Cold Comfort Cottage,
Warped Lane,
The Village
Upper Bumbleshire
11th December 2008
Dear Sirs,
it falls to me to tell to you that the man Peck will not be fulfilling his commitment to deliver to you the seventh episode of his farrago of lies, half-truths and other sinfulnesses in time for your December edition.
I must confess that this task gives me satisfaction, as such oath-breakings are no more than one would expect from such a shiftless and heathen rogue, and the more people who see him for what he is the better. In Calabria, the country of my boyhood, the Word and Spirit of God can seem distant from the rocky valleys, and sometimes the over-imaginative may swear that they have heard the pagan pipes of the god Pan tootling from the olive-groves. It is no surprise that Wickednesses of all sorts proliferate there, and the criminals of the N’dragheta are known for their bestial cruelty. They will revenge themselves on a false friend by binding his hands, looping a slip-knot around his neck and tying the other end to his ankles. The rope is tightened behind the victim’s back until he can only breathe by arching his spine painfully. His erstwhile friends will then sit around drinking grappa and making bets upon how long he will last. Such a death is called a capricciamento, or ‘goating’, as the poor wretch in his last moments will twitch his legs like a goat in a slaughterhouse. If such a miserable fate was to befall Peck I would say a prayer for his soul, but I fear that Merciful God, who knows all, would see a lack of sincerity in my heart, and for that I am ashamed.
Peck is currently in Florida, no doubt up to no good, and asked my friend and mentor, that great and saintly man the Reverend Earl T. Greybags, to write to you this apology, but he handed the task on to me as he is busy with an important project which takes up much of his time. He has purchased a Russian Cold-War-era radar set from eBay, the type that is known as a ‘Fan Song’, and he is using it to broadcast the Bible in its entirety to the Red Planet in Morse code as an electronic ‘Mission To Mars’. From this you will perceive the breadth of his Intellect and the depth of his Christian Charity. Sadly, Reverend Greybags’s Christian Goodwill also prevents him from seeing that Peck seeks only to make easy money by plagiarising Greybags family papers best left unread, maliciously glorifying a wicked pirate whose soul was lost to the Grace of God.
Yours Sincerely,