The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3100 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

---

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.
*****

“Michael French—duh duh duh, here we go, brother of banking executive John, married to Melanie, has a son called Aaron. Works for the government at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, currently trade attaché at the British Embassy in Lebanon.” She looked up at me and I shrugged. “Think he could have done it?”

“But done what, exactly, both the men who died, supposedly killed themselves.”

“He could have driven them to it.”

“Could he drive to Canada and do them both in?”

“From Lebanon?” asked Sammi.

“I don’t know do I?”

“Is he the one they’ve arrested or the one the algorithm suggests?”

“The algorithm.”

“Right so we have to check some flight lists—I’ll finish the ironing in a minute, Mummy,” with that she went off upstairs with Trish following on behind her.

I picked up the iron and continued pressing the mound of clean laundry that was in the basket behind. How did she manage to wear so many clothes? This was machine load number two, the third was in the tumble drier and I’m sure she did some by hand earlier as well. She has some lovely lingerie and the sort of body you need to display it. I wasn’t jealous, rather I was pleased for her, though despite having a body and face that men found sexy, she wasn’t terribly lucky in affairs of the heart—and we didn’t know why.

She’d talked to me occasionally but not in any depth, so I didn’t really have much idea of what was going on in her life at the present. She usually saw more of Simon, on their daily commutes, but she didn't tell him much either. She did borrow the flat for the occasional liaison but with who and how often, we didn’t know. We didn’t know if she was seeing the same man or different ones or what, which concerned me but I didn’t feel able to ask her outright. Several pairs of her knickers had bloodstains in the crotch which looked as if she’d either had some rough sex or had a problem. I’d resolved to speak to her about it when we had some private time—a rare commodity these days.

The both returned an hour later, chattering loudly. “What did he want to go to the Trump inauguration for? He’s a middle east expert not US—so he’d just thought he’d call and see his brother and partner and what a coincidence—they both die. It smells more fishy than a bucket of kippers.”

“What does?” I asked having finished her ironing moments before they returned.

“This guy, Michael, the brother of the banker—he like flies out to Canada and stays with his brother and partner, then the day after he leaves to go to Washington, the two commit suicide. A bit suspicious if you ask me.”

“Isn’t it all a bit circumstantial?” I asked.

“Well, okay, at the moment it is. But we don’t know if he said or did something which set off the joint suicides, do we?”

“Neither do we that he did.”

“Yeah, but it’s one hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Coincidences happen.”

“Yeah, okay—point taken.”

“What’s it all got to do with the body found in our garden anyway, apart from Trish needing some computer program from Canada?”

“Oh that—nothing.” She shrugged and saw I’d done all her ironing. “Wow, Mummy, you’ve done it all—thanks,” she gave me hug.

“That’s okay, you can help me do the lunch, David has the day off.”

“What about my algorithm?” pouted Trish.

“See if Sammi has time after lunch.” I helped Sammi carry everything up to her room. “There were some stains in the gusset of some of your knickers...”

“Yeah, I got a bit over enthusiastic with the—um—plastic; you know.”

“Just be careful, if you bleed that easily get it checked out and for goodness sake, make sure any man you have sex with wears a condom.”

“I do, Mum, look I’m old enough to know what I’m doing all right?”

“Yes, all right, it’s just we care about you...”

“Yeah, I know and I love you too,” she hugged me again and we finished hanging up her clothes. “You realise I’ll probably have to re iron these after they’ve been in my case?”

“If you’re driving back, use a suit cover or a couple of them, you can drape them over the seat.”

“I wasn’t going to drive but it might be the answer. Yeah, I’ll drive back tonight.”

“Or take the things back in several goes.”

“Nah, I’m not planning to come back for a week or two, there’s all sorts of rumours floating about that with Trump in power the Russians ‘ll be looking to annoy everyone else.”

“Is it just the Russians?”

“No, Chinese, Americans, Indians you name it they try it, but the Russians are the most prolific and the nastiest—they almost get hackers a bad name.”

I smirked, “I thought they had one already.”

“Yeah but remember, I’m a hacker, or was.”

“Poacher turned game keeper.”

“Sort of, I suppose. It’s funny, as a woman I feel far less inclined to want to invade someone else’s privacy unless they give me a reason for doing it. If someone is trying to hack the bank and I can trace ’em, then MI5 or the FBI are going to hear about it. What happens after that isn’t my business if it stops the attacks.”

“Will you help keep Trish on the straight and narrow, I worry about her because sometimes her cleverness doesn’t seem to see the obvious and that one day it could get her caught and if she was given any sort of custodial sentence, she’d die.”

“Don’t worry too much—she is quite bright—but not enough to get into places where she’d really cause problems or get them as a result of a hack.”

“She’s only twelve, Sammi.”

“Yeah okay, I’ll have word with her, not that she’ll listen.”

“Believe it or not, she does listen to you because she knows you know more about computers and IT than she does. She really does respect you.”

With Sammi blushing like a stop light we went down to the kitchen and started to get the ingredients out for lunch—a Sunday meant a roast dinner. The meat was already in the slow oven of the Aga and Sammi did the veg while I loaded the bread maker.

“That’s something I’m going to miss again.”

“Why don’t you get one then?”

“Nah, I eat too much bread already.”

I looked hard at her, she had a marvellous figure considering she’d transitioned late compared to my other girls. How she’d changed from that very anxious student to a blossoming young woman in a relatively short time was astonishing but something we seemed to specialise in here at Cameron’s transformation factory. I snorted at my own silliness and Sammi gave me a very strange look. If she asks I’ll tell her but otherwise I’ll keep my craziness hidden.