Bertie and the Kinky Politician (14 page)

They waited nearly two hours before changing into black coveralls. The image of Celeste had long departed the salon, leaving the signatures of the parrot and hamster alone in the room. A bedroom light had glowed for a while, then been extinguished. The house lay in darkness. Outside, the neighbourhood was silent and deserted. At just after one, the two men slipped out of the Transit, took a long, hard look in every direction, then stole along the empty street, over the wall and into Celeste's garden. Pritchard retrieved the soiled UDDERS camera, wrapped it in a plastic bag and stowed it away. He grimaced in disgust at the lingering miasma of stale tomcat.

They paused for a moment to check over the house again. There was no cry of warning and so, hugging the deeper shadows, they trotted around the edge of the lawn with backs bent and crept up to the salon doors. Both pulled on balaclavas to complete their trendy outfits in burglar black, and each wore two pairs of thin latex gloves, well aware that fingerprints could still be deposited through a single glove thickness. Neither intended to leave any traces of their visit. Pritchard peeled the CRAP detector off the glass pane and slipped it into his pocket, keeping watch as Coberley picked the lock in under ten seconds. The door opened silently and the men glided inside like spectral shadows.

The only sound was the regular ticking of a clock.

Pritchard left the door ajar but ensured the curtains were fully drawn to seal in the light, then flicked on an LED pencil torch. They threaded their way around the furniture to the bureau. He lowered the lid and played his torch over its neat innards. Assorted bills were slotted into a series of small compartments. A battered sweet tin held a bundle of twenty-pound notes wrapped in an elastic band. Coberley ignored this and continued to search swiftly. He opened an inner drawer and smiled. Celeste's diary lay inside with some letters. He saw the House of Commons crest and took them without bothering to check the contents, then reached towards the precious book.

‘ʼEllo, ʼello, ʼello – what's going on here, then?' Lights flared, the sudden brilliance dazzling both intruders. They whipped around, stunned by the curiously throaty male voice behind them. Automatically, Coberley separated from Pritchard to divide the attention of the man, snatched a telescopic baton out of his pocket and snapped it open in a lightning defensive sweep, crouching with legs planted wide for balance. Expanding out to its full length, the steel bar gave him confidence. It was an excellent weapon and he was skilled in its use. He possessed no moral qualms over using it and both of them would certainly drop any person trying to prevent their escape. They had done so in the past with clinical brutality. No prisoners were taken when burgling for No. 10.

Bertie sat on his perch, his claw still covering the special light switch attached at one end. Celeste had fitted it so he could stay up if he wanted. He wasn't the sort of namby-pamby macaw who cowered under a towel draped over his cage every night. Actually, the towel trick would have been a little difficult since he didn't even have a cage. He glared suspiciously at the two men dressed in black who crouched on either side of the bureau. This was his territory!

‘Sweet Jesus!' whispered Pritchard querulously, having just experienced a brief attack of bubbling flatulence that, distressingly, wasn't wholly gaseous in nature. A momentary weakening in the bottom department had allowed some of his curry to reappear. Perhaps he wasn't cut out for all this espionage stuff any more.

‘It's the sodding parrot.' Coberley straightened cautiously and looked at Bertie through the cut-outs in his balaclava. The wool stuck to his perspiring face and itched like crazy. His mouth was as dry as a desert. He, too, had been completely unnerved by the bird. His heart hammered in his chest, thumping out an adrenaline accelerated tattoo of churning fear.

‘Book ʼem, Danno!' said Bertie, not liking the look of the two men at all. Something told him these two weren't invited guests. Visitors always entered through the front door with his mummy. Perhaps this pair were related to The Kneeling Man – they were certainly the same colour – but even he never entered unaccompanied and always brought a small offering of tasty goodies. Since they were dressed in a familiar manner, Bertie was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. He waited expectantly for his nuts. He quite fancied an apple, if truth be known. There was a pause, during which an unbelievably foul smell began to permeate around the room. It seemed to rise like an awful rotting mist from the taller man.

Pritchard pulled off his hood and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. Suddenly, he laughed softly, but its quavering brittleness had an edge of hysteria in it that made Coberley's hair stand on end. ‘Greg, I don't believe it – that goddamn bird's made me crap my pants! This is Chaplain's call – he better cough up for my laundry bill.'

‘Yeah, you bloody stink!' muttered Coberley, lowering the baton. He felt distinctly queasy himself. Sweat streamed down his face. He, too, risked removing his balaclava to mop his forehead with a grubby handkerchief. Bertie eyed them both with suspicion and decided he did not like them at all. Their black bodies and pale, scrawny necks reminded him of vultures. Ugly birds with disgraceful table manners. Nobody liked a cannibal!

‘Come on, Bob, let's grab the book and get out of here.' Pritchard turned back to the open bureau.

‘Stop!' shrieked Bertie. He was quite prepared to tolerate the men so long as they stood still, but the moment they moved …

‘Jeez!' gasped Pritchard, clutching his heart and staggering back. The diary and letters dropped from his grasp and fell to the floor. More curry threatened to squeeze its way to freedom. Bertie's yell was as piercing as a train whistle.

‘For Christ's sake, Bob, will you shut it up!' hissed Coberley.

‘How? I'm not bloody David Bellamy!' In a desperate attempt to placate the bristling macaw, Pritchard made a catastrophic error. He held out one hand and made a soft clucking noise with his lips. It sounded like a toothless old crone trying to French kiss. ‘Who's a pretty boy, then?' he twittered hopefully.

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear!

‘I AM NOT A PRETTY BOY!'

It seemed inconceivable such a small larynx could generate so much noise. Bertie's incandescent fury at this inane phrase caught them both completely by surprise. No, he decided, these men weren't guests at all. Their intrusion was unacceptable. The time for action had come. His home needed defending. His mummy had to be protected. He gathered himself and hurtled forward off the perch, wings beating and buffeting. Coberley gargled in his throat as a huge blue gargoyle swept down onto his head, vicious claws stretched wide, needle-tipped bill darting toward his face. He dived to the floor as talons raked through his hair, scattering an occasional table. Executing a tight turn, Bertie returned to scythe off the top of his left ear with a single deadly strike. Pain lanced into the side of his head. He watched in sheer horror as the severed lump of cartilage plopped onto the floor beside his knee. Blood spurted down his neck and spread in pools on the parquet.

Aroused by the sudden commotion, Barnstaple poked his head out of his den to see what all the fuss was about, took one look at the scene of carnage and wisely scurried for cover.

Fortified by the success of his initial attack, Bertie swooped again and again, terrifying the burglars with his shrieking ululation, hacking at them, his wings beating powerfully. He had them cornered and there was no escape.

‘Bertie! Stop that at once! What –?'

‘Bugger!' swore Pritchard, and turning away from Celeste, tugged the hood back over his head, but in his haste pulled it on back to front. Tufts of damp hair poked out of the eye and mouth holes at the rear of his head. He could still see her through the stretched wool – just. She stood in the open doorway dressed in emerald silk pyjamas, legs braced apart, her face contorted with anger and outrage. There was not one jot of fear or timidity in her aggressive pose.

‘Who the frigging hell are you?' she yelled, and snatched up her bullwhip and riding crop. Celeste, fortunately, was well provisioned with such useful items. Without waiting for an answer, she lashed at Coberley's prostrate form as he, too, struggled to replace his balaclava.

Considering the practice she'd put in over the years, it was hardly surprising the whip found its mark.

Coberley screamed. A scalding fire cut across his thighs and lower back, bringing sudden tears to his eyes. The shock and pain were indescribable! He raised his baton to ward off her second stroke but the whip struck with a crack, excoriating his knuckles. He yelped like a wounded puppy and snatched his injured hand back, the baton spinning wildly through the air before clattering to the floor and rolling under the sofa. She caught him for a third time as he nursed his injury, the braided rawhide savaging his shoulders. He convulsed, shrieking in agony, and Celeste threw her head back and laughed with wild abandon, her eyes shining. At that moment, Bob Pritchard seriously wondered about her sanity; no normal woman would have dared attack two such sinister intruders and then enjoyed it so much! In a way he quite admired her bottle.

However, admiration would have to wait for another time. Satisfied she'd now destroyed any enthusiasm Coberley still had in the proceedings, Celeste turned her attention on Pritchard. Her arm swept back ready for another deadly lash, the whip coiling and writhing about her feet like an angry black serpent. Still half blinded by the woollen hood, Pritchard leaped into action before she could strike. He dived over the sofa and tackled her around the waist. Celeste deployed her short-range defences and flogged him viciously hard across the neck with the riding crop. He grunted in pain but the blow was not forceful enough to deflect his dive. With arms wrapped around her body, they both crashed against the wall as one. Pritchard relied solely on his bulk and inertia, using Celeste as an air bag to cushion the impact. He felt her crumple.

The wind was driven from Celeste's lungs. Something cracked with excruciating agony in her shoulder and she lost the strength in her arm. Pritchard's weight drove her to the floor. She collapsed with a gasp, knocked her head against the door jamb and lay stunned, struggling for breath. He wrenched the whip out of her inert grasp and tossed it into a corner, then heaved Coberley to his feet and headed for the exit, his mind now so set on escape he completely forgot about the diary lying on the floor.

He also overlooked Bertie.

A sudden, unbelievable pain seared across the top of his shoulder. It felt as if a surgeon's scalpel had cleaved through his flesh. He tried to shield his eyes with one arm but Bertie, driven into an uncontrollable rage by the attack on Celeste, hacked and clawed at his hidden face with razor claws. The woollen hood proved no protection against such ferocity and the skin over his cheek parted like ripping paper. Blood exploded, streaming down his neck, warm and frightening in its volume. Using close quarter tactics perfected on Sebastian, Bertie lunged again, this time on Coberley, slashing at him with frenzied hatred, driving him back down to his knees. The struggling trio staggered towards the patio doors. A desperate blow from Pritchard almost broke one of Bertie's wings, forcing him to wheel away from their ducking heads, but the respite was momentary and he turned in a flash to dive again as they tumbled forwards, moving in to unleash yet another weapon in his formidable armoury.

A glutinously liquid weapon! Very offensive. His shower was copious, pungent, and accurate, spreading impressive pools of white faeces over Coberley's hunched back and shoulder. ‘Yes!' he crowed triumphantly.

Pritchard, now almost blinded by sweat under the balaclava, charged at the patio doors – and missed. He slammed into the wooden frame at some considerable velocity, breaking his nose, and rebounding back into the room, tripped over Coberley's prostrate body with arms swinging wildly. Unceremoniously dumped on his rear beside his partner, he landed heavily on his tail bone, grunting at the sharp stab of pain. Now both of them were down again and Pritchard was beginning to panic. They had to get away. Fast! He rolled over onto his knees, suddenly conscious of much more blood, this time gushing down his throat. Bertie exploited this momentary hiccup in their escape by attacking again, but spurred on by the proximity of the doors and a desperate need to flee into the darkness beyond, both men managed to scramble to their feet and with a final lunge, burst out into the garden side by side. Carried forward by his own momentum and unable to pull up in time, Bertie crashed into the partly open curtains and swinging doors. There was a frantic flapping, the sound of feathers scraping against wood, then silence.

Still slumped against the wall, Celeste opened her eyes. The world remained stubbornly unfocussed, whirling in jagged confusion. She shook her head and fought the disorientation with sheer willpower, fighting for equilibrium until, mercifully, the spinning slowly eased. Clutching at her side with one hand, she climbed painfully to her feet, suddenly aware the salon was ominously quiet. Staggering to the patio doors, she swept the curtains aside just in time to see the two desperate men vault over the garden wall and make off up the street at a run. The effort of standing made her cry out; something deep in her shoulder hurt horribly. Agony accompanied each breath. Her ribs felt crushed, her chest unbearably tight. She squeezed back her tears and stumbled into the darkened garden. ‘Bertie! Bertie! Come back!'

But Bertie was gone.

Chapter Eight

Bertie soared up into the night sky, reaching a zenith before swooping back down. A tree loomed up and he landed a little clumsily, one wing draped over a branch. This had been even more exciting than his attack on Sebastian. He had no idea who the black men were, but they'd been repelled. One was also scent-marked so Bertie knew he'd scored psychologically as well. There was nothing more gratifying than defecating on characters you didn't like. Sebastian, for instance. Having discovered just how absorbent his fur was, Bertie now showered him on a regular basis, and the cat's obvious distress at having to lick himself clean only added to his inclination to continue his campaign of bombardment. He had only just begun to recover his equilibrium when he spotted two figures fleeing down the street and without hesitation, launched himself in pursuit, dropping like an apocalyptic demon out of the darkness.