The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5) (16 page)

‘What about going to Carlisle to chat to my mate?’ She could tell Charlie was pissed off because he hadn’t been invited to lunch.

‘That, Charlie, you do in your own time.’

They had lunch in the pub in Craster, sitting upstairs so there was a view over a quiet sea. Crab sandwiches and smoked salmon from the smokery over the road. The day was still cold and clear and Vera felt like a truant. She’d got Joe Ashworth to drive and had spoken to Holly on the way. Lenny’s ex-wife worked in a nursery in Cramlington and she’d be expecting them at three.

‘I felt I couldn’t breathe in the Writers’ House,’ she said. She’d gone for a glass of dry white with the sandwiches. Beer at lunchtime sometimes made her sleepy. ‘And I couldn’t think straight. This is more like it.’

‘So you’ve cracked it then, have you?’ There were times when Joe could be facetious. ‘You know who killed the letchy old goat, and why?’

‘Eh, pet, I haven’t got a clue. But at least now I feel I’ve got a
chance
of working it all out.’

The nursery was part of a Sure Start centre, and at first they went the wrong way and ended up with a group of pregnant women who were lying on the floor, doing breathing exercises. They reminded Vera of seals, hauled onto a beach, all round and sleek, gleaming in the sunshine. Vera had had a broody phase in her late thirties. There’d been a man then – the only man she could have contemplated living with – but he hadn’t thought the same way about her and nothing had come of it. Now she wasn’t sure she’d ever have felt the need to go through all this palaver.

Helen Thomas was in the baby room. A couple of the children were so tiny that they were lying in cots, the rest were sitting with the carers on a brightly coloured rug, surrounded by plastic toys. Ashworth, always a sucker for bairns, squatted down to make silly noises at them.

‘Don’t get any ideas, Joe,’ Vera said, only partly joking. ‘Three is enough for anyone, and they get in the way of your work.’

Lenny’s ex-wife called over to a colleague, ‘Take over here, will you, Gill. I’ll be in my office if you need me.’ Vera had been expecting their interviewee would be a nursery assistant, someone who changed nappies and wiped up sick, not this confident woman who seemed to be in charge.

The office was small, but impressively tidy. Helen Thomas nodded for them to take the two chairs and perched on the edge of the desk. On the walls there were charts and rotas, and posters about healthy eating and the importance of play.

‘How can I help you? The officer who phoned didn’t say.’

‘It’s about Lenny Thomas. You were married to him?’ Vera found it hard to imagine this neat little woman in the same bed as the man she’d met at the Writers’ House.

‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘Is he in some sort of trouble?’

‘Probably not. You must have seen in the press that there was a murder at the Writers’ House up the coast. Lenny was one of the witnesses.’

‘Not a suspect then?’

‘Only in the same way as all the other residents are.’

‘Oh, come off it, Inspector! How many of the other residents have a criminal record and speak like Lenny does? I bet you’re not speaking to everyone else’s partner.’

Vera was about to snap back, but then she thought of the summary she’d heard of Lenny’s background at the morning briefings. ‘Sometimes the police make assumptions,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t always mean that they’re right. So why don’t you put us straight?’

Helen didn’t reply immediately. It seemed she needed time to think about her answer. ‘Would you like tea? Coffee?’

They shook their heads.

‘Lenny is a good man,’ Helen said. ‘A romantic and a dreamer, but basically a good man.’

‘Is that why you divorced? Because you couldn’t live with his dreams?’

‘That was why I had an affair, Inspector.’ The retort was immediate. ‘I needed a man who lived in the present and not in the future. When he was made redundant from Banks, Lenny was full of wild plans and I was just concerned about paying the mortgage. My lover was stable, reliable, but very boring, and I soon got rid of him. The divorce was Lenny’s idea. He’d thought I was perfect, and he couldn’t forgive me for spoiling the image.’ She paused. ‘We’re still good friends. We have a son, Daniel, and we see each other often. Sometimes I wonder . . .’

‘. . . if you’ll get back together?’ Vera completed the sentence.

‘Yeah!’ She smiled. ‘Daft, isn’t it?’

‘How long were you married?’ Joe asked. Vera thought he was genuinely interested and wondered if he’d been having dreams of his own.

‘More than fifteen years. I’d known Lenny when we were still at school, though. He was the class clown, desperate to please. I went away to college and he got into trouble. Nothing serious. One of the Blyth hard men was pulling his strings, made him believe he could make easy money. More daft dreams. I met Lenny again when he’d just come out of prison, at a wedding of an old school friend. He made me laugh.’

‘And he adored you,’ Vera said. She thought of Jack, who adored Joanna, and wondered again if somewhere there was a lover in the background in that relationship too. Someone secret and unlikely.

‘Aye, maybe he did.’ Helen gave a little laugh.

‘It’s hard to live up to, that sort of adoration.’

‘It was very good for me.’ Helen became serious. Somewhere down the corridor a baby was crying. She listened for a moment and seemed to decide that there was nothing wrong. ‘I’d been a terribly shy child. Bright enough, but not willing to stand out or give an opinion. Lenny gave me the confidence to take more exams and try for promotion. He always believed in me, but somehow I could never quite believe in him.’

‘In his dreams?’ Vera prompted.

‘Aye, in the dreams.’

‘How long had he wanted to be a writer?’ The baby had stopped crying. Just outside the office there was a conversation between two mothers.

‘Since we got together,’ Helen said. ‘He’d got some education in prison and the teacher had encouraged him. Sometimes he’d read out his stuff and I thought it was good too, but what would I know? I did know that we had a child, and I wanted more for Daniel than Lenny or I had had growing up, and Lenny didn’t seem to mind working on the open-cast. He made friends there and the money was more than he’d ever had before. He seemed happy enough.’

‘Then he got the back trouble?’

‘Aye, folk make fun of back pain, as if it’s something you make up to fool the doctors, but Lenny was in agony.’ Again Helen was distracted for a moment by a noise outside. This time it came from a group of older children singing nursery rhymes. ‘At first I encouraged his writing. I thought it would take his mind off the pain. Then his back got better, and I thought he was ready to find another real job. It wasn’t so much the money. By then I was earning enough to keep us. I didn’t want Daniel seeing a dad who sat around the house doing nothing all day. But all Lenny could talk about were the stories, how he was going to get a publisher and what he’d buy for us when he was rich and famous.’

‘The man who died at the Writers’ House,’ Vera said. ‘He was a bit of a celebrity. On the telly all the time talking about books. Apparently he’d told Lenny that his work was good enough to get published. He’d offered to put him in touch with a publisher. Told him he had a good chance of seeing his books on the shelves.’

Helen looked up, horrified. ‘And then he died, and all that hope was all taken away. Oh, poor Len.’

‘The man, Tony Ferdinand, has rather a reputation.’ Vera chose her words carefully. ‘It seems he could be ruthless in his dealings with his students. Is it possible that Lenny might lose his temper with the man, if he felt he was being criticized or mocked?’

‘No,’ Helen said. ‘Lenny’s never lost his temper all the time I’ve known him. Even when I told him about the affair he was sad, not angry. He’s just a big softie.’

They sat for a moment in silence. Vera hoped Helen might continue, but she sat on the desk, her feet swinging like a child’s, challenging them not to believe her.

‘Did Lenny phone you from the Writers’ House,’ Vera asked at last, ‘to tell you about the murder? If you’re still close . . .’

‘Yes, he phoned,’ Helen said. ‘He thought we might hear about the death and he wanted to let me know he was okay.’

‘So it’s not unexpected, us turning up like this. You’d have had time to prepare your story.’

‘I didn’t need to prepare a story, Inspector.’ The original hostility had returned. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

Vera saw they’d get nothing more out of the woman and she got to her feet. Ashworth followed her lead. At the door Vera paused and turned back.

‘How did Lenny find out you were having an affair?’

‘He didn’t find out. Once it was over, I told him. I hated having a secret from him.’

‘I hope that made you feel better.’ Vera spoke so softly that the woman probably couldn’t even hear her. Joe had heard, however, and she saw that she’d shocked him again. Still she continued, ‘It certainly wouldn’t have done a lot for Lenny.’

At lunch Nina found herself sitting next to Lenny Thomas. She’d almost decided to stay away, to hide in her room while the meal was taking place. After the interview with Vera Stanhope, since Joe Ashworth had come into her room and stood, stony and pale, looking out of her window, she’d had the terrible thought that everyone in the Writers’ House would think she was a murderer. Certainly it had seemed to her that the young detective thought of her in that way. They’d know about her pills, the drugged victim. They’d string those facts together to make a convincing narrative. And who could blame them? She’d reach the same conclusion, presented with the same facts.

But it seemed that the police had been discreet, as of course she should have realized they would be. The residents had forgotten that she’d been summoned away from breakfast to talk to Vera Stanhope. This would be the last full day of the course. Tonight there would be a special dinner and everyone would read a short piece of work. A celebration of their time in the house. And that was the main topic of conversation over lunch. Nobody considered that this feast might be inappropriate. If Tony Ferdinand had been well liked, the consensus might have been different. He’d been a major literary figure with the potential for changing careers, and would certainly be missed on those grounds, but the students had seen through his arrogance and his superficial charm. The other tutors had considerable influence too, and the students were reluctant to lose the opportunity of bringing their work to these people’s notice. Now the conversation around the table was cheerful, almost excited. It seemed that even Joanna had been accepted back into the fold. She was chatting to Mark Winterton. Nina heard her laugh, musical and infectious, across the table.

‘I can’t believe that tomorrow everything goes back to normal,’ Lenny said.

‘What do you mean?’ It seemed to Nina that nothing would ever be normal again.

‘Well, this has been fantastic for me. Like, suddenly, for the first time in my life, I’m with people who think the same way I do. I mean, Helen, my wife, she was great when we were living together, but she didn’t really get the writing thing. She’s more practical.’

Nina saw that Lenny had loved every minute here. The whole deal: the fancy rooms, and being cooked for, and being taken seriously as a writer. She could see that it would be hard for him to go back to the flat in the ex-pit village. He’d feel like Alice emerging from the magic of Wonderland and having to go back to a boring schoolroom. ‘But you’ll carry on writing,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine ever stopping that. But the being published thing. That was never going to happen, was it? Tony Ferdinand was a bullshitter. Even if he hadn’t died, men like me don’t get their names on books.’

‘That’s not true, you know.’ But Nina could tell that her words were unconvincing. ‘What will you read at the party tonight?’

‘I thought the first page of the novel. I’m pleased with that. It’s part of what I put in to get the grant. What about you?’

‘Oh!’ She was surprised. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that I would.’

‘This isn’t just a student gig, you know,’ he said. ‘I asked Miranda. Tonight everyone reads a bit. Even her. You’ll have to give us something.’

‘I’ve been working on a short story,’ Nina said. ‘I’ll read a piece from that, perhaps.’

Later Nina went onto the beach. Rickard was giving a masterclass and, though she’d considered going in and sitting at the back, in the end she thought she needed exercise and a break from the house. If everyone was planning to read at the farewell party, it would be a long night. She walked round the side of the house to get to the terrace and the path to the coast. Passing the drawing room where Rickard had already begun to talk, she saw Joanna sitting right at the front of the room, her face rapt, giving her full attention.

The sun was low and it was cold. Tonight there would be a frost; the sky was still clear. Nina walked along the tide line, stooping occasionally to pick up a piece of sculpted driftwood or a pretty shell. There was no wind, and the water slid onto the shingle beach, the waves hardly breaking. A small party of gulls floated just out to sea. Tomorrow she’d be back in her flat in Newcastle. She thought she’d invite friends to dinner later in the week. Usually she despised university politics, but she thought she needed to hear gossip, to drink a little too much. She’d tell them about the murder. They’d have read about it. She’d have fun describing Vera Stanhope to them. The fact that her sleeping pills had been used to drug the famous victim would just make a better story.

She looked at her watch. Rickard’s session would last for another half-hour, but she was starting to feel chilled and she decided to go to her room and choose which piece of her work she’d read. She began to climb the path into the garden and was shocked by a figure blocking her way. The garden was in shadow and at first all she could see was a silhouette, squat and bulky, partly hidden by overgrown shrubs.

‘Ah, Nina, I’ve been waiting for you. I saw you on the beach from my room in the cottage. I wanted your advice.’ It was Miranda. At the same time as Nina recognized the voice, the figure became clearer. Miranda was wearing a cord skirt that reached almost to her ankles, a thick jacket and a scarf. Boots.