The Glass Room

Chapter Ten

Vera took over the chapel as her interview room. She wanted a base where she wouldn’t be interrupted or overheard, and it had come to her that this would work well. There were no fixed pews inside and she arranged the chairs around the table that stood where once an altar had been. She’d asked Alex to show the chapel to her. She found him easier to deal with than Miranda, and she’d always had a soft spot for a man who could cook.

‘We keep it heated to stop the damp,’ he’d said. ‘The students use it as a quiet room, a place where they can write in peace.’

It was a bare and simple space. No stained glass in the windows. No ornate carving. Hardly bigger than Vera’s living room, it had unplastered walls and a wooden ceiling like an upturned boat.

Vera thought there was no harm in asking Nina Backworth to wait while she prepared the room. In theory Vera liked strong women; in practice they often irritated her. Nina, with her strident voice and her emphasis on rights, the challenge to Vera’s authority, had certainly irritated. And Vera had to admit there was something intimidating about the woman that coloured her response. It was the expensive haircut, the red lipstick, the fitted linen jacket and wide trousers, all in black. The black boots with the heels and the pointed toes. According to the lad on door duty, Nina had gone for a walk on the beach before taking her lecture this morning. Had she gone out in those clothes? It was hard to imagine her scrambling over rocks and shingle. If Nina Backworth had been ugly and poorly dressed, Vera would have considered her much more kindly. Now the inspector thought it would be good for the woman to wait to be interviewed, as if she were the student and Vera were her tutor.

‘Bring her in, pet.’ Vera had arranged the table so that she was facing the door. There was a chair for the witness in front of her. Joe Ashworth would take a place to one side, out of the eye-line. He’d make notes.

Joe returned followed by Nina. She took the seat offered and looked, to Vera, pale and uncertain. Vera felt a twinge of sympathy. Perhaps the make-up and the sophisticated clothes were protection. Everyone had their own way of facing a hostile world.

‘Would you like anything?’ Vera asked. ‘Coffee? Water?’ She could tell it was the last thing Nina had expected. Kindness could be a great weapon.

Nina shook her head. ‘No. Thank you.’

‘This is an informal chat,’ Vera said. ‘Nothing official. Not yet. Later we’ll take a formal witness statement that could be used in court. But I need to get a feel for what happened here, the people involved.’ She looked up sharply. ‘Seems to me writers must be nosy buggers. A bit like cops. You collect characters and places, don’t you, for your books? You’ll be interested in everything and everybody, because you never know when the detail will come in handy for a story.’

‘Yes,’ Nina said. ‘Yes, it is exactly like that.’ It seemed to Vera that the woman looked at her with a new respect.

‘I’m the same myself,’ Vera went on. ‘Other people call it gossip; I say it’s research.’

Nina relaxed and gave a little grin.

‘So tell me about Professor Tony Ferdinand. What sort of character was he? Did you know him before you met here at the Writers’ House?’

It was an undemanding question and Nina must have realized it was one she’d be asked, but she hesitated. Vera thought she was debating how much she should say. She leaned back in her chair as if she had all the time in the world, as if the woman’s silence was entirely natural.

‘As I explained, he supervised me for a while at St Ursula’s.’

Vera put her elbows on the table. ‘Tell me how that works,’ she said. ‘I never went to college myself. This is a new world to me.’

‘I’m not quite sure how it works generally,’ Nina said. ‘I think perhaps I had an unfortunate experience.’

‘Then tell me how it worked for you.’

Nina looked out of the long window, and spoke without looking at Vera at all. ‘I was very young when I wrote my first book. I’d just left university and I spent the summer not very far from here. My grandparents lived on the Northumberland coast and I felt more at home with them than I did with my parents.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, none of this is relevant.’

‘But it is gossip,’ Vera said. ‘Nothing I like better than gossip.’

‘It was the sort of book you write once in a lifetime. I didn’t understand the rules of storytelling – all this information we’re passing on during this course would have meant nothing to me – but the story and the characters came together like a sort of magic. I have never been so happy as I was that summer.’

Vera thought sometimes a case worked out that way. Everything falling into place. Instinct and solid policing coming together. Then there was nothing more exhilarating. Nina seemed lost in her memories and Vera prompted her. ‘So how did Tony Ferdinand come into your life?’

‘I’d heard him on the radio, read his reviews and I admired him. He seemed passionate about literature and about championing new, young writers. He’d just set up the new creative-writing MA at St Ursula’s. I suppose he was some sort of hero. Then I met him, quite by chance, at a party. Friends of my grandparents, not very far from here, were celebrating a wedding anniversary. I’m not sure how he came to be there. I think he happened to be in the area. On holiday perhaps. Later I found he was very good at getting himself invited to parties, fancy restaurants.’ Nina stopped speaking for a moment. ‘He’d been a freelance journalist. I don’t suppose he was paid much. And he had very expensive tastes.’

Vera nodded, remembering the clothes in his wardrobe. ‘Must have seemed like a stroke of luck,’ she said. ‘Just bumping into him like that.’

‘I could hardly believe it. I’d only gone to the party to keep my grandparents happy and as soon as I walked into the room I heard his voice. I’d have known it anywhere.’ Nina paused again. ‘You must understand that I was very young, very naive. Easily flattered. Tony encouraged me to talk about my novel. Later I realized I was the only female under fifty there and that he was flattered by my admiration. I entertained him for an hour or so while he drank a bottle of our hosts’ champagne. “Why don’t you apply to St Ursula’s?” he said when we left. “And let me see a copy of your novel.” And he gave me his card.’

‘That must have been exciting,’ Vera said. ‘To have someone that famous asking to look at your work.’

‘Unbelievably exciting!’ Nina faced Vera to make sure she understood the importance of what she was saying. ‘Like being six and waking up on Christmas morning and getting just the present you’d been dreaming about secretly all year.’

‘So you sent the book to him?’ Vera didn’t want to give Nina the impression she was rushing her, but neither did she want to be here for hours. She had that appointment with the superintendent, and if she was going to be grovelling, she’d better not be late.

‘I phoned him as soon as I got back to my parents’ house in London, and went to see him. His office in St Ursula’s was so full of books there was hardly room for a desk. I thought anyone who owned that many books must be honest and true. How could you read so widely and not be a good person? And he said he loved my novel, that I should join his course.’ She paused. ‘After that interview I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. It was as if I was flying home.’

‘But it didn’t work out?’

‘No,’ Nina said. ‘It didn’t work out.’

‘Tell me.’ Still Vera was aware of time passing, but this was the first time she had a sense of Tony Ferdinand as a real person. He’d been a con man, she thought. A bit of a chancer. But bright enough to make people think he had influence. And in the end so many folk believed he could pull strings, and make things happen, that the perception became truth. ‘Tried it on, did he?’ Nina had been a bonny young woman after all. And it seemed he’d tried it on with Joanna.

‘No not that. He was unpleasant in an old-fashioned sexist way. Touching as if by chance. The occasional invitation that could have been taken as a proposition. But I could have coped with that.’

‘So what did he do?’ Vera asked. ‘What did he do that was so terrible?’

‘He ruined my novel. Him and the rest of the group.’

‘How did they do that?’

Nina struggled to find the words to explain. ‘The teaching sessions were brutal. I’d had to take criticism as an undergraduate, but this was horrible. A form of intellectual combat. We’d sit in a circle, discussing an individual’s work, but there was nothing constructive in the comments. It was more like a competition to see how hard and unpleasant each student could be. Tony told us things were like that in the publishing world: tough, uncompromising. We should get used to it. But it wasn’t done for our benefit. He enjoyed moderating all that bile and aggression. He was entertained, and it made him feel powerful. It wasn’t just me he had a go at. He picked on anyone vulnerable. I remember him and a visiting tutor tearing apart one student, who fell to pieces in front of us. I found myself joining in. It was horrible.’ Nina looked up at Vera. ‘I tried to edit the text to meet the group’s comments. Most of the other students seemed so much more confidant and articulate than I was. And Tony seemed to agree with them. But of course that was a mistake. In the end my original vision was quite lost.’

‘So you left?’ Vera still couldn’t quite make sense of this. Usually she enjoyed dipping into worlds that were quite different from her own, but this seemed so far from her own experience that it was unfathomable. She’d never understood before that words could be a profession, a matter of pride, an income.

‘Eventually. It felt like a failure, but I was making myself ill. I found a more conventional postgraduate course and became an academic. I dumped the first novel. There was no way I could recapture the excitement. Recently I’ve started writing again.’

‘Published, are you?’

‘Not by anyone you’d have heard of.’ Nina managed a grin. ‘I’m with a small press, North Farm, based in rural Northumberland. I’ve got a passionate and intelligent young editor. It’s almost impossible to get my novels into mainstream bookshops, but Chrissie has a number of imaginative marketing strategies, and at least I don’t feel that I’ve sold my soul.’

‘What I don’t understand…’ Vera leaned forward across the table ‘… is why you agreed to run this workshop. You must have known in advance that Professor Ferdinand would be one of the tutors.’

For a moment the woman sat in silence. Nina Backworth, usually so good at words that she made a living from them, said nothing. Her attention seemed held by the dust floating in the shaft of light that came through the narrow window above her head.

‘At first I didn’t know Tony would be here,’ Nina said at last. ‘The Writers’ House has an international reputation and it’s considered an honour to be invited to lecture here. I was interested to see how it works. A number of my friends have attended workshops and came back raving about the place. My managers at the university thought it would be a good thing to do – my being chosen as tutor reflects well on our courses – and so did my editor. The fee is generous, and that always helps.’

She paused for breath and Vera thought there were already too many explanations. She wasn’t sure she believed any of them. She said nothing and allowed Nina to continue.

‘When Miranda sent me the list of tutors, it was too late to back out. Besides…’ The woman gave the same strained smile. ‘Sometimes it’s important to face one’s demons, don’t you think? I hoped I’d give my students here a more positive experience than Tony had given me. And I decided it would be good for me to meet the man again.’

‘And was it?’ Vera knew all about demons. She was living in the house where her dead father had kept bird skulls and skins in the basement. He regularly came to haunt her. She heard him muttering in her head late at night.

‘It was quite scary the first time we sat down to dinner together. I felt like an anxious young woman all over again. Then he started to patronize me and, instead of being frightened, I found myself hating him.’

Vera paused for a second. ‘Hate’s a very strong word.’

The answer came back immediately. ‘I’m a writer, Inspector. I choose my words carefully.’

‘What was going on between him and Joanna Tobin?’ Vera was remembering Nina’s intervention the night before. The other guests had assumed that Joanna was the killer, but Nina had stood up to defend her.

‘Joanna was a talented writer, Inspector, with an interesting story to tell. It doesn’t always work when real experiences are turned into fiction, but she managed a witty and sardonic voice, combined with real menace, that I found very fresh.’

‘And Ferdinand was grooming Joanna for stardom, was he? Offering to put a word in for her with his publisher mates?’ Vera wondered if Joanna’s writing had been good enough to turn her into a star. What would Jack make of that?

‘He was trying,’ Nina said. ‘Joanna wasn’t as naive as some of the other students. She wasn’t taken in by the flattery.’

‘So how were things between them?’ Vera kept her voice casual.

‘Tense. Tony could be unpleasant here if he didn’t get his way, given to snide and sarcastic remarks. Not quite as brutal as his St Ursula seminars, but getting that way.’ Nina hesitated.

‘You might as well tell me the whole story, pet,’ Vera said. ‘If you don’t, some other bugger will.’

‘Once she fought back. With words, I mean, not literally. Get off my fucking back, Tony. This is my story and I’ll tell it in my own way. Sometimes you remind me of my ex-husband. It was in front of the whole group. The animosity seemed almost personal. I even wondered…’

‘Spit it out!’

Nina looked up sharply, shocked by the barked order. ‘I wondered if they’d met before. If there was a history between them, as there was between Ferdinand and me. But that was ridiculous. How would a small farmer from Northumberland meet an academic from London?’

But Joanna hadn’t always been a farmer, Vera thought. She caught Joe’s eye to check that he’d understood the significance of the remark and watched him write a note in his book.

‘When did you last see the professor?’ Vera sneaked a look at her watch. Soon she’d have to leave for Kimmerston and her meeting with the boss.

‘At lunch yesterday.’

‘How did he seem?’

Nina hesitated. ‘Really much as usual. In fact he was rather mellow. He’d had several glasses of wine. He started to reminisce – the highlights of his intellectual career. His favourite topic of conversation.’

‘Do you remember who was sitting next to him?’ Vera felt that she was pushing the conversation on too quickly. If she were allowed time, Nina might provide answers to questions Vera hadn’t yet thought to ask. The woman was an observer, with an insight as sharp as Vera’s own.

‘Lenny Thomas was on one side and Miranda Barton on the other.’

‘Tell me about the relationship between Miranda and Tony Ferdinand.’ Sod the superintendent, Vera thought. If she were late for their meeting he’d have to understand that she was in the middle of a murder investigation. This was more important.

‘They worked together for a while at St Ursula’s. Miranda was assistant librarian in the college’s library. And of course Tony discovered her. She’d been published, but to very little notice. Then Tony wrote a glowing review in one of the broadsheets. Called her one of the best writers of her generation. It made a huge difference to her. For a couple of years she was in the best-seller lists here and in the US.’ Nina’s tone was measured and Vera could only guess what she’d made of Miranda’s success. She’d be jealous, wouldn’t she? Only a saint could watch a rival outperform and not feel bitter. And Miranda must have been a rival, mustn’t she?

‘Was that at the same time as you were at St Ursula’s?’

‘She topped the best-seller lists the year I was there,’ Nina said. ‘Tony held Miranda up as a role model. This is what you might achieve if you play things my way. There was a television adaptation of one of her novels. It was called Cruel Women. I suppose the money she made then helped to pay for this place. She was never so successful again.’

Vera saw Ashworth pointing at his watch and saw she really would have to go now. All the same, she couldn’t help asking, ‘What was Miranda’s book about?’

Nina blinked as if startled by the question, then gave another of her rare smiles. ‘I really don’t know. I didn’t get beyond the second page. In my opinion the writing was pretentious crap.’