Then Ramsay began to share Hunter’s impatience. This talk wasn’t getting them anywhere, just leading them round in circles. He should have trusted his original instinct and concentrated on getting Mary Raven to talk to them. He knew that if he could persuade her to tell them why she was in the churchyard, at least some of the confusion would disappear. So they left the Kerrs in a hurry, almost rudely, refusing offers of tea and food, and they drove to Otterbridge. But when they arrived at Mary Raven’s flat, it was dark and empty and the other tenants claimed not to have seen her all day. The policemen waited in the car for hours, with Hunter ranting about search warrants and, if that was impossible to arrange, breaking down the door and feigning a burglary. By midnight Ramsay was so desperate that he thought he might give in to this folly and knew it was time to go home.

Chapter Seventeen

On Wednesday morning Stella Laidlaw had still not seen Max. She had expected him to arrive the day before and had been prepared for him from early morning, as expectant and smartly dressed as a lover. She imagined that every car that approached the drive belonged to him, and by late afternoon she was in a frenzy of anxiety in case James came home from work before Max arrived. At four o’clock she phoned the surgery, but the receptionist said Dr. Laidlaw was out on an urgent call. Stella did not believe her and shouted and made a scene. Then she phoned Max at home, but Judy answered and Stella put the phone down without saying anything. There was a temptation to spite Max by telling Judy all she suspected, but secrecy, Stella knew, was her greatest source of power.

When James came in from work on Tuesday night, he found Stella more tense than he could remember. She was sobbing and shaking. She wished she was dead, she said. She wished it was all over for her, too. James tried to comfort her. He felt exhausted himself, but he put her to bed like a child and sat with her until she finally slept. In the morning the crisis seemed to be over and her confidence restored. She woke quite normally. He tried to insist on staying with her, or on fetching the doctor to be with her, but she sent him to work. She was at her most charming, apologising for making so much fuss the night before. She was so much trouble to him, she said. She did not know how he put up with her.