The sun was still high overhead. Even with his body clock out of synch, Angus judged it to be early afternoon. He'd been asleep for about five hours. Five hours out of the last forty-eight weren't many, but he felt awake and his senses were alert now. He could have so easily just flopped back down on his boulder and dozed off again, but he knew he wouldn't sleep tonight if he did that, so he climbed down into the corn and went to find something to occupy himself with.

The obvious place to go was back to the clearing the ambulance had made when it crashed. Just beyond the forty-metre limit to the north of the warren there was a lay-by. Angus had sat on the boundary several times and watched humans stop there and eat in their cars around this time. Unlike rabbits, humans seemed to have rigid mealtimes. He'd left Sebastian and the others feeding the human at breakfast, and now it was time for his lunch.

Angus made his way through the corn, keeping an eye out along the way for stray mushrooms and toadstools that had sprouted in the middle of the field. Shortly before he reached the clearing, however, a strange odour began to assault his nostrils. Angus recognised it immediately. It was definitely the stink of faeces mixed with urine, but it was stronger, more pungent and carried further than rabbit droppings. It had a fruitier, yet altogether flatter bouquet. Angus followed his nose to the source and knew before he stepped out of the corn that it was coming from the paramedic.

The man was lying awkwardly on his side, with one arm trapped beneath him and the other draped across his hip. Angus approached from behind, and found the stink was coming from a tear along the back of the human's yellow plastic suit. Angus stopped and frowned. He didn't know much about humans, but he'd watched a man urinate in the hedgerow that one time, so he knew soiling themselves wasn't usual behaviour. Slowly, he began to walk around the paramedic.

There wasn't a rabbit in sight, which annoyed Angus. He thought he could trust Sebastian to look after the man. He wasn't sure about the other two. He didn't even know their names. But Sebastian was always such a loyal rabbit who listened to everything Angus said and followed his word to the letter. Now it looked like he'd gone off to catch some sleep whilst Angus wasn't around to see. Still, perhaps he himself had set a bad example by stating the case for looking after the human so firmly, then disappearing to go sunbathe.

Angus reached the man's face and stopped suddenly. The paramedic's face was red and sticky, frozen in an expression of anger that made Angus' skin tighten beneath his fur coat. He was so still at first Angus thought he was sleeping. But his eyes were open, and they were glazed over and puffy around the edges. Angus stood and looked into them. He didn't see any life there.

Daring to get closer, Angus approached the man's open mouth and put his ear up against it. If he was still breathing, Angus would have both heard and felt it. But he didn't hear or feel anything. He leapt back and put his nose to the ground. The human wasn't breathing. The human was dead.

Angus took a few steps backwards. He didn't like dead things. Even though death came to all rabbits eventually, there was still something unnatural about the whole process. Other rabbits were always curious when birds and foxes got hit by cars and died in the gutters but Angus kept away until scavengers ran off with the bodies. He couldn't think of any scavengers that were big enough to rid the warren of the two dead human beings they had now, though.

As he was worrying about this, he spotted something pink in the man's teeth. At first he dismissed it, because humans are pink all over, but this was a bright pink and no human was that colour. He crept closer again. There were tiny bits of chewed up mushroom in the crevasses of the paramedic's back teeth, but caught in the gap between his two front teeth was a tiny fleck of a pink flower. Angus recognised it immediately. It was foxglove. He stepped back again and frowned.

He didn't know what the human was doing eating that. They were poisonous to rabbits, so chances are they were poisonous to humans too. That's what didn't add up, so perhaps it wasn't lethal to humans and perhaps it was just a coincidence this one had died after eating some. Angus wasn't convinced. He looked into the man's face and tried to imagine it like a rabbit's. He'd seen an entire litter of rabbit children die of foxglove poisoning and they all looked like they had choked to death on their own tongues. Just like this fellow.

Angus looked around slowly. Something else didn't add up. There weren't any foxgloves growing in this part of the cornfield. And that meant only one thing. That someone brought them to him. That someone killed him. But surely Peter would have heeded his warning this time, surely he wouldn't have been so stupid...

"Psst!" someone whispered. "Hey, Angus!"

Angus turned sharply. He spotted two rabbits peeping out of the corn on the other side of the clearing. One of them beckoned to him. Instead he jerked his chin for them to come to him. Sheepishly they crept out of the corn.

"Who are you?" he snapped.

"It's Gibson," said the first one.

"And Daniel," added the second.

"What were you doing in there?" Angus asked.

"Waiting for you, sir," Gibson replied in a small voice.

"For me? Why?" From a distance they looked familiar. When they got closer, Angus recognised them immediately. "Hey, wait a minute, I know you! You two were supposed to be helping Sebastian look after this human..."

Daniel and Gibson stopped in front of Angus and gave each other sorrowful looks. Then they lowered their eyes and shuffled back and forth uncomfortably. "We didn't mean to kill him," Gibson muttered.

"What happened?" Angus demanded.

"We were collecting mushrooms."

"Like you told us to!" Daniel quickly added.

"And when we came back, he was like this."

"We didn't mean to kill him," Daniel repeated.

Angus frowned. They looked far too guilty to actually be responsible. He doubted they even knew what killed him. "And where was Sebastian whilst this was going on?" he asked quietly. "Collecting mushrooms too?"

"No." Daniel shook his head.

"He was here the whole time," Gibson added.

Angus narrowed his eyes. "So where is he now?"

Daniel and Gibson looked up and glanced at each other. "We don't know," they both said together. Then they looked at each other again and then lowered their eyes once more. Daniel looked on the verge of tears.

"Stop sniffling, Daniel," Angus snapped. "None of this is your fault."

"Yes, it is!" Daniel wailed. "We killed him!"

"No, you didn't," Angus continued.

"Yes, we did. We did something wrong!"

"No, you did nothing wrong."

"Then why is he dead?" Gibson cried.

"Because somebody else killed him..."

Daniel and Gibson looked shocked, but relieved at the same time.

"Yes." Angus nodded. "I found foxglove in his mouth."

"Foxglove?!" they both cried.

"Who gave him foxglove?" Gibson added.

"I have my suspicions."

"Who? Who? Who?"

"Peter Rabbit?" asked Daniel.

Angus glared at him. "You should be very careful about what you say, Daniel," he said, rising up to his full height and bearing down upon the boy. "You could get people into a lot of trouble, not least of all yourself."

Daniel ducked down and trembled meekly.

"Now, I'm going to find Sebastian," Angus announced, stepping around them.

"So, what do we do?" Daniel asked after him.

"Someone should tell Nicholas," Gibson said.

Angus spun round again. "Yes," he said quickly. "But leave that to me as well." Sebastian was the only logical culprit, but without his confession, Nicholas would leap to other conclusions. Angus needed to sort this out himself.

Gibson frowned. "I thought you were looking for Sebastian..."

"Yes," Angus said defensively. "But I can do both, can't I?"

"Well, yes, but why? We can do something, can't we?"

"Yes, but if you really want to be helpful," Angus said. "You can stay here and guard the body. Until I come back with Nicholas, if anybody asks, he's just sleeping. Do you both understand what I'm saying?" He glared at them both.

"Yes," they both said in unison.

"But why?" Gibson added suspiciously.

"Because I asked you to," Angus snapped. This just made Gibson look more suspicious, so Angus went on, "Because I need to talk to Sebastian. If Nicholas finds out about the body he'll send out a mob to find him. That's what he's like."

Neither of them looked particularly convinced.

"Look," Angus went on. "When I came out here the pair of you were hiding in the corn thinking you were responsible. Sebastian's probably hiding somewhere thinking the same. I need to talk to him. Does that make sense?"

"I suppose," Gibson muttered.

"Good," said Angus. "Now, until I come back, he's asleep, right?"

Daniel and Gibson nodded.

"Finally," Angus said under his breath. He stood up on his hind legs and sniffed the air. There were a million different places Sebastian could be hiding within the forty-metre limit. He didn't even know where to start. He stood and thought about where he'd go if he didn't want to be found, and then thought about how many of those places a young rabbit like Sebastian would know about. He'd start at the perimeter and work his way in.

Daniel and Gibson watched in silence as Angus procrastinated in front of them for a few moments longer, then bounded off into the corn again without another word. Once the corn had settled again in his wake the two rabbits turned to face each other. Daniel looked puzzled. Gibson looked suspicious.

"He knows something," Gibson murmured.

"Knows something about what?"

"Who killed this guy..."

"Really? You think? Who?"

"Well, did you see how he reacted when you mentioned Peter?"

"Yeah, he completely snapped."

"Exactly. He knew something."

"What? So you think Peter did this?"

"Well, think about what he's been saying and doing lately."

"Hmm, it's plausible, I suppose."

"That doesn't explain why Angus has gone looking for Sebastian, though."

"No? I think that's pretty obvious..."

"Oh, do you now? Pray tell."

"Well, Sebastian was here when it happened."

Gibson gasped. "Of course!" he cried.

"So he saw who did it, didn't he?"

"We've got to tell this to Nicholas."

Daniel frowned. "But Angus said-"

"Screw what Angus said!" Gibson spat. "Don't you see what he's doing, Daniel? We've just landed Sebastian in deep shit! He's the only person who can prove Peter killed the human and now Angus has gone to hunt him down..."

Daniel blinked. "Erm, yeah, and?"

"Angus and Peter are family!"

"Oh, crap..." Daniel gulped, imagining the implications.

"Come on," Gibson hissed. "Before it's too late!"

Whilst the two rabbits ran off in search of the patriarch, Peter Rabbit continued to sleep soundly in the long grass beside the roadside, oblivious to the mayhem that was unfolding all around him. In comparison to the torment of his nightmares, the other rabbits' concerns were prosaic.

Peter was dreaming about Angus and Nicholas, though it was one of those peculiar dreams where their two personalities were merged into a single antagonistic character that resembled Alexander. In his dream, the paramedic was already dead and gone. The ambulance driver, however, was now alive again. Alexander had brought him back to life and now he was feeding dead rabbits into the back of the ambulance and they came out alive again. Except they were rabbit zombies who did the bidding of the humans. Mark, Tom and Travis dug up Cottontail's body and he was put in the ambulance and came out again alive, but he was Flopsy's age and he joined the Angus/Nicholas hybrid in opposing Peter's war on mankind.

Rabbit dreams are just as long and intense as human dreams. This one continued unabated for nearly half an hour. Then suddenly it changed. In this new dream Peter was standing on the central reservation. Except that it wasn't a dream, it was a flashback. He could see himself standing on the curb, calling out. Peter wasn't himself in this dream. He was Cottontail. Everything he did was what Cottontail did before him. But when the car ran over him, he felt no pain. He felt nothing, in fact, until the man got out of his car and kicked him into the gutter. Then he kicked him again. Then he kicked him again. And this time Peter felt real pain.

Peter woke up abruptly. He was kicked again a moment later. He was groggy from having his sleep disturbed and his eyes were sticky, but as his sight returned, he found himself surrounded by other rabbits. He slurred something. Even he wasn't sure what. It was no surprise to find Nicholas standing at the front of the group. It had probably been him doing all the kicking a moment before.

"What's going on?" he said gruffly.

"Don't even bother pretending you were asleep," Nicholas snapped.

"But I was asleep," Peter growled through his teeth.

"Oh, no, that'd be far too convenient an alibi..."

"Huh?" said Peter. "Alibi for what? What are you pinning on me now?"

"Your latest crime," said Nicholas. "The murder of the human."

"Oh, so he's dead, is he?" Peter chuckled. "That's funny."

"You won't be laughing when I exile you for it, Peter Rabbit."

"I just meant that it's funny," Peter went on. "That of all the things you wanted to exile me for since before you even became patriarch, the one thing you finally pick up on - is the thing I didn't do."

"Well," Nicholas began. Then he launched into an explanation of why Peter was being taken to account for this offence but not any of the others. His reasoning was as critical of Alexander as it was of Peter.

Meanwhile, Peter looked around the crowd. Two dozen rabbits swarmed around him, and the crowd grew by the second. More importantly, rabbits that had been at the secret meeting swelled its numbers.

But he had no great allies. Six of the elders were there, but Angus wasn't. Most of the fifteen volunteers were there, but William and Elliot weren't. Peter hadn't expected the final confrontation with Nicholas to come so soon, but after a quick stretch he was ready for it.

Nicholas finished one tirade and launched into another one. "So that we can get them out of the way before we properly commence with the prosecution," he warbled. "Let us hear your denials now, Peter Rabbit. Unless, of course, you wish to save us all a lot of fuss and bother and just confess right now, that is."

Peter ruffled his fur and stood up straight. "On the contrary," he began. "I won't deny my complicity." The noisy crowd reaction threatened to drown him out so he raised his voice. "I was there are the secret meeting held right under your nose, Nicholas, where this course of action was decided."

Nicholas looked livid. "So you confess, then?"

"No," said Peter calmly. "I'm not personally responsible."

"Oh, I see. But you know who is, though?"

"No, not really. You see, Nicholas, there were nearly eighty rabbits at the meeting. I don't even know half of their names. I know one of them did it, though. I won't ask them to single themselves out."

"Eighty rabbits? I find that hard to believe."

"Well, that's your problem, not mine."

Nicholas scowled. "You'll be taking the blame for all of them, then?"

Peter snorted. "No." Then he addressed the crowd. "I want everyone who was at that meeting with me today to take a step forward. It's time to show Nicholas just how strong popular opinion is. Be proud, not afraid. He can't exile us all."

"Don't count on it," Nicholas growled.

Peter looked through the crowd and glared at people he recognised from the meeting. They averted their eyes. "Come on, you know I know you were there. One of you must have done this. Stand up for yourselves."

But nobody moved.

NOTES:
Somewhere in the middle of this draft I decided to stop after reaching 40,000 words (i.e. after the next chapter). This chapter has the most troubled history, taking several joyless days to write, including two in which I started again from scratch. There were more words written for this chapter excised than left behind (about 5000 were cut in one form or another). I realised I was reaching a creative empasse, completely burning out, and needed a break. In a chapter or two the biggest single plot twist yet occurs, so I'm going to stop after that.