5. A Knife

Evil doings are afoot...

Jerry was on the phone, and both the expression on his face and the tone of his voice suggested that her was far from happy.

“Is that you, Tommy?” he barked when someone answered his call, “what in the name of goodness do you think, ringing me this morning and telling me Jonny’s not coming to visit until you can get the time off to bring him, possibly tomorrow but certainly not today?”

“I meant what I said, so what’s got into you?” replied Tommy McBride sharply. Ever since their daughter Janice had passed away soon after giving birth to the twins both he and Sylvia had resented the man who had taken her from them and fathered those twins, even though they had virtually adopted one of them in order to help.

“Then could you provide me with a reasonable explanation for me being in my local hospital whilst a doctor is examining the boy?” demanded Jerry.

“What do you mean? Jonny’s in your neck of the woods? Rubbish! He’s up in his room on his Playstation! Can’t you hear the tinkly music his favourite game plays from dawn to dusk?” He held the phone away from his head and couldn’t help being aware of an almost unnatural silence coming from the room upstairs.

“As I said, he’s upstairs,” he repeated, “hold on and I’ll fetch him to say hello himself.”

“There’s no need to pretend, Tommy,” snapped Jerry, “I know when I’m in the waiting room at hospital to find out why our son’s been bashed over the head and actually rendered unconscious in the woods near where I live. Get that: near where I live and nowhere near Brumpton, where you live!”

But he heard foosteps on his phone as Tommy almost raced up the stairs of his home, then he heard “Our Jonny, come and have a word with your dad and tell him you’re nowhere near a hospital!”

Then there was a spooky kind of silence. Then “Jonny, this is no time to play hide-and-seek! Come and assure your father that you’re nowhere near a hospital and certainly not in Midcomfort!!”

And Jerry could hear the desperation in the older man’s voice when he realised that Jonny was nowhere near his bedroom or his Playstation or even the house where he supposedly lived.

Then, “did you snatch him, you swine!” barked Tommy, convinced that if Jonny wasn’t where he thought he ought to be then he must have been abducted. And Jonny was such a nice kid, the sort anyone would be proud to call his son. It raced through his mind that Jerry was the sort of swine who would do just that, kidnap the boy in order to prove his own right to have him.

“You do know how ridiculous you sound?” sneered Jerry, “well, he’s here, from what he said he caught a bus on his own, found we were out and decided to go exploring and got himself clobbered in the woods behind our cottage.”

“I want him back! Now!” screamed Tommy.

Jerry heard, on his phone, the sound of a door opening and closing and then a woman’s voice, “what’s all this shouting about, Tommy? I could hear you down the street!”

Jerry shook his head. “Goodbye Tommy,” he said firmly, “I’ll ring when I find out more about how Jonny is, but be warned. You may be contacted by the police. The assault on the lad might have something to do with a group I’m researching.”

He disconnected the call as he saw Jonny being led towards him by a nurse.

“He had a nasty cut, but it’s superficial and no real harm was done,” she said with a smile.

“That’s good news,” he replied, “did he need any stitches?”

“Just a few,” she acknowledged, “he’s old enough to look on them as war wounds! But keep the area clean and the dressing changed regularly and he’ll be perfectly all right.”

“That’s the best news,” smiled Jerry, “come along, Jonny, we’ve got quite a lot of catching up to do! And I can see why your twin was confused when he saw you. You’re dressed almost the same as he is!”

“It wasn’t a plan,” grinned Jonny, “I just put on my best shorts and a tee-shirt, that’s all. But when I saw him it had me spooked too. I knew we were identical twins, but there’s identical and identical, and we’re identical I suppose.”

“That’s a very adult way of putting it,” smiled Jerry, “has your dad told you anything about what I do for a living, by any chance?”

“You’re my dad! Not him!” exclaimed the boy.

“I know, but he was your lovely mum’s own father, and she was a very special lady,” he told Jonny, “I often wish your brother Jack could have known her for more than the day or so that he and you did know her,”

“So do I.” Jonny’s brief reply was clearly from the heart, and Jerry decided to change the subject for the while. “Look, I’ll take you to Emerald Cottage, where Jack and I live. He’s talking to the police for the moment, about what happened to you which probably had something to do with me being what they like to call a secret agent, though I’m just an enquiry government employee keeping an eye on an unpleasant group who would want to take over the country, given half a chance. Now there you are: you know more about what I do for a living than your twin Jack does!”

“Does that make you quite important, dad?”

“Some people might think so. But I’m not really. I’m not really a spy either, though I do spy on them and the things they want to get up to, and if it seems they’re going to do something dodgy I get in the way of them doing it. Which is probably why you got bonked on the head. They thought you were Jack. One of them had apparently already threatened him, and then you come along and they get confused not knowing you’re a different person from the one they’d already had words with.”

Jonny looked at him for a moment, thoughtfully, weighing things up in his mind, then said “I’m glad I came here, then!”

Jerry pulled his car onto the short drive in front of the garage that was never used as a garage and turned to face his son.

“We’re here,” he said, “and a woman called Angela lives here, too. She was your mother’s best friend and really upset when she died.”

“Does Jack like her?”

“What an odd question! But yes, I believe he does. And she liked Jack for the same reason as I suspect she’ll like you very much. You’re the two boys that her best friend gave birth to. Now come on, let’s go indoors and I’ll see if I’ve got something you might like in the freezer. Like ice-cream, if you’re anything like your twin…”

“Strawberry!” grinned Jonny.

Jerry nodded. “Yes,” he said, “you are like him, then.”

He opened the door and they both went in.

But that’s as far as they went.

Lying on the rug in front of a rustic fireplace was Angela, and she had a very obvious knife sticking out of her chest, roughly where her heart might be.

© Peter Rogerson 30.06.24