Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 806 by Angharad

By the time the Aston Martin came to a halt at Tom’s house, I was cold from the draught from the broken window. I jumped out and stood waving the gun at Myrtle through the window in the driver’s door. As Simon got out, she suddenly opened her door against me, knocking me over and the gun from my hand. Then she floored the accelerator and showered me in a dust and gravel from the drive as she sped away.

Simon helped me up and I was crying with frustration, “Now we have no chance of finding where the girls and Stella and Tom are.”

“Come on, Babes, let’s go in.” He put his arm around me and we went inside. We sat and had a cuppa. I felt exhausted and not a little scared. When I told Simon, he pointed out that we had two guns with reasonably full magazines. I pointed out that one of them had killed someone and the other had wounded someone. We could be in deep trouble if someone wanted to make it difficult for us.

“You don’t think they’d do that, do you?”

“Why not? We’re sitters aren’t we? Hand guns are illegal–they don’t need anything else, do they?”

“Maybe not. So what do we do? Bury them in the garden like the IRA?”

“I’ve got a better idea. Wrap them in some plastic bags.”

Simon put each pistol in a carrier bag and rolled it up, then taped it sealed. Then he put the two into another bag and sealed it, then did the same again. Meanwhile, I found a long piece of strong string. I tied it around the guns and knotted it firmly. I carried the bundle out into the garage and Simon followed me: I lifted some boards on the floor of the garage and pointed at a flagstone beneath them, indicating I wanted it lifted. He shook his head but set to in lifting the heavy slab.

He was about to say something when I hushed him, we had no idea what sort of devices might be around the place. Underneath the stone was a well, with a drop of about ten feet to the water. Across the middle of the gap was a metal bar, which might have been some part of the well structure or simply a means of supporting the stone capping it. I tied the cord around the bar and lowered the guns into the water. Simon replaced the stone and I put the boards back over it. Even a sniffer dog would have difficulty finding that in a few hours, after our scents faded. To help the cause I sprayed air freshener all over it.

“We’ll have to use bikes,” I said locking up the garage, which was where I kept them.

“What?”

“Well, apart from Tom’s old Landrover, we don’t have a car.”

“What about Stella’s?”

“Where is it? It’s usually parked at the end.” I couldn’t see it.

“In the old stable, I put it in there a week or two ago, while you were out shopping.”

“Why?” I asked puzzled by this.

“Some seagull crapped all over it, and after she’d washed it, she didn’t want the same to happen again.”

We went into the house and found the keys to the old stable and Stella’s car keys. Sure enough, when we opened it up, there was Stella’s car and it had the best part of a tank of fuel.

“We’re mobile, then.”

“Yeah, except they know where we are—thanks to the trackers in us.”

“Damn,” said Simon, “I’d forgotten about them.”

“They hadn’t, they knew where you were all the time. What is their game?”

“Blowed if I know,” he said.

“The dog’s gone too, so I suspect they were taken by the security services, the Russians would have left her or shot her.”

“They might be dog lovers too, or maybe let her go to wander.”

“Doubt it, they’d have left her or shot her, dogs are too much of a hassle,” like children, I almost added–oh no, they wouldn’t would they?

“Why don’t we go up to Bristol, and bring the other two cars home tomorrow in the daylight.”

“What do we do about Stella’s car then?”

“How about you call for a taxi to go to the station and we take the train. Then you can buy me dinner in Bristol and we take a taxi back to my house, make love all night and drive back here tomorrow or not, as the feeling takes us.”

“Sounds good to me, especially after we get to your house.”

“I wonder why that is?” I asked in mock innocence and he laughed.

Dinner turned out to be a stale sandwich from the buffet at the station. We had to go to London and then to Bristol. What a pain? However, It was nice to sit cuddled up to Simon like two young lovers. We did the Guardian crossword together, well most of it.

“Do you think there’ll be bugs on the cars?” asked Simon.

“Does it matter, if they’re from the same source as the ones we swallowed, they’ll know anyhow.”

“Damn, I keep forgetting those stupid things. Next time I see Bill, I shall make him swallow a whole box of them.”

“I have a much more novel way of depositing them inside him, “ I said.

Simon looked confused for a moment–more so than he usually does–then his eyes twinkled, “Yeah, with a broom handle,” he chuckled.

It was after midnight when the taxi dropped us at my house. We were just going in when I heard a small noise and saw a shadow move towards us. I pushed Simon down, and he grumbled until the shot rang out and ricocheted off the wall.

Instead of throwing myself down as well, I charged at the direction the bullet came from and pursued the would-be assassin. It didn’t occur to me that he’d shoot me–well, not until afterwards. He dashed off round the back of the house with me in hot pursuit.

The chase was short lived, as Simon did an intercept and stiff arm tackled him. For those who’ve never played rugby, it means as the guy comes running towards you, you put your arm up level with the throat or face. In this case, Simon whipped his arm out at the bloke’s throat. His head and neck stopped, his legs came out almost horizontal to it before he collapsed on the ground with a wallop.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” said Si, rubbing his arm.

“You mean you’ve never done it before?” I asked in surprise.

“Good God, no. You can kill someone doing it.”

“What about our little friend here?” I bent down to examine him, he was out cold, but he had a pulse. We half carried and half dragged him back to the house, where we stripped him and tied him up, finally gagging him and rolling him up in an old carpet in the garage.

He was carrying no identification, and his clothes had no labels in them, his gun however, was the same as the two in Tom’s well. We decided he was probably a Russian. He had no radio or car keys, nor a mobile phone, unless he’d dropped it. We decided it was unwise to look for any of these things until daylight.

We slept fitfully and in our clothes, so Simon didn’t get the night of bliss he’d hoped for. Moving around the house in the dark was also a pain, but there was no point in making it easy for them by using the house lights.

The next morning we both looked tired and irritable. We had something to drink and a piece of toast. Our captive was still there, and indignant at his nudity, he did eat and drink a little and use the bathroom. However, without it being a surprise, he found he couldn’t speak or understand English. Even when I cut all his clothes up in front of him. He protested loudly in Russian but then, I couldn’t understand him so I carried on.

As he was nearer my size than Simon’s, I loaned him a bra and pants, and an old dress, which he protested about wearing. Then we wrapped him back up in the old carpet and dumped him in the back of the estate car.

We crossed the Severn Bridge and finally dumped him in a field near Chepstow, before driving off back to Bristol. Where we packed furiously and went back to Portsmouth after checking both cars for devices–trackers and explosive ones.

I will admit, I did snigger as I drove back to Portsmouth about the Russian’s predicament, wandering the country lanes near Chepstow in a tight mini-dress whilst obviously being a man.