Bertie and the Hairdresser Who Ruled the World (26 page)

The man snickered nastily at some comment, ended the call and turned on the radio again. He settled back and resumed sharpening his knife. Wilf looked at Celeste as the video continued. She gnawed at her lower lip anxiously. Wilf knew she was searching for any sign of Bertie, but the video drew a blank.

Except right at the last moment.

Half a second before the end, the image of the barn was suddenly obscured by something so close the camera was unable to focus properly. Celeste jumped. Wilf frowned. ‘What the hell was that?' She paused the video. He stared for a few moments, then turned the phone upside down and pointed. A big brown eye glared at them, blurred almost out of recognition, but both instantly identified that unique expression: curious, questioning, alert. The head was cocked so far to one side that it was almost inverted, confusing them for a moment, but a faint haze of unfocused violet confirmed it was Bertie.

Celeste trembled with relief, squeezing Wilf's hand. ‘Thank God,' she breathed. They heard a faint scratching above them and, looking up, saw Bertie's head poking out of the vent. Obviously curious about the phone, he'd decided to investigate, but it was a very tight fit for the burly macaw. He pushed and heaved before finally squeezing his way out through the vent, his immaculate plumage dusty and draped in cobwebs. Normally, Bertie would be chuckling away happily on seeing his mum again, but she held a finger to her lips and he knew she wanted him to keep quiet. Celeste pointed back towards the car hidden behind the hedge and flicked a hand signal. Bertie responded, launching himself silently and gliding low across the field like a scrap of blue paper blown in the wind. They followed, using the hedge as cover again until they reached the lay-by. Bertie sat on the door mirror preening himself. Wilf could have sworn there was a look of irritation on his face as he flicked away the dirt and dust.

‘Hello, Mummy, hello, Wilf,' he said, looking up, his head bobbing in pleasure. So Wilf was alive after all. Probably best not to tell him about the hair-plucking.

‘You brave boy.' Celeste fussed over him, pulling a cobweb from the top of his head and kissing him affectionately. ‘I'm so proud of you.' Bertie swelled with the praise, puffing out his chest.

‘I'm hungry. Have you any nuts?' he asked optimistically.

‘Time to go home,' replied Celeste. ‘Then you can have nuts.'

Bertie looked back towards the distant buildings. ‘Milly?'

‘Milly is safe for now. We will get her back soon.'

Bertie thought about this. Now that Mummy and Wilf were here to help, he felt more inclined to action, to swoop into the barn and eviscerate the man before rescuing Milly. Even Bertie knew he'd get guaranteed sex in return! However, Mummy was always right – and he was
very
hungry. So hungry, in fact, he'd actually been considering rejoining the thrushes for a snack of snails and earthworms. Milly was a lovely mate, but her conversation still remained limited to describing conditions normally only to be experienced during November in the North Sea. She seemed safe enough with the bald man for the moment. Perhaps he should wait. ‘Promise?'

Celeste had never lied to Bertie. ‘Promise,' she said firmly. ‘Now, let's get you into the car.'

The drive back to Prior's Norton took no time. Bertie scampered in, claws scratching on the floorboards, and immediately fluttered to his perch, settling himself down to demolish a handful of fat walnuts heaped in his bowl, his attention solely on his food.

‘Any news from Ian?'

Wilf examined his phone. ‘As I suspected, the van's on false plates. That'll be a dead end. Still, we've learnt a lot.'

‘At least we know Milly's safe.'

‘I'll text Colin. Hopefully, he won't have another heart attack.'

‘Cup of tea?'

‘So long as I actually get to drink it this time rather than have it scald my privates.' Taking tea with Celeste and Bertie had its own unique hazards.

‘No lasting damage?'

‘Don't know. I haven't yet had the chance to test my bits since that little incident.'

‘That was two years ago! Wilf, you're just not trying hard enough.'

‘I'm doing my best,' he protested. ‘Honest!'

‘Well I hope you have more effective plans for rescuing Milly.'

‘We could take her back at any time, but that grunt over in the barn is not our main target. I think we can use him to draw out the big boys.'

‘The man at the other end of the phone. How?'

‘Let's have another look at the video and see if we can come up with a plan.'

‘They're in the garden,' she hissed in outrage when the recording had finished. ‘They're in the bloody garden!'

‘We know that now, but they don't know we know. We can use that.' Wilf pondered. ‘We've been lucky. There's been a gap in their surveillance. At any other time they would have known we were on to them straight away, but without someone maintaining their watch here we've been able to get Bertie back unseen. It's critical to keep Bertie out of sight at all times so we can continue the ruse. If they discover they've got the wrong macaw, then I wouldn't bet much on Milly's life.'

Wilf peered at Celeste. ‘That camp is certainly not permanent. They're probably planning to use the barn as the venue for Milly's abuse. It's nicely remote. You realise that immediately after this ritual plucking, they'll almost certainly kill Milly. All her feathers will be removed and stored in a handy plastic bag. These will be sent to you on a regular basis to fool you into thinking she's still alive. To keep you on the straight and narrow. No use-by date on a feather, is there. That way they won't have the inconvenience of actually caring for their captive. If these men are commercially astute enough to build their own empires, then they'll certainly recognise a bargain when they see one. Comes to something when a bag of feathers can effectively give you political control of a country.'

‘Then we have to act fast. I agree we need to keep them thinking they have Bertie, but it'll be difficult keeping him hidden for long. He's got wings, you know. And access to a cat flap.'

‘So I've noticed. We need to get him into hiding, and fast. We know this window of opportunity will close very soon. Enemy reinforcements will be arriving shortly, allowing Barn Boy to return to his lodgings in your shrubbery. I don't think we'll be able to keep Bertie's presence here a secret for very long once the spies are watching.'

‘We need somewhere private, somewhere really quiet.'

Bertie, having wolfed down his entrée of nuts, paused before commencing on the main course of more nuts. He hadn't contributed much to the conversation – he never did when he was really hungry – but he knew the meaning of quiet. He liked quiet. Quiet was a good word, easy to learn, easy to remember. Monosyllabic. Bertie pondered on this. Funny how the word used to describe simple words is so complex. He could tackle any monosyllabic word with an excellent chance of success, but not the word employed to describe those words. Still, humans had no inkling of the complexity of his own language. His trills and squawks appeared to be just a discordant noise, but in fact contained subtle multi-harmonics that conveyed huge amounts of information.

However, his mum was now looking for somewhere quiet. Their home was quiet, but apparently not quiet enough. He had a good think – and only one place came to mind. ‘Temple, go to Temple!' he chipped in brightly. He thought of the vast underground space, just the best place ever for flying indoors – and very quiet, too.

‘Temple?' asked Wilf cautiously. ‘What's that?'

‘Of course,' Celeste exclaimed softly. In a flash of intuition, she realised Bertie's part in this complex affair was, in fact, ludicrously simple. All he had to do was tell her what to do in these critical moments. His choices were not made through reasoning or any other logical process, but merely came from a mind uncluttered by doubt or indecision. Celeste knew he was right. ‘Good old Bertie!' Better the suggestion come from him. Less suspicious. ‘He's done it again. Somehow, and I have no idea how, he always manages to say the right thing at the right time. He's such a clever boy.'

‘Do you mind explaining,' asked Wilf.

‘Yes. I'll call my old friend Doreen. She's got this place up on the Cotswolds called Temple Hall. It's the perfect location and she'll help, no questions asked.'

‘Why is it the perfect location?'

‘The place is huge. There's plenty of places to hide Bertie.'

‘And how will we get him there without Barn Boy noticing?'

‘Instead of trying to conceal Bertie here – something we both accept will be an almost impossible task since I will not have him caged in any way – you take him over to Gav's cowshed in the next field. That eliminates all chance Barn Boy might have of catching a glimpse of him through any of the windows. Then we just wait for him to resume his surveillance, at which point I'll very publicly decamp to the Hall and stay there, forcing our enemies to follow. I am their primary target after all. How else will they be able to keep tabs on me except by following? With him chasing me, you and Bertie can then tail the tailer, so to speak. That way you can keep him under surveillance while he watches me. You can also see who else arrives, and at the last resort, can call in the police if things get ugly.'

‘In what way would that help? We're merely replacing one location with another.'

‘True, but there's safety in numbers, especially if there's a gang involved. You said yourself these people are at their most effective when their target is isolated. I won't be isolated at Temple Hall. She has a staff of half a dozen or so women who keep the place going. You'll love it. All those damsels to protect. And the sheep, of course.' She hated manipulating Wilf. He was a tenacious and intuitive detective, excellent in a crisis and exceptionally difficult to deceive, but she could not betray her promise of secrecy to the Sisterhood. Now Bertie had offered a plausible way of persuading Wilf they needed to go to Temple Hall, where the entire resources of the Sisterhood could be brought to bear. As Doreen had sensibly pointed out, they needed all the help they could get if they stood any chance of defeating this subtle and pernicious enemy.

‘I don't know,' said Wilf pensively. ‘We're up against some violent people. A clout around the head and giving your husband's knackers a good squeeze is probably the least harmful thing they could do, especially if women are around.'

‘As I've told you on plenty of occasions before, I can look after myself. Why don't you believe me?'

‘It's still too risky.'

‘I've been learning self-defence.'

‘What?'

‘Norton Village Hall, Protect Yourself Combat Course for Women, Intermediate Class, Grade Two. I can kick your arse anytime!' she added flatly.

‘Celeste, what has country life done to you?'

‘Thought I'd better take precautions after what happened in London.'

‘I seem to recall you had no trouble kicking arse on that occasion.'

‘True, but now I know how to do it with my bare hands. You wouldn't believe the damage I can do with a soup spoon.'

‘I still don't like it,' he grumbled, like a father who's just discovered a condom in his teenage daughter's handbag. ‘And what about James? We need to make sure he's safely out of harm's way, especially after he gave all that money away.'

‘I love my husband very much, but, unlike you, he's not got a reputation as a man of action. He's also an MP. There's a certain stature and gravitas that goes with the territory. Of course he'd help if he could, but he has dodgy knees and a bruised happy sack. He's already walking wounded. We also need to consider what the consequences for his career might be should any of this come to court at a later date.'

Celeste knew she had to protect James at all costs. If he was as important as Doreen said he was, then keeping him safe was as much a priority as rescuing Milly and defeating their adversaries. However, she was uncomfortable sidelining him. Their marriage was based on mutual trust, honesty and very large amounts of rope, yet she now had responsibilities to Doreen and the Sisterhood as well as to her husband. Their fate was already bound up with hers. And Bertie's.

If Doreen's hippy-dippy psychic was right, the only chance they had of prevailing against this shadowy organization was with Bertie's help, and he'd told them to go to Temple Hall. Loath as she was to place Britain's future political stability on the nut-fuelled suggestion of a hyacinth macaw, she had to admit it made a lot of sense.

‘Listen, Wilf. I know this doesn't exactly inspire you with confidence, but Bertie's proposed we go to Temple Hall and that's good enough for me. He's got this strange habit of saying the right thing at just the right time. He brought down the last government, for heaven's sake, and the consequence of that has been this sudden resurgence of democracy at Westminster. And now that is under threat. Some seriously unpleasant people have attacked my husband and my favourite policeman. They've kidnapped my darling's girlfriend and will be phoning me in a very short time to begin the process of corruption which will undoubtedly involve her abuse. This is simply not acceptable. We need to have a strategy to counter this. We need to take the initiative. We need to unbalance our enemies. We need to do something unexpected, to force them into reacting to us. We know they'll be calling very soon, but if I'm not at home and have turned off my mobile then they'll have to physically come after me to deliver their message in person – and moving to Temple Hall will achieve all that.'

Wilf had to admit she put forward a powerful argument, but still couldn't help but feel he was being manipulated in some way. His finely honed instincts told him there was definitely something going on that she was not prepared to tell. He glared at her with his best disbelieving criminal interrogation face, but her only response was a cool, steady stare.