14. Ticking and Ticking and Ticking

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

Quite a lot of information spills out as Mr Glimpton is revealed to be...

Besides being the big cheese in a highly secret office in London, most of who knew Major Witherington were aware that he was a very private individual. He had a seemingly impossible knack of combining his influential position at the heart of delicate investigations which went well beyond the remit of MI5 or MI6, with that of a hearty family man who was never afraid to enjoy a pint at his local pub in the company of unknown strangers who may well include some who he ought to distrust. And as well as I that he imposed strict limitations on the lives of those beneath him in the hierarchy lived. In his mind it kept him safe.

And here he was in Midcomfort!

But what impressed Jerry more than anything else was the effect that the sudden familiar voice had on Mr Glimpton or White, whatever his name might be. Because that man went white as his name suggests and even reached for his forbidden pipe and struck his lighter whilst ignoring the frown on Jerry’s face. He needed the comfort of a smoke.

But that reaction took only a fraction of a second, because the door burst open and the Major stood there, a broad smile on his face and, incongruously, a lavatory seat hanging from one hand.

“Sir!” protested Jerry, “there are youngsters in the house!”

“You gave yourself away, laddie,” grated the Major, facing the shaking pipe-smoking and bearded Glimpton, “an expert in the world of our avian friends in search of, what, some rare specimen on the brink of extinction or, what was it, the cuckoo? Is that what you told the lad? Hoping like all kids he’d swallow it up and not think twice? Well, laddie, he did do a double-think. And he just told me!”

“But…” stammered Glimpton, searching for more words and failing to find them and remaining silent.

“But I will continue,” added the Major, and he held the lavatory seat aloft, “you see this, laddie,” he said with a smile, “this seat has quite a story to tell. Do you recognise it? Have you perchance seen it before? Maybe lifted it as all men should when using the loo for liquid expulsion. And with your brother? Both handling it? And both sharing the same finger prints?

“Sir!” protested Jerry, “the twins! And the lady!”

“Ah, the twins, you say, Mr Newby, but which twins? Your own angels, and I have it on good authority that that’s what they are, angels in the fight we all are tasked to wage against the forces of evil. No, sir, not those two, who are a credit to you, but Mr Glimpton here and the poor wee might that struggled towards life with him in his mother’s womb but never quite made it to the light of day, poor wee thing… I could weep, I really could...”

Glimpton’s face twisted in a show of rage when he heard those words.

“Stop there!” he pleaded, “Sebastian is not here to defend himself.”

“But he is,” said the Major, his eyes doing their best to pierce his man to the heart, “aren’t you, Sebastian,” he grated, “I’m not privy to the information that tells of your past, sir, the convoluted route that led you to such deception, but I know of the present, how you make out to the world that you are both Percival and Sebastian White according to where you are and what you’re engaged in doing. An innocent school teacher beloved by those in his care and a repulsive bird watcher who guides a troop of ignoramus idiots towards what he most wants to see: a war, a civil war against authority of any political shade or colour!”

“You’re all corrupt!” said Glimpton as though he was content to be accuser, jury and judge in all matters, “you don’t know what it’s like being half of a force for good! I’ve had to be both Percival and Sebastian all my life! Our father imposed the service upon me, with our mother at his back! Fighting corruption and evil wherever we saw it, and to complicate things, in both of our lives… I am my twin brother and I am myself!”

“And might have got away with it for ever had you kept your two personalities geographically apart, and you did that until you bumped into a boy in the woods here, a boy you believed you recognised as a boy at school, not one from the life of Percival White but one occupying the world of Sebastian White. And you told him about the cuckoo…”

“Bah!” exclaimed whichever White was occupying the personality of mr Glimpton.

“And it so happens that both of your identities have knowledge of a boy you believe is just the one child, foolish of you seeing as you’re twin to a deceased brother yourself.” said the Major quietly.

“What led to it, Chalky?” asked Jerry, “What misfiring in the brains of your parents established the dual personality that you’ve foisted onto the world? Was it they who demanded you be both sons, the living one and the one what died in the womb? Maybe to give the poor deceased boy a voice in a world? I can see how painful that would have been for them, but for you? A childhood forced into two identities, was it?”

“They were good folk!” roared the man he had called Chalky, “they were angels, struggling in a world that never would understand them! And when they died, when they passed on, I decided I would rearrange the world they’d left, make it decent and have in it a place for their souls… with Percival by my side when I was Sebastian, and with Sebastian by my side when I was Percival…”

“Which one is going to prison for a long time, though?” asked Jerry.

“Not prison, not for him, surely?” asked Angela, who had been quiet for a long time, fascinated by what she had been listening to. “He’s insane! Insane people need treatment, not incarceration!”

“That may be the case, nodded the Major, “but this one had wormed his way into one of the most secret institutions on the planet, has worked his evil within it, has created the cell he mischievously called the gloopy gang or group or whatever, has had within his reach unbelievable power to influence even governments, and will have to spend the remainder of his days living in total isolation, and I do mean total, so that he can no longer be a threat to the status quo.”

“Good group, them,” muttered Jerry, “Status Quo I mean.”

“You think you’re so darned clever!” snarled the White duo, “thinking everything’s so right for you and totally ignorant of what my brother has left in your pantry, in his bag, ticking and ticking and ticking…”