The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

sight of the man on the balcony – the fixed and angry glare on his face, the blood – would be shocking of course. But she thought that there had been more than shock in that noise. It was more personal. Like a mother keening for a child. Or a woman grieving for her lover.
    ‘This room is just above the drawing room,’ Alex went on, ‘so everyone who was having tea could hear her. They all ran out to see what was going on. The last thing I wanted was some sort of circus, so I told them to wait downstairs. It didn’t take much to wind my mother up. If anything, I was embarrassed. I thought she was just causing a scene. When I saw Tony, I brought Mother downstairs and asked another tutor, Giles Rickard, to take her into our cottage. I went back to the office to phone the police.’
    ‘And the ambulance,’ Vera said.
    For the first time he gave a wry little smile. ‘I know, that was ridiculous. But I’d never seen anybody dead before. I suppose I needed confirmation, someone medical to tell me I wasn’t making it all up. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.’
    The front doorbell started to ring. ‘That’ll be the local police,’ Vera said. ‘You’d best go and let them in. Tell them I’m here and bring them up. They can secure the scene for us, and I can start my investigation.’
    Alex stood up and gave her a strange look. ‘What investigation?’
    ‘Why, that’s what I do for a living. I catch criminals.’ Again, trapped in this small space, with the low red light throwing odd shadows on the white walls, she felt as if she’d wandered into someone’s weird dream. She needed her sergeant, Joe Ashworth, to turn up full of youthful energy and common sense.
    ‘But I told them on the phone!’ Now the man seemed to be losing patience with her altogether. ‘We know who killed Tony Ferdinand.’
    ‘Your mother saw the murderer?’
    ‘No! I did. As I’ve just said. And as I told your colleagues. On my way to the glass room, while Mother was still screaming, I bumped into the woman here in the corridor. She had a knife in her hand.’
    ‘Very convenient.’ Bugger , Vera thought. So it was back to working the boring stuff, the pathetic druggies and the pub brawls, just when she’d thought there might be something more exciting to sustain her interest. Then she had another thought, which was even more disturbing. ‘I suppose your murderer has a name?’
    ‘It’s one of the students. We’ve shut her in her bedroom. She’s called Joanna Tobin.’

Chapter Four
    Joanna’s room was small. A single bed set against one wall, and against another a desk, with an anglepoise lamp and a chair. A narrow wardrobe. There was a red carpet on the floor and the duvet cover and the curtains were a deeper red. A door led to a tiny shower room. This was slightly more comfortable than the cell in Low Newton prison where she’d more than likely end up, but not much bigger. Of course, Vera thought, the court might decide Joanna was mad, and then she’d go to a secure psychiatric hospital instead. Vera wasn’t sure which would be worse. If she had a choice in a similar situation, she would probably opt for the prison. It would still be full of psychos, but at least you’d have a date for getting out. Places like Broadmoor, you were dependent for a release date on the whim of a team of psychiatrists and politicians.
    There’d been a man standing outside the closed door of the room. He was tall and heavily built. She thought he’d been fit once, but had slightly run to flab. Dressed in cheap jeans and sweatshirt, he stood with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. Classic bouncer posture. You couldn’t tell from his face, but Vera thought he was probably enjoying himself. Deep down, everyone loved a murder almost as much as she did. They loved the drama of it, the frisson of fear, the exhilaration of still being alive. People had been putting together stories of death and the motives for killing since the beginning of time, to thrill and to entertain. It was different of course if you were close to the victim. Or to the killer. Vera hadn’t begun to think yet how she would tell Jack what had gone on here.
    ‘Who are you?’ Vera had demanded of Joanna’s warder before he opened the door.
    ‘Lenny Thomas.’ In those four syllables she could tell this was a voice that came from Ashington or one of the other ex-pit villages in the south-east of the county, not from rural Northumberland.
    ‘Work