The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5) (27 page)

‘I don’t suppose it would wait till morning . . .’

‘Aye, why not?’ She could tell that her immediate agreement had surprised him and she found herself grinning. She wasn’t going to let on that she was rather dreading the interview with Joanna, that she wasn’t yet sure what she was going to say. Let him believe that she had his family’s welfare at heart. ‘Work/life balance. Wasn’t there a memo from the Chief about that a few months ago? More to do with saving the overtime budget than marriages, I thought, but you know me, pet. I always take these missives from on high to heart.’

She grinned again, enjoying the shocked silence at the other end of the line, and replaced the receiver.

She was still eating breakfast when she heard Joe’s car outside. Another clear, frosty day. A bit of mist over the lough in the valley, but that would soon burn away. She got up to let him in and saw that Jack’s van wasn’t in the yard. It was market day in Alnwick, so he’d have left early. She hoped Joanna hadn’t gone with him.

She pushed the teapot in Joe’s direction and got up to fetch him a mug.

‘You’ll have had breakfast.’ Not a question. His wife looked after him, however early the start.

‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of toast, if there’s one going.’

‘Tough, there’s no bread.’ Not quite true, but she couldn’t be arsed to make it. Now Joe was here, she wanted to get on.

‘Rutherford claimed Joanna was blackmailing him,’ she said.

He set his mug down slowly. ‘Did you believe him?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a bugger, but I did.’

‘Does that change anything?’ Joe’s attention was caught by the view from the window and he seemed preoccupied. He lived in a modern semi on a quiet executive estate. Vera knew he regarded the open countryside with awe and something like suspicion. ‘I can’t see what it’s got to do with our investigation,’ he said. ‘All the witnesses will have stuff going on in their private lives.’

‘Of course they will,’ Vera said. ‘But they won’t all be turning the stuff into stories and putting it out for the public to read.’ Then she wondered if that was true. By all accounts, the piece Lenny Thomas had read on the evening of Miranda’s death had been personal too. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, getting to her feet, feeling again the strain in her knees, ‘why don’t we go and ask her?’

They found Joanna hanging out washing.

‘That’ll be frozen stiff in half an hour,’ Vera said by way of a greeting.

Joanna only laughed and said she was fed up with having it all over the kitchen. ‘I like to get the air into it.’

‘Do you fancy a bit of a walk?’

Joanna looked at Joe. ‘What’s this, Vee? Do you need a bodyguard these days? Are you frightened I’ll slash your throat too?’

‘Eh, pet, you know how it is. I can’t talk to you on my own.’

They walked down the track a way, then along the edge of a newly ploughed field. The soil was hard, but Vera could see that Joe was worried about the state of his shoes. She was glad to be outside: this case had made her feel claustrophobic from the start. It was being shut in the Writers’ House for days on end. Like being remanded in custody. A hawthorn hedge marked the field edge and there were redwings and fieldfares feeding on the berries. She followed Joanna and Ashworth in single file until they came to a gate and a wide track through woodland. Then Vera joined Joanna and started her questions.

‘You didn’t tell me you’d been in touch with your ex-husband recently.’ The tone was conversational, but she saw that Joanna had picked up the steel beneath it. ‘In fact you told me you were frightened Rickard might tell him where you were.’

‘You’ve spoken to Paul,’ she said. ‘Of course I should have realized you might.’ She slowed her pace and turned to Vera. ‘We all get taken in by you.’

‘I didn’t make the contact,’ Vera said. ‘That was your ex-husband. I think he came all the way to Newcastle especially to tell me what you’d been up to.’ The ground under the trees was dry and there was a smell of pine. ‘Cocky bastard, isn’t he?’

‘Is he? It’s so long since I’ve seen him that I really can’t remember any more. Perhaps he’s just a creature of my imagination.’ Joanna scuffed her feet through the pine needles. The sun formed a series of spotlights, catching her face as she walked through the trees.

‘Oh no, trust me, he’s real enough,’ Vera said. She was aware of Joe, walking a few paces behind them, making himself unobtrusive as only he could. ‘But those stories you told me. About him hitting you. Locking you up. Were
they
real? I’m not quite sure any more.’

‘You know what, Vee?’ The words were angry and Vera saw that the woman was close to tears. ‘Neither am I. Perhaps I’m a liar and a fantasist. Perhaps you can’t believe a word I say. All those pills they make me take, it’s hardly any wonder I don’t know what happened all those years ago.’

They came to an area of clear fell, a pile of tree trunks waiting to be hauled away. Vera sat on one and patted the log beside her for Joanna to join her.

‘Why did you need the money?’ Vera asked, her voice gentle, almost maternal. ‘I can get my head round all the rest, but not that. Not the blackmail.’

Joanna shook her head, a gesture to indicate that there was no point trying to explain: Vera wouldn’t understand.

‘Is it gambling? Drugs?’

‘No! What do you think we are? Jack and I have the most tedious existence possible. I’ve become a housewife like my mother. Except I don’t have the staff to do the boring stuff. And I love it. Really, I love it.’

‘So why did you need the money?’ This time the question was firmer.

Joanna shook her head again. ‘It was a mistake, talking to Paul. Crazy. I did it that time when I stopped taking my meds and I wasn’t thinking clearly. And I wasn’t lying about Giles Rickard – I didn’t speak to him, because I was scared Paul might find me. I made sure Paul wouldn’t be able to trace me from my phone call. It didn’t seem like blackmail to me. It was more like asking for what I was owed. When we divorced he gave me nothing. But I shouldn’t have got in touch with him again. I should have realized it would lead to trouble.’

She pushed herself off from the tree trunk and began to run off, back towards the farm, her long plait bouncing behind her. She was too fit for Vera to follow, and Joe stayed were he was too. They saw her flickering figure through the trees, the movement seeming jerky because of their interrupted vision, like an old silent movie playing out before them.

Vera had set back the morning briefing to accommodate her meeting with Joanna, but now she wondered what had been gained by it. Had she achieved anything at all? Suspicion of the woman ate away at her like a worm in her gut and made her feel sick. Had Joanna deceived Jack? Was she a manipulative liar, untrustworthy? Had she made a fool of Vera, as Paul Rutherford had suggested? That would be unforgivable. Deep down, though, Vera still thought of Joanna as a good woman.

Vera tried to set these questions aside as she came before the team. They’d be tired and anxious because so little had been accomplished. This was the point in an investigation when desperation led to mistakes and jumping to conclusions.

‘Well then.’ She beamed at them. An encouraging teacher, showing her students that she knew they wouldn’t let her down. ‘What have you got for me? Holly?’

‘I’ve done as you suggested and phoned round the major literary agents and publishers to find out if they’d been approached recently by Miranda Barton. Or by Tony Ferdinand on her behalf.’ Holly had a sheet of paper in front of her. Vera could see a list of names, a neat tick by each one. Organized and efficient, that was Holly.

‘And?’

‘Nothing. And they say they’d have remembered if Ferdinand had been in touch.’ She paused. ‘But according to the people I spoke to, it’s not unusual for authors who haven’t been published recently to use a pseudonym. Apparently editors are more willing to take a chance on a new writer than someone who’s been knocking around for a while.’

Vera thought that was much the same in most professions. Easier to pin your hopes on the bright young things than cynical has-beens. ‘So?’ she demanded again.

‘Nina Backworth collected Miranda’s script after the reading session and gave it to Joe,’ Holly said. ‘I faxed it to the list of contacts to see if anyone recognized it, in case it had been submitted under a different name.’

‘Well done!’ Occasionally her team needed encouragement as well as a boot up the backside. ‘Any joy?’

‘Not yet. But they promised to get back to me.’

‘Chivvy them if you haven’t heard by the end of today.’ It would be a boring and time-consuming task for some editorial assistant and Vera doubted if it would come top of anyone’s to-do list. ‘Anything else?’

‘I managed to track down a couple of Alex Barton’s teachers, as you asked. One from school and one from the catering course at Newcastle College.’

‘And?’

‘He was never in any bother, but they both described him as a strange lad. At school he was withdrawn. Not many friends. Not a high-flyer academically, though he always showed . . .’ she looked at her notes ‘. . . an interest and aptitude in English literature. It was at college that he seemed to come into his own. He was always the top of the group. A brilliant chef, apparently. Meticulous. Occasionally given to an outburst of temper if things didn’t go according to plan, but happy enough if he felt he was in control. His tutor was pleased when he went to work with his mother. He thought Alex might not stand the stress of a restaurant kitchen, where there’s always pressure of time and unexpected demands. “Not a great one for teamwork.” That was how the tutor described him.’

Vera nodded. She wondered how Alex would manage now he was on his own. She looked up at Holly. ‘These outbursts of temper, were they ever violent?’

‘The tutor never said.’

‘Get back to him and find out.’

‘I did wonder . . .’

‘Aye?’ Vera made sure her voice wasn’t too encouraging. She didn’t always like folk thinking for themselves.

‘We’ve always assumed that both murders were committed by people staying in the Writers’ House, but that’s not necessarily the case, is it? Jack Devanney managed to find his way into the place on the night of the dinner. Ferdinand was murdered in the middle of the afternoon when the doors weren’t locked. And Barton was outside when she was stabbed. I’m not saying that they
weren’t
killed by a resident, but that perhaps we shouldn’t make that assumption.’

‘Quite right, pet.’ Vera narrowed her eyes. ‘And we shouldn’t be afraid to teach our grandmothers to suck eggs, either.’

Holly flushed and Vera thought she’d been hard on the girl. She’d never liked being told how to do her job. Especially when the person doing the telling had a point. ‘No, really,’ she said, ‘it’s a good point, and one that Joe made earlier. Maybe we’ve focused too much on the residents.’ She looked around the room, spreading blame. ‘I suppose we’ve checked all the CCTV in the area.’

‘There’s not much.’ Joe shot a small triumphant glance in Holly’s direction, glad that he’d been there before her. ‘One petrol station on the road towards Seahouses. I’ve checked registration details. Nothing belonging to anyone related to the case.’

‘Charlie. What have you been up to?’

‘I was over in Carlisle yesterday evening. Doing a bit of research on Winterton. In my own time.’

Vera threw up her hands in mock horror. ‘He has a night in the pub and he wants a medal! I hope you didn’t drive back last night, Charlie. You know what I think of drunk driving.’

‘I stayed at my mate’s.’ Charlie was sulking. ‘On a bloody uncomfortable sofa.’

‘What did you come up with?’

‘Winterton’s ex-wife’s just got divorced for a second time and has taken up with a toy boy. A solicitor half her age. He practises criminal law, so the team all know him.’

‘Winterton’ll be a bit of a laughing stock among his former colleagues again then,’ Vera said. ‘He’s a respectable citizen, a bit of a God-botherer, and his former wife’s making a spectacle of herself. I bet they all love that.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘I think they just feel sorry for the poor bastard.’

‘Did you come up with anything else during your wild night out with the sheep-shaggers?’ Vera knew it was irrational, but she’d never really thought much of Cumbria. Hillsides grazed to buggery by too many sheep, arty tea rooms and too many trippers. Give her the east side of the Pennines any day.

Charlie shook his head.

Vera was just about to give her ‘boost the morale of the troops’ speech, to send them out to do great things, when there was a knock at the door. It was a small constable with a Lancastrian accent so broad that Vera had to struggle to understand her.

‘Ma’am.’

‘What!’

The woman continued bravely, ‘There’s been a call, Ma’am. About Nina Backworth. The locals have been in, but it sounds as if it could be important.’

Nina had expected to feel more at ease once she returned home. More comfortable. Here, she’d thought, it should be possible to distance herself from the nightmare of the Writers’ House. But as soon as she unlocked the door of her flat and picked up the post from the floor, she saw that a change of place would do nothing to calm her. If anything she was more restless and tense. The flat, which she’d bought with a legacy left to her by her grandparents, was usually a refuge from the petty irritations of university life. It was on the first floor of an end Victorian terrace. The rooms had high ceilings and looked out over a cemetery: a green space in the middle of the city. From first seeing it, she’d loved the view over trees and the old grey gravestones. She liked watching the elderly women laying flowers. Now the flat seemed rather lonely. She switched on the radio and the inane lunchtime phone-in that usually drove her to distraction at least provided some background conversation.

She’d stopped at the supermarket on her way home and emptied the bag into the fridge and the larder. Sitting with a sandwich and a glass of juice, she switched on her laptop to check her emails. There’d been no Wi-Fi at the Writers’ House. A deliberate decision, Miranda had said. She didn’t want her students distracted. There was nothing exciting to read: a load of spam and a couple of student assignments. Lenny Thomas had already sent his novel to her as an email attachment. The only message of any interest was from her editor Chrissie, suggesting that they should arrange a meeting to discuss marketing of the new book.