The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2598 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“What ’ya lookin’ at, Mummy?” asked Livvie so I presume my expression must have been a little odd.

“Someone has apparently filmed a pine marten in Cornwall.”

“Is that important?” she obviously wasn’t impressed.

“They haven’t been seen for a hundred years.”

“Maybe they were hiding—we do such horrid things to animals.” Livvie appeared to be going down the anti-cruelty path, that many children and teens follow. I expected her to become vegetarian if it continued.

“What’s the saying, Mummy, absence and evidence?” commented Trish.

“Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.”

“Yeah, QEB or whatever.” Trish Malaprop strikes again.

“QED—quod erat demonstrandum.” A little learning is a dangerous thing; little being the operative word. I was rubbish at Latin.

“Wassat mean, Mummy?”

“It’s usually used in geometry in regard to proving theorems and means, that which we set out to prove has been demonstrated or proven.”

“I wish I was cwevah wike you, Mummy.”

“I’m not especially clever, darling, I’ve just been around a bit longer.”

Unfortunately we were overheard by another parent. “I’d heard you were a professor,” she said directly to me.

“She is a professor,” said Trish assertively.

“That means a doctorate—right?”

“Mummy didn’t eat no doctah,” exclaimed an indignant eight year old.

“Meems a doctorate is a degree.”

“That’s why Mummy is Dr Watts, not Miss or Missus,” explained Livvie while Trish rolled her eyes.

“Oh, weww, that’s awight then.”

“So you are pretty clever, QED,” said our eavesdropper smirking.

“That would depend with who you compared me.”

“My mummy is vewy cwevah.”

“Of course she is,” said the woman, “It was she who was saying she wasn’t. You can’t get to be a professor unless you are very clever.”

I nearly said, ‘Well I did,’ as it would have clouded issues.

“Yeah, Mummy is clever, she knows Latin an’ stuff.” Livvi was protecting me.

“I expect she does.”

The woman opened the door of her car. “No children?” I observed.

“Oh no, it was you I came to see.”

“Really?”

“Yes really.”

“What for?”

“I like to meet the people I’m paid to kill.” She smiled started her car and drove away before I got the number.

“What did she say to you, Mummy?” asked Livvie.

“She said what lovely daughters I had.”

“So why are you looking worried?” asked Danni.

“Am I? Perhaps I don’t feel so well. Let’s get home shall we?” The traffic was abysmal and as I was now running on unleaded adrenaline, I got very angry with the ten zillion total morons who were also driving in this city. By the time we got home I was ready to terminate someone myself and I had four rather upset girls in the car with me.

“What’s up?” asked Stella as four ashen faced school girls trooped into the kitchen.

“Mummy got cwoss and was dwivin’ wike you, Auntie Stewwa.”

I don’t think Stella was very pleased with that answer, her face went like thunder. I sent the girls to change and asked Lorraine to bring me a cuppa in my study, where I dashed and shut the door. Minutes later I was talking to Edward our friendly neighbourhood intelligence operative. I knew my description of her was vague, I didn’t study her assuming, erroneously as it turned out, that she was someone’s mother. Besides with hair dye, makeup, wigs, padding and so on, her appearance could be very different when she pops me.

“Got to stay positive, Cathy, she hasn’t killed you yet.”

“Why did she tell me that?” I paused when Lorraine brought me in a mug of tea and a chocolate biscuit.

“It frightened you.”

“It certainly did.”

“So it eats away at you, stops you sleeping, puts you off balance and thus makes it far easier than before.”

“But I could have had a gun and wasted her.”

“They’re a tad illegal in this country, Cathy, so she played a low risk card.”

“I could have dragged her from her car and killed her.”

“I doubt it, she’d have taken that into account especially with your children about; you wouldn’t have wanted to endanger them now, would you?”

“No. So what do I do, just wait for her to kill me?”

“Did she have any sort of accent?”

“No, rather neutral but not quite local posh—does that make sense?”

“Yes, so what sort of neutral was it?”

“Oh I can’t think, sorry.”

“No that’s fine, you’ve had a bit of a shock. If anything comes to mind about our mysterious assassin, let me know, day or night.”

I thanked him and rang off. I called Si but only got his PA. I asked her to get him to call me back urgently. He called back about an hour later. I was making up lists of things to do before I died.

“I’ll get Jim to increase the guards.”

“Thank you, darling, I appreciate it but I’m more worried about the children—she saw them, too.”

“Make a run for it?”

“I can’t. I have students and colleagues who need me—it’s our busiest time”

“If you’re dead they’d have to cope without you. What about your family, don’t they deserve to see you fighting back not accepting this as if it was predestined?”

“How can I fight back—I don’t even know who I’m fighting?”

“Yet. Keep it positive, babes.”

“The only positive thought I have is that it might be quick.”

“What might?”

“My murder.”

“Hey, Babes, don’t think like that—she’s won already—fight back.”

“How? Besides which, how do we know she or someone else hasn’t been paid to kill you?”

“We don’t, but I’m keeping pretty positive.”

I don’t think he understood the seriousness of the situation. “Simon, I don’t think you realise how unnerving it is to be told by some complete stranger that they are going to kill you and that the meeting was a recce for them.”

“But at least you know now—to be forewarned...”

“I don’t know anymore, Simon. Maybe life will be better when I’m dead.”

“For who? I thought you said death was the end of everything?”

“It is.”

“So how can life be better?”

“For the girls and you.”

“Better? It will be a million times worse—we’d all be so distraught, we’d forget to breathe or not want to. If anything happens to you, babes, I don’t know what I’d do—probably something stupid.”

“I’ll tell you what you’d have to do. Look after our children, keep them safe and only then, track down and neutralise the threat.”

“I don’t know if I’d have the strength to carry on by myself.”

“You wouldn’t be by yourself, you’ve got loads of daughters to protect.”

“Hang on, where’s Jenny—who’s she...”

I thought I heard the phone drop. “Simon—SIMON,” I yelled down the phone. A moment later it clicked and went dead.