The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

at the magazine cutting, sliding it away from her along the table until the words came into some sort of focus. It had very small print, and she thought again she should get to an optician’s and sort herself out some specs. It wasn’t that she was vain. If you had a body the size and shape of a barrage balloon there was no sense in vanity. But until recently her eyesight had been perfect. Hector hadn’t needed glasses until he was in his late sixties. She imagined him jeering at her. Feeling your age, Vee?
    ‘Read it out to me will you, pet,’ she said to Joe. No excuses and no explanation. Challenging him to ask why she couldn’t read it for herself.
    He shot her a look, but said nothing. He’d always known when to keep his mouth shut. It was one of the things she liked about him.
    On Tuesday night the television adaptation of Cruel Women will appear on BBC television, starring Sophia Young as businesswoman Samantha. Author of the novel, Miranda Barton, takes time out from her busy schedule to talk to our reporter. We meet in the library of St Ursula’s College, London, where Barton once worked.
    ‘So Miranda maintained her contact with the college,’ Vera said. ‘I suppose in a sense this piece links both victims. By that time Ferdinand would have set up his writing course there.’ She could see the photo okay: Miranda posing in front of a pile of books.
    ‘Ferdinand isn’t named,’ Joe said. Vera could tell he thought she was allowing herself to be distracted again. He didn’t understand that she took pleasure in complication.
    She glared at him. ‘Go on then.’ She put on her cross voice as if he’d been the one to interrupt the flow. ‘Let’s hear the rest.’
    Miranda explains that the central character in the book is in no way autobiographical. ‘In one sense the book is an allegory,’ she says. ‘A study of greed in contemporary Britain. Tony Ferdinand was the first reviewer to recognize that. Samantha puts her career in front of everything – her family and friends, her relationships. Of course I want to be successful, but I hope I have a more balanced attitude to life than that. For example, nothing is more important to me than my son.’
    Joe looked up. ‘Then there are some details about her latest novel, date of publication and that sort of thing. It’s a very short piece.’
    ‘What’s the title of the novel she’s plugging?’ Vera thought it wouldn’t be Cruel Women. The script would have been written and the film shot and edited months before transmission.
    ‘ Older Men. ’ Joe looked up at her. ‘Do you think that’s relevant?’
    ‘No, probably not.’ Vera thought there were too many small details to consider. Too many possibilities. ‘That was the last book to come out. She had copies of all her novels in her bedroom, and I checked the dates. There was the TV film that year, an interview in a national magazine. You’d think she’d want to make the most of her success. So why did she stop publishing?’
    ‘Maybe the last book wasn’t very good,’ Joe said.
    ‘Aye, maybe.’ But Vera suspected the book business didn’t work like that. She wasn’t sure the quality of the work had so much to do with sales figures. ‘Let’s track down a contact at her publisher’s. We might find somebody who remembers her.’ She paused and looked again at the paper. ‘I think there was more to the article than this. Look, the edge has been neatly cut. Originally wouldn’t there have been two columns?’
    Joe was sceptical. ‘How can you tell?’
    ‘The placing of the headline. It’s not symmetrical. And the headline itself. One Cruel Woman? There’s nothing in the piece that answers the question.’ Vera spoke almost to herself. ‘Did the killer want us to realize the article had been cut in half? Or has he underestimated us?’
    ‘This isn’t a game.’ Joe was losing patience. ‘It’s not one of their stories.’
    ‘Oh, it is,’ Vera said. ‘That’s just what it is.’
    They sat for a moment staring at each other. The room was filled with the cold morning sunlight. Vera half-expected Joe to demand an explanation, but he just looked at her as if she were mad.
    ‘I think Miranda was still writing,’ she said.
    She made the announcement as if it were a revelation and was disappointed by Joe’s reaction: ‘Is it important?’
    ‘If Ferdinand was in the process of helping find a publisher for her, it would explain the grief at his death. Not personal