“Oh, well,” she said, trying to smile. “I’m just being silly. He’ll come back, I expect, when he’s stopped being angry. It was my fault for asking all those questions. When you’re on your own, you imagine all sorts of dreadful things.”
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose you do. What questions were you asking?”
“It was about Alice,” she said. “She and Max had a private conversation on the night of her death. I wanted to know what it was about.”
“And he wouldn’t tell you?”
She shook her head. “ It upset him. He said it showed I didn’t trust him. He accused me of thinking he killed her. But it wasn’t that.”
“Can you tell me what you thought the conversation between Alice and your husband was about? I don’t want to upset you, and I’ll treat it as confidential unless it’s important, but it might help me find out who did kill her.”
“It wasn’t Max,” she said, the hysteria returning. “He wouldn’t have done a thing like that.”
“Tell me now,” Ramsay said firmly. “Why do you think Mrs. Parry wanted to talk to Max?”
“I think she’d found out that Max was having an affair,” Judy said quickly. She was blushing.
“And was he? Having an affair?”
“I think so. I didn’t want to believe it at first. I found a letter in his jacket pocket once. It was beautiful, very tender, very loving, very lyrical. I’ve never written anything like that to him. I suppose I’ve always taken our relationship for granted. He told me it was from a patient, an elderly, neurotic patient who was infatuated with him. All of the doctors in the practise had received love letters at one time or another from her, he said. Now it was his turn.”
“And you believed him?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“Was the letter signed?”
She shook her head. “It didn’t even start ‘Dear Max,’” she said. “It was set out more like a poem.”
“Did you recognise the handwriting?”
She shook her head again.
“Could it have been written by Stella Laidlaw?” he asked. It was an explanation for the scene he had witnessed yesterday, which he could not ignore.
“Stella!” She seemed astonished. “No, of course not. Stella wouldn’t write love letters to Max. She has hardly enough warmth to give to her husband and daughter. She wouldn’t have any affection left over for a lover.”
“You’re certain the handwriting wasn’t hers?”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t say that. It never occurred to me that it could be Stella. I was in a state when I found it. I made a big scene. I didn’t look at it very rationally. Why do you think it might have been written by Stella?”
“Dr. Laidlaw went to her house yesterday afternoon,” Ramsay said. “Have you any idea why he should go to visit her?”
“No,” Judy said. “None at all. He always seemed to dislike her.”
“She wasn’t a patient of your husband?”
“No,” Judy said. “Of course not. James and Stella have their own doctor with a practise on that side of town. He’s much more their type, a friend of James’s. They went to school together.”
“Has Stella been ill?”
“She had nervous trouble,” Judy said. “She was very depressed after Carolyn was born. Not just the normal baby blues a lot of mothers experience, but a real psychosis. She went to hospital for a while. She seemed well enough when she first came out, but she still has bouts of depression. She’s not very easy to live with. James never complains-he seems to adore her whatever she does. On bad days she can be rude and aggressive, and he has to go round apologising and explaining for her. I feel rather sorry for him. There doesn’t seem to be a lot that anyone can do.”
“James has never asked Max to treat her?”
“No, of course not. It’s not something Max is specially qualified in. James would be more likely to consult a specialist.”
There was a pause. Judy Laidlaw poured out tea, then hunted in a cupboard for biscuits. Ramsay waited until she was sitting down again.
“Yesterday afternoon your husband delivered a prescription to Mrs. Laidlaw. It was made out for a course of tranquilisers. Have you any explanation for his doing that?”
She shook her head. All the crying had dulled her, left her with a headache. She could not think clearly.
“I know Stella’s doctor doesn’t like her taking tranquilisers,” she said. “ I think she may have become dependent on them when she first came out of hospital. The dangers of dependence weren’t so well documented then. She’s complained to me sometimes that they’re the only things that help. She asked me if there was any equivalent she could buy over the counter. Of course, there isn’t.”
“So Max might have given Mrs. Laidlaw the prescription to help her, because he felt sorry for her?”
“No,” she said sharply. “ He wouldn’t do that. He’s a good doctor. He knows the rules. I can’t imagine why he would prescribe for her unless…” Her voice dropped.
“Unless?” he prompted.
“Unless she had put him under some sort of pressure. Max is weak. In some situations he might be prepared to take the easy way out.”
“And what might Mrs. Laidlaw be using to put pressure on your husband?”
“I don’t know!” she cried, and he realised he had pressed her too far, too quickly. “I just don’t know.”
“Perhaps,” he said gently, more the doctor himself now than the policeman, “perhaps we have come back again to Max’s affair.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Judy said. “ Stella wasn’t capable of loving anyone. I’ve explained already. She certainly wasn’t capable of writing that letter.”
“But perhaps,” he said more gently, still reassuring her with his voice, telling her that he knew how hard all this was for her, “perhaps she knew who did write it.”
“Blackmail!” Judy said. “You think Stella was blackmailing him about his lover.”
“Is that possible?”
The speed and certainty of her answer surprised him. “Yes,” Judy said. “She’s a bitch. I’d believe anything of her.”
She thought then that he was through, but he stayed on, pouring more tea for himself and for her, so that she knew his questions had not finished and she must brace herself again for another shock, more unpleasantness.
“You know who it is,” she said suddenly, as if the thing would be easier to bear if it were she who took the initiative. “ You know whom he’s been having an affair with.”
“I’ve an idea,” he said. “ I’ve no certainty.”
“Well,” she demanded. “ Tell me!”
“There’s a young reporter on the Express,” he said, “called Mary Raven. She spoke to Alice Parry on the afternoon of her death. It’s possible, don’t you think, that she might have confided in the old lady about her love affair with Mrs. Parry’s nephew. Especially if the affair was at an end, going badly. Then Mrs. Parry asked to speak to Max in private. Don’t you think she might have been telling him to sort himself out, to come to a decision one way or another, that he wasn’t being fair to either of you? All evening Mary Raven waited in the churchyard outside the Tower. Don’t you think she was waiting for her secret lover, hoping that he would leave his wife, and then there would be no need to keep him secret anymore?”
“I know Mary,” Judy said, almost to herself. “ She comes here sometimes. I like her.” Then she turned to Ramsay, her voice hoarse and shrill with distress. “ What are you saying?” she asked. “Are you saying that Max and Mary did murder Alice? To stop their secret coming out? That’s no reason. I wouldn’t have made a scene about the affair. We would have sorted something out. Tell me! What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know,” Ramsay said, aware that she needed the definite answer he was unable to give. “Perhaps nothing happened. Perhaps Max stayed in the Tower watching television and eventually Mary went away. We know she can’t have killed Mrs. Parry herself. She was at a party in Newcastle when the murder was committed. Did Max tell you anything about what happened that night when you’d gone to bed?”