The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

conversation between the detectives, but beside her Lenny Thomas was demanding her attention, needing her reassurance.
    ‘So you think, like, that I have a chance of getting onto the course at St Ursula’s? Even now Tony Ferdinand’s dead?’
    ‘I think you could find a publisher now, Lenny. I’m not sure the St Ursula’s course is what you need at this point in your writing career. You have a fresh and original voice. A publisher will see that. He wouldn’t need Tony Ferdinand to point it out to him.’ And you’d be any publicist’s dream. Ex-offender from a former pit village. Much easier to promote you than a middle-class female academic in a provincial university, already approaching middle age. In fact everything mid, everything mediocre.
    She realized how bitter she had become. And how jealous she was of this enthusiastic man with his newly found passion for writing, his ability to hook the reader in with the simplicity of his prose and the authenticity of his characterization. She turned to the neighbour on her left. Mark Winterton might be boring, but at least he wouldn’t make her feel inadequate. His writing was well crafted, but pedestrian, lacking any spark or humour, and his value to this particular class was that he was a retired police inspector. He was tall, grey-haired and polite and answered the group’s questions about procedure, forensics and the judicial system with consistent good humour.
    ‘This must seem very strange to you, Mark,’ Nina said. ‘To be at the receiving end of an investigation, I mean.’
    ‘It is rather.’ He wasn’t local and had a northern accent that she didn’t quite recognize.
    ‘Does it make you regret leaving the job?’ She was genuinely interested. After having such responsible and demanding work, wouldn’t life seem a little tame afterwards? ‘Is that why you decided to start writing about it instead, so you can recapture some of the excitement?’
    He shook his head gently. ‘You can’t know,’ he said, ‘how glad I was to leave the stress behind. I’m more than happy to be an observer on this one.’
    ‘Why choose crime then, when you decided to write?’
    ‘I read all the text books,’ he said, as if the explanation was obvious. ‘The ones on how to be an author. They all tell you to write about what you know. I joined the force when I was sixteen. I don’t know about anything else.’
    ‘There’s more to life than work!’ Nina wondered in her own case if that was true. She used her work as an escape, an excuse to avoid relationships. ‘Are you married?’
    He smiled. ‘Divorced,’ he said. ‘The stress of the job took its toll early on. Two sons and five grandkids.’ He paused. ‘There was a daughter too, but she died when she was young.’
    ‘Then you could write children’s fiction. Or about what it is to lose a child. You know about those things.’
    ‘Is it possible to make a story out of something so personal?’
    ‘It’s not always easy,’ Nina said. ‘But it’s certainly possible. If you want to try, I’d be happy to look at it.’
    ‘Thank you. I might take you up on that!’ And his face suddenly lit up, so Nina thought she had probably earned her fee, just in that conversation.
    On the other side of the room Inspector Stanhope had already finished eating. She hoisted herself to her feet. Nina noticed that there was a splash of soup on her jersey and felt the urge to pick up her napkin and wipe it off.
    ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry that we’re obliged to disturb you again.’
    No you’re not, Nina thought. You love all this. You’re not like Mark Winterton. You thrive on the stress. You probably think that we’re a load of pretentious morons anyway, and that we deserve to be inconvenienced.
    The inspector was continuing: ‘This afternoon we’ll take individual witness statements. Sergeant Ashworth and I will set up in the chapel and call you in when we’re ready for you. We’d be grateful if you don’t leave the Writers’ House while the process is under way.’ Nina wondered if that was a dig at her, for her comment about being imprisoned yesterday and for daring to go for a walk this morning.
    That impression intensified when the inspector paused for a moment and looked around her.
    ‘We’ll start, shall we, with Ms Backworth?’

Chapter Ten
    Vera took over the chapel as her interview room. She wanted a base where she wouldn’t be interrupted or overheard, and it had come to her