The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2773 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

---

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.
*****

We returned to my house in Bristol, or should I say my parents old house, where we had a cuppa a biscuit. “I love it when they can’t explain the blue light, don’t you, Mummy?”

“No, I hate it because it gives people an opportunity to show more interest than I’m comfortable with. Who knows what they’d find if they dug deep enough.”

“Oh, hadn’t thoughta that,” she blushed.

Simon finished his tea and after going to the loo offered his goodbyes, so he got a kiss from both of us. He was going back to London and hoped to be home tonight. I sat down with Danielle. “Is there anything you can remember about this bloke who was chasing you?”

“Not very much, he kept saying a nice girl like me should have a boyfriend to protect them from other men, then he offered to be my boyfriend. I told him I already had one so thank you but no thanks. He wouldn’t take any notice and it was only when one of the security blokes was coming along and I was starting to tell him loudly to clear off that he did, except he didn’t. He just waited for the security guard to go past and started following me. I went to the ladies and he waited around outside. I was starting to feel scared.”

“I think we should go to the police and tell them.”

“I don’t wanna see the cops unless I have to.”

“It’s important that this creep doesn’t stalk any other young women, who knows what he has in mind.”

“Don’t, Mummy, you’re frightening me.”

“Come on, sort your makeup, we’re going to speak with the police.”

“Do we have to?”

“Yes, or do you want some other young woman to be subjected to the same experience you had. If I hadn’t found you in time, you’d have been buried under all sorts of rubbish. It would have crushed you to death.”

She looked suddenly rather pale and rushed off to the loo, from where I heard retching. Reality checks are frequently unpleasant. Despite her grumbles we went to Bristol police headquarters and spoke with a CID officer who was very intrigued by Danielle’s story. He called the mall and after speaking to the security chief managed to get them to send the particular clips of film from the time and place where he was following Danni.

Amazingly, they were able to do it all by computer and within ten minutes he was running the footage on his machine. We all watched as the man came up to Danielle who rebuffed him as she said but despite this he continued to follow her. For the next few minutes we watched bits of film as everywhere Danni went the creep followed. Eventually, he faced the camera directly and the detective said, “Gotcha,” and smiled.

“You know who he is?”

“Yep, a real creep called Terry Driscoll.” He tapped away on his computer and brought up a whole page on the bloke including previous convictions. “He’s been done for stalking young women on two occasions. He’s also been done for watching some young woman undressing and various other similar charges, none of which were proven. So he’s on the sex offenders list.”

Danni went rather pale again. “She was assaulted in France on a school trip,” I said as she ran off to the loo.

“Oh, sorry to hear that, did they get the creep?”

“Yes, he died in a shootout with the Gendarmerie.”

“At least you got a result.”

“That’s all you can say.”

“Lots of victims don’t even get that, do they?”

“True. How old is this man?”

“Driscoll is thirty eight.”

“So what’s he doing accosting women a third of his age?”

“I don’t actually know, except to say your daughter is quite a pretty girl.”

“But that shouldn’t be a handicap, should it?”

“I take your point, but sometimes it does cause unwanted attention. Being an attractive woman, I’m sure you’ve had experience in the past of chancers.”

“Yes,” I blushed.

“Some of them target the less attractive ones hoping they’ll be easier.”

“I’m not against men and women getting it together as consenting adults but Danielle is only fourteen.”

“So you said. Have I seen her somewhere before?”

“We come up to Bristol fairly regularly, I have a house here.”

“Could be I’ve seen her round but I don’t think that was it.”

“She’s a keen footballer.”

“Oh?”

“She’s played for England schools and the women’s team.”

“That’s it, my daughter plays for her school and I took her to see England schoolgirls play Holland.”

“She played in that.”

“Scored as well—she’s got quite a talent. Wait till I tell my Amy I met her heroine.” I wasn’t sure if I was terribly happy with that and I suspect my face gave away what I was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ll only tell her I met Danni and her mum. Perhaps she could do me an autograph?”

Danni nearly fell over when she learnt what we were talking about in her absence. She happily signed an autograph for Amy, in fact the copper took a photo on his phone and sent it to his printer so Danielle signed a photo of herself.

As we prepared to leave he promised he and a colleague were going to arrest Driscoll and see what he had to say. He was only guilty of harassing her and possibly of stalking, though the fact that she got hurt trying to avoid him would also add to the evidence. I was reluctant to allow them to see medical notes at the hospital in case they discovered her original gender, which wouldn’t be relevant to the case anyway but might be used by a defence lawyer to cause mischief in the minds of the police and possibly the magistrates—she used to be a boy, so probably encouraged the attention, which clearly the film contradicted.

We’d given a statement so the ball was in the police’s court. I didn’t expect anything much to happen but it might prevent or delay him stalking another teen.

We drove home after that with Danni looking exhausted and pale in the fading light. She was asleep as soon as we got on the motorway after I’d suggested she recline the seat a little to make it more comfortable. She slept all the way home, only waking when I said we were nearly there. Then I had to deal with her sisters as they fired question after question at me.

Thankfully, they let her alone and I noticed she had a drink and then went off to bed. She stayed there all night not even coming down for dinner. Trish went up to sit with her, though she was fast asleep so Trish gave up and went off to read her book—a biography of Isaac Newton.