The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2902 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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Instead of eating I grabbed the bike and dashed home, got David, who was talking to James, to make me a sandwich while I rushed upstairs, washed and did my hair then dressed in a suit and heels, slapped on some makeup and went down to have my sandwich.

“What’s with the bike business?”

“It got me to work.”

“And the suit?”

“I have meetings this afternoon.”

“Want a lift in?”

“No, I’ll take the Mondeo.”

“Amanda has it, she’s doing some shopping and going to see her mum,” David informed me. I had told her she could use the car so could hardly complain. James was smiling waiting for me now to ask him. Instead I left my lunch and walked through to the study and after a phone call, walked back finished my lunch and drank the tea which David had topped up with hot and after collecting my handbag and laptop bag, bid them goodbye and walked out to the garage. It took a few moments to pull off the dust sheets but she started first time and I reversed Mr Whitehouse’s old jaguar out of the garage and then drove slowly down the drive so James would get a good look at it. According to David, his tongue was hanging out—all I’d done was make sure it was insured. It was old enough to have a tax exemption and it had been MOT’d a few months ago.

I did break one law, I drove in stockinged feet, I wasn’t going to risk the backs of my shoes—driving in heels marks them. I had the permit from my use of the Porsche earlier on so used that, informing the girls in reception as I went through. Despite all of that I was back in my office before Diane was returned by Tom. I just happened to need something from her office as they arrived and his eyes nearly came out on stalks. “Ye’ve changed ye scunner.”

“No, I’m still the same—why, what did you think I’d done?”

“Ye haed cycling stuff on afore.”

“Did I? Are you sure?”

“I mebbe auld but I’m no senile yet.”

I shrugged and went back to my office stifling a smirk.

“You went home?” Diane came in on the pretext of bringing me some tea.

“Hardly rocket science, is it?”

“The first year boys will be disappointed, you’ve got them for an hour and a half in twenty minutes.”

“You didn’t mention it earlier,” I felt a little irritated by all this covering for Dr Freeman.

“I left you a note except you’ve probably put your computer on top of it.” I had—oops. I just had time to pick up the file on, ‘The principles of ecology,’ something I should be able to do in my sleep. I yawned as if practicing for the event.

Had I realised I was going to standing for hours, I’d have worn trousers and flat shoes. Instead I clip clopped up and down the front of the room as I wrote on the whiteboard or showed them slides. The stuff we wrote on the board were things about ecology they already knew—or thought they did. Diane arrived with handouts for the assembled throng, she’d been photocopying them while I bored them rigid. Then to get my own back, having run through the stuff they were supposed to have read already and obviously hadn’t, I set them an assignment. Write ten things in your life that could be changed to lower your carbon footprint. How would you change them and how much impact would it have on your life? How much benefit would this have on the environment?

Hardly rocket science but it brings home the fact that we can all reduce our energy use and emissions and that has an impact on the environment if we maintain it. The fact that I was going to be driving home in a gas guzzling car afterwards, was an anomaly. My usual car was more economical and had fewer emissions but it was a much younger car and had a smaller but more efficient engine.

Thankfully, no one noticed the car I was driving, unless you count James. He almost demanded a chance to drive it, Danni was up for accompanying him. I warned him that if he got booked for speeding it would be on his licence not mine. I don’t think he took a blind bit of notice. I knew they’d be gone for a while so I changed into jeans and trainers and taking Trish with me drove the minibus thing round to Ingrid’s place.

“She’s not here is she? I mean the police came didn’t they?” I almost told Trish to shut up as I was trying to get a lead from the place as to where she was now. If only we had her mobile number its whereabouts could be traced. I bemoaned this to Trish who ten minutes or less later, came up with a number. Then ten minutes after that and lots of fingers on the iPad screen and she identified where it was—the phone that is. I didn’t ask her how she did it, I wasn’t sure i wanted to know, though I suspect I was probably an accessory after the fact.

When we used Google maps to show us exactly where, it turned out to be a house just around the corner from where we were. “Why didn’t you do this before?”

“You never asked me. Sammi showed me how to do it.”

No wonder they say, ‘Ignorance is bliss,’ though apparently it’s no defence under the law. She’s a minor so I’d get done. I started up the VW and we drove slowly past the address we’d been given. It was in one of two houses, they were both quite expensive looking properties in a terrace of Victorian houses the Luftwaffe hadn’t managed to flatten—Portsmouth was heavily bombed during WWII as it was the main naval base and also had a naval dockyard.

“Now which one is she in?” I asked out loud.

“That one,” pointed Trish, “and she’s seen us.”

“Call the police.” I said pulling up across the road.

“What 999?”

“No, their headquarters number, here use my phone.” I dumped the bag in her lap and she scrolled through the numbers.

“How many people have their local police number on their mobile?” she chuckled but dialled. When it started ringing she handed it to me. It took a few minutes to speak to someone who knew what I was talking about and they called the chief inspector who was concerned with the case. He was sending someone immediately and I was to do nothing but keep out of the way.

An unmarked Skoda Octavia came down the road but it was obvious it was the plod and just as they were about fifty yards from the house a mini came screaming out of the garage and almost flew down the road. It was Ingrid and somehow the police put two and two together and shot off after her with blue lights flashing.

“How about some ice cream?” I asked my accomplice.

Is the pope a catholic?