16. Fresh Veggies

Jerry and the DI pursue the Whites into the forest and towards Baz Juniper's cottage.

Jerry always tried to be a good father to his sons, but for a few moments the effort slipped as he began uttering a word starting with the sixth letter of the alphabet, a word he tried to protect Jack and now Jonny from hearing.

Just in time he managed to substitute one word for another

“Where the fu-laming heck has he got to!” he shouted.

It was Angela who had managed to spot the bearded individual as he slipped out of the door and silently drifted down the passage as swiftly as he could, past the pantry and out of a back door.

“He went that way,” she pointed, and Jerry, having a huge amount of faith in her, nodded, and charged where she had indicated without having seen the man himself.

Jerry had never claimed to be light on his feet, though he was no slow coach. But the Whites individual was, at that moment, faster than him, not slowed down by either his beard or confusion as one personality tried to merge in agreement with another.

His car, or a tragic wreck that had been his car, was roughly where he had parked it, though bits of it littered the unmade track where it had been left. He took out a few precious moments of time in order to shake his head when it was obvious that the chances of the vehicle being driven by him or anyone for any distance in the future were slim, cursed himself for not having locked the boot but knes that had he done that the sound of it closing might have alerted others, and tnen set off into the woodland.

In the guise of Percival White he had made his way through the woodlands on several occasions, making out that he was bird watching as an excuse for being there at all whilst at the same time acting as a means of communication for his treasured Gloopy cell. Therefore he had learned a myriad short cuts and unknown ways through what to all intents and purposes was dense woodland. On the other hand, Jerry, trailed by everyone else except the Major who had decided to be grumpy and not exert himself, set off in what might have been the right direction.

Right direction or wrong, Jerry found himself rushing towards Dimworlde, the country residence of Baz Juniper who, as chance would have it, was arranging fresh produce from his garden into a basket, being very precise where he placed tomatoes in relation to a cucumber in order to avoid any suggestion of vulgarity. He may have been many things, may Baz, but vulgar was not one of them. Probably.

“Hey! You!” shouted one or other of the White brothers, “open your door, Juniper! And when that snooping spy comes by deny having seen me! It’s Gloopy business!”

“Right you are, Perce,” yawned a weary Baz Juniper, “Just hop inside. There’s a bottle of best bitter in the fridge and if you take it I’d be glad of payment for it.”

By this time Jerry was close enough to know that Baz had been talking to somebody and he was pretty sure that he knew who that somebody might be. And to add to his confidence the DI was almost at his elbow, huffing and puffing and obviously almost fit enough to be charging through woodland at a break=neck speed.

“It’s the Whites!”£ she gasped at Jerry, “I caught a glimpse as he slipped into the old cottage! Wait until I get my hands on Juniper! I’ll make him wish that he’d never been born.”

“You and me too,” replied Jerry, and he ran the last few yards to Dimworlde’s rather attractive and seemingly productive garden.

“It’s no good, Baz,” he called, “I saw the bloke coming this way and the only place he could hide is actually inside your cottage.”

“There were a ‘splosion not ten minutes ago,” began Baz, “I ‘eard it from here and it were darned loud! Is it war? Are the reds ‘ere, ready to steal my veggies?”

“Not at all. Your tomatoes are safe for the moment. It’s the White man we’re after. He’s a bad ‘un Baz, and no mistake, and if you’re caught harbouring him it’ll turn out really bad for you. Jail, I wouldn't wonder, and for quite a few years, harbouring types like White!”

By then the DI had caught up and was extricating herself from a savage knot of undergrowth.

“And while you’re straight with me your cleaning job is safe whenever you want a few extra pounds uin your pocket,” she said enticingly.

“Not the cells, though, I ain’t cleaning any vomit off the cell floors,” sniffed Baz. “Look, he reckons it’s Gloopy business and I’m not upsetting that lot. I sell most of my veggies to them, you know. Got an eye for decent home grown stuff, they have.”

Jerry pushed the gate open and ran in. “Pardon me, Baz,” he said, “but it’s a matter of the law and that bloke’s broken it. And his car exploded too. Had a bomb in it, he did, probably planning to blow your pretty little cottage sky high ‘cause he reckons its an eyesore.”

“The swine!” croaked Baz, “yes, he’s in there all right, and if you look in my kitchen he just might be helping himself to bottles from my fridge!”

Jerry pushed his way into the cottage. He had no idea which of the three doors facing him led to the kitchen, but a rattling sound, like ice-cubes falling into a sink gave him a clue.

So he pushed one of the doors open, but sounds can be confusing and he opened the wrong door. It was the toilet.

“You could give a bit more elbow grease in here, Baz,” he muttered, though Baz wasn’t able to hear him, “it stinks!”

A second door yielded greater luck. Jerry pushed it open, and as it swung inwards it struck White forcibly on the elbow, causing him to yelp with stinging pain and drop a bottle he was trying to force open so that it shattered on the floor.

“Who is it?” he asked when he faced the intruder, “Percival or Sebastian, is it? And, lad, you must have one hell of a thirst on you, quenching it with a nice bottle of brown sauce!”

Detective Inspector Florence Winthorpe was just behind him, but she was in no mood for witty repartee.

“Sebastian White,” she addressed him sharply, “You will come to the police station with me in order to answer some questions to do with physical assaults on Angela Smithson and Jonny Newby You don’t have to say anything, but if you do it will be recorded and may be used against you in a court of law.”

“What? Me? You’ve got to be joking or three sheets to the wind, miss,” protested Mr White, “but if I can help you, dear, if you was to look harder you might find it was my brother up to no good. Percival can be a right nuisance if he don’t get his candy on time. I tell him, I do, brother, I says, you don’t go around hitting nice ladies or it’ll be the death of you…”

Jerry was beginning to get truly annoyed by the White duo, and in his own mind he was sure that the one individual was either pretending to host a second individual in his own flesh, or was utterly and completely insane.

He was about to say something truly biting when a small figure he instinctively knew was Jack nudged past him.

“So you’re a special person, being a twin,” he said quite boldly, “and so am I. So special being a twin that neither me nor my brother are going to do anything wicked, like you do. Its a shame, I reckon, someone like you letting us twins down.”

© Peter Rogerson 15.07.24