The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

meant nothing to me – but the story and the characters came together like a sort of magic. I have never been so happy as I was that summer.’
    Vera thought sometimes a case worked out that way. Everything falling into place. Instinct and solid policing coming together. Then there was nothing more exhilarating. Nina seemed lost in her memories and Vera prompted her. ‘So how did Tony Ferdinand come into your life?’
    ‘I’d heard him on the radio, read his reviews and I admired him. He seemed passionate about literature and about championing new, young writers. He’d just set up the new creative-writing MA at St Ursula’s. I suppose he was some sort of hero. Then I met him, quite by chance, at a party. Friends of my grandparents, not very far from here, were celebrating a wedding anniversary. I’m not sure how he came to be there. I think he happened to be in the area. On holiday perhaps. Later I found he was very good at getting himself invited to parties, fancy restaurants.’ Nina stopped speaking for a moment. ‘He’d been a freelance journalist. I don’t suppose he was paid much. And he had very expensive tastes.’
    Vera nodded, remembering the clothes in his wardrobe. ‘Must have seemed like a stroke of luck,’ she said. ‘Just bumping into him like that.’
    ‘I could hardly believe it. I’d only gone to the party to keep my grandparents happy and as soon as I walked into the room I heard his voice. I’d have known it anywhere.’ Nina paused again. ‘You must understand that I was very young, very naive. Easily flattered. Tony encouraged me to talk about my novel. Later I realized I was the only female under fifty there and that he was flattered by my admiration. I entertained him for an hour or so while he drank a bottle of our hosts’ champagne. “Why don’t you apply to St Ursula’s?” he said when we left. “And let me see a copy of your novel.” And he gave me his card.’
    ‘That must have been exciting,’ Vera said. ‘To have someone that famous asking to look at your work.’
    ‘Unbelievably exciting!’ Nina faced Vera to make sure she understood the importance of what she was saying. ‘Like being six and waking up on Christmas morning and getting just the present you’d been dreaming about secretly all year.’
    ‘So you sent the book to him?’ Vera didn’t want to give Nina the impression she was rushing her, but neither did she want to be here for hours. She had that appointment with the superintendent, and if she was going to be grovelling, she’d better not be late.
    ‘I phoned him as soon as I got back to my parents’ house in London, and went to see him. His office in St Ursula’s was so full of books there was hardly room for a desk. I thought anyone who owned that many books must be honest and true. How could you read so widely and not be a good person? And he said he loved my novel, that I should join his course.’ She paused. ‘After that interview I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. It was as if I was flying home.’
    ‘But it didn’t work out?’
    ‘No,’ Nina said. ‘It didn’t work out.’
    ‘Tell me.’ Still Vera was aware of time passing, but this was the first time she had a sense of Tony Ferdinand as a real person. He’d been a con man, she thought. A bit of a chancer. But bright enough to make people think he had influence. And in the end so many folk believed he could pull strings, and make things happen, that the perception became truth. ‘Tried it on, did he?’ Nina had been a bonny young woman after all. And it seemed he’d tried it on with Joanna.
    ‘No not that. He was unpleasant in an old-fashioned sexist way. Touching as if by chance. The occasional invitation that could have been taken as a proposition. But I could have coped with that.’
    ‘So what did he do?’ Vera asked. ‘What did he do that was so terrible?’
    ‘He ruined my novel. Him and the rest of the group.’
    ‘How did they do that?’
    Nina struggled to find the words to explain. ‘The teaching sessions were brutal. I’d had to take criticism as an undergraduate, but this was horrible. A form of intellectual combat. We’d sit in a circle, discussing an individual’s work, but there was nothing constructive in the comments. It was more like a competition to see how hard and unpleasant each student could be. Tony told us things were like that in the publishing world: tough, uncompromising. We should get used to it. But it wasn’t