The Constant Rabbit Read online

  I rapidly came to my senses and clambered out of the car, relieved to find I had no broken bones – just a twisted knee.

  ‘Is he staying in there?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s at peace,’ said Harvey, ‘and whole. I have to leave now, but you and I will meet again, at the place and time the Venerable Bunty completes the circle.’

  ‘How do you know I’ll be there?’ I asked.

  ‘Because Bunty has foreseen it. She foresees everything. When you feel the time is right, tell Pippa that what happened between us was real, and she knows where to find me if she can love a half-rabbit.’

  And he then made the circle of trust on my forehead, smiled and vanished off across the fields in a series of rapid bounces, each covering a good twenty yards. I meant to ask him what the two dried scrolls were that he’d handed to Lugless, but I think it was fairly obvious. They were Lugless’s ears.

  I turned back to the Eldorado, which was now well alight. Molten plastic dripped from the engine bay as little smoking raindrops of fire, and the heat was blistering the paint on the bonnet.

  ‘I always knew I’d eventually find a rabbit I couldn’t turn,’ Lugless said, staring straight ahead, ‘and there would always be one who would eventually turn me. But everything comes to an end.’

  I put up one arm to shield the heat from my face and stepped forward, stretching out my other hand for him to take.

  ‘Join me out here,’ I said, ‘you don’t need to do this.’

  He smiled as the flames started to lick around him, the smell of singed fur now in the air. Douglas AY-002 turned to me and gave a wry smile.

  ‘Humans,’ he said, ‘so little time – so much to know.’

  He turned back towards the steering wheel and held his newly returned ears closer to him as the flames consumed him.

  He didn’t make a single sound. Not a squeak not a whimper – nothing.

  Help was not long in arriving owing to the telltale pall of black smoke and the gap in the fencing. I was still trembling when the ambulance took me to Hereford General, accompanied by a Taskforce officer whom I didn’t recognise. They kept me in overnight for observation given the clout on my head, but aside from a few cuts and bruises and the twisted knee, I was unhurt. I was supervised throughout, even my phone call to Pippa, who expressed concern and offered to come and visit, but I told her she shouldn’t.

  No one had noticed that Harvey had been a Miffy, except me. As far as anyone was concerned, the earless rabbit who visited MegaWarren was the same one who had died transporting a compromised Taskforce employee back to base.

  I was allowed a shower without supervision and driven the following morning to the Nigel Smethwick Centre and given some breakfast in the canteen, again supervised, then told to wait in one of the interview rooms. It didn’t occur to me until later that Connie would have been hauled in for questioning too, but she was.

  I sat there for maybe an hour, conscious of not only my predicament here, but also that the clock was ticking – the Mallett brothers had given Pippa, myself and the Rabbits until this evening at ten to leave Much Hemlock – and they’d probably worked out none of us were playing ball. Tonight would be the night I made a stand – and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  The spartan interview room was clean and warm but otherwise unremarkable. The table was bolted to the floor, but the plastic chairs could be moved. In the centre of the table was a large brass ring for potential restraint, but it seemed little used. When it came down to it, rabbits just weren’t violent unless pushed into a corner, and even then were far more likely to use reasoned debate than tooth and claw.

  The door opened at a little after eleven, and Whizelle walked in accompanied by Flemming. They sat down opposite me and placed a mug of coffee on the table. It was the good stuff, not RabCoT canteen or chain muck. I was being schmoozed.

  ‘How are you feeling, Peter?’ asked Flemming.

  ‘Bruised, but OK, thanks.’

  ‘We’re glad of that,’ said Whizelle. ‘The loss of Douglas AY-002 is a serious annoyance as he was one of only three rabbits the Taskforce implicitly trusted, and “tragic car accidents” always need to be viewed with a degree of suspicion, especially on clear roads, in good weather.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘We think it might have been a hit,’ said Flemming, ‘on him, you – or both of you. Following on from Toby Mallett’s unexpected resignation and utter failure to give a plausible account of why he did, we’re inclined to think that the Spotters’ office here in Hereford has been targeted by either rabbits, rabbit sympathisers or rabbit sympathiser-sympathisers.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘So before we even begin to talk about the allegations regarding you and your next-door neighbour, tell us about the accident.’

  I told them everything I knew, and tried to stick as much to the truth as I could. I’d be questioned about this again, and if I was inconsistent over my story, I’d be more stuffed than I was already. I told them Lugless steered purposely off the road, no other car was involved, and that I scrambled out of the burning car when I came to. Lugless, I told them, was either dead in the crash or unconscious. Either way, I couldn’t get to him.

  ‘So you have no idea why he swerved off the road?’ asked Whizelle.

  ‘None. One moment we’re driving along the road, the next I’m waking up in a blazing car.’

  Whizelle looked at Flemming, who nodded, and the weasel opened a file and placed a picture of a white rabbit on the table. Now I’d seen him up close, I could recognise him better and the name on the picture confirmed it – he was Harvey Augustus McButtercup, aged twenty-six, a RabCab driver, resident in Colony One. I also knew he was now earless, a prominent member of the Rabbit Underground, had successfully infiltrated the Taskforce – and was in love with, and loved by, my daughter.

  ‘Have you seen this rabbit before?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Spotting isn’t an exact science. Who is he?’

  ‘We think he’s Flopsy 7770,’ said Whizelle. ‘Lugless looked him up on the Rabbit Employment Database before he died. But he didn’t tell anyone. You and he were in the office alone that morning – did he share with you?’

  ‘Lugless shared little with me,’ I said, now extremely glad I had searched for Harvey’s details on Lugless’s computer, but realising that I had led them directly to Harvey’s identity. I thought momentarily of asking whether I was detained and requesting a solicitor, but I got the feeling that this would only increase suspicions, not allay them.

  They moved on to the allegations I had been suspended about, and the mood in the room seemed to darken. Flemming and Whizelle had been work colleagues for many years and we’d got on OK, but right now that counted for nothing. There followed a long and very detailed account of what ‘four plausible witnesses’ had seen outside my house the night before last. Unlike the Harvey/Lugless issue, where I had to lie convincingly several times, this was a testimony I could actually give from start to finish fairly truthfully – from when the Rabbits moved in, to the incident in All Saints with Mr Ffoxe, and then to the evening when we ran through her lines, the farcical hiding in the cupboards with the Dumas novel, and Connie and Doc’s argument in the hallway.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ I said.

  ‘Let me spell this out for you,’ said Whizelle in a more serious voice. ‘Right now we can charge you and Constance Rabbit with offences contrary to the Unnatural Associations Section of the Anthropomorphised Animals Limited Rights Act of 1996.’

  I didn’t know the act word for word, but knew that the law was tactically enforced by the authorities as they saw fit. In the current climate, it seemed that they wanted it enforced. Friendship with rabbits, as far as the Rehoming was concerned, was to be discouraged.

  ‘With four eyewitnesses all happy to testify,’ he continued, ‘you both go to the clink – not a lot, two years, out in one, but with that on your files, I’d like to think that life will never quite be th
e same. Y’know how everyone believes they’re broad-minded and open? Well, spoiler alert: they’re not. And,’ he added, ‘along with your criminal record and time served, your pension can be cancelled on the grounds of “gross professional misconduct”.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘We can do that,’ said Flemming. ‘All we want, Peter, is a teensy-weensy little confession implicating Constance Rabbit in intimate entrapment. You can say it was an accident or a dare or you were beguiled or were drunk or something. You’ll still lose your job but you’ll keep your pension and there’s nothing on your record. Back to Much Hemlock and your uneventful life.’

  ‘What will happen to Constance?’

  ‘We’ll plea-bargain it down to surrender of her off-colony status on grounds of “demonstrable moral turpitude”. She’ll be back in the colonies by next week, and probably a great deal happier for it. She wasn’t really what we’d call trustworthy off-colony material.’

  ‘Best of all,’ added Whizelle, ‘it will send a clear message to female rabbits everywhere that beguiling humans into depravity can and will have dire consequences.’

  I stared down at the table in silence.

  ‘So what do you say?’ asked Whizelle.

  ‘I—’

  But I didn’t get to answer. The door opened, and in walked Mr Ffoxe.

  The Art of the Deal

  Weasels still turned white for the winter, even though there was no reason to do so. They can get very crotchety either side of ‘the change’ but were actually a lot more agreeable as ermine. Most weasels took the winter off, and headed to the slopes, where they were competent – though not highly visible – skiers.

  I say ‘walked’ but ‘burst’ might be a better term. I saw Flemming blanch and make a reflexive move to run away, but she checked herself and stayed put. Whizelle didn’t flinch, but instead looked annoyed. The timing was poor, and things can get badly out of hand when foxes take control.

  Mr Ffoxe looked at everyone in the room in turn.

  ‘You can piss off,’ he said to Flemming, ‘and you, Weasel, can definitely piss off.’

  ‘It’s pronounced “Whi-zelle”.’

  ‘Whatever. Tamara, get in here.’

  Miss Robyns stepped in, armed with a clipboard and holding three mobile phones.

  ‘Hello!’ she said in a chirpy fashion. ‘I work for Torquil now.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said.

  ‘What is this?’ said Whizelle, who I think was about the only operative in the Taskforce who could stand up to Ffoxe. ‘I am conducting this interview.’

  ‘Not any more you’re not. I have some new information that elevates our enquiry beyond a little bit of furry slap and tickle.’

  ‘I’d like to be briefed on this,’ said Whizelle.

  ‘And I’d like to share a glass of Pinot Grigio with Tilda Swinton,’ replied the fox, ‘but life is full of disappointments. Close the door on your way out, old boy.’

  ‘No,’ said Whizelle. ‘Knox might be weak-willed and a rabbit-fancying turncoat, but he’s a human, and we know what happened the last time you interviewed a human, don’t we?’

  ‘That is a disgusting and unfounded accusation,’ said Mr Ffoxe, ‘but when you run with the bun, you are scum like the bun.’

  ‘Look—’ began Whizelle, but Mr Ffoxe simply lifted a quivering lip and gave a low growl at the back of his throat. I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck and Whizelle’s ears flicked back as he suddenly became utterly submissive.

  ‘I’m so sorry for my outburst,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  And he left the interview room with his tail firmly between his legs.

  ‘Well now,’ said the fox, seating himself opposite me, ‘tempers are a little fraught today, aren’t they?’

  He leaned back in the chair while his small yellow eyes peered at me with an appearance of … actually, I’m not quite sure what. Disdain, I think, mixed with quiet confidence and a sense of arrogant superiority. He said nothing, removed a cigarette from a silver case, tapped it on the box and then lit it from a large gold lighter that Tamara held out for him. He took a deep breath, then exhaled the smoke in my direction and said nothing – for quite a long time.55

  ‘You’re not going to harm me,’ I said, unable to stand the silence any more. ‘And as I said to Whizelle and Flemming, nothing happened.’

  The fox looked at me coolly.

  ‘Whether you did or you didn’t, old boy, it doesn’t really matter. And you know what? I believe you. But since we are so close to the Rehoming, I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to be making waves. What’s more, because of your unique circle of friends and intimate associations, I can offer you a deal whereby all this goes away, you get full pension rights, a fifty-grand cash bonus and not a blemish on your record. How does that sound?’

  ‘It sounds like it has strings attached.’

  ‘Astute of you. Here it is: we have reason to believe Constance Rabbit has connections to the Rabbit Underground, and we think she is a bunnytrap, simply there to gain access to the Taskforce’s mainframe through you, the dupe.’

  I’d not thought about this before. It didn’t sound true, and for one good reason:

  ‘I don’t have access to the Taskforce’s mainframe.’

  ‘The Underground don’t know that. I want you to work for us, working against them, together. They want to make Britain into a rabbit nation, with their laws, their heathen god, their aggressive veganism and quasi-rodent way of doing things. This sceptr’d isle, this green and pleasant land, is reserved for humans and a few foxes, not for a plague of vermin. And they can do that, they can make that happen, just by doing what they like to do best. They’re planning on outnumbering us. The LitterBomb. It’s on the cards, I know.’

  It was all UKARP conspiracy-theory nonsense. Nigel Smethwick had been spouting similar stuff for years, and none of it remotely proven.

  ‘They’re just rabbits, sir. Herbivores. Compliant, trusting, hard-working. I’ve spoken to them, I think I kind of know them. I don’t believe they have any agenda at all. They simply want … to be.’

  Mr Ffoxe laughed.

  ‘Knoxie, my old chum, that’s exactly what they want you to believe. The truth, my friend, is far bleaker: all that cute cuddly stuff – don’t be fooled. You saw Mrs Rabbit with that knife against my throat in All Saints?’

  ‘You crushed her niece’s head in your jaws.’

  ‘Well, woop-woop,’ he said, ‘one rabbit down is not any kind of a loss. It was just my very good fortune that I didn’t become another victim of rabbit-on-fox violence.’

  It was a stretch that even Smethwick would have been hard-pressed to make.

  ‘She wouldn’t have killed you,’ I said, ‘not with the likely reprisals.’

  He stared at me coldly.

  ‘Reprisals are vital to maintain order,’ he said. ‘Besides, sixty seconds of what the rabbits jokingly call passion would soon make up those losses. Now: I can make everything go away and give you your pension and some cash, or we can bump the charges up from simple association to lending material support to the Rabbit Underground – which is a banned disruptionist movement. It’s a minimum ten years.’

  ‘Wait, wait,’ I said, ‘material support?’

  ‘Sure. Were you paid to get Harvey McButtercup into the MegaWarren, or were you simply pulling a solid for your furry woodland friends?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Sure you do. How do you think Lugless managed to leave his car in the car park when he arrived in the coach? The rabbit masquerading as Lugless was with you when we spoke at MegaWarren. I smelled the fear on him. I’d met Lugless before and he didn’t fear me at all. I liked him. The best kind of rabbits are furry on the inside.’

  ‘That’s the evidence of your nose against my eyes, Mr Ffoxe,’ I said, feeling braver externally but not within, as a nasty churning feeling seemed to be going on inside
, and my mouth felt dry.

  ‘There’s more,’ said Mr Ffoxe. ‘When Lugless was cropped they would have kept his ears. They always do. It’s a religious “going to rabbit heaven complete” sort of deal. Trouble is, they preserve them in hot sand which tends to turn them into hard leather.’

  Tamara chucked an evidence bag on to the table containing Lugless’s rolled-up ears, badly charred but more or less still extant.

  ‘If we had the forensic boys unroll these I’d bet my foxy left nut we’d find a pattern of duel-holes that exactly matched AY-002’s. He fought a lot of duels. Liked the ladies. A little too much, as it turned out.’

  ‘Perhaps he carried his ears with him, as, I don’t know – a memento?’

  ‘Cropped rabbits are denied their ears. That’s the point. No, I think Lugless swapped with Harvey in exchange for his ears and an honourable death. I think you were the one who used Lugless’s computer to look up Harvey McButtercup, and you vouched for Harvey when he inveigled his way into MegaWarren. You’ve seen him out there in the real world. Where, I don’t know. But I’ll find out.’

  This was all annoyingly excellent detective work. You can’t outfox the fox.

  ‘Conjecture,’ I said.

  In an instant I was on my back with Mr Ffoxe on top of me. He had moved so quickly it seemed like someone had snipped two seconds out of time. While Tamara moved to the door to ensure no one entered, Mr Ffoxe stared deeply into my eyes, and I felt fear. Not your ordinary run-of-the-mill worry about being late for an important meeting, or a funny lump that turns out to be nothing at the doctor’s. This was pure, unadulterated, mortal fear of one’s imminent demise. And what’s more, that one’s end is inescapable, inevitable and will be protracted, and painful.

  Mr Ffoxe said nothing and slowly pressed the point of a single claw into the side of my left eyeball. My vision blurred and greyed out, and the pain was intense – yet I hardly dared breathe lest my added movement caused my eyeball to burst.

  ‘Now listen,’ he said in a soft whisper, his breath reeking of rancid meat and claret, ‘I’m going to ask you once again, and if you don’t tell me the full and complete truth first time out, I’m going to take out your eye, and then I’m going to eat it.’