“So that’s it?” Snape enquired when Tim had finished. “You really expect me to swallow that?”
“But it’s the truth!” Tim insisted. He turned to me. “Tell him!” he exclaimed.
“It’s the truth,” I agreed. What else could I say?
Snape considered. “Very well,” he muttered at length. “Let’s take a look at Number Seventeen. But I’m warning you, Diamond…”
He drove us back to Kelly Street and stopped at the bottom. We walked the last fifty metres — with Snape’s driving that had to be the fastest part of the journey. Eleven, thirteen, fifteen… I counted off the numbers of the buildings as we went past. It was all just like I remembered it. Then we reached Number Seventeen.
It wasn’t there any more.
At least, there was something there only it wasn’t what had been there the last time we were there. It was as confusing as that. The empty window, the dust and the bare floorboards had been replaced by a pretty shop that looked as if it had been there for years. There was a wooden sign above the door that read: Bodega Birds. But these weren’t the oven-ready variety. You could hear them squawking even out in the street: budgies and canaries and just about every other species of feathered friend. “Hello!” someone shouted. I think it was a parrot.
Tim had seen all this too. “Wait a minute!” he cried in a high-pitched voice. For a moment he sounded remarkably like a parrot himself. “The birds. They weren’t there!”
“So how did they get here then?” Snape asked. “I suppose they just flew in?”
“I don’t know!”
We went in. I looked for the door that led to the staircase. At least that was still in place, only now you had to step past a row of canaries to reach it. But then there were birds everywhere, twittering in their cages or rocking backwards and forwards on their perches. The back of the shop was lined with shelves stacked high with bird-food, bird-toys, bird-baths and everything else you might need if you happened to be a bird. And none of it was new. As far as we could tell, it had all been there for years.
“This is the wrong place!” Tim said.
“It’s Number Seventeen,” Snape growled.
“Can I help you?” The speaker was an elderly woman in a bright pink cardigan, white blouse and beads. She had small, black eyes and a pointed nose like a beak. Give her a few feathers and you’d have had difficulty finding her among the birds. She had shuffled round from behind the counter and, with fingers that were thin and bent, began to stroke a big blue parrot.
“Are you the manager here?” Snape asked.
“Yes. I’m Mrs Bodega.” Her voice was thin and high-pitched.
“How long has this shop been here?”
Mrs Bodega worked it out on her fingers. “Let me see,” she trilled. “I opened the shop two years before my husband died — and that was nine years ago. My husband was pecked to death, you know. The birds did love him! But they didn’t know when to stop. So… eight years plus two years. That’s ten years in all.”
She tickled one of the parrots. The parrot swayed on its perch and preened itself against her. “This is Hercule,” she went on. “He was my husband’s favourite. We called him Hercule after that nice detective, Hercule Parrot.”
At least that amused Boyle. “Hercule Parrot,” he muttered and stuck out a finger. The parrot squawked and bit it.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” Mrs Bodega asked.
Snape turned to Tim. “Well?”
“She’s lying!” Tim exclaimed. “This shop wasn’t here.” He nudged me. “Tell him!”
I had a feeling I was wasting my time but I tried anyway. “It’s true,” I said. “This is all a fake. And this woman…” I pointed at Mrs Bodega. “She must be some sort of actress.”
“I’m no such thing. Who are you? What do you want?”
Boyle pulled his swollen finger out of his mouth and went over to Snape. “Give me five minutes, sir,” he pleaded. “Just five minutes. Alone with them.”
“No, Boyle,” Snape sighed.
“Five minutes with the parrot?”
“No.” Snape closed his eyes.
Tim was utterly confused. Mrs Bodega was watching us with a mixture of innocence and indignation. “All right,” Snape said. “Just tell me where these agents of yours took you.”
“They took us upstairs,” Tim said. He pointed. “There’s a staircase behind that door.”
“There’s no such thing!” Mrs Bodega muttered.
“I’ll show you!”
Tim marched forward and threw open the door. He’d taken two more steps before he realized what I’d seen at once. The staircase was no longer there. He’d walked into a broom cupboard. There was a crash as he collided with an assortment of buckets and brooms. A shelf gave way and clattered down bringing with it about five years’ supply of bird-seed. Tim simply disappeared in a gold-and-white shower of the stuff. It poured down on him, forcing him to his knees, burying him.
And then it was all over. There was a small mountain of bird seed on the floor with two legs jutting out of it. The mountain shifted and broke open. Tim stuck his head out and coughed. Bird seed trickled out of his ear.
Snape had seen enough. “So they took you into a broom cupboard, did they?” he snarled. He caught one of the brooms. “I suppose this was your brush with MI6?”
“Chief Inspector! Listen…”
It was too late for that. Snape dropped the broom and grabbed hold of Tim, and, at the same time, I winced as Boyle’s hand clamped itself onto my shoulder. A moment later my feet had left the floor. All around me, the birds were screeching and whistling and fluttering. It was as if they were laughing at us. But then maybe they knew. They weren’t the only ones who were going to be spending the night behind bars.
HIGH SECURITY
This time Snape locked us up for two days. Boyle wanted to throw the book at us but fortunately he didn’t have a book. I’m not even sure Boyle knew how to read.
As soon as we were released, we headed back to the office. Tim wasn’t talking very much. He didn’t say anything on the bus, not even when I took the window seat. And he only muttered a few words of surprise when he found a letter waiting for him on our doormat. Not many people ever wrote to Tim. There were the electricity and the gas bills, of course, but they weren’t exactly chatty. Mum and Dad sometimes dropped us cards: Australia’s hot, England’s not, we love you a lot… that sort of thing. But usually the only letters on the doormat read: Please wipe your feet.
This letter came in a smart white envelope, postmarked London. Tim finally opened it in the office while I poured the tea. To celebrate our release, I’d used new teabags. It was a short letter but he took a long time to read it. Maybe it was good news.
“So what is it?” I asked at last.
“It’s a job.” Tim smiled for the first time since we’d been locked up and passed the letter across to me. It came from the Canadian Bank in Pall Mall and was signed by a woman called Louise Meyer. Briefly, it invited Tim to an interview to discuss the position of Head of Security.
“What is this…?” I began.
“Don’t you remember?” Tim said. “I told you. I applied for the job a couple of months ago.” He snatched the letter back. “They need a new Head of Security.”
“But you don’t know anything about security,” I said.
“Yes I do!” Tim looked at me indignantly. “I put burglar alarms in the office,” he reminded me.
“And burglars stole them,” I reminded him.
Tim ignored me.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I went on. “What about Charon? What about MI6?”
“What about them?”
