On the Trail of the Foxglove

Matt paused at the top of the rise to catch his breath. Forty years ago he would have jogged up here and then gone on some, but he’d been a young police officer then at the top of his game.

But now? He smiled to himself. Now his lungs sang him to sleep at night, his knees threatened to buckle as he descended the stairs each morning and his stomach had long since lost its battle with gravity.

He slipped off his backpack and sat on the bank, looking around at the wildflowers. The ones that caught his eye were familiar to him: white petals and golden stigmas. He knew they were daisies of some sort, though larger than the common variety, but their specific name eluded him. He could almost see Angela standing in front of him, hands on hips, rebuking him in that mock-angry way that never fails to melt a father’s heart.

Come on, Daddy! I’ve told you lots of times. Anthemis arvensis. Otherwise known as…?

“The corn chamomile,” he said aloud, and smiled again as he imagined her bending to kiss his head.

Like most children, Angela had progressed from Mummy to Mum in her early teens, but he’d always been Daddy to her, and wildflowers were her passion. He’d once planted hybrids in their garden but had been far too busy with his police work to tend them properly and the place became overrun with weeds.

“They’re only weeds if you don’t like them, Daddy,” she’d said. “Let me thin them and sort them for you and you’ll see how beautiful they can be.”

And she’d been right. Their garden became a subtle display of perennial and seasonal wildflowers, their natural and delicate beauty making their neighbours’ hybrids look gaudy and brash.

Matt became infected by her enthusiasm and, whenever he could spare the time, they’d go off rambling together and she’d teach him the names of the flowers: cow parsley, lady’s bedstraw, honeysuckle, chicory, lily-of-the-valley and, of course, her favourite – the purple foxglove with its cluster of delicate bells. She used to brush them gently with her fingertip and pretend she could hear them chime.

Today he was following the very route Angela had taken all those years ago, and he wondered whether she, too, had rested at this very spot and looked at the chamomiles.

Then his world suddenly darkened as, once again, he wished to God he’d been with her on that fateful day, the day she looked upon her precious wildflowers for the last time. She was eighteen, excited about beginning her university course in botany. What then? he wondered. Post-grad work, perhaps, and an academic career. Marriage maybe. I’d probably be a grandfather now, he thought with a rueful smile.

Matt had never partnered again after his split with Mary. He’d heard that grief at the loss of an only child often had this unfortunate consequence on the parents. He’d hoped they’d be able to support each other in their pain, but it wasn’t to be. There were no recriminations; they just seemed to see their daughter in each other’s face until it became unbearable. So he’d thrown himself behind his police work and rose to Chief Superintendent, but with retirement came time, and with time came the memories – memories of what has gone, never to return.

The cry of a skylark broke his reverie and he picked up his backpack and set off again. He knew Angela would have been searching for her beloved foxgloves. These biennials were due to flower about now and he kept an eye out for them along the way.

When the valley came into view, Matt paused again to take in its resplendent summer colours. Sparse wisps of cloud hung still in the sky and a few swallows weaved and dived in a spectacular display of aerobatics as they fed on the wing.

“Still no foxgloves, sweet pie.”

We’ll find them, Daddy. I know we will.

Matt wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, shrugged the backpack higher on his shoulders and bent forwards to tackle the final ascent. When he reached the plateau, he stopped in his tracks, and a wave of mixed emotions swept over him as he gazed at the scene before him. His journey was over. A journey not just of a few miles but of 23 long and painful years.

But he was here now. He was here for Angela.

***

In the yard of an old crofter’s cottage, a man is chopping firewood. Stripped to the waist, his broad, sweat-sheened back and trim figure belie his 54 years, yet his skin is strangely pale, as if it had not been exposed to sunlight for a long time. He works methodically, swinging the axe down on the logs, splitting them once, twice, then sweeping them on to the mounting pile at his side.

Suddenly he stops and straightens, listening, as still as the deer that catches the scent of the stalker. Beneath the birdsong and the hum of insects, he senses something else, something malevolent. He guesses its source now and turns as the colour drains from his face and the axe slips from his hand.

***

Matt pumped the fore-stock and levelled the sawn-off at the naked waist eight metres in front of him. He knew the man was out on parole and he knew he’d return to the only place he could call home. For over twenty years he had thought about this moment, wandering what he’d do when the time came. Would he be able to go through with it? How would he feel if he did?

The man remained where he stood, curiously serene, as if he too had long awaited this moment.

“I knew you’d come,” he said. “I saw it in your face at the trial.”

Matt squinted against the sun, beads of sweat stinging his eyes. “She was on one of her nature rambles,” he said, “studying the wildflowers she loved so much. She just stopped here to ask you to refill her water bottle, and you raped and killed her.”

“Before you do what you came for, I want you to know that there hasn’t been a day when I didn’t want to end my own life for what I did. I’ve even held a blade to my wrist but couldn’t go through with it.

“So do it! Do what I lacked the courage to do myself.”

The first report rocked Matt back on his heels, sending crows screaming skyward. As the body pitched back across the yard, he pumped another round into the chamber and the gun bucked again, the cracks echoing through the valley like receding thunder.

He stared down at his handiwork, the quarry he had waited so long to track and bring down. Yet he felt nothing now, neither satisfaction nor remorse – just a cold indifference. He stepped around the body, the blood and viscera already attracting the flies, and sat on the low, dry-stone wall overlooking the valley. He pumped the shotgun a final time and bent forward to put his mouth over the muzzle.

Look, Daddy! Digitalis purpurea.

He saw it at his feet among the ferns, a solitary purple foxglove nodding gently in the breeze. He lowered the gun and caressed the bells with his finger.

Can you hear them chime, Daddy?

“Yes, my darling, I can hear them.”

End