The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

stabbed from above.’
    ‘Why would he sit on a stone floor? There were chairs in the room and he could have taken one out, if he wanted to look at the view.’ Again Vera had the image of a child playing hide-and-seek. ‘Or did the killer block the door to the house and Ferdinand went onto the balcony to escape? Perhaps he hoped to attract attention from there. He was stabbed when he was cowering in the corner.’
    ‘It’s a possibility, I suppose.’ But Keating was always cautious and ruled little out as impossible. ‘My thoughts were running another way. I’m waiting for tox reports.’
    ‘You think he might have been drugged?’
    Keating shrugged. ‘An unconscious man isn’t going to fight back. You could put him where you wanted and kill him there.’
    In the hospital car park Vera breathed deeply to get rid of the smell of chemicals and dead body. Joe stood beside her. They’d come in his car. ‘You were very quiet in there,’ she said.
    ‘I had nothing to contribute.’
    ‘What is it, Joe? You sound like a sulky teenage girl. I can’t stand moods.’
    ‘I don’t think you should be working on this case. You were at the house when the body was found, and you know one of the suspects. You can’t keep your distance.’ He stood with his legs apart and his hands on the car roof, almost like a suspect told to stand in the brace position for searching, in American cop shows.
    ‘You’re questioning my integrity?’ She wondered why she was so angry. She’d told Joe often enough that he should stick to his guns, have the courage of his convictions. She just hadn’t expected him to take a stand against her .
    ‘No!’ It came out almost as a howl. ‘No! I’m just worried about how it looks.’
    ‘Eh, pet, I’ve never been one to worry much about appearances.’
    He relaxed briefly and gave a little grin.
    ‘Would it make you feel better to know I’ve got an appointment with the Super this afternoon? I might have to leave you in charge of taking witness statements.’
    He turned round so that he was facing her. ‘You’ve already talked to him about your involvement in the case?’
    ‘Do you really think I’d jeopardize a conviction in a murder inquiry? That’s why I’ve got Charlie digging around in Joanna’s past, and why you’ll be copied in on anything he finds.’ Vera saw that she was starting to win him round. She climbed into the passenger seat and waited for him to join her in the car – thinking that she’d better find a quiet moment as soon as they arrived at the Writers’ House to phone the Super and set up that appointment.

Chapter Nine
    Nina Backworth slept badly. Even at the best of times she seldom slept through for a whole night and usually managed only four or five hours. It had come to haunt her, this need for sleep, and she searched almost obsessively for a remedy. She kept off any form of caffeine, took note of her diet. Did a particular food have an adverse effect? Or a positive one? She drank little alcohol, because that seemed to make the problem worse. She hated the idea of taking drugs, but away from home – especially when she had to work the following day – she took sleeping pills prescribed by a sympathetic GP. She’d taken a tablet the night before and had fallen asleep almost immediately, but she’d woken again in the early hours, her mind fizzing with ideas and anxieties. Now, dressing for breakfast, she felt sluggish and tense.
    How had she been persuaded to take part in this venture? She was employed by the Department of English at Newcastle University, and lectured on the undergraduate course, with women writers her speciality. She didn’t do popular fiction. Not professionally. She read detective stories when she wanted to escape, when she had flu or when she needed to forget some man or other. Though these days there wasn’t often a man she needed to forget. The elderly Penguins in their green jackets, stolen from her grandparents’ house, or the Collins Crime Club hardbacks borrowed from the library had been her best weapon against insomnia when she was an undergraduate. But this wasn’t literature to be taken seriously or to be taught on a residential course. Her editor, Chrissie Kerr, had persuaded her: You’re published by a small press with a tiny marketing budget. Even if everyone on the course buys one of your books, that’ll be a help. And the brochure goes everywhere. Miranda Barton has promised a big article in The Journal