“Max,” she said. “ What have you done?”
But that seemed only to distress him more.
“I’ll find somewhere else to go,” he said. “ You don’t want me here.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course I want you. I always want you. Why don’t you spend the night here? You can’t go back to your wife like this.”
She took his hand as if he were a big and backward child and took him to the bedroom. There she undressed him gently, wishing he was more himself so that he could appreciate the care she was taking of him. She sat him in a chair while she made the bed, smoothing biscuit crumbs from the sheets onto the carpet, shaking pillows so that he would be comfortable. Then she kissed him gently and left him to steep.
In the morning, she thought, when he’s sober, we’ll talk about this and make love slowly. And at least when he was in trouble he came to me and not to his wife.
She made more coffee for herself and sat in front of the gas fire to drink it, satisfied because Max was under her roof again.
She was still there when Hunter arrived to invite her to the police station for a few questions.
“What questions?” she demanded. “I’ve told you everything I know.” But she did not make too much fuss because she was afraid Max would wake, and she knew that at all costs Max must be protected from the police.
Ramsay saw Mary Raven in his office instead of in the interview room next to the cells. He thought she was stubborn and would react to confrontation with rudeness or awkward silence. He needed to persuade her that he did not suspect her of either murder and that he needed her help. Yet throughout the interview he was surprised by her determination to give nothing away. She seemed to be trying to be obstructive and he could not understand it. He grew frustrated by her attitude. She was an intelligent woman, wasn’t she? Couldn’t she see that she would land herself in trouble if she did not tell the truth? He could not tell that she did not care what happened to her-she had a naïve belief in English justice and knew she was innocent. But she had Max to protect, and as the questioning progressed his alcoholic agitation seemed more significant and sinister.
“Miss Raven,” Ramsay said. “We have evidence that you remained in Brinkbonnie last Saturday after seeing Mrs. Parry. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
It was not what she had been expecting and she looked at him before answering. She could not tell whether or not he was bluffing. He was cleverer than she had realised. She decided that the only thing to do was to stick to her story.
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know where your information’s come from, but you’ve made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“I heard that your mate went and spoke to Sophie in Newcastle,” she said. “You know I can’t have murdered Mrs. Parry. I was at her birthday party.”
“But you might have seen something,” Ramsay said. “You could be an important witness.”
“Sorry,” she said again, implying that she was not sorry at all. “I can’t help you.”
“Someone saw you,” he insisted. “I think I explained before. Charlie Elliot saw you. Do you not think it’s something of a coincidence that now he’s dead?”
She shrugged, as if the death of Charlie Elliot was a matter of total indifference to her, yet she was remembering with a sudden clarity the look on Max Laidlaw’s face when she had told him that Charlie had seen her in the churchyard.
“That had nothing to do with me.”
“How well do you know Dr. Laidlaw, Miss Raven?”
She feigned anger. “Look,” she said. “You’ve asked me that before. It’s late. I want to go home.”
“Could you answer the questions,” he said. “Humour me.”
“Dr. Laidlaw isn’t my doctor, but I go to his practise and see him sometimes. I know his wife.”
“Has he written any prescriptions for you lately?”
This time the question genuinely surprised her.
“No,” she said. “Can’t you tell? I’m the picture of health.”
“A prescription with your name on it was taken to a pharmacist in the middle of Otterbridge today.”
“It must be a coincidence,” she said. “ Really, I haven’t been to the doctor for years.”
“It was a fictional prescription,” he said. “Made out for someone else entirely. But Dr. Laidlaw chose your name. Why was that, do you think? Why, of all the patients in the practise, was yours the first to come into his mind?”
“I don’t bloody know!” she said, but she was secretly delighted.
“When did you last see Dr. Laidlaw?”
“I can’t remember.”
There was a pause. Mary lit another cigarette. It was very late and she had not slept well on Sophie’s sofa. She yawned.
“We’ve had some difficulty in finding you during the last few days,” Ramsay said. “Can you give me some idea of where you’ve been?”
“Be more specific,” Mary said, playing for time.
“What about Tuesday morning?” Ramsay said. “ That’s when Charlie Elliot was murdered.”
But if he hoped to frighten her he did not succeed. She seemed to take a keen interest in the questions. She was wary. But she did not feel under any personal threat.
“I talked to you,” she said. “You came into the café in town and I saw you there.”
“What about earlier that morning?” he asked. “ Between five and six-thirty. Where were you then?”
“I was at home,” she said. “ I was restless and couldn’t sleep. I started to do some work.”
What’s wrong with all these women? Ramsay thought, remembering that Stella Laidlaw, too, had complained of being restless. Do they all suffer from insomnia?
“Can anyone confirm that you were at home?” he asked.
“I was typing,” she said. “Someone else in the house might have heard it.”
“Why have you spent so little time in the office?” he asked. It was a final question. He expected to get nothing else out of her. He was profoundly disappointed.
So she told Ramsay a little about her story. It was a relief to have something to tell him without pretence, and as she spoke with immense enthusiasm he became more interested.
“If it comes to anything,” he said, “you should let me know. It might be a police matter.”
“Yes,” she said. Perhaps he wasn’t such a bad policeman after all. She was tempted just for a moment to trust him. Then she remembered Max, sobbing and overwrought, and knew that this was just another trick to put her off her guard.
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.