Ramsay told Hunter to take Mary home, and as he had just started eating a bacon sandwich in the canteen, she had a long wait for him. It was half-past one and the town was quite quiet. Hunter said nothing as he drove through the empty streets. Mary Raven wasn’t his type.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” he asked when he parked outside.

“No,” she said. “ I can manage fine.” And he put her independence down to the sort of woman she was. He almost expected a lecture on feminism.

She waited until the car had pulled away before she went into her flat. She moved quietly because she did not want to draw attention to herself and she did not want to disturb Max. She pushed open the door into the bedroom, expecting to hear his drunken heavy breathing. But Max had gone and the only sign that he had been there was the crumpled bed.

Her first impulse was to rush out into the street to look for him, but she realised that he had probably been gone for hours. She climbed into the bed and fell asleep, exhausted.

When she woke, she switched on the radio immediately, half expecting to hear that Max Laidlaw had been arrested for murder. There was nothing. She phoned his home, but Judy answered the phone in a tight and tearful voice, and she replaced the receiver without speaking. It was too early for him to be at the surgery. Again, to escape her growing anxiety, she returned to her story. She looked back in her shorthand notebook for the name and address of the man she had seen in the magistrates court who had been convicted for a second time of drunk driving, then went out intending to find him.