The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope 5)

She stood at the threshold and looked in.
    The room was a first-floor conservatory. It was tall and narrow and glass doors led onto the balcony, but there was glass too in the sloping ceiling. From the terrace below she hadn’t seen that. And glass walls on each side. There was a tiled floor and painted wicker chairs. Pots of enormous plants with shiny dark leaves formed a mini tropical jungle. All the plants were fat and fleshy and one had a tall spike of pink flowers. The smell was of compost and damp vegetation. In the daylight there would be a magnificent view over the sea. A large mirror in a green frame hung on the one solid wall. The glass must be old with flaws in it, because the reflection was slightly distorted and, glancing into it, Vera felt the queasiness of seasickness. The room was very warm.
    ‘So what am I here to look at?’ She shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind.
    ‘Didn’t they tell you? They made me repeat the details.’ The young man walked past the plants and the garden furniture and opened the glass door to the balcony. There was a rush of cold air, and in the distance the sound of the tide sucking on shingle. The balcony was wider than the glass doors and each end was in semi-darkness. He turned to Vera impatiently. ‘Out here!’
    She followed him outside and in the faint light from the room saw a man crouched in the corner of the stone parapet, his knees almost up to his chin. The pose seemed strange because his cropped hair was grey; he was in late middle age. Older men didn’t sit on floors because they found it hard to get up again. Their joints creaked. And nobody would sit on a stone floor in late October. The angle of the lights from inside the room threw odd shadows onto his face. He looked angry. Outraged.
    He was wearing a pale-coloured shirt under a black jacket. In this light it was hard to make out the exact colour of the shirt. Most of it was covered in blood. And there was blood on the stone floor and on the wall. Looking closer, Vera saw that there was spatter on the glass door. It seemed that he’d been stabbed, but there was no immediate sign of the knife.
    ‘Who is he?’
    ‘I told them when I phoned 999.’ The young man was beginning to get suspicious. ‘Who are you anyway?’
    ‘Aye, well, not everything gets through.’ Vera showed him her warrant card, pleased that she could find it on the first trawl of her bag; tilted it so that the light caught the photo. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Stanhope. What’s your name?’
    ‘Alex Barton.’
    ‘Your mother runs this place?’ She’d had him down as the hired help and couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.
    ‘We run it together. I’m a partner. Though sometimes you wouldn’t think so.’ The tone was resentful and it was obvious that Alex regretted the comment as soon as it was made. He realized this wasn’t the right time to air family grievances. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s happened here? Shouldn’t you be speaking to—’
    ‘Of course, pet. First of all, tell me about the victim.’ Vera had never liked being told how to do her job. She took his arm and led him back through the strangely shaped glass room and into the corridor. ‘But out here, eh? We don’t want to muck up the crime scene more than we already have.’
    On her way to the room she’d noticed a small sitting area where two corridors formed a crossroads. There was a chaise longue and a low coffee table, covered with upmarket newspapers and literary magazines. There was still no window and the only light came from a dim wall lamp covered by a red shade. Vera thought you’d struggle to read anything much here, and that the whole house was more like a stage-set than a place for practical activity. She lowered herself carefully onto the seat and Alex followed.
    ‘Where’s everyone else?’ she asked. An event like this, there were always spectators.
    ‘I told them to wait in the drawing room.’
    ‘And they always do what you say, do they, pet?’ He didn’t answer and she continued. ‘What do you know about the chap on the balcony?’
    ‘Didn’t you recognize him?’ There was something supercilious about the question. Vera had got the same reaction when she asked for chips in a posh restaurant.
    ‘Famous, is he?’
    ‘He’s called Tony Ferdinand. Professor Tony Ferdinand. Academic, reviewer and arts guru. You must have seen him on The Culture Show . And he did that series on BBC4 about the