He nodded and squeezed her arm, then got into the car.
The roads were a slushy mess, the thin layer of snow already melted by salt and regular traffic, but in a school playground a queue of running boys in grey uniforms slid down an icy run. Max braked too sharply at a traffic light and the car slid forward before stopping, harmlessly, against the kerb. The jolt made him think of Judy and her concern for him. She was wrong, he thought. It was not her fault, but he could think of nothing that would make things right. The lights changed and he drove on slowly.
The Health Centre was packed. Four buggies had been parked in the porch outside, and he had to push his way past them to get into the waiting room. Inside the room was hot and noisy with the damp acoustics of swimming baths. The place was full, it seemed, with feverish children and bronchitic grandmothers. The receptionist was flushed and fraught. She hardly acknowledged Max as he walked past because she was trying to answer the telephone and find a missing file at the same time. The ill-tempered chaos suited his mood and he called irritably for the first patient.
Stella Laidlaw phoned late in the afternoon when he was examining his last patient, a toddler with an ear infection. The receptionist spoke to him first.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “I explained that you were busy, but the lady insisted. She wouldn’t give her name. She said it was personal.”
Max felt a sudden exhilaration. His promise to Alice was immediately forgotten.
“Give me two minutes,” he said, “then put her through.”
He wrote a hurried prescription for the child, then, as calmly as he could, saw him and the mother into the waiting room. He picked up the telephone again.
“Yes,” he said. “Max Laidlaw.”
Stella’s voice surprised and disappointed him, and for a moment he could not place it. He had been expecting someone quite different.
“Max,” she said. “I’m sorry, Max. I need your help again.”
“No,” he said angrily. “ I told you before. That was the last time.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I’m desperate.”
“You should see your doctor.”
“I can’t. You know that. He’s a friend of James.”
There was a silence, then she continued spitefully: “I could tell James all about you, Max. I could phone Judy. I know she’d be interested. You wouldn’t like that.” She had the affected accent of minor royalty and always sounded to him like a lonely public-school girl, but it was impossible now to be sorry for her. “I know what happened, Max,” she went on, “at the Tower. You wouldn’t want me to tell Judy that.”
“That’s blackmail,” he said, but even as he protested he knew he would do as she wanted, because he always took the easy way out. He was weaker than she was.
“You’re ill,” he said. “You need help. Real help. Not the kind that I can give you. You need someone to talk to, to share things with.”
“I can talk to you,” she said, her voice almost seductive, “ when we meet.”
“I’m so busy,” he said, with a last flicker of resistance. “ I’ve so little time.”
“You’ve time enough for this.”
“I can’t come today,” he said quickly, playing for time. “ It’s dark already and the roads are bad. If I’m late, Judy will worry and phone the practise.”
“Tomorrow then,” she said after a pause. “James is out all day. Come tomorrow.”
She put the phone down quickly, so Max wondered if someone had disturbed her at the other end of the line. The conversation had upset him and he felt that he needed comfort, to feel good about himself again. He dialled the telephone number of the Otterbridge Express office, enjoying the sensation that he was taking a risk by calling her at work.
“Could I speak to Mary Raven?” he asked.
“I’m sorry.” The woman’s voice was bland, uncaring. “Miss Raven has just left the office. Can anyone else help you?”
“No,” he said, and quickly replaced the receiver. He would have to plan some romantic gesture to make his peace with Mary. It was impossible, after all, to think he could do without her.
Judy spent the afternoon in desultory clearing-up. The twins grizzled themselves to sleep eventually, and after school Peter sat slumped close to the television watching a Walt Disney cartoon. His eyes were heavy and he refused to communicate with her. When she tried to hug him, he shrugged her away. All day the phone rang with friends offering their sympathy and help, wanting, she thought, a share of the drama. Finally she took the phone off the hook, and when people came to the door she sent them away. Only Max could reassure her and he was refusing to talk. She had known for months that he was worried about something but had been too busy, too exhausted, too engrossed in playing the part of a fulfilled and active woman to find out what was troubling him. Now perhaps it was too late.
She had longed to know what Alice had to say so urgently to her husband, yet this morning she had handled the whole thing badly. She had wanted to force him to honesty. Instead she had come across as a nagging shrew. She felt excluded and unimportant, a failure.
The television cartoon finished and she persuaded Peter to go to bed. He did not argue and allowed her to undress him, moving his limbs when she told him to but making no effort himself.
“Mum,” he said. “ When will the policeman come to see me?”
“When you’re ready,” she said. “ Tomorrow, I expect.”
She tucked the blankets around him, but he seemed unwilling to settle to sleep.
“Aunt Alice was murdered, wasn’t she? Someone killed her?”
“Yes,” Judy said. “ The police think she was murdered.”
“I saw her go out,” he said. “ She banged the door and went off down the drive.”
“You can’t have seen her,” Judy said. “ You were asleep.”
“I wasn’t,” he said. “ I was pretending.”
“So you saw Aunt Alice walk down the drive to the road?”
He nodded.
“Did you see anything else later? Did you see your aunt coming back?”
Perhaps the urgency of her voice distressed him. He seemed suddenly frightened and pushed his head into the pillow. She held him and turned him gently to face her.
“You’re quite safe here,” she said. “You can tell me. Did you see anyone else that night?”
But his loyalty to Carolyn prevented him from sharing his fear.
“No!” he said, almost hysterical. “ No!”
She held him tightly until he sobbed himself to sleep.
The kitchen was in the basement. It was the length of the house. At the front it was below the level of the street, but at the back there was a door into the garden. On one wall hung a red, cream, and black rug that they had brought home from a holiday in Portugal. There was a small sofa covered in an Indian bedspread bought in an Oxfam shop when Max was a student and a long oak table that had been made by a friend. There was a notice board made of cork tiles where the children’s paintings and drawings were pinned, together with postcards, magazine articles, concert tickets. Max walked into the silent house and down the bare wooden stairs to the kitchen. He was later than usual and tried to think of some excuse if Judy should ask him where he had been.
The room was lit only by a spotlight over the table and another near to the cooker where Judy was standing. The mess of unironed clothes and half-completed models had become invisible in shadowy corners. The table was laid for dinner, with cutlery and a wooden bowl of salad. There were wineglasses. It was all quite different from what he expected. They seemed to live now on a children’s diet of sausages and baked beans. He shut the door behind him and pulled across the heavy curtain that shut out the draughts from upstairs. He wanted to acknowledge the effort Judy had made.
“This looks nice,” he said, realising at once how inadequate it sounded. Judy lifted a tray of baked potatoes from the oven and prodded one to make sure it was cooked.