The Constant Rabbit

I made some tea, settled down to my spotting, and had my first Miffy within an hour. I thought of saying they weren’t the same rabbit solely because it would put a spanner in the works, but spotting skills were always under scrutiny; I wasn’t the only one seeing these images. And if another Spotter fingered a Miffy that I didn’t, someone would get suspicious I was developing a conscience and I’d be out of a job. It suddenly occurred to me that the Spotters who claimed to have lost the skill probably hadn’t lost anything at all – just had a daughter like Pippa, or had met some rabbits like Doc and Connie.

I looked across at Lugless, who was reading in silence. I wasn’t a big fan of Toby but we did talk to relieve the monotony of the day. After another half-hour of silence with Lugless making notes, shuffling papers and sniffing, I finally said:

‘Where’s Whizelle?’

‘Out,’ he said, without looking up.

‘Yes, I can see that. What about Flemming?’

‘Which one’s Flemming?’

‘The female with the eyepatch? Your boss?’

‘Ah, her. No, she’s out too.’

‘Do you know where?’

He stopped, dropped the file he was reading heavily on the desk, then turned to stare at me. His eyelid twitched.

‘Is that all you do here?’ he asked. ‘Talk?’

‘It relieves the tedium of the day,’ I said, ‘and builds rapport amongst team members.’

‘I prefer it when you just do as I say,’ he said. ‘Teams work best with a strong leader.’

And he carried on with his paperwork.

After I’d reviewed another twenty rabbits, all of whom were exactly who they said they were, Lugless suddenly said:

‘Section Officer Flemming, Whizelle and the rest of senior management are at a MegaWarren site meeting. I would have gone but it’s barred to all rabbits, irrespective of security clearance.’

He was right. Rabbits had been banned from seeing their new home on the grounds that it might ‘spoil the nice surprise’.

‘The official visit for staff that includes me is tomorow,’ said Lugless. ‘You going?’

‘Probably.’

‘Actually, I don’t care a mouldy carrot if you do or don’t,’ said the earless rabbit. ‘Is that enough rapport and comradeship for you?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

And he went back to his work. The phone rang ten minutes later. He waited for it to ring six times – he always did that, I’d noticed – and after listening to the caller for a few minutes, said: ‘The fat furry bastard. Don’t let him talk to anyone until I get there.’

He put the phone down and in an unhurried manner chose a hammer from his desk drawer and departed, doubtless on one of his ‘no rabbit I can’t turn’ quests. I quickly went over to his desk. It was a long shot but rabbits were notoriously lax at computer security, and it was possible that Lugless had been given the usual default password, and hadn’t yet changed it.

I was in luck, and quickly logged in to the Working Rabbit Database. The reason was simple. I wanted to look at Harvey’s details, but didn’t want anyone to know that I was the one doing it. Lugless looked up rabbits all the time; it would be just one more search of many. Since Harvey was a Petstock, a McButtercup and a licensed RabCab driver, it took me less than a minute to find him. His full name was Harvey Augustus McButtercup, age twenty-six, resident in Colony One and a cabbie for six years. I went through his record, which revealed nothing more exciting than a series of minor traffic offences dotted around the country – either close to other colonies, or en route from one to another. If the Underground needed a courier moving around without restrictions, they’d choose a cabbie. It wasn’t a smoking gun, but factoring in his politics and his work as a courier in Ross made it pretty clear he was Underground. I logged out of Lugless’s computer, and returned to my own desk and worked non-stop until lunch.

For a change I decided to use the café in All Saints church so sauntered over there, ordered a coffee and panini and sat down. I opened my copy of the Smugleftie. Most papers relegated rabbit news to page five or six if they covered rabbit stories at all, and today, I turned there first. The articles mostly covered overcrowding in the colonies, the ballooning costs of MegaWarren and the worryingly broad remit of Rehoming legislation.

‘Panini and a coffee?’ said the waitress, placing the items on my table. I thanked her and she hopped back to the kitchens.