The drive to Portsmouth from Southampton can be a real pain, especially when the traffic is heavy. The traffic was heavy and then some stupid bugger went and drove his sports car under a container lorry. They closed the motorway and we had to crawl along the ordinary roads, the same as everyone else.

It took nearly two hours to get to the university, thankfully Mima had nodded off, although she was so desperate for a wee when she woke up, she had to do it in the car park and wipe herself on a tissue. I grabbed her and dashed down to the labs.

“We wondered where you were? I called the vet, he’s taken one of the casualties for a PM.”

“How many have we lost?” I asked praying that my little favourite wasn’t amongst them.

“Four, so far.”

“That’s a third of our breeding stock,” I handed Mima to Stella and went into the dormouse room. “They should be hibernating now, except possibly Spike, who prefers to stuff all year round.”

“She’s okay at the moment. The others were hibernating.”

“So why are they dead? When did you notice them?”

“This morning, they seemed to be stirring, which is unusual.”

“Yes, it is, they should be zonked for three or four more months yet, so what woke them?”

“I don’t know, the tanks are all at the usual setting, no warning lights or anything.”

“Is all this still computer controlled?” I asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Do me a printout of the settings for the last week.”

“Erm, we’ve never done that before.”

“You mean you don’t know how?”

“Er, no we don’t.”

“Find someone who can, email it through to me tonight.”

“I can’t authorise that, Cathy.”

“Get Tom to do it, surely there’s someone in IT who can do it?”

“At this time of night?”

“Yes, if it kills Spike, heads will roll if I have to bring in my own bloody axe.”

“I hope you’re not threatening me.”

“Get me a carry cage, I’m taking Spike home with me.”

“I’m not your servant, Cathy, you know where they’re kept.” So saying he walked away from me. I was speechless with temper and about as close to hitting someone as I’d been for a very long time.

I got the carry cage, one with a nest box; took a box of food and nuts, shoved Spike in the cage and holding Mima’s hand walked up to Tom’s office. Neal was already in there, complaining about me.

I waited until he’d finished. “Tom, the computer system running the cage control needs checking–now, or you won’t have any dormice left tomorrow.”

“Where will we find someone to sort that at this time?”

“Surely the people who designed it for us.”

“They won’t come out tonight,” he shrugged.

“Get me the number, I’ll have them out to night or destroy their company by supper time.”

“Hey, young lady, I’m not sure I like all this aggression, save it for the court tomorrow.”

Pippa handed me the number. I dialled ignoring Tom’s comment. Amazingly someone picked up the other end. “Sorry there’s no one here tonight.”

“Too bad, give me your managing directors home number, I want to tell him personally why we’re cancelling our contract and why he will be mentioned by name when the university seeks compensation. Dormice are beyond value, but if we set a nominal value of ten thousand pounds per animal, you already owe us forty grand, and there are a dozen more, plus babies. I hope your insurance is paid up because we’re gonna sue your arse off.”

The second call was to the MD, who agreed to send someone that evening. Tom agreed to wait for them. Neal had completely lost my trust, when I came back, I’d make life so difficult, he’d leave. I couldn’t believe they all stood around like idiots instead of doing something while my babies were dying.

I went home with Stella, Mima and Spike and promised to make Tom a cold supper. It was such a fraught evening, only Mima and Spike wanted to eat, oh and Kiki. Then Spike discovered Mima and went into shock–presumably, remembering the banshee from before. This time, Mima was relatively quiet and gentle as she fed Spike an almond.

I knocked together a salad with tuna and jacket potatoes, saving some for Tom. Then Stella took Mima up to bed and read to her. While she was up there, I left her a note and shot off back to the lab, with Tom’s supper. I needed to know what was killing my dormice.

Two hours later, we had our answer. One of the thermostats had gone funny and it controlled the temperature for those cages, the ones in which the animals had died. It had warmed them up, then rapidly chilled them again, twice over a period of forty eight hours. They probably died from exposure. The other cages were okay, so as there were no occupants in the defunct ones, they could wait for repair, however, the engineer left us with a means to print out each day what was happening in every cage. Hopefully, we could pre-empt a repeat of the tragedy.

When we got home, I was still fuming about Neal. If he’d done his job properly it wouldn’t have happened. When I raised this with Tom, he asked me to sit down. “Normally, I’d agree with you, and so would Neal, he’s one of the best as you damn well know.”

“Not any more he isn’t.”

“Will ye just shut yer trap for a wee minute. The poor man’s mother is dying with breast cancer, he’s had lots of time off and is fair worried sick aboot her. You didn’ae know all this because ye’ve been off yersel.”

“Oh, I didn’t know, I’m sorry, but he’s still killed four of my dormice.”

“No he hasn’ae, the stupid machine killed them. I’ll check it myself in the morn.”

“I thought you were coming to court with us?”

“Och, so I am. Of course I’ll be there, what time?”

“Eleven.”

“Where?”

“The judges chambers at Portsmouth Crown Court.”

“I’ll be there, Cathy, I’m sure Simon will be, too.”

“He said he’d try to be there.”

“Of course he’ll be there, it’s important to him, too.”

“Yeah, course it is. Just think if we lose this, social services will pounce like a hyena and whip her away in an instant. Those bitches have been looking to take me down a peg, because they think I cheated. They think I tried to pull rank.”

“I know, love,” he hugged me, burping as he did–“My, but that was a splendid salad, except you know whit cucumber does tae me, fair murders me.”

I kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for always being there. His response was immediate, he kissed me back and hugged me. “Tonight, my darling girl, you showed your mettle. I wasn’t impressed to begin, I thought you were being aggressive and abrasive. Instead you calmly demanded action which may have saved the other dormice. You had an inkling about what happened, didn’t you?”

“Sort of, I’ve seen similar happen in the wild, caused by the dormice being uncovered in their nests, they warmed up and didn’t quite get active, then it suddenly went cold and they all died. They use up so much fat reserves coming up to waking temperature that they can’t cope. Something similar happens in bat colonies and the numbers are usually greater. Back in Sussex, when I was there, some kids disturbed a lesser horseshoe colony, they all died–the bats, not the kids, unfortunately.”

“You’d better go and see to your baby, hadn’t you.”

“We gave her some nuts earlier, she’ll be alright.”

“I meant, Jemima.”

“Oh, her, yeah, I suppose I had, hadn’t I?” I pecked him on the cheek again and wished him goodnight. He muttered something which sounded like, ‘bloody cucumber’.

Mima was fast asleep, so was Stella and they were both in my bed. I undressed quickly and joined them, tomorrow was going to be a long, long day.