The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

sounded dreamy now, half-asleep. ‘Then it was our home. A proper home. I loved it. We’d been living in London, a tiny flat because my mother was just assistant librarian at St Ursula’s – and even when her first book was published, it made peanuts – and suddenly I had the garden to play in and the beach. All that freedom.’
    ‘When did your mother start the business?’ Vera wondered what it must have been like to have the place overrun with strangers. Surely Miranda must have felt as if her home had been invaded. Or had she relished it? The talk about writing and the gossip, the like-minded people sitting round the table for dinner. It must have been lonely for her here, with only her son for company.
    ‘I was twelve,’ Alex said. It was clear that he, at least, hadn’t relished the intrusion. ‘Mum’s books weren’t doing so well. She’d thought that the TV adaptation of Cruel Women would be the start of a great flowering of her career. It turned out to be the high point. We needed the money. Mum had always enjoyed mentoring younger writers, so she had the idea of running the residential courses.’
    ‘How did that work?’ Vera asked. She was genuinely interested. Hector had claimed lack of money as the reason for his night-time adventures, had made Vera feel guilty – How can I get a proper job when I have you to look after? He’d drawn her in that way. ‘You can’t have done the cooking then?’ she said. ‘You’d still be at school.’
    ‘I helped. But the students cooked for themselves then. There was a sort of rota. That was when I first got interested in food. I loved it: an activity that’s practical and satisfying at the same time.’
    ‘What happened to your dad?’ She hadn’t meant to be so abrupt, but the question had come to her suddenly.
    He shook his head. ‘I never knew him.’
    ‘Dead? Divorced?’
    ‘Neither,’ Alex said. ‘My mother never married him. I never met him.’
    ‘But you knew who he was?’
    ‘She told me who he was.’ Alex bent down to stroke the cat that was rubbing against his legs. ‘I’m not sure I believed her.’
    ‘What did she tell you?’ Vera demanded. This was like wading through treacle. ‘Let’s hear the fiction – if that’s what it was.’
    ‘My father was an older man. A publisher. She’d met him at a book launch and fell for his intelligence and his wit. They had an affair. It was the most exciting and wonderful time of her life. He introduced her to theatre and opera, took her away for romantic weekends – Barcelona, Rome, Paris. He was charming and attentive, and she’d never known anyone like him.’
    ‘But he was married,’ Vera put in.
    Alex nodded. ‘With a child whom he adored. When she discovered she was pregnant she finished the affair. She didn’t want my father to be forced to choose between the families.’
    ‘Did the man have a name?’ Vera failed to keep the scepticism from her voice.
    ‘I’m sure he did, Inspector.’ For the first time Alex showed a flash of humour. ‘If he existed at all. But my mother never told me.’
    ‘You didn’t try to find him?’
    Alex shrugged. ‘I was worried what I might discover. Like my mother, I preferred the fantasy.’
    ‘I did wonder if Tony Ferdinand might be your dad,’ Vera said. She looked at Alex, hunched in the rocking chair. He’s still just a child himself, she thought . A bright, screwed-up child.
    ‘So did I,’ Alex said bitterly. ‘Like I said, I preferred the fantasy.’
    ‘Did you ask your mother about him?’
    ‘No. I was scared she might tell me the truth. Tony was a manipulative man and I wanted nothing to do with him.’ He looked up at Vera. ‘He never liked me, you know. I wasn’t bright enough to catch his interest.’
    They sat in silence. Joe Ashworth seemed to be looking out of the window. He managed to make himself still – almost invisible – during interviews, but Vera knew he was completely engaged with the conversation.
    ‘Are you sure you didn’t hear your mother come in last night?’ he said now, turning back to the room. Vera took the interruption as a sort of rebuke: Joe thought she should focus on the time of death. Important information that might move the investigation on. There would be time enough for all the relationship crap later. When Alex didn’t answer immediately, Ashworth continued, ‘You do see how it might be important? If your mother came in yesterday evening after the readings had finished and