Jasper Fforde - The Constant Rabbit

‘It’s Whi-zelle for the hundredth time,’ I heard Whizelle mutter under his breath.

There was no doubt in my mind Mr Ffoxe would not lift a paw to help Pippa or her significant rabbit. To him, my daughter had already crossed the species divide and would be treated accordingly. The only reason I asked was to make him think I would not wear a wire lightly. Mr Ffoxe walked around the table and made to shake my hand, but instead grabbed my head and thumped it painfully on the interview-room desk. Then, after a pause, he did it again, harder, then once more, harder still. I felt a tooth break in my jaw.

‘Shit,’ I said, ‘that really hurt.’

‘The first was to make the point,’ he said, ‘that if you double-cross me I will find you, wherever you are, and make good on the whole eye-coming-out-and-eating-it scenario. The second was for betraying your own species.’

‘And the third?’ I asked.

‘That one,’ he said, leaning closer to whisper in my ear, ‘was simply for pleasure.’

Thumping the hind leg upon the ground was a good method of non-verbal communication with a range of about four hundred yards, sort of like rabbit WiFi. Using Morse code, entire books could be transmitted to a large group of rabbits while occupied on assembly-line work. It is the origin of the phrase ‘a thumping good tale’.

I drove straight home, my head still throbbing. The bugging device that Whizelle had given me was a plain Parker ballpoint that required me only to click it once to switch on, once to switch off. The battery, he’d said, would last for six hours and transmit up to a mile away.

The thing was, I was under no illusion that I was fooling Mr Ffoxe. He’d know I’d tell them I was wired, so he’d also know they’d only give up intel that they wanted him to hear. Was I a bunnytrap-trap trap, or a bunnytrap-trap-trap trap? It was impossible to know. I gave up on trying to figure it all out and instead went and fed Finkle’s owl, who stared back at me blankly.

The clock was indicating six when there was a knock on the door. It was Doc. He was returning the Henry vacuum cleaner with an apologetic ‘sorry, don’t know why she keeps pinching them when I’m the one that does the cleaning’ and also wanting to know whether I fancied watching him make a fool of himself at the Parish Council. I told him I wouldn’t miss it for anything as council meetings were often closer to live cabaret than the first tier of democracy. We walked the short distance to the village hall, talking about how all of his security consultancy contracts had been withdrawn or cancelled without explanation.

‘The Rehoming is putting a spanner in the works for legal off-colony rabbits,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling we won’t be off-colony for long.’

Doc’s initiation into the Parish Council all seemed to go fairly well. Victor had been the chairman for decades, and although Norman was not on the council he was there with the public, sitting next to me, and I saw him nod imperceptibly while listening to Doc’s robust arguments regarding the best strategy to improve traffic calming, and how the local playground could be upgraded with minimum outlay. There was an embarrassing moment when Article 15 on the agenda was read out, which related to the council contributing to the ‘leaving payment’ the village had been gathering to buy the Rabbits out. With true professionalism Doc recused himself from the argument and went to smoke his pipe outside until recalled to discuss allocating more funds to tidying up the churchyard for when the Spick & Span judges returned – something Councillor Wainwright thought would be next Tuesday at three, although when pressed he gave no answer as to why he should think that. When the meeting finished and the usual post-meeting talks were going on, Victor had a call on his mobile and rapidly departed, along with his brother.

I would find out why later.

‘I think that all went fairly well, don’t you?’ said Doc as we walked back from the village hall an hour later.

‘They’re being pleasant because they’ve been told to,’ I said; ‘it won’t last.’

‘True,’ said Doc, ‘but let’s enjoy it while we can, eh?’

I’d had a brief call earlier from Pippa saying she was fine and that Bobby and Harvey had been looking after her at Colony One, and not to worry about her as she had found the place and the person she wanted to be, and the rabbit who she wanted to share that with.

I asked Doc whether Bobby had been in touch with her or Connie, and he said she hadn’t.

‘Constance always remarked that Bobby was a little headstrong,’ he said, ‘and watched a lot of ’Allo ’Allo when she was young, so I suppose it was inevitable she’d end up doing all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Her Underground name is Bridgette, apparently.’

‘Do you think she’s in any danger at Colony One?’ I asked, more out of concern for Pippa.

‘Who knows? It’s really down to whether Smethwick and Mr Ffoxe order the enforced clearance of the colonies and exercise all their powers to do so. I know the citizens of the UK are not wildly pro-rabbit, but oddly, they can become very interested – albeit for a short period of time – if there is any cruelty to animals involved. It’s always been their soft spot.’

He stopped walking at the bus stop, turned and looked at me.

‘Look here, Peter, old chap,’ he said, ‘I think we need to talk. Cards on the table and all that. I think you and Constance are having an affair, and unless you can give me a solemn promise to keep your grubby paws off my wife, I’m going to have to challenge you to a duel.’

‘I can assure you we are not,’ I said.

‘That’s what she says, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt during that incident with the bedsheet, but, well, I asked Kent to put a tracker on her phone and she’s been to the Green Dragon Hotel a couple of times, and I saw you both in All Saints.’

‘We just met up for coffee,’ I said.

‘That’s how it always begins. Coffee, dinner, going out for a bounce, basket of scrubbed carrots, Scrabble. What were you two doing in that dilapidated barn? I was watching for an hour and you didn’t come out – I would have stayed for longer, but I had to get home to watch the cricket.’

‘We were meeting with Patrick Finkle and the Venerable Bunty,’ I said.

‘Oh, sure ,’ said Doc, ‘and I suppose Victor Lewis-Smith and the Pope were there too? If you want to be together, Pete, then do the decent thing, stop inventing silly stories and make a challenge – waiting for me to challenge you is really the coward’s way, how weasels would do it.’

‘Weasels fight duels too?’

‘No, but if they did.’

‘We’re not having an affair, Doc, I promise you.’

He stared at me and blinked.

‘I wish I could believe you,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Why don’t we have a pint after dinner at the Unicorn and thrash it out there?’

‘OK,’ I said, glad to move away from the subject for a couple of hours.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, and inside my pocket I clicked the Parker pen to activate the listening device.

‘Two more in the burrow,’ called out Doc as we walked in the door, using a traditional rabbit greeting.

‘Hello,’ said Connie, popping her head round the kitchen door. ‘How did the council meeting go?’

‘They were eating out of my paw,’ said Doc.

‘Really?’

‘No, not really – it was a charade. They despised me with a vengeance.’

‘Same old same old,’ said Connie.

While Doc went off to lay the table, I went into the kitchen and passed Connie a note I had prepared. It was written in block capitals because their visual cortex was not so attuned to reading as ours, but was absolutely clear: