COMMENT | One argument between the late Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman and his wife, Neno, remained unresolved until his dying day: Is there a dead body underneath their garden? (This is stated in a book titled 'The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time', written by Ooi Kee Beng and published in 2007.)

Ismail told his wife that there was none, but Neno refused to believe. So Ismail dug up the spot in the garden to prove it to her. Later, Ismail filled up the hole with water and made it a swimming pool. In the next 40 years, the pool was used by prime ministers from the United Kingdom and Canada whenever they visited Malaysia.

But Neno only used it once.

That meant that the pool was a place where Ismail could divulge secrets away from his wife. Three weeks before Ismail (file photo, above) died, he told Robert Kuok: “I had three heart attacks in the last two weeks… quite serious ones. I have young children, and Neno is expecting. If anything happens to me…”

“No, no, no… Don’t talk like that,” said Kuok. “Let’s tackle the problem at hand first. Can you hand in your resignation (as deputy prime minister) tomorrow?”

“No, I can’t. I do want to resign, but (prime minister) Razak (Hussein) is leaving for the Commonwealth meeting in Ottawa soon, and I have promised him that I would act in his absence. I will resign when he comes back,” said Ismail. He then let out an ominous “Aaaaaaaahh.”

This was not the first time Ismail had to carry on his national duty while carrying fatal illnesses. A decade before, he had a bacterial infection in his heart; then, he had...