Ann Cleeves - The Glass Room

‘The last two are tutors. Nina Backworth, academic and writer. She admits to hating Ferdinand and blames him for screwing up her writing career. So she has the most plausible motive, but again there’s no forensic evidence to link her to the victim.’ Ashworth paused and looked round the room to check he had their full attention. ‘Then there’s Giles Rickard. He’s done very nicely from his writing recently. A house in Normandy and a flat in Highgate.’ He looked at Charlie ‘That’s a flash part of London. And he’s got a holiday cottage up the coast in Northumberland. Which is how he came to be invited as a tutor on the course. He claims that he had no professional contact with Ferdinand, and they seem only to have met at the occasional publishers’ party. According to Rickard, who seems a nice old chap. But maybe we can’t entirely trust him. Because he forgot to tell us that he was best mates with Joanna Tobin’s ex-husband, Paul. And when I googled him I found a scathing review of one of his books in the Times Literary Supplement. Written by our victim.’

Nina Backworth woke with a start and she didn’t know where she was. It was still dark. At home, in her flat in Newcastle, there would be enough light from the street lamps for her to make out the shadow of the wardrobe, and she’d hear the background buzz of distant traffic. Here, briefly everything was strange. She heard footsteps in the corridor outside her door and there was a moment of panic. Her body was rigid with fear and her pulse raced. Someone had broken into her flat. The image of a bloody body crouching in a dark corner flashed into her mind, half-nightmare, half-daydream. Her body? Her flat? A premonition of her own death? Then a beat later she remembered where she was and began to breathe again. Tony Ferdinand was dead, but she was still alive. She turned on her bedside light and saw that it was six-thirty. After all she hadn’t slept badly. The footsteps outside her door would be one of the other residents.

She tried to settle back under the sheets, but could tell immediately it would be impossible to rest. The shock of waking suddenly had made her muscles tense and she’d never been any good at relaxing. She got out of bed and opened the curtains. Her room looked over the sea and in the distance a light-buoy flashed. There was no wind; it would be another quiet day. She pulled a jersey over her pyjamas and made tea. Then, sitting in the easy chair by the window, her notepad on her knee, she continued to work on her short story. The words came easily and she thought that this was what she was made for.

At breakfast she found herself sitting next to Giles Rickard. Still exhilarated by the hour’s writing, she was tempted by the smell of coffee. Usually she never drank caffeine, and now, sipping from the mug, enjoying the smell and the taste, she found her body responding immediately to it. She felt alert, more awake than she had for months. She saw the arthritic hands of her companion and wondered how she would describe them if she were writing about them. It occurred to her that hands like that could never hold a knife with the firmness needed to push the blade through skin and muscle. This man at least could be no suspect. She said as much to Rickard.

‘You’ll have to tell the inspector that, my dear. I’ve already had a message from her asking if I could make myself available for a chat in the chapel this morning. That was her word. Chat. Of course she hopes that we’ll underestimate her – we’ll see her size and her clothes, and discount her obvious intellect.’

‘What are you working on at the moment?’ Nina didn’t want to discuss Ferdinand’s murder or Vera Stanhope’s investigation. She had noticed in the few days that she’d known him that Rickard enjoyed gossip. He revelled in it like a lonely old woman, could be spiteful and bitchy, though he was always charming to one’s face. She suspected that she might have been the object of his venom herself on occasions and didn’t want to give him further ammunition.

Besides, this was an opportunity to pick the brains of one of the most successful crime writers of his generation. Did he plan his work in detail in advance? And what were the commercial pressures? Did he feel the need to turn out the same kind of book each time?

‘I’ve more or less given up writing altogether,’ Rickard said. ‘It became rather a chore, you know. A means to an end. I considered the last six books as my retirement fund.’

‘Then why did you agree to come here?’ Recklessly Nina reached out to pour more coffee. She saw that her hands were trembling very slightly, the effect already of the caffeine. ‘If you don’t even enjoy writing, it must be tedious for you, discussing your work with the students.’

For a moment there was no answer, and Nina wondered if the old man had considered her question impertinent.

‘It was a matter of unfinished business,’ Rickard said at last. ‘Yes, I think that’s how you might describe it.’

She was going to follow up with another question when she heard a loud voice in the reception hall outside the dining room. Around her the other residents fell silent and Joanna Tobin walked through the door. She stood just inside the room, making an entrance.

‘I hope you’ve all saved some bacon for me,’ Joanna said. ‘I’m starving.’

She was dressed even more flamboyantly than she had been at the beginning of the writers’ course, in black canvas trousers and a silk top of clashing oranges and pinks. The equivalent of war paint. But Nina thought she looked white and strained.

There was a moment of awkward silence while the other residents stared at the newcomer. ‘Come and sit next to me,’ Nina said. Her voice sounded forced, overly jolly. ‘I’ll get you something.’ She found the hostility embarrassing, and was glad to turn her back on the group to fetch Joanna’s breakfast.

Walking back from the serving table, Nina saw that Joanna and Rickard sat without speaking, the space where she’d been sitting an invisible wall between them. She was disappointed; she’d hoped the old man might make some gesture of welcome, even if only to irritate the rest of the house. She set a plate of food in front of Joanna, but the woman hardly seemed to notice.

‘Why did you come back?’

Joanna looked up at her, and her voice was loud enough for the whole room to hear her answer. ‘The bursary was for the whole course. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘What did Vera Stanhope make of your decision to stay on the course?’

‘The police haven’t charged me,’ Joanna said. ‘I’m a free woman. It doesn’t have anything to do with bossy Vera.’

As if on cue, Vera Stanhope appeared at the dining-room door. Nina thought the whole meal had the air of a tense Whitehall farce. Everyone was overacting like mad and making dramatic entrances. Soon people would be diving out of windows and taking their clothes off.

Vera walked towards the table and nodded to Joanna. The room was still quiet, so they could all hear. But if they were expecting an angry confrontation, and to see Joanna being led away again, they were disappointed. ‘I thought I saw your Jack’s van driving away up the lane,’ the inspector said easily. ‘I hope he’s sorted out his MOT. We wouldn’t want him picked up by the plods on the A1.’

Joanna grinned, but didn’t answer. Giles Rickard was struggling to get to his feet. Vera moved towards him, and Nina assumed she was there to help him out of his seat, to take him into the chapel for their chat .

‘You stay where you are, Mr Rickard,’ Vera said. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone our little meeting. I need a few words with another of the guests first, and it’s a bit more urgent.’ She turned to Nina. ‘If you wouldn’t mind coming with us, Ms Backworth. We’ve just got a few more questions.’