I sat up. Finally, a reference to a Luisa. Nothing in a catalogue; there was a request for a girl and then mention of just one name, Luisa, sent to someone called Abbey Lee Wright. This Luisa, if it was the same one, had been sent to Wright’s family four years ago. I checked the address listing, called the location up on my desk screen. Images of the house gave nothing away, though the place looked expensive, enough to suggest hiring a nanny would be no big deal for these people.
I went back to the Little Angels material. I’d have to check out the Wright house when I got Taj back. There was a whole file of forms I hadn’t looked at; I began paging through them. Each form was a Little Angels application for a temporary work permit with the girl’s name and the sponsoring family. There were several permits and extensions for Peri but no reference to permanent residency. There were no permanent residency applications at all in the files Wilson had sent me.
With the lists of girls’ names, their ages, a bit of background on where they were from and their work experience, I had enough information to call Cam at home.
‘I’ve got names and dates for you.’
‘Send the list to me here,’ Cam said. ‘There is some serious shit going down at the department. A request came in from the police and I’ve never seen anything like it. They’re trying to keep it quiet but a hornets’ nest has been stirred up. I’m going in on Sunday—hope no-one else will be there and that it’s not too late.’
‘Not too late for what, Cam?’
‘Just—just wait, Zeke. I’ll talk to you soon.’
The next morning, Friday, as I shaved I thought of Henryk in his dark suit at the minister’s office. Then I smiled. My best ideas often came to me as I shaved and I’d thought of a way to get at Eliseev’s records. I wasn’t going to enter Flierville at all.
Instead, I looked up the prospectuses for every private school in the City. It took time but finally there it was, the distinctive maroon and gold uniform. Per Ardua ad Astra. Of course the school’s databases were not public but even I knew enough to get through such basic defences. There was Ellie Kahdr, her personal details—lactose intolerant—and contact information for her mother, Mira Kahdr. Best of all, there didn’t seem to be any other caregivers. Mira and her daughter were alone in the world. Their address was interesting: Junction Road No. 5 at the end of Winston Road, better known as just ‘Off Winston Road’. That was a Central Lines address and about as specific as addresses ever got in the great hive of the City’s oldest slum. Mira’s number was on the school records of course but it would not be wise to ring her now, at work. I’d frighten the wits out of her. No, personal contact was the way to go and I knew just the man, one of Central Lines’ brightest stars, to open negotiations. Better to wait till after midday at least to contact PapaZie though; he rarely went to bed before four in the morning.
I started work on the Brilliant material with Frisk asleep on my feet, a living golden rug. Would lions be such a universal symbol of power if people understood just how goddamn lazy they were? Unlike Frisk, I had to work all day. There was so much stuff from Brilliant’s office that it was hard to know where to start.
I set the AI on the slick to make a rough first pass, sorting names and categorising subjects the way Sunil usually asked me to do it, particularly pulling out financial transactions and names of prominent associates. When Sunil got the material he’d also look for references to other Seraphim and well-known fliers and so I looked for them too. Right away I found many exchanges with Chesshyre but they were old, to do with the design and construction of the church. My guess that Brilliant had been a difficult client was confirmed; he was unpredictable, expansive and excited in one message, querulous and stingy in the next.
I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for yet but the flier world was tight; there might be something that would give me a lead on Peri or Luisa. I knew how fallible the AI was though. I settled down again with a cup of tea; there was no substitute for doing most of the reading myself. Hours later I looked up, bleary-eyed. Time to contact PapaZie. One more time I paged through the matrix the AI had set up of the various projects the church was developing. At a glance I could see each project, who was associated with it and the funds attached to it. Or some of the funds. It seemed there was some obscurity around the church’s financial dealings. The projects had names like Chalcedony, Serein, Hermes and Pinion that gave no clue to what they actually were.
I got up, stretched, rang PapaZie.
‘I know that place,’ PapaZie said when I gave him Mira’s details. ‘Off Winston Road. Good cafes, restaurants, all along there. And a soap factory in behind. She will know me, so many nights singing and playing around those cafes. Everyone know me there.’
‘Be discreet,’ I said. ‘Make it a good thing to do, not just for money, you know? She’d be helping a vulnerable girl, not much older than her daughter.’
‘Yeah, I know, I know,’ PapaZie said. ‘I know these people. They work hard, care for their children. She might do it but it’s risky for her. You sure you go ahead with this?’
‘I’m sure.’
Towards the end of the day, I picked up my car; I hated not being able to think of it as Taj any longer. We navigated across the City through the long golden afternoon. The car needed my help; the AI was naive and still learning how to use the combination of GPS data and information (or more likely misinformation) provided by the City itself. It needed the cunning Taj had built up over years. Much of the pleasure I’d taken in the car was now gone.
I drove to the Abbey Lee Wright address. It was late enough to hope that someone might be home but no-one came to the door. I scouted around a little but there was nothing, just the green lawns and quiet streets of the rich.
Oh well. I got back in the car and looked up Abbey Lee Wright but of course there were a few of them, and how could I be sure Harper had got the spelling right? There were Abby Wrights and an Abbey Lea. I looked up the fliers, then filed the links to pore over later. I’d rather find someone at the house; after all, I knew Harper had sent a Luisa there.
On the way home, we skirted the rim of the harbour, where a dark bank of cloud was blowing up from the sea. As it drew closer to the City, the wind freshening, turning the sea choppy grey and white, buffeting the palms on the headlands, I watched its progress, fascinated and a little alarmed. This was one of the wildest, stormiest summers I could remember. A seagull blew past me, shrieking, as the wind picked up. Fliers would have to be careful in this weather too or they’d be blown sideways just like that gull.
Then it hit me. Oh no. Oh no.
The weather. City-dweller and non-flier that I was, I hadn’t even thought of it. The rain was hitting now in great blowy gusts. I checked the slick, looking up Wednesday’s weather. It had been clear in Pandanus. I checked further south. There it was, a big storm off the coast. The same storm, probably, whose trailing edges had lashed Cloud City when I was there with Chesshyre. I stared at the animated map, its innocuous contour lines and its cute spinning circles showing the front and the supercell storm moving through. Poor Peri. Poor little Hugo. I was used to thinking of Peri as a runaway girl, not as half-bird. That the weather posed a real threat to her hadn’t even occurred to me. That frantic zigzagging on my slick as I watched the last signals from Hugo’s tracking device: had I been watching Hugo and Peri’s final moments struggling with this storm?
Knowing about the storm pitched a new element of chaos into the picture and though Henryk had already promised to do this, I spent any moment I could spare from helping the AI navigate in trying to contact every hospital, clinic, police station and doctor’s surgery within a plausible radius of the storm’s centre, trying to find out if any persons matching Peri’s or Hugo’s description had been brought in. None had. Consumed by these tasks, I nonetheless snapped to instant alertness as I reached the door of my flat and found it wide open.
My fi
rst thought, a wild flaring of hope, was Peri. Had she somehow returned early? Had she got in and left the door open? No, that darkness, that silence was sinister.
I slid my weapon out of its holster and edged towards the door, listening. I had a good idea of what had broken into my flat and I did not want to meet him. There was no sound. I crept inside and paused, the rising pressure of my blood thudding in my ears like footfalls. I was wary but exhausted and didn’t want to be taken by surprise. I crept further into the hallway, listening. No sound. Could I be mistaken? Could I have somehow neglected to close the door properly?
After my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I saw jumbled outlines that told me there was no benign explanation awaiting me. I’d seen scenes like this too often before. I moved into the living room and the flat brought the lights on. Bloody hell. The place had been trashed. My stuff lay tumbled everywhere; books, papers, cushions, blankets, even clothes and kitchen utensils had been brought in here and dumped. There was something vengeful in this, as if in failing to find whatever he was looking for, my house-breaker had punished me with this wanton desecration. At least, I fervently hoped he hadn’t found what he was looking for.
I went straight to my dining table, my heart painful in my chest, as if someone was squeezing it hard, but to my intense relief my desk slick was still sitting there. Presumably it was still there only because the intruder had been able to download its contents or, conversely, because he knew that he would not be able to break through its security devices and into the encrypted files. After all, no-one should be able to even switch the thing on except me, or at least someone in possession of my irises, but who knew better than I did that no security device was infallible? Later I could try to check whether its security had been breached but if the intruder was a real expert I might never know for sure.
Oh Christ on a bike: if my data had been stolen, heaven help me if Sunil found out. I groped for my personal slick in my inside jacket pocket. It was there; I always kept it on me, no matter what. Even if the intruder had erased my desk slick, all the most important information was copied onto my little personal one.
The flat felt empty. Quickly, quietly, I cased the other rooms. They were empty, in disarray, the chaos complete. You bastard. And where the hell was Frisk? Had he been abducted? I methodically searched each room, examining objects, snapping pictures of the mess for the insurance report I’d have to file. No point treating this as a crime scene; I’d never be able to prosecute the perpetrator for this.
As I sifted through the mess in my bedroom, a dark spot on the pillow caught my eye. Dried blood. On my pillow. Frisk’s. I could see the scene play out like a film: Frisk, asleep on my pillow—of all the comfy spots, the one most forbidden, most tempting. Bad, bad Frisk. Why couldn’t you have been in the closet, shedding fur on my jumpers? But my closet had been ransacked too. No safety there. Frisk asleep, surprised by an intruder. He would have growled, his territory threatened, all that big-cat courage roused, that great lion nature animating his diminished body. He would’ve sprung and been smashed back down. Then what?
I stepped outside the flat, pulling on a jacket even though it was warm, and locked the door behind me. Oddly, the lock still worked. I peered at the door. Now that I inspected it, the door appeared unmarked. Whoever had broken in had done it smoothly. A professional then, which made me even more uneasy. Breaking in would not have been hard. I’d generally relied on Ventura’s down-at-heel look and unfashionable location to protect me. I was an advocate of the theory that too much obvious protection tended to attract the wrong sort of attention. Besides, Ventura had had surveillance fitted a few times and every time the cameras had been stolen or smashed within days.
I searched around the building, calling for Frisk. Up and down the driveway I went and around the small, lush garden filled with durable blooms engineered in lasting colours: semi-permanent spider lilies, hibiscus, frangipani. I peered up into the branches of the mango trees. Scouted the street. Nothing. As I came back to my front door I examined the frame again and this time something caught my eye. I picked it up. A dark red feather. A red feather.
No, no, no. Not possible. Two Raptors after me? Who would send a second one? Had to be a flier; Henryk had said they only worked for fliers. Rich fliers—well, that was a tautology, to be a flier was to be rich. Except Peri. And Luisa. Others like them? I could be pretty sure no nannies were sending Raptors after me. Not a cop, like the Archangel Michael. Chesshyre could conceivably have a second Raptor if something had happened to the first one. Brilliant, checking me out? Surely not, breaking in was over the top. Or maybe it wasn’t. He’d want to know who the hell I was if he’d discovered what I’d done. That would strongly indicate he had something to hide.
I thought back to the incident in the Ventura laneway when Frisk had surprised a Raptor for the first time. No way of knowing if it had been the black one Taj had seen or this one with the red feathers. Dark red looks black at night. Chesshyre had pretty much admitted the black-winged one was his but I had no proof he’d come near me since bugging Taj. And he’d seemed genuinely shocked when I’d asked him to call off his Raptor during my visit to Cloud City.
Inside, I tied back the mosquito net draped over Thomas’s bed. My nervous exhaustion and lack of sleep were catching up with me. I had to get hold of Henryk but my eyes were gritty and dry and I needed to close them for a moment . . . I lay down and put my head on Tom’s pillow, breathing in his sweet dry smell from the sheets, images and sounds all mixed up: Frisk crouched to spring; Peri and Hugo at Janeane’s; Chesshyre gripping me on the bridge; fur matted with blood; Thomas flying.
I woke suddenly. Oh god, how long had I slept? I jerked upright into pitch blackness, my thoughts scattered, and fumbled for my slick. ‘Henryk?’ I said but there was no answering voice; I’d been awoken by a message from Lily. I scanned it rapidly. Thomas had passed his initial assessments.
I staggered into the bathroom, stripped off my crumpled, sweaty clothes and had a shower, hoping to clear my mind. Still drugged with sleep, I checked the time; much too late to call Henryk. Goddamn it. I sent Henryk another message, asking him to contact me first thing in the morning.
Tom’s room was the least chaotic in the flat and I sat on his bed to read over Lily’s message. It was disconcerting. The way Ruokonen had described it, I’d assumed the assessments would be part of a long, exhaustive protocol. Apparently not. Knowing Lily, maybe she’d found a way of fast-tracking the procedures. Now she demanded my consent. Put up or shut up time. Look what Peri had endured to get her wings. I could make it so easy for Thomas. Like every child, it was his dream to fly but I didn’t think Tom had ever seen a flier. Did he even know his dream was possible?
Brilliant’s phrase was haunting me: The human project is over.
Two in the morning again, as it seemed to be all the time these days. Sleep was impossible so I began the demoralising task of cleaning up. I moved through the flat, absently picking up objects, half-heartedly trying to restore order. My thoughts kept turning to Peri and Hugo. I sat down and ran the security footage of them again: Peri closing the door, stepping to the cliff, disappearing, over and over. She’d fled in terror and it looked like she’d been right to be afraid. Over and over, pale and frightened but determined, she turned away from me, stepped into thin air. Were these to be the last images of her and Hugo?
A weight settled on my chest as I pondered the severity of the storm, the ruthlessness of the Raptor. What had happened to Peri and Hugo? The heaviness spread to all my muscles and even to my brain. It was hard to remember what I was supposed to be doing. I must be coming down with something. That would fit. Right about now would be the time to get sick and I could only hope it was a cold or flu and not some exotic parasite from RaRA-land.
I woke up on the couch early Saturday morning with a stiff neck and a dragging weakness all through my muscles but I began searching for Frisk again
right away. I started with Vittorio, who was appalled to hear that Frisk was missing and frightened that a creature as large and dangerous as a Raptor had been able to break into and trash my flat without his knowledge. His thin anxious face creased into a hundred worry lines as he explained that he’d gone out for a drink with a friend and that he’d noticed nothing amiss when he returned. I then spoke to neighbours I knew a little, the ones who’d stopped to pat Frisk, or talked to me in the corner store, then to those I knew only by sight. Some were shocked, others indifferent. Sorry, can’t help you.
There was no sign of Peri before I left and none when I returned. Back at the flat I showered, dressed, made myself tea. I couldn’t eat. Instead I jumped up and looked out the window every five minutes, thinking I heard something. I didn’t expect Peri to show but I could not stop myself from waiting.
At nine am Chesshyre rang.
‘We need to wait a little longer,’ I said. I was going to have it out with Chesshyre for endangering Peri and Hugo with his Raptor, but not yet, not till I was sure Peri would not turn up.
Chesshyre called again at ten and again at eleven and again at midday. Not a good sign. It didn’t seem Chesshyre was getting information from anyone else. So, that made it unlikely the red Raptor was his. That would fit with his denial at Cloud City, when I’d accused him of staking out my place. But if that meant that the Raptor at Ventura the first time was the red one, and not Chesshyre’s, then it couldn’t be Brilliant’s either because the first time the Raptor checked me out I hadn’t met Brilliant yet.
My head hurt. I took a painkiller and worked on the stuff from Brilliant’s office in between Chesshyre’s phone calls, trying to figure out what the church’s projects were. I opened the matrix. I could assign many of the messages and documents I’d stolen to one of these four projects, though of course there was a torrent of everyday trivia I had to dump under other headings, everything from complaints about air-conditioning to tracking investments.
When We Have Wings Page 26