The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1067 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The day after our jaunt to Hastings, we were back to earth with a bump, when I was clearing up the dishes and a policeman knocked on the door. “Lady Catherine Cameron, I have a warrant for your arrest...” he went on to caution me.

I asked him if he minded waiting a few minutes whilst I changed–I was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. He ummed and aahed and then said, ‘okay’.

I asked Stella to call Henry and tell him what had happened, then leaving Julie in charge, I changed into a skirt suit, grabbed my handbag and went with him in the police car.

At the station, I had to surrender my bag and any objects in my pockets, they placed them in a locker and I was taken to an interview room. The Chief Inspector arrived with another man in a grey suit. He was introduced as Superintendent Chivers.

“You are allowed a single phone call, do you wish to call someone?”

“I did that before I left home, thank you.”

“The Cameron money won’t get you out of this one, Lady Catherine,” said the Chief Inspector.

“Can we have that remark recorded?” I asked firmly and he gave me a very old fashioned look.

“This is an exploratory interview, you may well be charged at the end of it, but at the moment it’s informal,” explained the Superintendent.

“I don’t see any point to this, if you believe I’ve committed an offence, please charge me so I can be bailed to instruct my own counsel on your failure to follow protocols and procedures as laid down in the Home Office Manual of Policing Guidelines. You might succeed in a minor charge of interrupting a police operation, while I sue you for a huge settlement which will probably mean you have to lay off half your workforce.”

“You think that’s clever do you?” asked the Superintendent sarcastically.

“No, I think it’s dreadful, but it’s what your negligence and lack of proper procedures warrants. Nice word warrants, I was presented with one this morning. I’m just repaying the compliment.”

“Your type make me sick, this is all a game to you isn’t it because at the end of the day you can just buy justice as you feel like it.”

“Superintendent, this isn’t a game. Firstly, I don’t like being threatened, secondly the way my daughter was treated by the man sitting next to you is disgraceful–she suffered a serious sexual assault which required surgery and yet he did nothing to help facilitate this, nor consider an examination and or taking of swabs for DNA of the perpetrators, or for her to see a therapist or counsellor for this assault.”

“Is this true?” asked the Superintendent and the Chief Inspector shrugged.

“My original involvement in this case was as a witness of the assault on the old lady by Donny Baker, and my daughter’s capture of it on her mobile phone. Then two of my girls were abducted by Baker or his accomplices and a demand for a ransom made. I was asked to act as courier for this ransom to the drop and one of my girls was released in giving me instructions. After the money was collected my remaining daughter was thrown out of the van and I went and collected her. I pursued the van because I was unaware of any police vehicles doing so.

“We followed at a distance and saw two police pursuers being stopped by the escaping gang, in fact possibly some of the officers were injured in their attempts to stop the van.

“I saw the gang escaping as the police seemed to have withdrawn, so I interceded and caused the van to pull off the road–the motorway was quiet at the time–and crash on the embankment, whereupon more police arrived to deal with the event.

“I then came home and made myself and my daughter available for police interview, being unaware at that stage that she had been sexually assaulted. This was rather casually brought to my attention by the Chief Inspector and I took her to the hospital for necessary treatment. I have since been arrested and here I am.”

The door was knocked and a young policewoman came in and handed a note to the superintendent. “Your counsel has apparently arrived, I’d be grateful if you could make a statement of all that you have just told me, and for the moment I am suspending the arrest warrant while I investigate your claim. Once you have made the statement, you are free to go.”

He rose and practically hauled his colleague through the door, in came my legal help and we drafted the statement and I signed it, he witnessed it and we handed it in. He gave me his card and told me that if the police attempted to talk to me about this, I was to inform him immediately and he would sit in on it or ask a colleague if he was in court. He seemed really nice but like most QCs underneath would be a very quick mind and a ruthlessness that is very good to have on your side. He also complimented me on coping on my own and passing the ball back to the police. So instead of coming home as a future jailbird, I considered I’d done reasonably well in fending off an attack.

The girls were pleased to see me, Danny had gone to play football with some friends, which Stella had agreed to. Julie was waiting for Leon to arrive for some tongue wrestling, and had posted the picture Trish had taken surreptitiously of her and me sitting on the beach in our bikinis, on her facebook page. One of these days, that Trish and her camera-phone are going to come to a sticky end.

I took Billie out for a bike ride later and when we got back I had a box of bits from the cycle shop for my new wheels, when I had time to get round to making them. I then had to take Trish and Livvie and Meems out for a bike ride, on which Billie accompanied us. Trish seemed quite jealous of Billie’s new bike and it looked very likely she would be getting one for her birthday or Christmas.

Simon arrived during the late afternoon, and so did Stephanie to see Julie–who resented that she was separated from Leon to go and speak with her. While she was with us I had her see Trish and Billie.

By the time she’d finished it was dinner time and I served a roast chicken with various vegetables, which Tom carved and the gannets in my family gorged upon. Even a five pound chicken does one real meal with this hungry crowd, led by Simon who licked his lips in anticipation.

I chatted with Stephanie a bit later, she seemed to think that Julie had coped really well with the assault and that Billie was doing fine too, despite her abduction. Trish was as clever as ever, and perhaps needed watching for prevention of trouble due to her cleverness.

“What d’you mean?” I asked.

“Clever kids get very easily bored and they sometimes use other children as counters in a sort of abstract chess game. The problem is they don’t associate the misfortunes that might befall their ‘counters’ as happening to real people, because all that matters is the game and possibly winning it.”

“So they don’t see the consequences of their actions?”

“Yeah, exactly that because it’s an intellectual, rather than emotional thing so they don’t engage emotionally.”

“But Trish does engage emotionally, she’s very aware of the feelings of others.”

“Good, keep reinforcing that, just be aware that teenagers sometimes seem to lose that engagement and it can get very unpleasant.”

“Are we talking Midwich Cuckoos here?”

“Um, I don’t think she’s telepathic is she?” Stephanie laughed and we went to have a cuppa before she left.