The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

hospital and made her way back here, with the help of Devanney. It seems she’s been on medication ever since.’
    Except she stopped taking it for a few weeks before going to the Writers’ House. Because she fancied herself in love, as Jack had feared?
    ‘Case over, then!’ Charlie looked up from the paper cup he’d been staring into since he’d sat down.
    ‘That’s dangerous talk, Charlie, and you know it.’ Joe’s voice was sharp. Vera wasn’t sure if he was really angry or if this was a show for her benefit. ‘There’s no evidence to connect her to the victim. If you start looking for proof to nail an individual, you’ll likely try too hard and find it. Doesn’t mean it’s real. Now’s the time to keep an open mind. So let’s move on.’
    Joe pointed to the next photo on the board. The photo was old and looked as if it had been dug out of an old HR file. ‘Mark Winterton. Former inspector with Cumbria Police. Not much use as a writer, according to the staff at the place. So what was he doing there? It would be good to establish some link between him and the victim. Or with Joanna Tobin. Charlie, can you do that? There’s an address near Carlisle for him. Not so far from where Tobin lives, as the crow flies.’ Charlie nodded. He was used to being shouted at and didn’t bear resentment for long.
    ‘The last two are tutors. Nina Backworth, academic and writer. She admits to hating Ferdinand and blames him for screwing up her writing career. So she has the most plausible motive, but again there’s no forensic evidence to link her to the victim.’ Ashworth paused and looked round the room to check he had their full attention. ‘Then there’s Giles Rickard. He’s done very nicely from his writing recently. A house in Normandy and a flat in Highgate.’ He looked at Charlie ‘That’s a flash part of London. And he’s got a holiday cottage up the coast in Northumberland. Which is how he came to be invited as a tutor on the course. He claims that he had no professional contact with Ferdinand, and they seem only to have met at the occasional publishers’ party. According to Rickard, who seems a nice old chap. But maybe we can’t entirely trust him. Because he forgot to tell us that he was best mates with Joanna Tobin’s ex-husband, Paul. And when I googled him I found a scathing review of one of his books in the Times Literary Supplement. Written by our victim.’

Chapter Fourteen
    Nina Backworth woke with a start and she didn’t know where she was. It was still dark. At home, in her flat in Newcastle, there would be enough light from the street lamps for her to make out the shadow of the wardrobe, and she’d hear the background buzz of distant traffic. Here, briefly everything was strange. She heard footsteps in the corridor outside her door and there was a moment of panic. Her body was rigid with fear and her pulse raced. Someone had broken into her flat. The image of a bloody body crouching in a dark corner flashed into her mind, half-nightmare, half-daydream. Her body? Her flat? A premonition of her own death? Then a beat later she remembered where she was and began to breathe again. Tony Ferdinand was dead, but she was still alive. She turned on her bedside light and saw that it was six-thirty. After all she hadn’t slept badly. The footsteps outside her door would be one of the other residents.
    She tried to settle back under the sheets, but could tell immediately it would be impossible to rest. The shock of waking suddenly had made her muscles tense and she’d never been any good at relaxing. She got out of bed and opened the curtains. Her room looked over the sea and in the distance a light-buoy flashed. There was no wind; it would be another quiet day. She pulled a jersey over her pyjamas and made tea. Then, sitting in the easy chair by the window, her notepad on her knee, she continued to work on her short story. The words came easily and she thought that this was what she was made for.
    At breakfast she found herself sitting next to Giles Rickard. Still exhilarated by the hour’s writing, she was tempted by the smell of coffee. Usually she never drank caffeine, and now, sipping from the mug, enjoying the smell and the taste, she found her body responding immediately to it. She felt alert, more awake than she had for months. She saw the arthritic hands of her companion and wondered how she would describe them if she were writing about them. It occurred to her that hands