The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1061 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I was totally devastated. Who was this person who somehow had my children? Stella came to see why I was standing with a strange expression on my face and tears running down it.

“Aren’t you going to–what’s wrong, Cathy?”

“Some bloke has got Julie and Billie.”

“How do you mean–like, kidnapped?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“He told me not to testify.”

“The bloke who killed the old lady?”

“I don’t know, but I presume so.”

“How did he find them?”

“I have no idea. What are we going to do?”

“I know exactly what to do.” She picked up the phone and dialled, triple nine. “Police,” she said. Then a pause and she said, “This is Stella Cameron, my sister in law and her children witnessed the mugging of the old lady yesterday, two of her children appear to have been kidnapped by someone telling her not to testify.” She was then put through to a police officer dealing with the case, who said they would send someone straight over.

She then phoned Tom, explained what had happened and he agreed to collect the girls. She then left messages for Simon and Henry. Finally she took me by the hand and led me into the kitchen, sat me at the table and put the kettle on. As it boiled we heard a car speedily pull into the drive and two men and a woman walked quickly up to the door.

Stella led them into the kitchen and they introduced themselves, although my shocked brain couldn’t take any new information on board. All I could hear was Billie calling me for help and the man’s coarse accent.

Over a cup of tea, I managed to explain what had happened as I understood it, though at times I suspect I probably sounded incoherent. The police looked quite concerned.

“Right, Cathy, if I might call you that, I don’t know what this call is all about. To start with we have the crime on film, we have your statements to say when and where it happened, and the film itself has a date and time on it. As it was shown to an officer within minutes of the offence, we know it hasn’t been tampered with and enough of it has been shown for it to enable over a hundred people to identify the man.”

“Who was it?”

“We believe it’s a low life called Donny Baker. He’s done time for this sort of thing before to feed his habit, of heroin, coke, smack, in fact, anything he can ingest or inject. Not to put too fine a point on it, he’s a total shithead.”

“Why has he got my girls?”

“Good question, we didn’t identify you or them, so I don’t know–but I intend to make it my business to find out as soon as I can. Where were they going?”

“They went out to catch the bus while your press conference was on this morning.They were going shopping.”

“To town?”

“Yes, I think so. Julie is sixteen and Billie is nine, so I thought they should be able to go together quite safely. I was wrong.”

“I have two daughters who are younger than yours and they go to town by themselves most weekends, it’s where they hang out with their pals.”

“I shouldn’t have let them go.”

“Why not? I mean how were you to know they’d run into Donny or one of his friends?”

“That’s what I keep telling her,” added Stella, pouring more tea.

“But how did he know they were my kids, unless he saw them leaving here and how did he know where we lived?”

“I have no idea, Cathy,” said the more senior policeman. He’d checked the number display on my handset and I identified it as Billie’s mobile. “It’s obviously off now, because we can’t trace any sort of signal. I’m going to leave my colleague here with you, and we’ll introduce a phone tap in case he calls again. Do you have any up to date photos?”

I flicked on my computer and skimming them quickly so they didn’t see Billie in her previous manifestation, printed them off a copy of her and Julie.

“The older one is quite is a very pretty young woman.”

“I think so, but then all my kids are lovely.”

“You don’t look old enough to have a sixteen year old daughter.” Observed the senior flatfoot.

“They’re adopted, Chief Inspector,” explained Stella, “and the reason is, they’re both transgendered, Cathy is their umpteenth foster mother and she decided to adopt them.”

“You mean these are two boys?”

“No, they’re two girls with a plumbing problem,” Stella explained.

The copper looked baffled for a moment, then the penny dropped and he smirked and nodded. “So are all your kids transgendered?”

“No, just three of six.”

“That’s a pretty high ratio for the average family.”

“There’s nothing average about the Camerons, Chief Inspector. We don’t do anything by half,” commented Stella.

“So I’m beginning to understand–you’re not related to the banking people are you?”

“We are the bank, Chief Inspector. My father is the chairman.”

“So could the reason for the kidnap be monetary or even revenge, someone whose mortgage you called in?”

“How would I know?” Stella shrugged.

“If I don’t need to testify, why did he take them?” I mumbled in the background.

“You’re the woman who did the dormouse film,” said the Chief Inspector.

“Yes, don’t tell me you’ve seen it on Youtube?”

“Youtube? I meant the one they showed on the BBC, my daughter wanted to become a biologist if she could play with dormice all day.”

“It’s what I did for a couple of years, it was good fun.” I smiled as I reflected on it.

“Are you making any new films?” he asked.

“Trying to do one on the harvest mouse, the smallest of the rodentia in this country.”

“They’re cute little critters, too.”

“Very, with prehensile tails unlike dormice, who have fleshier hairy tails.”

“And those big eyes.”

“Indeed.” I smiled, thinking about Spike and bygone days, everything seemed so simple in those times.

Tom arrived with Trish, Livvie and Meems. They all rushed in, not sure what had happened, and when we explained they were all aghast and then in tears. I had a massive hug from all three of them. Danny was collected from the school bus by a policeman and we had to explain to him what had happened. He was mortified too.

“So what do we do now?” he asked the Chief.

“I’m afraid we wait.”

“He could be killing them for all we know?”

The older man nodded.

“Well get out there and stop him.”

“Out where?”

“You must know where this Donny Baker bloke hangs out.”

“We do, and don’t worry, we have teams out looking for him, but we don’t know it’s him who has your sisters.”

“Well it sounds much like it to me. I feel like goin’ out there an’ lookin’.”

“Danny, please stay here, I don’t want anyone else to be at risk.”

“Worrabout school?”

“Unless this thing ends tonight, then I think you finished earlier than the others.”

“Yessssss!” H punched the air. I suppose from his point of view there was a silver lining to this particular black cloud.

The phone rang and we all jumped. The Chief Inspector counted me down to answering it.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Babes, any news?”