered at the beach.”
“On his own was he? They usually hunt in packs like the dogs they are.”
“I think he was following us.”
“Hey, brother,” a voice called behind them.
Curtis spun round, instinctively standing in front of Janux to protect her.
“I have a message,” the short man who’d been on the ferry said. “My name is Baxy. I’ve been sent by the Master to tell you not to try and see your former breeding mate. I’m talking about 17. Mrs Gortix passed on a message to the Master that you’d been sniffing around Xlesky Street trying to find her. No go, mate. You might as well give up now. That’s never going to happen. She’s Ryxin property now, and for the rest of her life she’ll be used to breed babies. You know the score, mate. But if you go near Lenixx Street again your life won’t be so easily spared. You better listen good. There won’t be no one to rescue you next time. We like to be entertained and you’d be fun to watch being roasted over a spit - know what I’m saying?”
“That’s quite a speech, but haven’t you forgotten something?” Curtis stood ramrod straight and stared into Baxy’s eyes. They were piggish, small, and hard as marbles. Baxy stared him down. “You’ve forgotten that I don’t listen to threats, especially not from weasels like you.”
Curtis and Janux both opened their car doors simultaneously and climbed in. Curtis revved the motor and sped off.
“Pig,” Janux spat and looked back. Baxy was standing watching them and laughing loudly. “Can we go home instead?” she said, reaching over and placing her hand over his on the steering wheel.
“Of course, my love - I’d do anything for you.”
CHAPTER 29
“There’s three of them now,” Janux said as they ate dry toast and drank sweet black coffee for breakfast next morning.
“Three what?” Curtis said, browsing through the Sunday paper.
“Three women, of course. There’s 17, who now has a new name which we don’t yet know. Then there’s Mistle and Claudette. Which one are we going to rescue first?”
Curtis munched his toast and considered a piece of news he was currently reading. The headline ran, RYXIN LEADERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST BAN ON INTER-RYXIN BREEDING. He poured himself more coffee and reluctantly bit into the dry toast. “We’d better go out and buy some groceries today.”
“So which woman do we rescue first?” Janux persisted.
“It’s not a matter of rescuing them,” he answered. “It’s thinking of all three as carriers of knowledge. Let’s think more about which one knows what we want to know.”
“About what?”
“Have you forgotten that we’re trying to solve a murder?”
“How could I? But why would any of these women know who did it?”
“Because any of them may have heard something, especially since they all live close to Ryxins. They are virtual slaves to them as well.”
“So you think one of them knows who the murderer is?”
Curtis didn’t answer, just stared as if into deep space.
Siegfried hated Human law concerning inter-Ryxin crime. It had first been introduced in the 1950s after the police were called to intervene in an alleged gang rape. The Human policeman and policewoman who raced to the scene had simply vanished and were never seen again. This was the third such incident and caused a strike in the police force. They refused to attend crime scenes until something was done.
But as time went by Humans saw that the law which protected the Human police force did not protect its Ryxin citizens, who had to endure burglary, rape, beatings and murder among their own kind with no recourse to justice. Human police took great pains to ensure that they only helped their own species but sometimes still got it wrong. It was getting harder to discern who their own species actually were and they often only found out afterwards. This led to disputes within the force, and fewer people coming forward to become police recruits. There was always an underlying fear of being vanished by a Ryxin when they went to a crime scene.
Because of these things many Humans had been pushing for a law change for some years now. Ryxin society was becoming ever more dangerous, more so because they knew Human law couldn’t touch them.
There were now three distinct Ryxin groups.
The pure-bloods - a group most feared by Human authority. They were secretive since their very existence meant their parents had broken the Human breeding law. They were also soulless.
The half-bloods, who had one Ryxin and one Human parent and were born with Ryxin traits. Many in this group felt unfairly targeted as being the same as pure-bloods when in fact they were half Human.
A smaller group known as neutrals. This group consisted only of males and their numbers were steadily increasing. So far there were no female neutrals – apart from those born of a neutral father and a Human mother - but the authorities weren’t concerned about this since they weren’t afraid of Ryxin women, who were known not to have the same genetic makeup as their male counterparts.
But even neutrals were still considered to be Ryxin until they fathered children of their own. If these children were also neutral then the whole family was officially cleared, and from then on came under the protection of Human law. Until then they were often treated like outcasts.
Neutrals were hated by Ryxins from the other two groups, and scorned as being the physically and psychically deficient spawn of the Human Breeding Plan. Fights often broke out in pubs and in the streets between neutrals and the other groups, and since no Human police would intervene the fights were carried to extremes while people cheered and Human police smugly ignored them.
Siegfried, being the Mayor of Muritai Island, was often called on to be a mediator in Ryxin-Human disputes because he was deemed to be impartial. And now he’d been asked by PI Curtis McCoy to intervene in the wrongful imprisonment of Mistle Onyx. The first he ever knew of Mistle was when her elderly parents died after their house caught fire in the middle of a winter’s night and Mistle, who was fifteen then, was found outside in the freezing cold. She told them about the fireplace in the bedroom and so it was assumed that was the cause. The rickety fire engine put out the fire in time to save the rest of the house, and so Mistle continued to live there alone until Sly came along and found her.
Now she’d confessed openly to committing murder, and even said why she’d done it. But Human law stated that inter-Ryxin crime, even murder, was not within Human jurisdiction. Mrs Duxton had been Ryxin, so Mistle had to be set free.
“Human law is an ass,” Siegfried said when Curtis phoned with his request.
“Yes, I know, but all the same…” Curtis might agree with Siegfried but he also felt empathy for childless Mistle who’d been treated so badly all her life.
“All right, but I’m not happy with this, not happy at all,” Siegfried said.
“So you’ll arrange for her release? She will still be punished you know. They will set up a committee who’ll decide what that punishment will be. It could be something worse than being in maximum security for twenty years.” Curtis didn’t really believe this but he hoped to convince Siegfried that he was doing the right thing.
“Are Mrs Duxton’s papers ready?”
“Yes, I have an original copy of her birth cer
tificate. She was definitely Ryxin. Her father was a descendent of the spacecraft pilot who brought the first Ryxins to Earth.”
“So it was the mother who didn’t like their daughter’s extra toes?”
“Apparently.”
“In that case Mistle’s release will take no more than two days. She will need someone to meet her at the prison gates and sign her release form. I presume her husband will need to be informed?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Curtis assured him. “Thank you, Siegfried.”
Siegfried put down the phone and silently cursed. This wasn’t the first time a criminal had to be set free because of that law. There were murderers walking the streets because of it and most people were unaware of it.
“What’s wrong, Poppa?” Jack said as he came into the kitchen.
“Human law’s what’s wrong, Jack. I’ve had to arrange for a known murderer to be released because she’s Ryxin and so is the woman she murdered.”
“Why don’t Humans change the law, Poppa? Everyone knows it doesn’t work any more.”
“I guess it takes a while to figure out a workable alternative.”
CHAPTER 30
Curtis saw the note propped up against the sugar bowl on the newly polished kitchen table. His heart plummeted as his mind flitted from Janux to 17 to Mistle, and then as always to Marzy. It had all begun with Marzy, his new career coming out of the ruins of his former life with her. He picked up the note.
Gone home to tidy up and see to the bees, Janux had written.
Respecting her need for space, Curtis refrained from sending her a telepathic message.
Sly Onyx and his friend, Baxy, were going to get Mistle from the prison today. Sly had already told him that Baxy would be guarding Mistle until they had formed a special committee to decide what kind of punishment she would receive. In the meantime she was to keep house and cook for him, Baxy and Zady Pentezek, Sly’s mistress, who was now living with him at Ngahere Road and would be there indefinitely. Poor Mistle, Curtis thought as he sat out on the back porch. There was more subordination and slavery in store for her, besides having to endure seeing her husband with another much younger woman.
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