The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

done for our benefit. He enjoyed moderating all that bile and aggression. He was entertained, and it made him feel powerful. It wasn’t just me he had a go at. He picked on anyone vulnerable. I remember him and a visiting tutor tearing apart one student, who fell to pieces in front of us. I found myself joining in. It was horrible.’ Nina looked up at Vera. ‘I tried to edit the text to meet the group’s comments. Most of the other students seemed so much more confidant and articulate than I was. And Tony seemed to agree with them. But of course that was a mistake. In the end my original vision was quite lost.’
    ‘So you left?’ Vera still couldn’t quite make sense of this. Usually she enjoyed dipping into worlds that were quite different from her own, but this seemed so far from her own experience that it was unfathomable. She’d never understood before that words could be a profession, a matter of pride, an income.
    ‘Eventually. It felt like a failure, but I was making myself ill. I found a more conventional postgraduate course and became an academic. I dumped the first novel. There was no way I could recapture the excitement. Recently I’ve started writing again.’
    ‘Published, are you?’
    ‘Not by anyone you’d have heard of.’ Nina managed a grin. ‘I’m with a small press, North Farm, based in rural Northumberland. I’ve got a passionate and intelligent young editor. It’s almost impossible to get my novels into mainstream bookshops, but Chrissie has a number of imaginative marketing strategies, and at least I don’t feel that I’ve sold my soul.’
    ‘What I don’t understand . . .’ Vera leaned forward across the table ‘. . . is why you agreed to run this workshop. You must have known in advance that Professor Ferdinand would be one of the tutors.’
    For a moment the woman sat in silence. Nina Backworth, usually so good at words that she made a living from them, said nothing. Her attention seemed held by the dust floating in the shaft of light that came through the narrow window above her head.
    ‘At first I didn’t know Tony would be here,’ Nina said at last. ‘The Writers’ House has an international reputation and it’s considered an honour to be invited to lecture here. I was interested to see how it works. A number of my friends have attended workshops and came back raving about the place. My managers at the university thought it would be a good thing to do – my being chosen as tutor reflects well on our courses – and so did my editor. The fee is generous, and that always helps.’
    She paused for breath and Vera thought there were already too many explanations. She wasn’t sure she believed any of them. She said nothing and allowed Nina to continue.
    ‘When Miranda sent me the list of tutors, it was too late to back out. Besides . . .’ The woman gave the same strained smile. ‘Sometimes it’s important to face one’s demons, don’t you think? I hoped I’d give my students here a more positive experience than Tony had given me. And I decided it would be good for me to meet the man again.’
    ‘And was it?’ Vera knew all about demons. She was living in the house where her dead father had kept bird skulls and skins in the basement. He regularly came to haunt her. She heard him muttering in her head late at night.
    ‘It was quite scary the first time we sat down to dinner together. I felt like an anxious young woman all over again. Then he started to patronize me and, instead of being frightened, I found myself hating him.’
    Vera paused for a second. ‘Hate’s a very strong word.’
    The answer came back immediately. ‘I’m a writer, Inspector. I choose my words carefully.’
    ‘What was going on between him and Joanna Tobin?’ Vera was remembering Nina’s intervention the night before. The other guests had assumed that Joanna was the killer, but Nina had stood up to defend her.
    ‘Joanna was a talented writer, Inspector, with an interesting story to tell. It doesn’t always work when real experiences are turned into fiction, but she managed a witty and sardonic voice, combined with real menace, that I found very fresh.’
    ‘And Ferdinand was grooming Joanna for stardom, was he? Offering to put a word in for her with his publisher mates?’ Vera wondered if Joanna’s writing had been good enough to turn her into a star. What would Jack make of that?
    ‘He was trying,’ Nina said. ‘Joanna wasn’t as naive as some of the other