“This is about the fact there’s a bloody fox hunt meeting in my carriage court. Are you insane?”
I hadn’t seen that coming.
“I blathered on for ages last night about my father’s legacy, how Buckford is a wildlife sanctuary, how it’s my parents’ life’s work. And this morning I find you organising a fox hunt.”
He crossed his eyes, stabbed a finger into his head, and stuck his tongue into his bottom lip so it protruded grotesquely. It was the unmistakable gesture used by children everywhere to tell other children they’re too thick to function. Message received. Honestly, this pretend fox hunt had already been far more trouble than the footage was worth. If Indira hadn’t spent so much money on the costumes, I’d go back there and talk her out of it—but I knew she wouldn’t change her mind.
“It’s not real,” I said.
“It looks real.”
“Fox-hunting is illegal. It’s obviously not real.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re romanticising a brutal blood sport. There are freaks out there who will watch this on TV and think, Oh what a shame, one of the old traditions of the English countryside that’s disappeared, let’s bring it back.”
I hated that I agreed with him because I was still incredibly angry with him. When I say I was angry, I mean I’d been embarrassed and anger was how I was processing it. My headset crackled, and I lifted it to my ear.
“Where the hell are you?” Indira barked. “Dorinda’s ready.”
Thunder rumbled through the sky. I looked at William.
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” I said. “Some of the cast raised concerns, too, but they’ve fallen on deaf ears.”
William shook his head. “You know my parents organised the anti-fox-hunting rallies across the East and West Midlands? For years. Buckford Hall was base camp.”
“I’m sorry, William. It’s not my decision. You can take it up with Indira, but you won’t get anywhere.” I put my headset on and turned to walk back through the house to the carriage court. “Coming, Indira,” I said.
As I trotted up the stairs, I turned back to look at William. He was shaking his head.
“You’re going to awaken forces you don’t even understand,” he shouted after me. It sounded like the ravings of a madman.
By the time Dorinda had filmed her parts and the hunt got underway, it had started to rain heavily. I joined Indira in the production office in the Old Coach House, listening to the storm thrum against the slate roof tiles. It smelt like petrichor and diesel fumes and Indira’s cigarettes, which added an extra frisson of danger to the events about to take place.
“What did Lord Bucknaked want?” Indira asked.
I shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t fix.”
We had five crews on electric quad bikes set up on a predetermined course around the Buckford Estate, ready to filmour pretend hunt. Except for one fixed camera trained on the actor Samuel Fox, which was livestreaming directly back to the Old Coach House, we had no way to beam the footage back to us live, so we couldn’t see what was happening. We had to rely on reports coming in from our crews in the field on the walkie-talkies. Ours crackled into life.
“Base, this is Unit One.”
“Go ahead, Hassan.”
“Base, uh, we’ve got company.”
Indira squinted, and I wondered if this was how she powered up the lasers in her eyes.
“Define ‘company’ for me, Hassan.”
“We have at least two dozen anti-fox-hunting protesters on set.”
“Where the fuck did they come from?” Indira’s eyes narrowed further, and I got a sinking feeling her eye lasers would be pointed at me any second. “Can we film around them?”
The walkie-talkie crackled.
“Negative. They’re spread out all across Home Field. They have placards, and they’re shouting anti-fox-hunting slogans. Even if we can keep them out of the shot, the audio will be unusable.”
Indira switched the channel on the walkie-talkie and barked an order at the head of security to send every single person they had to Home Field to deal with our unexpected guests, then switched back to the regular frequency.
