The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

been hail and the roads were still greasy.
    ‘So that’s why Miranda was so hysterical when she found the professor’s body,’ Vera said. ‘It would have been like walking into one of her own books. Or into a nightmare.’
    ‘Like Nina finding Miranda on the terrace and recognizing her own short story.’
    Vera looked at him sharply. She couldn’t work out what was going on between Joe and the Backworth woman. This was something else that confused her. A month ago she’d have bet her home on Joe Ashworth’s fidelity. Now she wasn’t so sure. And she’d never have thought he’d go for someone intellectual and skinny.
    ‘Aye.’ They’d reached the bottom of the hill and she changed gear again.
    ‘Is that coincidence, do you think?’ Joe said. ‘The writers discovering the bodies? Or did the killer organize it that way?’
    ‘Joanna could have found the first one.’ Vera thought she shouldn’t have had to remind Joe of that. He was losing his focus on the case. ‘And she was meant to. All that business with the different knives and the note. Miranda came along later and screamed the house down. I don’t think that was intended.’ It wasn’t grief that had caused the hysteria, Vera saw now, but shock because she recognized the scenario; she’d created it. And Miranda had recovered from that more quickly than anyone would have expected. It seemed she hadn’t really cared for Tony Ferdinand at all.
    ‘Why didn’t she tell us that the scene came from her book?’ Joe frowned and looked like a school kid doing difficult sums. ‘That’s been bothering me since I read that last chapter.’
    ‘Perhaps she was worried that we’d see her as the killer.’ Vera paused. ‘And then she decided she could use the situation to her advantage. If she worked out who was playing games with her stories.’
    ‘Blackmail?’
    ‘It’s always seemed likely as a motive for the second murder.’ But Vera thought that wasn’t the big question. The big question was, why had the killer created the fictional scenes in the first place? A warped sense of fun? Or was there a greater significance? And you could ask the same questions about the objects he’d left behind.
    Now they’d reached the highest point of the road and there was a view of the coast and the house below them. The earlier storm had stripped the trees of leaves, so the outline of the building was clearer than Vera had remembered. It was strange being back here with the place almost empty. No CSIs, no students, theirs the only car in the visitors’ car park. Alex had heard the Land Rover and came out of the cottage to meet them. He seemed calm enough, but slightly dazed. Vera thought he was probably still on tranquillizers. Or maybe it was losing a mother he’d never been close to.
    ‘I’ve just had Chrissie Kerr on the phone,’ Alex said, his voice distant and uninterested. ‘She seems to ring about three times a day. This time it was about what time the caterers can get here on Friday. I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal for her.’
    Oh, I do, Vera thought. It’s her big chance.
    ‘You’re not doing the cooking yourself then?’ Joe was concerned for the young man. He probably thought Vera was a callous cow to allow the party to take place here. Vera saw that he wasn’t sure what they were doing here now. Why was it so important for them to visit the Writers’ House ? And she didn’t know that she had an answer for him.
    ‘Chrissie asked if I’d like to do the cooking,’ Alex said. ‘She told me that she’d pay the going rate. But I didn’t think I could take it on. These days I wouldn’t know where to start.’
    ‘Are you sure you’re up for the party?’ Vera knew she was going through the motions even as she put the question. She was desperate for the event to take place. Like Chrissie, she saw this as her last chance. Her only opportunity to get this killer. How would she react if Alex said he wasn’t sure, that the last thing he wanted was his home invaded by a bunch of strangers?
    But Alex reacted exactly as she’d hoped: ‘My mother would have loved it. All this fuss in her name. It’s the least I can do. Then maybe I can move on.’ The last phrase sounded trite and uncertain, as if it had been suggested by one of the doctors in the hospital.
    ‘Show us round then, will you, pet? Show us where it’s all going to take place.’
    And Alex did as he was told, leading them through the grand rooms as if