Free Healer by Peter Dickinson Page B

pretended to Mr. Freeman that he’d spent on the fee for the Foundation) had gone into the Galaxy, and he’d become almost neurotically careful. He’d even got a lock and chain so heavy that the weight was a nuisance on long rides.
    He watched while Mr. Stott snipped the petals off a small mauve flower, fertilized it with pollen he had ready on an artist’s brush, and tied the maimed and distorted flower head into a paper bag. Mr. Stott had immensely strong arms and hands, and his huge fingers moved with brutal deftness. He said nothing until he had slotted a pane of glass into clips which held it above the plant to keep the rain off.
    â€œFool’s errand?” He snorted. “Money down the drain, eh?”
    â€œNo, I made it.”
    â€œSaw her?”
    â€œI talked to her. She wants out.”
    Barry was half ashamed to hear himself talking in the tight-lipped rhythms of some TV hero. He couldn’t help it. That was how he felt: mission accomplished. Mission hardly started really.
    Mr. Stott gathered his equipment into the tray clipped to his chair and propelled himself another few feet along the trench. With a curious thin homemade scoop he began to dig a hole beside a patch of hairy grey leaves from which rose a fistful of what might have been dandelions, except that they were pink.
    â€œGet yourself good and sick then?” he said.
    â€œWorse than I meant. But it turned out okay.”
    â€œShe cured you?”
    â€œIt looked like that. And the boss of the place was so pleased with my reaction that he’s offered me a job.”
    â€œHas he now?”
    â€œSomebody told me he often does that. But …”
    â€œGet on with it.”
    â€œOnly I wondered. He might want to get me away from you. I said I’d have to come and tell you Pinkie was okay. That’s what I’m doing now if anyone’s looking.”
    â€œThink they might be?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œTell you something. Yesterday morning—remember I got a detective to trace where Pinkie’d got to, chap named Brasher?—yesterday morning he dropped in, looking for a couple in a yellow van, he said, thought I might have noticed it come by. Told him no. Then he asked, just out of interest, he said, if I’d done anything more about Pinkie. Told him no to that, too.”
    â€œYou think … Bit of a coincidence, picking the same detective, isn’t it?”
    â€œOnly three of ’em in the Yellow Pages. Brasher’s the smallest.”
    â€œStill …”
    â€œNothing in it, most likely,” said Mr. Stott, and returned to his careful rootling.
    â€œI’m going to take this job,” said Barry, speaking louder than he meant.
    Mr. Stott craned from his chair to peer into the hole he had made.
    â€œThen I can find out more,” said Barry, “I can find out if Pinkie really wants to get away. If she does, I shall have to try.”
    Mr. Stott, working by feel, with his eyes shut, was now slicing in under the plant with a pocketknife.
    â€œThey’re just using her,” said Barry. “And they’re not going to let her go. They make me sick.”
    Still no response as Mr. Stott pulled from the hole two pale lengths of fleshy root, which he put into a plastic bag. He started to ease the earth back into the hole.
    â€œWhere’s that daughter of mine?” he barked.
    â€œIn America. Did you know she’s married Mr. Freeman?”
    â€œStupid sod. Who’s he then?”
    â€œThe boss I was talking about, the one who’s offered me this job.”
    â€œHow old?”
    â€œOh … fifty plus.”
    â€œWhat’s he look like?”
    â€œMoses.”
    Mr. Stott produced a bitter, yapping laugh and glanced at the sky.
    â€œStay fine now,” he said. “Time for a cup of cocoa.”
    The inside of the bungalow was just as much a part of the garden as the outside. Plants stood on every shelf