The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2656 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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Although it was half term I had to pop into the office to sort out some stuff for Delia to do. I parked the car and something large and German pulled alongside me. The creep from the road incident stood in front of me. “Think you’re clever do you?”

“Well they made me a professor so I can’t be quite as stupid as you, can I?”

“I had the police round.”

“What for drinky-poos?” Judging by the look on his face it wasn’t the best thing to have said.

“Very funny—I could lose my licence because of you.”

“Before we go any further, I think you’re forgetting something.”

“Like what?” he said aggressively.

“You’re the one who drove dangerously, not me.”

“You lying bitch,” he went to raise his hand.

“If you lay a finger on me, I can guarantee you a prison sentence.”

“Who d’you think you are?”

“I know who I am, and I know who you are too, Quentin.” I’m sure his eyes began to bulge and his face got redder than most strawberries achieve even in a good summer.

“You interfering bitch,” he practically spat at me.

“Calling me nasty names, apart from being puerile could be interpreted as threatening behaviour. If you calm down and go home and think about things before you say them, I won’t say anything more about this.”

“And if I don’t.”

“The police will be round again and you’ll probably have to go to their place and their reputation for hospitality leaves something to be desired, or so I’m told.”

“I’ll just deny it.”

“As well you might, but the camera up there,” I pointed to the CCTV, “will be able to demonstrate that you hadn’t come to ask after my health. We would of course be obliged to surrender them to the police.”

“You bitch,” he spat.

“Quentin, please.” I remonstrated, “It’s not me who’s at fault. It’s you who keeps doing dumb things in front of video-cameras.”

“I won’t every time,” he said with menace.

I doubted even he could be that stupid, but I am wrong occasionally. However, if he was suggesting he’d get me when there were no cameras, that was definitely threatening behaviour.

“Goodbye, Quentin, do yourself a favour and get some driving lessons and some anger management therapy.”

I ducked as he swung at me. I didn’t see it coming—well not directly, I just felt it was coming and I ducked down and he punched past me hitting the door pillar of a Transit van. It must have hurt. He swore and suddenly shook his hand then tears started trickling down his face.

“I’ve broken my bloody hand,” he said loudly. “Look,” he showed me his hand.

“If that had hit my head, you could have killed me—do you realise that?”

“Geezuz, my frigging hand—Christ it hurts.”

He seemed to pale visibly before turning a shade I think Dulux paints used to call ‘Apple white.’ A moment later he began to vomit, over his own car—of which one window was fully open.

“Oh shit,” he said before spewing more of his breakfast into the driver’s side of his car. Then he went absolutely white and began to fall. He was too big for me to hold upright so I pushed him against his car and let him slide to the ground. I had to grab his hair to stop his head hitting the ground. Once he was safely on the ground, I called reception and asked them to save the tape in the camera and to call an ambulance. I waited for it to come some seven or eight minutes later.

I explained what had happened and the paramedic told me to prosecute him for attempted assault. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, the man was a complete buffoon and was more a danger to himself than he was to me.

“Well I shall report it as patient injured himself trying to assault woman professor at the university. In fact I’ll call it through to them now.” He picked up his phone, “Hello control, patch me through to the police will you?”

I listened to the one sided conversation but when he gave my position as a woman professor and they asked for my name, I heard the groan the policeman gave, “Why is it always her?” I’m pretty sure I hear a moment later.

“We locked up Quentin’s car and I took the keys to reception coming back with a note to put on the windscreen to tell anyone who needed to know, exactly where they were. As the sun began to feel warmer, I thought the smell in his car is going to be pretty awful—but I did try to prevent it rather than react to his temper tantrum. I felt quite pleased with myself without appearing too smug—the operative word being—too.

I got the office to copy the film from the camera which wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, but I had a copy which I would keep safe until it was required by the police. Now he’d shown himself to be a total plonker, I felt anything but intimidated by him.

On my return to my office Delia informed me that she’d had four calls from some bloke on the Daily Telegraph. “He wants to do a feature on Danielle.”

“Tell him to contact the FA, they’ll talk to him until the cows come home.”

“I think that might be where he got your name.”

“Sorry, I can’t help him then.”

“He didn’t sound the type to give up.”

“Damn, he might just probe deeply enough to discover her past.”

“Is that bad?”

“Abused as a child, brought up as a boy—need I say more?”

“What, they tried to make out she was a boy? What a hoot, she’s one of the girliest girls I know.”

How do you respond to that?