by Denis Byrne
But that was the extent of the information their Garda files contained. Not exactly over-helpful, the Superintendent admitted to Danny, but it’s all we have to go on. An added problem was that nobody knew in which part of the country they lived and operated from. None of the usual police snitches, who could always be relied upon to inform on their colleagues if the price was right, could throw any light on the case. They all swore they hadn’t a clue who the twins were or where they’d sprung from.
*
It was to feathered pigeons as opposed to stoolpigeons Danny went for help. He made a trip to the woods and sought out their president, Madam Noseybeak, shortly after the Superintendent had briefed him on what little was known about the twins.
She was astounded that the police hadn’t been able to find out more about these – these hoodlums! Absolutely amazed! Surely somebody somewhere had at least some nice item of juicy gossip where they were concerned? Wasn’t it simply unbelievable how incompetent humans were, present company excepted, of course, when it came to discovering everything it was possible to know about each other? Why, she herself was fully aware of every single eccentricity, vice and weakness of the entire pigeon population of the whole country! And as for the latest scandals amongst them, please, she implored, please don’t get me started!
Which Danny had no intention of doing if he could help it. Of course, he knew before he came looking for the favour, he’d have to contend with having his ears battered, just as he always had them battered whenever their paths crossed. He wasn’t really all that interested in the follies and foibles of his many feathered friends, preferring to be left in ignorance of their various misdemeanours, thank you very much just the same.
There were absolutely no animals or humans, Danny knew, himself included, who didn’t have their weak little moments they’d just as soon nobody else knew about. But Madam Noseybeak simply couldn’t help herself when it came to gossip. Yet there was no denying her incredible organisational skills and leadership qualities, which had resulted in her being elected pigeon president for the last five years in a row. And whenever she gave a speech, her subjects flocked in their thousands to listen to the eloquence of her oratory. But she certainly did enjoy a spot of backbiting whenever the opportunity arose.
‘I suppose you heard all about the trouble at the last junior cooing contest?’ she asked Danny grimly, as though the very thought of it was far too much for her to keep to herself.
Danny shook his head dutifully. If he wanted what he had come to Madam Noseybeak in the first place for, he knew he was going to have to wait patiently for it.
‘You simply wouldn’t believe what some of them got up to in an effort to win it.’ She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, doing nothing whatsoever to avoid displaying how deeply scandalised she’d been by the whole thing. ‘Not in a million years, you wouldn’t.’
Danny somehow doubted if he’d be so outraged as Madam Noseybeak was pretending she was, but managed to maintain a grave expression as the terrible goings on which had occurred were whispered in his ear.
It was difficult not to laugh on hearing of how the Greystreaks had secreted a tiny, pre-recorded version of a professional pigeon-cooer beneath their fledgling’s tongue in an attempt to hoodwink the judges. Of course, Madam Noseybeak, herself being on the judging panel, immediately recognised the cooing as being that of one of the foremost Italian exponents of the art, resulting in the Greystreaks being exposed for the fraudsters they were. Madam Noseybeak imparted this information with an air of smug satisfaction, as though she’d single-handedly been responsible for uncovering the most heinous crime in the history of the world.
And on and on she continued, informing him of how dowdy and obese Pauline Feathers had allowed herself to become after that philandering Plumpbreast Downy had dumped her. And as for him, that - that show-off! It would suit him better to pay more attention to his duties as lookout for birds and beasts of prey than strutting about the tree branches, continually combing his feathers!
If he didn’t look to his laurels with more responsibility in the future, she’d have him demoted to grain-gathering instead. She’d already had a stern word with him on the matter. And just as Danny was of the opinion he’d heard the last of her twittering, having congratulated himself on keeping a straight face through it all, Madam Noseybeak launched into another supposedly disgraceful event she considered had contributed to causing shock and horror throughout the pigeon community as a whole. It concerned old Mr. Fantail, and was almost too sensitive to talk about. Nevertheless, Madam Noseybeak forced herself to, however much it pained her to do so.
Mr. Fantail, who was ninety if he was a day, was rumoured to be socialising with cats. Cats!, Madam Noseybeak wailed, as though to emphasise the seriousness of the outrage, especially when she saw it didn’t appear to cause Danny to throw up his arms in dismay and roll around the grass in disbelief. He did, of course, purse his lips solemnly and give a little shake of his head, just for the look of things.
He certainly didn’t want this influential lady to get the notion that he wasn’t taking what she considered a calamity of the greatest magnitude seriously. He could have mentioned that he thought it was a wonderful gesture on Mr. Fantail’s part, that it was a pity more pigeons didn’t follow his lead before they reached his age, but should Danny do so, Madam Noseybeak might get on her high horse altogether and deny him the assistance he required.
‘He’s been seen four times already in the last couple of months down at the Tomcat’s Whiskers, standing on a barstool as brazen as you like, chatting away to his newfound friends as though it was the furthest thing from their minds to stalk members of his very own community whenever they get the chance! And drinking milk, if you don’t mind! Milk!’
Danny would have liked to say that he thought that Mr. Fantail’s actions were highly commendable, that it was a pity more communities distrustful of each other didn’t get together and chat to one another on a more regular basis. That was the way to build bridges, restore trust, become familiar with each other’s cultures, even drink milk if that was what it took to find out how the other half enjoyed themselves. But he said none of those things. Now wasn’t the time to lecture someone whom he was about to seek the assistance of, and which he finally managed to do after Madam Noseybeak ran out of breath.
‘Just you leave it to me, Danny,’ she replied importantly, ‘I’ll have found out everything there is to know about them in jig time.’
And she did. She despatched flocks of pigeons to every expensive apartment block in the country, giving them their instructions before they departed. They were to operate in teams of eight, each team to descend in orderly fashion on the buildings under surveillance, there to remain eavesdropping for as long as it took to gather the required information on the brothers.
Windowsills, air-vents, hot water closets. Everywhere a snippet of conversation from within could be overheard was to be covered. If necessary, laundry chutes were to be infiltrated, and woe betide any member of a team who didn’t give their full attention to the task. She’d issued instructions to Central Command that each team member was to have a lightweight electronic listening device fitted to their leg, so there was no reason why the exercise should take any longer than three days at the very most. The latest modern listening devices were no larger than a pin-head, so excuses regarding it hampering their flying would on account be tolerated.
And none were given, either. It took the feathered flying squad a mere two days to successfully accomplish their mission. Notes were taken by the leader of each team from every building under surveillance. Most of the information was irrelevant to the case in question, but Madam Noseybeak was delighted with everything the team leaders had recorded. There was enough idle gossip about perfectly innocent people throughout the land to feed her fascination regarding the fickleness and vagaries of human nature to the full, and she spent the following months happily poring over the notes, comparing them favourably or other
wise to the weaknesses and frailties of her own community. She was surprised to discover that there wasn’t an awful lot to choose between them.
*
Madam Noseybeak’s neatly spiral-bound report on the brothers was passed over to Danny exactly one week after he’d made the initial request. Naturally, he’d had to endure a further two hour session regarding everything from A to Z in the gossip department, but it was a small price to pay for the vital data he’d received.
He still felt a bit light-headed when he was finally able to make his escape, and the wind in his face as he cycled back to town from the woods didn’t take long to make him feel normal again. When he reached his shack, he promptly phoned the Superintendent, gave him the good news and told him he’d send Charlie in the form of a carrier-pigeon with the report straight away. Under the circumstances, he thought it the only appropriate mode of transport which could possibly be used.
‘He’ll be on your office windowsill in five minutes, Super,’ Danny informed him, then couldn’t resist adding, ‘Make sure you have the window open just in case he might take it into his head to fly straight through it.’
A month later, two men in bedraggled looking evening wear entered a rural branch of one of the largest banks in the county. The bank was in a small, sleepy town situated deep in the countryside. There was dirt all over the men’s fine black suits. They were limping badly, and were plainly in distress. Their faces were scratched and bruised, and had what appeared to be blood streaking their cheeks and foreheads. Their black bowties were hanging askew, and it was taking them all their time to hobble towards the security guard, as each had an identical violin case clutched under his arm.
There’d been an accident a few miles up the road, one of them managed to gasp, and all the other members of the orchestra in the coach were either dead or unconscious. They themselves had been fortunate enough to escape with only minor injuries, but it had taken them well over an hour to reach here and raise the alarm. Could somebody please phone the Gardai and hospital services immediately and have them rush to the scene to see what could be done for their unfortunate colleagues? Every single mobile phone on the coach had been rendered useless by the terrible crash.
All the time they were conveying the tragic news, they were sidling closer to the security guard. At least they thought they were. They were so intent on convincing anyone listening, they didn’t notice that he, too, was playing the same game, sidling away from them every bit as stealthily as they imagined they’d been advancing on him.
When they finally paid him their full attention, looking at him while continuing with their pleading for help, he seemed to be even further away from them as when they’d entered the bank. Which wasn’t really all that surprising, Superintendent Clifford being such an enormous man, a couple of his sidles equalled half a dozen of theirs. He’d had some difficulty finding a security guard’s uniform to fit him, but now that he had, he was quite enjoying the experience of impersonating one.
‘Aren’t any of you going to do anything?’ one of the crash victims asked in a plaintive voice, as nobody appeared to be paying any attention to their plight. ‘What’s wrong with you people?’
But there was no answer forthcoming. The lone teller seemed altogether unmoved, standing there yawning, as he waited for the two old ladies hunched over at the counter, busily filling in lodgement forms. There was also a boy dozing on an old-fashioned mahogany bench near the door, a haversack at his feet, his head resting on his chest in peaceful repose.
‘All right, Laurence!’ the second man growled, recovering from his recent trauma with remarkable forgetfulness. ‘Time for action. This is going to be a piece of cake. You take care of the guard. I don’t think we’ve too much else to worry about.’
Laurence made an admirable transformation from accident victim to athleticism in the blink of an eye. He tore open his violin case and whipped out a canister of Mace, did a couple of rolling somersaults across the floor towards the security guard and came upright with the agility of an acrobat right in front of him.
Once he’d put the big gorilla out of action, it would be all plain sailing. A couple of old ladies and a hitchhiking kid weren’t going to present any further problems. He pointed the canister upwards and pressed the plunger. A jet of Mace shot out just like it was supposed to.
If only all our jobs had been as easy as this one, Laurence thought to himself, we could have done one every day. But there was something wrong. Why wasn’t the gorilla spluttering and coughing and reeling around the place with his hands covering his eyes? Because he’s just put on a gas-mask, you dummy, that’s why! Laurence couldn’t believe it. Things weren’t supposed to work out this way! Not after all that planning!
Then everything went pear-shaped altogether. He was picked up like a child and tossed in the direction of the two old ladies, both of whom had turned to catch him as he flew through the air. This wasn’t happening, he kept telling himself. I’m still in bed. From what he could make out as he sailed towards them, one of the old ladies had a moustache. He hadn’t time to get a look at the second one, but learned afterwards at his trial that he was a Garda officer, as was the one with the moustache. And he could vouch for the fact that as both of them held him in grips of steel before his hands were cuffed behind his back, that neither of them had ever been old ladies in their lives.
And the kid was now getting in on the act. Laurence definitely knew now that it was all just a bad dream, that he’d wake up shortly and have a nice cup of coffee to start the day. He saw his twin brother, Steve, trying to make a run for it. He hadn’t been able to get his shotgun out of the case fast enough before the security guard kicked it out of his reach, so he was doing the sensible thing, heading for the door and freedom.
Once he reached his wheelchair parked around the corner, they’d have no chance of catching him. But before Steve got to the door, the kid had opened his knapsack, said a few words in Latin or something, and a hooded cobra slid out to block his path. The kid muttered some more gibberish, the cobra hissed threateningly, then herded Steve into the waiting arms of the security guard, who promptly cuffed him before giving the kid the thumbs-up. Danny then muttered more nonsensical words to the cobra, and Charlie crawled back into the haversack, coiled himself up comfortably before settling down to having a well earned nap.
‘Just tell us one thing, copper,’ Steve asked the Superintend as they were being bundled into the back of a squad car. ‘How did you find us? Not a snitch in the country knew where we were.’
‘A little bird told us,’ the Superintendent advised him, making Danny grin and wonder what Madam Noseybeak would have to say about being referred to as a little bird.
He knew that as far as she was concerned, she considered herself to be a very big important member of the feathered species. ‘Little bird, indeed!’ he could imagine her saying had she heard the Superintendent. ‘Why, the very idea!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Superintendent Clifford had feared, what he’d recently briefed Danny about was all over the papers a few days later. Matthew Dawson, Governor of the Central Bank, and his seven-year-old granddaughter, Lily, had been kidnapped in a joint operation which had been carried out with military precision.
They’d been spirited away without fuss or commotion, Lily by a woman who visited her school, the Governor from the bank’s underground car park as he was opening the back door of his Mercedes to be driven home after a difficult day overseeing important financial matters. When he uttered his usual greeting to his chauffeur, all he received in return was a guttural grunt. He thought this strange. Gerald was usually the essence of politeness. Maybe he was getting a cold. Before Matthew Dawson had time to ask him, he was shunted from behind into the back seat, and a gun was jammed into his ribcage.
‘Not a word!’ Needles hissed. ‘Not a single, solitary word!’
As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, another man rose up from the front passenger seat beside Gerald. ‘N
ow, here’s the deal,’ Dapper Desmond said, turning to look straight into Matthew’s face. ‘When we reach the security barrier, you smile like your life depended on it. Any awkward questions from the guard, we’re business clients. Got it?’ Matthew Dawson nodded his head in understanding. ‘Needles hears so much as a squawk of anything else from either of you, we whack you both, then the guard. Okay, Gerald, let’s get this show on the road.’
Of course, all the security guard did was raise the automatic barrier from inside his hut on the approach of the Governor’s Mercedes. He knew it on sight, and it wasn’t unusual for the head of the bank to be bringing influential people off to dinner in some luxurious hotel to round off a successful transaction, so the guard thought nothing on seeing the other passengers. He did notice that Gerald seemed tense looking as the car pulled away up the ramp. In fact, he looked as though he’d eaten something which hadn’t agreed with him. The guard grinned to himself. Maybe Gerald had another bad day on the gee-gees.
‘Nice jalopy, Gerald,’ Dapper said, when the car pulled into the main stream of traffic. ‘I think I might invest in one of these when this is all over. What you reckon, Needles? You fancy one, too?’
‘Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure!’ Needles replied nervously. ‘Whatever, whatever, whatever!’
‘Relax, Needles,’ Dapper told him. ‘Everything’s going like clockwork. That right, Pops?’
Matthew Dawson didn’t bother to reply. He’d turned seventy only four days ago, and was looking forward to his retirement when he was seventy-one. He’d planned to give up his post on his seventieth birthday, but had agreed to carry on for a further year after being requested to do so by the Minister of Finance until a suitable replacement could be appointed. Financial experts of the calibre of Matthew Dawson weren’t too easily replaced. Without thinking, he made to put his hand in his jacket pocket. Needles reacted immediately, grabbing his wrist, then sticking his own hand into Matthew’s pocket. They came out holding a phial of pills.
