Ann Cleeves - The Glass Room

As she read on, the lack of factual detail in the piece irritated Vera. She’d hoped there would be something here to help her in the investigation. But while the scenes of the couple’s life in Paris, especially those describing Maggie’s unravelling into depression, were vivid, little was specific. Paul left the apartment every day to go to work, but there was no mention of the address of their home or of exactly what he did to earn a living. Of course Vera could ask Joanna about her life in France, but Joanna was still a major suspect.

Besides, how could this be relevant to the murder? Did Vera really think Joanna’s ex-husband had manipulated events at the Writers’ House? The notion that a stranger had been murdered just to implicate Joanna, to torment her further, seemed fanciful even at this time of night. Why bother now after all these years? Perhaps Joe Ashworth had been right not to pursue the idea. After reading the pages through for a second time, Vera put them on the floor beside the bed. After all, she could hardly justify spending more time and energy on this line of enquiry. She fancied another whisky as a nightcap – she deserved it after reading all that stuff – but by now the room was freezing and she couldn’t face her cold feet on the bare kitchen floor. Her last thought was that she should have brought the bottle to bed with her.

At the team briefing the next morning the question of Joanna’s past came up. Joe Ashworth was leading the session. Vera sat at the back, determined to keep her mouth shut and let him get on with it. She didn’t want to compromise the investigation by taking a leading role. Nor was she keen to let slip that she’d been back to visit Joanna the night before. He began with a recap.

‘Of all the folk staying at the Writers’ House, only seven had the opportunity to kill Tony Ferdinand. The rest were together between lunch and the discovery of the body. There’s no news yet from the search team on the murder weapon.’

Holly stuck up her hand. Vera thought she would have been the sort of child to sit in the front row of the classroom and tell the teacher if he’d got something wrong.

‘Yeah?’ Joe reacted just as the teacher would have done.

‘There’s Chrissie Kerr, the publisher, too. She was at the Writers’ House in the morning to give a guest lecture. She stayed for lunch.’

‘And drove away before Ferdinand died.’ Joe glared at her.

‘Nothing to stop her pulling in at the top of the bank and coming back on foot.’

Vera thought they were like squabbling kids and decided it was time to step in or they’d be there all day. ‘Any connection between Kerr and Ferdinand?’ she asked. ‘Any possible motive?’

‘Not that I can find,’ Holly said.

‘Let’s put her down as an outsider and carry on, then.’ Vera sat back in her chair and waited for Joe to continue.

He pointed to the photos of the Bartons, stuck on the whiteboard. ‘So we have mother and son, Miranda Barton and her son Alex. They run the place.’ He turned to Holly, icily polite: ‘You were going to dig around into the business’s finances. What have you come up with?’

‘Well, it’s hardly making them a fortune,’ Holly said. ‘But they’re not on the verge of bankruptcy, either. Miranda bought the house years ago when she was making a decent living out of her writing. There’s hardly any mortgage. She must have got the idea of setting it up as a writers’ retreat when her books stopped selling. It makes sense really. A sort of value-added B &B. And New Writing North covers the cost of the bursaries, so it’s all profit.’

She looked at Ashworth over her specs. ‘I don’t see any motive for either of them. If anything, they have something to lose if the murder has an impact on bookings.’

Vera thought there was an edge of competition in every conversation between these two. Holly was waiting for Joe to contradict her and was looking forward to another argument, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction.

Vera raised a finger. ‘They seem an odd pair to me,’ she said. ‘The woman’s all showy emotion, and you’d think the lad was made of ice. Chalk and cheese.’

Joe looked at her expecting more, but she shook her head. ‘Just making the point.’

He turned back to the whiteboard and pointed to another photo. ‘Next, Lenny Thomas. Worked for Banks Open-cast until he developed back problems two years ago. Since then he’s lived off invalidity benefit. He’s got a council house in Red Row. Divorced with one kid. A bit of a history when he was a kid – car theft, burglary. One period of probation and six months’ imprisonment. Nothing recent. Not since he started with Banks.’

‘How does he fit in with the arty set?’ This from Charlie, bags under his eyes you could carry golf clubs in, last night’s takeaway curry on his jersey.

Vera was tempted to jump in again at this point, but she allowed Ashworth to speak first. ‘They’ve adopted him as their own working-class pet,’ Ashworth said. ‘They’re kind, but patronizing. They wouldn’t want to be thought snobby.’

Well done, lad!

‘Motive?’ Holly asked. She was still sulking because Joe was getting all the attention.

‘According to Lenny Thomas, Tony Ferdinand had said he could find him a publisher and turn him into a star. Maybe it was all talk, and Lenny got resentful and lost it.’

‘The trick with the knife, and the forged note to Joanna, would hardly be his style, would it?’ This was Holly betraying her own prejudices.

‘You mean he’s not bright enough to think of it, because he once drove a truck on an open-cast for a living?’

Don’t let her bug you, Joey-boy, Vera thought.

‘Besides,’ Joe went on, ‘we don’t know the note to Joanna was forged. And we’re not going to find out. She claims it was burned. She’s still got to be our prime suspect.’ He pointed to the photo of Joanna. It had been taken recently, and Vera wondered where they’d got hold of it. She was wearing a red sweater and her hair was blowing away from her face. ‘Joanna Tobin. Living the good life with her partner, Jack Devanney, in the hills above Clachan Lough. Like Thomas, she was one of the students who’d been awarded a free place on the writers’ course. She was found close to the body with a knife in her hand. Problem is, the knife doesn’t fit the wound. So was she set up? Or was she playing some sort of elaborate game with us? A sort of double bluff.’

He paused and turned towards Vera. ‘She spent ten years of her married life in France, and records of that time only came through this morning. She assaulted her husband, attacked him with a knife, then attempted suicide. The doctors diagnosed some sort of psychotic episode and she was never charged. She escaped from a French psychiatric hospital and made her way back here, with the help of Devanney. It seems she’s been on medication ever since.’

Except she stopped taking it for a few weeks before going to the Writers’ House. Because she fancied herself in love, as Jack had feared?

‘Case over, then!’ Charlie looked up from the paper cup he’d been staring into since he’d sat down.

‘That’s dangerous talk, Charlie, and you know it.’ Joe’s voice was sharp. Vera wasn’t sure if he was really angry or if this was a show for her benefit. ‘There’s no evidence to connect her to the victim. If you start looking for proof to nail an individual, you’ll likely try too hard and find it. Doesn’t mean it’s real. Now’s the time to keep an open mind. So let’s move on.’

Joe pointed to the next photo on the board. The photo was old and looked as if it had been dug out of an old HR file. ‘Mark Winterton. Former inspector with Cumbria Police. Not much use as a writer, according to the staff at the place. So what was he doing there? It would be good to establish some link between him and the victim. Or with Joanna Tobin. Charlie, can you do that? There’s an address near Carlisle for him. Not so far from where Tobin lives, as the crow flies.’ Charlie nodded. He was used to being shouted at and didn’t bear resentment for long.