RIFF opening scene

(property of J Leigh)

Draft one

Chapter Ωne


The dead angel lay face down on a ledge of the twelfth story outside a Central London office block. Its violaceous blood pooled around it, staining the marble surface. Smashed remnants of fruit lay about: bits of discarded pineapple, orange peels, peach pits, and an apple core at the base of the angel’s right foot. The other foot dangled off the edge as though the next gust of March wind would topple the body over the side.

The young London investigator stood at the edge surveying the ledges of the buildings around him. The birds had already begun to pick at the fruit scraps including those that had smashed to the pavement twelve stories below. The carnivorous birds hadn’t found the body though. Maybe they didn’t eat angel meat.

The investigator turned his head so that his words could reach the detective clinging to the window pane. “Sure was some party.”

Forty-five year old Detective Harold Truick rubbed the heels of his loafers against the brick of the building to assure himself it was still there. His fingers dug into the concrete lining the large office window. “Pardon?”

The investigator spun around and swaggered around the angel, gesturing to the fruit. “Must have been some party. The gods like fruit, yeah?”

“Maybe if you believe in Mount Olympus.”

The young man dug in his pocket, the tails of his coat flapping in the wind. He pulled out a new pack of cigarettes and attempted to light one, but couldn’t get a spark from his lighter. Giving up, he pulled the cigarette from his lips and used it to point at the body. “Guess this one just had a little too much fun.”

The back of Truick’s brain ached the way it always did when he knew someone was wrong. He clenched his jaw and looked up to the clouds as though expecting an answer from on high, but all he managed was vertigo.

After the divorce, Truick had asked the department to assign him more cases to keep himself occupied, but they had stuck him on the trail of every petty thief and lost cat in London. When he asked the chief for higher profile cases this morning, he had been thrown in a squad car with this investigator who, though green, was not at all shocked to find one of Heaven’s finest bleeding all over one of London’s grungiest. He slowly realized that higher profile meant more responsibility on his part, secret keeping and the like.

Truick, still getting over the initial shock of seeing an angel let alone standing freely 30 meters above the ground, attempted to grasp what the investigator implied. “You figure we should check his blood alcohol level?”

“It’s bleeding wine for chrissake. Don’t need to be a doctor to know it was over the limit.”

Truick knelt down and inched himself away from the side of the building. “You think it was an accident.”

He flicked his cigarette away, irritably. “Of course. Look at the evidence.”

On his hands and knees, Truick reached the angel. “I don’t think that’s wine.”

“All right, so angels bleed magenta. It’s still surrounded by party left-overs.” He glared at the detective. “It fell.”

“Don’t think it was murder?”

The investigator twitched uncomfortably. “Don’t start making up stories, Detective. You’ll get people riled up, make ‘em think the apocalypse is coming.” He strut back to the window and stepped inside the office. “Let’s go so the cleaning crew can clear this mess away.”

Truick gave the angel a last look, a sad admiration for the creature so broken, its arm twisted backward, its skull half crushed from the impact, its wings spattered with sanguine mulberry. He could see in his mind the forensic team trying to crumple those mangled wings into a body bag. He could picture the body on the lab table split from neck to navel, an autonomist hovering above, staring at a lab manual rather than the cadaver he mutilated. And they wouldn’t search for cause of death; Truick knew that. It was all about celestial beings as bio matter, not about their rights.

Truick’s gaze shifted to the fruit littered ledges beyond. “Anyone down below?”

“Course not,” the investigator replied from inside. “Got the whole place roped off in case it happens again. Can you imagine what an apple core would do to your head when impacted at over a hundred kilometers an hour?”

“Yeah,” Truick whispered. “Splat.”

The investigator didn’t have time to stop him.

In desperate attempt to protect the sacredness he saw in this creature, Detective Truick gave the angel a strong shove of his foot, sending the angel into flight for the very last time.