What Abigail Did Tha Summer, Ben Aaronovitch [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt] 📗

‘Names are complicated,’ she says. ‘But you can call me Indigo.’

It’s full dark now but there’s enough light pollution to make out the kids’ playground and the athletics track at the bottom of the hill. An Overground train is running into Gospel Oak Station and an ambulance is racing in the opposite direction down Mansfield Road – heading for the Royal Free with its blue and white light bars silently flashing.

I find I’m idly scratching the soft fur on Indigo’s neck, which she seems to like.

‘What do you want, Indigo?’ I ask.

‘I’m supposed to brief you on things you need to know,’ she says, and stretches her neck so I can reach her throat.

I’ve met these talking foxes before. They look like Vulpes vulpes but they’re much bigger. And because they can talk, that means they must have a different voice box and throat arrangement. And they can hold a sustained conversation, which indicates human levels of intelligence. Although, to be fair, I’ve met some bare stupid people who could have a conversation, so that might not prove anything.

‘Who wants you to brief me?’ I ask.

‘Control,’ says Indigo.

‘And who’s Control when he’s at home?’

‘Control is she who gives me orders.’

‘Is she a fox?’

‘Well, I’m not about to take orders from a cat, am I?’

‘What are you supposed to tell me?’ I ask.

Indigo squirms a bit, rubbing her face against my shoulder.

‘Do the scratchy thing again,’ she says.

So I do and she tells me that there’s something growing in or around the Heath.

‘Growing like what?’ I ask. ‘Like a tree, an animal, a fungus?’

‘It’s a something,’ says Indigo. ‘No physical shape and no smell but it’s “wrong” and it affects humans, young humans.’

‘Okay,’ I say soothingly, because I can feel Indigo getting agitated under my hand.

‘It’s getting stronger,’ she says. ‘But we can’t pin it down because it’s a human thing, not a fox thing.’

‘Is that why you’re telling me?’ I ask. ‘You want me to do something?’

‘We want you to keep your nose in the wind for us.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you’re on the list of human assets in this sector.’

‘That’s not actually an explanation, is it?’

‘It’s a short list,’ says Indigo, and nuzzles my neck again. ‘And you’ve got connections with the world of magic.’

‘Wait – is this something to do with the missing kids?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Indigo. ‘We’re not good at invisible stuff. We like things we can smell, or bite, or eat – especially eat.’

‘What do you eat?’

‘Everything,’ says Indigo. ‘We’re omnivores.’

*

I’m in my bedroom, which is about the same size as Simon’s mum’s downstairs guest loo. When I got back my mum was asleep on the sofa, but she woke up when she heard me come in and I helped her bath Paul. I think he likes it better when there’s two of us giving him a bath ’cause we can mess about a bit. He can’t talk any more but he can still smile, sort of, so you know when he’s having a laugh. Once Paul was settled and my mum had gone back to sleep in front of the TV, I went to my room to make notes and think about foxes and missing girls.

The news is wall-to-wall Rushpool-this and Rushpool-that, with Rushpool in big blood-red letters over that picture of the two little white girls wearing matching sun hats. There’s nothing on Google News about Jessica and Natali, but when I check the Metropolitan Police website there is a notification that both girls had been returned to their homes safely.

Returned to their homes safely was standard Fed speak and tells me nothing. I’m wondering whether they were found and returned home or they returned themselves home. There was definitely something sus3 about the way Natali came round to see me and Jessica recruited Simon. I stick on the word ‘recruited’ because I realise that’s what it was – me and Simon were being recruited – but for what? The foxes think something is wrong, and the foxes have been right before – one warned me that there was trouble across the river and the next thing you know a tower block in Elephant and Castle gets blown up. Yeah, Skygarden, that’s what I’m talking about.

We still don’t know where the talking foxes come from, what they think they’re up to, or why they’re up in my business. I gave one half a Greggs sausage roll once. Maybe they imprinted. I don’t know.

Paul is restless. I can hear him shifting about through the wall that separates our bedrooms. I am listening in case he wakes up and Mum needs help, but he settles down.

Natali and Jessica have been returned to their families.

Mr and Mrs Fed will have filed the case and gone on to something else.

Tomorrow I’ll keep my nose in the wind – it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.

3 Short for ‘suspicious’ but with overtones of wrongness and outrage. Young people seem to be able to pack a great deal of meaning into a single syllable.

8

The Gap Between the Branches

Simon is leaning on the fence at the top of Parliament Hill and when I ask him who he’s waiting for he says me. Which is surprising, since I hadn’t planned to come out this morning. I had been planning to stay in bed instead, but Paul was restless and I knew if I stayed in the flat I’d soon be up and helping Mum. I told her I was going to the library but that was really Plan B if Simon wasn’t home.

Library is always a good excuse, because if Mum calls I can pretend that I have my phone on silent.

I join Simon at the railing and ask whether he climbed out the window again, and he smiles shyly – which I take as a yes.

‘Aren’t you worried you’re going to fall?’ I ask.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Did you know there’s a fox in that bush?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘He’s watching us,’ he says.

‘It’s a she,’ I say.