The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

been.’
    ‘Probably a stupid idea,’ Joe said. Now she’d agreed to look into it, he was happy to let the notion go. ‘Why don’t we go and have a chat with Alex Barton? Where is he?’
    Vera gave a little smile. In the end she always did get her own way. ‘I didn’t send him off to the hotel with all the others. It seemed a tad heartless. Besides, I thought we might get more out of him on home territory. He’s in the cottage with a minder.’
    They walked into the yard, and into sunshine so bright that it made Vera’s eyes water.
    ‘You always call him a boy,’ Joe said suddenly. ‘How old is he?’
    ‘Twenty-three.’ Vera fished into her jacket pocket for a tissue and found half a roll of toilet paper. She tore off a handful and wiped her eyes. ‘Still a boy to me.’
    Alex Barton was sitting in the kitchen of the cottage, with an overfed cat on his lap. Vera had knocked at the door, then walked straight in without waiting for an answer, but he didn’t seem surprised or startled to see them. A uniformed constable sat at the table and looked relieved when Vera waved for him to go.
    ‘I always hated this cat,’ Alex said. ‘It stinks. And when it was more active, it killed birds.’
    ‘I could never see the point of pets myself.’ Vera leaned against the Aga and felt the heat penetrate her jacket and warm her spine and her buttocks. ‘Your mother liked it, though?’
    ‘Spoilt it rotten,’ Alex said. ‘It’s ancient. When I was growing up I thought she loved it more than me.’
    ‘It’s a tricky relationship: single parent and only child. Too much guilt and duty swimming around.’ Vera knew Ashworth would think she was speaking from personal experience. So she was.
    ‘I should have got away,’ Alex said. ‘But I couldn’t see how she’d make a go of this place on her own. Not any longer. She needed me.’
    Vera realized that he hadn’t yet referred to his mother other than by her or she . ‘You’ll have a chance now,’ Vera said. ‘To get away, I mean. This place must be worth a few bob, even if it’s got a mortgage. Sell it and you’re free to go wherever you like.’
    He pushed the cat off his lap and looked at her with big, sad eyes. He was a pretty boy, she saw. There was something feminine about him, despite the dark hair on his arms. When she’d first seen him she’d described him to herself as a wolf. Now she wasn’t so sure. He didn’t seem sufficiently cruel. She’d expected a response to her words. Anger. A denial that he would choose to benefit from his mother’s death, an outburst that such an idea was the last thing on his mind. But he said nothing.
    ‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ Again she was deliberately trying to provoke him to speech.
    Alex shook his head.
    ‘Of course, why would you? A young lad like you wouldn’t want to be tied down. And plenty of chance for sex without commitment here. I’d guess most of the women would be here on their own. Away from home. From their husbands and kids. And it must be intense. Older than you, but there’s nothing wrong with experience. All this talk of emotions. They’d be looking for a fling.’
    He looked at her as if she was mad and she saw she’d have to try a different way in. Simple questions, she thought. Facts. Maybe that would work.
    ‘How long have you lived here?’
    Now he did answer. ‘Nearly fifteen years.’
    ‘So you arrived when you were a small boy?’
    He nodded. ‘I went to the village school up the lane, then to the high school in Alnwick.’
    ‘What brought your mam to this place then?’
    There was a pause and Vera thought again there would be no answer. It required judgement, opinion, and it seemed Alex still wasn’t ready for that. But in the end he spoke.
    ‘She grew up in Newcastle and always dreamed of living on the coast. One of her books was adapted for television that year. Tony had written an article the Christmas before and described her as one of the best writers of her generation. It made a huge difference to her career. Until then she’d still been working in London, in the university library. Suddenly we had money to spend. She saw the house as an investment for our future. And a pleasant place to bring up a child.’
    It was, Vera thought, almost as if he were reciting a story he’d learned by heart. The words were Miranda’s, not his own.
    ‘So at first you just lived here?’ Vera said. ‘She hadn’t set up the Writers’ Centre.’
    ‘No.’ Alex