(aka Bike) Part 1002 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad
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I’d be lying if I told you it took me months to get home from hospital, because I spent a few more days then insisted they let me go. For some reason, they couldn’t believe my rate of healing, except possibly one night sister, who wasn’t at all surprised.
In truth, I wasn’t as quickly healed as I pretended, but they let me home and I wasn’t going back to hospital without the medical equivalent of a court order. Back at home, after my first collapse, Julie and Stella, not to mention the others did more to help than they ever had. I did most of the cooking, which seemed to please most of the family.
Simon hadn’t been seen since the night of my accident, and I was quite hazy about the details and not having shared it with anyone else, I couldn’t help the police much at all. It might seem as if I was taking it all very calmly, the very opposite was more true, but everyone was watching me and stopping me from doing anything on my own–apart from the cooking.
Speaking with Henry and Stella, it seemed very odd that he could have been kidnapped for a ransom–unless something went badly wrong. As far as Henry knew, there was nothing missing from the bank, and since all his passwords had been changed, he’d be very little help to any organisation trying to access the bank.
We seemed to be getting nowhere, and as the days progressed I grew fitter and stronger, and more depressed. It seemed increasingly that I was going to be a widow. My thoughts about the wedding blessing were firmly put on hold, until a pair of kilts appeared which Simon had ordered before he disappeared. It caused an uproar at the bank when the firm tried to claim on his card, quite innocently as it happened. Henry had to smooth it over.
The boys were astonished by the kilts, and were very reluctant to try them on until Tom showed them his, and looked anything but effeminate in it. I also told the others while the boys went off to change, that any teasing would be dealt with severely. So when they came back down wearing the tartan, they were greeted with gasps of delight, not derision. They actually looked rather fetching, and I wished Simon could have been there to see them.
Henry came over to see the boys in their new finery and we chatted afterwards, when the boys went back upstairs to change out of their new best clothes.
“Any news?” I asked knowing the bank had employed a private investigation firm as well the efforts the police were making.
“No, they report every week but nothing beyond what we know.”
“I find it astonishing that there has been no ransom demand–what happened to it? Did the man carrying it get killed on route?”
“They’ve actually looked at that scenario, and nothing seems to fit it; so what were they trying to get from us?” Henry stroked his chin in thought.
I couldn’t remember what was said, other than it was a woman’s voice–I thought, and people remember me appearing to be very angry or anxious or even both. I assumed from that, she’d said something insulting or hurtful to me–but why?
Common sense suggested that even if he’d decided to drop me and the rest of our family, he wouldn’t have left the bank–it paid too well. As his account had been frozen as soon as it was noted he’d gone, they couldn’t take anything. Henry had caused a new joint account to be made to enable the family expenses to be met, although I could have survived on my earnings for a while at any rate.
“Nothing is missing, except Simon, and it doesn’t make sense.” Henry grumbled and sipped his tea.
I went to eat another biscuit–I was in danger of becoming a comfort eater and put it back into the tin. Then an idea popped into my under used mind. “Henry, we’ve been waiting for them to try and take something from the bank.”
“Yes–that’s the usual consequence of kidnap, and I can’t see him voluntarily leaving his wife and children or his overpaid job.”
“What if we’ve been looking at it upside down.”
“What do you mean?”
“How about, if someone put something into the bank?”
“Keep talking,” urged Henry.
“I don’t know–some money from drugs or a computer virus.”
“The money laundering we’d detect, and the money we spend on IT safety is like a king’s ransom.”
“But you’re looking for attacks from outside. What if it was internal, put in by a trusted person who couldn’t be released until it had happened.”
“Well, Cathy, that sounds like a cheap thriller plot, but it’s as good as anything we have to go on.”
“I’m thinking, it’s something big which could potentially ruin you, and it’s imminent, like in the next few days.” I was cuddling the Paddington Bear which Simon had given me. “He’s alive,” I said, without knowing where the ideas had come from.
I stood up and with tears running down my face, I repeated, “He’s alive, I know he’s alive.”
“How do you know, woman?” Henry grabbed me and held me by my upper arms.
“I just do, he’s alive but we have to move quickly, because they’ll kill him once they’ve achieved what they want.”
“You’re not making any sense, Cathy.”
“Henry, believe me, it’s something they’ve put into the bank–I just know it.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but computer virus keeps coming to my mind.”
“Okay, if I hadn’t seen your spooky stuff in action before, including some bullets I have in my desk drawer, I’d think you were crazy–but, it could just be what’s happened.”
He clicked his mobile phone and began barking instructions for the head of IT to be waiting for him when he got back to London. Then he called up the helicopter to collect him from Portsmouth.
“Where’s Grampa Henry gone?” asked Danny. He looked disappointed that the source of small gifts of money had gone before he could tap him.
“He had to dash to the bank for a very important meeting, but he loves your kilts.”
“They don’t look too poofy, do they?”
“Poofy? What? Tell that to Mel Gibson.”
“Who’s he?”
“He did Braveheart,” I replied, without telling him how Hollywood had mangled the story of William Wallace.
“Who’s he?”
“Go and look it up, but he was anything but a sissy, that’s for sure.”
He went off to use the internet and Billy came up to me. “I didn’t look like a girl, did I?”
I hugged him, “No, you looked like a highlander.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone from the highlands of Scotland, and they were as tough as the land they lived on. Go and talk with Gramps, he can tell you far more than I can.”
I watched him walk up to Tom’s study and tap lightly on the door, then presumably when invited, he opened the door and entered. I hugged my Paddington, and hoped the person who gave it to me would be with me soon.
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Comments
Yes
You've got me on the edge of my seat and I am not even sitting down. Good show.
Hilltopper
Almost...
Almost the first to comment... Hilltopper beat me to it ;)
John A.
I Think The Crooks Will Be Cursing
I think the crooks will be cursing when their little scheme falls apart. I think Cathy's abilities are developing beyond her healing and into Clairaudience and regular psychic abilities. I imagine they are planning to rob the bank and destabilize the economy of Britain and any other country connected to the bank. Cathy will probably still have to kick some serious butt even after they discover the Cyber attempt. I think the woman who called her will incur an especially brutal wrath when she gets finished.
Cathy is talking sense!
They either want Simon (crazy girlfriend theory) or want something from Simon (access to bank or Cathy). Somehow, I doubt the girlfriend theory. If it were true, they would find his car or cellphone or attempted use of his accounts. If possible that he's out of the country, but that would be possible in any scenario.
So they want something from Simon. That implies access to 1. the bank, 2. family accounts, or 3. Cathy. Henry is smart enough to have locked out access to family accounts, and it sounds like he has a handle on outgoing transactions from the bank. That leaves physical access to the bank, or incoming transactions. OR getting to Cathy somehow. I wonder how through the police work on the van driver (and van owner) was...
Here's my guess. The accident was to divert attention from Simon for a critical few days so Simon's access to the bank could be used. Some sort of delayed virus/trojan was inserted, for what purpose, I don't know (could be to cover a large transaction, crash the world money market...).
Whoever's behind it knows enough about Cathy's history to be able to play on her fears and insecurity, and possibly her "psychic" abilities to want her out of the way, permanently or for at least some time.
Janice
ps. Oh yes. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! :-D
Janice
Yah, dat's roit.
Only a man in a skirt would consider tossing telephone poles (Caber) a sport.
Cathy might have her boys look at how decorated the Scots regiments have been, if they think that a kilt makes them look "poofy" (interesting term). Something else to look at at the Utilikilt site. Several practical kilts there. They have POCKETS!
Now, as to the adventures of Simon Templar (no, wait, his last name is Cameron and he's no saint from all we've seen).
Quite interesting, actually. If they're after the bank, why the playing with Cathy's head on the phone call? Hmmm.
Thanks, you've sure twisted things nicely, this time.
Ann
P.S. Thanks for the correction on that which is tossed... I think it's slepped correctly now.
Bike pt 1002
Whoever has Simon is after the bank and Cathy. But they have not taken into account her gifts. It could be the Russian Mafia or a group that has a grudge against Cathy, say one with the browne cowe as a member.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
don't forget
The child porn idiot that tried to sink his fangs into the family for revenge, He left some supporters around, and they might be seeking some kind of revenge also.If I recall there was a computer geek involved in the background also. He tried to make his bid to take over from Cathy and blacken the family name to set himself up. The news release may have triggered some kind of revenge scheme.
I suppose its always possible it is the ruskies, but they were set on their ears several times. Good stuff Angharad.
Btw, you could always post your Lions to Bob's Otherworlds site. They might fit well there. Some of us might even help.
Sissy Scotsmen?
The largest, and heaviest, fortification built in the entire Roman Empire at the time was Hadrian's Wall, in Northern England. Obviously, the well-trained, well-armed, and otherwise feared Roman army, who had rampaged across Europe conquering every land in their path, had learned the hard way that the famously-warlike Scots would beat them up, steal their lunch money, and generally pee on their sandals at will, without that wall to keep them out.
The kids could use a lesson in the history of the Scots.
The Scots
Arrived after the Romans had gone, it's the Picts that Hadrian was fencing off.
Angharad
Angharad
So, The Scots...
...beat up and chased off the Picts, who had been terrorizing the Romans? That just makes them even scarier!
....and the Scots came over
....and the Scots came over from Ireland, just to confuse the matter even more! We Celts have a tangled history. Even the Irish patron saint was Welsh.
Thank You Both
Obviously, my own knowledge of Scottish history is severely lacking. I'll sit in with the boys when they get their lesson, if I may!
Here I was...
Thinking that St. Patrick was the Irish patron saint... (I always thought Patrick was born in southern Scotland (in the Dumbarton area. But, I've been shown to be a tad on the ignorant side a time or two.) I'd never heard that he was actually Welsh.
But, yes, the Celts do have a tangled history (coming to Ireland from the Iberian peninsula, if memory serves).
As to how Scotland came to have a Scot crown, instead of pictish... My recollection is that a Kennith McAlpin married into one of the Pictish royal families, and got elected king (where upon he killed off the other families)... And his sons followed him to the crown. (I understand there was a small fight or two over said crown then and in later years...)
Ann
P.S. I'm not a Scots historian, nor do I pretend to be one... Much of that could be WAY off...
Patrick was Romano-British
These were tribes that lived in most of what is now England and Wales and Southern Scotland, they were driven out or merged with later colonists, such as Anglo Saxons in England, and the Scots in Scotland. The Romano-Brits survived as the Welsh, the Cornish and the Bretons.
No one is sure quite where he originated, but it was likely Wales, as they had a thriving monastic society by the C5th when Patrick is thought to have lived. My home of Llandaff had an established church in those days.
There were two migrations of Celts, the P and Q Celts, the P Celts were Romano-British tribes with a language that became, Welsh, Cornish and Breton, and the Q Celts were the Gaelic speakers of Scotland and Ireland. The Q Celts were later and probably came up from the Iberian peninsula.
Sadly in recent years the term Celtic has been hijacked by the Irish communities or those claiming roots in, most of whom have never been near the emerald isle, or even the British mainland. The Welsh and Scots being far less pushy often get forgotten.
Remember too that the term British was adopted by the Hanoverians to try to avoid recurrence of Stuart rebelling in Scotland and threatening their position. In fact they were Germans introduced by the English. George I spoke very little English - he spoke even less Welsh or Scots - British was he?
Angharad
Angharad
The Welsh speaking area ran
The Welsh speaking area ran almost up to Glasgow. The English Lake Didtrict is in Cumbria, which is bastardised Welsh for "Wales" (Cymru)
The P/Q split is in the choice of how to represent an ancient consonant that became a "K" sound in one branch and a "P" sound in the other.Thus (ignoring Gaelic spelling) 'head' is 'ken' in the Gaelic, 'pen' in the Welsh etc. 'Plant' in Welsh means 'children', and is cognate with the Scots 'clan'. 'Son of' in Welsh is (with variations) 'Map'. You can work out the Scots....
I love being a linguist!
Northumberland
similarly was the Land of the North Cymru. Celt and Saxon by Peter Beresford Ellis is worthy of a read, mind you he's from Kernow, so has a little bias.
Angharad
Angharad
All of them Celts
The Picts were a confederation of Celtic tribes, and indeed eventually allied with other Celts in the neighbourhood to form the Kingdom of Alba, so the Picts are still around, but they call themselves Scots these days. The Celts spent a lot of time fighting each other when they weren't fighting with the Danes and other Germanic tribes. In Roman times, the Celts owned much of France, and indeed Gaul, the name used by the Romans, is cognate with Wales, for the same reason that French Guerre is equivalent to War. Local accent. Brittany is still one of the Celtic-speaking "nations." As in Wales and other Celtic nations, there's a revival of interest in learning and speaking the language, but France offers no official support or funding.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Wow!
First up, Cathy's healing faster than expected. Quel Surprise.
And now it seems as though she's got Clairvoyance / precognition to boot!
So, someone wants to take down the bank, and is using Simon for their means to an end.
Simon, of course, has been kidnapped once before by a group of people with eyes on his bank...
...could our Russian "friends" be responsible this time? After all, they do seem to pop up about once a year...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
If as Cathy suspects
its all about a computer virus, Would that not point to the Russians being behind the plot to bring down the bank...After all people like that will never forget what Cathy has done to them, And would it not fit just nicely if they were able to bring down not just the bank, But Cathy's marriage as well.
Kirri
Kilts are not 'poofy' as
Kilts are not 'poofy' as stated by Danny. It takes a real man to wear one as any true Scot will tell you in an instant.
From what I just saw on History International the other night, was that a lot of Scots were re-located into Northern Ireland by Henry II, as apparently he wanted someone who could fight the Irish on equal terms as the English soldiers were not 'cutting it'. Due to this, and by LOTS of inter-marriage, we wound up with Scotch-Irish. Many of who immigrated to the US just before the American Revolution, settled in the Alleganies and Appalachian mountains. In the very late 19th century and early 20th century, they became known as 'hill-billies',(highlanders?) because they were clannish, (sound familiar?) and tended to not care much for outsiders or 'gummint men'. Pretty much like what the Romans and English discovered way back when eh? Jan
The Blackwatch Brigade
The Blackwatch Brigade of the British Army earned the name "The Ladies From Hell" from the Germans, because they fought in WWI in traditional Kilts. The Germans saw them coming over the hill and doubled over laughing. They weren't laughing for long!
As the saying goes...
...“Beware of G(r)eeks bearing gifts.â€
While in all likelihood, the form of attack on the bank will be some sort of Virus or Trojan Horse, they need to ensure that the bank accepts nothing else out of the ordinary.
Whoever the attackers are, they might have made one tiny mistake. In a recent missing persons case in New Zealand, the Police were able to ascertain that the missing woman's cellphone had been turned on in a town some distance from the last known sighting of her. Sadly, in this particular instance, Police found a badly decomposed body in a remote bush-clad ravine. She had suffered head injuries. Now in this particular instance, Simon's cellphone was used to ring Cathy when she was at Livvie's party. So, checks need to be carried out to identify where Simon's cellphone was used from, and if it has been used since. [References: Missing woman 'not able to wander far' and Body confirmed as Marice McGregor.]
Obviously the enemies are aware of Cathy's past. The only group I can think of who might have sufficient vitriol against the family are disgruntled social workers. Unfortunately they probably lack the credibility and ability to carry out such an attack. So, the next best bet would seem to be some form of organised crime—Russian or otherwise.
Phone Signals
Bike Archive
Bike Resources
Mobile Phone Triangulation
It's a technique that has been used by the British police - during the Soham Murders investigation, they triangulated where one of the victims' mobile phones was last used.
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
These crooks need to learn that the only thing more
dangerous than messing with Cathy is messing with her family. Can anyone else visualize the image of Carrie Fisher with her assult rifle in the movie "The Blues Brothers"? Kind of think that way of Cathy. Nice simple demure outfit, smile, calm quiet voice, but sporting a rather devastating punch for anyone who gets in her way, especially when her famly is at risk.
Unclear to me whether Cathy's recovery was accelerated by the blue light but obviously, she has some mental abilities that have been enhanced. Good to see that Henry knows her well enough to never doubt Cathy. As he said, "bullets in my desk drawer" to convince him to listen to her.
Great job keeping us on edge Angharad.
Very late.
Commenting upon this the following morning in work, (Yeah, I know, stealing the company's he-lectricity an' all that.)
The cyber thing sounds plausible.
D'you think teddy provides the essential psychic link?
Thanks Angharad.
I was to bed early last night so I missed the early post. Your hours seem late and regular, mine are everywhere and shambolic.
Still lovin' it.
OXOXOX.
Bev.
Cathy
The force is strong in this one.
I am enjoying the story enormously, but it makes as much sense as anything else.
POOFY? Tell Rowdy Roddy Piper
POOFY? Tell Rowdy Roddy Piper that ! (pro wrestler)
this is poofy
Poor Cathy, doesn't know dead from alive.
Cefin
"It takes an Irishman to play the pipes" ( Longest Day)
If anyone reads this, this comment goes with Ang's history lesson on migration.a long time before this was posted.
I'm black Irish on my mother's side, Not from Spaniards who could swim, But the original settlers before the Celts went to Eire. Caesar was not worried by blue faced Scots, only Hollywood(land co)
Cefin