Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 803 by Angharad

I’d taken forever to get off to sleep. Every little noise had me holding my breath and listening. I have no idea when I fell asleep, but it was very late and the next thing I knew, Myrtle was shaking my arm and holding a cup of tea for me.

“C’mon sleepy head, we have ruffians to nab.”

“Uh?”

“C’mon Watson, the game’s afoot.” She left chuckling to herself leaving me convinced she was as mad as a hatter. The quote from Sherlock Holmes did little to inspire me, although it did remind me that when I was about twelve, Holmes was my hero, and if I couldn’t grow up to be Irene Adler, then I’d wear a deerstalker and smoke a pipe. I’m so glad I grew out of that phase.

However it wasn’t before I started to keep scrap books and notebooks on various people, including of which clubs they were members–Holmes was so middle class. Surely, even in Victorian London, most of the crime was committed by the lower classes, either because they were starving or feeding a drink or drug habit. Huge numbers of women were prostitutes to feed their need for gin and to feed their large families. Even today, many prostitutes need to use narcotics to be able to do their job. I felt very sad for them.

I showered, and Myrtle, who’d brought her own sleeping bag, was dressed and eating a breakfast of toast and boiled egg. She’d apparently eaten the last one, so I had to make do with toast. Even after showering, I still felt half asleep, whereas in contrast, she was simply buzzing with energy. Maybe I could go to bed while she hunted the Russians on her own, ratios of twenty to one would probably be about fair to give them a chance. However, before I could suggest my idea, she told me to hurry up and get ready, and to wear clothes suitable for a little man-hunt. She was wearing a silk and wool skirt suit and knee boots.

I had on jeans and a tee shirt, which, when I indicated I intended to wear them, she insisted I dress properly and wear my makeup. “Myrtle, I’m not going into the office, you know, I might be scrabbling about on the floor with some deranged Cossack for all I know.”

“Your sex life is no concern of mine,” she retorted snottily, “but Stephen will be upset. You’re about to become an aristocrat’s wife–a lady–you should look and act the part.”

I nearly threw back at her, that I could pull rank and she should be taking my orders. Then I was glad I’d kept my mouth shut because she revealed she was the widow of the Earl of Totnes. No wonder she acted like Lady Muck, she was.

“So from now on m’dear,” she said, “I shall call you Lady Cameron, and you will call me, Lady Totnes.”

I surrendered and went up to change into the suit I felt was least likely to be missed if it was ruined. As it was a cooler day, I wore a skinny rib polo-neck in pink, under a black needle-cord suit with tiny pink flowers embroidered along the hem, down the lapels and the edges of the cuffs. Inside writ large was the name, Stella McCartney, another Stella had given it to me. I wore my black boots and leather gloves. The skirt was quite a full one, so I had room to manoeuvre or run if need be.

Taped to my leg, above the knee, was a knife and inside my handbag was a bag of pepper. Myrtle, sorry, Lady Totnes, had the gun either on her person or in her capacious handbag–that looked like a lethal weapon by itsel–whereas mine was a small square shoulder bag, containing my mobile, purse, some makeup, my Swiss army knife and Leatherman multi-tool. I suppose that made it fairly solid, too, although I was no expert in swinging a handbag, so maybe Myrtle would give me some lessons in the field.

I’d not noticed what sort of car she’d arrived in last night, and was astonished to see it was an Aston Martin. Perhaps they gave them away as standard in the secret service? “Shall we take my car?” she said, almost jumping into it before I could argue.

This was now seeming like the plot in a very poor B-movie, as she started the engine and reversed off the drive like Lewis Hamilton, before screaming down the road. I shot back into the leather seat, I was sure the tyres were smoking as we screamed into the traffic and headed for the M4.

“Where are we actually going?” I asked, having just managed to catch my stomach and put it back somewhere between my lungs and my knees.

“To find Stuart,” she said, zipping past a coach as we joined the motorway.

“Stuart?” I asked.

“Your husband, you silly gel.”

“Oh that Stuart.” It was going to be a long day, assuming I didn’t actually have a heart attack in the car.

She had an amazing satnav system and as she drove, she was tapping some figures into it. She then pressed a button and the screen produced maps with all sorts of little symbols on them. “There he is,” she pointed. “He’s on the move.”

“How do you know that?” I asked completely gob-smacked.

“The signal for him is moving. He’s in a car on the M25.”

“How do you know that?”

“Young Ambrose, told me last night, after you’d gone to bed.”

“Who’s Ambrose?”

“The man you’ve been liaising with.”

“Billy?”

“Oh he calls himself by all sorts of names, but his name is Ambrose, his mother is an old school friend of mine.”

“He was in my house?”

“Well of course, I couldn’t ravish him in the car, now could I? Think what it could do to the seats, this pigskin stains so easily.”

“You had sex with him in my lounge?”

“You didn’t play Lady Bracknell, in the school play did you? You do accusatorial indignation so well.”

I nearly choked. Here I was being driven at speeds of a hundred miles an hour, by an old woman who was at least twice my age, possibly nearer three times it, and she was acting more like a randy teenager than a pensioner.

“Heading for Surrey by the look of it,” she suddenly said and pointed to the map screen, “Don’t worry, Siegfried, we’ll save you.”

“Simon, his name’s, Simon.”

“Is it? Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Oh, I hope we’re rescuing the right one then.”

“So do I,” I said folding my arms and trying not to think about anything but putting as much distance between Myrtle and myself, as quickly as possible. She was stark staring bonkers.

“Don’t worry, Catherine, we’ll save him,” she said patting me on the knee. “Oh, nice knees,” she added, squeezing my leg, which had me jerking my leg away and practically jumping out of the car, even at high speed. She laughed, “Relax, Katie, you don’t know what you’re missing–unless you’ve tried it.” She then gave a very dirty chuckle and I felt very vulnerable. Compared to her, half a dozen elite trained Russian KGB operatives, would be a pushover.

We joined the M25–the London orbital motorway–which always feels as if they are trying to make it the widest road in Europe, if not the world. Each time I use it, they seem to have added or be in the process of adding, a new lane in each direction. It’s affectionately referred to as Europe’s first circular car park, because it becomes so congested but only between midnight and eleven fifty nine pm. Before long, the familiar traffic jam hove into view and I suspected we’d be held up for ages and perhaps lose our quarry and my Simon.

Suddenly, I heard a police type siren and I realised it was Myrtle. Not only that, but cars were parting so we could go by, and I could see the reflections of flashing blue lights on the cars we were passing.

“Isn’t it an offence to pretend to be a police vehicle?”–as if they could afford over a hundred thousand pounds per police car?–and this to someone who was carrying an illegal firearm and had shagged someone on my sofa while I was upstairs in my bed. No wonder she was buzzing this morning and I was like a zombie. What else was this woman going to do to amaze me?