The Constant Rabbit

‘Don’t thank me,’ he said, ‘thank the Venerable Bunty and Mr Finkle. It was their overall plan. I just spoke the words, trippingly off the tongue.’

‘Are you going to study law for real?’ I asked.

‘Maybe,’ said Lance, ‘but it’ll take more than just rabbit lawyers – we need rabbit judges to see our point of view. When every legal system on the planet is skewed against any non-human animal group, it’s almost impossible to make any headway. We’d have liked to help – the Rabbit Way has a lot going for it – but maybe humans just aren’t grown up enough to be able to share the planet quite yet.’

‘Why help me out at all?’ I asked. ‘I mean, you could have just left me to my life sentence and it would be no down off anyone’s ears.’

‘That’s true,’ said Lance, ‘but the second circle of Lago is about restorative self-justice. Responsibility for one’s errors, choice-consequences and transgressions. You didn’t kill Mr Ffoxe, so you shouldn’t go to prison. Luckily, it’s relatively easy to outfox the British legal system. Your billionaires do it all the time. The way we see it, London is just one massive money-laundering scheme attached to an impressive public transport system and a few museums, of which even the most honest has more stolen goods than a lock-up garage in Worcester rented by a guy I know called Chalky.’

We chatted for a while and I learned that Lance’s appearance in court had only been his first criminal case, but not his first civil plea. Although there was not yet a ruling, the civil case revolved around whether a receipt from a pet shop for Blackberry, Lance’s Petstock forebear, could be considered proof of pre-Event residency, and if so, did that count as documentation and thus make the fifty thousand or so rabbits who carried the deBlackberry surname legally British.

‘Will it work?’ I asked.

‘It’s legally sound,’ he said, ‘but with UKARP’s shifting legislative goalposts, probably not.’

The cabbie had the radio on as we drove, and I featured prominently on the news. The general consensus was that a ‘shady rabbit lawyer’ had ‘exploited a loophole’ to ‘get me off’, a loophole which fox legal minds were currently trying to close – and there was even talk of appealing the judge’s decision as she had clearly promoted ‘an appallingly biased anti-human and pro-rabbit agenda’. Either way, it didn’t appear as though this was over.

As we approached Colony One we could see a huge military build-up had occurred. There were lorries and tanks parked amongst the trees, with artillery pieces positioned in the surrounding fields, gun crews at readiness.

‘This is as far as this old rabbit goes,’ said the cabbie, as the access road to the colony had been barricaded about a mile from the main entrance. There was, in fact, a good-sized crowd of humans present and a peace camp seemed to have been set up. Banners proclaiming equal rights for all animals and support for vegetarianism and sustainability were prominently displayed, and several others which were only passive-aggressively anti-fox, as it really wasn’t wise to piss them off. The police were present also, leaning on their riot shields and looking bored, while groups of foxes sat around on deckchairs, listening to Caruso on a wind-up gramophone, sipping Chianti and playing cribbage.

‘You need to take this in with you,’ said Lance, handing me a sealed cardboard box about a foot square.

‘What is it?’

‘Oh, just supplies,’ he said, ‘but vital for the effort.’

‘OK,’ I replied, now uneasy. ‘But how am I going to get in?’

‘Go straight in the door,’ he said. ‘My guess is they won’t dare touch you.’

I squeezed his two paws with my two thumbless hands. It actually felt more comfortable and connected, as though our hands/paws interlocked more fully and completely, and with them, an understanding.

‘Goodbye, Peter,’ said Lance with an air of finality, ‘it’s been a lot of fun. I may see you on the other side.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll see.’

I climbed out of the car, which drove off without urgency, and walked up to the barrier, where several police officers were talking in a nervous gaggle. For the most part, they stayed separate from the Taskforce. When mud gets thrown around, the further you are away, the less likely it will stick.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the policeman in charge, a superintendent, I think, ‘no entry to Colony One at present.’

‘My name’s Peter Knox,’ I said, ‘I need to speak to the fox in charge.’

The superintendent either hadn’t followed the breaking news, didn’t see how it might be relevant or couldn’t care, so he simply repeated what he had said a little more forcefully: that the colony was closed.

Luckily for me there were also military personnel standing just a little way off and the ranking officer, a brigadier, strolled over and asked the superintendent for a word. It was several words in the end, for they were chatting for five minutes, and eventually the superintendent made a call on his mobile, nodded several times and then walked back to me.