No peace whatsoever

Hello all

Am currently in Glasgow, sitting in the business centre of the Scottish Exhibition Centre. They are charging me the extortionate price of £1 per ten minutes, and as I can't type very fast I'm going to have to keep this fairly short.

As previously mentioned, I am attending ICOPA - the world's largest gathering of Parasitologists. I have left the turmoil of previous weeks behind for the time being. Let me fill you in on what happened after we got back from Hunstanton though, so that we are all up to date.

Essentially it was like this: after many hours driving northwards we landed up at the Institute about 11pm. It was a bamly evening and the two of us were in fairly good spirits despite our fatigue. It was nice to be home of course, and Dolores went immediately to put the kettle on for a cup of late-night tea. I went towards the integrated lounge area (ILA) - a specially constructed module used by members of the team for relaxation. The first thing that caught my eye when I entered the room was the flashing red light of the answer phone. The next thing I noticed as I switched on the light was a piece of paper stuck to the phone. It read 'URGENT MESSAGES'. Slightly bemused, I lifted the reciever and pressed play. The first message went like this.....

'Good evening Dr McCrumble. This is detective sergeant Henry Bosworth calling from the serious......'

I moved onto the next message in a hurry, lest Dolores hear something.

'Hello. This is Constable McJohnson. I've received a report about an incident recently in the village.....'

Next!

'Ahh, hello? Dr McCrumble? I'm calling from the Norfolk constabulary regarding an alleged incident...'

My heart started thumping even as I softly replaced the receiver. It was clear to me even without listening to the messages why these police people were calling. If you look through recent blogs you will find that I have been adversely affected by several events, not all of which were under my control. On the one hand it was a good thing that the police had finally got involved, as it meant I could defend myself properly. On the other, and under a worst-case-scenario type situation, I was looking at potentially serving time in three seperate prisons over a long period. My demenour immediately shifted from tired-but-content to one of my-life-is-ruined. A blanket of misery smothered my mind.

'Who rang?' asked Dolores as she came in the room.

'Er, no-one?' I tried, my voice weakened by the sudden stress.

'So the answerphone light was flashing spontaneously was it?'

'Oh, that....just some sales people trying to, er, sell us some reagents. They want to send a rep around. I'll, er, deal with it in the morning.'

'You're lying Joseph. I can tell. But I'm too tired to interrogate the truth out of you. Bedtime I think.'

I was now too alert and worried to sleep properly. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't bring peace to my mind for a couple of hours. When I did sleep, I had a dream where 3 policemen were pinning me to the ground and singing old Bing Crosby numbers to a sleeping fat lady who turned out to be a high court judge disguised as a prison visitor. Towards the end of the dream the fat lady sent me down for fifty years without hope of parole and demanded that my liver be removed for experimental purposes. I awoke in a cold sweat, unsure of my surroundings and feeeling quite unsettled.....

**** To be Continued!*******