53. The Search
In which the gerbils have disappeared…
Once the courier had gone, @Hedgehogforshort turned to Halcyon with urgency, “Griffin, Gimbal and Graphic didn’t come home last night.”
Halcyon frowned. “They were packing the crate when I left. I assume they went home as usual once they’d finished. I left at half five, same as always.”
“Was the storeroom locked when you left?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t go in there. Fenella likes it locked when there’s a crate inside.”
Just then Fenella Burnish came through the front door in a hurry, her bag over one shoulder and her feathers distinctly ruffled. “The A14 was shocking,” she said. “I’d have come back last night instead of staying over if I’d known.”
She saw Hedgehog and @EdithStourton and stopped. Then she turned to Halcyon. “What are they doing here?”
“Looking for the gerbils. They didn’t go home last night and they’re not here and it’s past nine o’clock,” said Halcyon, from the office.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Fenella put her bag down on the nearest bench. “They were packing the crate when I left for my meeting. I assumed they’d gone home afterwards. I’m afraid I have no idea where they are.”
Fenella looked along the workshop and saw the storeroom door was open. “Has the courier been already? She’s not due till ten.”
“About quarter of an hour ago,” said Halcyon. “Griffin, Gimbal and Graphic packed it beautifully. I only had to nail the lid down.”
For a moment Fenella didn’t move at all. Then she went into the storeroom, and Hedgehog followed as far as the door.
Fenella walked slowly round the edge of the room. She crouched to look under the lowest shelf and ran a talon along the join where the wall met the floor. She examined the air vent grille, which was screwed tight, and looked up at the small high window, which had been painted shut for years. She moved the sacks of whiting away from the wall and looked behind them, then put them back exactly as they had been. Having checked the room all the way round she started again, a flame bowerbird pacing a locked room for gaps, and found none.
“Lost something?” asked Edith, from behind Hedgehog.
“Stock-take,” said Fenella. She didn’t write anything down. After the second circuit she came out past them without a word, went into the office and closed the door. Firmly.
Hedgehog stood in the storeroom doorway for some time. “Edith,” she said. “Fetch the dogs.”
Edith brought Brains and Batshit in from outside. Brains immediately put her nose down at the front door and went straight through the workshop, past the benches and the kiln and into the storeroom, not hesitating once, and sat down in the back far corner as calmly as she had sat at the wall the night before.
Batshit went past her and nosed at the loose straw carefully, then pushed a little of the straw aside and sat back on her haunches. Edith crouched down and moved the top of the straw with one finger. Under it, resting on more straw, tucked in neatly and covered over with as much care as a made bed, were droppings.
“Gerbils,” said Edith.
“Ours,” said Hedgehog. “Nobody else would have covered them up.”
Edith looked at the wall behind the corner. It was brick, and on the other side of it was the stretch of yard where Batshit had scratched and scrabbled barely hours before. “This is the wall,” she said.
Brains didn’t move. Batshit’s tail thumped once on the concrete.
Hedgehog looked at the tidy little mound of straw for a long moment. “They were here all along,” she said.
The first blow of the hammer woke all three of them at once.
For a moment none of them knew where they were. It was dark and cosy and smelled of wool, and then the second blow came down directly above their heads and they jolted along with the crate.
“We’re in the crate,” said Griffin. “Somebody’s nailing the lid down.”
“Stop!” she shouted. “We’re in here!”
The hammer came down again over the top of her voice. Gimbal and Graphic joined her, shouting as loudly as they could, but between the noise of the hammering and the density of the wool, they could not be heard. Gimbal counted the nails as they went in, because she couldn’t not. There were twelve.
Then the hammering stopped. The crate tipped backwards, and there was a rattle of wheels on concrete and a hard bump that knocked them against each other, and a sudden cold draught as the crate was moved outside. After that they were pushed up a slope and then came a sliding scrape across a metal floor followed by the sounds of two doors slamming one after the other. Moments later an engine started.
Graphic’s paw found Gimbal’s in the dark. Griffin was already pressed against both of them. Nobody said anything for a long time. The van turned out of the yard and gathered speed.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/53-the-search