The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2876 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 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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For my friend J. who never fails to surprise me with her generosity.

“Who were they?” asked Diane bringing me in a fresh cuppa.

“Two escapees from a zombie movie. They’re looking for O’Connor.”

“So why have they come to you?”

“I saw him last night.”

“What after work?”

“Yes. I had a text from James a chap I employ for various things but he’s very good at finding things, like information or people. I asked him to poke about in O’Connor’s affairs.”

“If you went to see this James where does O’Connor fit in?”

“He sent the message, they had James captive and were going to kill him and then me; or it might have been the other way round.”

“Does it matter?”

“Only insofar that if he’d been the free one and I’d ben the captive he’d have killed both of them and O’Connor.”

“Oh, but you didn’t?”

“No, I didn’t kill anyone. I managed to neutralise the two hoodlums after O’Connor had gone and rescue James. By that time they’d gone—the two thugs, that is. As he’d told them to watch my car we walked down to the main road and called a taxi. James called a friend of his and they went and got my car. He then went off to see if he could locate my father.”

“Why is O’Connor out to get you?”

“Because he’s a crook. He’s been importing illegal immigrants ever since he was associated with the university. He thought he was invincible because he had people higher up the foodchain watching his back. However, Daddy watched and waited; he’d been collecting data on O’Connor since before he became VC, he knew someone who’d been one of O’Connor’s victims years ago.”

“And he’s waited all this time?”

“Yes, he’s very patient, I’m the impulsive one, he’d been collecting anything he could about O’Connor and of course when he became Vice Chancellor, it appears Daddy managed to get hold of some more damning evidence, possibly borrowed from his office. He passed it on to me and disappeared. By itself the evidence isn’t enough to get a conviction but it shows the sort of money he was making from his illegals—about a quarter of a million since June or July—tax free, too.”

“Shouldn’t HMRC be after him then?”

“I expect they’ll have him after MI5 have finished with him.”

“Oh, really?”

“I have a sneaking suspicion some of the people he imported are terrorists.”

“What—like Middle Eastern ones?” she went pale.

“Yes.”

“Did he know?”

“I think so.”

“Oh shit.”

“As long as we’re not in it.”

“Eh?”

“The poo, cack, poop, whatever.”

“Oh. Why should we be?”

“O’Connor has disappeared, seemingly without trace.”

“Perhaps he went to visit his parents?”

“I think he was hatched from an egg.”

“Ha ha, but he could have done.”

“They’d be the first people the police et al would visit. Which means he’s either hopped the country or he’s staying somewhere else.”

“What if he’s been bumped off?”

“Another possibility, but the devil seems to look after his own.”

“You don’t really believe that do you?”

“No, of course not, but it appears that way because clever villains are organised and have escape routes planned long before they need them. So possibly before he began to think he was untouchable, he might have got agreements with some of his network to smuggle him away if things got too hot.”

“Isn’t this all pure speculation, Cathy?”

“Yes, it’s an hypothesis—which needs to be tested. Hopefully, the men from the ministry thought of it earlier and are checking it out.”

“Dunno, they didn’t strike me as clever enough to do that.”

“So we find someone who can.”

“Why d’you think there’s a network?”

“The illegals he was bringing in disappear so quickly, I suspect they have already made arrangements with someone here. If they’re intent on nasty things, then they’d almost certainly have contacts over here—possibly locals or people who’ve been here a few years to seemingly integrate but all the while are setting things up for terrorist attacks. You know the sort of thing, reconnoitring or mapping targets, collecting weapons or explosives or money, making contacts and creating the facilities for new members to enter the country and disappear. So even if the authorities begin to notice things and come looking, their targets have vanished.”

“Oh don’t, Cathy, that’s frightening. The thought that we have people like that living here, that we rub shoulders with them in supermarkets and the high street. My god, how will we find them?”

“I don’t know, the only sleepers I can find are dormice or hedgehogs, the political variety—I don’t do.”

“But you know someone who might be able to find where O’Connor went?”

“Yes, except he’s busy looking for Tom Agnew at present, or he’d better be the amount he charges.”

“If he’s dead wouldn’t they have found a body by now?”

“What some dog walker?”

“That sort of thing.”

“I have a link with him.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I sense things about him and if he were dead, I suspect I’d know. His signal is quite faint, so I think he may have gone some distance away.”

“Up to Scotland?”

“Not sure.” I closed my eyes and imagined him sending me a signal. I slowly moved around in a circle, it appeared slightly stronger at one point and I went round again. It was still there. I got the compass out of my desk drawer and discovered the direction was west not north. “He’s in that direction.”

“West?”

“That’s what the compass suggests, so he could be in Dorset, Devon or Cornwall or even over in Ireland.”

“How reliable is your system?”

I shrugged, “There’s the rub—I don’t know. It’s helped me find the girls before now.”

“But they’re your children, a mother’s links to her kids are always stronger than anything else.”

“They’re adopted.”

She went rather a fitting shade of red, “Oh of course, sorry I forgot, you always seem so natural as a woman.”

“Maybe because I am one?”

“You know what I meant and it wasn’t meant as an insult.”

“I know. My grandmother and my mum had some degree of ‘knowing’ things, seems I’ve picked it up from them.”

“Runs in the female line, I expect,” said Diane forgetting again or being ironic?

“Quite. Well just because our beloved leader isn’t here doesn’t mean to say we don’t have to work. So slave, back to work—what have I got in the diary today?”

“Um—at eleven you have to cover Dr Collins again.”

Thanks for warning me. “On what?”

She looked at her pad, “Uh, ecology—the effect of predators and parasites in population control—is that right?”

I glanced at the clock, it was ten fifteen. “It’s a while since I’ve done much of this stuff. I’d better have a look at the notes.”

“I’ll bring them through plus another cuppa.”

While she was gone I texted James. His reply suggested he’d made a little progress but would need to go down to Devon to check things out. I looked at my compass and smiled.