The Constant Rabbit

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.

‘Anything?’ asked Adrian Whizelle on the afternoon of the sixth day. It was always Whizelle.

‘Nothing yet,’ I said.

‘The Senior Group Leader is becoming impatient,’ said Whizelle. ‘The Grand Council has announced that the colonies won’t be moved, and that witch Bunty has issued a hiffniff telling all and sundry to hold fast, not be moved and to offer passive and polite resistance to anyone who tries to rehome them.’

‘I heard,’ I said, ‘it was on the news.’

‘Mr Ffoxe and Smethwick have taken advice from the Attorney General, and since the removal is legal owing to the Rehoming Act, the rabbit’s frontal incisors have been designated offensive weapons. “Being cornered in possession of teeth” is now the legal equivalent of “attack with a deadly weapon”, and we are permitted to counter that threat with any force deemed necessary – even pre-emptively. So tell your little bun-chums that.’

The statement was so manifestly unjust I wasn’t going to validate it with a comment.

‘I don’t have any sway with the Venerable Bunty, the Council of Coneys or any of the on-colony rabbits,’ I said. ‘If Connie asks me for information or tells me anything, I’ll repeat it back to you. That was the deal.’

‘The deal was you’d help us,’ said Whizelle, ‘and I haven’t seen—’

He stopped talking as the door to the interview room opened and my heart sank as Senior Group Leader Ffoxe walked in. I suppose I should have guessed he’d be listening in to the conversation, but up to now I’d not really appreciated how I was not just one strand of enquiry – but the main one.

‘Hello, Peter,’ said the fox.

‘Look, I’m doing what you asked me,’ I said, perhaps a little bit too defensively.

‘I know, I know,’ said Mr Ffoxe in a semi-soothing manner. ‘I’m not here to make threats. No one’s eye is coming out.’

And he then sat down and stared at me for a long time without blinking, while I sat there fidgeting. I’d told him all about my meeting with Finkle and the Venerable Bunty four hours after I’d met them, which gave me credibility for at least a couple of days.

‘It’s been almost a week,’ he said finally, ‘and you’ve been making the job of my boys really difficult.’

‘I’m doing the best I can. If Connie doesn’t tell me anything, I can’t repeat it.’

Despite my outwardly timid manner, which I was exaggerating at Connie’s suggestion, I was actually feeling a little braver, probably because I sensed the fox still needed me. Mr Ffoxe opened his mouth, removed a piece of gristle from between his teeth, stared at it for a moment, then said:

‘Whose idea was it to send your mobile phones in a cab all the way up to Tarbuck International?’

‘Connie’s.’

‘Have the Rabbits asked you to do anything for them?’

‘No.’

‘Have you heard anything that you feel might be useful?’

‘No.’

‘Then we’ll have to up our game. Will you be seeing the Rabbits later today?’

‘Almost certainly. It’s Doc’s first Parish Council meeting and they’ve invited me to supper afterwards.’

‘Perfect. I want you to wear a listening device. Ask them about Bunty, the Rehoming, Finkle, RabSAg – anything you can. I want to hear them talk, get an idea of their mood. Quiz them, but I also want to hear you make some sort of effort on our behalf, because I really don’t think you’re trying hard enough.’

‘I’ll … want something in return,’ I said, scratching my nose nervously. ‘If they find out I’m wearing a wire, they could do what they did to Toby but without the “returning safely” part.’

‘We’re listening,’ said Whizelle.

‘My daughter is in Colony One, which is currently encircled by TwoLegsGood and Taskforce personnel. I want her and an unnamed rabbit to be given safe passage to the Isle of Man.’

Mr Ffoxe smiled.

‘OK,’ said Mr Ffoxe, ‘you got yourself a deal. Pippa Knox plus one rabbit. Make a note, Weasel.’

‘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.’