Ann Cleeves: The Glass Room

She walked round the side of the big house, avoiding the shingle path, keeping to the grass border that ran right up to the wall. She made no sound. Arriving at the first window, she stopped with her back to the house. It came to her suddenly that she must look completely ridiculous. If there were someone further up the bank looking down – a couple of birdwatchers, for example, with binoculars – they’d take her for a madwoman, or an inept burglar. Still standing close to the wall of the house, so that she couldn’t be seen from inside, she looked in. The kitchen. A young man in chef’s whites stood with his back to her, stirring a pan. There was a teapot on the table and two blue mugs. An older woman sat at the table, reading a typed manuscript. She was rather glamorous, with dyed blonde hair. The finger that turned the page had red nails. Was that Miranda Barton? At any rate, there was no sign of Joanna and, crouching so that she was lower than the windowsill, Vera moved on.

The next room was empty. It looked like a library, the walls lined with bookshelves. There were a couple of small tables and leather-seated, upright chairs. Now Vera had turned another corner and was on a paved veranda that looked out over the sea. On the grass below was a bird table and a set of elaborate feeders filled with nuts and seed. She could see the lighthouse at the Farne Islands to the north and Coquet Island to the south. In the summer this would be a magnificent place to sit. Vera pictured them here after a day’s writing, drinking fancy wine and sharing their ideas. Posing. Why did she feel the need to sneer? Because people who talked about books or pictures or films made her feel ignorant and out of her depth.

She’d stopped right on the corner, because most of the wall facing out to sea was made of glass. There were two long windows, almost floor-to-ceiling, and between them double glass doors. A long, light room. The place featured on the website, with the sofas and the easy chairs. And there were people inside. It seemed to Vera that the group had just broken up. They were standing and chatting. Tea must have been served, because they were holding cups and saucers, balancing scones on paper napkins. Now it was almost dark outside, and Vera thought there was little danger of her being seen. The people in the room were preoccupied with their own concerns. Their faces were animated. There were six of them, but the door leading further into the house was open, so it was possible that some people had already left. Certainly there was no sign of Joanna.

Vera stood for a moment and wondered how Joanna might fit into this group. Joanna, with her big hands and feet, her loud laugh and her dirty fingernails. Her brightly coloured home-made clothes. If she was here, had she escaped already to the privacy of her own room, daunted by the confidence of her companions?

Vera had decided that it was time to go back to the front door, ring the bell and ask to speak to Joanna. She had a cover story prepared. There would be a domestic crisis: a relative’s illness, which Joanna should know about. That was when Vera heard a sound that shocked the people on the other side of the glass from their self-indulgent conversation. A scream. It seemed hardly human and was without age or gender: loud and piercing and terrifying.

Vera couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from. Inside the house? If so, why did it seem so loud, even out here? The sound seemed to surround her, almost to swallow her up. Perhaps it was the pitch, but it was as if she was feeling it through her bones, rather than hearing it with her ears. There was no escape from it. She took a few steps back and looked up. At the top of the house, double glass doors, mirroring the ones here out onto the terrace, led onto a stone balcony. The woman from the kitchen was there, lit from behind, leaning over, emptying the noise from her lungs into the cold air. Vera was reminded of a drunk spewing. Suddenly the noise stopped.

It seemed to take Vera hours to get into the house. The struggle to be heard, to get inside, reminded her of one of her recurring nightmares: she was a child, locked out of a house where her mother was dying, and she could never find a way in to save her. Now the adult Vera banged on the patio doors, where moments before the guests had been drinking tea. Nobody responded. They must all have rushed away to find the source of the screaming. She retraced her path round the house to the front door. Now the light had gone and she stumbled from the path, losing her way in the thick vegetation of the shrubbery. She pushed through the bushes, struggling to fight off the panic, and decided she must be walking in the wrong direction because there was still no path. The branches scratched her face and pulled at her clothes. She forced herself to stand still. She was no longer a child and she wasn’t lost.

In the distance she heard the faint sound of waves on shingle. As she turned away from the sound, the solid shape of the building became clear against the sky above the shrubs. Vera climbed back to the path and walked round the house to the front door. There was no sound from inside. Checking her watch, she saw that she’d been wandering round in the garden for nearly twenty minutes. She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled a dead leaf from her jacket, then rang the brass bell by swinging the rope, which was attached to a heavy clapper. There was no response. There was a light in the cottage on the other side of the yard and she considered going over. Then the door of the main house opened and she saw the young chef, who had been working in the kitchen. He was still wearing his whites.

‘This way,’ he said. Then he added distractedly, ‘How did you get here so quickly?’

Vera thought for a moment that she felt like a very fat Alice in a strange Wonderland. The chef darted away from her down a narrow corridor, leaving her to follow. He was thin and very dark. As he’d opened the door she’d seen black hairs on the backs of his hands and his lower arms. A wolf in chef’s clothing. She glimpsed the guests through a half-open door, but he was walking so quickly that she couldn’t make out individuals as she hurried to keep up. If Joanna was in there, Vera didn’t see her. The house was much bigger inside than she’d have guessed, a warren of passages and small rooms. He led her up a short flight of stairs. By now Vera was completely disorientated; she must have seen just the outside of the newer extension, and now there were no windows to help her make out which way they were going.

‘I was in the area anyway.’ Finally she got close enough to him to answer the question. The speed of their progress had left her a little breathless.

‘I phoned for an ambulance too. I don’t know where that is.’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘They might take a while to get here. They’ll be coming from Alnwick, most likely.’

‘Actually…’ The young man paused. ‘I don’t think there’s much rush. They won’t be able to do anything, after all.’ He stopped at the end of a corridor and opened the door.

It was not at all what she had been expecting. She’d thought she’d be stepping into a bedroom, a grand bedroom because of the balcony. But this was another Alice moment. Another contradiction. It was as if an outside space had been brought indoors. Everything was green and alive. She stood at the threshold and looked in.

The room was a first-floor conservatory. It was tall and narrow and glass doors led onto the balcony, but there was glass too in the sloping ceiling. From the terrace below she hadn’t seen that. And glass walls on each side. There was a tiled floor and painted wicker chairs. Pots of enormous plants with shiny dark leaves formed a mini tropical jungle. All the plants were fat and fleshy and one had a tall spike of pink flowers. The smell was of compost and damp vegetation. In the daylight there would be a magnificent view over the sea. A large mirror in a green frame hung on the one solid wall. The glass must be old with flaws in it, because the reflection was slightly distorted and, glancing into it, Vera felt the queasiness of seasickness. The room was very warm.