The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2880 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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“How come, every time you get involved with some crime we end up with a body?” Said Superintendent Smith.

“Me?” I squeaked.

“Yes you, Lady Cameron.”

“He shot himself.”

“After a barrage of cutlery and crockery.”

“My children decided they wanted me round for a bit longer.”

“Don’t leave town without letting us know, I may well be back for a further conversation after I’ve spoken to his accomplice.”

“Let me know if you find out what happened to the boy whose father was searching for him.”

“D’you have a name—it helps?”

“No but O’Connor’s secretary might, I’ll see if I can find out tomorrow.”

“Please don’t, I shall be speaking to her myself.”

“Are MI5 and Special Branch still involved?”

“That I don’t know but whatever happens it’ll be us infantry who do the investigation and them who get the credit.”

“It was my father who stopped him.”

“That remains to be seen, the two aforementioned departments seem to think he blew their undercover operation rather wide open.”

“Oh well, poetic justice—saves on a trial.”

“Not necessarily, they could order a trial of the facts.”

“What a waste of money that would be.”

“I’m not going to disagree.”

“It’s like this stupid referendum on the EU, all it will be is to ask a silly question of even sillier voters.”

“I’d have thought you were a democrat.”

“I am but sometimes I’d like to see some sort of qualification to be able to vote beyond being eighteen or whatever it is these days, perhaps some measure of IQ proving you at least understood the concepts involved.”

“People form their opinions on the information given to them.”

“Yeah well the Torygraph, Daily Wail, Sun and Times are all backing Brexit—like turkeys voting for Christmas. All they’re publishing is prejudice.”

“I quite like the Telegraph.”

“Matt is brilliant, the crosswords are okay and sports is reasonable—prefer the Guardian, which along with the FT and daily Mirror are backing to stay in.”

He left and I went to put the girls to bed. They were all excited by the evening’s events which I could understand. However, I couldn’t understand why they were so calm about it during and after the event.”

I asked each one of them in turn and the common factor was they knew James and I would stop the baddies doing anything nasty. I couldn’t understand why O’Connor hadn’t just shot Daddy and James when he caught up with them. According to Daddy, they were ambushed by a group of quite heavily armed men, all who looked Middle Eastern or Mediterranean and were wearing tea towels on their heads or kaffiyeh as I think they’re called. I think he wanted to give them the impression that they were imported terrorists and wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. Having said that, possibly James would have done the same given the opportunity.

O’Connor said that he wanted them to watch me die before he killed them. In which case, his need for revenge was greater than his common sense. He should have shot Daddy and Jim as soon as he captured them.

Daddy was a bit shocked at first but James managed to get the car number and gave it to the police, so hopefully, the band of so called terrorists, could be arrested. Even if they were just friends of O’Connors, it could be seen as an act of terrorism, bogus or otherwise and cause stiff penalties on any they convict. Serve them right.

I had a long chat with Danielle and once again commended her on her courage. “You think I’m still showing bits of boy, don’t you?”

“Are you?”

“I dunno do I, I just did what I thought was a good idea at the time.”

“Courage is not the solely a characteristic of men. It takes lots of bottle to cope with a violent partner in order to protect your children day after day, or to work in an environment that is mostly blue collar males...”

“Or to turn up for school or university in a skirt and say, ‘This is me’,” she offered.

“Yeah, that too.” I blushed.

“Mummy, each one of us would die for you because we know you would for us.”

“I hope that’s never going to happen.”

“So do I, but it’s how we feel. You’ve given us love and affection and your time. We know you love us and we love you back as if you were our only mother. If he had shot you, I’d have killed him or died trying to.”

“Thank you, I think, oh and as I said I don’t think you were reverting, we women can show our mettle too.”

“I enjoy being a girl—for now, anyway.”

“I know.” I hugged her and walked her up to bed.

Sammi and Julie were scraping the kitchen floor and placing the rubbish in black bags for the bin. As soon as they were finished, I’d mop it all and have a final cuppa and go to bed. I’d call Stephanie in the morning and see if she could check them out.

Julie and Phoebe had missed all the action, they’d gone to the cinema to watch some chick-flick and came home to police and bloodstains. Phoebe had taken Lizzie off to change her and get her to bed while Jacquie sorted Cate. They seemed unaffected by it possibly because they didn’t take on board what was happening. I thought I’d go to bed early because I might have to deal with nightmares later. Simon came too but he was as knackered as I was and didn’t stay awake very long.

I couldn’t sleep trying to work out what O’Connor was really up to. I understood that he was using the university to supposedly register students to get them visas, was he importing terrorists as well? Surely he must have known that he’d be discovered sooner or later or did he think he could bluff it out? I suspect he told his secretary that I was involved just to annoy me. Despite what the superintendent said, I was going to have some words with her as soon as I could, assuming she turns up for work tomorrow. I somehow have my doubts—she’ll go sick and disappear. Was she involved as well? Who knows?

I fell asleep seeing O’Connor leaving his body with quite a shocked look on his face. Seeing as he came to kill me, it was to some extent understandable.

Next morning we were all a bit flat. Tom received a phone call and took off early. I took the girls to school and then went into the office. “I hear you had some excitement at your house last night,” said Diane bringing in my first cuppa of the working day.

“If that’s how you describe someone dying in your kitchen, yeah we did.”

“Yeah, didn’t mean it to sound so glib.” She handed me the mug of tea. “Have you heard the news?”

“We don’t have a Vice Chancellor, you mean?”

“But we do—well a temporary one—oh and his secretary did a flit.”

“Who’s the stand in?”

“Someone you know quite well.”

“Never mind the games, who is it?”

“Your dad.”