The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

any further questions. Soon Joe Ashworth would be here. She’d phoned him before coming to talk to Joanna. Then they could progress the interview in a more orthodox way. He could take the lead. But Vera wanted to know what had happened to provoke such grotesque violence, and at the moment Joanna was her best source of information, whether she was a suspect or witness.
    ‘He was greedy,’ Joanna said after a moment’s consideration. ‘I hate greed, don’t you? It’s such a mean, small-minded vice. As if money matters at all!’
    ‘It matters to lots of people,’ Vera said.
    ‘Only to people who have nothing of real value in their lives!’ There was the imperious tone again. ‘But I shouldn’t be rude about him, should I? He didn’t deserve to die. Nobody deserves to die before their time.’
    ‘Why did you go into the glass room?’ Vera asked. ‘Everyone knew it was his favourite place, apparently. If you disliked him so much, what were you doing there?’
    ‘I went because he asked me to. Obviously it was a foolish thing to do. But wisdom has never really been my bag.’
    ‘Perhaps you should explain.’ Again Vera felt that the conversation was spinning away from her. She needed facts. Time of death. Cause of death. A list of the people in the house. Something to anchor her to reality. She looked at her watch. Joe Ashworth could drive like a cautious sixty-year-old without Vera to urge him on. And she wouldn’t have put it past him to call in on his wife and bairns on the way through from Kimmerston. But even allowing for all that, he should be here soon. Joe had as much imagination as a louse and, when he arrived, she’d let him look after Joanna. The woman would be safe with him, mad or not, and he wouldn’t let himself be distracted by her ramblings on morality.
    ‘I knew he wanted to get inside my knickers,’ Joanna said. ‘So it would have been more sensible to stay away. But this was so exciting. I had to go, didn’t I? When I got the note, no way was I going to stay away.’
    ‘What note?’ Vera leaned forward. The bed was soft enough, but she could have done with something to lean against and there was a crick in her neck. She wanted to stretch, but that might have given Joanna the impression that she was bored.
    ‘We each have a pigeonhole near reception. If there are outside phone messages or the tutors want to leave work for us, they leave them there. I had this note from Tony. Come to the glass room after lunch. A major publisher has expressed interest in your work. ’
    ‘How did you know it was from Tony?’ Vera asked. ‘It could have been from any of the tutors. And he was a university lecturer, wasn’t he? Not a publisher.’
    ‘It was signed,’ Joanna said. Vera could tell the woman was making an effort to be patient. ‘Not a proper signature, but initials. And I knew Tony liked to sit in the glass room. He’d escape there most days after lunch with coffee and a brandy. I think he liked looking down on us. Literally, I mean. From the balcony he could see onto the terrace and that was where the smokers all gathered and chatted. I caught him once, listening in.’ She paused. ‘And he was much more than a university professor. He had influence, contacts in the industry.’
    ‘What did he get out of it?’ Vera asked. ‘I mean if he’d found you a publisher, would he get a cut?’
    ‘No!’ Joanna was losing patience now and struggled to make Vera understand. ‘It wasn’t about the money. It was about power. If he’d helped me become a best-selling author, I’d always have to be grateful to him, wouldn’t I? It would be like he’d created me. That was what turned him on.’ She considered her earlier assessment of Ferdinand. ‘It was power he was greedy for, not money.’
    Vera still wasn’t sure she got it, and decided to stick to the facts. ‘What happened next?’
    ‘I knocked at the glass-room door. It’s a public room, but Tony tended to treat the place like his own. There was no answer, so I went in. There was nobody there. I thought Tony had been there. There were two coffee cups and a glass on the table. The chairs were arranged differently from usual, and I wondered if he’d been chatting to one of the other students, if someone else had received a similar offer. That was when I saw the knife.’
    ‘Where was it?’
    ‘On the floor. Next to that big plant pot. I picked it up to take back to the kitchen. I mean, in my experience that’s