The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2388 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“But, I don’t want to talk to the plod,”

“Look, darling, if you don’t this boy will continue to abuse women.”

“That’s their problem.”

The young woman constable had briefly seen her bruised face, “C’mon, Julie, a man like that needs to stopped, who knows what he’ll do to some woman next time.”

Despite their best efforts she wouldn’t make a statement or press charges. I told them who it was and the two police gave each other a knowing look. “We’ll take him in but I doubt we can do more than that.”

“You’ve seen the evidence.”

“Yes, she’s been well beaten.”

“I saw who she went out with.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t actually mean it was him who did it.”

“If I get her to change her mind and make a statement...”

“Give one of us a shout, we’ll see what we can do, Mrs Cameron. Lovely place you have here.”

“It’s my father’s place.”

“My dad’s got a bungalow in Dundee Road.”

“I’m sure it’s very nice.”

“He likes it. That your Jag in the drive?”

“The white one is.”

“Nice car.”

“I think so.”

They left and I wasn’t sure what they were thinking, was it just, ‘nice car, nice house,’ or ‘rich bitch—how the other half live.’ I had reported a crime and I hoped they’d act professionally—I was sure they would.

The next morning Phoebe had to try and cover Julie’s clients, to my astonishment, Stella agreed to go and give her a hand—in return we had to babysit, Pud and Fi who were determined to make us work. Danni had gone to help at the salon, whilst Trish wanted to get at Julie’s bruises but Julie had locked her bedroom door and seemed to be blocking Trish’s energies.

David came over mid morning as I was trying to get the crayon off the fridge door and kitchen wall. He sniggered, “She may be the next Banksie,” referring to the graffiti artist one of whose recent paintings on a wall was valued at half a million pounds.

“I doubt it, because I’m going to pull her arms off once I’ve sorted this,” I muttered and he chortled behind me.

“Mummy, Fiona has scribbled on the lounge wall.”

“Take the stupid crayon off her,” I instructed Livvie.

“I did she got another one.”

I muttered something about strip searches and David roared with laughter. Then he said something about running out of garlic and a couple of other ingredients. He offered to go and get them and I suggested I would because if I stayed there much longer Stella was going to be childless.

I told him I’d go to the supermarket so he asked me to get a few other things. The way this was forming up it began to look like a major shop. I escaped before anyone knew I was gone, with instructions to David, that should either of Stella’s brats enter the kitchen he was to stuff them with sage and onion and shove them in the oven. I left with his laughter echoing around me.

The traffic was typical Saturday morning shopper stuff, which meant none of them were thinking about driving more what they were going to do when they reached the emporia and began giving away their money. They were slow at lights and roundabouts as their overtaxed brains overheated in the sunshine. That was the only good thing so far, the forecast had given heavy showers, so far they hadn’t come.

I pulled into Asda and was beaten to a space by a Golf GTi, I watched the Asian looking driver swagger away smirking because he’d beaten a Jaguar to the space. It took me a few minutes to find another one but I’d stayed calm. The young man had been quite good looking, especially for an arsehole, so I could see what attracted Julie to him. Inside I knew it would be heaving and I was short of time, so I had no intention of saying anything to him.

Life sometimes has ways of changing plans. There I was with a trolley half full of groceries when at the top end of that aisle I saw someone running towards me being pursued by the security guard. It was Rashid and my surprise momentarily stunned me and instead of doing anything I simply stood there.

“Outta my way, bitch,” he spat at me colliding with my trolley. The security man caught up with him, but was pushed into one of the shelving units hurting himself as he fell. As male customer decided to take a hand Khan whipped out a nasty looking knife. “Come near me an’ I’ll cut ya,” he said to the man who retreated a few steps.

“Do you have a fork to go with that?” I asked.

“You nuts?”

“Or a spoon?”

“Outta my way,” he demanded but my trolley developed a will of its own and kept blocking him. A couple of men started running down the aisle and he got more aggressive. Then he crossed the line, he slashed at me. This in my book is tantamount to a declaration of war.

He kicked my trolley away but I stepped in front of him. He slashed I dodged and threw a tin of cat food at him, it caught him on the side of his face. He then lost it and charged at me, I sidestepped, tripped him and kicked him in the ribs as he went down, then I stamped on his hand to disable the knife. The two men arrived and grabbed him none too gently, then police were everywhere.

I gave a statement as I recalled it but once my name was seen by someone at the station they’d be after more. Thankfully, it would all be on camera and I could argue I acted in self defence to slow him down for the two men to seize him. I certainly did that.

Two hours later a police inspector arrived at the house. Julie saw the car and stayed in her room, but it was me they wanted. I gave another statement saying it was pure coincidence, and the CCTV in the car park showed I was there before him, so couldn’t have followed him. However, once he showed aggression to me, I wasn’t going to run. Once the knife came out I decided I would try and stop him before someone else got hurt.

“But you could have been hurt or was this now a chance to get even for your daughter?”

“When someone waves a knife in your face, you don’t think—you react.”

“Your reaction just so happened to break two of his ribs.”

“He started it and I don’t think he was going to sharpen a pencil. Why was he running, anyway?”

“He took some woman’s purse from her bag. Two hundred quid, she had in it.”

“Bit silly, carrying all that money.”

“Yes,” the inspector agreed.

“Nearly as silly as carrying that large penknife.”

“You broke his hand, too, disarming him.”

“I’ll try to be more careful in future.”

“Lady Cameron, leave the crime fighting to the police.”

“I was, I just tried to delay him so you could apprehend him.”

“Sure you did,” he smirked as he left so I suspected he was giving mixed messages. However, the universe balanced things out and I knew he’d be in custody for a while attempting armed robbery.