15. A Loud Bang

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

The confusion of one man pretending to host two personalities, one of them a desperate bomber...

“Dad,” called Jack, who was still outside the room and looking out for DI Winthorpe who nay or may not have correctly interpreted his father’s rather confusing request to see her via Jack, only he was a little hesitant on the phone and not sure that he’d said it right.

“Yes son,” replied Jerry, his eyes afraid to leave the face of the White duo which was doing its best to outstare him.

“Tick tick tick,” White clicked tormentingly, with his tongue on his palate and a gleam in his eyes..

“Dad! There’s a bag in the pantry! And it isn’t ours and I don’t like it because it’s making a noise all by itself!.”

“Leave it alone, silly boy!” boomed the Major, putting the lavatory seat he was still holding into a corner of the room and trying to take over the conversation but not taking into consideration the intelligence of eleven year old boys.

“But it’s making that ticking noise, like our clock does,” continued Jack, “tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, like that. But it was in the pantry, and I have heard all about bombs on the news!”

“Keep away from it, you silly boy, it’s almost certainly a bomb!” boomed the Major, “and my guess is that if it goes off we’re all doomed. Better try to get away from here, then, all of us, especially you, Jack and Jonny!”

“Oh,” said Jack, and then he grinned, “I thought Mr White had left it by mistake and forgotten where it was, so I took it and put it in the boot of his car, just to be helpful. You always say we should try to be helpful don’t you dad?”

“You what!” almost exploded the Whites, “it’ll blow my brand new car to smithereens!”

“Oh! So you are a bomber? And in my home?” hissed Jerry.

“Was it still making that ticking noise?” asked the Major, grabbing hold of Jack by one shoulder, none too gently, so that the boy squealed.

“Hey! You leave my brother alone!” shouted out Jonny, who had been standing next to his father and who decided it was time for him to unite with his twin brother and prove that they were something more powerful than nothing.

“I’m sorry,” muttered the Major, for the first time in Jerry’s knowledge yielding to someone other than himself.

“And it was still ticking when I banged the boot shut,” nodded Jack, “loud as your clock, dad, and I thought of waiting for it to chime, then I realised it wasn’t really a clock so it might not....”

“And I heard it too,” put in Jonny, “when I went past the pantry room to the toilet for a wee. Before Jack took it, that is. I saw him. I thought it was a bit of mischief I don’t know anything about. But I do like your old clock in the other room, dad. It’s lovely.”

Jerry had obtained an elderly grandfather clock from an antique shop in Midcomfort and was very proud of it. For starters, he had repaired it himself, and as he knew nothing about clockwork motors he was inordinately proud of both himself nd the clock. “Then whatever it is in that bag, it sounds good even if it is evil,” was his only comment.

“It’s all right,” Jack assured the gathering, “Mr White parked his car across the bridge and left it quite a long way from our cottage so he had to walk, and that seemed daft to me when I watched him because I heard a cuckoo and he didn’t get all excited and go and spy on it!. In fact, I worked out that he’d parked where he had in order to be a secret so that if he had to run nobody would know where he was running to… most people park their cars on the road out front, don't they dad?”

“They do that, son,” smiled Jerry, unable to feel anything but proud of his son for both his observational skills and intelligent rationalising.

“You interfering brat!” snarled the Whites, “when you should be minding your own business! You oh so righteous types make me want to puke all over everything!”

“Excuse me,” came a female voice, “is there room in there for a little one? I got a garbled message that I might be wanted here.”

“Come in, Florence,” greeted Jerry, “and I want you to meet the first double personality I’ve ever had the dubious pleasure to meet and probably the first you’ve met as well! This is Mr Percival White of Brumpton and he is also Mr Sebastian White of Midcomfort! And he makes bombs as a hobby with the intention of blowing innocent people to smithereens! At least, one of him does.”

“It’s not me!” snapped White.

”Maybe not,” agreed Jerry, “but if it’s not you it’s your twin brother. Let me see, you must be Percival White and I guess you’ve come all the way across two counties to stop your brother from blowing my house to smithereens? Is that your plan? Or maybe the twin bit is a cunning way of claiming both ignorance and innocence when ever you get caught. Was it like that when you were a boy? One of your personalities bullies a girl and the other tells everyone how it wasn’t meant and he’s very sorry? Maybe you’ve come to set the clock in the bag ticking by winding the mechanism while the other you watches in knowing disbelief?”

Before White could answer there came the deafening sound that could only be the bomb going off, and they all quivered as the sound of bits of the White car rattled down, some of it even reaching the cottage and a battered rear light actually breaking one of the windows.

For a moment silence reigned and then they all started talking at once to nobody and everybody, filling the air with meaningless chaos. It was the Major who brought order to the room using his voice turned up to full volume, in itself an awesome number of decibels.

“Now them now then, now then!” he roared like an out of control schoolmaster, “where’s the fellow gone now?”