The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

here, do you? Or are you one of the writers?’ Vera saw him as a handyman or gardener, but she’d met more scruffy academics.
    ‘I’m a writer.’ He looked suddenly astonished, as if he’d never said the words before.
    ‘Student or tutor?’
    ‘Student, but that Professor Ferdinand had said I had the potential to be published. He said he might take me on as one of his postgraduate students. Imagine that! Me doing an MA in creative writing, and I only scraped five GCSEs. He said that wouldn’t matter. He was going to put in a word. And a word from him would make a difference. Everyone knew that.’ Lenny gave a little laugh that had no resentment in it. ‘But that’ll never work out now, eh? I knew deep down it was too good to be true. People like me never get that sort of luck. But it was nice to believe it, like, while it was happening.’
    ‘If he thought you were good enough, other people will too,’ Vera said.
    ‘Aye, maybe.’ And Vera saw that Lenny probably didn’t want success enough, or wasn’t confident enough to push his work. She nodded to the door. ‘How is she?’
    ‘No bother,’ Lenny said. ‘Calm as owt.’ And he moved away to let Vera in. ‘Do you want me there with you, like?’
    ‘Nah,’ Vera said. ‘We’ll be fine. Go off and get yourself a cup of tea.’
    She could tell the man was disappointed, but he wandered off without comment.
    Joanna was sitting on a window seat, looking out into the garden. It was quite dark by now, so there was nothing for her to see. She must have heard the door opening, but she didn’t turn her head and seemed lost in a world of her own.
    ‘Why, lass, you’ve got yourself into a bit of a pickle.’
    Vera sat on the edge of the bed. She could have chosen the chair by the desk, but the bed was more comfortable and closer to Joanna. If Joanna shifted her head just a bit, Vera would be within her line of vision.
    ‘One question,’ Vera went on. ‘Did you make him sit out on the balcony before you stabbed him, or did you do it in the room, then stick him outside? It doesn’t quite make sense. We’ll know, of course, once the pathologist gets here, but it’d save us a bit of time if you explain how he ended up there. I couldn’t see any blood in the room itself, so I guess you got him outside.’
    Now Joanna did twist her body so that she was looking into the room. It was as if she noticed Vera for the first time. Her posture, sitting on the window seat, her back to the glass, was almost regal.
    ‘I didn’t kill him at all.’ She was, as Lenny had said, quite calm.
    ‘Come on, pet. You were wandering around the corridor outside the glass room with a knife in your hand!’
    ‘So I was,’ Joanna agreed, in the posh southern accent that made Vera think of a lady of the manor opening a village fete. Or the wife of a colonial governor. ‘How very Lady Macbeth!’
    ‘I’ll need to take your clothes for forensic examination.’ Vera decided the woman must be quite insane, and that it was best to get the clothes away from her while she was being cooperative.
    ‘I was there in the room,’ Joanna said. ‘But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even see him. I suppose he must have been dead already.’ Despite the denial, she slid off the window seat and began to strip. She’d never been embarrassed by nudity. One very hot July day, Vera had caught her swimming naked in the tarn close to the farm. She’d laughed out loud at Vera’s surprise: W hy don’t you come in. It’s lovely!
    Her body was still brown from working in the fields all summer. She was soft and supple. Vera saw a dressing gown on a hook on the door and threw it to her. She thought it might be better to start this story from the beginning. ‘What are you doing in this place, anyway?’
    Joanna pulled the dressing gown around her and tied the cord. It was made of silk and looked like a kimono. She’d have picked it up for a few pence at a charity shop and brought it home in triumph to show off to Jack.
    ‘Should you be talking to me, without a lawyer?’ This was Joanna at her most imperious, and Vera was surprised.
    ‘Probably not,’ Vera said. ‘If you like, we can wait until we’re in the station and I can talk to you there. Lawyers, tape recordings. The works. Probably for the best. I haven’t cautioned you yet, and I’ll only get into bother when we get to court.’
    A shadow seemed to pass over Joanna’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I always get