The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

students. She wasn’t taken in by the flattery.’
    ‘So how were things between them?’ Vera kept her voice casual.
    ‘Tense. Tony could be unpleasant here if he didn’t get his way, given to snide and sarcastic remarks. Not quite as brutal as his St Ursula seminars, but getting that way.’ Nina hesitated.
    ‘You might as well tell me the whole story, pet,’ Vera said. ‘If you don’t, some other bugger will.’
    ‘Once she fought back. With words, I mean, not literally. Get off my fucking back, Tony. This is my story and I’ll tell it in my own way. Sometimes you remind me of my ex-husband. It was in front of the whole group. The animosity seemed almost personal. I even wondered . . .’
    ‘Spit it out!’
    Nina looked up sharply, shocked by the barked order. ‘I wondered if they’d met before. If there was a history between them, as there was between Ferdinand and me. But that was ridiculous. How would a small farmer from Northumberland meet an academic from London?’
    But Joanna hadn’t always been a farmer, Vera thought. She caught Joe’s eye to check that he’d understood the significance of the remark and watched him write a note in his book.
    ‘When did you last see the professor?’ Vera sneaked a look at her watch. Soon she’d have to leave for Kimmerston and her meeting with the boss.
    ‘At lunch yesterday.’
    ‘How did he seem?’
    Nina hesitated. ‘Really much as usual. In fact he was rather mellow. He’d had several glasses of wine. He started to reminisce – the highlights of his intellectual career. His favourite topic of conversation.’
    ‘Do you remember who was sitting next to him?’ Vera felt that she was pushing the conversation on too quickly. If she were allowed time, Nina might provide answers to questions Vera hadn’t yet thought to ask. The woman was an observer, with an insight as sharp as Vera’s own.
    ‘Lenny Thomas was on one side and Miranda Barton on the other.’
    ‘Tell me about the relationship between Miranda and Tony Ferdinand.’ Sod the superintendent, Vera thought. If she were late for their meeting he’d have to understand that she was in the middle of a murder investigation. This was more important.
    ‘They worked together for a while at St Ursula’s. Miranda was assistant librarian in the college’s library. And of course Tony discovered her. She’d been published, but to very little notice. Then Tony wrote a glowing review in one of the broadsheets. Called her one of the best writers of her generation. It made a huge difference to her. For a couple of years she was in the best-seller lists here and in the US.’ Nina’s tone was measured and Vera could only guess what she’d made of Miranda’s success. She’d be jealous, wouldn’t she? Only a saint could watch a rival outperform and not feel bitter. And Miranda must have been a rival, mustn’t she?
    ‘Was that at the same time as you were at St Ursula’s?’
    ‘She topped the best-seller lists the year I was there,’ Nina said. ‘Tony held Miranda up as a role model. This is what you might achieve if you play things my way. There was a television adaptation of one of her novels. It was called Cruel Women. I suppose the money she made then helped to pay for this place. She was never so successful again.’
    Vera saw Ashworth pointing at his watch and saw she really would have to go now. All the same, she couldn’t help asking, ‘What was Miranda’s book about?’
    Nina blinked as if startled by the question, then gave another of her rare smiles. ‘I really don’t know. I didn’t get beyond the second page. In my opinion the writing was pretentious crap.’

Chapter Eleven
    Later that afternoon Nina felt a compulsion to write. The hours before tea had been marked as free for students to concentrate on their own work: on the exercises set by tutors or on suggested edits to submitted manuscripts. Downstairs the house was empty and quiet. The residents must be writing in their rooms or searching for inspiration outside. The police had taken up residence in the chapel, so that was now out of bounds.
    At the introductory meeting on their arrival at the Writers’ House, Nina had said, only partly joking, that she was there under false pretences. Certainly she could talk about short fiction – the form had been her area of study since she was an undergraduate – but she’d never written crime. Now, with the tension and drama of a real murder investigation in the background,