Later that morning, a flower seller, wearing a red cloak with a hood, entered Old Ford village and started calling from door to door. It was late in the season and her basket contained only magnolias, hydrangeas, geraniums, a makeup kit, and a pistol.

Business was not good. She made few sales, though all the villagers were friendly. One, a retired soldier who introduced himself as "Old Carter the Lamp-lighter," informed her that she was the most exotic of the blooms.

Eventually, she came to a cottage at the bottom of the hill on the western edge of the village. There were two bobbies standing guard outside and one blocked her path and refused her entry.

She whispered a few words to him.

He nodded, spoke softly to the second constable, then the two men strolled away and didn't come back.

Ignoring the bellpull beside the gate, the flower seller pa.s.sed through and walked along the short path to the front door. She knocked upon it and, a few moments later, it opened.

A short conversation followed.

The flower seller entered the cottage.

The door closed.

Twenty minutes later, it opened and she stepped out. She walked down the path, out through the gate, and back through the village.

Her basket contained magnolias, hydrangeas, and geraniums.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter was sweeping the road in front of his house.

"Sold much?" he asked as she pa.s.sed.

She shook her head and hurried on.

"Funny," he mumbled. "The exotic bloom seems to have faded."

As she exited Old Ford along the south road, a man detached himself from the shadow of a tree and wandered along some distance behind her.

A little while later, the flower seller arrived at the Cat in the Custard in the neighbouring village of Pipers End and sat in the parlour, waiting. The man who'd followed her entered.

"Miss Pipkiss?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered nervously.

"I'm Detective Inspector Trounce. I can a.s.sure you that you're quite safe now."

Alicia Pipkiss pulled back her hood. Her dark skin was much paler around the edges of her hairline and behind the ears and back of the neck.

"Can I wash this makeup off?" she asked.

A deep and mellow voice from across the room said, "I'll ask the landlord to heat some water for you."

A man had entered. He was big and had a fierce, scarred face that was bruised and cut.

"h.e.l.lo, Alicia," he said. "I'm Captain Richard Burton. I'm working with Scotland Yard."

She nodded.

"I have to ask you a rather personal question. I hope you don't mind."

She swallowed and shook her head.

"Alicia, do you happen to have a birthmark? Something shaped like a rainbow?"

Alicia Pipkiss cleared her throat and put down the basket of flowers.

She looked up into Burton's eyes.

"Yes," she said. "As a matter of fact, I do."

Back in the cottage in Old Ford, Mrs. Jane Pipkiss nee Alsop, onetime victim of Spring Heeled Jack, handed her guest a cup of tea.

Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra accepted it with a smile and placed it on the table next to her chair.

She sat and waited, the tea at her side, a pistol in her hand.

The hundred and eleven men of Letty Green village met on the cricket field at lunchtime to discuss the strange state of the sky. It was filled with streamers of white vapour that were coming in from the south, veering to the west over the little settlement, and dropping groundward to the east.

"It's comets, that's what it is!" claimed one.

"You mean meteors!" corrected another. "And they don't turn in the sky like what these 'uns are doing!"

"Maybe these 'uns are a new sort!"

"Maybe you ain't got no brain!"

The discussion went back and forth for half an hour until it was suggested that they head out of the village to see where the trails of vapour ended. This plan was immediately approved and, arming themselves with shovels and garden forks, broom handles and walking sticks, and the occasional blunderbuss and flintlock, the mob swarmed out of Letty Green, climbed the hill to the west, and stopped dead on its brow. The field below them was filled with rotorchairs.

"What in heaven's name is going on here?" muttered the villager who'd somehow emerged as the leader of the crowd.

He led them down the lane until they came to a stile that gave access to the field. A man, standing beside it, smiled at them.

"Good day, gentlemen," he said. "I'm Constable Krishnamurthy of the Metropolitan Police-and I have just become a recruiting officer!"

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter had never seen so many strangers in the village. More particularly, he'd never seen so many well-dressed strangers. And even more particularly, he'd never seen so many well-dressed strangers carrying paper bags in one hand, canes in the other, and with small rucksacks upon their backs.

It occurred to him that the road needed sweeping again.

Five minutes later he nodded his head at a smart, paper-bag-carrying stranger and said, "Good day!"

The man nodded haughtily, flourished his cane, and walked on.

Fifteen minutes later another one appeared.

Old Carter the Lamp-lighter nodded at him and said, "Good day! Fine weather, hey?"

The man looked him up and down, muttered "G'day!" and pushed past.

When the next appeared, Old Carter the Lamp-lighter stood in his path, grinned broadly, raised his cap, and said breezily, "How do you do, sir! Welcome to Old Ford! You've picked a fine day for a stroll! What's in the bag?"

The man stopped and looked at him, taken aback. "I say!" he exclaimed.

"I do too!" agreed Old Carter the Lamp-lighter. "I say it's a lovely day to go for a walk with a paper bag under your arm! What's in it? A picnic, perhaps?"

"Why, yes, that's it-a picnic! What!" exclaimed the stranger, and made to move away.

"Up your a.r.s.e!" said the bag.

The two men looked at it.

"Sandwiches?" suggested Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.

"Parakeet," mumbled the stranger, sheepishly.

"Ah, yes. Training it, perhaps?"

"Yes, that's right. Training. Seeing how fast it can fly back to London, what!"

"Gas-belcher!" announced the bag.

"Is it a convention?" asked Old Carter the Lamp-lighter.

"A con-con--a what?"

"A convention, old bean. A gathering of the Oft-Spotted Parakeet Trainers of Old London Town? I say, you're not the chaps who teach 'em how to swear, are you?"

"Blasted impertinence!" exploded the stranger. "Let me past!"

"I do apologise!" said Old Carter the Lamp-lighter, standing aside. "Incidentally, the fishing's not good in that direction. No water, you see."

"The fishing? What in blue blazes are you on about now?"

"There's a length of netting hanging out of your rucksack."

The stranger strode away, swinging his cane, his countenance flushed with anger.

"Have a splendid day!" called Old Carter the Lamp-lighter after him.

"Goat-fiddler!" called the bag.

Sneaking along from the untended land to the north, a poacher approached the field opposite the Alsop cottage and quietly slipped into the thick border of trees that surrounded it. It was a good field for rabbits but there'd been police outside the cottage these past few days and he'd been too nervous to check his traps. Were the coppers still there? He was going to have a look.

Treading softly, as was his habit, he moved furtively from bole to bole.

Suddenly, a feeling of unease gripped him.

He froze.

He was not alone.

He could sense a presence.

Moistening his lips with his tongue, he crouched, held his breath, and listened.

All he could hear was birdsong.

A lot of it.

Too much!

An absolute cacophony!

"Maggotous duffers! Cross-eyed poseurs! Scrubbers! Bounders! Dirty baggage! Dolts! Filthy blackguards! Decomposing sc.u.mbags! Poodlerubbers! p.i.s.s-heads!"

The poacher looked around him in bewilderment. What the h.e.l.l? The trees seemed to have more birds in them than he'd ever known-and they were screaming insults!

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Stink-brains! Stupid fungus-lickers! Lobotomised chumps! Tangle-tongued inbreds! Curs! Fish-faced idiots! Balloon-heads! Little s.h.i.ts! Witless pigstickers! c.r.a.p masters! Buffoons!"

His unease turned to superst.i.tious dread.

The poacher was just about to turn and take to his heels when an uncomfortable feeling in his neck stopped him. He looked down and his stubbled chin b.u.mped into a wet red blade that projected from his throat. He coughed blood onto it and watched as it slid back into his neck and out of sight.

"My apologies," said a soft voice from behind.

The poacher died and slid to the loamy earth.

The man who'd killed him sheathed his swordstick. Like all his fellow Rakes, he was well dressed, carried a bagged birdcage in one hand, and had a rucksack on his back.

Little by little, the Rakes had occupied the shadows under the trees around the field and now there were hundreds of them.

By the time twilight was descending over the village, there were no more smart, bag-carrying, cane-brandishing strangers for Old Carter the Lamplighter to accost.

He'd swept the street until it was practically shining. Now he was settling into his armchair to enjoy a cup of tea and a hot b.u.t.tered crumpet.

He placed the teacup on the arm of his chair, raised the crumpet to his open mouth, and stopped.

The cup was rattling in its saucer.

"What in the name of all that's holy is happening now?" he muttered, lowering the crumpet and standing up. He crossed to the window and looked out. There was nothing to see, but he could hear an odd thrumming.

Moving to the front door, he opened it just in time to see a plush leather armchair descend from the sky.

It landed across the street from his cottage, the spinning wings above it slowing down, the paradiddle of its motor becoming lazier, steam rolling away.

The noise stopped. The wings became still. The man in the seat pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, lit a pipe, and began to smoke.