20. A Sudden Death

The DI has an idea that she'd like to ask Jerry about, when...

Detective Inspector Florence Winthorpe stopped off at Emerald Cottage on her way home after work on what had been, for her, an arduous day.

The prisoner had been calmed down after a struggle, and placated by being taken from the cell to a spare interview room and offered a book on human biology with special regard to the development of twins in utero, which he had grabbed hold of as if the book represented the panacea of everything good in the world, and settled down to read it. Constable Intake remained on duty with orders to send for help if the man he was watching did anything remotely unnatural.

Now the DI had an idea which she thought might work, though she wasn’t sure how

It was Angela who opened the door to her. “Come to see your boyfriend?” asked somewhat sarcastically.

“There’s no need for you to think that,” Florence told her, “I’ve got a regular lover and I doubt I could cope with two and anyway Susan wouldn’t like it.”

“Who’s Susan, then?” asked Angela.

“I just told you. She’s my number one and only lover, she teaches at the High School, and to tell the truth she’s quite enough for me, thank you very much,” smiled Florence.

“Oh. Sorry,” murmured Angela, blushing, “I didn’t know.”

“So is he in?” asked Florence.

“You’d best come in. He’s doing something in the kitchen, probably something supposed to be edible but certainly something that makes a mess,” sniffed Angela.

“You sound a bit like Susan talking about my culinary efforts,” grinned Florence, and she followed Angela into the kitchen.

“I wanted to pass something by you,” Florence said to him when he looked up from a pan in which something hard to identify was sizzling.

“Just a moment,” he smiled, and went to the foot of the stairs off the passage that separated the downstairs rooms and called the two twins, “Jack! Jonny!” as loud as he could.

The two boys hurtled down the stairs.

“Smells good,” grinned Jonny, and “No it doesn’t,” disagreed Jack.

“It;s an experiment, and if it doesn’t work out I’ll not do it again,” promised Jerry, “come on, lads, sit thee down and enjoy fish fingers with bubble and squeak all cooked in the same oversized frying pan with proper dripping!”

He dished up two meals that were difficult to identify, and Angela, smiling, suggested that she might enjoy something like that as well.

”There’s plenty,” he told her, I was going to do us something different when the boys were in bed. Jonny might or might not be going back to Brumpton tomorrow, depending on whether his granddad is free or not.”

“Does he have to, Dad?” asked Jack, then he assumed a wicked expression, “we were going to see how exactly identical we were.”

“You’re identical enough,” Jerry told him.

“Even in our underpants?” asked a mischievous Jack.

“Jack! Don’t let on or he’ll think we’re queer!” protested Jonny.

“You are exactly the same,” Angela told him, “I’ve seen you both in the shower!”

“So there you have it,” sighed Jerry, “now give me some peace. There’s something Florence wants. Shall we retire into a more peaceful room?” he asked her.

“Not necessarily. The boys might be involved,” said Florence cautiously.

“Okay. Go ahead then,” he invited her.

“Well, it’s Mr White. Let me explain fully. He was one of twins, but his brother died in the womb and therefore was still born. Somehow he got the idea that whichever of the twins that survived, and I’m always a bit mixed up about that, should host the personality of his dead brother. I get the impression it happened from a very young age, probably accidentally like his mum saying something like If your brother hadn’t died… Anyway, as an adult he’s all mixed up and got so confused and mad in the cell he was in that I’ve relocated him to the interview room for the time being while it’s not in use, where the duty doctor saw him and treated his damaged hand. So now he’s got a bandaged hand and two possibly broken fingers. due to his attack on metal bars!”

“He’s crackers at school,” Jonny told them, dribbling out rather scorched bubble and squeak, “always on about the good old days and the number of times he caned kids over nothing!”

“What’s caned?” asked Jack.

“Punished with a stick. Don’t worry, it will never happen to you,” Jerry assured him.

“Anyway, the twins angle. I wonder if it would help the guy if he had a couple of minutes with Jack and Jonny as examples of perfectly healthy twins who have been separated for much of their lives, but thankfully grown up normally.”

“Is he fit enough for that?” asked Jerry, troubled, “after all, he set up that silly Gloopy business and there is a handful of converts who might turn nasty when they hear of his arrest.”

“I know, and I want to forestall that,” admitted Florence, “just try something with no risk to the boys that just might help the man see that he doesn’t have to harbour a deceased brother. I don’t know. Maybe he’s been like this for too long, but when the one is teaching in Brumpton and his, what would you call it, alter ego, is wandering the woods of Midcomfort looking for rare birds, he’s lost touch with reality.”

“Crackers,” murmured Jack, crunching a cooling fish finger, “he thought the cuckoo was a rare bird! As if!”

“What do you think, Jerry?” asked Florence.

“I suppose it’s an idea. But what about legal implications? I mean, what he’s done might well go to court if he’s deemed fit enough to plead…”

“That’s a worry, but the way he is at the moment he’ll never be fit enough for anything,” sighed Florence.

“And you said for just a minute or two?” asked Jerry, “no doubt on the sly without anyone knowing, like a superintendent or chief constable?”

“You read me correctly,” smiled Florence’.

”And what do you actually hope the outcome might be?” he asked

“Don’t put the mockers on it, dad, it might be fun,” put in Jonny.

“Jonny, it’s no funny thing,” he told the boy, “Mr White did have a twin brother and somehow he really believes that the dead brother he never actually knew might be alive and well in his own head! His mother or maybe his father or probably both must have given him cause to think that! But he’s not a kid any more, but a man approaching his middle age!”

“And as mad as a prial of hatters,” added Florence.

“I don’t want to, dad,” put in Jack.

“You don’t? Can I ask why, Jack?” asked a surprised Jerry.

“What if his madness is like flu or covid and catching?” asked Jack, “then this cottage would have a mad kid reckoning his brother’s alive and well inside his head, once Jonny’s going back to granddad’s.”

Jerry’s phone chose that moment out of many to interrupt the proceedings, and Jerry looked suddenly saddened as he answered iyt, and then unhappy.

“I’m sorry… oh dear… of course…” he said in broken sentences, and then he hung up.

“That was grandma,” he said quietly, “It seems that granddad was very poorly and hid it too well from everyone but himself. He passed away an hour ago. And Jonny’s staying here, probably for good. Grandma couldn’t cope with him on her own, not with a funeral to arrange.”

Jonny was suddenly crying.

“I’m going to me room,” he said, “I loved granddad. And tomorrow I want to see Mr White and tell him that twins aren’t mad. Okay?”

© Peter Rogerson 22.07.24