They had no choice after that but to drive him at once to Chelmsford and take a statement from him. No one believed it. The detective chief superintendent in charge of the case was very kind to him, very gentle but firm.

‘But if I tell you I killed her you must believe me. I can prove it.’

‘Can you, Dr Lestrange?’

‘My wife was constantly unfaithful to me . . .’

‘Yes, so you have told me. And you bore with her treatment of you because of your great affection for her. The truth seems to be, doctor, that you were a devoted husband and your wife – well, a less than ideal wife.’

Michael Lestrange insisted that he had driven to Chelmsford in pursuit of Norah, intending to appeal to Jan Vandepeer to leave her alone. He had not gone into the hotel. By chance he had encountered her walking aimlessly along a Chelmsford street as he was on his way to the Murrey Gryphon.

‘Mrs Lestrange was still having her dinner at the time you mention,’ said Chief Superintendent Masters.

‘What does that matter? It was earlier or later, I can’t be precise about times. She got into the car beside me. I drove off, I don’t know where, I didn’t want a scene in the hotel. She told me she had to get back, she was expecting Vandepeer at any moment.’

‘Vandepeer had sent her a message he wasn’t coming. She didn’t tell you that?’

‘Is it important?’ He was impatient to get his confession over. ‘It doesn’t matter what she told me. I can’t remember what we said.’

‘Can you remember where you went?’

‘Of course I can’t. I don’t know the place. I just drove and parked somewhere, I don’t know where, and we got out and walked and she drove me mad, the things she said, and I got hold of her throat and . . .’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I can’t remember what happened next. I don’t know where it was or when. I was so tired and I was mad, I think.’ He looked up. ‘But I killed her. If you’d like to charge me now, I’m quite ready.’

The chief superintendent said very calmly and stolidly, ‘That won’t be necessary, Dr Lestrange.’

Michael Lestrange shut his eyes momentarily and clenched his fists and said, ‘You don’t believe me.’

‘I quite believe you believe it yourself, doctor.’

‘Why would I confess it if it wasn’t true?’

‘People do, sir, it’s not uncommon. Especially people like yourself who have been overworking and worrying and not getting enough sleep. You’re a doctor, you know what the psychiatrists would say, that you had a reason for doing violence to your wife so that now she’s dead your mind has convinced itself you killed her, and you’re feeling guilt for something you had nothing to do with.

‘You see, doctor, look at it from our point of view. Is it likely that you, an educated man, a surgeon, would murder anyone? Not very. And if you did, would you do it in Wrexlade? Would you do it a hundred yards from the home of a man who has murdered four other women? Would you do it by strangling with the bare hands which is the method that man always used? Would you do it four weeks after the last strangling which itself was four weeks after the previous one? Coincidences like that don’t happen, do they, Dr Lestrange? But people do get overtired and suffer from stress so that they confess to crimes they never committed.’