7. The First Twin

Under orders from London, Jerry begins to doubt whether he's in thr right job

Jerry had dialled the London office of his department and demanded to speak to Major Witherington, his group leader and allegedly master of all he surveyed. Things were getting serious. What could only be an attempt on Angela’s life was in the hands of the police, and someone had bashed his eleven year old son Jonny over the head with something designed to hurt if not do actual life-threatening damage.

“I need to relocate,” he said in tones more spritely than he felt.

“Hold on, man!” barked the Major, who was noted for his inability to see anything more obvious than the nose in front of his own face, “you’re doing a grand job out there in the Styx! Keeping an eye on what might turn out to be our nemesis!”

“None-the-less, sir, the civilian police are involved and the attack actually in my own home on Angela Smithson is being treated as attempted murder! I have two sons who are at risk as well and I’m not happy about exposing them to the foul attentions of the Gloopy cell.”

“How can you have been so stupid, Newby, to let the plods of Midcomfort get their hands on who you are and where you live? Your orders are to operate out of range of civilian departments, especially the police force. You have let the department down, Newby, and need to tidy things up yourself by yesterday or you’ll be out on your ears!”

“Even if I have to share certain items with the police?” he asked, knowing that particular set of words was tantamount to being a red flag to a charging bull.

“Don't talk nonsense, man! What has happened to your priorities? The Gloopy cell in your neck of the woods is primed and ready to go into action at the drop of the probverbial hat and it’s your job to keep more than an eye on it! And if the police in Midcomfort catch so much as a whisper of it then we are doomed, the country will go to the dogs, the PM’s own constituency will be at risk and you will spend the remainder of your days behind bars as a failure! Do you get the message? I’ll send Glimpton for a couple of days to draw the fire from you, so prepare a spare room for him and make the usual offices available for a senior agent. Understand?”

Jerry did understand. He’d never met Glimpton but his name was in the same range of despised things as were diarrhoea and nuclear explosions among a multitude of other unpleasantnesses.

“I suppose so, sir,” he mumbled, and hung up.

“You look as if that didn’t go well,” sympathised DI Winthorpe as Jerry kicked the nearest piece if furniture in his anger.

“That was my boss and he ordered me not to share anything pertinent to my jab with you,” he said, “so if I do mention the odd little thing, I trust you’ll forget that you got it from me?”

Florence smiled at him. “I am prone to being grossly forgetful,” she told him, but I am conducting an investigation into a serious assault on a member of the public in her own home, and I’m bound to ask a few sensitive questions, like where were you when the incident happened?”

“Really, Florence, you know the answer to that one!” he said angrily, “and even if you didn’t I want you and your plods to know just what I think of Angela and how much I depend on her!”

“Calm down, Jerry: I know know all about the two of you because you’ve told me! But you must see what I mean: I need to know things, quite a lot of things if the truth be told, and some of them may have something to do with the shady world of spooks and spies and espionage that you inhabit.”

“We are all kept safe by my work in a shady world though, Florence. If civil war breaks out with real fighting and genuine weapons, then any number of men, women and, yes, children, might get killed before peace reigns once again.”

She nodded. “I understand that and also understand why we in the civilian police force should operate on a different level. I’m not a fool, you know. But your lot appear to have trespassed into my territory where punishing murder is still very much our raison d’etre, and when that sort of thing, including the brutal stabbing of a lovely lady, occurs then I’m afraid your shady world will have to take a bit of a back seat.”

“Enough said, Florence, and I agree,” he said with what he hoped was a smile but which may have looked more like a sneer, “as long as it’s you in charge of your lot,” he added, relaxing.

“And you remain in charge of yours,” she suggested.

“Touché,” he replied. “So can I start by asking if you have any inside information on a bloke with a Van Dyke beard living locally?”

She smiled broadly at him “You know,” she said, “I was going to ask you exactly the same question! It’s odd, don’t you think, that a member of what must be a fairly secret organisation has facial decorations that might easily identify him?”

“Unless it’s just that: decoration stuck on to deceive you lot.”

“And you lot!” she pointed out.

Neither of them knew where the conversation might go but they were interrupted by the twins coming down from Jack’s room where they had been engaged in something that had made them both thoughtful on his Playstation. Angela was up in her room recovering from her shock and after a brief discussion with Jerry trying to work out if the risks involved in living with him were worth it even though she really did love Jack because he was his mother’s son.

“Dad,” said Jack, “tell Jonny which of us is the oldest?”

Jerry nodded. It was a question he had often teased himself by asking it and knew that maybe a midwife somewhere knew the answer (if she could remember it) but as they had been born via a Caesarian section, to all intents and purposes they had been born at precisely the same time, though maybe one of them was a minute or two older than the other. But what, he thought, significance is there in a single or two minutes?

“If one of you went to the top of a very tall building and the other went half way up, and then you both jumped, which one of you would land on the ground first?” he asked.

“But we’d be dead!” protested Jonny.

“Both of us,” added Jack.

“So it wouldn’t matter which of you landed first?” queried Jerry.

Both boys shook their heads, puzzled by the twist their dad had put on their question.

“You were like that when you were born,” smiled Jerry, ”maybe minutes apart, but both alive, and that was important.”

“But which of us was the minute soonest?” asked Jack.

“Look, son, you were once a single egg. You’ve done this at school, right? The facts of life, what happens to make a new person? Well soon after your egg was fertilised it divided. Into two equal parts which for the sake of argument we’ll call Jack and Jonny. But that division only happened once. So it must have been an identical split second for both of you as the egg split into two. One half of the egg turned into Jonny and the other half into Jack, and you both developed until you were big enough to be born. And because there were problems the doctors decided to operate on your mum and whip you both out. Maybe a second or even minute or two separated you, but nobody remembers which one came first. There’s maybe a smelly old record on thin card or paper that gives the detail, but to me it’s not important.”

“Nor me, dad,” said Jack.

“That’s not what you said upstairs!” protested Jonny.

“Changed my mind,” grinned Jack, “come on: let’s play something else!”

© Peter Rogerson 02.07.24