Mr Ffoxe said nothing and slowly pressed the point of a single claw into the side of my left eyeball. My vision blurred and greyed out, and the pain was intense – yet I hardly dared breathe lest my added movement caused my eyeball to burst.
‘Now listen,’ he said in a soft whisper, his breath reeking of rancid meat and claret, ‘I’m going to ask you once again, and if you don’t tell me the full and complete truth first time out, I’m going to take out your eye, and then I’m going to eat it.’
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ I whispered.
‘Ever wonder how Flemming lost hers?’ he asked. ‘We had a disagreement a while ago. I think it was over company policy – or who was the best Batman. I forget which, but she’s totally on board now.’
I think I started to sob then, quietly and without moving.
‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Now: are you going to be a good little human and tell me what I want to know? In return, you get a pension, fifty K, and you get to keep both your peepers.’ He paused, then added: ‘This is where you say, “Yes, Sir, Mr Ffoxe, sir, Mr Knox agrees with the fox, Sir”.’
‘Yes Sir, Mr Ffoxe sir,’ I whispered.
‘Close enough.’
And in an instant, I was suddenly alone on the floor with Mr Ffoxe back in his seat. I climbed shakily to my feet, sat down and placed the monogrammed handkerchief the fox handed me to my eye.
‘So,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘talk to me.’
And I did. I told him everything.
Bunnytrap Trap
After the Battle of May Hill and as part of the government inquiry, it was found that Mr Ffoxe had plucked out and eaten eighteen human eyes in total, and the ensuing compensation claims were estimated to have cost £17.4 million.
I explained pretty much everything about me and Connie and the Rabbits as accurately as I could while the vision slowly clouded in my right eye, the action of the blood seeping into the eyeball. He wanted to know every word Harvey uttered, every exchange we made. ‘What did he mean by that?’ ‘What was your impression of him as he looked in the ventilation ducts at MegaWarren?’ ‘Have you ever spoken to Patrick Finkle?’ ‘Do you think Constance Rabbit works for the Underground?’ ‘Do you think you’ll be seeing Harvey again?’
‘Actually,’ I answered in response to the last question, ‘I think I might. He said we’d meet again, at the time and place where the Venerable Bunty completes the circle.’
For the briefest moment I saw a flicker of consternation pass over the Group Leader’s face. His eyes, I think, although small at the best of times, opened just a little bit wider – but then it was gone, and he was as poker-faced as ever, giving nothing away. He sat and stared at me again for some time, Tamara rubbing his shoulders.
‘OK,’ he said finally, ‘with the Rehoming imminent, the biggest fly in the ointment is the Bunty false prophet and the Underground. I need you to work for me. Be my eyes and ears.’
‘The deal was to tell you everything I know for my pension and fifty K.’
The fox said nothing, pointed at my eye and grinned.
‘Let’s just suppose I agree,’ I said after a pause; ‘what would you have me do?’
Mr Ffoxe outlined his plan. I was to keep office hours but sit them out in an interview room – bring crayons and a colouring book, he told me – and let my relationship with Mrs Rabbit develop; she would be released without charge. If she asked me to access the Taskforce’s databases, I was to report back and hand over the intel that Mr Ffoxe permitted. I was basically to report everything I heard, and especially the time and place I would meet with the Venerable Bunty.
‘I might not meet her,’ I said.
‘If she has foreseen it,’ said the fox, giving more credibility to Bunty’s powers than I thought possible of him, ‘then it will happen. And I want to be there to stop it.’
Within ten minutes I was outside, blinking stupidly in the sunlight. I took a deep breath and made my way into town, gathering my thoughts. I was working out a plan of my own: to never speak to Connie again and avoid her at every opportunity.
But that didn’t happen, of course.
I texted Pippa as soon as they returned my phone and met her in the café at All Saints.
‘Shit, Dad,’ she said, ‘what happened to your eye?’
‘Mr Ffoxe threatened to take it out and eat it.’
She winced and stared at me for a moment.
‘You’re not kidding, are you?’
I told her how I was now acting as a bunnytrap trap for Mr Ffoxe and that both Bobby and Harvey were prominent members of the Rabbit Underground. As I spoke, her demeanour changed from simple concern to the panicky realisation that this was bigger and deeper and more serious than she might possibly have imagined.
I also told Pippa that her relationship with Harvey was something I hadn’t mentioned, but given Mr Ffoxe’s powers of deduction, he either already knew or it wouldn’t be a secret for long – and that it would be a really good idea if she were to lay low for a while.
‘The last time Harvey spoke to me it was about you,’ I added. ‘He said to tell you it was real – and I don’t think he was lying.’
‘Rabbits rarely lie,’ said Pippa. ‘They take their greatest pride in preserving most strongly the parts of them that aren’t us.’
I thought about her words carefully, and also about Connie. If rabbits rarely lied, then it stood to reason they didn’t misrepresent what they felt, either. If Connie was a bunnytrap then she might have been selected precisely because she did like me. One less subterfuge.
Pippa departed within ten minutes after giving me a long hug. I asked her where she would go, and she said ‘she had somewhere safe in mind’, but I didn’t ask her any more questions. Best not, really. Once she was gone I sat there for an hour, then headed home. As I was passing the village of Slipton Flipflop I had a sudden thought that if Connie was a bunnytrap then she’d have probably guessed that I’d tell Mr Ffoxe everything – and I half expected them to be gone by the time I arrived home. Indeed, I was actually hoping they would be gone. It would give me licence to do nothing, and I so wanted to do nothing.
I didn’t get my wish. Their Dodge was in the driveway and Major Rabbit was clipping the privet hedge while smoking his pipe. It was a warm afternoon, so he had draped his jacket over a garden fork and was working in his waistcoat. He gave me a cheery wave as I climbed out of the car, and I noticed that Connie was watering the large vegetable patch that had now replaced most of the lawn. If she was worried about being arrested and questioned all day, she wasn’t showing it. Connie’s apparent normality wasn’t the only surprise in store. Toby Mallett was busy repainting my garage door.
‘I’m ever so sorry, Mr Knox, for daubing obscenities on your garage door the other night,’ he said in an obsequious tone as soon as he saw me, ‘but I was very drunk and wasn’t fully in command of my senses. Papa told me the error of my ways, so I’m here making amends.’
‘Really?’ I said somewhat doubtfully. Apology and contrition really weren’t in the Malletts’ range of character traits. ‘Are you wanting to see Pip again?’