The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1820 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“What happened?” asked a young copper rushing up to us.

“He’s in there,” Stan nodded towards the bushes from where a loud groaning could be heard.

“Shit, how are we going to get him out of there?” the copper scratched his head. One of his colleagues arrived. “Haven’t got a strimmer or a pair of shears, have you?”

Stan steered me away from the action and we sat for a few moments on a low wall in the sunshine. None of the police attempted to stop us or even question us, though I knew they would.

There were now about six of them, bashing away at the bushes with their batons trying to recover the Tar Baby, who was still lying in there as far as we knew. I sincerely hoped so, I didn’t want to see him again for a few decades, if ever.

“D’you want to phone your hubby?” asked Stan once I’d stopped trembling. I shook my head. “The professor?” he prompted. I shook my head again.

“I’ll be alright in a minute. Besides the police will want a statement.” I closed my eyes and enjoyed the September sunshine.

“Oh, I suppose they’ll want to do me for assault,” said Stan wistfully.

“Probably,” I muttered, “but I’m glad you got involved.”

“Yeah, so’m I,” he gave a little chuckle and hugged me.

“Cathy Cameron, I hope your husband doesn’t see you hugging strange men.” I turned to face the familiarish voice and saw Andy Bond smirking at me.

“It’s alright for you,” I sniffed.

“Why is that?” he asked looking especially innocent.

“Well, you’re blokes. He might have thought twice about attacking you.”

“Given the size of him, I suspect he wouldn’t have thought twice about attacking anything smaller than a grizzly bear.”

“Not even a grizzly cop, like you?”

“Ouch–from what I heard, you gave a sound beating last time.”

“Andy that was surprise; surprise and luck; surprise, luck and speed.”

“You’re not going to do the Spanish Inquisition sketch on me are you?”

“You’re not a Python fan are you, Cathy?” Stan the nerdy lab tech showed his real nerdiness.

“Um–no, but I’m married to one, worst luck.”

“My hovercraft is full of eels,” declared Stan and Andy guffawed, just as they brought their prisoner past us.

“You laugh at me, pig–you die,” said our foreign visitor to Andy who visibly paled.

“If you lay one finger on him, you’ll answer to me,” I declared.

“Bitch, you gonna die.”

“You didn’t say that yesterday–next time I’ll break both your legs and your elbows and feed you to the piranhas.”

Now he looked frightened until his bravado returned. “It will be you who go swimming.”

“Igor, if I were you, I’d take notice of what she says. She took out a whole squad of Russian mafia.”

“You lie, to Igor.”

“I’m not–when you’re in prison ask around a bit–they’ll put you right. You don’t mess with Lady Cameron–not twice.” Andy drew himself up to his full height as he spoke–he was still about six inches shorter than the Romanian.

“You–Lady Cameron?” he asked towering over me.

“Yes, why?”

“I hear about you–you bad news–I have to kill you next time.”

“Unless we get you first,” said Stan, and I half expected him to rip of his clothes and find he has an S on his underpants.

The Romanian glared at Stan who stepped back shrinking under his gaze.

“Take him away,” instructed the sergeant who seemed to be in charge.

“Next time–eh?” said the man mountain glaring at me.

“Piranhas,” I smiled falsely at him.

“Bah,” he said, “You die,” he yelled as they pulled and pushed him towards the van, his hands cuffed behind his back.

“What a nasty piece of work,” observed Andy Bond.

“Quite,” I agreed.

“Still, teamwork sorted him out.”

“How?” asked a puzzled constable Bond.

“She kept him busy while I dropped a stool on his head.” Stan beamed at his own achievement.

“We’ll need statements from both of you,” suggested Andy.

There arose quite a rumpus from the back of the police van and a copper flew out of the door, two more tried to grab the Romanian who fought himself free. “Excuse me,” said Andy and he rushed up to help his mates, speaking into his radio as he went.

“Do we help or hide?” asked Stan, suddenly realising we were mortal, or he was.

“Help,” I said and ran up towards the melee. Okay, it’s not very girly, but hell, if the mad Eastern European clobbered all the coppers, I was going to be in a worse position. I went to help while there were still a couple of them standing.

As I approached the fracas I could see he’d broken the cuffs somehow and was laying into the boys in blue something rotten. I helped the one who’d been thrown from the van to move away from the danger area. He was still calling up reinforcements while I left him, taking his baton with me.

The enraged thug saw me standing behind the three remaining coppers and ran straight at me. I jumped out of the way and cracked his left elbow with the baton as he went past. This of course enraged him even more, but once again, I played matador and hit his right wrist as he charged.

One of the police jumped on his back and tried to subdue him by choking him. He flung him off and only my attack of the Romanian stopped him from following up on the injured copper. I hit him as hard as I could on his right shoulder. He yelled and turned round just in time for me to aim a flying kick as his face. It caught his chin and he fell backwards heavily. The remaining two police jumping on his supine body.

He lay still and I began to worry if I’d killed him–he’d gone down like a felled tree. Sirens screamed to a stop and two police vans arrived. The groaning villain was lead away to the police van with four of them manhandling him.

An ambulance arrived and the three injured police were treated and taken away in the ‘ice cream van’. They were all walking wounded, I’d made sure none of their injuries were serious with a bit of help from my unseen helper in blue.

“You were magnificent,” declared Stan, “where did you learn to do that kickboxing stuff?”

“Here and there,” I replied.

“Wow, the aristocracy fights back.”

“That was anything but regal, Stan. That was good old underhandedness–works a treat every time.”

“You sure surprised him.”

“Yeah, I hope his headache lasts long enough not to forget what happens when he comes anywhere near me. Eventually he might just learn.”

“Yeah–or the piranhas get him. You haven’t actually got any in the lab have you?”

“Stan, I do dormice–but threatening him with those was hardly going to frighten him, was it?”

“Uh–probably not–they could bite him a bit.”

I rolled my eyes, “Stick to lab stools, Stan, they work for you,” I said handing him the one he’d dropped from the window.

“Yeah,” he said and shrugged.