The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

breakfast. Last night at dinner she’d been sitting across the table from him. He’d been in her line of vision when Joanna’s partner had arrived, and she’d seen his face as the accusations had spewed from Jack’s mouth. Alex had been shocked by the interruption, as they’d all been, but there had been something else too. Amusement? Perhaps even a touch of admiration? When they’d moved on to the drawing room to continue the readings, Alex hadn’t gone with them. He’d claimed to be tired and said he wanted an early night.
    Looking across the yard, she saw that there was a light in the cottage. She didn’t want to face him or Miranda, and soon surely they’d come to the house to start cooking breakfast and clearing up. She put on her boots and went outside. The cold took her breath away. There was enough light now to see that every blade of grass was covered in frost. She was tempted to walk away from the house, up the track to the lane. But that would have meant walking past the cottage, and she thought again that any moment one of them would come out and she couldn’t bear discussing the events of the previous evening with them. Instead she moved quickly down the shingle path to the seaward side of the house.
    Still, it was only just dawn. Everything was grey and insubstantial. The trees surrounding the house were blocks of black and for a moment, in their shadow, walking between them and the house, she lost all visibility. Then she came out onto the terrace and into the open and the sea was ahead of her, and suddenly everything seemed very light and clear.
    She was back at the place where she’d set her story. Now she was pleased that she hadn’t read it out the evening before. Jack’s interruption had saved her from that. It wasn’t finished, she thought now. Not fit to be read. This scene hadn’t been properly described. She came closer, though her attention was fixed more on the horizon, where soon the sun would rise over the line of the sea, than on the group of garden furniture. What words would she use to make the scene – this dawn – real for the reader?
    Suddenly she was aware that she wasn’t alone. Someone was sitting on the wrought-iron chair closest to her, facing away. On the table were signs that people had been here the night before: a candle, burnt very low, the wax spread over the blue ceramic holder and through the lacy holes in the table, making strange stalactite shapes where it had dripped. Two wine glasses. A coffee cup. An ashtray. The scene was oddly familiar and for the first time Nina felt a tingle of fright. Part superstition and part disbelief. On the floor under the table she saw a piece of white cloth and she had a jarring sense that this was out of place. It shouldn’t be there.
    Her companion was Miranda. Nina recognized the thick jacket the woman had been wearing the afternoon before, the gleam of the dyed blonde hair piled high on her head. It seemed she hadn’t heard Nina’s approach; she was too preoccupied perhaps with her own thoughts. Nina almost crept away – after all, the last thing she’d wanted this morning was to speak to this woman – but the dressing of the scene, the candle, the glasses, the ashtray, kept her there.
    ‘Miranda.’
    There was no answer, and really by now she hadn’t expected that there would be.
    She walked round the table so that for the first time she could see the woman’s face. Her throat had been cut and was gaping and bloody. It looked almost like a large and smiling second mouth. The idea was immediate and shocking. Not just because of the horror of the image, grotesque and macabre, but because Nina had used the simile before. She’d described this scene. This was her story brought to life.
    Later, over strong coffee – she couldn’t imagine ever sleeping again, so caffeine was the least of her worries – she tried to explain to Vera Stanhope. They were back in the chapel. Outside, professionals in blue paper suits, looking oddly androgynous, had covered the whole terrace in a white tent. The other participants of the course had been taken away in taxis to a nearby hotel. Statements would be taken, Vera said. Their belongings would be returned to them once they’d been searched. Then they’d probably be allowed to go home. Holly was in the room too, taking notes. There was no sign of the young male detective. Nina would have preferred him there. He was less intrusive than Holly. Throughout the interview she