Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1004.
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(aka Bike) Part 1004 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad
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I stored the illegal firearm in my knicker drawer, wrapped up in an old tee shirt. Whether it would work or not, I had no idea, but having it in the house made me feel safer–not something I’d have subscribed to a while ago. I also checked out my compound bow and my quiver, I had about ten arrows. All were target arrows but with that bow, could make a nasty dent in anyone they happened to hit.
I was geared up for a fight if necessary, but my mind was diverted to more immediate matters when a police car came hurtling up the drive and an officer ran up to the door.
“Have you found Simon,” I asked him, having almost fallen down the stairs in my haste to open the door.
“Are you Lady Cameron?”
“Yes,”
“Can you come with me, madam?”
“I grabbed my bag and shouted to Tom to keep an eye on the kids.”
Then just before I got in his car, I asked to see his warrant card.
“But I’m in uniform, madam.”
“Please humour me, I’ve been kidnapped by bogus police once before.”
“Here you go,” he pushed his card into my hand and it looked genuine.
“Thank you, where are we going?”
“Central police HQ as far as I know.”
“Any news on my husband?”
“I dunno, Lady Cameron, I’ve not heard anything, but that isn’t always surprising. Hang on we’re in a hurry.” With that he switched on the blues and twos and we screamed through the streets into the town centre.
It was verging on a white knuckle ride and I will happily admit I was scared throughout. I went into the reception area and a woman PC asked if I was Lady Cameron and led me away through one of those key pad doors and up some stairs to a large office.
A tall jovial, red faced man looked up as I entered, “Lady Cameron, I presume?” he extended his hand, “Severus Wheatland, how d’ya do?”
I shook the proffered hand which was like a shovel compared to my daintier puddy. “Sorry, but I presume you were around before Harry Potter?” he looked about forty.
“Yes, it’s an old family name, trust me to get lumbered with it. My friends call me Sevvy.”
“Cathy,” I replied. “I’m still not sure why special branch are involved?”
“I can’t tell you everything as it’s very sensitive, but if I mentioned that the Russian ambassador is also missing, I think you’ll understand better.”
“Did you find anything from the phone call?”
“No, they were all gone, but we did pick up on a mobile phone message and raided that address, where four people were shot. I’m afraid I’ll need you to look at the deceased to see if your hubby’s amongst them.”
“Is that police marksmen or the SAS?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, but I can tell you it wasn’t the police.”
“I believe at the Iranian embassy siege they shot one bloke twenty eight times, I hope my Simon hasn’t been shot like that.”
“I don’t know, they’re making the bodies presentable so if you could come with me, I hope we can deal with this bit first. I was led out to a car and we drove at speed to an industrial estate and into an unlisted factory.
We hardly spoke throughout the drive and my stomach was churning–what if the blackness I picked up for Simon was this–his imminent demise? I felt quite sick.
We viewed the bodies and I was mightily relieved to discover none of them were Simon, one of them was a woman–a pretty one, aged about thirty, her blonde tresses were flecked with blood and I noticed a wound to her neck, presumably the fatal shot. I wondered if it was the woman with whom I’d sparred on the phone. I felt sick and had to rush outside where I spewed up my lunch all over a rose bush.
“We think one is the missing Russian dignitary, but none is your husband?”
I shook my head, “Was that the woman I spoke to?”
“I have no idea, my dear Cathy, but I suppose she could have been.”
I threw up again, so obviously my tough talking was just that–I had no stomach for all this violence any more, assuming I’d ever had it in the first place. “Can I go home now?”
“I suppose so, but I want an officer with you at all times.”
“Will he be armed?”
“Yes.”
“Look when this happened before, they killed them and left me alone.”
“I suppose you’d prefer it if we just gave you a machine gun to protect yourself?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hear you’re quite useful with a Kalashnikov?”
“Not really, but there are times when I do wonder if I should invest in one.”
“No, then we’d have to arrest you for illegal possession of a firearm.”
“But if it’s known I’m at risk, why can’t I get some sort of emergency licence?”
“And we find you shot the postman.”
“Well if I did it would be the guy who keeps delivering next door’s stuff to us.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“It’s half a mile away.”
“Ah, maybe you could claim provocation?”
“Much more of this and it could be insanity.”
“Come come, I’d heard you aristocrats were made of sterner stuff?”
“I’m probably the exception that proves the rule.”
“Oh,” he shrugged, “not from what I’ve heard.”
“Why can’t people leave me in peace to live my life–I don’t interfere with them?”
“Alas, I think some have a grudge against the bank, or the UK or perhaps even, an imagined slight against you personally.”
“I thought that had been resolved, the scrap we had before.”
“Apparently not–some of these people have very long memories and very short tempers. Not a good combination in people with guns.”
“So why aren’t you lot picking them up when they come into the country?”
“Who says either we or MI5 don’t pick them up?”
“So how come they got Simon?”
“They changed targets at the last minute, they were apparently going to hit the Governor of the Bank of England.”
“Oh my goodness, why?”
“I think because he has bank in his title.”
“Gee whizz, these guys are dangerous because they’re so amateurish.”
“That’s a good point, if they were ex army or KGB, they’d have far more idea. I think they’d been watching Simon for a while and he was vulnerable driving down from London. They had a bogus police car and pulled him over–we have it on motorway camera. He was taken away in the bogus police car, which we found a couple of days later burnt out. It’s quite vexing.”
Vexing! I can think of a few choice words and that ain’t amongst ‘em.
They ushered me back to the car and were taking me back to the central police station when they got a call over the radio that something was happening elsewhere. Ten minutes later, after another blue light dash, I found myself sat in a police car outside Tom’s farmhouse.
A young officer briefed us. “They shot in in two 4x4s and rounded up all the occupants. We saw at least four gunmen.”
“There are six kids, plus a teenager and an old man in there,” I gasped.
“Where’s the teenage girl?”
“Still at the hair salon where she works on a Saturday.”
“The other woman went off in a Fiesta.”
“That was Stella, she’d be going to collect Julie.”
“Make sure she doesn’t come back and interrupt things,” said Wheatland to the young officer, who nodded and went off to talk on his radio.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We wait,” said Wheatland.
