A Little Night Flying
by Bob Shaw
The dead cop came drifting in towards the Birmingham control zone at a height of some three thousand metres. It was a winter night, and the sub-zero temperatures which prevailed at that altitude had solidified his limbs, encrusted the entire body with black frost. Blood flowing through shattered armour had frozen into the semblance of a crab, with its claws encircling his chest. The body, which was in an upright position, rocked gently on stray currents, performing a strange aerial shuffle. And at its waist a pea-sized crimson light blinked on and off, on and off, its radiance gradually fading under a thickening coat of ice.
Air Police Sergeant Robert Hasson felt more exhausted and edgy than he would have done after an eight-hour crosswind patrol. He had been in the headquarters block since lunchtime, dictating and signing reports, completing forms, trying to wrest from the cashier’s office the expenses which had been due to him two months earlier. And then, just as he was about to go home in disgust, he had been summoned to Captain Nunn’s office for yet another confrontation over the Welwyn Angels case. The four on remand—Joe Sullivan, Flick Bugatti, Denny Johnston and Toddy Thoms—were sitting together at one side of the office, still in their flying gear.
“I’ll tell you what disturbs me most about this whole affair,” Bunny Ormerod, the senior barrister, was saying with practised concern. “It is the utter indifference of the police. It is the callousness with which the tragic death of a child is accepted by the arresting officers.” Ormerod moved closer to the four Angels, protectively, identifying with them. “One would think it was an everyday occurrence.”
Hasson shrugged. “It is, practically.”
Ormerod allowed his jaw to sag, and he turned so that the brooch recorder on his silk blouse was pointing straight at Hasson. “Would you care to repeat that statement?”
Hasson stared directly into the recorder’s watchful iris. “Practically every day, or every night, some moron straps on a CG harness, goes flying around at five or six hundred kilometres an hour, thinking he’s Superman, and runs into a pylon or a tower-block. And you’re dead right—I don’t give a damn when they smear themselves over the sides of buildings.” Hasson could see Nunn becoming agitated behind his expanse of desk, but he pressed on doggedly. “It’s only when they smash into other people that I get worked up. And then I go after them.”
“You hunt them down.”
“That’s what I do.”
“The way you hunted down these children.”
Hasson examined the Angels coldly. “I don’t see any children. The youngest in that gang is sixteen.”
Ormerod directed a compassionate smile towards the four black-clad Angels. “We live in a complex and difficult world, Sergeant. Sixteen years isn’t a very long time for a youngster to get to know his way around it.”
“Balls,” Hasson commented. He looked at the Angels again and pointed at a heavy-set, bearded youth who was sitting behind the others. “You—Toddy—come over here.”
Toddy’s eyes shuttled briefly. “What for?”
“I want to show Mr Ormerod your badges.”
“Naw. Don’t want to,” Toddy said smugly. “Sides, I like it better over here.”
Hasson sighed, walked to the group, caught hold of Toddy’s lapel and walked back to Ormerod as if he was holding nothing but the piece of simulated leather. Behind him he heard frantic swearing and the sound of chairs falling over as Toddy was dragged through the protective screen of his companions. The opportunity to express his feelings in action, no matter how limited, gave Hasson a therapeutic satisfaction.
Nunn half rose to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing, Sergeant?”
Hasson ignored him, addressing himself to Ormerod. “See this badge? The big “F” with wings on it? Do you know what it means?”
“I’m more interested in what your extraordinary behaviour means.” One of Ormerod’s hands was purposely, but with every appearance of accident, blocking his recorder’s field of view. Hasson knew this was because of recent legislation under which the courts refused to consider any recorded evidence unless the entire spool was presented—and Ormerod did not want a shot of the badge.
“Have a look at it.” Hasson repeated his description of the badge for the benefit of the soundtrack. “It means that this quote child unquote has had sexual intercourse in free fall. And he’s proud of it. Aren’t you, Toddy?”
“Mister Ormerod?” Toddy’s eyes were fixed pleadingly on the barrister’s face.
“For your own good, Sergeant, I think you should let go of my client,” Ormerod said. His slim hand was still hovering in front of the recorder.
“Certainly.” Hasson snatched the recorder, plucking a hole in Ormerod’s blouse as he did so, and held the little instrument in front of the Angel’s array of badges. After a moment he pushed Toddy away from him and gave the recorder back to Ormerod with a flourish of mock-courtesy.
“That was a mistake, Hasson.” Ormerod’s aristocratic features had begun to show genuine anger. “You’ve made it obvious that you are taking part in a personal vendetta against my client.”
Hasson laughed. “Toddy isn’t your client. You were hired by Joe Sullivan’s old man to get him out from under a manslaughter charge, and big simple Toddy just happens to be in the same bag.”
Joe Sullivan, sitting in the centre of the other three Angels, opened his mouth to retort, but changed his mind. He appeared to have been better rehearsed than his companions.
“That’s right,” Hasson said to him. “Remember what you were told, Joe—let the hired mouth do all the talking.” Sullivan shifted resentfully, staring down at his blue-knuckled hands, and remained silent.
“It’s obvious we aren’t achieving anything,” Ormerod said to Nunn. “I’m going to hold a private conference with my clients.”
“Do that,” Hasson put in. “Tell them to peel off those badges, won’t you? Next time I might pick out an even better one.” He waited impassively while Ormerod and two policemen ushered the four Angels out of the room.
“I don’t understand you,” Nunn said as soon as they were alone. “Exactly what did you think you were doing just now? That boy has only to testify that you manhandled him …”
“That boy, as you call him, knows where we could find the Fireman. They all do.”
“You’re being too hard on them.”
“You aren’t.” Hasson knew at once that he had gone too far, but he was too obstinate to begin retracting the words.
“What do you mean?” Nunn’s mouth compressed, making him look womanly but nonetheless dangerous.
“Why do I have to talk to that load of scruff up here in your office? What’s wrong with the interview rooms downstairs? Or are they only for thugs who haven’t got Sullivan money behind them?”
“Are you saying I’ve taken Sullivan’s money?”
Hasson thought for a moment. “I don’t believe you’d do that, but you let it make a difference. I tell you those four have flown with the Fireman. If I could be left alone for half an hour with any one of them I’d …”
“You’d get yourself put away. You don’t seem to understand the way things are, Hasson. You’re a skycop—and that means the public doesn’t want you about. A hundred years ago motorists disliked traffic cops for making them obey a few commonsense rules; now everybody can fly, better than the birds, and they find this same breed of cop up there with them, spoiling it for them, and they hate you.”
“I’m not worried.”
“I don’t think you’re worried about police work either, Hasson. Not really. I’d say you’re hooked on cloud-running every bit as much as this mythical Fireman, but you want to play a different game.”