The Constant Rabbit

‘Overheated,’ she explained. ‘That sweating thing you do is super-useful. If I was a member of a species eager for world domination, it would be first on my list, along with sensible footwear, literacy and double-entry bookkeeping.’

‘Connie, can I tell you something?’

‘You disagree about the importance of double-entry bookkeeping?’

‘No, I think that’s irrefutable,’ I replied, taking a deep breath and suddenly feeling the urge to stare at my feet. ‘It’s about your … second husband.’

‘Dylan?’

‘Yes. I was … there the night he was mistakenly identified.’

She stopped and gazed at me intently, her head cocked on one side.

‘I was wondering when you were going to tell me.’

‘Wait, what – you knew?’

She nodded.

‘We knew you were a Spotter, and knew what you’d done. But I said I knew you, and you weren’t all bad. That you were weak, that’s all – and easily led.’

‘Then all this friendship stuff is a sham? You really are a bunnytrap?’

‘No,’ she replied, ‘it’s not a sham. Everyone is capable of reform. It’s quite possible to do bad things and find some kind of restorative justice – personally, and for those you’ve wronged. I knew you before you made poor choices, when you could have done anything you wanted. I’d like to think that there are parts of that Peter Knox still around.’

I stared back at her, unable to think of anything to say.

‘Really, I’m totally OK with it,’ she said, as I must have looked unconvinced. ‘We know you pleaded with Mr Ffoxe that it wasn’t Dylan, we know that you were overruled. You could have done more and think you still might. You can help us, and by the same measure, we can help you. This isn’t a bunnytrap, or an exploitation – it’s an intervention. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’

‘That I’m repairable?’

‘Yes,’ she said, laying a paw on my arm, ‘you’re repairable.’

‘So,’ I said after a pause, ‘you were close to killing Mr Ffoxe at All Saints simply for revenge?’

‘Nope,’ she said, ‘not with the risk of reprisals. Killing such a prominent fox would be ten times the usual penalty for rabbit-murder. No, that was just to get him interested.’

There was another pause.

‘How did you know all that?’ I asked. ‘About me and Dylan and stuff?’

She smiled.

‘You’d be surprised how many people are friendly to rabbits. And you see these?’

She pointed at her long and very elegant ears, which were covered with the faintest wisp of downy fur.

‘Yes?’

‘They’re not just for decoration.’

Bugged Bunny

Rabbity glossary: Hiffniff. The direct translation is an ‘edict’ but ‘a suggestion to undertake a unified act of benefit to the warren’ would be closer, albeit more verbose. An emphasis on the last ‘f’ would, however, change the meaning to ‘any item of apparel worn by women on a hen night’.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Pippa – with Bobby’s help – made it into Colony One at about the same time as I was talking to Finkle and the Venerable Bunty. She met up with Harvey but I didn’t see them again until I too was inside the colony, the same day as the Battle of May Hill. I’d see Pippa and Harvey leave me as I stood beside Connie and the Venerable Bunty, the artillery shells falling, the sharp barks, yelps and cries of excited foxes mixing with the frightened cries of rabbits. But all of this was in the future, and unknowable. Or at least, unknowable to me.

I slept unusually well the night after the meeting with Finkle and Bunty, and the following morning my eye, which the day before had been bloodshot and sore and gave only hazy vision, was almost healed. I had breakfast feeling oddly quite good about myself, took delivery of Finkle’s owl and the portable aviary and then called the Taskforce HR department to say that I would be doing half-days until further notice for ‘personal reasons’. I then spent the next week pretending that Connie and I had a thing going. It was her idea in order that Mr Ffoxe waste valuable resources which would otherwise have been spent preparing for the Rehoming, and I happily went along with it, as spending time with her was always pleasant.

On the first day we met in the lobby of the Green Dragon Hotel and went to a shared room, stayed for an hour to play Scrabble, then unsubtly departed, ten minutes apart. We met at All Saints for lunch on more than one occasion, took the train to Birmingham to see a Vilhelm Hammershoi retrospective, and on the day after that, I called in sick and hid in my spare room while Connie sent our mobiles in a RabCab all the way to Liverpool’s Tarbuck International Airport. She didn’t say why, but I guessed to give the impression we were doing a recce for a possible escape to the Isle of Man. I even asked her to shadow Stanley Baldwin during that Tuesday Buchblitz, where she showed considerable flair for reshelving.

Whenever I got into the office, usually afternoons, I spent the time in Interview Room One, reading a copy of Madame Bovary that Connie had lent me.