The Glass Room

Chapter Forty

Joe Ashworth caught up with Nina at her flat in Jesmond. He’d expected her to be with Chrissie Kerr at North Farm, thinking she’d want company after her ordeal with Winterton. But she was alone. She’d been sitting by the window looking out over the cemetery. Her arm was bandaged and she wore a red cardigan over her shoulder like a shawl. In the street outside, schoolgirls were making their way into the playground.

‘Perhaps you don’t want to be disturbed,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing that won’t wait.’

‘No, please! Do come in.’

She made him coffee and he sat beside her at the table.

‘Of course I’d gone over the events in my head, wondering who the murderer might be,’ she said. ‘Mark was at the bottom of the list. He seemed such a gentle man.’

‘Who did you have at the top?’ Joe thought they’d never have had this conversation while the investigation was still running.

She paused and seemed ashamed for a moment. ‘Lenny Thomas,’ she said. ‘Dreadful, isn’t it? The assumptions we make. Just because he’d been in prison.’

‘We had our suspicions about him for a while.’ Joe supposed he should be more discreet, but he didn’t think Nina would be talking to the press. ‘He wouldn’t tell us where he was the night of your break-in and the afternoon the cat was found in the chapel. Turned out he’d been working for a mate, a plumber from Ashington. He was being paid cash, nothing on the books. He hadn’t told the benefit people.’

‘Mark was so respectable, so courteous,’ Nina said. She turned to Joe. ‘Do you know how he got me into the chapel?’

Joe shook his head. This was a comfortable room. It occurred to him that he’d never had this. A space of his own. Quiet. Peace. He’d never thought he needed it.

‘He told Chrissie that he thought he was in love with me. We all knew he was divorced. He’d been too shy to talk to me during the Writers’ House course, but he said he didn’t want to drive back to Cumbria without telling me how he felt. Chrissie knew he was an ex-detective and didn’t think for a moment that he could be the killer. And she’s such a bloody romantic, always playing matchmaker. So she set me up. She asked me to take the books into the chapel, knowing he’d be there.’

Nina looked up.

‘He would have killed me, you know. He thought I’d caused his daughter’s death.’ She paused. ‘I remember it, that session when we pulled apart Lucy’s work. I thought about it again when you showed me the magazine article they found on the beach. Miranda looked much younger, and it reminded me that she was the visiting tutor that day. I’ve always felt guilty about the way I allowed myself to be dragged into the criticism. Lucy and I were friends, and until then we’d always supported each other. I hated the person I became that day. It was horrible.’

‘The inspector should have had more sense than to allow you into the chapel.’ Joe tried to contain his anger. ‘Playing God with other people’s lives. I told her she was crazy.’

‘She came to see me in hospital after you’d finished with Winterton,’ Nina said. ‘Apologized. I told her I understood. She was doing her job.’

‘She’s bloody lucky you don’t sue. Or make a formal complaint.’

Nina smiled at him. ‘She told me you were sulking.’

Joe didn’t know what to say to that.

‘“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”,’ Nina said. ‘That’s what he was playing in the chapel. His song for his daughter, I suppose.’

They sat for a moment in silence. A bell rang to mark the beginning of school.

‘I feel such a fool that I didn’t recognize the reference to the apricots,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s years since I’ve seen the play, but all the same. And the handkerchief.’

‘The inspector googled it.’ They looked at each other and grinned. A moment of intimacy. Joe got to his feet. ‘I should go. I told my wife I’d be home.’