The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man - By Mark Hodder Page 0,11

minutes later, all five men were in position.

Miss Mayson stepped back. "Half a mo!" she cried. "Wait there - I have an idea!"

She ran back along the yard and into the training centre.

"What's she up to?" Burton grumbled truculently, but even as he spoke she reappeared and hurried over to them.

She held a small blue and yellow parakeet in her hand.

"All messenger parakeets are identified by a postcode," she said. "This is POX JR5. She's one of the new breed. As long as she knows you, she'll be able to find you. She doesn't even need your address. You can use her to communicate between the kites. She'll keep up with the swans - she's the swiftest of all my birds. Tell her your names!" She held the parakeet out to each of the men in turn.

"Captain Richard Burton."

"Odorous thug!" the bird whistled.

"Detective Inspector William Trounce."

"Ponderous buffoon!" it cheeped.

"Algernon Charles Swinburne."

"Illiterate bum-pincher!" it cackled.

"Constable Shyamji Bhatti."

"Nurdle-thwacker!" it squawked.

"Herbert Spencer."

"Angel-faced beauty," it crooned.

"My goodness!" Miss Mayson exclaimed. "Was that a compliment?"

Burton blew out a breath. "Please," he said, "there's no time for this!"

She gave a small nod and placed the parakeet on Burton's shoulder. It hunkered down and he felt its little claws sinking into the soggy cloth of his overcoat.

"Good luck!" the young woman said, stepping back. "Constable, call in tomorrow and tell me all about it!"

Bhatti smiled and nodded. "Get yourself inside and dry off," he advised. "Your slippers are wet through!"

Sir Richard Francis Burton snapped his reins the way she'd shown him. His swan stretched out its wings, ran five steps forward, and, with a mighty flapping, soared into the air. The leather straps of the harness uncoiled, snaked up after it, jerked taut, and his kite shot upward.

Thrown violently back into his canvas seat, the king's agent found himself rising at phenomenal speed into the sodden atmosphere. The rain pelted against his face. His swan spiralled higher and, when he glanced back, he saw that his colleagues were following behind.

The chase was on!

The water-laden air jabbed cold needles into Burton's face, but despite being hatless - for, like the others, he'd placed his headgear into a spacious pocket at the back of the kite - he actually felt unpleasantly warm; a sign that his malarial fever was developing rapidly. He tried to stay focused but a peculiar sense of disassociation was creeping over him.

"Bloody git-face," POX JR5 mumbled.

The five giant swans began to circle over the western end of Orange Street. Visibility was poor in the rain so the men flew them close to the rooftops, except for Swinburne, who, despite being the most experienced flier, was having problems controlling his unruly bird. He was currently somewhere overhead, inside the low blanket of cloud.

Tracking the mega-dray proved easier than Burton had anticipated.

It was Bhatti who spotted the trail. He steered his swan in beside Burton's, but the kites, at the end of their long tethers, were flying extremely erratically due to the wind and beating rain, making it impossible to shout across to one another.

Burton spoke to the parakeet: "Pox! Message for Constable Shyamji Bhatti. Message begins. What is it? Message ends. Go."

The brightly coloured bird launched itself from his shoulder. A few moments later, when the constable's kite tumbled upward past his own, Burton saw that the messenger was already squawking into the young policeman's ear.

The explorer shifted his hips, trying to stabilise his vehicle. It was foul weather for flying!

The parakeet returned. "Message from dribbling sponge-head Constable Shyamji Bhatti!" it whistled. "Message begins. Look off to the right, snot-picker - the bloody litter-crabs are all along Haymarket. Message ends."

Burton told Pox to take the message to Trounce, Swinburne, and Spencer. He then sent his swan wheeling to the right and along Haymarket. He passed over four of the large eight-legged, steam-driven street cleaners and spotted a fifth at the end of Piccadilly. Yanking at the reins, he veered to the left and followed the thoroughfare. He soared past a sixth crab, a seventh, an eighth, and Green Park hove into view. The ninth litter-crab was clearing up a mountain of steaming manure outside the exclusive Parthenon Hotel; after that, all the way to Hyde Park Corner, he didn't see a single one.

Pox returned to his shoulder.

He circled counterclockwise around the edge of Green Park, peering into the gloom.

There!

The massive pantechnicon was in the park, close to the Queen Victoria Memorial, with the mega-dray towering in front of it.

Looking back, he saw his colleagues following. Swinburne's