Alistair MacLean - Bear Island

"What's always too late, Lonnie?"

"Compassion is, or understanding or forgiveness. I fear that Lonnie Gilbert has been less than he should have been. But it's always too late.

Too late to say I like you or I love you or how nice you are or I forgive you. If only, if only, if only. It is difficult to make your peace with someone if you're looking at that person and he's lying there dead. My, my, my." As if with an immense effort he pushed himself to his feel?. "But there's still a little shred of something that can be saved. Lonnie Gilbert is now about to go and do something that he should have done many, many years ago.

But first I must arm myself, some life in the ancient bones, some clarity in the faded mind, in short prepare myself for what I'm ashamed to say I still regard as the ordeal that lies ahead. In brief, my dear fellow, where's the Scotch?"

"I'm afraid Otto has taken it with him."

"A kind fellow, Otto, none kinder, but be has his parsimonious side to him. But no matter, the main source of supply is less than a Sunday's march away." He made for the outer door but I stopped him.

"One of those times, Lonnie, you're going to go out there, sit down there, go to sleep and not come back again because you'll be frozen to death, Besides, there's no need. There's some in my cubicle. Same source of supply, I assure you. I'll fetch it. just keep your eye open in my absence, will you?"

It didn't matter very much whether he kept his eyes open or Dot for I was back inside twenty seconds. Smithy, clearly, was a heavier sleeper than I was for he didn't stir during my brief visit.

Lonnie helped himself copiously, drained his glass in a few gulps, gazed at the bottle longingly then set it firmly aside. "Duty completed, I shall return and enjoy this at my leisure. Meantime, I am sufficiently fortified."

"Where are you going?" It was difficult to imagine what pressing task he had on hand at that time of the night.

"I am in great debt to Miss Haynes. It is my wish-"

"To Judith Haynes?" I know I stared at him. It was my understanding that you could with but difficulty look at her."

In great debt," he said firmly. "It is my wish to discharge it, to clear the books, you might say. You understand,"

"No. What I do understand is that it's only three forty-five. If this business has been outstanding, as you said, for so many years, surely it can wait just another few hours. Besides, Miss Haynes has been sick and shocked and she's under sedatives. As her doctor, and whether she likes it or not, I am her doctor, I can't permit it."

"And as a doctor, my dear fellow, you should understand the necessity for immediacy. I have worked myself up to this, screwed myself, as it were, to the sticking point. Another few hours, as you say, and it may be too late. The Lonnie Gilbert you see before you will almost certainly have reverted to the bad old, cowardly old, selfish old, clay-souled Lonnie of yore, the Lonnie we all know so well. And then it will always be too late."

He paused and switched his argument. "Sedatives, you say. How long do the effects of those last?"

"Varies from person to person. Four hours, six hours, maybe as much as eight."

"Well, there you are, then. Poor girl's probably been lying awake for hours, just longing for some company although not, in all likelihood, that of Lonnie Gilbert. Or has it escaped your attention that close on twelve hours have elapsed since you administered that sedative?"

It had. But what had not escaped my attention was that Lonnie's relationship vis-a-vis Judith Haynes had been intriguing me considerably for some time. It might, I thought, be very helpful and, with regards to a deeper penetration of the fog of mystery surrounding us, more than a little constructive if I could learn something of the burden of what Lonnie had in mind to say to Judith Haynes. I said: "Let me go and see her. If she's awake and I think she's fit to talk, then OK."

He nodded. I went to Judith Haynes's room and entered without knocking. The oil lamp was turned up and she was awake, stretched out under the covers with only her face showing. She looked ghastly, which was the way I had expected her to look, with the Titian hair emphasising the drawn pallor of her face. The usually striking green eyes were glazed and lacklustre and her cheeks were smudged and streaked with tears. She looked at me indifferently as I pulled up a stool, then looked as indifferently away.

"I hope you slept well, Miss Haynes," I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Do you usually come calling on patients in the middle of the night?"

Her voice was as dull as her eyes.

"I don't make a practice of it. But we're taking turns keeping watch tonight, and this happens to be my turn. Is there anything that you want?"

"No. Have you found out who killed my husband?" She was so preternaturally calm, under such seemingly iron control, that I suspected it to be the prelude to another uncontrollable hysterical outburst.

"No. Am I to take it from that, Miss Haynes, that you no longer think that young Allen did?"

I don't think so. I've been lying here for hours, just thinking, and I don't think so." From the lifeless voice and the lifeless face I was pretty sure she was still under the influence of the sedative. "You will get him, won't you? The man who killed Michael. Michael wasn't as bad as people thought, Dr. Marlowe, no he really wasn't." For the first time a trace of expression, just the weary suggestion of a smile. I don't say he was a kind man or a good one or a gentle one, for he wasn't: but he was the man for me."

"I know," I said, as if I understood, which I only partially did. "I hope we get the man responsible. I think we will. Do you have any ideas that could help?"

"My ideas are not worth much, Doctor. My mind doesn't seem to be very clear."

"Do you think you could talk for a bit, Miss Haynes? It wouldn't be too tiring?"

I am talking."

"Not to me. To Lonnie Gilbert. He seems terribly anxious to speak to you.

"Speak to me?" Tired surprise but not outright rejection of the idea.

"Why should Lonnie Gilbert wish to speak to me?"

I don't know. Lonnie doesn't believe in confiding in doctors. All I gather is that he feels that he's done you some great wrong and he wants to say "sorry," I think."

"Lonnie say "sorry" to me!" Astonishment had driven the flat hopelessness from her voice. "Apologise to me? No, not to me." She was silent for a bit, then she said: "Yes, I'd very much like to see him now."

I concealed my own astonishment as best I could, went back to the main cabin, told an equally astonished Lonnie that Judith Haynes was more than prepared to meet him and watched him as he went along the passage, entered her room and closed the door behind him. I glanced at Luke. He appeared, if anything, to be more soundly asleep than ever, absurdly young to be in this situation, a pleased smile on his face: he was probably dreaming of golden discs. I walked quietly along the passage to Judith Haynes's room: there was nothing in the Hippocratic oath against doctors listening at dosed doors.

It was clear that I was going to have to listen very closely indeed for although the door was only made of bonded ply, the voices in the room were being kept low and I could hear little more than a confused murmur. I dropped to my knees and applied my car to the keyhole. The audibility factor improved quite remarkably.

"You!" Judith Haynes said. There was a catch in her voice, I wouldn't have believed her capable of any, of the more kindly emotions. "You! To apologise to me! Of all people, you!"

"Me, my dear, me. All those years, all those years." His voice fell away and I couldn't catch his next few words. Then he said: "Despicable, despicable. For any man to go through life, nurturing the animosity, nay, my dear, the hatred-" He broke off. and there was silence for some moments. He went on: "No forgiveness, no forgiveness. I know he can't! I know he couldn't have been so bad, or even really bad at all, you loved him and no one can love a person who is bad all through, but even if his sins had been black as the midnight shades-'