When We Have Wings

by Claire Corbett

  I flipped over and studied the pattern of cracks and flaking paint on my ceiling. It wasn’t much easier to breathe even on my back; my chest was tight, as if my ribs were wrapped in the coils of a boa constrictor. I felt my forehead but it wasn’t hot. I considered taking painkillers; certainly I was in some sort of pain but I couldn’t move to look for them.

  Hard to believe it was just a week since I’d begun working on this case. So much had happened, it felt like months since I’d first walked into Chesshyre’s house. Time to take stock. Most entries in the ledger were losses, severe ones: acquired Frisk, lost him; Taj irretrievable; flat trashed with unknown consequences for my professional future and reputation; found Peri and Hugo, lost them; probably about to lose Thomas.

  Impelled by the small charge of energy thinking about Tom gave me, I sat up. Time to answer Lily’s message from Friday night. So what if it was three in the morning? She was so keen for an answer about Thomas, I’d bloody well give her one.

  I woke a few hours later on Monday morning, still on the couch. The news was still on. The first bleary thought in my mind was to contact Henryk but as I pulled out my slick from where it dug into my ribs, I saw Henryk had already sent me a message from the first session of an all-day national meeting. It was no use trying to speak to him that day.

  The rest of the morning I continued working through the information from Brilliant. I left the TV on. Chesshyre tried to contact me but I ignored him. At two pm the TV started broadcasting proceedings in Parliament House. I looked up. Would I see Brilliant in action? Should’ve thought to look at events in the House before. A question was asked about a high-speed rail project. The camera panned the chamber. Only a few MPs with wings. There was Brilliant. The man looked half asleep. Big lunch? I put my head down, went back to work.

  Someone was making a speech. He had the most irritating voice, wheezing and pausing for breath every sentence or two. I looked up, about to switch the screen off, and stopped, thunderstruck. It was Storkman, the elongated balding man I’d seen in Brilliant’s office. Storkman was an MP along with Brilliant. Well, Brilliant had mentioned working with other independent parties. Who was he? I waited for the program to identify him. As I waited, I tuned into what he was saying.

  What he was saying was incendiary. He was attacking fliers, including Brilliant, as unholy abominations, hybrids whose hubris, arrogance and unnatural mix of human and animal would bring down the wrath of God on all humankind. The camera showed Brilliant looking away, bored.

  This was Storkman. Whom Brilliant had referred to as a good friend.

  The program scrolled an ident. Storkman was Harris Waterhouse.

  And Waterhouse was an MP with the Origins Party.

  Holy shit. Now there was a nasty surprise. A prickling of anxiety spread over the skin of my face and neck and arms. I rubbed my forehead. I had so devoutly wished never to be connected to anything involved with Origins ever again.

  Are you sure you know what you’re dealing with here? I wanted to say to Brilliant.

  Seeing Waterhouse was an Origins MP was worse than a shock; it was more like ripping open an old, badly healed scar. The Origins Party was the ‘respectable’ face of the Origins cult and the fact it had any success at all was deeply disturbing. Trinity Jones would never subject himself to the discipline of parliament, but he’d been cunning enough to manoeuvre a few of his more rational-seeming followers into the political arena. If Trinity was crazy, and many people thought he was, then he was crazy like a fox.

  Origins also argued—and they were shrewd enough to stress this as their contribution to public policy—that it was essential to maintain a population of unaltered humans against innumerable, unspecified catastrophes. This position earned them some popular sympathy and support. Some people were happy to vote for Origins MPs, despite the more dubious or even criminal activities of the cult. They did so because they liked the idea of a conservative sect preserving an unaltered group of humans as long as it was other people, cult members, who took their chances with disease and disability. Waterhouse’s refusal to fix his baldness and other afflictions, like the unnaturally long limbs and the wheezing, were not the result of individual eccentricity then, but the badge, the sure and certain proof, of his allegiance to Origins.

  But what did the Church of the Seraphim and the Origins Party have to offer one another? These two groups loathed each other, each hating everything the other stood for. Presumably they gave each other minor party support on the Opposition benches: you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. That my enemy’s enemy is my friend crap.

  I turned off the screen and checked my desk slick again. No evidence of tampering or damage to it but I wasn’t reassured, and as I worked a shadow grew in my mind. I tried to shrug it off but it nagged at me until finally I had to stand up from the dining table and scoop up my sunglasses and slick and cap. I couldn’t sit still any longer; might as well search for Frisk.

  But that wasn’t what was bothering me most right now.

  My unease was growing because I’d sent my consent to Lily earlier that morning. Christ, didn’t I know better than to make a decision at that time of night? Especially as I had plenty of evidence that my mental state was not at its best right now.

  As I searched, looking into every front yard and back alley and under every hedge for blocks around, I tried to sort through the implications of the information I was organising. It was linked, of course, to my anxiety over Thomas. The puzzle I was piecing together was not coherent yet; it was all coded, all hints, insiders speaking to each other, but the outlines were becoming clearer to me despite the many missing pieces. The picture surfacing was not a pretty one.

  And yet, though I was still in the middle of finding out about the treatments and the machinations they inspired, I’d told myself there was no point in putting off deciding about Thomas any longer. I’d probably never feel certain about what the right decision was and at least I could honestly say to Thomas that I’d done my very best for him. Hard to imagine he could ever be angry with me for helping him to fly; so easy to imagine his fury if I stood in his way.

  As I looked for poor Frisk—modified, it seemed to me now, greatly to his own disadvantage—I shook my head at myself. I’d been frightened and exhausted last night. It was hard to think of a worse time to make such an important decision yet I’d gone ahead and done it. I’d done it partly because I couldn’t bear the uncertainty of it hanging over my head any longer.

  Now it was too late. I’d consented. Even if there was still time to reverse my consent, I knew Lily too well. She’d have told Thomas already that he was going to fly. How could I step in and stop that now?

  By the time I returned home from my fruitless searching, it was an hour or so before dusk and I was relieved to see PapaZie and his band setting up in my front yard. The more people around me right now the safer I felt. I went up to PapaZie and asked after his health and his family. Where was his little girl, Kossiwa? Mostly I wanted to bring the conversation politely around to whether PapaZie or anyone in his network of family and friends had heard about the break-and-enter or seen Frisk. Something else was bothering me as a result of my thorough exploration of the neighbourhood and PapaZie was the most likely person to be able to set my mind at rest. But PapaZie’s dark face clouded when I asked after Kossiwa.

  ‘She is very sick,’ PapaZie replied. ‘I need to take her to hospital.’

  I need to take her to hospital. Meaning only one thing. He hadn’t taken her to hospital. He could not afford it.

  ‘PapaZie,’ I said, ‘what is it?’

  ‘I do not know. Some goddamn mosquito disease I’ve never even heard of.’

  I was shocked. Never in the years I’d known him had I heard PapaZie swear.

  I fumbled for a credit slick. ‘I didn’t pay you properly for what you did for me. Let me give you this.’

 
; ‘Thank you, my friend,’ PapaZie said. ‘Something else you should know.’

  ‘More bad news?’

  ‘Yes. It’s Ray.’

  That was it. That was what had been bothering me as I’d hunted through the streets: no sign of Ray.

  ‘He’s been taken away,’ said PapaZie. ‘Don’t know where. City don’t want him anymore.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘TB,’ said PapaZie. ‘City find out you got TB, they throw you out.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ I said. PapaZie clasped my hand. Selfishly, I wondered about Ray’s samosas, hoping he hadn’t passed anything nasty on to me.

  At the front door of my flat I was alarmed to find Cam waiting for me. In all the years I’d known her, she’d never visited me at home. ‘Come in,’ I said.

  ‘Could I have a cup of tea?’ Cam looked around my kitchen, slipping her bag off her shoulder. ‘Actually, have you got anything stronger?’

  ‘Beer.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She wandered through to the living room. ‘Bloody hell, Zeke!’

  ‘My flat doesn’t usually look like this, you know. I had an unexpected visitor. Case is bringing on some heat.’

  Cam’s face paled at that and I saw how drained she looked as she settled herself on my couch and said, ‘Yeah, think I’m beginning to see why.’

  I sat next to her. ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ said Cam. She took a swig and held on to the bottle, rubbing its coolness along the side of her neck. ‘I feel sick. I went to work yesterday, as you know, and today as well, but I won’t be going in tomorrow.’ She looked at me, then away as she said, ‘I couldn’t check all the names you gave me but of the ones I was able to check, yeah, something stinks very badly. The number of names of girls known to the department, as they say, is high—about forty percent of the girls Little Angels has on its books, if I extrapolate from the names I was able to check.’

  I raised my eyebrows as Cam said, ‘I was curious about Mrs Harper. I had a snoop around and found that Mrs Harper used to be a Ms Kernaghan. Quite senior in CaFS by the time she left.’

  ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Left to set up Little Angels?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cam set the half-empty bottle on the table and closed her eyes. She looked shattered, older, her face lined and drawn, her hair escaping from its clip looking more grey than blonde. ‘Who better to know all the ins and outs of that market, seeing as we’re the ones who regulate it?’

  ‘Gamekeeper turned poacher.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first. Every former minister does that.’

  ‘She’s getting current information from the department?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So someone inside is helping her.’ I recalled our interview and felt a clenching of shame at the memory of how I’d tried to intimidate Harper with talk of the department and the minister. I’d threatened her on her home turf without a clue that it was terrain she knew far better than I did. She’d been smart enough to let me think I’d alarmed her.

  ‘She’s a cunning old trout,’ I said.

  ‘God,’ said Cam, yawning and stretching, ‘I could just curl up here and go to sleep, I’m so tired.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Cam?’

  ‘Zeke, I’m finished. What I’ve done has finished me. I’m not going in tomorrow. I’ll probably never go in again.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  Cam sat up and rifled through her handbag, drawing out a small slick and handing it to me. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Give it to Henryk. Only information he’s going to get out of CaFS on this case. Zeke, when I went in on Sunday, I couldn’t get any of the relevant files. System’s been locked down. I realised as I tried to access one after the other that I had to give up or I was going to trigger security to come after me. I probably already have. They’ve probably followed me here. I can’t hide that I went in on Sunday. Just as well I went in Saturday night too, with some of the names you sent me, as that’s the only reason I could get any files at all. I took the precaution of not recording their movement—remember I told you someone had done that with Almond’s file? Took a leaf from their book. Covered my tracks, though it probably won’t help me.’

  ‘Jesus, Cam, I don’t get it. What are they doing?’

  ‘Well, they’re certainly withholding information from the police. They’re probably destroying it. After all, the police will crack their delaying tactics eventually. That’s why you must give this information to Henryk in person; don’t risk sending it to him.’

  ‘Why do you think they’re doing this?’

  ‘You know as well as I do, Zeke. Someone senior, maybe several senior managers, are in this for profit with Harper. Don’t you see? These girls are perfect to be used as surrogates or wet nurses or anything else fliers want. They’re damaged, they’re poor, they’re alone. No families to cause a fuss if anything goes wrong, no families to interfere, withhold consent. Young, fertile girls, with eggs as young as they are. Even better, as wards of the state, their story is known. There’s a file on them. Harper and her people will know everything; their medical history, their vulnerabilities, how to target them, use them, even break them if they have to. All that information built up over years of work, my work, Zeke, the hard work of people like me, trying to help these girls. Those files are a fucking goldmine, Zeke.’ Cam burst into tears.

  I put my arm around her.

  After a few moments Cam drew away from me. She looked around at the living room. ‘Zeke, this isn’t good. Seems like someone’s after you, too. Hope I haven’t brought more heat your way by coming here. Are you okay?’

  That was my Cam. Her calling to look after others always resurfaced, no matter how tough things were for her.

  I said, ‘No, I don’t think I am. I think I’m getting sick.’

  Cam widened her eyes. ‘Really? Why?’

  I described the weakness in my muscles, my exhaustion and difficulty sleeping. Cam leaned over and placed her hand on my forehead. Her palm was cool and dry.

  ‘You’re not feverish. You should see a doctor if you think you’ve picked up something in RaRA-land.’

  ‘You don’t think I have, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Zeke, if depression is an abyss then you’re walking along the edge, looking down into it. You’re overtired and anxious and becoming quite disorganised if your attempts to clean up your flat are anything to go by. You need to step back from the brink. When did you last sleep properly? When was your last decent meal?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Thought so. Listen to me, I know about this stuff—enough to know things are going to be bad for me for the foreseeable future. You think because you haven’t walked into your old station and put your gun to your head and pulled the trigger, like some of your old buddies have done over the years, that you can’t be in that bad a state. Well, I’ve got news for you. You’re carrying trauma from your years on the force. I’ve known this about you for a long time and now the weight of it is sinking you. Something about this case is going very deep with you.’

  I said nothing but I was trembling with that shock you feel when someone tells you what they really think and they reveal a version of yourself that you don’t recognise and yet know is at least partly true. It’s a rare, disturbing experience.

  Cam sighed. ‘I’m sorry to leave you like this but I’m on the verge of collapse myself. Promise me you’ll get this information to Henryk.’

  I nodded, hardly daring to look at her. I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep but I forced myself to walk her to the door, saying as she left, ‘Be careful, Cam.’

  Later that night my sleeplessness returned and I lay awake, thinking. Though the flat was small, it felt echoingly empty without Frisk, without Thomas. Who knew when I could ha
ve him to stay again? Explaining to Lily why I couldn’t have him over would not be an easy conversation. Cam’s information went round and round in my head. Even though I knew this case was blowing up into something big, that it involved the Church of the Seraphim and Diomedea, and even the Origins Party, I was still shocked that the department, or at least part of it, could be as corrupt as Cam had discovered.

  Early the next morning, Tuesday, I appeared in Henryk’s office, greeting him by saying, ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death—Corinthians.’

  ‘Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder?—Milarepa,’ Henryk answered without missing a beat. ‘Thanks for the cheery start. Man, you look like shit. How’s it going?’

  ‘Terrible,’ I said. ‘Taj is gone forever, I was tracked, my home staked out then broken into, and my little lion’s disappeared, presumed dead. Also Cam came and saw me last night, saying her career’s over because of the information request you put in on Luisa Perros.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know. The department is stalling you, destroying files. She gave me this to give to you. Says it’s all you’re going to get out of CaFS right now.’

  Henryk turned the slick over in his hands. ‘Jesus. Thanks for this.’

  I waved my hand. ‘Nice to help you out for once.’

  Henryk said, ‘I’ll get someone onto it right away. We’ll have to interview Perros’s employer’s family and associates; looks like that might be my only avenue just now, since I take it your girl hasn’t shown up? I guess I won’t be getting a statement out of her anytime soon.’

  I grimaced. ‘I’m still hoping she’ll turn up. Eventually. Do you know who Luisa’s employer was?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, that information won’t be on the CaFS file; I imagine her file will have been closed at around the time she was picked up by Little Angels. She won’t have been the department’s responsibility for some time now.’