‘Aye, I like to grow things, you know. They’re coming along fine just the noo. D’you see yon round bed at the far end? The dahlias, a right treat. Ballego’s Glory for the red, and Colonel W. M. Ogg for a contrast in cream. Plenty of water every evening, and gamma-HCH powder against the earwigs. That’s the secret.’
‘They make a great show, Mac. A great show.’
‘Aye. But this is the trick. You perhaps canna quite make out from the window here, but I’ve wee lettuces interplanted among ‘em. Avon Defiance, the variety I always grow. Three or four weeks and they’ll be ready to eat. Too many for mysel’, of course. But I sell to my neighbours.’
‘That’s my boy.’
‘Aye, pays for the new plantings. I’ve just put in my autumn crocus corms, and, man, the price they charge these days. Are you a gardener at all, Jack?’
No one had ever asked him that at work. He felt another tiny rush of warmth for old Mac.
‘Well, yes. Yes, I am, matter of fact. The wife likes flowers, you know. Don’t go in for any veg. Garden’s too small. But I like getting this and that into bloom. Yeah.’
And something impelled him to go on.
‘Hoping to have more room to grow things when I retire. Got a new-built place down in—’
He stopped.
When I retire. But I ain’t going to retire. I’m going to bleeding die, that’s what. Won’t be any time for digging that big plot goes with April Cottage. Won’t be no great big display of lilies. For my Lily.
Mac looked at him, reached over and patted him on the shoulder.
He felt tears forcing their way forwards.
God, must take hold of meself. If I start, I’ll sit here and blub for ever.
‘Yeah,’ he managed to make himself say. ‘Lilies. That’s what I fancied. Wife’s name’s Lily, you know. Thought it’d be nice. But…’
‘Ah, don’t despair, man. Doctors always look on the worst side. I dare say you’ll have time and time enough to grow every variety of lily there is. And, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I’ve got just the thing for you. A video on lilies. Canna abide getting my information that way mesel’. But an old aunt I have sent it to me at Christmas. You can have it, if you like. I’d be glad for you to take it off my hands.’
And there it had been, The Lovely World of Lilies.
‘Mac, that’s wonderful. It’s what I’ve been looking for for months and months. The Lovely World of Lilies. Wonderful, wonderful. Thanks a million. You know, you’ve done me the world of good. This. And the whisky. Really a world of good. But - but I think I’d better be on my way now. Can’t put off having a word with my Lil for ever, you know.’
‘Right, laddie. Right. You be on your way. And good luck with the telling her.’
‘Thanks. Thanks, mate. Oh, and Mac?’
‘Aye?’
‘What’s-his-name. Turner. Yes, Turner, that’s it. Don’t know why I suddenly thought. They ever find that bugger, went off from the Fisheries Development outfit to be a New Age traveller or whatever they call it?’
‘Aye, man. They did. They did. Stonehenge. The summer solstice. All those wee nutters trying to get there to say their prayers, trample the ground, play pop music, smoke cannabis. Half of them got arrested. And, there among ‘em all, was our Mr Turner, ex-technical manager, Fisheries Development Authority. So soon I’ll start work on the Symes papers, and in a couple of months or so I’ll have a fine wee case to take to court.’
Then that shit Emslie got away just in time.
‘Well, good for you, Mac. Good for you. And listen, can I pay you something for the video? These things are worth a penny or two.’
‘Ach, no. No, not at all. Weel, mebbe you could give me just a fiver. Put in my garden fund, ye ken.’
Good old Mac.
He was not exactly laughing as he went up the path to the house—nothing like the Gone off with the postman joke—but he did feel more nearly light-hearted than he thought he ever would again.
And then there she was. Lily. Tucked into her big chair, same as ever.
Only not the same. There were tear-marks on her cheeks. Little channels in the powder.
So, before he knew what he was doing, he lost at once his chance of saying the fearful thing he had come to say.
‘Oh, Lil, Lil, it’s Ko Samui, you’re still upset,’ he burst out instead. ‘Lil, my darling, you shouldn’t fret. You mustn’t. It’ll all come out right in the end. It will. It will.’
But then the tears came again. In floods.
‘What’s the use?’ she gulped out. ‘What’s the use? I’ve thought and I’ve thought, and I see it all now. We ain’t never going to get to Ko Samui. That Emslie, he’s done a flit, ain’t he? You got him what he wanted, and he’s just gone and buggered off. Leaving us here. Here. In bloody Abbotsport, I’ve been trying all my life to get away from.’
‘But we will get away, my darling. We will, I promise you.’
‘To Ko Samui, Jack? You’ll do it? Manage it somehow? Oh, I know you will.’
‘No, darling. No, you got to forget about Ko Samui. But—but we’ll leave Abbotsport. We can do that. I’ll do it somehow. I won’t have you left here when I’m gone. I promise you that much.’
‘Oh, Jack. Jack, I knew you’d do it. I was wrong to sit here and think we were stuck in this place for ever. I knew my old Jack’d find a way out of it all. How you going to manage, love? How - hey, what you mean about when I’m gone? You ain’t going to be going nowhere, my lad. Not if I have any say in it.’
Oh, God, she’s gone and got it arsy-versy once again. And how the hell can I tell her now? When she just thinks I’m planning to skedaddle somehow. As if I would. As if I could.
‘Listen. Listen, my darling. I’ve got something to tell you.’
In an instant her face was transformed. Expectation shining brightly from every feature.
‘What is it, Jackie? What is it? Don’t keep a girl in suspense.’
Oh, God. Again.
‘No. No, Lil. No, it’s not something good. Jesus, it’s not good at all. It’s the worst. The worst you can think of.’
‘Oh, no, Jack. No, I’ve thought of that already. Not getting to Ko Samui. To the sun, the sea, the palm trees, the tropical moon at night. That’s the worst.’
‘Darling. My darling, it’s not that. It’s—Jesus God, Lil, I’m going to die. To die. I’ve just been up to the quack. Up at Headquarters. And he’s told me. I’ve done in my heart. Pretty well most of the rest of me, too, far as I can gather. Lil, he gave me two years. Two years at the outside. Two.’
‘Two years for what? You ain’t going to be sent down for a two-stretch … No. No. No, it’s not that, is it? But you can’t mean dead. You can’t. He can’t of told you you’re going to be dead in two years. No, Jack. No.’
And all he could say in answer was ‘Yes.’
But it was enough. Somehow that one word penetrated where all his explanations and hesitations had failed to.
She went white. Dead white for a moment. All the come-and-go colour in her cheeks that had been for so many years what had made her beautiful in his eyes vanished in an instant.
And then she flung herself on to him.
‘Jack, Jack. My poor darling. Jack, I’ll help you. I’ll look after you. Oh, Jack, you’re not to worry about it. Never. Jackie, my Jackie, I’ll be here for you. All the time. Till the last. The very last. Oh, my poor old Jack.’
Now it was his turn for tears. The tears he had stopped himself shedding when suspicious old Mac had been so suddenly kind. The tears he had all along held back.
He slumped down in his chair, put his head in his hands and cried. Cried as he hadn’t done since he was a kid of three or four.
And Lily was with him in a moment.
‘Jack. Jack, my poor darling, I feel so sorry for you. So sorry.’
At last he was able to lift up his head.
‘No, don’t feel sorry for me. You shouldn’t. Jesus, I was the one who got it al
l wrong. I should’ve done better all along. I dare say that’s what put me on to the drink, kept me smoking when I knew I shouldn’t. Made me go after the scrotes, way beyond what I needed to do. To try and level up the scores. Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Never mind, my darling. Never mind. Forget it all. We’ll manage between us. Stay here if we have to, in Abbotsport. It’ll be all right’
He shook his head, wearily.
‘No, love, maybe it’s none of it been worthwhile. Taking that big bribe, going through all that to earn it. But at least we won’t have to stay here. I was thinking on the way over. We can still get that place in Devon. April Cottage. We’ve got those air tickets. First class. Should be able to cash them in, part of the price anyhow. And that’ll make a difference, raising the money to complete that purchase. And then I’m bound to be able to get a bank loan, if I put in for it right away before my medical discharge comes through. And—’
He broke off. Looked up at her.
‘Well, my darling, it might be better, anyhow, if I was not around Abbotsport. I think maybe there’s trouble coming. Old Mac MacAllister’s beginning work soon on the papers they seized when they got on to that fellow Symes, out at the Fisheries Development place. And—and, after all, it might sort of come out then about Emslie Warnaby. What he’s done. And, if it does, they could begin to think about me. It’ll probably be okay. If I’m not around to point a finger at. But we’d be a lot cleverer to be well out of sight.’
‘Jack, wouldn’t Ko - no. No, I’ve got to give all that nonsense up. No, Jack, we’ll go down to Devon. To April Cottage. We’ll be happy there, Jack. My Jackie.’
‘Well, my darling, I hope so. I hope it’ll all be all right. Till the end. I hope so.’
First published 1996 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
eISBN: 9781448201341
Copyright © H. R. F. Keating 1996
The right of H R. F. Keating to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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The Bad Detective Page 21
