The Naked Face | Page 7

have hated?'
'If there were such a person,' Judd said, 'I would tell you. I think I knew everything there was to know about John Hanson. He was a happy man. He didn't hate anyone and I don't know of anyone who hated him.'
'Good for him. You must be one helluva doctor,' McGreavy said. 'Well take his file along with us.'
'No.'
'We can get a court order.'
'Get it. "There's nothing in that file that can help you.'
'Then what harm could it do if you gave it to us?' asked Angeli.
'It could hurt Hanson's wife and children. You're on the wrong track. You'll find that Hanson was killed by a stranger.'
'I don't believe it.' McGreavy snapped.
Angeli rewrapped the raincoat and tied the string around the bundle. 'We'll get this back to you when
we run some more tests on it,'
'Keep it,' Judd said.
McGreavy opened the private door leading to the corridor. "We'll be in touch with you, Doctor.' He walked out. Angeli nodded to Judd and followed McGreavy out.
Judd was still standing there, his mind churning, when Carol walked in. 'Is everything all right?' she
asked hesitantly.
'Someone killed John Hanson.'
'Killed him?'
'He was stabbed,' Judd said.
'Oh my God! But why?'
The police don't know.'
'How terrible!' She saw his eyes and the pain in them Is there anything I can do, Doctor?'
'Would you close up the office, Carol? I'm going over to see Mrs. Hanson. I'd like to break the news to her myself.'
'Don't worry. Ill take care of everything,' said Carol.
Thanks.'
And Judd left.
Thirty minutes later Carol had finished putting the files away and was locking her desk when the corridor door opened. It was after six o'clock and the building was closed. Carol looked up as the man smiled
and moved towards her.



Chapter Three

Mary Hanson was a doll of a woman; small, beautiful, exquisitely made. On the outside, she was soft, Southern-helpless-feminine, and on the inside, granite bitch. Judd had met her a week after beginning her husband's therapy. She had fought hysterically against it and Judd had asked her to have a talk with him. 'Why are you so opposed to your husband going through analysis?'
'I won't have my friends saying I married a crazy man,' she had told Judd. Tell him to give me a divorce; then he can do any damn thing he pleases.'
Judd had explained that a divorce at that point could destroy John completely.
There's nothing left to destroy,' Mary had screamed. 'If I'd known he was a fairy, do you think I would have married him? He's a woman.'
There's some woman in every man,' Judd had said. 'Just as there's some man in every woman. And in your husband's case, there are some difficult psychological problems to overcome. But he's trying, Mrs Hanson. I think you owe it to him and his children to help him.'
He had reasoned with her for more than three hours, and in the end she had reluctantly agreed to hold
off on the divorce. In the months that followed, she had become interested and then involved in the
battle that John was waging.
Judd made it a rule never to treat married couples, but Mary had asked him to let her become a patient, and he had found it helpful As she had begun to understand herself and where she had failed as a wife, John's progress had become dramatically rapid.
And now Judd was here to tell her that her husband had been senselessly murdered She looked up at him, unable to believe what he had just said, sure that it was some kind of macabre joke. And then realization set in. 'He's never coming back to me!' she screamed. 'He's never coming back to mel' She started tearing at her clothes in anguish, like a wounded animal. The six-year-old twins walked in. And from that moment on, there was bedlam. Judd managed to calm the children down and take them to a neighbour's house. He gave Mrs. Hanson a sedative and called the family doctor. When he was sure there was nothing more he could do, he left. He got into his car and drove aimlessly, lost in thought. Hanson had fought his way through a hell, and at the moment of his victory ... It was such a pointless death. Could it have been some homosexual who had attacked him? Some former lover who was frustrated because Hanson had left him? It was possible, of course, but Judd did not believe it Lieutenant McGreavy had said that Hanson was killed a block away from the office. If the murderer bad been a homosexual, full of hatred, he would have made a rendezvous with Hanson at some private piace, either to try to persuade Hanson to come back to him or to pour out his recriminations before he killed him. He would not have