17. I’m Sorry

Finally arrested, the odd and insane White duo are carted off...

DI Winthorpe grinned as she heard Jack’s plea to the Whites and couldn’t help but agree with him. From the mouths of babes and infants, she thought. But she had a prisoner. And he needed to be processed.

Careless as to whether which of the White twins seemed to be in command for the moment, she gently pushed Jack to one side and faced the crazed man whose every appearance was of being anywhere but in his right mind. There was a desperation in his eyes as they searched left and right as if he’s lost some vital part of himself and needed to find it.

“Mr White,” said the DI, “come along now. I’ve already cautioned you and you have chosen to ignore me. Need I add that I’ve got a nice and shiny set of handcuffs that will help me guide you to the police station…?

“You people,” spat the man who wanted everyone to think it was not himself but everyone else who was mad, “you think you know everything and are everything under the sun! But I am Sebastian and Percival White! I have achieved a perfect duplicity! And one of us, my sweet brother or I, will rule you and no amount of bullying by you, or tempting us with your female wiles and soft voice will do anything other than make you be seen as what you are: a weakling with only one brain and even less imagination!”

“You’re bananas,” whispered Jack.

Florence managed to fit the handcuffs on the man despite his struggling so that his hands were confined behind him, but it was the expression on his face that had them all confounded. Not even Florence as a detective inspector with a few years experience behind her had seen such a person with his every word and movement devoid of any kind of sane logic.

Jerry helped her guide him out of Baz’s cottage and as he knew the woods better than anyone there even though he was a relatively new resident in Midcomfort he guided them back to his own home.

As he tried to lead his prisoner by what he saw as an easy route, White managed to find half a dozen excuses to trip and contrived, by the time they were back at Emerald cottage, to look unkempt, dirty and with nettle stings on what seemed to be every exposed area of skin.

“See what you’ve done to me?” he raged as soon as an audience, including Baz, was sufficient enough, so that he considered it worthy of him, had reformed, “I’ll have you for this, that I will. I mean, we’ll have you for this, that we will, my sweet brother and I… and I tell you now, he needs a wee. Yes, Sebastian needs a piss and he can’t do it with his hands in this contraption.” He indicated the handcuffs by shaking his concealed hands.

“Then you help him,” suggested Jonny mischievously, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you touching his you-know-what… he probably does in his sleep anyway, what with you sharing one body when you go to bed… We’re twins, are Jack and me, but we’re normal, not crackers like you two.”

“That’s enough,” decided Jerry, and he added “Jonny, the man’s bonkers enough without you making him any worse.” Then he looked White in his eyes and grinned. “And if you want to relieve yourself, there’s a nice toilet in the cell where you’ll be spending the night, eh detective inspector?”

“I did warn you,” said the prisoner with a sudden cackle, and suddenly urine soaked through his trousers and ran down his legs, making both boy twins go “yuk” in unison. Then, when it seemed he had finished and was standing in a puddle of his own making he grinned and repeated, “I did warn you. Now put me in your car and take me to your piddling little station and feed me with cream cakes and lager! I’m hungry and thirsty and that’s down to you.”

The look on the DI’s face said that in no way was the prisoner going anywhere near the fragrant back seats of her car until he dried off and showered, and she radioed for back up and use of what was usually called the Saturday Night bus, an elderly but road-worthy vehicle used to transport out of control revellers to the station, often on Saturday nights when a handful of ill-disciplined youths had partaken of too much strong ale for their own good.

Meanwhile her prisoner insisted on repeating for all to hear that he had been deprived of a means of urinating and had been forced to wet himself, like a child, he said with a sideways look at Jack and Jonny.

“When we’re in control” he added, his eyes glinting, “and the Gloopy rulers get their way, controlling everything and making sure everyone does as we tell them, then nothing like this will ever happen...”

The required police vehicle arrived. There was nothing about its appearance to suggest it was anything but a well-maintained police transport vehicle, but when White was escorted into it and the door shut on him he almost choked as the aroma of several years of body wastes mixed with a strong floral disinfectant seeped invisibly into his lungs.

He was slung into a seat and his handcuffs connected to a short chain that had been installed for that very purpose.

“Any more trouble from you and you’ll get a dose of this,” snarled an elderly officer who was still ranked as a constable despite his obviously senior age, holding his truncheon under White’s nose.

It was at that moment that something akin to common sense must have been stirred in the prisoner’s mind. He was alone in the rear of a smelly police vehicle and half a dozen free people were staring at him, maybe discussing among themselves something or other offensive to do with him.

“I’m sorry,” he yelped, “I really am. We are. Both of us, we’re very, very sorry and it’ll never happen again…”

But as far as DI Florence Winthorpe was concerned his apology was a darned sight too late.

He was still pronouncing the depths of his regret as the elderly constable bawled “Sharrup or else!” and drove carefully off towards the police station, leaving that part of the world a considerably quieter place.

© Peter Rogerson 16.07.24