13. Adjoining Doors

The Reverend Pickle is on his way to a spiritual retreat

“Right you two scallywags,” grated DI Glumpy to the two teenagers sitting before him in Interview Room 1. Also there was Dr Gloria Blanding who had agreed to stand in as an appropriate adult seeing that the boys were youung in years and younger in outlook..#

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jed Scumbag with a catch-all grin spread across his face.

“Sorry for what?” demanded the DI

“Whatever it is we’ve done,” shrugged Jed.

“Like he says,” agreed Gozza Scumbag.

“It would be good to know what you’re apologising for,” said the DI in the fiercest voice he could muster without shouting for fear of being overheard by the Superintendent whose office was nearby and who spent every day with an isn’t life wonderful look on his face whenever he remembered the twins still in the first days of their lives in the double cot at his home, as well as an increasingly weary walk as he moved about the station.

“I dunno,” replied Jed.

“Were it that vicar?” asked Gozza.

“Which vicar?” barked the DI.

“The one as was done for nicking ‘undreds of pounds from the bank,” explained Gozza, “I ‘eard he ‘ad pockets overflowing with fifty oncer notes!”

“You did, did you? Well, you were wrong: if he had as much as a ten bob note we would have found it!”

“What’s a ten bob note, sir?” asked Jed.

“More money than you’d be worth if you lived to be twenty!” snarled a frustrated Detective Inspector who found this younger generation frustrating even when they were angelic like he was sure he had been back in his teens.

“I’ll be twenty in a couple of years,” grinned Gozza

“And me in three,” added Jed.

“So why did you take a rolling pin into the bank and wave it about in a criminal fashion?” asked DI Glumpy, “because it goes down in the law as a dangerous weapon when it’s in the hands of thugs like you two.”

“Thugs?” queried the doctor.

“It’s a term we use when discussing important matters with children, like these two.” explained the DI, aware that he had let his calm exterior slip a little, though at the same time putting the two boys in their place by referring to them as children..

“Just go easy, Inspector,” she said, “because to my reckoning they’ve got to be at least two years older, and maybe even three, before they can rightly be promoted to being thugs!”

“OK,” grunted the DI, “then you two, one at the time if you please, explain why you had a picture of a dangerous weapon drawn on an illustrated copy of the Old Testament whilst you were in a bank where guns, even pictures of them, are forbidden!”

Neither Scumbag could find as answer to that, neither both at the same time or separately.

Meanwhile Bishop Pyke had pulled up to the parsonage in hjs limousine and had even helped carry Mrs Dresden’s suitcases to his car and was carefully stacking them into the boot, leaving plenty of space for the Reverend Barney Pickle to lay his own luggage for a fortnight away from home.

But when he appeared at the door carrying two plastic carrier bags the Bishop raised both eyes.

“What have you got there, Pickle?” he asked, “There’s no space for your old rubbish in this fine car of mine.”

“I don’t have a case, sir, but I reckon these two bags will do just as well.”

“What have you got in them, man?”

“My spare clothes, sir, and plenty of underpants, including the three new airs that dear Mrs Dresden bought when she went to do my shopping.”

“All of your clothes in just two bags?” asked a shocked Bishop, “What about a suit or two? Spare trousers neatly folded? Pyjamas?

“I’ve got all I need, sir,” he assured his Bishop, knowing what he owned was inadequate and even ashamed of what might be seen as poverty on his part. And he supposed that’s exactly what it was. His other clothes were from a variety of charity shops and he was afraid that if he took them with him a previous owner might recognise them and make embarrassing comments. He even felt nervous when he wore them in church even though they were mostly hidden by his surplice.

“You silly boy,” smiled Mrs Dresden, “I knew you’d forget that charcoal suit of yours so I tucked it in my own case.”

“Oh dear,” groaned Pickle.

“Then off we go,” announced Bishop Pyke, “and I do believe we’ll be passing Swanspottle boot sale on the way and I might pop in. Mrs Pyke is trying to collect the full set of Morse dramas, you know, the police and murder things off the tv, and they sometimes make an appearance at such affairs.”

That was complete gobbledegook to the Reverend Pickle, though he did know what a boot sale was and had also gone to the specific one mentioned by the bishop and one or two of his more fashionable items of clothing had originated from there.

So they set off, calling briefly at the boot fair where Mrs Dresden spotted a pair of almost brand new shoes she was certain would fit the vicar abd talked him to parting with a paltry sum in order to acquire them.

It was only a short run from Swanspottle to a hidden corner of the planet where Cowslip Retreat was approached by a rather untidy narrow lane that terminated in the broad and well maintained front of what must have once be a country estate house and had been converted, by an obscure order of monks named by themselves as the Order of the Onion, into a Retreat where they had a scheme designed to both reinvigorate those in need of spiritual guidance and, as a side benefit, relieve them of a generous amount of their funds in recompense.

They were greeted by a well tanned and smiling man in a brown monk’s habit

“Welcome, dear visitors,” he said with arms open wide as if he intended to hug the three of them all together, “let me see… who do we have here?” He indicated the Reverend Pickle and Mrs Dresden, “I know you, of course, Bishop, but is this Mr and Mrs…”

“They’re not married as I said when I booked them in!” snapped the Bishop, frowning, “The Reverend Barney Pickle has been .through a terrible experience and Mrs Dresden is the good lady who has agreed to assist him in his way to recovery. Now, brother, will you take them to their rooms!”

“Of course,” nodded the monk, still smiling, “two rooms with an adjoining door. This way, please.” And he marched them off before anyone could ask him why on Earth the two who were staying needed an adjoining door.

© Peter Rogerson, 11.04.24