Undercover Agent 3

I moved into the boy’s room. Denton had warned me that this might happen and had given me clear instructions of what to do, there was no point my going undercover merely to spy on a harmless child. I had been taught a number of annoying songs which I would sing to myself at night, when the boy was trying to sleep, loud enough not just to keep the whole house awake. I was quickly moved downstairs.

Once downstairs I was placed in the dining room, out of the way of the family, but, crucially, the room where Standfast would meet his gang when they called round his house. I was on my best behavior from this point forward to ensure I was not moved again.

Like the other gangs I would infiltrate, Standfast was careful to check for bugs before each meeting, they would even search my cage, obviously overlooking the fact that the perfect recording machine was sitting on the perch asking for seed cake.

This was a long-term gig, as Standfast had his wings spread across a wide criminal empire, and my job was to find out as much as I could about all of the scams he had running, all of the people he was dealing with. I was careful to sit quietly on my perch watching and listening. In addition to having perfect recall, I am an observant parrot and am able to give detailed, accurate descriptions of everyone I meet. I was careful not to attract attention, but when noticed would invariably ask for seedcake.

I learned an awful lot. There were meetings every day. There were all sorts of grifts going on, drugs, prostitution, petty theft and not so petty theft. I had been briefed on his core gang, but there were many others who called round – those employed in one-off jobs, and no end of officials who were being bribed and blackmailed into passing on information, voting a certain way on crucial votes, nodding through wreckless planning requests and a diverse portfolio of public corruption. If you ever wonder why this country has become a pot-hole-ridden, crumbling wreck of a third rate shithole, it’s because nearly every contract issued by every tier of government has been assigned not on the basis of cost and quality, but because dodgy crooks like Bradley Standfast were involved somewhere along the line.

You would think, with all the money he was making from his vast criminal empire, that I would reap the benefits, but the seed mix he fed was the cheapest, most basic ever, what's the point of making a fortune through crime if the family pet never sees a penny of it.

Over the course of four months, I knew everything there was to know about Standfast’s empire. Obviously my knowledge was useless if I continued sitting on my perch asking for seed cake, but Denton had an extraction plan.

It came in the form of  a new recruit to Denton’s team, PC Nevine.  He had somehow managed to get the job of cleaning Denton’s carpets. As he entered the dining room, where I was perched alone, he crept up to the cage and introduced himself, and set about picking the lock.

Whilst noisily making as if to clean the carpet, he took out, from the enormous cleaner bag, a second parrot’s cage, containing a second parrot, which closely resembled myself. We quickly changed places and I found myself stuffed into the hoover bag, while Nevine concealed the new parrot in its new home and finished cleaning the carpet.

It was time to leave.  Nevine exchanged friendly words with Standfast in the hallway, while I waited nervously, before finally being wheeled off towards the front door and freed.

“Joey want seedcake.”

Nevine froze.  The new parrot had made a rookie  mistake - never use your real name when undercover.

The parrot’s voice was loud and clear.  We were right outside the front door, but so was Standfast.

“Joey?” he said, confused. “Who the damned is Joey?”

Luckily Nevine was thinking on his feet.

“That's me, I'm afraid Mr Standfast. I’m Joey. I was talking to your parrot just now, he must have picked up my name.”

“You should be careful what you say to parrots,” Standfast said. “They’re easily confused.”