The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1147 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“I’m sure they’ll be perfectly okay, they’re both intelligent kids.” Simon was trying to reassure me, and he was probably correct, but I had this niggling worry gnawing away at my guts that he could be wrong.

“We don’t know in which direction they ran, if we did we might have a chance of finding them.” I mused out loud.

“Can’t you home in on Julie and find her?”

“No, because we haven’t actually been anywhere that she has been; I sort of need to pick up her scent.”

“Is that why you used to smell my shirts?”

“No, that was for purely carnal reasons. Now stop interrupting me.”

“Sorry for breathing.”

“Will you hush, how can I concentrate with all this noise.” I tried to concentrate on Julie and seeing her sending me a blue light beacon so I could locate her. She still wasn’t answering her phone.

I imagined seeing all round myself, scanning like a radar scope, and then I saw it, a very faint blue glow. I moved round to face it and saw I was facing in the direction of the docks–probably the least safe place to run.

Simon watched me walk in the direction of the docks and ran alongside me. “Where are you going?”

“To find Julie, where else?”

“You have a lead?”

“I sincerely hope so.” I was sending out my own signal to the beacon hoping she was okay and to try and reassure her that I was searching for her.

“Should we use the car?”

“Hush, Simon, the trail is very faint, I need to concentrate–and no, we need to walk.”

After ten or twelve minutes, I felt the signal was stronger, but she was inside somewhere, hiding, which explained why her phone didn’t work.”

The landscape became noticeably more industrial, and Simon was sure we were going in the wrong direction. I paused and the signal meant we turned left, which we did. It was getting stronger, we were closing in on it. Another five minutes and I knew she was in one of two old and derelict warehouses–it felt like a set from a crime film.

“She’s in one of these old warehouses.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, but I suspect the person who’s chasing her is also still about.”

“Why not call the police, then?”

“Would you come on the hunch of someone you don’t know?”

“No, but they do know you.”

“Sure they do, and if I’m wrong, they’d love it, assuming they came at all.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We wait and watch for activity.”

“Oh great, why can’t we just walk in and call them?”

“There could be a bloke with a knife hiding there as well–remember he’s already killed one person.”

“Yeah, but that was a woman.”

“So, does that make her less than a man?”

“No, it means he can beat women, I doubt he’d do it to me.”

“Si, if he sticks a knife in you, I suspect you’ll bleed just as much as I would.”

“Ah but the point is...”

“The point is the bit he’d stick in you, Si.”

“Very funny.”

“Hush, look over there,” I pointed to the further away of the two warehouses, “Is that someone moving about?”

“Cor, you must eat loads of carrots, I can’t see anything much at all.”

“C’mon, I think we might have our killer and our two girls.” Keeping in the shadows, I trotted towards the derelict building. Trying not to give myself away by heavy breathing, I paused before I crept across the road, Simon a couple of steps behind me.

Someone was shining a torch about the place and now we could hear him too. “C’mon girls, I won’t hurt you. I know you’re in here, come out now before I get cross.”

His voice made my flesh creep and I wanted to kick him right where it would stop him breeding, I felt Simon tense behind me and knew that he was having difficulty in staying still, he wanted to hit the guy.

I was glad we stayed hiding because it became obvious the man wasn’t alone. There appeared to be three of them and they were splitting up to search the site, which meant the girls might be discovered. We were too close for me to risk phoning, they’d hear my key pad peeping.

If we could take out one of them, that would leave one each to deal with. The problem was we didn’t know if they were armed and if so, with what? These days it could be guns or knives.

Simon spotted an old shovel and reached it back to us asking if I wanted it as a weapon. I shook my head, I’d already seen a piece of scaffolding pole. I reached for it, but it was stuck to the ground, not only that but it made a noise and one of the men heard us. I sat there making cat noises for a couple of moments before he recognised them for what they were supposed to be. He then went back to his search.

I tapped Simon and pointed to the left side of the building, then pointed to myself and the right side. I kept myself bent over and ran as quickly as I could and hid in the shadows, watching Simon disappear into the darkness at the other side.

I half knelt waiting for an opportunity to attack when I heard a metal clang followed by a yell, another clang and the sound of someone falling over. I guess he met Simon’s shovel.

This agitated the other two who were calling out and shining their torches everywhere until they found their injured and unconscious colleague. Then I saw the gun, its barrel glinting in the torch beam.

I picked up a piece of brick, waiting for him to walk towards me. After what felt like hours he did, moving his torch around like a searchlight. I picked up another smaller brick and lobbed it behind him. In the relative quiet it sounded like a bomb going off, he turned and fired his gun in the direction of my brick’s impact. I threw the other one at his head, missing slightly and hitting him on the top of his back. He spun round and fired, I ducked just in time, grabbing another brick as I did.

There was another clang of the shovel and I heard him fire again, I jumped up and threw again, this time catching him on the side of his face. He yelled and fired back towards me, the bullet zinging above me. I grabbed another brick. I could see the torch beam heading my way, and I crawled away to circle it. As he shone his light away from me, I hit him again with a brick and he screamed in pain and then called to me to show myself. Like I was going to–duh.

The shovel clanged again only this time I heard voices and saw the torch, Simon and the other man were fighting, only the gunman was moving towards them. I ran after him, releasing my final brick a matter of a couple of yards away. It hit him on the back of the head, he staggered, turned round and I hit him with an improvised rugby tackle, trying to grab the gun and him with different hands. As we hit the ground the gun went off and I smacked his wrist against the concrete floor, with my right hand and poked the fingers of my left hand in his face–hoping it was his eyes I met not his mouth.

He groaned and I felt his head go down on the hard surface, whereupon I pulled at his hair and smacked it down even harder. I felt his body go limp. I was picking the gun up off the floor when Simon shouted, “Watch out, Cathy.”

He was too late and the man’s boot caught me in the ribs and I went down quite hard. I heard Simon swear at him and felt rather than saw him lumbering towards the man. There was a tremendous clang and I felt a body fall over me landing very hard beyond me.

“You alright, Babes?”

“I think he’s hurt my ribs,” and I groaned and yelled as Simon lifted me up. God it hurt.

“Girls, it’s us Simon and Cathy, c’mon out it’s safe now,” Simon called to the darkness about us.

I began dialling 999 to call for help when I heard a young voice call back, “Is that you, Daddy?”

“Yes, it’s us, sweetheart,” I shouted back before making contact with the emergency services. The police were with us within ten minutes and an ambulance seconds later.

Simon had a stab wound in his left arm, the knife was lying near the outstretched attacker. That was the one who’d kicked me as I grappled with the gunman, and who received the focus of Simon’s wrath and the sharp end of the shovel. Si had nearly knocked his head off he was so angry at him hurting me.

Statements were taken and Simon’s wound was dressed. It was decided I had some bruised, but not broken ribs–all I knew was it bloody hurt. Julie and Phoebe were both safe and well, although the men were close to finding them a couple of times. The most they suffered were some scuffed shoes and torn tights where they’d been kneeling behind a small wall.

“She is, like, a crime fighter in’t she?” said Phoebe to Julie.

“Nah, she wasn’t really trying tonight, there were only three of them and she had Daddy’s help.”