The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5) (19 page)

The voice that answered the phone was older than Vera had expected. A London voice. Motherly and without pretension.

‘Yes? Sally Wheldon.’

Vera explained who she was. ‘I think you’ve already spoken to one of my colleagues, but I wonder if you’ve got time to talk to me. Informally. Younger officers don’t always take the time. They get the facts, but they’re not so good at listening.’

‘If you think it would help.’ The woman sounded pleased to be asked. It seemed time wasn’t a problem for her. Perhaps she wasn’t a mother after all, but middle-aged and lonely. There were no young kids at home this evening, certainly. You’d hear them, wouldn’t you, this time of night? Or a television in the background. Those computer games that made noises. Or were the children of poets not allowed television and computers? Vera realized the woman was waiting for her to continue the conversation.

‘I’m just interested in the sort of man Professor Ferdinand was,’ Vera said. ‘I never met him, so it’s hard to tell.’

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Ms Wheldon was choosing her words carefully. A good sign. But then a poet
would
be careful with words. ‘He was one of those people who need an audience,’ she said at last. ‘None of his relationships lasted very long and he lived by himself, but he never seemed comfortable with his own company. He’d walk into a room and look for someone to perform to. That made him rather a selfish teacher. He wasn’t really interested in the students’ work, only in his own reaction to it.’

‘Is that why people didn’t like him?’ Vera wished she were in the same room as Tony Ferdinand’s colleague. She imagined them chatting over tea and biscuits, then she could pick up the gestures and small smiles that would reveal more than words.

‘He never really fitted into academia,’ the woman said. ‘Not into St Ursula’s at least, which always considered itself a cut above the other London colleges. He was too brash and too full of himself. He’d been a freelance journalist, of course, before he started here. He’d never published any fiction or poetry and there was a lot of resentment when he was invited to set up the course. There were people in college who thought they’d be better suited. People who’d been to university together, who spoke in the same way. Tony wasn’t prepared to play their games. He didn’t have to. He was a celebrity and he could pull in quality students, the kids of playwrights and film-makers. Of politicians. He made the course and the college famous.’ Sally paused. ‘He gave the rich kids a hard time sometimes. We argued about it. Just because they came from affluent families, it didn’t mean they had the confidence to take his stick. But he didn’t listen. He had a chip on his shoulder about anybody with a posh voice and a fancy degree. I didn’t have either of those things, though. I was a working-class girl from Essex, so he treated me okay.’

And perhaps that was why he was so encouraging to Lenny Thomas, and felt it was okay to ridicule Nina Backworth, a well-brought-up graduate with supportive parents.

‘He was quite a sad man,’ Sally went on. ‘A lonely man, despite his need to be the centre of attention. Six months ago he was mugged in the street outside college and he ended up in hospital for a couple of days. Nobody visited him except me.’

Vera replaced the receiver and felt almost cheerful. If she were in hospital,
she’d
have visitors: Joanna and Jack, Joe and Holly and Charlie. They’d bring her grapes and make her laugh.

She’d listened to ten minutes of the radio news when her phone rang again. Holly. ‘Are you okay to drive?’

‘Aye, of course.’ Implying that she was sober as a judge every evening.

‘I think you’d better get over here. Your mate Jack’s turned up and is shooting his mouth off. Throwing his weight about. If you don’t sort it out, someone will phone 999 and he’ll end up in the cells overnight.’

‘Tell them that I’m on my way.’

She scraped enough ice off the windscreen to give her a hole to peer through, and then switched the heater up full, to blast away the rest. By the time she hit the road to the coast she could see where she was going. Approaching the Writers’ House she could make out the reflection of the moon on the sea. There was no sign of Jack’s van in the car park, but maybe he’d hidden it in the lane somewhere and come down on foot. He’d go in for that sort of drama.

Holly was waiting for her in the lobby. The rest of the house was quiet.

‘I’m really sorry to have called you out.’ She seemed mortified because she hadn’t managed the situation herself. ‘I probably overreacted. It’s sorted now, I think. But your neighbour was furious, and I couldn’t get him to listen to reason.’ With the last sentence she seemed to shift the blame, to imply somehow that it was Vera’s fault.

‘Aye, well, it was never one of Jack’s skills, seeing reason. Has he gone home then?’ Vera wondered if she’d passed him, but she could remember seeing no other cars driving up the lane.

‘No, he’s on the terrace with Joanna and Giles Rickard.’

‘Is that a good idea?’ Though Vera couldn’t see Jack having a go at Rickard. Not physically. The man was too old and frail, and Jack was too sentimental to take on a lesser opponent. Tilting at windmills was his thing.

‘Joanna took them both out there. She seemed to know what she was doing.’

Vera saw that Holly had been shaken by the episode, by Jack bursting into the dinner and letting rip. She hadn’t felt able to summon the authority to control the situation. Certainly she wouldn’t have the strength of personality to stop Joanna doing just what she wanted.

‘Where are the rest of the crowd?’

‘In the lounge,’ Holly said. ‘They were reading out their work after dinner. Some of them felt a bit cheated, I think, that they hadn’t had the chance to do that, so they’ve taken their coffee and drinks in there to carry on.’ She paused and added in a desperate attempt for approval, ‘I was getting on very well with Nina Backworth.’

‘I’m sure you were, pet. Kindred spirits.’ Vera turned away and went outside. She walked round the house, as she had on her first visit, until she reached the terrace. The curtains in the drawing room had been closed and the only light to the terrace came from a candle on the wrought-iron table where the three people were sitting. There was not a trace of breeze and the flame didn’t move. Joanna, Jack and Rickard sat staring at each other. Rickard was wearing a big, black overcoat and a scarf. Joanna had wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, but still, Vera thought, she must have been freezing.

‘What’s going on here, then?’ As soon as the words were out, Vera realized she sounded like a cartoon constable in a kids’ TV show, and she added, ‘Trying to raise the dead? Looks like some kind of seance.’

She pulled up a chair and joined them. In the house there was the sound of muted laughter, but outside there was silence.

‘What were you playing at, Jack man?’

There was no response. It was as if they were all frozen. In the end it was Joanna who answered.

‘He got this daft idea into his head that I was in touch with Paul again.’

‘Your husband, Paul?’

‘My ex-husband. The politician, who spends his time floating between Brussels and Strasbourg. Who has never, as far as I’m aware, come further north than Birmingham – and that was well outside his comfort zone.’

‘I didn’t think the man was actually here.’ Jack made a feeble effort to fight back. ‘I thought Rickard was here on his behalf.’

‘And I’m supposed to be the mad one!’ Joanna rolled her eyes, so that the candlelight caught her chin and threw strange shadows over her face. But she was softening, Vera thought. Perhaps she liked Jack’s dramatic gestures. It must be exhilarating to be at the centre of her man’s world, to drive him crazy.

‘I knew something was wrong,’ Jack said. ‘I lay there night after night and stories would come into my head. Scenarios, like. Possibilities.
What if?
Then I started to believe some of them. I couldn’t just sit at the farm waiting for you to come home. Or not come home.’

Throughout the exchange, Rickard hadn’t moved. Now he got slowly to his feet. ‘This was a mistake,’ he said. ‘I should never have accepted Miranda’s invitation to the Writers’ House. I thought I might make things better, but I’ve only made them worse. I’m sorry.’ He walked away and was lost in the dark.

Nina woke when it was still dark. No panic this time. Instead the tired, grainy eyes and taut limbs that came from too little sleep. She had no sleeping pills now to help her. It had been late by the time she’d got to bed and she’d lain there, tense, reliving the shock of the stranger’s appearance in the dining room. She wondered now why the arrival of Joanna’s partner had so disturbed them? He’d posed no real threat. He’d stood there, yelling at the group, inarticulate with anger, but it had all been words. He hadn’t carried a weapon or indicated that he might become violent.

Was it that, in that moment, they saw themselves as Jack saw them? As pathetic wasters. He’d ranted at them all, turning his head from one end of the table to the other.
You’re a bunch of self-indulgent posers. Why don’t you get off your backsides and do a proper job?
The magic of the evening was lost as soon the door had swung back and he’d opened his mouth. The reality of the outside world had intruded into their ridiculous fantasy of a civilized writers’ salon.

Holly, the young police officer, had tried to calm him. She’d left her place and scuttled round the table until she was facing him.
There’s no need for this. Let’s go into another room and chill out a bit.
Her voice shrill, part panic and part excitement.

But she’d only antagonized him and increased his fury:
Don’t talk to me, you stupid little girl. What do you know about anything?

It had been Joanna who’d gone up to him and put her arms around him as if he were her son, not her lover. At first he’d pushed her away, still yelling, still demanding some explanation. Then he’d broken down and begun to cry.

It occurred to Nina now that Jack hadn’t sworn at them. There hadn’t even been the casual bad language she used herself to show that she was tired or cross. But still he’d shocked them because his anger was deep and real. They’d spent a week carefully putting words together, but his rage had a greater effect than any of their stories.

She got out of bed and drew the curtains. The room was warm, but through the glass she felt the chill from outside. There was a faint light from the east over the sea. On impulse she pulled on jeans and a sweater, took her jacket from the cupboard. Her last morning at the Writers’ House and she’d make the most of it. This afternoon she’d be back in the city.

Downstairs there was still evidence of the evening before. The dining room had been cleared of plates, but in the drawing room there were empty coffee cups and wine glasses. They’d sat here, the memory of Jack’s words still in their heads, and pretended that their work was of value. They’d read and listened and clapped politely. Not Nina, though. She hadn’t been able to face reading her story. She’d sat in a corner, half-listening to her students’ work, applauding only when she saw it was expected of her. Until Miranda had read. Nina’s response to her work had been real.

The kitchen door was open and she saw the room was empty. Usually at this time Alex was there, preparing for 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.