Chapter 14

“Oh. You mean Daddy is already on the case?”’

“Didn’t he tell you? I must point that out to him, but he has had a lot on his mind.”

“Sorry to have bothered you, Jenny. I should have thought of this claim much earlier.”

“Not to worry, Freda. These things happen. Life is never simple, is it?”

As she spoke, there was a crashing sound as the glass in the office front door was smashed. Without a word, Jenny cut off the phone and dealt with what faced her, leaving Freda out of it, astonished and frightened at what might be going on. She went to redial, then decided that life might be too complicated for Jenny to speak now.

In the outer office, Jenny saw a man in a V for Vendetta mask burst through the already unlocked broken door, brandishing a knife, screaming “Where is he? I am going to get him this time!”

Jenny leaned under her desk to pick up something hanging on hooks, then with her other hand, pointed at her employer’s inner office. She stood up, one occupied hand behind her back as she asked loudly but politely, “Who shall I say is calling, sir?”

The man stopped in surprise, to take in this extremely commonplace query, and snarled, “Jessica’s husband, of course!” and turned back to attack the inner door to get to the target of his ire. Stepping behind him after he passed, Jenny swung her weapon in a wide arc as hard as she could and brought her police truncheon violently down on the back of his head with a solid thump. The man staggered and involunarily dropped his knife. In between starting to look for it and at the same time see who had hit him, his consciousness left him, and he collapsed face down on the floor.

At this point the inner office door opened, and Hubert Dangerfield stood staring at the sight on the parquet floor of an unconscious man, with Jenny standing over him, one foot now pinning the knife to the floor and one hand brandishing a truncheon. She looked over at her employer.

“My apologies, sir. I asked who he was, to introduce him, but all he said was ‘Jessica’s husband, of course!’ He attempted to enter and attack you with a knife, so I prevented that happening.”

Hubert took this news in, then bent to get a better look at the unconscious man, and nodded his approval when he saw the mask.

“Well done, Jenny.”

He pulled the man over on his side, and wrenched the mask off. He observed the intruder’s features and decided, “Yes. Mr Sadaf, I do believe; finally following through on his earlier attack. A man of very little brain, I am afraid. We must restrain him before he wakes up, Jenny.”

“Of course, sir. One minute.”

She returned to her desk and rummaged in one of the drawers, producing a set of handcuffs.

“These will do in the interim, I think.” She efficiently pulled the man’s hands behind his back and fastened the cuffs on him, as Hubert stared in amazement.

“Where did the cuffs and the truncheon come from, Jenny?”

“One of my girlfriends, sir. She once had a stab at magic tricks, but gave it up after a while. The truncheon and cuffs were part of the act. You can get out of the cuffs easily if you know how. Mr Sadaf won’t know the trick. The truncheon is just that: a truncheon, that she bought on e-Bay. After that first attack on you, she offered me these items for my personal use, if the need arose. It just did, so she deserves a big kiss for that.”

“Jenny, I would kiss her myself, to say thanks, if I thought she would like it, but I suspect not.”

“Oh, no, sir. In the right context, she will accept a kiss from anyone.”

“Okay. For the moment, has anyone rung the police?”

“No idea, sir. Someone else in the building may have done so, if they saw him with a knife, but I shall do that myself, just in case: belt and braces.”

She handed the truncheon to Hubert, saying, “If he starts moving again, a hard impact should do the job,” and returned to her desk to make the phone call.

The police emergency switchboard assured her that the alarm had already been raised for the address, and a car was on its way, but could she give an update, please.

“Male intruder, wielding a knife in his right hand, and intent on harming Hubert Dangerfield, Q.C. I was able to get behind him and render him unconscious before he reached Mr Dangerfield’s office door. The assailant currently remains unconscious and restrained by trick handcuffs that were in my desk at the time. An ambulance might be needed for the assailant, as he may have concussion. There is no sign of blood on the man’s head.”

“That is an excellent report, madam. Did you ever do a spell in the force or the military?”

“No. I am Personal Assistant to Mr Dangerfield, and accuracy is important to a lawyer, thus I have trained myself to be complete and accurate in reporting to him.”

“Impressive. The constables should be with you shortly, and you can report directly to them. I will organise an ambulance to the same address. Thank you for your help. Goodbye.”

Hubert was standing with one foot on the man’s back, holding him down as he started squirming from the pain in his head.

“Do I need to hit you again, Mr Sadaf? Or will you cease wriggling?”

Sadaf simply groaned as he tried to remain still, and two minutes or so later, the broken door was slowly pushed open by a cautious policeman checking that no intruder was in a position to attack him.

Jenny called, “Please come in, constable. We have the intruder on the floor, ready for you.”

The policeman ignored Jenny and instead concentrated on the man on the floor. His partner remained at the door, watching avidly. The active one noted the handcuffs plus the truncheon and raised his eyebrows at Hubert, who raised his foot from the man’s body and advised, “You should change these for your own handcuffs, constable. These are ‘magic trick’ handcuffs. The truncheon was the weapon that my P.A. found handy when the attack happened. The man never reached my office door.”

“Do you know him, sir?” The policeman asked as he deftly opened the fake cuffs with practiced ease, and replaced them with his own. He retained the trick cuffs and dropped them into a plastic bag as evidence in the case. “Good quality magic cuffs, these,” he commented. Hubert chose to answer the question put to him.

“I cannot be certain as yet, but from his visage, colouring, and what he said to my P.A. about being ‘Jessica’s husband’, I can tentatively identify him as a Mr Sadaf, of Pakistani origin, a former suspect in a previous attack on my person on the street. The assailant was never caught for that attack, but the resemblance is telling.

I acted on behalf of a Jessica Sadaf in her successful divorce proceedings, so he is only her ex-husband, no matter what he might claim. She has since left the area and found a new partner, or so I am led to believe.”

His careful statement covered him for all eventualities.

The wailing of an ambulance siren heralded the arrival of that emergency service. The first policeman leaned over to take close look at Sadaf, noting the flickering eyelids. “He’ll live, I think.”

The ambulance trauma team entered at a wave from the policeman at the door, and were examining their patient at once. The policeman informed them, “A strike by the P.A. with a truncheon while protecting her employer. He has been semi-comatose ever since.”

“Strong suggestion of concussion in that case, so he will have to go to hospital.”

“He will need a police guard in case he wakes up. He is the suspect in an attack on this lawyer.”

“You can come along with us. We need him to be seen by a doctor as soon as possible.”

With that plan established, the other policeman decided to follow the ambulance in his car after recording statements by Jenny and Hubert; and reporting the situation to his base station, so that they could organise a continuing watch on the suspect in hospital.

As the policeman at last closed his machine and bid them farewell, Jenny remembered Freda’s call.

“Sir, just before this interruption to our day, Freda called to ask about making an injury claim resulting from the rail crash. I explained that you were already working on it, but she was still on the line when the door glass broke, so I cut her off. I had best get back to her to assure her all is fine; and then I must arrange for the door to be repaired, or at least made secure by close of business today.”

“Hmm ... You concentrate on the door, and I’ll speak to Freda. She will want to hear my voice, to reassure her that we are fine.”

Moments later, he phoned from his office to Freda’s mobile.

“Freda. Dad here. Sorry about you being cut off. We had an intruder, but Jenny dealt with him. The police were here, and the ambulance to take the intruder to hospital. Jenny bashed him over the head; I did nothing. It was all over by the time I opened my office door. Jenny even had a pair of handcuffs in her desk drawer. Apparently they are trick cuffs from a magic act!”

Freda interrupted, “But you are both okay, Daddy? Nobody hurt at all, apart from the intruder?”

“I promise you, daughter; we are both unharmed. Now that was a bit slow of you to not recognise the possibility of a legal claim on the rail company after a train crash!”

“Sorry, Daddy. I know I failed on that one. I must have been too distracted by events around me. We are now assuming that the threat to Jenny came from the same source as ours: the reporter’s husband, wanting to help her, but just digging a bigger hole for her.

With the help we got from the Personalia, the man will not try anything like that again. The reporter has been sacked for her part in it. The Trumpet editor was quite adamant that her behaviour was unforgiveable.”

“I understand. The newspaper will still be faced with a large claim, but not perhaps a punitive one if the editor is conciliatory.”

“Anyway, as long as neither of you is hurt ... will this make a change to Jenny’s thoughts on emigration?”

“She hasn’t said, yet. We must give her time to think about it. She can stay and keep her job, or go to Rehome and marry her girlfriends. It may take some deep and careful thought for all of them, for I don’t know their employment situation.”

“Thanks for letting me know, Daddy. I was fearful of what might have happened to you; and to Jenny.”

“Freda my love; just look after your little one. We old folk can look after ourselves; at least Jenny can.” He barked a short laugh as a thought struck him. “I wonder if she has been training her potential successor in protection duties as well as her normal tasks?”

“Make sure she does, Daddy. Reg got us girls some self-defence training at the university which has proved useful. Sidra and Elizabeth want to get the same instruction, but they are still in their mid-teens, so I don’t know.”

“It is never too early to learn how to look after yourself, Freda. I shall push Jenny on this, even though she did well today.”

Freda passed on to Frances the excitement at her father’s law practice, and told her that he was already working on the injury claim.

“That’s great, Freda. Good for you.”

Freda blushed. “Not me, Frances. Daddy was already working on it before I phoned. He was more with it than me. As soon as I had told him about the train crash he was thinking of the next steps. He remembered I had said we were in hospital in York, so he has got that documentation in hand. They would tell him that continuing medical help was provided in Scarborough, for the doctor would have been in touch with them for the background facts.”

“Well, that’s fine. Don’t worry about it, Freda. We all slip from time to time. Remember how many times we had to correct Reg until he got how to behave around other people.”

“Except for lovemaking, Frances. He got into that pretty quickly!”

“That was through plenty of practice, Freda. He keeps learning new tricks from one or other of us. Jessica is always wanting to try out different positions, he tells me. All these years of marriage and nothing worthwhile from her husband; pathetic man.”

“Oh, that reminds me. The intruder was Mr Sadaf, Jessica’s ex-husband. The man never seems to learn to give up on a bad job. He’ll be put away for a long time for that attempted murder with a knife.”

“A knife? The man is a fool. If it had been Reg that he was after, he could have died, based on Reg’s track record.”

Freda had had enough. “Frances? Can we take ourselves home as soon as possible? I can’t relax with my baby with all this unwanted excitement around us.”

“The carriage should be available for the return leg of the journey, so if you are all of a mind, we can make that arrangement. Where’s Reg just now?”

“He’s around somewhere. It is too early in the day for him to be making love to someone. Perhaps teaching Elizabeth and Sidra something useful?”

“That is a possibility. I’ll try their room, and if not, then the lounge.”

They were located in the lounge, and Reg was with them, listening to what they had to say. Elizabeth was speaking.

“But why is that, Reg? Why do so many people listen to quack doctors who are spouting nonsense? The history books are full of charlatans promising the Earth. It is so silly, for it is clearly rubbish, but people seem to listen to them. Why?”

“It is a combination of factors that apply to all human beings, Elizabeth. Folk want to believe that there is a solution to every problem, and that includes medical problems. You and I know that medical science will never catch up with all human ailments, but there will always be those who live in hope that there is a cure just round the corner for themselves or their spouse, and even more so, for a child. If your child was dying, you would try anything that might give you hope, wouldn’t you?”

“Even if the promised medicine was clearly nothing more than a concoction of herbs made into a potion?”

“More so then, for there is ample evidence that certain herbs have medical benefits, such as willow bark that contains aspirin, and the feverfew plant that helps with migraine. The fact that some herbs are valuable for some treatments make the desperate imagine that some herb, any herb, might do the job for them. Human beings are already geared up to accept as fact what is not provable by science, such as a religious deity. At least half the population can accept the existence of God, even if most of them never practise any religion.

Then think about politics: at an election, politicians will promise you that they have the answers to all the country’s problems, yet many of them offer opposing solutions. They can’t all be right, but millions will swear that their preferred candidate’s policy is correct. Mostly they do not listen to the words used, for most politians hedge their bets by claiming that their solution will work, given specified conditions. If it fails to work, then the excuse is that conditions were not right, or their claim was misunderstood, or it was someone else’s fault, or they answered the one question but it was not the right question to ask, or the facts have changed in the interim. There are always excuses for the politician’s failure: it is not HIS failure; it is someone else’s failure, or misreporting on the facts.

Do you see? Excuses are legion for the politician, the religious leader, the medical man whose cure doesn’t work, the inventor whose machine fails to do what was promised. Often the accused politician simply attacks the accuser, rather than deal with the facts.

What you have to learn is how to discern the phony from the accurate; the wild hope from the researched facts; the veiled promise that is not really a promise, just an expectation. If you can look rationally at the true facts of the case, the faulty reasoning is usually clear. When astronomers looked at the heavens, they had to work out what they were seeing. However, the Book of Genesis appeared to offer an explanation, and in the context of a religious world, your conclusions have to match the ‘revealed word of God’ in some way.

That was why it took centuries for the observed facts of the night sky to be correctly interpreted. There were a dozen theories trying to explain how the peculiar movements of the planets could be reconciled with a universe that according to the Vatican, revolved around the Earth. Even the concept of moons around other planets did not fit their concept of crystal spheres where all the stars and planets were fixed. The stars appeared to stay fixed, but the planets moved, and in odd ways, spoiling their theories. Occasional eclipses also did not fit the theories, so new variations of their theories had to be incorporated to explain these anomolies.”

“But Dad, all they had to do was point out the facts, surely?”

“Ever tried to tell a convinced adherent to a faith – any kind of faith - that he is wrong? You will almost certainly fail to get through to him. He already KNOWS he is right, so he can’t accept any alternative.

The same applies to organisations. If a religious dogma says one thing and the facts say another, in a religious-oriented society, the dogma will win out and the facts get ignored as irrelevant or misobserved: a mistake.

An example I gave to someone before was the medical fraternity having been convinced by a single test that the stomach acids of a person did not host bacteria, then by simple unthinking reasoning, ALL stomachs were without bacteria. That thinking is like saying ‘this tree produces chestnuts, so all trees produce chestnuts!’ This led to many decades of treatment for stomach ulcers as an imbalance of acids, when all the time the ulcer was caused by bacteria in the stomach. Simple errors lead to silly conclusions that are like religious dogma: difficult to get through to doctors that they might be wrong. You cannot get researchers to look for bacteria when everyone KNOWS there are none, all without checking for valid evidence in the past.”

Sidra asked, “So that is why so many new ideas take so long to be accepted?”

“Exactly. There is an inbuilt mental world that says that a thing is so; and to offer a counter concept is to go against all those who have espoused the original. These in the past may have included university professors whose idea of teaching is to refer to the books of ancients from a thousand years before. Testing old, ingrained ideas is going against what people KNOW to be true from the old books, so you categorically object to testing what is accepted reality.”

Frances broke in, “Reg, can I challenge your own reality by asking when we should be going home? Have you asked the other ladies their opinion yet?”

Reg looked up at her, and faltered. “Sorry, Frances. I hadn’t gone that far. What did you think?”

“I am happy to go along with the others, once I know their minds. Would you be so good as to go around them and ask if leaving in the next couple of days is acceptable?”

“Is that feasible? Is the coach fixed?”

“Yes, the company said that it was only minor repairs to the bogies of the coach, and a couple of wheels had to be sent for reprofiling due to the sharp braking. They are happy with the restoration at the repair depot. It is good as new, according to the woman I spoke to. There will be a report with the carriage, ‘for our special customers to see that the carriage has been made good’.”

“Excellent. Does that mean it will be here at Scarborough station for us?”

“Yes. I thought I made that clear. Day after tomorrow for certain; possibly tomorrow; depends on getting it from the repair workshop to Scarborough, hitched to a scheduled train.”

“Fine. Speak to the girls then. I’ll be fine with whatever they decide.”

As it turned out, there was general agreement on the day after tomorrow, so Frances told the rail company that they would board the carriage that morning, if there was a train service that would land them up at Luton again. The company phoned her back within the hour to say that they had a t route with several changes that would get them where they wanted to be. It would mean three changes of train to be fixed to, but preparations were in hand for that. They simply had to be aboard the carriage by 9.30 am, to allow for necessary shunting of the train between platforms to place them at the end of the train.

The same consultation was used by Frances to deliberate on emigration, and the legal marriage promised made all the difference, especially for the Robson girls. They were afraid their parents would be unable to leave the farm for some days, due to animals needing fed and watered. Frances told them that new settlers got a land grant and that might suit the farming couple if they didn’t mind upping their roots for ever. If they could get a neighbour to fill in for a few days, they could see what Rehome was like and the deal offered, before deciding.

“Do they own their land?” Frances asked.

Jemima looked puzzled at the question, as she had never thought about ownership, but Hermione had.

“They lease the land from a big landowner, Frances.”

“In that case, they might end up better off to take a land grant, if they don’t mind starting with virgin ground.”

Hermione decided, “I’ll speak to them, Frances. They are not completely stuck on tradition; they may be willing to look at new land that they would own. Will it be decent farming land?”

“That may be up for negotiation, but I am assuming that the best farming land will be reserved for known farmers.”

“That could be tempting for Dad. I’ll ring them and raise the idea with him.”

That call from Hermione was not what the Robsons were expecting.

“Eh? Emigrate? Why?”

“I am not asking you to emigrate right away, Dad. You can come and see the land, when you are there to attend our wedding.”

“Wedding?” Mr Robson was lost for a moment.

“Oh, sorry. I was getting ahead of myself, Dad. All of us – the Robertson family – are moving to Rehome to get formally married, and we will get a land grant for moving to Rehome. If you like the look of the place and want a land grant to own and farm, it comes free with your immigrant status.”

“I have never heard of this Rehome place, Hermione. Where the heck is it?”

“It is not a place, but a planet, Dad. It is the first human colony on another planet, and emigration is by invitation.”

“Really? So who issued you the invitation?”

“The Personalia asked us if we would like to emigrate, when they heard about the press intrusion into our family structure.”

“Hold on a minute, girl. I heard something about an article in the Daily Trumpet, and a later retraction, so I ignored it; but this Personalia thing means nothing to me. I have never heard of this person or group.”

“That is because the Personalia are alien spaceships that are allied to mankind. They provide transportation between Earth and Rehome. You get to take what you can carry in a suitcase or rucksack, just like with an airline, but if you emigrate to Rehome, you can remit digital cash into the Bank of Rehome, for your land needs a house built on it.”

“Okay, I can see that this is beyond normal emigration, but you said a formal marriage there. Does that mean the laws on marriage are not the same as here?”

“Exactly, Dad! You can have as many spouses as you like, but the marriage is permanent: no divorces, just banishment to Earth if you threaten the marriage. Jemima and I are delighted with the idea of being legal wives to Reg.”

“Does that mean your babies will become legal as well?”

“Umm ... yes, they will. Reginald is already officially registered as their father, so this will complete the legality.”

“He did that? Registered himself as the father, despite what happened to you?”

“Hmm ... yes.” Hermione’s voice took on a timbre that her father recalled when she was not telling the whole truth. He queried her.

“Hermione? You are not telling me the whole truth, are you?”

“Not quite, Dad. Jemima and I actually got Reg to make love to us, once we saw what a good deal his girls had, so they really are his children!”

“My God! That explains why he was so solicitous towards them; they were his own babies!”

“Yes, Dad, and now we get to marry him for real, on Rehome. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Hermione, are you and Jemima completely sure you want to do this? Both of you marrying the same man?”

“Dad, can you imagine what we might have been like, had Reg and his family not taken us on? We might have ended up as drug addicts or promiscuous women, not caring about the future. This way, we are caring mothers with a caring husband – or husband-to-be – and a stable family life. Which do you think is better for us?”

Hre father paused, then repied, “When you put it that way, I suppose the new you is much preferable. I can’t fault Reg and Frances, and the rest of the family, for the way they turned you round, just making you both pregnant; that seems wrong.”

“It is not just us that Reg and Frances reformed, Dad. We have two teenage daughters in the family now. One was a runaway from an abusive father, and the other we saved from suicide and changed her world around. Both are now adopted daughters of Reg and we are home-schooling them; or rather the girls who are at university are doing the teaching. Jemima and myself are picking up some of the stuff they are learning, where we ignored the same material at school. The Robertson family are strong on learning, so we have adopted the same strategy, to be able to teach our children; and learning can be fun, if you treat it in the right way. The girls taught Jemima and myself all the facts about pregnancy and childbirth, so that we knew what was happening all the way through. We had to learn about health risks and how to manage them and take them in our stride. Fear of the unknown is far worse than judging the risks of death through childbirth. We learned that fewer than ten in a hundred thousand pregnancies and births in the UK result in the death of the mother, so it is safer than crossing a busy road! And even then, the risk is higher for women over 40 or who are obese, so having babies in your twenties is a low risk affair, unless you are black or Asian for some unknown reason. You see what I mean about learning being fun?”

Her father let his breath out. “Hermione, I never expected to hear you, of all people, praising learning, so if that is what life with Reginald is doing for you, you have my blessing. Do you want your mother to know that Reginald fathered your babies; or shall I keep it to myself?”

“Use your own judgement, Dad. I trust you to do the right thing for her, just as you always tried to do the right thing for us. Handing us over to Reg and his family to be reformed was the best thing you ever did for us.”

Mr Robson was chuffed to have his good judgment recognised. “Right. Now what about this Rehome thing? The wedding, and so on?”

“We haven’t fixed a timetable yet, but we should be moving there soon. The trip is astonishingly fast: only a few hours from planet to planet, they tell us: unbelievable! We will fix the date and time of the wedding once we arrive, but we would love you to travel with us for the experience of a lifetime.”

“But where do the spaceships take off from? Cape Canaveral, or some other spaceport? I didn’t hear of such comings and goings.”

“Nothing like that, Dad. It seems the spaceport is at Ascenscion Island, in mid-Atlantic, out of sight of practically everyone except the military. The RAF fly you to Ascension, and the spaceships take you up from there. It is almost as easy as arranging a flight to the USA.”

“Very well. Keep in touch, Hermione, and let us know when and how we get to the RAF flight line.”

“Will do, Dad. Bye.”

Hermione found Jemima playing with her baby, and told her what had transpired with their father. Jemima merely declared, “That sounds fine, Hermione. I’ll leave you to do the keeping in touch. You’d best tell Frances as well, so she is up to date.”

The next day was mostly spent preparing for leaving; doing essential shopping to replenish supplies, catching up with laundry needs, and buying a few small souvenirs of the locality for their parents, including the sweet delicacy of Scarborough rock that the two mid-teens took a liking for.

Frances booked the rail carriage for the morning start at Scarborough station, and phoned the minibus hire firm to pay their bill by credit card, including the final trip from the hotel to the station. Thus they were well prepared for the rail schedule in the morning.

Reg made a point of meeting with the hotel manager and thanking him for making their stay comfortable and pleasurable, and gave him his company credit card to pay the bill. The manager was effusive with his thanks, adding how much he appreciated the help with the hotel budget.

Reg told him the time they expected their minibus to collect them in the morning, and asked that anything left through forgetfulness be disposed of unless the manager thought it worth phoning about. He explained that they were now thinking of emigrating soon, and additional baggage items would not be welcomed by the transportation people.