‘Trapped or shot?’ I ask the vicar.

He looks at me in a way that can only be described as aggressive. ‘Trapped,’ he says.

I nod. ‘It’s your call. But if I can just give you a wee bit of environmental background first?’

[private]It seems strange to be giving the chat in a graveyard, with this tall, steely vicar looking on, dog collar above a green woollen jumper. But I give it anyway. The life expectancy of a London fox is just eighteen months. A fox born in the countryside can live up to nine years. Transport a London fox to the countryside and he’ll be dead within a fortnight.

‘It’s like taking someone who lives on takeaways and dumping them in the Scottish Highlands.’

The vicar strokes his stubbly, off-duty face, staring at the hole ahead of us, at the newly dug earth, the plywood of the coffin peeking through like bone beneath a wound.

‘The only way,’ I go on, ‘that your relocated fox will survive is if he finds a railway line and follows it back to the city. He’ll probably be back here in fact, digging up more graves, hungrier than before.’

‘Trap and release,’ the vicar says, turning to go to his car. ‘And don’t touch so much as a hair on its back.’

I drive the unmarked Transit van south to the office. The desks are cluttered with loose papers. I stretch out my short, freckly arms. These London roads: murder.

‘Afternoon Scotsman,’ Julian says. ‘How was church?’

‘Trapper.’

Julian shakes his head. ‘Will they never learn…’ He takes out a sheet, covered in old-fashioned, fountain-pen scrawl. ‘Businessman in Ealing who’s lost a grand’s worth of koi carp. Reckons foxy loxy’s been doing some fishing.’ Julian frowns his ruddy brow. ‘Golf course in Berkshire – digging up the greens again. Then a lady whose son’s pet tortoise has had a leg torn off.’ He holds out the sheet.

‘All fox-jobs?’

‘Afraid so.’ Julian smiles apologetically. ‘Cup of tea, Alec?’

Julian returns with two army-issue tin mugs, setting one down on a rare clear space in front of me. As he sinks into his own chair I see a familiar typed envelope on his desk.

‘Had another one?’ I ask.

‘Came in today.’ Julian unfolds the sheet and lifts it up. ‘HUNTERS GET HUNTED’, announces the lettering, looking as usual as though it’s been cut from a cheap, celebrity magazine. Normally Julian would have some dismissive jibe, but these latest threats seem to concern him. A badger-gasser in Reigate had his bungalow firebombed last month, meths squirted through the letterbox. Didn’t take enough precautions, Julian reckons.

‘Just bunnyhuggers,’ I say. ‘Environ-mentalists.’

‘Indeed,’ Julian replies. ‘Indeed.’

Vintage vulpine territory: pavement dustbins, suburban terraces, back-gardens with a row of allotments behind.

I ring the bell and see a shape form behind frosted glass. The first surprise is the lady’s age – late twenties, same as me. The next is that I’m looking down at her. London is the land of the tall.

‘Mrs Thompson?’

‘Yes?’

‘Alec McCluskey. Environmental Management Inc.’

‘Come on in.’

We pass the doorway to a sitting room. Glass ornaments, coffee-table heaped with cheap magazines. ‘How did you hear about us?’

‘Rentokil had your number.’

‘They don’t touch foxes these days. Too controversial.’

We enter a cork-tile kitchen, and Mrs Thompson opens the backdoor. ‘I found the tortoise out on the grass there. Happily munching away, just minus a hind leg.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Still at the vet.’

I follow her over the lawn towards a half-collapsed wooden fence. The allotments behind are sprouting with springtime vegetables. I look for signs of fox-spoor but see none.

I turn; Mrs Thompson has her arms crossed. ‘Trapped or killed, Mrs Thompson?’ I ask, glancing at the W-shape of her tight white T-shirt.

‘Killed,’ she replies, staring right at me. ‘And it’s Jane.’

A tingle fires in my groin. Haven’t felt that since Hazel’s days.

I sit cross-legged beneath a shaggy tent of yew. Twenty yards ahead is the trap. The moon is at three-quarters but there’s no reflection from the metal bars – I’ve gone for a black PVC-coated 42-inch Urban, bait-area crammed with gizzards, wire double-meshed to prevent external access.

Affixing my night-goggles, I stare out at the gravestone, green-tinged in the ultraviolet. There are jam-jars of flowers on the other graves, none on this. I read the inscription earlier while rigging the catch: Pawel Dankovic, fifty-four years’ old. Same age as my father.

A dog barks, a labrador: fox must be moving up a sidestreet, sending household pets into a frenzy. I part the yew fronds and see something up ahead, a twitch, the tip of a brush. A muzzle appears, then the rest of the body: a large dog fox, scrawny but mature. Sarcoptic mange in the thinning pelt: fatal if left to spread. The fox seems to stare at me, then lowers its head and slinks between two gravestones.

I let out a breath. The rest is a formality: a click as the catch is activated, a vain but valiant clank of body against wire. Taking off my night-goggles, I switch on the Maglite and swoosh from beneath the yew, tarpaulin and roofrack-cables under one arm. The fox shrinks into its cage, eyes like inkblots.

As I loop around the M25, dog fox inert in its darkened cage behind, I find myself thinking of Jane Thompson, then of Hazel, how she used to wait up for me until I came home. Textbook on table, Hazel would ask me to list the animals I’d dispatched that day. I would do it, too: nothing to hide, no laws broken. As I made the list, each animal would reappear in my head. Their heads would turn as they passed, eyes like spots of ink.

I turn off the A24 at Dorking and another car exits with me. I pull over with the hazard lights on. ABC, Julian likes to say, Always Be Checking. First thing, Scotsman, is they find out where you live – never drive from a job to home; always go via the office. The car overtakes with a low-geared diesel roar and I resume my journey.

I park up in the office yard. Once through the backdoor, I snap on the lights, twisting the dial of the incinerator, hearing that satisfying, boiler-like clank as the oil starts to burn. I open the chest-freezer: top bin-bag full of rats, frozen together like a black ball of string. The one beneath contains a dray’s worth of baby squirrels, tails like pink spaghetti, eyes still closed. Busy day for Julian; they aren’t even frozen yet.

I check the temperature: almost up to optimum. Fabulous model, the MB240: flue through the roof, triple-combustion chamber, broad opening-lid. I unlock the gun-cupboard and take out my .22.

The security-lights are still on – triggered by the wind, I presume, which is getting up now, shaking the pepper-pot horse-chestnut blooms that overhang the razor-wire. I glance round, uneasy for some reason, before screwing on the silencer and taking out the cage. A finger-snap of sound, then the shell chinks to the concrete, followed by the gentler slump of the fox.
Rich blood drips as I pick up the fox by the brush.

The two-storey, brick facade of the cottage offers its usual comfort. Julian knew the landlord from his army days; cut me such a deal Hazel practically begged to move in.

I enter crabwise, careful not to open the door too wide. Mikey is on his back, scrunching his terrier eyes as I tickle his pink belly. Teal, the black lab, has her nose to my trouser-leg – sometimes I think the scents I bring home are the real reason she cried so much when Hazel tried to take her away.

I edge into the kitchen, closing the dogs in the small hallway where their baskets are. Just yesterday’s London takeaway in the fridge; I shut it and put on the kettle. A pile of Environmental Science textbooks stares from the pinewood table.

The dogs bolt into the night. Tea-mug in hand, I stroll up the farmer’s track behind the cottage, breathing in the warm Surrey air: cow-parsley, cut grass, sap rising. In the distance, London glows like the Northern Lights, making me think of landscapes back home, those heart-catching views shared with my father when he first took me out to work on the hill. I wonder whether Jane Thompson would like this view.

Mikey shoots after a rabbit, Teal following on. I give a whistle then continue up the track, past the farmhouse, towards the road.
A car is parked outside the cottage. Headlights pierce the darkness; I pour out my tea and lurch forward. ‘Oi!’

The car screeches off on the wrong side of the road, before righting itself and disappearing. A red Vauxhall Astra, diesel by the sound of it. My face feels hot. HUNTERS GET HUNTED.

‘Came in this morning,’ Julian says, holding up a new sheet. ‘MURDERERS GET MURDERED’. Around the cut-out magazine letters are curlicues of red ink, a new addition. I rub my still-hot face. ‘Worth calling the old bill?’

‘No point. We both take precautions. Too cunning for ’em, eh?’

Julian’s face looks more florid than ever, nose striated with red, like a semiprecious stone. I fail to mention the car last night. Probably just a courting couple.

Julian passes me the morning’s call-list. Just a wasps’ nest in Clapham. ‘Leave the fox-jobs to me for a while, eh Scotsman? Getting near exam time again. Can’t have you doing this forever.’

Jane Thompson opens the door in a low-cut red top. As we walk up the corridor, I glance in again at the neat, toy-less sitting room. ‘Home alone?’

‘My son’s at a friend’s house.’

Jane holds open the backdoor and I squeeze by, smelling her floral perfume. I wonder if she’s going out later. Swinging a boot over the allotment fence, I set up my motion sensors, hanging two rancid chicken thighs up with gardening string. Back in the house, I perch on the doorstep, setting up my monitors and unzipping the .22.

‘What’s that on your wrist?’ Jane Thompson asks.

‘Wasp sting.’

‘Do you want some cream?’

‘You’re alright, thanks.’

Jane Thompson is still hovering. ‘How does… someone get into work like this?’

‘You looking for a job?’ I screw on the silencer. ‘I’m doing a degree course at Birkbeck. Just do this to pay the bills.’

‘When did you come down?’

‘Six years ago.’

‘Long course.’

‘Evening classes. Clash with the fox-work.’ I open my toolbox. ‘Just got to pop out to the van.’

No night-goggles in the van. I try to remember where I left them, then see a car parked up the road, a red Vauxhall Astra. I check the make – diesel – and stand there for a while, thinking.

The door is on the latch; I slip inside and shut it behind me. In the sitting room, I pick up a celebrity magazine. One of the pages has been torn out.

‘Alec?’

I march through to the kitchen: Jane Thompson is bending to the oven, putting in soup bowls. ‘I thought we might…’ Her smile fades.

‘You some mad bunnyhugger?’

‘What?’

‘Followed me home last night? Sending letters to the office?’

‘Sorry?’

‘There’s no tortoise here,’ I say, zipping up my rifle and gathering my kit. ‘No tortoise and no kid.’

I walk out, leaving her baffled protesting voice behind me.

No night-goggles in the office either… I rub my hot face, imagining it as lined and ruddy as Julian’s. Jane Thompson must have followed me to the churchyard, then the office, then home… The churchyard: of course: that was where I had the night-goggles.
The phone-light flashes red on my desk. I hit play. ‘Alec?’ I stop, recognising that voice. ‘I… didn’t know where else to call. My son’s with my ex, OK? We split up, and it… well it was my fault. My son’s coming to stay with me for the first time. He was worried about bringing his tortoise… a fox attacked it here once and I wanted to… reassure him.’ A pause. ‘I’ll still pay the fee. Goodbye.’
I continue to my van.

A wood-pigeon crackles off as I squeak open the churchyard gate. The moon is full; I pass by Pawel Dankovic’s grave and see fresh digging, a new fox in vacated territory.

Down on my knees I stretch beneath the yew tree. My hands find moist cold earth but no goggles. As I strain further, the images start to parade – foxes, badgers, bats, squirrels, all turning as they pass, eyes like ink.

A light is on in the church; I push open the high doors. Vestry to the left, cloak hanging by a sink; beyond, a figure hunched among the pews, collecting pamphlets.

‘Hello?’ I call.

The figure turns: dog collar, silver hair.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Thought you were someone else.’

The vicar straightens his spectacles. The stained-glass behind him is dark, but I make out an image of a man in a cassock, deer at his feet, dormouse in his palm, halo of songbirds around his head.

‘Evensong’s over.’

‘I’m the pest controller. Trapping foxes in the graveyard?’

The vicar peers above his stick.

‘Left some equipment outside. Anything handed in?’

‘Haven’t heard anything. Who booked you?’

‘Your colleague.’

The vicar frowns. ‘Afraid it’s just me here at St Francis’s. Was he a tall man?’

‘Aye.’

‘That’ll be our gardener then.’

‘But he had a dog collar.’

The vicar nods. ‘Bit of an odd fish, between you and me. Delusions of grandeur. Spends more time feeding the pigeons than mowing the grass.’

‘What car does he drive?’

‘Um…’

I’m already off down the aisle.

Speed-cameras snap like trapped beasts as I race up the A24 to Dorking. Turning a corner, I see curlicues of red in the distance, then speed up, shrieking the brakes to a halt, skidding on the tarmac. A fire engine is parked by my cottage, lights flashing silently.

I run out, leaving the driver’s door open. Two firemen in yellow helmets are coiling a hose into a rear compartment. One steps away. ‘Are you the owner?’

‘Tenant,’ I say, moving past him to the cottage. The front-door is off its hinges, propped against the brickwork, white paint blistered black. My nostrils twitch at the scent.

‘There was no one inside,’ the fireman is saying behind me. ‘Except…’

On the verge ahead I see two swollen pale bellies. Paws in the air, as though waiting to be tickled…

‘The blaze was controlled but… With all that smoke, they didn’t stand a chance.’ The fireman takes off his helmet. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Who called you?’ I murmur.

The fireman glances back at his colleague, who is readying a clipboard. ‘Local farmer heard the howling. Any idea how it might’ve started?’

I look back to the dogs. Their eyes flash red in the rhythmic, turning lights.[/private]

Thomas Mogford is 32, lives in London and is writing a crime novel about a lawyer with skin cancer who lives in Gibraltar.

About Litro Online

• Web
|
• More Posts(866)

print fiction short fiction