Season 1 · Episode 15
The Second Voice
Published 10th September 2026
The Oak was full of squirrels and nobody understood why.
The Oak Operation
At noon, Lieutenant Colonel Stirling’s squad had taken possession of the Oak.
They had not announced this. Instead, grey shapes moved up the trunk, across the lower boughs and under the hedge with the brisk discretion of an operation that had already decided nobody else needed to understand it.
Derek was halfway down the same tree, headfirst and entirely untroubled by the direction of the world.
Batman Smith arrived at the Fence Post, looked up, and frowned.
“Derek,” he called. “You are still using that tree in a manner I cannot endorse.”
“It has not complained,” Derek said.
Above them, Mr Jack Daw’s family were holding an emergency consultation about whether an Oak could be considered secure when it was full of squirrels. Gary sat on the Fruit Tree, taking notes with his eyes. He had acquired the expression of someone who had just remembered an important loose end.
“No Nigel,” he said.
Batman did not look around. “We know.”
“I merely note it.”
Stirling stopped at the root flare. Gary stopped talking.
For one long moment, neither of them moved. Then Stirling gave a small flick of his tail. His squad withdrew into the hedge so quickly that the Jacks lost the subject of their meeting halfway through a sentence.
“Well,” said Gary, with excessive brightness. “That settles absolutely nothing.”
The afternoon passed beneath a restless lid of cloud. The Jacks shifted from branch to branch and eventually appointed a subcommittee to consider whether grey movement in the Oak constituted a weather event. The Smith family put their beaks into the discussion with wholehearted conviction.
Mildred Is Here
By late afternoon, the cloud broke and the garden briefly looked as though it might remember summer. Mr Jack Daw was considering whether to adjourn when a small, quiet Dunnock stepped out from the hedge beneath him.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Everybody looked down.
“Mildred,” she added, as if the matter had been settled some time ago and everyone else was merely late to it.
Mr Jack Daw bowed from his branch. “Welcome to the Square, Mildred. We are currently investigating squirrels.”
“No, you are not,” said Mildred.
Gary gave an appreciative little laugh. Batman looked at the hedge, at Stirling’s last known direction, and then at Gary. Gary looked nowhere in particular.
The Second Voice
As the evening cleared, the Smith family gathered around the bird table, the Jacks reassembled in the Oak, and Stirling’s squad returned to the Vegetable Garden.
Gary arrived beside Batman.
“A survey,” he said lightly.
Batman looked at the squirrels. “Of what?”
“Possibly the ground.”
“Why?”
Gary spread one black wing. “Batman, the ground has been there all day. It is due scrutiny.”
The last daylight slipped away. A Carrion Crow crossed high over the roofs, dark against a darkening sky. Behind it came a Grey Heron: tall, slow and winging over the far gardens. Every conversation stopped until it had gone.
Then Marjorie called from the shadowed end of the Oak.
Her voice travelled cleanly through the still night, then came again from somewhere the darkness had folded around her. Batman looked up. Gary listened with grave attention from the Fruit Tree.
“Do you think she has heard about Nigel?” Batman whispered.
“Marjorie hears about everything,” Gary said. “Whether she cares is a separate matter.”
Later, when cloud gathered over the garden, a small uncertain sound crossed the silence. Even Mr Jack Daw held still.
But before midnight Marjorie called again, steady and insistent from the trees beyond the Summerhouse. The Jacks, tucked along the Oak’s heavier branches, exchanged troubled glances.
“She is making a point,” Batman said.
“Marjorie is always making a point,” Gary replied. “The suspense lies in discovering which one.”
Much later, Marjorie’s voice returned through the damp hush before dawn.
Then, for one impossible instant, there was another answer.
The second female voice came from deeper in the darkness: not close enough to claim the Oak, not distant enough to dismiss. It was gone almost before Batman had drawn breath.
“Jolene,” he said.
“Marlboro,” said a young Jack from the lower bough.
“Neither of you knows that,” Gary said.
“Do you?” Batman demanded.
Gary looked toward the darkness. “I know better than to give the first answer away for free.”
Marjorie called once more. The other presence offered nothing else. Yet for the rest of the night, even the hedge appeared to be holding its breath.
Daylight Reopens
At first light, the Smith family reopened the garden with brisk, masculine certainty. Clive hurried through the branches. Stirling’s squad were already back at work around the Vegetable Garden.
“Morning,” said Clive.
“Is it?” said Batman.
“Technically,” said Clive, and was gone.
The morning stayed cool and cloudy. By the time the Oak had gathered Jacks again, Derek had claimed its trunk, the long-tailed trio had threaded through the hedge, and the squirrel squad had converted the central path into a place nobody crossed without feeling watched.
Dorothy and Brenda
At the bird table, a single Goldfinch flashed down in a brief spill of warm colour.
Gary appeared from nowhere. “Dorothy,” he said, delighted. “You are just in time. We have a missing pigeon, a nocturnal exchange and an operation no one is discussing.”
The Goldfinch blinked. “I am Dorothy.”
“Exactly,” said Gary. “And you have arrived at the interesting part.”
Dorothy took one look at the Jacks, the Smiths and the squirrels and chose not to ask what the interesting part was.
By mid-morning the Square had achieved full volume. The Jacks argued from the Oak. The Smith family made a public matter of every crumb. Gary maintained a conspicuously innocent watch from the hedge while Stirling’s squad crossed the path below.
Colin sang from the far hedge, cheerful as if there were no mystery in the world capable of surviving a good tune. A tiny Wren burst from the border.
“Brenda,” she declared. “And if anyone is planning to hold a meeting under my hedge, don’t.”
Mr Jack Daw paused.
“We had not planned one,” he said.
Brenda gave him a look.
“We may have discussed one,” he amended.
Near noon, Colin continued singing. A Robin answered. One squirrel paused on the path, listened, and disappeared under the leaves.
Gary looked toward the Fruit Tree, then the empty patch beneath it.
“Still no Nigel,” he murmured.
Batman stood beside him. “No.”
For once, neither of them had a theory.
TO BE CONTINUED…