OxCrimes

  Fair enough, I thought, you really want to empathise then you have it instead.

  Stage four, the doctor said. Inoperable.

  I sat silently, listening. Or looking like I was listening. All I really heard was white noise. Eventually he went silent and I thought that silence must mean it was my turn to speak.

  ‘How long have I got?’ I had to say something. I hated myself for using such a clichéd question. But thinking about it, I suppose that the reason phrases become clichés is because of situations like this one.

  ‘A few weeks, a month? Couple of months? Hard to say. It’s aggressive, metastasising fast. The best thing you could do now is go home. Put your affairs in order. Spend time with your loved ones.’

  Those words made me think of clutching my family towards me and sitting in the cellar until a tornado passes. Only I won’t be going upstairs again to inspect the damage once it’s finished.

  There were more apologies, more attempts at empathy from him, but I didn’t hear them.

  I walked out of the surgery in a daze. If I was honest, I had known what the lump in my chest was, the shortness of breath, the incessant coughing. The pain like a magician doing a knife trick in a Chinese cabinet. Known straight away. But I’d still held out hope. Some last minute Hollywood reprieve, a mix up with the results, some entirely innocent and innocuous explanation. But no. This is the real world. It doesn’t work that way. I knew what it was. Had always known.

  Cancer.

  I walked back to the car, got in, drove off. When I thought back afterwards I didn’t remember making the drive home. I could have ploughed into a bus stop full of people and not noticed. All I was thinking about was how this wasn’t right. Cancer was something that someone else got. Everything was something that someone else got. Death was something that someone else got. Or should get. Not me. I felt the anger then. Welling up. Familiar and hard. Not me. Not me. Why was it always me that things like this happen to? Why have I never had the luck that other people have had? Karen, my wife, always hinted, in that passive aggressive way of hers, that things often didn’t go my way because of my attitude. Too aggressive, she said. Too full on. It puts people off you, she said. Bollocks, I thought. Too aggressive, my arse. You get nothing in this world unless you fight for it, I always told her. Fighting. That’s what I had to do. Even now.

  When I pulled the car into the drive, I didn’t realise that I’d been talking to myself out loud. My chest was hurting again from the exertion. I sat for a few minutes until I got the strength up to get out.

  I looked over to the next door neighbours. Felt that anger again, but a different kind this time. When we moved in we were nothing but nice to them. And they responded to our kindness by being a pair of lying, duplicitous evil cunts. They reported our dog, a puppy at the time, to the council for being a nuisance. Out all night, they said. Barking all night. What a load of fucking lies. We got the council round. Checked the dog out. The council woman asked us if we wanted to report our nuisance neighbours. We didn’t. Not then.

  Then they took our hedge up. A fifty-metre hedge. Told us it was theirs. We asked to see the documentation. We’re still waiting. They took a country hedge down and replaced it with a fucking ugly laurel hedge. Laurel. Dull, ugly, unimaginative and suburban. Just like them. We told them, you don’t come to live in the country and try to change things. That’s the trouble with the countryside. Getting full of suburban shits like them.

  Then they took our trees down. Full grown elms, been there god knows how long. Border between the two houses. And most importantly, on our land. They did it while Karen was out and I was away on work. We came back to nothing. Then they tried to take us to court, saying we were trying to take over their land. The land the trees had been on. Our land. That’s still ongoing.

  And that’s not to mention the incessant complaints they make to the kids when they play in the garden.

  Hate them. Fucking, fucking hate them.

  When we tell people about them they think that they must be old. Intolerant. No, the opposite. They’re young. Childless. All they do is work. They have no friends, nothing. They just want to make money and sit in their house in silence. That’s it.

  Their car was on the drive. A BMW. I stared at it. Why couldn’t it be them? Why couldn’t they get cancer and not me? They deserved it. They’re utter cunts. Life is really fucking unfair.

  I went into the house. Karen was sitting in the conservatory, pretending to read the paper. The dog was lying on the sofa next to her. She looked up. She knew what I was going to say before I said it. I just nodded. She came to me, hugged me. Started to cry.

  ‘Are they sure?’ she said.

  I told her they were.

  ‘But what if they’ve got it wrong? You read about it all the time. They’ve given someone the wrong diagnosis, they’ve got the notes mixed up, or …’

  ‘They haven’t,’ I said, getting angry again. ‘They’ve got it right.’

  We stood like that for a while.

  Then it was a question of telling the kids. There was no easy way of doing it. They came in from school happy, or as happy as two teenage girls could be. We sat them down then after dinner I told them.

  It went as well as could be expected. Which wasn’t well at all. It was their worst nightmare, losing a parent. Worse than divorce, because at least then they’re still alive and contactable. And it wasn’t going to be a sudden death either. It was going to be slow and it was going to hurt. Me to do it, them to watch it.

  There was more hugging after that. Lots more.

  In bed that night I lay awake. I didn’t want to close my eyes, drift off to sleep. Have nothing in my mind until I woke up. Because one day, very soon, that’s what I would have. Forever. And then I would never wake up.

  Karen was asleep, or pretending to be. I got up, went to the window. The security lights on the driveway come on whenever the overgrown rose bush is blown in front of them. It doesn’t bother me, but probably annoys the twats next door. Good. I could see their cars on their gravelled drive. A BMW and a VW Golf. Perfectly parked at the same angle and in exactly the same place they parked them in every night.

  And I felt again that familiar anger well up inside me. The unfairness of it all. Here’s me, dying, in a rundown house, struggling to keep my family going. Not easy in this financial climate. And there’s them, working in the city, rolling in it. It’s not fair. Not fucking fair.

  I went back to bed. I still couldn’t sleep.

  I kept thinking of everything I had to do before the cancer claimed me. Get my affairs in order, the doctor had said. I tried to work out how much life insurance would be left for Karen and the girls. I’m not good with numbers but I don’t think it was enough. But then it’s never enough. I felt like such a failure. I lay there, thinking of ways I could provide for my family, that I could leave them with something.

  Two hours later, I’d worked it out.

  And then I finally managed to sleep.

  The next day was a Friday. Karen asked me what I wanted to do that weekend. Started making plans. I told her I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to think things through. Sort myself out. She was a bit put out by this but she said that was fine. She would take the kids and go and stay with her parents. I said that would be good.

  That night, I waved them off. The girls were scared, thought it was the last time they would see me. I told them it wouldn’t be. That I would still be here on Sunday night when they came back. That they hadn’t got rid of me yet. They seemed placated by that and I felt like a liar. I shouldn’t make promises I couldn’t keep.

  Alone at last. I went into the garage, got things together. I’m not much for DIY so I had to sharpen a few things up, check that the stuff I wanted still worked. It did. Then I checked out what I needed to on my laptop. Made a couple of calls. Heard what I wanted. Then I waited.

  Until it was dark. Until it was past midnight.

  I left the house as quietly as possible. I’d dr
essed in black, trying to blend in with the shadows. I had everything I needed in a bag at my side. I stood by the front of my garage, where the elm trees used to be. Stared at my neighbour’s house. The lights were out. I crossed the line. Walked onto their gravel driveway.

  Somewhere overhead I heard an owl out hunting. Really clear. One of the things I love about living in the countryside. One of the things I’ll miss.

  Their security light came on. I ducked into the shadow. Then walked up to their front door, rang the bell. Waited. Nothing. Eventually, I heard someone coming. The door was opened and the shaven headed, bovine face of Martin Sloan stared at me. He was in a dressing gown and couldn’t decide whether to be shocked or angry. I didn’t give him the chance to think.

  I pulled the machete out of its sheath and pushed him back inside, holding it against his throat. He felt how sharp it was.

  ‘Not one fucking sound. Right?’

  He stared at the blade, thought of shouting out. I pushed it into the skin of his neck. It bled. From the expression on his face, it hurt.

  ‘Right?’ I said again.

  He nodded.

  ‘Good.’

  My legs were shaking. I tried to control them. This was what I’d wanted to do for so long, I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it.

  ‘Now,’ I whispered, ‘upstairs.’

  He walked upstairs. I kept the knife in his back, pushed as hard as I dared.

  ‘In the bedroom.’

  He went into the bedroom. Dee Sloan, his wife, was sitting there.

  ‘What –’

  She jumped up, tried to make a run at me. I let her see the blade.

  ‘Back on the bed, cunt,’ I said, not bothering to keep my voice quiet. ‘Now.’

  Seeing that she had no choice, she did as she was told.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Martin Sloan.

  ‘Did I tell you you could speak? No? Then shut up.’

  I sliced at his dressing gown with the machete just for good measure. The blade was so sharp it went through cloth and hit his arm. He pulled away as blood began to soak through.

  ‘You’re mental,’ he said, gasping and holding his arm.

  I laughed. ‘You,’ I pointed at his wife. ‘Take my laptop out of my bag.’

  She did so.

  ‘Open it. Put it on the bed.’

  She did so.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘I’ve set up a couple of offshore accounts in false names.’ I laughed again. Who says I’m not good with numbers? ‘So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to transfer all of your savings, shares, whatever you’ve got, into them. Now.’

  They stared at me.

  ‘I’m not joking. Now.’

  They looked at each other, didn’t move. It seemed they would need a bit more persuading.

  I pulled Dee off the bed, put my arm round her neck, laid the blade against her throat. ‘Now,’ I said, showing my impatience.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ Martin Sloane said. ‘You really wouldn’t.’

  I dug the blade in and pulled it across her throat. The blood spurted in a huge arc, decorating the bland, bare wall. She gurgled and struggled, her hand going to her throat in a useless gesture. I let her go, watched her drop to the floor.

  She bled out, eyes wide, fearful, uncomprehending.

  I smiled. Felt like my heart was about to burst. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for years,’ I said. ‘You’ve no idea how good that feels.’

  Martin Sloane was staring ahead, terror-struck.

  ‘The money. Now.’

  Moving like a zombie, he did as he was told.

  He did everything that I asked. I watched him do it. Eventually he looked up. ‘I’ve got nothing left,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now you know how I feel.’

  Then it was his turn to have his throat ripped.

  I stood in the bedroom staring at the two bodies. I felt … numb. I thought I would feel elated at doing that, considering how much I had hated them for years, how much I had wanted to. And I had felt that slight exhilaration of power when I had watched the life drain of Dee’s body.

  But now I just felt … nothing. Irritated, if anything because of it. What a disappointment.

  I quickly packed up my belongings, checked that I’d left no traces. It didn’t really matter considering what was about to happen to me but I wanted to give myself enough time to create some kind of paper chase with the money, get it into Karen’s accounts before the bodies were discovered. Make it safe. Get it hidden. Make sure my family were well looked after.

  Karen came back with the kids on Sunday night. I hadn’t died. I was still there.

  It took quite a few days before the police arrived at our neighbour’s house. And then when they did we had the full circus.

  ‘What d’you think’s happened there?’ asked Karen, watching the police go about their business.

  ‘Something horrible, I hope.’

  ‘Matthew, that’s a terrible thing to say.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re not nice people. You know that.’

  We kept watching from the window. It was like TV playing out right before us. Then the phone rang. I answered it.

  Doctor Sinclair. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Matthew, but I’ve got some good news for you. Well, relatively good news.’

  ‘What? What d’you mean?’

  ‘The tests,’ he said, unable to keep the jubilation out of his voice. ‘There was a mix up at the hospital. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how it happened. But I’ve got your actual results in front of me. And it looks like you don’t have cancer.’

  I couldn’t speak. He went on.

  ‘Pneumonia. Serious, obviously, but not terminal. Treatable, if it’s caught in time. Which it has been. But not lung cancer. Definitely not lung cancer. I’m so pleased to be able to tell you this …’

  He kept talking. I hung up.

  Karen asked who that was. I didn’t reply. Just stared out of the window.

  There were two policemen on the neighbours’ drive. They were looking at our house.

  Karen asked again who had been on the phone. Again, I said nothing.

  The two police walked across where the elms used to be, made their way onto my drive way.

  I stood there, staring, waiting for the doorbell to ring.

  ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH was born in Bulawayo, in the then-British colony of Southern Rhodesia, in 1948. He studied and taught law in Edinburgh, Belfast and Botswana, and is Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. It was Botswana that inspired his bestselling crime series, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which has sold more than 20 million copies. He is the author of more than fifty novels and in 2007 was awarded the CBE for his services to literature.

  Trouble at the Institute for the Study of Forgiveness

  Alexander McCall Smith

  I am not quite sure of just how I came to be considered the country’s foremost investigator of the crimes of Academia. The acquisition of a reputation tends to be a slow matter and the way in which it happens is not necessarily obvious. People talk to one another and recommendations are made; sometimes it is the results themselves that do the work. However it may come about, suddenly one finds oneself able to turn down lesser business and concentrate on the thing on which you’re meant to be the expert. And that, I think, is the point when you can tell yourself you’ve arrived.

  It took all of fifteen years in my case. When I inherited the company I had very little experience of anything, let alone private detection. Becoming a private investigator was the last thing on my mind at that stage – I had just qualified as a tax accountant, and I imagined that preparing tax returns would be my lot in life. But then my childless Uncle Saul died and I found myself the owner of his business, which happened to be the Golden Gate Investigation Bureau of San Mateo, California. I had a bit of spare time on my hands and I decided, not entirely seriously, to acquire my licence. Within a few months I found myself drawn
in, and have been unable to extricate myself since then. Not that I’m complaining; the life of a private investigator in a pleasant college town is not all that stressful and, as I soon discovered, can be quite fulfilling. After all, we do help people, and in many cases rather needy people. That is not a bad calling in life – although I suppose tax accountants help people too, although in a rather different way.

  I had built up my practice with very small cases. A lot of my work was concerned with the messy corners of people’s personal lives – adultery, suspected or real; custody issues; investigations of employee loyalty, and so on. Most of this was simple human disagreement or bad behaviour, rather than crime, and in most cases the solution to the problems was pretty apparent once one started to look more closely. I said that it was small, and some of it was very small: every so often I would be asked to locate a missing dog or cat, and I was not too proud to decline. That is hardly Raymond Chandler territory, but I suspect that in real life Raymond Chandler territory does not really exist. It makes for a good story, but we should not imagine that such things ever really happen.

  As the years went by, I began to notice that I was getting more and more requests to investigate matters in colleges and universities. The first of these cases, as I recall, involved a case of impersonation. A professor at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York was suspected of not being the person he claimed to be. He was a professor of English by the name of Timmins, and the reason for the Dean’s suspicion was the fact that Professor Timmins used very bad grammar when he spoke. This would not be a matter of remark in ordinary circumstances – the man who fixes your roof might be a bit hazy on the subjunctive – but it is somewhat unexpected when a professor of English says, ‘He done quite good there.’ And that, apparently, is just what he said when congratulated by the Dean on the performance of one of his students.

  ‘Ha!’ said the Dean. ‘The demotic expression – how amusing.’

  But this, apparently, had been greeted by a blank stare on the part of Professor Timmins, who was clearly not sure about the meaning of demotic. This was the incident that led to my being called in and discovering, on investigation, that Professor Timmins was an imposter. The real Professor Timmins had died shortly before being interviewed for his post and had been impersonated thereafter by his gardener.