Jasper Fforde - The Constant Rabbit

‘Oh,’ he said instead, ‘and what evidence do you have Fenton actually is involved?’

‘He was identified by one of our Spotters as a rabbit of interest, Prime Minister. One who might have Underground connections.’

And Lugless turned to face me. All eyes swivelled in my direction and my mouth went dry. I wanted to make a run for it, but I didn’t think I’d get very far. I’d seen how fast Mr Ffoxe could move.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Smethwick. It was the first time he had acknowledged me, even though I had seen him on numerous occasions, and been introduced twice.

‘Peter Knox – Spotter Grade V, fifteen years’ service.’

Pandora Pandora tapped a note into her iPad.

‘Oh yes?’ said Smethwick, unimpressed. ‘And just how sure are you that Fenton DG-6721 was the same rabbit as that involved with the Underground? Give me a figure,’ he added, as he knew how Spotters worked, ‘a percentage likelihood of identification.’

I paused, then:

‘Less than two per cent,’ I said, truthfully enough.

‘Two per cent?’ he echoed. ‘That’s it? We’ve arrested a prominent rabbit rights activist on a lousy two per cent? What other evidence do you have?’

The silence in the room was palpable, and I shivered as a cold sweat seemed to run down my back.

‘None,’ I said, hoping Lugless would say that he had put the name up, but knowing he wouldn’t.

Smethwick stared at me for a moment then turned to Pandora Pandora.

‘Can you think of a suitable term that I could use to describe Knox?’ he asked.

‘How about “a low-grade moron”?’

Smethwick snapped his fingers and smiled.

‘Spot on. You’re a complete moron, Knox. I don’t give a tuppenny shit about rabbits who think they can manipulate the liberal media into making us look like a bunch of reactionaries, especially with the Rehoming in the air, but we need public support, Knox, and after all the careful PR work we’ve done over the past two years, arresting Fenton is just beyond stupid. How many prominent rabbits did we not arrest that we wanted to arrest, Pandora? Ones we let go so as not to rock the boat ahead of MegaWarren?’

‘Probably hundreds,’ said Pandora Pandora while gazing at me with a special level of deep loathing.

‘Exactly. Hundreds. What in hell’s name did you think you were doing?’

‘I … don’t know.’

‘You don’t know? You put the Rehoming in jeopardy and that’s the best you can do? Well, you’re finished. Fired for gross incompetence, which we can bump up to criminal negligence and contravention of Taskforce guidelines – which means we can save a bit of cash on pensions, too. Hell’s teeth, am I surrounded by idiots? Now—’

‘One moment, sir.’

It was Mr Ffoxe. He had moved to my side with lightning speed and laid a paw on my shoulder. It couldn’t possibly be friendly consideration for a subordinate, so he clearly had a play to make.

‘Yes?’ said Smethwick, suddenly interested.

‘I think this could work to our advantage, Prime Minister. I say we leave the bunnies for twenty-four hours, then tell everyone there has been a terrible mistake for which we are hugely sorry, then act contrite and pretend we have fired half a dozen people for incompetence. The rabbits, hoping to gain a PR victory out of this, will have the rug pulled from under their hind paws. The riot will be seen as a knee-jerk reaction as befits a creature that wastes no time in milking outrage by resorting to the aggressive spectre of civil disobedience. I’ll even lead the apologies, which should be worth a few column inches, especially if I can squeeze out a tear.’

Smethwick stared at him for a moment, wondering whether this was a good idea.

‘I’m with the fox,’ said Pandora Pandora. ‘A climbdown now makes us look small, sitting it out makes us look weak, attempting to break it up makes us seem like bullies – but an apology in twenty-four hours will appear magnanimous and even-handed.’

‘Sounds like a good plan,’ said Smethwick at last. ‘Without knowing it, Knox might have done us a favour. That’s what we’ll do. Twenty-four hours.’

‘So … I’m not fired?’ I asked.

‘Far from it, old chap,’ said Smethwick, ‘you could be in for a citation. Just be a little more certain in future, hmm?’

And he clapped his hand on my back. The meeting might have adjourned there and then but for a voice.

‘I need a word.’

It was the representative of RabToil, and he was holding a mobile phone to his ear.

‘No, I think we’re done here,’ said Smethwick, eager not to prolong the decision-making process any more than he had to, and eager to get back to schmoozing his constituents.

‘The CEO of RabToil wants you to halt the demonstration right now.’

I saw Smethwick blanch, and he swapped looks with Mr Ffoxe and Pandora Pandora.

‘He does?’

‘Yes. The potential loss of rabbit work-hours would not be conducive to productivity as there is a large order for electric foot spas that we need to fulfil. We currently have thirty thousand rabbits on our workforce at Colony One, and a riot will likely reduce that by seventy-five per cent.’

He paused to let this sink in.

‘Do what you need to do by all means, but causing unnecessary distress to our manufacturing clients solely because RabCoT don’t know what to do with a few recalcitrant bunnies might cause … nervousness amongst foreign investors eager to bring their manufacturing projects to the UK.’

Mr Ffoxe stared at the ground, and Smethwick looked at Pandora Pandora for support.

‘We’ll need to hear that from the CEO himself,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said the rep, ‘he’s on the phone right now.’

He held up the receiver, but no one took the call. Despite Smethwick’s power and agenda, when it came to the bottom line, RabToil – and in effect, big business – called the shots. Commerce was everything.

‘Do it,’ said Smethwick, ‘let them all out immediately and issue a press release explaining that the rabbits in question were arrested owing to a … regrettable and wholly avoidable administrative error.’

‘Shall I add the empty platitude “lessons have been learned”?’ asked Pandora Pandora. ‘And: “we can do better and will do better”? Those lies always play well when the tech companies use them.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ said Smethwick. ‘You could also put in something about how we are “reviewing procedures” – that’s another massive porker that always goes down well.’

Everyone laughed. Mr Ffoxe asked Pandora Pandora to jot down her press release as quickly as possible, and picked up the phone to order the rabbits to be released. I had been slowly backing towards the door as this happened, hoping my fortunes would not once again be reversed, and once outside the door I slipped unseen back upstairs. Within half an hour every single rabbit had vanished from outside; the only evidence they had been there at all were seventy-six bandanas tied around a lamp-post and the cube root of nineteen chalked on the road – to twenty-eight decimal places.

The more outlandish conspiracy theorists suggested the rabbit had ambitions for galactic domination. Exponentially increasing reproduction would, mathematically at least, cover the globe with rabbits, then eventually expand outwards from the earth, first beyond escape velocity and eventually towards the speed of light – presumably carrying a capsule in front of the mountain of ever-reproducing rabbits. It was dubbed ‘HyperRabbitDrive’.

Despite my misgivings, there was no fall-out over the incident with Fenton DG-6721, and neither was I asked to present more random names to be detained. After two more days of fruitless searching for Flopsy 7770 I was returned to other duties, something that rankled with Lugless, who complained bitterly to anyone who would listen that his investigation had been ‘cut off at the knees’. He tried several times to restart the enquiry, but by Friday his investigation was on hold, his superiors citing ‘unwelcome scrutiny from the biased press on the MegaWarren project’ as the reason.