The Constant Rabbit

If Mr Ffoxe knew Harvey wasn’t Lugless he’d be tortured and killed at the hands of the Senior Group Leader – probably here, right in front of us. But to my shame, I wasn’t really thinking of that. I was thinking that they’d figure out that I knew too – I’d vouched for Harvey’s identity to get him in here. But things didn’t quite turn out that way. As the fox, weasel and human drew closer I realised that the focus of their anger was not Harvey/Lugless at all – but me.

‘That’s right, Knox,’ said Whizelle as they encircled me, ‘we’ve heard about your lewd and unnatural associations with your rabbit next-door neighbour. Taskforce guideline 68/5b forbids it. You’re suspended from work and will have all security privileges withdrawn pending an internal investigation.’

‘Well now,’ said Mr Ffoxe with a chuckle. ‘I know I asked for deep infiltration, but this is definitely not what I had in mind. In partibus lagomorphium, eh? Mind you,’ he added with a smile, ‘anyone who threatens a fox with a flick-knife does show spirit.’⁵³

And he turned to Whizelle.

‘Weasel, have Knox debriefed back at the office. Tease out the truth, but courteously – Knox remains a valuable asset and one that we would wish to be able to re-educate.’

‘Certainly,’ said Whizelle, ‘but you pronounce my name “Whi—”’

‘So, Tamara,’ said Mr Ffoxe, cutting Whizelle dead and taking Miss Robyns by the arm in a courteous manner, ‘been working for the Taskforce long?’

‘How did you know my name?’

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘aren’t you all called Tamara?’

‘Personally,’ said Whizelle to me, ‘I don’t give a monkey’s what you get up to in your spare time, but rules are rules. Lugless, find a car and get Knox back to the Hereford office. I’ll be a couple of hours behind you, and just in case: no phone calls, no visits, no solicitor.’

‘Why me?’ said Harvey, remaining in character.

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ said Whizelle, and Harvey shrugged and flicked his head, indicating I should follow him.

‘Bother and blast,’ he said once we were safely out of earshot. ‘That didn’t go as planned. I got barely an hour inside. Even so.’

He looked at me.

‘You want to know what’s going on, don’t you?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I do not want to know what’s going on. I didn’t see anything, I don’t know anything, and as far as anyone is concerned, for now and ever more you are Lugless AY-002.’

‘Probably quite wise,’ said Harvey as we walked towards where Lugless’s car was parked, the same late-seventies Eldorado Lugless had used while on Ops in Ross-on-Wye. I started to ask Harvey how it came to be here, but he silenced me, took the keys from where they had been hidden on the top of the rear tyre, unlocked the doors, and told me to hop in the back. He then started the car and reversed out of the parking lot. He drove quite fast – for a rabbit – but I didn’t want to ask him anything because I didn’t want to know anything. I wanted to resign, go home and devote my life to Speed Librarying – a life choice that I made official by designating it with a code: 12-345.

We took the main road back towards Hereford, picked up some more speed and as soon as the road was clear in both directions, Harvey hauled hard right on the wheel and the car swerved and left the road. There was a double thump as the wheels struck the verge and then everything felt smooth and quiet as we became airborne. There was a steep escarpment beyond the verge and I watched the litter and discarded junk food cartons inside the car suddenly become weightless as we gracefully went into a brief free fall that ended with a teeth-juddering thump, a cracking of wood and the soft implosive noise that toughened windscreens make when they burst. I was thrown hard forward into my seat belt, bounced back into the door pillar and everything went black.

Car & Custody

Ninety-seven per cent of all rabbit internet traffic was colony-to-colony. Within the warren and burrow, nearly all conversation and gossip were undertaken nose to nose, and a recent survey found that, given the levels to which rabbits like to gossip, news and views within the colony could travel faster than broadband, and were a lot more fun.

I came to my senses with a shocking headache, the taste of blood in my mouth and the smell of burning in my nostrils. The car had landed upright and was facing backwards at the bottom of a steep wooded slope. The burned-out Eldorado – much scavenged by tourists – remained in situ for a decade until removed for inclusion in the Event Museum at the repurposed MegaWarren Induction Centre. I visited this site a lot when I ran tours after the publication of my book, eight years after the Battle of May Hill.