The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3380 by Angharad Copyright© 2023 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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Of course the hospital didn't ring and we dropped Francesca there on the way to the university. Danni wanted to go with her but I managed to talk her out of it and she went to her classes along with Sarah who stll playing catch-up with the physical dynamics of their relationship.

Danni told her that George, Francesca's father had nearly killed her because she was transgender and was having a relationship, tainting his daughter. Francesca had killed her father, thereby saving Danni. Finally, Dawn had appeared from nowhere after fleeing George's wrath as he had threatened to kill her. We had seen mother and daughter reunited and they got on like a house on fire. I or my counsel, had nearly overturned the charge of manslaughter to one of self-defence and we hoped that Dawn and Francesca could go off and live together, at least until Francesca had finished growing up, kissed a few frogs like the rest of us. Okay, so it was just one frog I kissed and he turned into a prince, but that was beginner's luck and my sophisticated charm - ha, I was so green, if I stood on the lawn, I didappeared.

I'm sure by the time they got to classes, Sarah would be more or less up to speed and I'd also got Danni to call me before she tried anything herself if Fran should call her. It wasn't really that I thought I could do anything better, but I did have slightly more experience at dealing with monsters than she did. She tried to answer me back and I reminded her that her first encounter nearly saw her beaten to death, when she acceded to my request.

It resulted in me being on edge all morning, I doubted Danni was any better and at lunch time I went to the hospital to see how Dawn was and how Francesca was holding up. I sent the latter to go and have lunch and I sit with her mum. The police were still there despite the fact that Francesca had told them her mother had gone to the shop and been mown down by a passing car, she didn't even know the colour or make as she didn't see it herself and there were no witnesses, at least none who were prepared to come forward and tell what they saw. I can't blame them, most of us would be shit scared in case the same happened to them.

I collected Francesca on the way home from work and insisted she come with us, her mum was still unconscious, and again I promised to bring her in any time of the day. Jim arrived just before David cooked a huge roast chicken, about the size of an ostrich, and amazingly within moments I had persuaded Jim to stay for dinner.

The police knew very little about the shooting but the word on the street was George had ordered it some years ago. When Dawn had disappeared and he had failed to trace her, he ordered some of his associates to kill her because she knew too much. It appears since she left his empire had changed and she knew very little but the order hadn't been rescinded, so two attempts have been made on her life, the first I stopped and the second nearly worked.

I told him to offer a thousand pounds payable in the event of a prosecution, he laughed, !I wouldn't risk my neck for such a measly sum," he said. He also told me he had some idea who was causing the problems. I asked him to check and return to me. He left about ten o'clock. I told Francesca we might have a lead on the person organising the attacks, in which case if we could confirm it, we could act. She laughed at me as the police were worse than useless, was her phrasing. I knew one or two coppers who weren't and if possible I'd liaise with them.

Two day's later Jim got the confirmation we needed, a Mr Smith, who lived in Muswell Hill in London, one a very fashionable part of London. I told Jim we'd go and see him. "Are you bonkers, this man is twice as nasty as George and twice as rich."

"I doubt he's as rich as Simon and I don't care how nasty he is, I shall ask him to call off the dogs and I'll also remind him if he does anything to Francesca, I'll point George's old friends in his direction and wait for the funeral arrangements if they ever find his body."

"Better wear a big hat, then."

"Why do people say that?"

"I think it refers to cowboy films of the Randolph Scott era where he always wore a large white hat so you could distinguish from the baddie who wore a dark hat." I didn't have a better answer so accepted it. I arranged a day off work and with Sarah using her car to go to uni and David taking the school run, I left with Jim, in my Jaguar to drive to London. With Satnav we found our way to Muswell Hill and Mr Smith's address.

Of course his receptionist denied all knowledge of a Mr Smith and after pleading with her two or three times, I made to leave and said quietly to her, "I wouldn't book any holidays this year because if I don't see Mr Smith today bad things will happen and I'd hate for you to be in the firing line but even if you're not you'll be unemployed and unemployable. I gave the number of a burner phone we had and told her to remember I was far more dangerous than Mr Smith and I employed several hundred people, one would find her." I just walked out well aware that the chief thug was watching my performance on camera somewhere.

"You're going to get yourself killed one day and worse you could get me killed as well," offered Jim who then asked me who my hundreds of staff were. I told him they worked at the university and he laughed all the way to the nearest taxi rank. I knew we would see the big man himself before the day was out and I didn't want him to know whose Jag it was that was parked down the road.

Sure enough, as we were having coffee and a late breakfast in a nearby cafe, the burner phone rang, and we were offered an appointment in an hour's time. I saw Jim feel his shoulder holster as if subconsciously reassuring himself, I was hoping we'd need no weaponry but I was carrying a can of mace in my bag, even if it is illegal as was the short police-style baton that was telescopic like the better police ones.

We were shown into his room and his desk, was bigger than some yachts I've seen, I walked in smiling but he scowled and he said, "Who do you think you are, scaring my staff half to death with idle threats."

"You will call off your dogs on Dawn Davidson."

"Who is she when she's around, I'm a responsible businessman."

"You know who she is and we have enough evidence of your schemes to close you down and get you life imprisonment."

"Oh, yeah, and who are you?"

"My name is Nemesis, and this is your one and only warning, if I am forced to return or something happens to Dawn, make sure your will is in order."

"What you come here threatening me, who do you think I am and who do you think you are?"

"I've told you who I am and how the future lies, be warned."

His facial expression changed and he nodded at the door two men attempted to enter until Jim shut the door on them and they were locked outside. I stood up with my hand in my bag, he told me I wouldn't leave the room alive, whoever I was. I had spotted the gun in the front of his desk I jumped up on it via the chair and sprayed him i the face with the mace, then brought my baton out and brought it down hard on the hand that was trying to open a desk drawer.

I then disabled his other arm with a blow to the elbow and he winced. The door was being bashed with some sort of battering ram, he smiled and said, "You won't get out alive," he smirked.

I smirked back and reminded him that I could kill him before they broke in and hit him on his sore arm again, this time I probably broke it. I then knocked him down and saw the gun mechanism in his desk, then just as the first goon came in the doorway, I shot him from the desk. Jim was beside the door dragged him in and then threw him in the face of the next to try and enter. We pushed the door shut, but it wasn't going to hold for long. In came another and once again I couched down behind the desk and shot him as he tried to enter, Jim knocked his gun from his hands and pushed him back out of the office. Smith was trying to get away and I threw my baton at him, it struck the back of his head and he fell.

One more someone tried to come through the door and I shot him and Jim removed his gun and punched his light out. I called the police, not the Met, half of whom were on his payroll, but some friends in MI5, that Jim knew. By the time they got here, we had rounded up the injured and secured them. I had wiped the mechanism of the gun and his camera. The receptionist was nowhere to be seen. Jim and I had persuaded Smith to hand over the books, the hidden ones and also to admit he had tried to have Dawn killed. We produced the evidence for the ministry guys and gave them the combination of his safe. We talked for an hour and they were very interested in how he'd come to shoot his own people. I simply said he was aiming for me but I jumped out of the way. He was terrified of me, which I knew wouldn't last, but just before they took him away to have his arm checked I happened to knock it, by accident of course, and said quietly to him, "If I have to come back here, it's body bags, I think you'll look good in one."

They looked over the evidence and said that he should go away for at least twenty years but could be longer. I said if we sat him in front of the desk I could bump the mechanism with my leg, save the cost of a trial. They lifted him up and pushed him into the chair I walked around it and just before I got level with the trigger, they asked him if there was anything he wanted to say and he pleaded with them to keep me away from the gun and told them all sorts of things. "Okay, Cathy, you can shoot him now." I actually stepped back from the gun and he fainted.

"Well if we can prove all of this we'll have to arrest half the Met and he should be in prison for life.

I nodded and said, "That should be long enough to keep out from under my feet, we showed you payroll lists for his own people and those in the police, there's probably enough to stop half the crime in London, make sure he pays for all of it or I will."

"Wow, Wonder Woman and Batman, can I get your autographs?"

"We were never here. You broke this up on a tip-off, you can have all the credit for breaking up a drugs ring and organised crime group. It should give you enough kudos to last for umpteen years."

"Funny, I thought I heard a woman's voice," he said.

I packed away my baton and tin of mace, which was now empty, and called to Jim, "Come on Batman, dinner calls." We walked out and I drove home via a restaurant. I told Francesca they were both safe now as we had neutralised the threat and all the news seemed to say was that MI5 had broken up one of the biggest crime gangs in British history, and hundreds of arrests should follow, especially of bent coppers. I had to smile at that and also that someone who bullied and killed for a living was actually a huge coward who was frightened of me, who'd have thought it. It worried me that I could play the psychopath so easily, especially breaking his arm, I just remembered I could so easily have killed him but I didn't, in fact, no one died because of my charm offensive but I was pleased to see they had arrested his receptionist, I wonder how much she knew about what was going next door? Of course, she pleaded ignorance but MI5 didn't believe her and she knew the names of people on his payroll. She was expected to go down for a while as well, all I can say is, I did warn her oh and the meal we had coming home wasn't a patch on David's cooking.