(Vegetables) Chapter Ten: Driving Dangerously Is Hazardous – Don’t Do It!

Outside the flat there were a large number of (slightly spherical) pigeons milling around the place and desultorily pecking at random specs of stuff that might possibly be edible. Richard kicked at an empty fizzy drink can that lay on the ground, and smiled grimly as it ricocheted off a road sign pole, into the middle of the flock.

Some of the pigeons were so full of cake, they could barely take off.

He deliberately drove his car past the bus stop, and pulled in when he saw Tom there.

“Get in,” Richard told Tom.

He didn’t wait until Tom was buckled in before taking off with a screech of rubber. They drove in silence until they left the built up areas, and then Richard really put his foot down.

“Hey!” protested Tom, as he was thrown from side to side in the car. “Take it easy!”

“Report, now!” snapped Richard.

“Yes sir! I’m on the MANOG case, sir, and I was posted at the Booktastic shop on Ship Street, where the last known sighting was, and there’s been loads of White Rabbit sightings round there too. I was on my way back to work after my lunch break when I saw Morwen, sir, and I recognised her. I was following her to try and get more information about her, because I recognised her as the person who’s bought the book that Mrs K was so desperate to get her hands on. And I wound up at the Weekly Bugle, sir, just in time for the cake fight. Rabbit.”

“What?”

“Rabbit!!”

Sure enough, a multi-coloured rabbit³⁰ had run right out in front of the car. Richard swore again, and pulled the wheel over hard. They missed the rabbit, but bounced along the grass verge, until coming to a stop half buried in a hedge.

Tom pushed the passenger door open, ignoring the screech as the hedge branches ground against the window, and threw up.

“Well,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That could have been worse.”

Richard had closed his eyes when the car came to a stop, and for the time that it took Tom to throw up, he was perfectly still, not even breathing. Then he swallowed, and opened his eyes.

“Ok,” Richard said. “There’s obviously more at work here than either of us know. I’m on a completely different case, which you don’t need to know about. But something’s connecting them and we need to find out what and why, before it’s too late. Now help me push the car out of the hedge.”

When the car was free, Richard calmly popped the hood of the car, got out and rummaged around for a few minutes. When he got back in, the car started perfectly, and the two men drove off in silence, and a lot more calmly.

Now that Richard was driving in a more sensible way, and obviously trying to get somewhere, rather than just terrify poor Tom, it didn’t take long for them to arrive at an old stately home and pull up in front of the main door.

They’d had to go through some quite serious levels of security before getting to the house, mind. Electric gates and fences, CCTV, warning signs saying “Beware of the Frog”, suspiciously regular dog walkers with suspiciously large dogs, the works.

The house had obviously seen better days³¹, but the lawns were well maintained, and several ducks could be seen snoozing happily on the grass in the late afternoon sun. One of them opened one eye when the car drove up, but then went back to sleep.

Richard looked over at Tom, who was snuffling, with teary eyes, and seemed to take pity.

“You best get yourself seen by Matron. I’ll find you in about an hour.”

Once through the heavy and creaking front door, both men stopped as a red light shone over their faces. The light on Richard’s face turned green and there was a loud beep. The light on Tom’s face stayed red, sweeping back and forth in a confused manner.

Eventually the light stopped, and a door opened into the hall. A woman and a duck stuck their heads around the door.

“Hey, Tom”, said the woman. “You’re confusing the scanner. What happened to your face?”

“Cream cake,” mumbled Tom.

The woman shrugged. “Technology, eh? Come on in.”

They both stepped into the hall.

“Oh,” said the guard, almost as an afterthought before she and the duck tucked their respective heads back into their guard room. “Watch out, the Wandering Door is at it again. Sandy in HR was looking for the ladies and ended up in Schiphol airport.”

“Thanks for the tip,” said Richard.

By contrast to the outside, the inside of the house was well maintained. Old and well worn, obviously, but set up comfortably, even if it hadn’t been redecorated since the house was built, in 1875. The security systems were far more visible from the inside as well. There was a vase of garden flowers on the hall table, concealing a video camera. The hat stand was a wooden statue of a giraffe. It was wearing a pair of goggles over its eyes, several scarves around its long neck, and a pile of umbrellas tangled its hooves.

There was a fine double staircase sweeping up ahead, drawing the eye to a fine stained glass window of a lakeside scene on the landing. The hallway floor was an interlocking tile pattern with ducks and frogs, looking like an MC Escher print. Richard ignored it all, and stomped to the back of the house³². Tom took himself off upstairs.

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³⁰ Brown, but with pink and green patches
³¹ I’m being polite. It was an old, rickety, drafty dump, obviously not touched by the hand of DIY-er in many decades. I’m surprised the roof was still on.
³² Literally. I’m surprised the tiles weren’t cracking under his feet.