Vote at Toad Hall

by Eddie Saint

  ‘No rush, eh, Stoatey?’ he said, as calmly as he could. ‘Stay for your coffee first.’ He wiggled his eyebrows ferociously, taking care to keep his back to the room of assembled journalists.

  Stoat was not known for being quick on the uptake but he had seen Weasel’s eyebrow manoeuvre before and was at least smart enough to know it meant: act first, ask questions quietly later. He sat back down again, hugging the folders, and Weasel finished his message to Vulpine and hit ‘SEND’.

  The two creatures then looked at each other silently, one frantically working out a new plan, the other patiently waiting for his coffee and to be told what to do next.

  ‘Rats!’ said Weasel under his breath.

  Stoat looked around but couldn’t see any.

  ‘Stone the crows! This is a problem I hadn’t seen coming.’

  Stoat maintained a blank expression, mainly because that was what best represented was in his head.

  ‘What we need,’ continued Weasel, ‘is a cunning way to get those binders to Pincer without the Press Pack spotting us.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Stoat. ‘Oh, I see.’ And he did. Just. Sort of.

  The ‘ping’ from Weasel’s hand almost made him drop the phone. It was CryptoChat, which he knew was likely to mean only one thing. Or, to be precise, one Fox.

  The message read:

  ‘A journalist from NFN will shortly ask you for an interview. You will accept, and you will also agree to let her young gofer clear away your rubbish for you.’

  That was it.

  Weasel turned to show the message to Stoat.

  And then she came.

  The interview was a big success. The journalist asked questions that even Stoat could have tapped into an open net. Weasel, who had quite a knack with cameras, was dynamite. And in the background a young Fox tidied up the buffet breakfast, consolidating all the pastries onto one big plate and chucking everything else into black bin liners, which he then took out through the back door to the bins.

  He did not return.

  Twenty minutes later, in an anonymous looking fourth floor office in Tufty Tail Street, Selina and Bernie and the rest of Pincer’s crew were crowding around the red binders and starting to build the day’s propaganda.

  PINCH AND ZOOM.

  Pinch and zoom.

  Ivan had spent an hour scouring the city map for a place where he might consider laying low, if he was a ‘Top Secret’ Agent. It wasn’t obvious. There were the high-end areas where only the occasional busy body knew their neighbours; the anonymous suburbs; the trendy new docklands. So many places to hide.

  In the end he went back to the words of Ivan the Whys. He stopped looking for his truffle and looked, instead, for a truffle hog. Who would be good at finding someone who was hiding?

  That made the search simpler. Not the rich busy body, nor a nine-to-fiver, nor even a yuppie. No. To find someone who is hiding you need to have good hiding skills yourself. That meant animals who wanted to stay below the radar, and that meant petty criminals.

  Now the map was easier to read! Where do the small timers hang out? Where are the streets not safe to walk down unless you are in the know? Where can you rely on no one asking questions or poking their nose into your business?

  One place on the map, ahead of all the others, drew his attention as an ideal home for the truffle hogs he sought. It was down river, beyond the old docks, a place of high unemployment and low investment. No wonder the locals called it The Ends.

  Later, as he limped along the river bank and turned to follow a tributary south he was struck by how empty the streets were. Was everyone in hiding? At least it reassured him that he was in a good place to find his hog.

  He walked for as long as his feet would let him, hoping to somehow bump into an animal who was that perfect combination of helpful-to-strangers and happy-to-stab-a-neighbour-in-the-back. When he put it like that he realised the sheer scale of the problem he faced. It was going to require him to dust off a weapon he seldom used but that should have been his birth right: cunning.

  He took his tired feet across a small garden square and headed for the local café. It would give him a chance to put his feet up and also to pick up on the jungle drums in the heart of The Ends.

  ‘Do you do milk?’ he asked the grey haired Otter behind the counter.

  She smiled at him, and gave an approving nod to his swollen eye.

  ‘Let me guess. Walked into a door?’

  ‘Well…’ he began, wondering how she had known.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Fox. I don’t need to know. Milk, was it? Hot or cold?’

  ‘Er, cold, please… and thank you,’ he said. Then he remembered the stiffness in his jaw and added, ‘And a straw, if you have one.’

  The Otter smiled at him again and said, ‘I’ll bring it over. You look like you could do with a sit down.’

  Ivan found a table in the middle of the room, from where he would be able to eavesdrop on every table in the place. He sat so that he had a clear view of the door and out through the window to the street. This was, to his mind, a much better idea. Rather than roaming the deserted streets looking for his truffle hog, he would wait until the hog came to him.

  The plan, so wonderful in its simplicity, took a long time to reveal its main flaw to Ivan. He had clearly miscalculated the local appetite for coffee and snacks, and misunderstood the role of the café in Wild Wood urban culture. Although the décor seemed neat and clean, and the counter well stocked with food, the café showed no apparent means of upkeep. In the hour that he had been sitting there he had only seen one other customer come in, and they had taken a single coffee to go.

  He helped pass the time by conjuring up Gemini in his mind. He had liked the way she had complimented him in the library, and he could hear her voice again in the midst of the café, marvelling at the wounds he carried so bravely, like a big Daddy Fox.

  And then a new realisation hit him.

  Maybe he wasn’t really as undercover as he thought! Perhaps word had got out that a fierce, brave Fox had moseyed into town and was holed up in the local café, and all the petty criminals, the truffle hogs he needed, were too afraid to come close.

  Yes, by Gemini, that sounds about right! he told himself. How could he have been so blind? Of course he was scaring the locals away! He must appear far out of their league. A new plan was needed, but Reynard’s clock was ticking.

  Think…

  Think…

  Think…

  MEL CAME HOME for lunch and found us staring at a wall full of ribbons, but still no closer to finding Hornworm.

  ‘Right,’ she announced, ‘the kettle’s going on. I’ll see you both in the kitchen.’

  We traipsed upstairs and bathed in the natural light coming through the windows.

  ‘Ok, Cottontail Minor,’ Mel began, ‘you are a bright young Rabbit. Imagine you are Vulpine for a moment. What is the biggest goal you could give yourself?’

  Now I’m not great at History, but I do know enough about the Second Orchid War to know that the Rats tried to take over The Valley. They would have succeeded too, if the Dogs and Foxes hadn’t come to the rescue. Yet somehow, in the Peace that followed, the Dogs managed to take all the glory and the Foxes got shut out.

  Fast forward to today, and The Valley is peaceful and prosperous again. Rats are our friends, along with all the other animals of the LEAF League. We get on well with the Dogs too, but somehow the Foxes are still kept out. You can almost feel them, skulking in the Forests on the fringes of The Valley, watching the rest of us partying around the camp fire.

  I cupped my mug in two small paws and stared into the rising steam like it was a crystal ball. I tried to imagine what it must be like for Vulpine, watching from the shadows. Eventually, an obvious idea came to me.

  ‘He’s jealous, isn’t he? Probably even annoyed at being left out.’

  Mel gave a small, approving nod.

  ‘OK, that’s not a bad place to start. So, if you had his money and inf
luence, what would your next step be?’

  I took a sip and kept the mug up by my nose, the steam rising through my whiskers. Already, with Mel’s help, the mist was starting to clear. The answer, when it came to me, stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘He’s planning a new war, isn’t he?’

  Mel’s smile was, I felt, a little condescending, if I’m being honest.

  ‘Too old school,’ she said. ‘The Valley has one of the richest markets around, and it is right on Vulpine’s doorstep. Why destroy it?’

  I guess she had a point.

  Mel dropped her chin and scrutinised me patiently over her half-moon specs.

  ‘Want another go?’ she asked.

  I shuffled back in my seat, put my mug down, and tried again.

  ‘So I have everything Vulpine has?’

  Mel nodded.

  ‘And I resent the LEAF League. I’m jealous, annoyed, whatever.’

  I slumped my chin in a cupped paw, chewed on the end of an ear and tried to get inside Vulpine’s mind. I was still thinking hard when Dug stepped in and took up the baton.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘if he doesn’t want to destroy The Valley market then maybe he wants in!’

  ‘And with that the old agent returns!’ said Mel.

  ‘But,’ said Dug, ignoring Mel’s sarcasm and strolling through the gears, ‘before he can work his way in he has to break up the LEAF League.’ I heard again the old familiar sound of his foot tapping loudly on the floor. He was on a roll!

  ‘Of course,’ said Mel. ‘Can’t get a seat at the top table with all those cosy LEAF League alliances in the way.’

  Dug nodded, and rubbed his ears in excitement.

  My paws hit the table. I jumped to my feet and turned a restless circle. New ideas were rioting around in my mind. I thought back to the network of ribbons downstairs.

  ‘He’s certainly got all the power levers he would need to break up the LEAF League,’ I said.

  Dug and I looked at each other. Mel’s destination was coming in to focus for both of her Rabbit pupils.

  ‘If this is the right path,’ Dug said, ‘then we should be looking for a pattern in Vulpine’s digital paw prints around any election that led to an anti-LEAF League candidate getting in.’

  By this time Mel had left us to it and was up at the sink washing her mug. I collected the other two and joined her.

  ‘Can I help?’ I asked, reaching for the tea towel.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, plunging the mugs into the hot, soapy water. ‘Look for spikes in Fox activity around elections.’

  I blinked twice, rapidly. I knew I was being teased, but I figured she had earned the right. I just smoothed the tea towel back onto the radiator and said,

  ‘We’d best crack on then.’

  ‘‘We’?’ asked Mel, turning to inspect the kitchen table over her half-moon spectacles.

  Dug’s chair was already empty.

  BY LUNCH TIME Ivan’s hunt for a truffle hog was struggling. He had given up on the café and spent an hour underneath the bridge, watching the river go by and waiting to catch any unsuspecting shady character who might have the misfortune to cross his path. He reasoned that if the locals really were afraid of him then there was no harm in using that to his advantage, if he could only catch one. However, try as he might he just couldn’t find a place where a careless minnow might swim close enough for him to pounce.

  He sat with his back up against the damp brick of the bridge. Inspiration had left him. So had the thrill of the chase. And, even though he scoured all the shadows of his mind, Gemini too was nowhere to be seen. It was time, he realised, to give up on Ivan the Whys’ truffle hog and head straight for the main prize.

  But how?

  And who really was that particular prize? Cottontail? Or Gemini?

  He picked up a pebble and threw it, disconsolately, into the slow moving tributary. An Otter popped its head up out of the oily black water and threw the pebble back. With great accuracy.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose with his unbandaged paw, Ivan leant forward and waited for the blood to stop flowing. At least it gave him time to take stock. The morning had grown old, Reynard’s clock was marching on, and all Ivan had managed to do with his first few hours on the case was to get a nose bleed from an angry Otter.

  Shame it hadn’t been that nice Otter in the café, he thought, then felt guilty because he hadn’t meant that he had wanted to throw a stone at her, only that she had looked too kind to throw it back. Still, the thought of that kindly Otter, and of a cool glass of milk in a warm café, cheered him slightly, so with a big effort he got himself upright again and limped back to the café by the garden square.

  ‘Milk again is it?’ asked the Otter behind the counter.

  Ivan nodded. ‘Yed plead,’ he said, ‘and a draw too, plead.’

  The Otter considered the fresh damage to his face.

  ‘You certainly live in a place with a lot of doors,’ she said, in a sympathetic tone.

  Ivan asked for directions to the toilets so he could clean himself up. His nosebleed had been quite insistent. The cool of the mirror up against the bridge of his nose gave him welcome relief, and after a minute or two he had managed to clean the dried blood out of his fur.

  Small cards inserted into the sides of the mirror caught his eye. They came in a variety of colours and had images that very clearly, one might even say ‘explicitly’, defined the personal services on offer for a price. They gave the newly spruced up Ivan another new idea.

  ‘I need help,’ he said to the Otter when she came to deliver his milk.

  ‘Don’t we all, my dear,’ she said, with a sparkle in her eye.

  ‘I saw all the… er… adverts… on the mirror back there, but they didn’t have what I want.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Otter, ‘most things can be got around here, for a price.’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ he said, blushing under his deep orange fur. ‘It’s… well, it’s just my phone. I’ve… lost it.’

  The Otter looked him up and down thoughtfully.

  ‘Was it a ‘door’ that took it?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Ivan said. He was glad that she seemed to understand, without him having to provide many details. ‘Details’ were usually where all his attempted lies fell down.

  ‘So…what? You need a new one?’

  ‘Yeah. You know anyone?’

  This was his chance. Be bold, be nonchalant.

  ‘I heard there was a Rabbit around here. Knows a thing or two about phones. Thought she might be able to help me out. Get me something ‘special’, something I can’t lose, if you know what I mean.’

  He tapped the side of his nose with his paw, although in reality that meant hitting his pebble-bruised nose with a large bandaged club.

  ‘Easy there, stranger. You don’t want to go opening up that nose of yours again,’ said the Otter, placing a small wad of tissues in front of him.

  She looked him up and down again, as if weighing him up, and eventually came to a conclusion.

  ‘Sure, I know where you can get what you are looking for.’

  He tried to be cool, looking up slowly from his glass of milk.

  ‘Is it far? I… I need to get back soon,’ he lied. He wanted to play on the obvious sympathy that the Otter was developing for him. A wounded Fox, far from home, without a phone. Surely she’d want to see him right and send him off safely way before the sun sank and the river mist rose, wouldn’t she?

  ‘You’ve done a fair amount of walking around here today,’ she said. ‘You remember a place called ‘Traitor’s Walk’?’

  He did. A name like that was bound to stick in his memory. It was down by the tributary, connecting the rear courtyards of a row of lock-ups a short walk up from the bridge.

  ‘Well,’ she said, moving in close and lowering her voice. ‘I reckon if you get yourself over there now you’ll find just what you are looking for.’

  Ivan couldn’t keep the smile f
rom his wounded face.

  ‘Really? Traitor’s Walk? Just like that?’ He wasn’t sure whether to thank his lucky stars or curse his luck for not trying that plan earlier.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, in kindly tones. ‘If you go now you should be just in time.’

  Chapter Twenty

  WHEN WE JOINED the ribbons the trail went back two years further than Vulpine’s own first election victory.

  ‘Do you know what the editors on the big sites would say?’ I asked.

  Dug shrugged. News wasn’t really his thing, but me? I was back in my element, crackling with energy from my shiny nose to the tip of my tail.

  ‘They’d say that’s one hell of a conspiracy theory.’

  We ran the full list of elections, everywhere in the world, and put it next to a timeline of Fox action. Sure enough, whenever there was a big spike in Fox activity online, it always happened to fall in the run up to an election.

  ‘Nice,’ said Dug approvingly, admiring the pattern the two entwining timelines made.

  He was right. It was nice. It seemed to promise order out of chaos. But I’ve got a cynical side.

  ‘Don’t get all duck-rabbit on me, Dug. How do we nail it down, one way or the other?’

  It’s tempting, but in the end it’s no good just seeing what you want to see.

  ‘Let’s run it for Dogs too then,’ he said.

  Not a bad call. Dogs were big players on the world stage, and they were known to throw their weight around in shady corners. We ran their background activity and put that next to the Election list.

  ‘So the Foxes aren’t the only ones at it,’ said Dug. The Dog’s spikes lined up beautifully too.

  We sat on the floor, stiff and exhausted by our efforts, and looked at the fruits of our day’s work so far. We had Vulpine’s power network. We had circumstantial evidence of him swaying democratic votes, supporting candidates in favour of ripping up old trade alliances. On its own it would already make a great story, if I ever lived to tell it.

  But there was still one thing missing…