Janeane stepped back, keeping her eyes fixed on Peri’s face.
I risked a look at Peri again, still only a few paces away from the sheer drop behind her. She settled her chestnut wings and I saw again the flash from their aquamarine undersides. Where the sun hit the feathers there were glints of purple. She was tall, straight-backed and tense, her bare arms powerfully muscled, but she held Hugo tenderly. Her dark hair, pulled into a ponytail, was as heavy and gleaming as polished wood.
‘Janeane says you’re alone.’ Her voice was husky, as if she’d been crying.
I nodded. This close I was struck by her eyes, large and dark brown, shadowed. With grief? Exhaustion? She looked very young and yet older than she should.
Hugo faced me. Kicked his legs. Gurgled. Baby Hugo appears healthy and well cared for, I noted mentally in my report for Chesshyre.
‘Hugo looks well,’ I said.
Peri didn’t answer. Twisted a silver ring on her right hand.
The red pup had worn himself out racing up the hill and now lay flaked out on the sun-warmed stones of the track, twitching a paw.
I tried again. ‘How are you, Ms Almond? Are you alright?’
Peri said, ‘So, if you’re not a cop, what are you?’
‘I’m a private investigator, Ms Almond, hired by Mr Chesshyre to find Hugo. You’re incredibly lucky that the police have not been involved. Yet. I can see Hugo’s safe and well and now the important thing is to return him to his parents.’
Peri said nothing, her face smooth and stubborn, wind ruffling her feathers. Not giving an inch. Precisely what fucking ace up her sleeve did this girl imagine she had? Maybe she really was nuts. Deep breath. Don’t lose your temper. I stared at Peri’s ring, a stylised gull, or maybe an albatross, too small to tell, moulded along the band. No surprise in that motif. Had she bought it when she got her wings, to symbolise her transition? Who else would give it to her? Not Chesshyre. Not his kind of thing at all. I thought of his insinuation. Did Peri believe she had a relationship with Chesshyre, some hold over him?
‘Look, Peri,’ I said, switching to her first name, ‘Mr Chesshyre understands you’ve made a mistake. He’s not looking to have you punished.’
Peri’s mouth twisted. She didn’t seem to think Chesshyre was being generous.
Annoyed, I pressed on. ‘I’ve seen where you came from, Peri, I’ve been to the Venice. I know how much you have to lose.’
Peri flinched, as I’d hoped. So did Janeane. ‘If you cooperate, you may even be able to keep your permanent City residency. The most precious thing you have.’
Peri glanced down at her wings. Well, fine then, her wings were more precious to her. ‘Peri, you cannot risk being prosecuted for this. You may even lose your wings if you’re convicted. Why did you run away out of the blue like this?’
Peri drew herself up, as if gathering her thoughts together with her posture. I sidled forward, half a step.
‘I had—I had to leave. I had no choice. Something happened and—and I had to take Hugo with me.’
‘What happened, Peri?’
Peri shook her head, backed away a half-step.
Then she was speaking again, very low. I leaned forward. ‘I—I knew someone. Another nanny. I found her dead.’
Janeane and I looked at each other.
‘Jesus, Peri! What?’ I said. ‘You found someone dead. Then you ran away?’
She nodded.
Janeane was white. Her rifle arm hung by her side, nerveless.
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. She was upset; told me she’d seen another nanny she used to know when she was a kid but couldn’t get the girl to talk to her. The girl pretended not to know her. So Luisa, that was my friend, Luisa Perros, said she was going to try and find out more about this girl. She asked me to meet her, said there were others. Then I—then I—’
‘You found her?’
‘Yes, washed up at Salt Grass Bay.’
‘You think she was killed. How?’
‘Implant. They can drop you out of the sky.’
‘How do you know that’s what happened?’
Peri sniffed, wiped her nose. ‘I know.’
‘What did she mean by others?’
‘Don’t know. Other nannies, I suppose.’
‘What’s so special about you?’
Peri looked away.
‘Who do you think killed her? If she was killed.’
‘I don’t know,’ Peri said, taking another half-step back. She stared at the ground. ‘I couldn’t leave him alone. In that house. I couldn’t stay and I couldn’t leave him.’
‘I can see why you were scared, Peri,’ I said. ‘No-one could blame you. Good grounds for leniency. We can fix this, Peri. We can fix this. It can all be alright and you’ll both be safe.’
‘They didn’t care for him,’ Peri said. ‘They were going to send him away.’
I stared at her. No, this was getting crazy. Please, Peri, don’t complicate it all now. It’s simple. You ran away because you were terrified, you took baby Hugo out of a sense of responsibility, didn’t want to leave him alone, let’s leave the story at that.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Peri. ‘You have to understand.’ Voice rising to that kid whine: it’s not fair. She took a deep breath, trying to shift back down. ‘Peter and Avis had no time for Hugo. Big surprise, eh? Busy successful people. Kissed him goodnight sometimes when he was brought out all clean after his bath. I told myself that would change as Hugo got older and he didn’t need me so much, you know, to feed him. But there was always some good reason why Peter and Avis were too busy for him.’ She paused.
The wind dropped a curl of hair over Hugo’s forehead. Peri brushed it away. Hugo grabbed her hand and laughed. Charming baby. A happy baby, by the look of him. Someone must love him. I swallowed, trying to get the dust from beating through the scrub out of my throat. Tom’s babyhood was fading. Hard to remember exactly what he’d been like at this age.
A cloud moved over the sun. No protection up here; wind tore clear over the cliff, ripping at everything, trees, sand, leaves, flapping our clothes, gusting so hard it was impossible to think.
‘Two weeks ago everything changed,’ Peri said, flicking her gaze from me back to Hugo. She unfolded a wing and shook it irritably, scratching at a spot as if something was biting her. ‘Some test results came back for Hugo. I wasn’t allowed to see them of course but Avis just lost it. It seemed like he wasn’t going to be a fledgling. No wings.’ The wind shook her, caught her unfolded wing, and she staggered, righted herself. ‘It was like Avis knew all along he wasn’t one of them.’
Peri started pacing, two steps to the side, then back to the middle of the track. Not good. She was winding herself up. ‘Imagine poor Hugo, growing up, learning to walk and talk and none of it’s exciting to them, none of it’s good enough. All he sees is how sad and worried he makes them. Day in, day out. That little life.’ Tears spilled down Peri’s cheeks as she stared past me, as if seeing scenes she’d witnessed in the Chesshyre house. She smeared the tears away with the back of her hand.
‘Then, three days ago, I heard Avis and Peter arguing. She said Hugo needed to be somewhere safe. They asked that cow from Little Angels to come over on the Monday. She was going to take Hugo away. Why else would she come over? She’d never come over before.’
Peri looked at me, challenging me, fresh tears running down her face. ‘She was going to send him away.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘If Hugo doesn’t grow wings, so what? Can’t they just add wings later, like they do with other people?’
‘M-m-maybe,’ said Peri. She was crying hard. Hugo was distressed, his mouth a wobbly O. ‘She said it was temporary. Till they could fix him. But don’t you see?’
A hu
ge gust shook the trees. Crack! Janeane jumped. ‘Fuck! That was too close.’ A big branch had fallen across the track a few metres below us.
Peri was screaming now and not just so I could hear her over the wind. ‘That makes it too late, don’t you see? It’s too late, it’s too late, it’s too late—’
Hugo was bawling and Peri was backing away from me, oblivious to the cliff; she wasn’t seeing me or the track or anything present. The wind flurried, almost knocking her down. Those huge wings, her greatest power, were now putting her in real danger.
No choice but to risk it. I sprinted forward and grabbed Peri’s arm. ‘Come on, it’s okay. It’s okay, come on,’ I soothed as I urged her away from the edge. What counted was my tone, could’ve recited twinkle twinkle little star for all the words mattered, like calming a trapped animal, like walking a kid through a burning house.
One step, two steps, keeping my pressure gentle, insistent, can’t drag her, she’ll rear back like a frightened horse, keep it steady, once she’s walking it’s easier for her to keep doing it, down here now, further down the track, now catch your breath . . . what I’d give to get out of this goddamn wind.
Janeane followed, keeping herself between us and the cliff edge.
‘You don’t feel safe in the City,’ I said, keeping my hand on her arm, ‘but you’re definitely not safe out here. Look, I can offer you two options. You and Hugo come back to the City with me and we sort all this out, investigate what happened to Luisa. You’ll be a witness, put away whoever did this to her. You’ll be safe. Keep your permanent residency. Or, if it makes you feel safer, give Hugo to me and I take him back. You disappear.’
Peri’s shoulders slumped, the image of a child shamed, defeated, but still she would not give in. ‘No.’
Oh god. What was going on here? Chesshyre had told me nothing about what I was up against and there was obviously more I didn’t know.
I dropped my hand from Peri’s arm and paced down the track a few steps. Janeane braced her rifle against the ground, stock down like a walking stick. I spun round to face Peri. She’d calmed Hugo, who was now yawning. A spray of grit from under my heel hit the pup, who woke up and struggled to his feet.
‘What are your options, Peri? You are not yet eighteen and you’re on the run having committed an extremely serious crime. Where are you going to live?’
Sullen now. ‘I have somewhere to go. I know what I’m doing.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘So you take Hugo from his family and you’re going to live on the run. Is that the best you can offer him?’
That hit home. Peri glared at me but the defiance was draining out of her.
‘You silly girl,’ Janeane said. ‘You’re returning Hugo. You know that’s what you have to do. PI’s given you a good defence, go with it.’
The pup barked. I jerked my head up so fast I gave myself a crick in the neck. Now was the time for a Raptor to strike. Now I’d found Peri, out here in the open, I’d guided it straight to her.
A flock of big white parrots flew overhead, their squawks sounding like I always imagined the shriek of some prehistoric creature would. ‘Awk!’ exclaimed Hugo. He pointed to the sky. Peri stroked his arm, oblivious to my anxiety. Pursuit by Raptor must not have occurred to her. She thought I was all she had to worry about.
‘You have to come back to the City with me,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Janeane. ‘Not with you.’
‘What?’ I said.
Peri, too, was surprised. ‘But you just said I should go back to the City, Aunty Jan.’
‘I did. You should. But not with him. Don’t hand Hugo over till you’re given reassurances about your own future. Once you hand the baby over, that’s it. They can do anything they like to you. As you’ve seen with your friend. Luisa. You need help and independent advice when you get to the City. I’ll give you a contact.’
Alright, well that just about fucking tears it. I’d thought I was close to victory and instead I was slammed into defeat. I have had enough of this. I was so angry I had to turn away, suppressing a strong urge to snatch Hugo and run like hell. If we weren’t near the goddamn cliff, if Hugo hadn’t actually been strapped to Peri in that baby sling, if Janeane hadn’t been carrying that fucking ridiculous old rifle and if I wasn’t scared she’d blast Hugo’s head off with it while trying to hit me, I would’ve bloody well done it too. The disadvantages of my not being a cop anymore were glaringly obvious. I was alone, I had no back-up, and there would never be any back-up.
I breathed deeply and bit the inside of my cheek. ‘Come back to the City with Hugo and get your advice then,’ I said, ‘but you have to give me a good result. I have to hand Hugo back to the Chesshyres soon or they’ll turn this case over to the police.’
‘No,’ said Peri. ‘They won’t.’ She unfolded her wings, drawing them right round her so they hid Hugo from view. She took a deep breath, as if she were about to dive into deep water. Janeane and I stared at her. ‘I know the real reason they haven’t gone to the cops.’
‘Ah?’ I said. ‘Why is that?’
‘What did Harper tell you about me?’
‘She said you went to work for the Katon-Chesshyres because you agreed to wet-nurse their baby. That’s how you got your wings.’
Peri’s eyes widened. ‘Huh?’ she said, then she almost laughed. ‘That’s good. You believed her?’
I shrugged.
‘Well, you don’t know anything about the price of wings, that’s for sure. The milk’s just one instalment. Do you want to know what the real cost was?’
I held my breath.
‘Might as well tell you now.’ Peri picked up a branch, snapped it. She looked harder, older, as she said, ‘I had to give them a child. I bore them a baby, their baby, and in return they gave me wings.’
Janeane gasped.
I gaped at her. ‘What?’ I was going to fucking kill Chesshyre for this. And then I was going to kill him again.
‘Yeah, big surprise, huh? Avis couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t, so I had one for them. Their genes, my body. So Avis can have a baby with no mess, no stretch marks, no pain, no waddling around, no months of not flying. Women fliers don’t like that, being grounded. Sometimes they never get back in the air, they say.’ Peri drew her wings away from her sides and tucked them behind her; she put her arms around Hugo, who had fallen asleep in the dark nest provided by her wings.
Janeane put her hand to her head like she was trying to stop it splitting open.
‘Bloody hell,’ I said. This changed everything. Again. It was one thing to look for a kidnapper, something else to take a baby from his birth mother. No wonder Chesshyre hired me. The pieces fell into place in my mind, slapping down hard like mah-jong tiles at the end of an all-night game. Bastards. Chesshyre, planting his lies about Peri’s ‘crush’ on him, worried she’d spill the beans, trying to get in first, discredit her. And strange little Avis in her skimpy costume with her taut belly that had bothered me so much and I hadn’t figured out why. That unmarked belly had never been stretched by carrying a child. And Eliseev, no wonder he’d been so bloody nervous, he’d probably engineered the whole goddamn thing.
What’s so special about you? I’d asked Peri. Now she’d told me. Had Luisa been special too?
The ruthlessness of it was breathtaking. Maybe they hadn’t actually set out to destroy Peri, taking a foster child and using her body to get themselves a baby and then keeping her on for the milk; they just didn’t fucking care what it did to her.
Janeane’s advice was now dead right. There were good reasons for Peri to take Hugo back to the City herself and seek legal advice.
Janeane still looked shell-shocked. I turned back to Peri.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘You used Hugo to get your wings.’
‘No,’ said Peri quietly,
not wanting to wake Hugo, but with a hard snap as she bit off each word. ‘It’s not quite like that. Without my wings, there would be no Hugo.’
I was seeing a different person from the frightened young girl I’d first met half an hour earlier. This girl, talking about the deal, was the tough child who’d survived the Venice.
‘Did you sign a contract for this deal?’
‘Don’t think so,’ said Peri. ‘There was so much going on—medical tests, waivers for the treatments and surgery—I’d be lucky to know what I signed.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But you were underage and thus unable to consent to such a deal and I can tell you for sure that your legal guardian didn’t consent to anything.’
‘What do you mean? What legal guardian?’
‘Stop,’ said Janeane, holding up one hand, her rifle in the other.‘This has gone far enough. You can continue this conversation in the City. Right now, I need you off my property. Folks around here can be a little nosy. The good Samaritan thing, cup of tea and a biscuit, help you with your car, send you on your way, we’ve just about run out of that cover story.’ She flicked her hand at Peri. ‘Give me back my slick.’
‘What?’
‘The information, maps and contact details I’ve given you. Plans have changed, you’re returning to the City with Hugo. Hand it over.’
‘I don’t have it,’ Peri said. ‘It’s still at the house.’
‘Alright then. Let’s go,’ Janeane said. She started herding us down the track, pretty much at gunpoint.
‘Peri, you are coming back to the City with Hugo?’ I fell into step beside her. ‘If you are, we can sort something out and I can make sure you’re safe, but if you keep running, no court in the world will be sympathetic towards you.’
‘Yes,’ Peri sighed. ‘I’ll bring him back. People like the Chesshyres always get their way, don’t they?’
‘I have to warn you there are serious problems with following the plan Janeane suggested. If you insist on bringing him back yourself, I can’t say what Chesshyre’s reaction will be, I can only try to persuade him to wait, and I have good reason to believe a Raptor is after you. If one is tracking you, your safety will not be his primary concern.’
When We Have Wings Page 15