The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3481 by Angharad Copyright© 2024/2025 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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Danni obviously wanted to see her sister and I repeated the previous journey only in reverse, she was impressed with the hospital building and all the staff we met seemed very pleasant, although a few didn't speak much English. Danni suggested we set up a language school to teach them English, I asked her if she would have to learn it first. When she looked questioningly at me, I asked to define a gerund. She went silent and rather red. I didn't want to hurt her feelings so just told her it was a word formed from a verb to which -ing - had been added. She didn't seem all that much wiser, so I was relieved when we got to Trish's room. She was still largely sleeping but her colour looked better and the doctor told me she was healing very well, and could I tell him why that was after I had visited her.

The number of times I have been questioned by well-meaning doctors as to why their patients were healing at a record pace should mean that I should have developed a pat answer, but I hadn't. I usually just gave them a compliment and told them their therapy was better than they realised. That satisfies those who have bigger ego than brain, and when I told it to the Swiss doctor he nodded and then asked why the person in each adjoining room also progressed more than expected. I told him it proved how clever he was. He looked me square in the eye and said that his other two patients were expected to die but were in fact sitting up and asking for food. I blushed and shrugged.

"Everyone wants their mum when they feel ill," suggested Danni who was trying to distract the sharp eyed doctor, "that's why she look better." He didn't look convinced one bit, but he didn't challenge us any further. As soon as he left her room, we set to trying to pour the energy into her, each of us trying to hold her hand, except one was difficult to hold through all the drips and things that modern medicine requires, so I just lay me hand over the area which contained the dressing, under which I presumed was her wound.

With Danni powering her generally, I was able to concentrate on the wound and just told it to heal itself, it was only half as bad when we left and I told it to continue healing. As we journeyed back to the hotel, Danni asked if I thought the doctor was going to prove an irritation, I told her I didn't think so because what doctors really felt concerned about the most was when patients didn't respond to their treatments not when they did, although the one we'd spoken to was perceptive and rather clever but I wasn't going to let him outmanoeuvre me nor browbeat me, if it came to that.

In my mind I asked the energy to continue healing the other patients to distract the doctor even more. We ate at the hotel restaurant and the meal was adequate rather than brilliant but I said nothing to Danni, we ate an Italian meal, she has spag bol which she could have cooked herself at home and my ravioli was filling and tasty enough to meet my bodily needs along with the salad we'd eaten before. I'd read an article suggesting than any alcohol was potentially harmful to us, so made do with a coffee and then we had further tea in our room.

I settled down with a book called, 'The Ecology Of Aquatic Insects,' by Resh and Rosenberg, an American textbook, that cost me a few more pounds than I wanted to spend but the vendor had sent it from the States before I'd rushed off to Trish. I was looking for information to share with my students and the contents looked suitably challenging. Danni was also reading a book, another American one, 'Aquatic Insect Ecology.' It was also a mine of information by one author rather than many, which Resh and Rosenberg edited and provided a chapter. Ward was the second book's author and it appeared Danni was enjoying it until she nodded off and dropped the book without waking. I sent her to bed after that, she'd had quite a busy day and her body just closed down and she slept very well.

I didn't sleep quite as well my mind trying to understand why Trish was shot and did that mean we were all at risk. We'd just eaten in the restaurant and both agreed they couldn't do a full-English properly, so settled for eggs on toast. As we left the now busy restaurant I went off to the toilet and Danni stood about in reception reading the various adverts for the hotel and the area when one of the receptionists told her quite loudly that they could arrange things for her if she wanted. She had been addressed as Ms Cameron and although I had warned her to be careful she hadn't noticed the dark-haired man wander up to her. As I emerged into reception I noticed him reaching into the pocket of his coat and when he drew out a pistol I through myself at him with a zest that a rugby fullback would be proud of. I hit him in the abdomen waist area and the gun flew from his hand and we went sprawling onto the thick carpets. Danni, now alive to the threat, kicked him under the jaw and after his head hit the floor with quite a bump, he slumped into unconsciousness and she held out her hand to help me up. The police were summoned and we managed to get a cable tie from the hotel janitor and secured our would be attacker so he couldn't get away or hurt anyone else. I looked outside and there across the road was a motor scooter, which he'd used to escape after shooting Trish.

No ambulance was called and the police arrested the attacker who refused to give his name but the gun was seized and plenty of witnesses saw the whole thing and offered statements. I suspect much of it would be about my preventing the shooter from doing his deadly business and the unhesitating kick that Danni gave him to put him to sleep.

We spent two hours at the police HQ at the end it seemed like he was the same man who tried to kill Trish although of course, he pleaded otherwise accusing us of attacking him, he'd never seen the gun before yet it was covered in his prints and it was the one which shot Trish. I was cautioned over my tackle of the Russian as I could have been injured so I asked what I should have done, called to Danni? If I had we could have both been shot.

The man refused to say anything to the police except protest his innocence, and spout things in Russian. I nearly told the police if they let him go, I wouldn't and would do more than rugby tackle him next time unless he told me who employed him and why. Then I'd kill him. That was in my mind but I said nothing, except to tell the police to watch him carefully, they replied they would. I told them if he got off the charges, then I'd sue them I also wanted to know who he was, why he tried killing me and my daughters and who paid him? They suggested that it was unlikely he would talk, I offered to come and persuade him otherwise, which they declined but all our efforts were to come to naught when whoever the bad guys were shot him themselves and enough to mean he died without speaking.

We sent a message to Trish, that her attacker had been arrested but not that he'd been killed by other nasties, presumably to stop him talking. I told Danni that I didn't think much of their pension plan and she nearly wet herself laughing and had to run to the loo. On the way to dinner, we were accosted by a grey suited gentleman who had MI6 written all over him, who said he been dispatched by the British Ambassador as they heard about the plot to kill us.

Mr Bond, introduced himself and when he told us his name we both fell about laughing. He blushed and said that no one believes that it is his name, genuinely and that he was only a lowly civil servant attached to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Danni said that his namesake used to say the same, while I wondered if he was a protector, an investigator, or a plant by the Russians. They are very sneaky, don't play by any rules - thus liars, and happy to kill us, or was he genuine and just inept enough to be real. I asked him if he had a gun and he blushed enough for me to know he did, but he could just as easily come to kill us. He suggested no one carried guns in a neutral country. I told him that all Swiss nationals who were of fighting age, held a weapon at home and could be called up at a moment's notice. He pooh-poohed it.

After he left, some protector, I thought, I called the British embassy and asked if they knew anything about our visit from James Bond. It took a while, but they confirmed he had been told to make contact as our family was very important to the government and should we need any help just to call them. I told them they hadn't been any help so far and if I was that important why hadn't they? They didn't really answer my question

They invited Danni and I to go there the next day for a meeting with the deputy ambassador if he was available. I would make the point if I was important, why wasn't I meeting the ambassador not the monkey? I would play it all by ear and hope to get to see Trish by lunchtime. I wasn't too hopeful, it was probably pure bureaucracy and we excel at that. I told Danni that they were only talking to us now, was because Simon of Henry could create a real stink if anything happened to us rather than that they really cared. They probably knew we were both transwomen and were probably happy to throw us under JK Rowling's chauffeur driven bus, I would definitely see how we got along tomorrow at least Danni was quick to catch on so if I was uncomfortable, she'd support me and we'd leave no problem.