The Constant Rabbit

The all-white McButtercups, for their part, generally kept themselves to themselves, the way they liked it.

I gave the Miffy a four per cent, and Flemming asked Toby whether he concurred, which he did, so Flemming signed the warrant and Whizelle picked up the phone to coordinate the arrest of the rabbit on charges of identity fraud. Whizelle had done this before many times on my eye testimony, so the consequences of the unseen arrest and its aftermath were no longer something I worried too much about. The first month maybe, but not any more. Rabbits can be criminals too.

The excitement over, Flemming returned to her office and Whizelle busied himself with the paperwork, of which there was a lot. I took a break and then, out of a sense of curiosity regarding Connie rather than because of Victor Mallett’s pleas, looked up ‘Clifford Rabbit’ on the RabCoT database. There were two thousand of them, so I narrowed it down to those off-colony and living in Herefordshire. This threw up three hits: one who was single, another who was currently doing time for ‘insider trading on collateralised carrot obligations’¹⁰ and one who lived in a temporary address for legal off-colony rabbits in Leominster. I discovered this last rabbit had been married almost exactly a year, and there she was: Constance Grace Iolanthe¹¹ Rabbit, and I double-checked to make sure it was her by accessing her mugshot from the Rabbit Employment Database.

Reading further I learned that she was two years older than me and second generation from the Event. She was a respectable eight short of the rabbit’s ten-child policy, and was twice widowed, which was not unusual. The buck rabbit’s propensity for duelling prior to the breeding season could often have fatal results.

‘What you got there?’ asked Whizelle, looking over from his desk. I explained that a rabbit had turned up in our village and I wanted to know who she was.

‘Local village?’ he asked.

‘Much Hemlock.’

He grunted.

‘Multispecism never worked. Different agendas, you see. It’s not leporiphobic to say they dislike integration – it’s a fact. Does she have any previous you can use to move her on?’

‘She’s not resident in the village,’ I said, then to add plausibility to the data search added: ‘I was just making sure that she wasn’t, um – y’know, on a recce.’

‘Very wise,’ said Whizelle, nodding in agreement, ‘one can never be too careful as far as rabbits are concerned.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Time for the briefing, Knox. Toby, you’ve got two hours’ overtime tonight to make up for Peter’s absence.’

‘No problem,’ said Toby happily, as the Guild of Spotters had negotiated double-time overtime, with generous no-supper-break penalties.

‘Flemming said you weren’t keen on going on Operations,’ said Whizelle as we walked down the stairs towards the briefing room, ‘and even got a bogus note from medical. Any particular reason?’

Whizelle, like Flemming, spoke his mind.

‘I was on Ops the night Dylan Rabbit was misidentified,’ I said, attempting to gain some sort of sympathy, ‘two years ago. The Senior Group Leader’s last operation before promotion.’

‘The whole Dylan Rabbit episode was unfortunate,’ said Whizelle thoughtfully, I think meaning from a PR point of view and not from Dylan’s point of view, as he wound up jugged, ‘but to keep a high level of efficiency in Compliance there has to be a small amount of collateral damage. It’s inevitable. Besides, Dylan Rabbit was probably guilty of something – or would be, given time.’

‘The papers had a field day,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Whizelle, ‘the Smugleftie and Headlights¹² had a field day. The others barely covered it. Besides, you weren’t lead Spotter. None of it came back to you.’

This was true. I’d been there on the sidelines only to verify the ID. The fallout over Dylan Rabbit was at least big enough to have Smethwick answer questions in Parliament and required RabCoT to ‘seriously overhaul and thoroughly review their identification criteria’. This reached us as a single memo urging us to ‘show a bit more caution for a few months’ over identification. The thing was, I knew we’d got the wrong rabbit during the hard traffic stop and said so, but I’d been overruled. Not just by the Senior Spotter on duty who had retired once the mistake was made public, but by the Senior Group Leader, who threatened to ‘punch my f***ing lights out’ if I didn’t concur with the identification. And I did.

‘Identification is always a thorny problem,’ said Whizelle, opening the door to the briefing room, ‘and while the Rabbit Support Agency, Grand Council of Coneys and the rest of the woolly-liberal protest groups refuse to countenance RFI chipping or discreetly tattooed barcodes on the ears, we have to rely on Spotters who are only human and can and do make mistakes. Besides,’ he added, ‘if the perfidious bun didn’t pull a Miffy every now and again, none of this would happen. They’ve only themselves to blame.’