The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1817 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The large individual advanced towards me and I think I was correct in assuming his attitude towards me was hostile. However, I knew there’d be no opportunity to ask him before he made his intentions known. He hadn’t said a word but his whole demeanour was one of menace.

As he advanced I retreated, a step at a time. My problem was complicated by the sounds of voices and noises from the lift door opening below me. In other words I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I assumed there were more than one below me, I decided I had to get past this moving mountain on the stairs. So to recap, I was going down the stairs although my preferred destination was actually upwards. I know, these decisions are always difficult–especially so when confronted by a large moving mass.

I did a quick assessment, my only advantage was speed; speed and agility–oh no–I sound like the Spanish Inquisition sketch from Monty Python, and this was anything but amusing.

From about two steps above me, Boris Karloff lunged at me I ducked underneath his arms only to have him grab and pull my ponytail. I squealed and brought my hand up hard in his groin, snatched and twisted as violently as I could. He squealed and let go, calling me names which I won’t repeat, as they weren’t very nice ones.

I scrambled up the stairs and grabbed one of the pieces of wood they’d used to wedge the lift doors open. I rammed it through the door handle on the stairs at the same time, I pushed the lift call button.

If my situation so far had been one of bad luck, it changed to one of good fortune. All three of my opponents were in the stair well when I summoned the lift and the equipment they were going to pinch was still in the lift. The doors opened and I was relieved to see it was just the equipment, I quickly shoved the remaining wedge between the doors meaning the lift would be jammed on the first floor.

I could hear the switches on the lift clicking and the doors opening and closing onto the wedge. For a moment I felt almost safe, as long as the lump of wood and the door handle held. Big boy had stopped rubbing his wedding tackle and was now heaving on the door and I did fear what would happen if he managed to pull it open. I was standing, sweating partly with fear and partly through exertion. I still had the phone in my hand and Danny was still connected.

“Woss’appenin’, Mum?”

“Are the police coming?” I gasped.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, ring off now, luvvy, and go and stay by the car.” As soon as he did that I called nine nine nine and asked for police. I’d just given the details of my besiegement when I was aware of the door from the laboratory opening behind me. Oh shit.

I turned and now facing me was a man who was even larger and uglier than his mate on the stairs. He grabbed me round the throat. In the films, James Bond always whips his hands up through his attacker’s breaks the grip and belts the bad guy in the mush–end of story. In real life it rarely works, what does is a trick they taught us on a self defence workshop a while back. It’s called break-away. It’s simple but pay attention, I’m only hopefully going to do this once.

While thug number four was busy trying to squash my windpipe into my spine, I raised my arm and turned away from him bringing my arm down on his wrists, the move has to be done quickly and suddenly. I broke away, and stepped back, my eyes were watering but I was still breathing. I was now in a state of war however, declaring it might have given the game away that I was really quite cross with him.

He lunged again and I dropped and twisted, kicking hard against his knee, the one which wasn’t bent. He yelled and fell, nearly landing on top of me. I rolled away and jumped up kicking the arm he was using to lift himself with. This time my heel wrecked his elbow. Somehow he managed to stand himself up and I obliged him by delivering a swift kick to his gonads followed by another to his chest and he flew backwards, groaning as some of his ribs cracked under my assault.

The assault on the door became more intense, I thought I saw all three of the others there, so I retreated to the lift, from where I could still hear the noise on the door. On the ground floor, before they could work out where I was, I jammed the trolley with the equipment against the bottom door of the stair well and legged it towards the car park.

Three police cars screamed onto the campus, sirens and lights working overtime. The security man directed them towards the laboratories as I ran away from them. Some of the police were carrying guns–why? Did they know something I didn’t.

“Who are you?” asked one of the coppers.

“I called, I was shut in there with them. I’ve tried to trap them in the stair well.”

“How did you do that?”

“It’ll be obvious when you get there–why have you got guns?”

“We thought we heard gunshots.”

“No, just them banging on the doors.”

The six burly bobbies went dashing into the laboratory block and I went to find Danny and hug him to death. He was actually crying when I got there, apparently so worried for me. To be honest, when we hugged I burst into tears as well.

More police vehicles arrived and another four coppers went dashing to help their friends.

“You’ve got bruises on your neck, Mum.”

I felt it, it was quite tender. “The guy who did it has a few, too.”

He brought his arm round me protectively. “If they get past the cops, you stand behind me, Mum. I’ll protect you.” That brought some more tears from me–my brave son.

The police eventually led out the three thugs from the stairwell. “We’ll need a statement, Miss.”

“What about the fourth one?” I asked.

“Fourth one?” he said, “Boys, there’s another–where is he?”

“Up on the first floor landing, you may need to use the lift, I wedged the door to the stairs.”

Three of them went back into the building while the other police escorted the would- be thieves into a black Maria–why do they call them that, it was white?

Some ten minutes later an ambulance arrived and two paramedics dashed in with stretcher. I had to think what had happened. Oh yeah, his knee, I knocked his patella off the bone. Tends to make walking difficult.

Eventually, the remaining thug was wheeled out on the stretcher and he yelled when he saw me. I was simply standing holding my son.

“He’s filing an assault charge against you, Miss–he’s quite badly beaten.”

“He tried to kill me,” I pointed at my neck.

“Okay, I can see bruising–did you have to half kill him?”

“Oh come off it, officer, he’s twice my size and weight.”

“I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” continued the copper. “Shit–you’re that banker’s wife, aren’t you?”