The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You had more sense.’

  ‘I came back round to the yard and I saw the door of the chapel closing.’

  ‘That would have been me,’ she said. Her voice comfortable. Ordinary. She thought he could do with more of the ordinary in his life.

  ‘Yes, it was you.’ He curled his legs under him again and sat there in silence. He didn’t object when Vera told him she’d like him to spend a few days in hospital. ‘Shock does weird things to us.’ Perhaps he was relieved after all to have an excuse to leave the house. When the hospital car came to collect him he was docile. He carried a small bag with a pair of pyjamas and a toothbrush inside it and reminded her of an obedient child.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Joe Ashworth couldn’t get worked up over a dead cat. Or a dead bird. The inspector wanted him, immediately, to drive out there in the worst storm of the autumn, and for what? In these conditions it would be dangerous just getting to the end of the road.

  He explained all this to Vera Stanhope, keeping his voice reasonable. There was never any point in losing his temper with her. She liked it when she provoked a reaction. In the end he came up with a lie, ‘Anyway, I can’t drive. I’ve had a couple of drinks.’

  Even she couldn’t order him out after that.

  He wasn’t sure what had kept him at home, because he would have enjoyed the drama of the drive through the windy night, being Vera’s confidant and right at the heart of the case. That evening he would even have been glad of an excuse to get out of the house. The wind always made the children wild and the weather meant they’d been cooped up all day. Guilt, he thought. Nobody did guilt like good Catholics. Not that he had anything to feel guilty about, except a vague attraction to a female academic.

  All the same he did his penance: cleared the dishes after supper, pulled apart the squabbling children, took on bathtime single-handed, read each of the bedtime stories. When they were alone at last, he sat with his wife on the sofa, his arm around her shoulders, cuddling together like teenagers. Thought there was nobody in the world he would feel so at ease with. He couldn’t imagine Nina Backworth watching old episodes of The Simpsons and laughing with him at the same jokes. Later he took Sal to bed and they made love. Afterwards he lay awake, listening to her breathing, loving her with all his heart and soul and pushing away the feeling that there should be more to life than this.

  In the morning he was first in the incident room for the briefing. Guilt again. Maybe he should have responded to Vera’s call after all. Holly was there before the inspector too.

  ‘Did the boss phone you last night?’ he asked. He wouldn’t have put it past Vera to drag Holly out, after he’d refused to go.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘She was out at the Writers’ House. Somebody had killed Miranda Barton’s cat, laid it out in the chapel, like a sacrifice, she said.’

  ‘Gross!’ Holly wrinkled her nose, as if she were there in the chapel with the smell of damp stones and dead cat in her nostrils.

  ‘Gross indeed.’ And there was Vera, breezy and energetic, as if she’d had twelve hours’ sleep, though she’d probably been up all night. Followed by Charlie, who looked as if he’d been up all night, though he’d probably fallen asleep in front of the television at nine o’clock and had been pretty well comatose until about half an hour before.

  Vera stood in front of the whiteboard and pinned up a photo of the animal, a knife in its belly and the guts exposed. ‘Now here’s the big question: has young Alex gone loop the loop and killed the poor beast himself, or is someone trying to scare the shit out of him? And if it’s the latter, why?’ She took another blown-up photo from her canvas bag and stuck it on the board too. ‘And if you’ve got a thing about cats, why kill a small, inoffensive bird too?’

  ‘It’s like someone’s sending us a sort of message,’ Holly said. ‘The apricots, the dead animals.’

  ‘And the hankie at the Miranda Barton scene,’ Vera said. ‘Don’t forget the hankie!’

  ‘But nothing left with Ferdinand’s body in the glass room,’ Joe said. ‘Why was that different?’

  ‘There was something left, though, wasn’t there?’ Joe thought he’d never seen Vera this hyper. She looked around at them and waved her arms. ‘Come on, people! Think about it!’

  ‘The knife,’ he said slowly. ‘We always thought the knife was left to throw us off the scent and implicate Joanna Tobin, but it could have been a sign or a message as well as that.’

  ‘So what’s going on here?’ Vera demanded. ‘And who’s behind it? Let’s have a few ideas. It doesn’t matter how daft they sound.’

  ‘Alex could have done it,’ Joe said slowly. ‘He has a car and had access to Nina’s address through the Writers’ House bookings. He’s not stupid and could have worked out where her spare key would be. We don’t know where he was the night before last. He could have been watching and waiting. He could have broken into her flat.’

  ‘Why would he do that, though?’ Holly asked.

  Joe thought she would have contradicted him whatever he’d said. Before he could think up a cogent reply, Charlie broke in: ‘Because he’s a loony, like the boss said. If he killed his own mother, why would he think twice about sticking a knife into a cat? Or having a thing about expensive fruit? He’s a cook, isn’t he, and it’s food. Sort of related.’ He paused. ‘And if we’re talking about crazies, does anyone know what Joanna Tobin was up to that night?’

  ‘If you carry on talking like that, Charlie, I’ll make sure you’re sent on the next diversity-awareness course.’

  Joe could tell that Charlie was about to make another flippant remark when he realized that Vera wasn’t joking.

  Another silence while she drummed her fingers on the desk and looked exasperated.

  ‘Lenny Thomas has a conviction for burglary,’ Holly said. Her voice was tentative. She remembered the inspector’s earlier pronouncements about jumping to conclusions. ‘He might have played the trick with the key.’

  ‘Lenny doesn’t have a car.’ Joe felt an irrational need to defend the man. Just because he’d sat in his flat and drunk his tea? Because his elderly neighbour liked him?

  ‘He has friends, though.’ Holly’s voice, bright and triumphant cut into Joe’s thoughts. ‘Friends who also have convictions for burglary.’

  ‘Stop behaving like a bunch of bairns.’ Vera could have been a long-suffering parent. ‘We’re all supposed to be on the same side here. If it comes to that, I dare say Winterton would know a thing or two about breaking into houses. We need to know where he was the night someone got into Nina’s place. And Chrissie Kerr, though I’m damned if I can come up with a motive for her. She’s on the periphery of the case too.’ She looked at them. ‘Good old-fashioned policing, eh? Let’s ask some questions, check out the movements of our suspects. The boring stuff that leads to convictions.’

  The boring stuff, Joe thought, that you’ve spent all your career avoiding.

  ‘What about Jack Devanney?’ he said, partly to spite her. ‘He wasn’t on our original list of suspects, but we’re all agreed that he could have been at the Writers’ House for the murders. Can we see him killing the cat and the bird, playing the stunt at Nina’s place?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Vera said. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past our Jack if he thought he was protecting Joanna. And in his mind the objects cluttering up the crime scenes might be all about distracting us. He could be devious if he wanted.’

  ‘So that leaves Rickard,’ Joe said. ‘The only one on the list that we’ve not discussed yet. Didn’t you go to see him yesterday?’

  ‘And he’s the only one we can dismiss.’ Vera wrote Rickard’s name on the whiteboard and put a cross beside it. ‘There’s no way he could have driven from Craster and got to the Writers’ House before me with enough time to set up the theatricals in the chapel. Even if he were fit, which he isn’t. He can hardly walk.’

  Joe was going to push the point, to ask what Vera had discuss
ed with Rickard. Why had she gone to see him anyway? But then she looked at him and he kept his mouth shut. He’d ask her later when they were on their own.

  ‘Are you saying we can dismiss Rickard from the murders too?’ Holly looked up from her notebook. Kept her voice bland so that she wouldn’t incur Vera’s wrath by getting it wrong.

  ‘I don’t see how he could have done the stabbing,’ Vera said, ‘with the arthritis in his hands. But maybe if he was angry enough or desperate enough—’ She broke off and looked at them. ‘But that’s speculation. So let’s sort out the actions for the rest of the day. The greengrocers and the credit cards – any news on that, Joe?’

  ‘Only negative. If anyone bought the apricots in Jesmond, they paid cash.’

  ‘Of course,’ Vera muttered almost to herself. ‘They would. Our killer’s too clever to be caught out like that. I don’t think we’re looking for what Charlie would call a loony. Not in the conventional sense, at least. So it’s a question of driving round and asking who bought a big bag of apricots for cash. Flash a few photos around. Try the supermarkets too. Charlie, that sounds like one for you.’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Joe, you go out to Myers Farm and speak to Joanna and Jack.’

  He looked up surprised. ‘You want me to go on my own?’ He thought Vera would want to be around too.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘They don’t bite.’

  He thought he wasn’t so sure, where Jack was concerned.

  ‘And, Holly, get on the phone to Cumbria. Get them to check out Mark Winterton’s movements over the last few days. If they’re arsey, refer them to me. Or if you fancy a trip out west, go and do the legwork yourself.’

  Charlie looked up sharply. ‘I’ve got contacts out west.’

  ‘I know you have,’ Vera said. ‘And that’s why I’ve asked Holly to do it.’ She smiled serenely in Joe’s direction. ‘We need to take care about apparent conflicts of interest.’

  When Joe arrived, Jack was digging over part of the vegetable plot. The soil was wet and it must have been heavy going. A row of black sprout stalks had been flattened by the wind of the previous day. For a while Jack pretended that he hadn’t noticed the detective’s car on the track, though he must have seen it coming for miles. Then he looked up. Despite the raw weather he’d worked up a sweat.

  ‘Your boss is out,’ he said.

  ‘It’s you I’ve come to see. You and your Joanna.’

  Jack weighed the spade in his hands, held it like a weapon. Then made an effort to keep his temper.

  ‘You’d better come in then. She’s writing.’ He spoke the last word as if it were a strange and unnatural activity. At the house he sat on the doorstep and began to pull off mud-caked boots. Joe saw that the man would insist on being present at any interview and thought this might be the only chance to talk to him alone.

  ‘This must be a quiet time on the farm.’

  Jack looked up at him, suspicious. ‘It’s not really a farm, like. More a smallholding. And there’s always stuff to do.’

  ‘You don’t manage to get the odd day away then?’

  ‘Look, I’ve been dealing with pigs like you since I were a scally lad in Liverpool.’ He sounded tired. ‘And I’m old. As old as the hills. Why don’t you just ask what you want to know?’

  ‘Someone broke into Nina Backworth’s flat and then into the chapel at the Writers’ House,’ Joe said. ‘The night before last, in Backworth’s place in Jesmond, and late yesterday afternoon at the Writers’ House. Where were you and Joanna?’

  Jack looked up at him. He was still sitting with one boot on. ‘Nina Backworth is helping Joanna get a publisher. They’re putting together a book. A kind of collection of Writers’ House work. Why would we do anything to get in the way of that?’

  Joe wished he weren’t towering above the man. He felt like a bully. ‘I’m not accusing you,’ he said. ‘I just want to know where you were.’

  ‘I was out yesterday afternoon,’ Jack said. ‘I went to the agricultural suppliers in Kimmerston. Layers’ mash for the hens. I’m a regular and they’ll remember me. The night before, Joanna and I were both at home.’ He pulled off his second boot and led Joe inside. ‘Come in and talk to Joanna. She’s been at that computer since she woke up this morning. Maybe at least if she’s talking to you, it’ll be a break for her. I’m worried. She seems lost in it. Driven.’

  And Joe realized that Jack must be worried, because he almost seemed glad to let the policeman into the house.

  Joanna was sitting at the kitchen table working on a laptop. She was wearing big, round glasses that had slid down her nose. There were two mugs half full of coffee next to her; both were obviously long cold.

  ‘Sergeant Ashworth has come to speak to us,’ Jack Devanney said.

  She glanced up, but Joe could tell she was miles away, caught up in her story.

  ‘I’ll make him some coffee, shall I?’ Jack persisted.

  ‘Yes.’ But she frowned, looked at Joe. ‘Will you be long?’

  ‘Just a couple of questions.’ He sat at the table beside her.

  ‘I’ve got a deadline,’ she said. Her voice was excited. He thought she sounded unwell. Had she stopped taking her pills again? ‘Chrissie Kerr is bringing out a pamphlet of our work. A kind of sampler. To raise publicity for the Writers’ House and its work. Only a thousand words each, but it has to be good. It’s an opportunity to prove I can write. A showcase. I’m writing something new. A crime short story.’

  ‘Alex Barton is in hospital,’ Joe said.

  At last she did drag her attention away from the screen. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  Joe made sure Jack was listening too. ‘Someone stuck a knife in his mother’s cat and laid it out like a sacrifice in the chapel, along with a dead robin. It freaked him out. I suppose it would.’

  ‘And you think we would do something like that?’ Jack was round the table squaring up to Joe.

  ‘You wouldn’t be squeamish about killing animals,’ Joe said. ‘It’s something you do all the time.’

  ‘That isn’t like wringing the neck of a hen that’s stopped laying.’ Jack’s face was so close to Joe’s that he could see the hairs in Jack’s nostrils, the gold cap on one tooth. ‘That’s sick!’

  ‘Is Alex okay?’ Joanna asked. Both men looked at her, distracted for a moment from their hostility. ‘He’s young and he’s been through so much.’

  ‘Sergeant Ashworth wants to know where we were late yesterday afternoon,’ Jack said.

  ‘Jack was out.’ She smiled. ‘His weekly trip to Kimmerston. The one day he gets an escape from me. Shopping for the farm and then supper in the Red Lion. Quiz night with his mates. The highlight of the week, eh, Jack? What exciting lives we lead!’

  ‘And you?’ Joe wasn’t sure how he should address her. Ms Tobin? Joanna? In the end he left the question as it was and thought it sounded blunt, almost rude. ‘Where were you yesterday?’

  ‘I was here,’ she said. ‘Where else would I be? We only have one vehicle, Sergeant. Without that I’m stranded.’

  Joe thought she’d escaped by taxi once before, but said nothing.

  Before leaving the house he glanced over Joanna’s shoulder at the computer screen and read the first paragraph. It was a description of a dead man lying on a beach. His face was covered in scratch marks. ‘As if he had been attacked by a wolf.’ Joanna’s idea of an entertaining read.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chrissie wouldn’t hear of Nina going back to the flat in Jesmond.

  ‘Really, you can’t! Not with some nutter about. I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you.’

  So Nina allowed herself to be persuaded. And after a few days she found she was really enjoying her stay in the big house in the country. There was no cooking or shopping to do, and the Kerrs employed a cleaner, so there were none of the chores that distracted her from her writing at home. It was like staying in a friendly hotel. She was given a guest
room on the second floor, had her own bathroom and even a little study in which to work. Chrissie’s mother was a good cook; she studied recipes with the assiduous concentration of an academic. Her father was pleasant and mild-mannered. Nina felt almost that she was recreating the working atmosphere of her grandparents’ house and imagined herself back during that summer when she’d produced her first book. The crime story was growing. She could see how it might become a novel. Different from anything she’d written before, but perhaps even better. The form of the mystery gave her the structure that had been lacking in earlier work.

  At mealtimes the talk was about the collection of short pieces Chrissie aimed to put together to celebrate Miranda’s work and establish her own claim on the Writers’ House. From the beginning Nina saw that this was the prime motive for the book. Chrissie wanted to spread her empire, and for some reason the Writers’ House was at the centre of her plans. She could talk of little else. It had become an obsession.

  ‘That detective phoned,’ Chrissie said.

  They were eating dinner. Nina had been at the university all day. She’d been given a glass of wine as soon as she got through the door and now there was a lasagne on the table as good as any she’d tasted. Bread from an artisan bakery in Morpeth. Salad in a big glass bowl.

  ‘That fat one, Inspector Stanhope. She wants us to fix a date for Miranda Barton’s memorial celebration. It was her idea in the first place – a party to launch the book and remember all the good work Miranda did to encourage new writers. She said that Alex is okay with the idea. He’s back at home, much better. I suggested a week on Friday and said I’d go to see poor Alex to discuss the details. What do you think?’

  ‘Can you get the book out by then?’ Nina had other objections, but thought Chrissie would only care about the practicalities. The work had by now turned from a modest pamphlet to a substantial anthology; Chrissie had approached former tutors and students for contributions, had been up for nights in a row proofreading. They’d chosen the jacket together. It was a black-and-white photo of the Writers’ House in winter, the trees bare, the sea flat and grey.