Nobody Asked Batman

Prelude

Previously on Lightwood Square… Jolene had appeared in the middle of a night-time confrontation. Marlboro had been found at the garden fence with an unhelpful young stranger. Harold had offered explanations. Marjorie had listened to none of them.

The next day opened under a pale, restless sky. A breeze worried at the hedge, then stopped, then came back as if it too had heard something.

The Afternoon Invasion

Batman Smith was not holding a meeting. He made this very clear while standing in the centre of everyone else’s conversation.

“Just passing,” he said, for the fourth time.

The Smiths were everywhere: in the low branches, beside the compost heap, under the bird table, and, inexplicably, halfway through Steve and Mrs Steve’s quiet lunch. A Wren tried to make a private remark from the brambles. Batman’s cousin leaned in.

“Was that about Marjorie?”

“It was about worms.”

“So you say.”

Mr Jack Daw arrived with several relatives and a solemn expression that meant gossip had reached committee stage. A Nuthatch made its way up a trunk with the brisk, disapproving manner of a clerk on important business. Gary sailed in, announced that he had heard nothing, and then spent several minutes explaining exactly what he had heard.

The Chiffchaff took over the hedge again, issuing the same statement until even the breeze appeared to know it by heart. Goldfinches flashed through the high branches with bright, urgent news. Teeny Tiny Bird dashed from shrub to shrub on imaginary errands, while Goldcrests fussed in the canopy as if the sky itself needed straightening.

Hopalong appeared once on a sycamore trunk, paused upside down to inspect the Square, and vanished before Batman could ask whether he had seen anything.

“He knows,” said Gary.

“Knows what?” asked Batman.

Gary looked offended by the administrative nature of the question.

The Long Evening

As the afternoon thinned, the Jacks continued their consultation. The Smiths continued their enquiries. Long-tailed Tits swept through as a brisk, cheerful little family, entirely too busy to be interviewed. A pair of Coal Tits arrived, saw the level of public interest, and left immediately.

The light softened. The gardens cooled. Nobody saw Lieutenant Colonel Stirling, which meant he was probably conducting something important.

Gary settled on the fence beside Steve.

“I’m not saying there’s a mystery woman,” he said.

Steve closed his eyes.

“You have just said there’s a mystery woman.”

“No,” said Gary. “I said I’m not saying it.”

By nightfall, the Square was quiet in the way a theatre is quiet just before somebody enters through the wrong door.

The Wrong Door

It began with a female voice from the darkness, then another answer from somewhere the trees refused to explain. It might have been a second woman. It might have been the same woman making sure she had everybody’s attention. Either way, she offered no name and waited for no permission.

Then a male voice called from further off. Another woman answered. Harold emerged from the blackness with the energy of someone who had planned to avoid the entire subject until it became audible from every garden in the Square.

He called again. And again.

Marjorie was there too—at first somewhere beyond the trees, then drawing closer with the slow, terrible certainty of a storm that has read the minutes of the previous meeting. Harold tried to sound welcoming. This did not improve matters.

For a moment they were together. Then Marjorie swept aside into the dark, leaving Harold to call after her as though she had merely gone to fetch something.

Another woman spoke from the shadows.

“Jolene?” whispered a Smith from a nearby roof.

“Don’t start,” said Batman.

“I’m only asking.”

“That is how it starts.”

Marjorie came back. Harold was still there. Their conversation resumed with all the strained calm of neighbours discussing a fence that had definitely not been moved.

Then Marjorie turned away again. Harold answered into the darkness. One woman remained unaccounted for; then another. Nobody could say who had entered, who had left, or who had been listening from the very beginning.

At last, a female voice returned from beyond the gardens.

Marjorie did not raise hers. She did not need to.

The Morning, Unfortunately

The dawn brought the Smiths out in force. Batman was not holding a meeting. He was merely walking past every conversation at precisely the moment it became interesting.

Wrens popped up with brisk amendments. The Jacks arrived in a dark, noisy column, carrying their own version of events and no supporting paperwork. Nuthatches hurried up and down the trees. Teeny Tiny Bird raced through with a look of professional panic. Goldcrests fretted in the upper branches; Long-tailed Tits passed through in a friendly bundle; Blue Tits did not slow down for anybody.

Gary appeared twice, which was one time too many.

“Harold was definitely—” he began.

“Gary,” said Steve.

“—misunderstood,” Gary finished.

The sun reached the roofs. The Square began to behave as though it had not spent the night arranging its own scandal.

Then Reginald crossed above the gardens: grand, effortless, and visibly disappointed by the lack of a proper audience. Every bird fell silent for just long enough to watch.

From a hedge below, Batman whispered, “I knew he’d come.”

Nobody asked how.

DUFF. DUFF. DUFF-DUFF-DUFF.

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