The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1486 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“I can’t think why we didn’t put electric gates in years ago,” Simon said at dinner.

“Possibly because it’s not our house,” I hissed at him out of the side of my mouth.

“Aye, it’ll be a guid idea,” nodded Tom, “I’ll pay hef o’ th’ cost.”

“More potatoes, Daddy,” I said offering him the dish of new potatoes dripping with low fat spread and chopped mint. We had lamb chops–must have been half a sheep by the time I put in a couple for everyone and three for the men. I know the roasting tin I used was pretty heavy.

A friend of Simon’s, a broker is also a part time farmer–well his wife is, and he keeps organic sheep. Sadly, male lambs tend to end up in the freezer–and we had a freezer full of expired sheep–all of it from Caradoc Llewellyn’s farm. There’s a name to conjure with, Caradoc Llewellyn–no doubt where his ancestors came from.

His appearance was as individual as his name, and when I opened the door to him–he delivered in his brand new Range Rover–I felt like shutting it in his face. He was a red faced, giant of a man most of whose features were camouflaged by a huge red beard and eyebrows which almost grew to meet it. His face on first appearances looked like two black pearls shining out of the business end of a bog brush.

“You’re, Cathy, I take it,” he said in a rich baritone voice, “Simon’s description was spot on. I’ve got one of our lambs in the back of the car.”

Lamb? What do I want with a small sheep running about the place?

“Whereabouts is your freezer–Simon said it was half empty.”

Ah dead sheep–that’s different. I led him through to the large pantry where the chest freezer is. I opened it, not aware that Simon even knew we had one, let alone its available capacity for filling with dead animals and fish.

“Yeah, that should be enough,” said Farmer Giles–or at least the voice seemed to emanate from the fur covering his face.

I was still in a state of shock–I mean a giant talking bog brush–the next moment he walked back from the car with two large plastic sacks of butchered baa and emptied them into the freezer, explaining what he’d brought and so on.

When I offered him money, he told me that Simon had sorted that already. I offered him a cuppa, but he declined, explaining he had a couple more deliveries to make before it got too warm. The meat was fresh having been killed the day before. My stomach flipped over when I thought about baa-lambs gambolling over the fields now in many pieces in my freezer.

I thanked him and off he went. That was just before that retired lunatic zapped my Jaguar with her Japanese rubbish and then declared war on us for trying to get her to pay.

When Si came home the night that the meat arrived and I mentioned that it had been delivered and how awful I felt about having half a dead baa-lamb in my freezer.

“Oh so old fuzzy face arrived did he?”

“Yes, he sort of resembled a large rat with beady eyes poking out of al that fur.”

“Good chap, old Caradoc.”

“Caradoc?”

“Yes, Caradoc Llewellyn, bet you can’t guess where he comes from?”

“His name is Welsh, so I assume that’s where his answers come from, but knowing you, he was born in Lincoln or somewhere about as far as you can get from Wales.”

“Damn, you spotted the trick question–not Lincoln, but not far from Lincoln’s Inn, in London.”

“He has a lovely baritone voice.”

“Yeah, I think he used to sing in a choir or operatic group at one time. He’s a broker by trade, gentleman farmer by hobby, think his wife looks after most of that.”

“He came in a huge Range Rover, with new registration plates.”

“Oh he’s pretty successful.”

“He’s a broker–what did he break?”

“A stock broker, you silly woman.”

“Well he could have been an insurance broker or...”

“Investment broker.”

“Yes, one of them.”

“Well he deals in stocks and shares and does quite well from them, has a farm up towards Winchester, commutes to Town every day he’s working–presumably does some of it by computer and of course he has a staff of half a dozen or more. So he only needs to be consulted on the bigger clients.”

All of this flashed through my memory as I passed the potatoes to Tom, who helped himself to a couple to use up the gravy he had left. Kiki had made short work of the bones from his plate. I wasn’t sure if it was good idea to give bones to dogs, having seen an article about all the problems they cause, but she certainly wolfed them down in pretty short order. She isn’t my dog and I suppose Tom knows what he’s doing–he’s had numerous dogs over the years, whereas I once had a guinea pig and cat–not at the same time.

The meal went down well, and I’d made a large apple pie for dessert–from the Bramleys in our own garden–and my own pastry–none of the frozen stuff–which was probably why it was like reinforced concrete. Actually, it wasn’t, it was shortcrust and it melted in the mouth, helped by copious amounts of custard, or sauce Anglais.

“Any response about the press release?” I asked Simon as we sat sipping a glass of red–the kids had gone to finish homework or watch telly.

“Yeah, she’s denying it, suggesting that the film is a forgery.”

“And do the tabloids believe her?”

“One does, the one we think employed Bill & Ben who tried to interview you.”

“Oh. I had a horrible feeling that could be the case–but surely we can get the supermarket to verify the video clip?”

“Dunno, they don’t want to get involved, they said they have notices saying you park at your own risk.”

“That’s bollocks, of course they have a liability, don’t they?”

“Yes, they can’t do you for bad parking if they don’t exercise some control, even if it’s contracted out–they are still liable.”

“Phew, I thought so. So what do we do next?”

“We get the legal team to point out their obligations and liabilities and explain how we’ll sue them if they don’t meet them.”

“But they’re one of the biggest companies in the country, they’re not going to take to being pushed around by you, are they?”

“I think they’ll see sense–this is for both of the companies, a trivial incident they’d like to go away. Dad chewed my ears off for involving the bank until I said it was one of our cars the old woman had hit. He changed his mind then.”

“You seemed to imply the supermarket would back you up?”

“Yeah, we handle quite a few of their larger financial transactions and underwrite some of their guarantees–financial ones of course.”

“I thought they were setting up their own bank?”

“Yeah, but with whom?”

“I thought they were doing it themselves.”

Simon laughed loudly, “No one does anything by themselves these days, so if one bank goes down, they all follow or take huge hits. It’s all so incestuous, if we didn’t own the bank, I’d think about doing the same as Caradoc or running a bookshop somewhere.”

“It would have to be quite a bookshop to enable you to run two Jaguars and a wife and kids.”

“Yeah–that would have to be after the divorce,” he said and chuckled to himself as I nearly dropped the dishes I was carrying.