The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

Vera asked, her voice gentle, almost maternal. ‘I can get my head round all the rest, but not that. Not the blackmail.’
    Joanna shook her head, a gesture to indicate that there was no point trying to explain: Vera wouldn’t understand.
    ‘Is it gambling? Drugs?’
    ‘No! What do you think we are? Jack and I have the most tedious existence possible. I’ve become a housewife like my mother. Except I don’t have the staff to do the boring stuff. And I love it. Really, I love it.’
    ‘So why did you need the money?’ This time the question was firmer.
    Joanna shook her head again. ‘It was a mistake, talking to Paul. Crazy. I did it that time when I stopped taking my meds and I wasn’t thinking clearly. And I wasn’t lying about Giles Rickard – I didn’t speak to him, because I was scared Paul might find me. I made sure Paul wouldn’t be able to trace me from my phone call. It didn’t seem like blackmail to me. It was more like asking for what I was owed. When we divorced he gave me nothing. But I shouldn’t have got in touch with him again. I should have realized it would lead to trouble.’
    She pushed herself off from the tree trunk and began to run off, back towards the farm, her long plait bouncing behind her. She was too fit for Vera to follow, and Joe stayed were he was too. They saw her flickering figure through the trees, the movement seeming jerky because of their interrupted vision, like an old silent movie playing out before them.
    Vera had set back the morning briefing to accommodate her meeting with Joanna, but now she wondered what had been gained by it. Had she achieved anything at all? Suspicion of the woman ate away at her like a worm in her gut and made her feel sick. Had Joanna deceived Jack? Was she a manipulative liar, untrustworthy? Had she made a fool of Vera, as Paul Rutherford had suggested? That would be unforgivable. Deep down, though, Vera still thought of Joanna as a good woman.
    Vera tried to set these questions aside as she came before the team. They’d be tired and anxious because so little had been accomplished. This was the point in an investigation when desperation led to mistakes and jumping to conclusions.
    ‘Well then.’ She beamed at them. An encouraging teacher, showing her students that she knew they wouldn’t let her down. ‘What have you got for me? Holly?’
    ‘I’ve done as you suggested and phoned round the major literary agents and publishers to find out if they’d been approached recently by Miranda Barton. Or by Tony Ferdinand on her behalf.’ Holly had a sheet of paper in front of her. Vera could see a list of names, a neat tick by each one. Organized and efficient, that was Holly.
    ‘And?’
    ‘Nothing. And they say they’d have remembered if Ferdinand had been in touch.’ She paused. ‘But according to the people I spoke to, it’s not unusual for authors who haven’t been published recently to use a pseudonym. Apparently editors are more willing to take a chance on a new writer than someone who’s been knocking around for a while.’
    Vera thought that was much the same in most professions. Easier to pin your hopes on the bright young things than cynical has-beens. ‘So?’ she demanded again.
    ‘Nina Backworth collected Miranda’s script after the reading session and gave it to Joe,’ Holly said. ‘I faxed it to the list of contacts to see if anyone recognized it, in case it had been submitted under a different name.’
    ‘Well done!’ Occasionally her team needed encouragement as well as a boot up the backside. ‘Any joy?’
    ‘Not yet. But they promised to get back to me.’
    ‘Chivvy them if you haven’t heard by the end of today.’ It would be a boring and time-consuming task for some editorial assistant and Vera doubted if it would come top of anyone’s to-do list. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘I managed to track down a couple of Alex Barton’s teachers, as you asked. One from school and one from the catering course at Newcastle College.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘He was never in any bother, but they both described him as a strange lad. At school he was withdrawn. Not many friends. Not a high-flyer academically, though he always showed . . .’ she looked at her notes ‘. . . an interest and aptitude in English literature. It was at college that he seemed to come into his own. He was always the top of the group. A brilliant chef, apparently. Meticulous. Occasionally given to an outburst of temper if things didn’t go