The Night Has Witnesses

Prelude

Previously on Lightwood Square… Lieutenant Colonel Stirling moved an object to the Summerhouse. Gary watched him. Batman drew breath. The rain came back. Nobody asked the obvious question, which was why Stirling kept looking at Gary as though he had a second passport.

The Day Reginald Arrived Wet

Rain was already rattling the greenhouse when Batman Smith took up position on the Fence Post. The Smith Family clustered where they could: under leaves, along the hedge, on the Bird Table, and in several locations that had the tactical value of a wet postcard.

“We need a system,” Batman said.

“We have a system,” said a Smith.

“What is it?”

“Complain until it stops raining.”

The system was immediately put into practice.

Goldfinches flashed through the Vegetable Garden. Wrens stitched their objections through the wet brambles. A Chiffchaff kept issuing a brisk little announcement from somewhere nobody could reach. Above the Oak, Ravens crossed in pairs, dark against the rain, and even Batman’s family lowered their voices a little.

Then Reginald arrived.

He swept over the Square in a broad, soaking arc, landed high in the Oak, and looked down at the garden as if he had accepted the weather personally but could not be expected to like it.

The Square froze.

Mr Jack Daw, perched with one damp relative, nodded carefully. “Mr Reginald.”

Reginald gave the smallest possible acknowledgement.

“He knows my name,” whispered Batman.

“Everybody knows your name,” said Gary from the hedge. “They don’t all consider it useful.”

Reginald waited out the worst of the shower, magnificent and mildly betrayed by it. Hopalong climbed the Oak below him without once looking up. A Blue Tit made one furious dash between the Pine and the greenhouse, then disappeared. By the time the clouds broke, Reginald had gone, leaving the Square to discuss the exact meaning of his departure.

The Investigation Is Called Off

The afternoon cleared. The paths dried in patches. Goldcrests reclaimed the Fruit Tree, and the garden became quieter in the way a room does after someone important leaves it.

Stirling’s squad did not appear.

Gary did.

He landed beside Batman and looked towards the Summerhouse. Batman looked too, though he had been trying very hard not to.

“Do you know what’s in there?” Batman asked.

“I know several things,” said Gary.

“Are any of them in there?”

Gary smiled. “That would be a very direct question.”

Before Batman could decide whether this was an answer, Mr Jack Daw and the Jacks occupied the Oak in force. Their consultation began at once. Carrion Crows passed over the far boundary. Ravens returned later, which gave the Jacks a reason to remain unusually polite.

As evening settled, Gary took up a position near the Summerhouse. He glanced towards the hedge once, then twice, and was visibly annoyed to find it giving nothing away.

The Visitor With the Small Voice

The clouds thinned after dark. The garden grew cool and sharply still, with a bright, watchful moon behind the Pine.

At first there were only the usual complications: Robins trying to have the last word, Jacks refusing to leave without one, and a pair of Canada Geese calling somewhere overhead as if the whole county were their private lake.

Then a small owl called from beyond the hedge.

Batman stared into the dark.

“That is not a normal-sized problem,” he whispered.

Gary did not answer. Mr Jack Daw lifted one wing, and the Jacks went quiet.

The small voice called again, then vanished into the trees before anyone could identify it, accuse it, or invite it to a consultation.

The Square waited.

The Night Has Witnesses

A Tawny Owl called from deeper in the garden. Then another voice answered from somewhere the hedge had been keeping to itself. The first caller remained unseen. That did not stop the Smiths from having theories.

“Harold,” said one.

“Could be,” said another.

“He would call like that,” said a third, who had never met Harold but had committed fully to the mood.

Later, a more familiar male voice came through the dark. It sounded apologetic, then more certain, then—briefly—like someone realising the audience had become larger than expected.

Harold stepped from the Pine shadows at last.

“I can explain,” he said.

“Nobody asked,” said Gary.

Marjorie answered from the Fruit Tree.

She did not need to come closer. Her pearls caught the moonlight. The garden held its breath around her.

Then a third male voice intruded: younger, sharper, entirely uninvited. It came from beyond the Summerhouse with the boldness of a stranger who had not yet learnt what it might cost.

Harold turned.

Marjorie did not.

This was worse.

The younger stranger spoke again. Harold replied. The hedge rustled. From the outer darkness came a poised female voice, elegant enough to make the Smiths stiffen. A glint of red was suggested and immediately disputed.

“Jolene,” breathed one Smith.

“A leaf,” said Batman, though nobody believed him.

The women called from separate darknesses. The men attempted answers. The small owl interrupted once, sounding as though it had reached the wrong garden but was enjoying itself anyway.

Nobody established anything except that Harold was having a very difficult night.

Dawn, With Footnotes

The moon faded. The garden became silver, then blue, then full of Wrens determined to make the first official statement of the day.

Robins returned to the Fence Post in a fresh chorus. Gary appeared on the Bird Table, perfectly dry in manner if not in feather. Mr Jack Daw arrived with the Jacks and began an early consultation nobody had requested.

“We have reviewed the situation,” he said.

“What situation?” asked Batman.

“Precisely.”

Nuthatches worked the Oak. Long-tailed Tits passed through in a bright little parade. Goldcrests fussed in the Fruit Tree. A Coal Tit and a Great Tit held a brief, urgent discussion beneath the Pine. Hopalong continued vertically, which was the nearest anyone came to normal.

At last, Steve and Mrs Steve emerged beneath the hedge, both determined not to have heard anything.

“Lovely morning,” said Steve.

Mrs Steve looked towards the Fruit Tree, the Pine, the Summerhouse, and finally Gary.

“Is it?”

Above them, a single Robin began an answer. Batman raised a wing to take charge of it.

Then, from behind the Summerhouse, came the soft scrape of something being moved.

Gary looked one way.

Everyone else looked the other.

DUFF. DUFF. DUFF-DUFF-DUFF.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Read the factual reference for this episode →