by Ann Cleeves
The young man’s bedroom was functional and so tidy that it made Vera uncomfortable. A psychologist might say it indicated a need to control. There was a three-quarter-sized bed against one wall, the duvet folded back at exactly halfway of its length to air the bottom sheet. Under the window, in the part of the room where the ceiling was most low, a small desk held a PC. There was no printer. Probably no need. All young people communicated electronically these days. Did Alex Barton have friends of his own age? People he texted and shared jokes with on Facebook? She couldn’t see it. He’d grown up here, would have been to school with everyone of the same age in this part of the county, but it was hard to imagine him getting pissed on a Friday night on Newcastle’s Quayside. It was as if this place had sucked the life and the youth from him and turned him into a loner. Yet when she’d first met him, she’d thought him confident, competent. Perhaps he was only comfortable in this house, on home territory. Perhaps work had been his saviour too.
Vera sat on the swivel chair in front of the desk. From here, Alex would see everyone who came down the track to the house, but there was no view of the terrace or the beach. Next to the bed was a chest of drawers. Not old like the furniture in the big house, but flat-pack from a major chain and self-constructed. Was that Alex’s choice or had his mother needed to save money? On top of the chest stood a small, flat-screen television.
What did he watch? Vera wished there was some way of finding out. Maybe that macho survival stuff. Living in the forest with only a knife and a water bottle. She couldn’t imagine him chilling out in front of soap operas or escapist drama. Comedy? He hadn’t displayed a sense of humour in any of the interviews, even before his mother’s death, but then not everyone thought it fitting to laugh about murder.
In the drawers, the clothes were ironed and neatly folded. Two sets of chef’s whites and underwear in the top drawer. Casual T-shirts and jeans in the rest. A wardrobe in the same style held one suit, a formal jacket and two pairs of grey trousers. Four shirts, again immaculately ironed. Vera knew that a couple of women came in from the next village to clean the big house each day, and that the bed linen and towels went to a laundry at the end of each course. But Vera thought this was Alex’s work. The control thing again. He’d want to look after his own possessions. Maybe she shouldn’t make too much of the spotless bathroom. If this was how Alex kept his bedroom, it would be in character for him to clean the bath and sink every day. It didn’t necessarily mean that he’d been awake all night washing away his mother’s blood.
She looked under the bed and felt behind the wardrobe. No porn. No girlie posters on the walls. In fact there were no pictures on the walls at all, only a framed certificate from his catering course. What did he do for sex? Probably used the Internet, like most of the UK’s male population. It came to Vera that more than likely he was a virgin.
In contrast, Miranda’s room was surprisingly big. Opulent and glamorous in an old-fashioned way. It held a double bed, piled with pillows and silk-covered cushions, in various shades of purple. These seemed to have been artfully arranged – another sign, Vera thought, that Miranda hadn’t been to bed the night before. There was a small wrought-iron grate, just for decoration now. Where the fire would once have been laid stood a candle in a big blue candle-holder, identical to the one on the table on the terrace. Was that significant? Vera tried to remember if she’d seen one like it in the main house. On one side of the chimneybreast, bookshelves had been built into the alcove, and on the other stood a big Victorian wardrobe. There was a dressing table with an ornate framed mirror under the window, and an upholstered stool in front of it. No PC.
So what did Miranda do for sex? The question came, unbidden, into her head. Vera sat on the stool and gave a wry smile into the mirror. She knew her team had sometimes asked the same question about her. But not recently. As you got older, folk seemed to think you could do without.
This is where Miranda would have sat to prepare herself to meet the residents. Again Vera was reminded of an ageing actress. Her dressing table was scattered with make-up. The woman hadn’t shared her son’s obsession with order and cleanliness. And beyond the mirror there was a view to the coast. It wasn’t possible to see the terrace from here – it was in the shadow of the big house. But the beach was visible. What had Miranda been thinking as she put on her face, as she brushed her hair and held it in place with spray? That her life as a writer was over? Or did she still hope for the big break, the posters on the Underground and the reviews in the Sunday papers? Was she still writing?
It seemed to Vera that this question was so important, so fundamental, that she’d been a fool not to consider it before. If Miranda had written a new book, and Tony Ferdinand had offered to help her find a home for it, of course Miranda would be shattered to find him dead. The stabbed body would symbolize her shattered dreams. It wouldn’t be easy for a middle-aged woman, considered a has-been, to find success again. If the police service was beginning to put its faith in bright new things, wouldn’t the publishing industry be even more that way inclined? It would want beauty, as well as talent, to promote. The scream of anguish Vera had heard on the afternoon of Ferdinand’s death was an expression of Miranda’s desperation about her own future. She would see nothing left for her now but to provide bed and board for younger, talented writers. She hadn’t cared for Tony Ferdinand in a personal way at all.
That, at least, was how it seemed to Vera. But she did have a tendency to get carried away by her own theories. Best not get too excited. Best to find out if Miranda had written a new book first.
She turned her attention to the bookshelves. One row was devoted to Miranda’s own work and most of the rest to paperback fiction. Some crime. There seemed to be a complete set of Giles Rickard’s novels. Had Miranda felt the need to read them, once the author had agreed to be a tutor on the course? Vera picked one up and looked at it. No dog-eared pages or coffee stains. A small square of paper slid onto the carpet. A comp slip from Rickard’s publicist. So Miranda hadn’t paid for the books or even, it seemed, read them; they’d been sent to her in the hope that she’d promote Rickard’s work on the course. Vera supposed that was how the thing worked.
Vera turned away from the shelves to consider the matter. Her head was still full of the notion that Miranda had started writing again. The first afternoon Vera had arrived here, looking for Joanna, she’d seen Miranda in the kitchen reading a manuscript. Her own book? Ideas chased each other in a crazy jig, and she could make no sense of them. Looking down at the beach, she was distracted for a moment by the sight of Nina Backworth almost at the water’s edge. Joe Ashworth came into view. They looked like a pair of lovers having a row. Vera smiled at the notion and turned back to the books.
She took Miranda’s novels out and laid them on the bed. A couple had been translated into foreign languages – one might have been in Polish and one was in German. There was a small pink version that must be Japanese. Vera set these aside. The rest she arranged in date of publication. There were four. Cruel Women, the book that had been adapted for television, was the third. She slipped it into her bag and put the others back on the shelf.
If there was no computer in the room, where would Miranda have done her writing? There was an office in the main house. When there were no students present, that would be a reasonably quiet place to work. But Miranda had been a romantic. The swept-up hair and the long skirts, the velvet and the silk, the rich colours in her bedroom, all were calculated to give a certain image, to portray a style. Vera could picture the woman sitting with a notebook and fountain pen in the grand drawing room of the big house, looking out to the coast, concentrating on the words perhaps, but also pleased to present herself as a writer. The inspector opened drawers and began her search for a manuscript or paper.
Half an hour later she gave up. There was lots of frilly underwear. The sort you might expect in a Paris whorehouse in the 1950s. An octopus of tangled coloured tights. But no notepad or exercise book. And no handk
erchiefs with red hearts embroidered in the corner.
When she returned to the kitchen Alex seemed startled. It was as if he’d forgotten she was in the house. Vera sat at the table and turned towards him. ‘Was your mother still writing? She read the beginning of a story the evening she died. Was it from a new piece of work?’
‘I’m sorry?’ He looked at her with those soft, little boy’s eyes.
‘It’s ten years since she had a book published. Had she given up writing? Retired, like? I saw her reading something at the kitchen table once. Would that have been her own work? Or had she given up?’ The time spent rifling through Miranda’s belongings had made Vera impatient. She wanted to shake Alex Barton and scream at him.
He seemed not to give her question any importance. He shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. She always thought of herself as a writer. She wouldn’t ever stop. But I don’t have any details of what she might have worked on recently. Really she didn’t discuss that sort of thing with me.’
Why did you stay? Vera wondered. You had nothing in common with your mother, so why didn’t you move out? But she’d stayed with Hector. Perhaps things were never quite that easy.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The house was quiet. Nina Backworth had been allowed back into her own room. Vera had sent a female officer to sit discreetly on the landing with a view of the door. She didn’t think Nina would make a run for it – she was too intelligent for that – but Vera wasn’t taking any chances. Alex Barton was still in the cottage, with a bored plod and the cat that he hated as his only companions. Holly and Charlie were in the Coquet Hotel taking statements from the other residents. Vera knew that soon she’d have to put in an appearance there too, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the Writers’ House yet.
After walking out of the cottage she’d gone to the beach to see where the knife had been found. She pictured the scene following Miranda’s murder. The early hours of the morning. A thick frost, and cold that would take your breath away. There’d been a half-moon, but as Vera had discovered on the afternoon of Ferdinand’s death, visibility in the garden would be poor. She’d ask the search team if any of the residents had a torch in their room. Had the killer removed the waterproof jacket on the terrace, or worn it down to the beach? If he – or she – had taken it off at the terrace, there should be a blood-stained bag: he’d need to carry it and the knife in something. Where was the bag? If he’d left the jacket on, they should find traces of blood along the footpath.
Now, though, she was more interested in the contents of the jacket pocket. And food. And coffee. She and Joe sat in the Writers’ House kitchen.
‘Make us a few slices of toast, pet. You can’t expect a woman to work on an empty stomach.’
The bread was fresh, the slices thick and the marmalade was home-made. Joe couldn’t work out how to operate the fancy coffee machine, so they had instant, but Vera thought she hadn’t been this happy for ages. Joe still seemed subdued, but he’d been moody for a couple of days. If he were a woman, you’d say it was his time of the month.
‘So what’s this all about?’ She set the newspaper cutting in its plastic sheet on the table between them. ‘Have we identified the magazine yet?’
‘Billy’s scanned it and sent it off to HQ. They’re tracking it down there.’
‘We’ll not hold our breaths then.’
‘I can’t take it seriously.’ Joe said. ‘It’s like somebody’s been watching too many crap cop shows on television. Or reading too many of those books where there’s a body on every other page, but the police still can’t track down the killer.’
‘A joke then, instead of a real message?’ She emptied the mug of coffee and wondered if she could get him to make some more. She didn’t like playing the demanding boss.
‘Not so much a joke. More like an attempt to distract us? To make the whole thing more complicated than it really is. Surely the most likely scenario is that Miranda Barton was killed because she saw the first murder. Or guessed the identity of the killer. Arranging the body on the terrace, the magazine cutting – that’s just an attempt to make us chase other links between the victims. Triggered by Nina Backworth’s short story.’
‘Aye,’ Vera said. Half her mind was still on a need for more coffee. ‘I dare say you’re right.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘How did the killer persuade Miranda Barton to go to the terrace last night? It must have been late. Joanna, Jack and Rickard were still there when I went home. And it was bloody freezing, even earlier. She must have had a good reason to agree to the meeting.’
‘Maybe she made the arrangement,’ Joe said.
‘We’re back to blackmail then?’ Vera leaned back in her chair. ‘Miranda knew or guessed the identity of the killer and made the appointment herself? It makes sense. She wouldn’t invite the killer to the cottage. Alex was in there and might have overheard their conversation.’ She peered at the magazine cutting, sliding it away from her along the table until the words came into some sort of focus. It had very small print, and she thought again she should get to an optician’s and sort herself out some specs. It wasn’t that she was vain. If you had a body the size and shape of a barrage balloon there was no sense in vanity. But until recently her eyesight had been perfect. Hector hadn’t needed glasses until he was in his late sixties. She imagined him jeering at her. Feeling your age, Vee?
‘Read it out to me will you, pet,’ she said to Joe. No excuses and no explanation. Challenging him to ask why she couldn’t read it for herself.
He shot her a look, but said nothing. He’d always known when to keep his mouth shut. It was one of the things she liked about him.
On Tuesday night the television adaptation of Cruel Women will appear on BBC television, starring Sophia Young as businesswoman Samantha. Author of the novel, Miranda Barton, takes time out from her busy schedule to talk to our reporter. We meet in the library of St Ursula’s College, London, where Barton once worked.
‘So Miranda maintained her contact with the college,’ Vera said. ‘I suppose in a sense this piece links both victims. By that time Ferdinand would have set up his writing course there.’ She could see the photo okay: Miranda posing in front of a pile of books.
‘Ferdinand isn’t named,’ Joe said. Vera could tell he thought she was allowing herself to be distracted again. He didn’t understand that she took pleasure in complication.
She glared at him. ‘Go on then.’ She put on her cross voice as if he’d been the one to interrupt the flow. ‘Let’s hear the rest.’
Miranda explains that the central character in the book is in no way autobiographical. ‘In one sense the book is an allegory,’ she says. ‘A study of greed in contemporary Britain. Tony Ferdinand was the first reviewer to recognize that. Samantha puts her career in front of everything – her family and friends, her relationships. Of course I want to be successful, but I hope I have a more balanced attitude to life than that. For example, nothing is more important to me than my son.’
Joe looked up. ‘Then there are some details about her latest novel, date of publication and that sort of thing. It’s a very short piece.’
‘What’s the title of the novel she’s plugging?’ Vera thought it wouldn’t be Cruel Women. The script would have been written and the film shot and edited months before transmission.
‘Older Men.’ Joe looked up at her. ‘Do you think that’s relevant?’
‘No, probably not.’ Vera thought there were too many small details to consider. Too many possibilities. ‘That was the last book to come out. She had copies of all her novels in her bedroom, and I checked the dates. There was the TV film that year, an interview in a national magazine. You’d think she’d want to make the most of her success. So why did she stop publishing?’
‘Maybe the last book wasn’t very good,’ Joe said.
‘Aye, maybe.’ But Vera suspected the book business didn’t work like that. She wasn’t sure the quality of the work had so much to do with sales figures. ‘Let’s trac
k down a contact at her publisher’s. We might find somebody who remembers her.’ She paused and looked again at the paper. ‘I think there was more to the article than this. Look, the edge has been neatly cut. Originally wouldn’t there have been two columns?’
Joe was sceptical. ‘How can you tell?’
‘The placing of the headline. It’s not symmetrical. And the headline itself. One Cruel Woman? There’s nothing in the piece that answers the question.’ Vera spoke almost to herself. ‘Did the killer want us to realize the article had been cut in half? Or has he underestimated us?’
‘This isn’t a game.’ Joe was losing patience. ‘It’s not one of their stories.’
‘Oh, it is,’ Vera said. ‘That’s just what it is.’
They sat for a moment staring at each other. The room was filled with the cold morning sunlight. Vera half-expected Joe to demand an explanation, but he just looked at her as if she were mad.
‘I think Miranda was still writing,’ she said.
She made the announcement as if it were a revelation and was disappointed by Joe’s reaction: ‘Is it important?’
‘If Ferdinand was in the process of helping find a publisher for her, it would explain the grief at his death. Not personal at all. Professional.’
Now Joe did look up. ‘Backworth said that they were all going to read pieces last night over dinner. Even Miranda Barton. Although Jack broke up the party, most of them carried on in the lounge. Nina might know if Miranda read, and if she explained the background to her story.’
‘So she might.’ Vera gave him a long, lazy smile. ‘Why don’t you nip upstairs and ask her, pet? Take your time. You’ve got a way with the women. We need all the details she can give.’ She nodded towards the cutting on the table. ‘Take that with you. Our Nina might know where it came from. She was being taught by Ferdinand after Miranda became rich and famous, after all. She might just remember if there was more to it than we’ve got here. I’ll wait for you.’
