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The sun eased and weaved through the swaying leaves. A light breeze tickled the pages of Morse’s book. He could hear the buzzing of bees and twittering of birds and the humming of Max as he pottered about the garden. The grass, freshly cut by Morse that morning, was cool beneath him and gave a welcome respite from the heat of the sun.
A baby robin, still fluffy and only just beginning to ripen its red breast, bobbed and hopped in the flower bed beside him. Momentarily distracted from his book he ran his fingers through the grass and took a deep breath, a heady mix of jasmine and lavender and the tea roses Max so lovingly tended to filling his nose. Casting his eyes around the veritable Eden, he admired the patchwork quilt of texture and colour.
Above him, the apples in the tree were fast approaching ripe. In a few weeks, he and Max would harvest some of them and stand side by side in his kitchen to make a crumble, and the thought brought a smile to his lips.
The wisteria bloomed, dignified and bold on the cream sandstone of Max’s cottage, and the flower beds were bursting with all sorts of wonderful hues and shapes. The foxgloves and delphiniums and hollyhocks towered high, a jasmine was threatening consuming the small potting shed, and geraniums and a small daisy-like plant Morse didn’t know the name of crept amongst the shrubs and the ferns and the taller plants.
It may not have been rival to the hanging gardens of Babylon but it was one of the wonders of Morse’s world.
It had taken Morse a long time to fully appreciate what Max had meant when he said s
omething has to be lovely
all those years ago. But after a long career and an even longer life Morse relished and sometimes required a day just to sit in the garden, that week especially.
“As your doctor I’m prescribing you a day of reading in the sunshine in the garden,” Max had sleepily declared on Thursday night when Morse had finally managed to finish the case he’d been working on, get home, and crawl into bed.
It had been rough: multiple gruesome murders, pressure from Division, and a week of barely seeing Max, kept as Morse was at the office or out chasing leads which frustratingly kept turning into wild goose chases.
So, yes, suffice to say, when Saturday rolled around, his first proper day off in who knew how long (Max did, it had been 4 weeks), Morse felt that he very much did need a day in the garden, reading in the sun. And there he was.
Beginning to feel stiff from lying on the ground for so long, Morse got up and ambled over to where Max was crouched weeding, and rested an affectionate hand on top of Max’s head.
“These are unusual,” he remarked, pointing at a spike of oddly-shaped purple flowers.
Max looked over to where Morse was pointing.
“They’re aconites, also known as monkshood,” informed Max.
“A very apt name, if you squint slightly.”
“Mm, rather. Did you know they’re highly poisonous?,” he asked, looking up at Morse.
“No,” replied Morse, surprised. “How so?”
“Well, they contain a number of highly toxic alkaloids and if ingested can cause numbness, muscle paralysis, and arrhythmia. You should also wear gloves when handling them because the toxins can be absorbed through the skin causing mild symptoms such as tingling and numbing.”
“And you just have them growing in your garden?,” asked Morse aghast.
“Well I’m sure I can trust you not to eat them?,” he replied, arching his brow. “And besides, many ornamental plants are poisonous, we just rely on people not eating them.”
Morse frowned.
“So how many here are poisonous?”
“Rather a lot actually, now that I come to think of it.”
Max paused for a moment, and stood up to survey his kingdom.
“Well, the delphiniums are very closely related to the aconites and contain the same toxic compounds.”
“It makes sense now that garden and danger are anagrams of each other,” Morse muttered, earning a soft glare from Max.
“Oh you’ll like this one,” said Max with a glint in his eye, leading Morse to a strange plant with red pointy leaves and spiky spherical… fruits? Morse wasn’t entirely sure. “It’s ricin.”
“Ricin?!”, Morse exclaimed. “What are you growing ricin for?”
“Well, it’s quite striking, wouldn’t you say?,” as if Morse was asking a stupid question.
“But… But it’s ricin?”
“And it’s not doing anyone any harm unless you take leave of your senses and decide to have a nibble. Besides, I cut them back before the seeds develop, and they’re the most toxic part.”
Morse’s horrified look did not abate even slightly.
“If it makes you feel any more at ease, many of these plants have actually been utilised for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. In fact, up until relatively recently, medical students had to study botany as well. When Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical student, he conducted an experiment where he poisoned himself with increasing doses of a particular plant species - I can’t remember what exactly - to determine its effects on human physiology. He stopped when said effects became too unpleasant.”
“I always knew he was strange,” said Morse, looking more than a little disgusted.
“Indeed,” remarked Max before continuing: “Our own botanic garden in Oxford began life as a physic garden, and it’s the same case with the botanic garden in Edinburgh, and they’re the two oldest botanic gardens in the country. Plants have been essential to medicine for millennia. One person’s poison can be another person’s cure; it’s all a matter of dosage. Take foxgloves, for example. In too large a dose, they cause nausea, diarrhoea, and arrhythmia, amongst other things, but the active compound, digoxin, is now used to treat heart conditions such as congestive heart failure.”
The look of horror on Morse’s face had gradually given way to a more pensive expression.
“Yes, I remember that being relevant to a case once, long ago.” The details of it were vague, hazy with time, but he recalled a different doctor explaining the medicinal effects of foxgloves to him.
“They’re really not all bad, Morse, and certainly not things to be afraid of. You see the yew hedge at the bottom of the garden?”
“Yes?”
“Well, yew is highly toxic - except for the red arils (I have been vehemently told by my botanist friend that they are not berries as yews do not flower so I am forbidden from referring to them as such). Anyway, yes, the whole plant is toxic except the arils, however research is now well underway to use one of the active compounds in the plant for the treatment of certain cancers.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” replied Max, taking pleasure from the wonder in Morse’s voice.
“Wow.” There was a look of genuine awe on his face as he looked towards the dark green hedge lining the bottom boundary of the garden.
“So you see, they can be good,” said Max softly.
“Well, you’ve convinced me, more or less. Though I’m not sure I like the idea of you growing ricin,” he said with a frown.
“Honestly Morse, you’ll be fine so long as you wear gloves and don’t eat anything unless I tell you it’s safe. Besides, you’ve probably got more to fear from that cherry laurel over there,” he said, pointing to the large shrub which was all that could be seen of his neighbour’s garden. “The leaves contain cyanide.”
“What?!”
But Max had already turned away, heading back up the garden.
“Come on,” he called back, ignoring Morse’s shock. “I’m desperate for a cup of tea and it’s your turn to make them. Some of us have actually been toiling away, not just lounging around on the grass.”
Having caught up with Max, Morse parried playfully: “I think you’ll find my doctor actually prescribed me some lounging around on the grass.”
“Did he now?”
“He did,” said Morse, slipping his hand into Max’s despite the dirt covering it.
“Well, your doctor sounds like a very smart man.”
“Oh he is, very. He has a very lovely garden too. Dangerous though, I hear.”
Max laughed and pulled Morse into a kiss, surrounded by the deadly, beautiful flowers.