‘Okay. Joanna Tobin stuck to the story she gave you. All very calm and collected. You’d have thought she’d been through a police interview a dozen times. She’d had a message from Tony Ferdinand asking to meet her, and she went to the glass room at the top of the house. She didn’t go out onto the balcony, and just assumed that he’d changed his mind about the meeting. She saw the knife on the floor and decided to take it back to the kitchen.’
‘If she’s the killer,’ Vera said, ‘what did she do with the murder weapon?’
‘Could she have chucked it over the balcony?’
‘She could have done.’ Vera allowed herself to sound a bit impressed. ‘But Billy Wainwright has already been down with his torch to check. Nothing. Anything else from the interview?’
‘Not much. Joanna says she didn’t like Ferdinand, but she had no reason to kill him.’
‘Nobody liked him much,’ Vera said slowly. ‘At least, that’s the impression they give.’ She paused. ‘Do you think Joanna was set up?’
‘You mean the murderer sent the message, not Ferdinand?’ Holly was openly sceptical. Vera thought she hadn’t yet learned the importance of suitable manners when she spoke to her superiors. The lass could do with a bit more respect. ‘In that case, why leave a knife that wasn’t the murder weapon lying around? He must have realized we wouldn’t be misled for long into thinking Joanna was the killer.’
‘Unless he’s an ignorant bugger.’ Vera was playing devil’s advocate. Really, she didn’t know what she thought about all this. Except that someone was playing games.
‘Come off it!’ Holly said. Only adding ‘Ma’am’ at the last minute. That lack of respect again. ‘They were all on a crime-writing workshop. They’d understand the basics of forensics, if they write that sort of stuff.’
This time Vera had to concede defeat. ‘Aye. Maybe.’ In the house in the valley below it seemed that the writers were going to bed. The lights on the ground floor were being switched off. ‘Did you get Joanna home all right?’
‘Yes, I dropped her off myself. It wasn’t too far out of my way.’
‘Was Jack at home?’ Vera imagined his relief as he opened the door and saw Joanna standing there. She hoped he’d contained himself and not made too much fuss. Joanna wouldn’t like tears and hugs.
‘Someone opened the door. I assumed it was him. I didn’t hang around.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning then. Eight-thirty for a briefing. I’ve left a message on Charlie’s phone.’
Vera clicked off her phone and sat for a moment in silence. She opened the window to clear her head and thought she could hear the waves on the rocks at the end of the valley. She started the engine, drove down to the house to turn round, then headed home. She felt an unexpected surge of relief when she’d negotiated the lanes and reached the road that would take her inland. It was as if she’d escaped from a prison.
At home the farm was in darkness. She got out of the Land Rover in the yard, almost expecting to find Jack lurking in the barn with his questions or his gratitude, but she unlocked her house without interruption. On her kitchen table were three big bottles of their home-brew and half a dozen mucky eggs in a bowl. A card in Joanna’s writing. Thanks. Vera wondered if Joe Ashworth would consider that bribery and corruption. Then she thought she’d better get back her bloody key. The last thing she wanted was the hippies wandering in and out of her house whenever they felt like it.
In bed she looked at Ferdinand’s diary. It had been fingerprinted and tested, but the only contact traces came from the dead man. It contained no insights into his mind, just a list of appointments. In the week before his journey to Northumberland he’d recorded an episode of The Culture Show for television and appeared live on Front Row on Radio 4. Vera occasionally listened to that when she was having her supper and wondered if she’d heard him – he’d be one of those self-satisfied prats who criticized any poor bugger who had the nerve to put his thoughts on paper. As far as she knew, Ferdinand had never been published himself. Since arriving at the Writers’ House he’d marked in the schedule of his responsibilities: tutorial 1, tutorial 2. No names. And for today: 5 p.m. lecture. Nuts and bolts of the business. Also a single initial and a question mark: J? So he had expected to meet up with Joanna. The extra scraps of information were merely tantalizing.
Vera left home early the next morning and still there was no sign of Jack or Joanna. Holly was in the incident room before her, printing off the information she’d found on the Writers’ House on the Internet. The equivalent, Vera thought, of an over-eager pupil sharpening the teacher’s pencil. Then: My God, that shows my age. When did they last have pencils in classrooms? The others wandered in afterwards, Charlie last as usual. Holly handed out the notes.
Vera stood at the front and talked them through it. ‘Our victim is Tony Ferdinand, professor, reviewer and all-round media star. So there’ll be lots of press interest. He was in Northumberland to act as visiting tutor at the Writers’ House, the place up the coast where wannabe writers go to get inspiration. They run residential courses in all forms of literature, but this week they’re doing crime fiction. Is that significant? It seems a bit of a coincidence that they’ve spent three days planning a perfect murder, and then one of the lecturers dies in a very theatrical way. Is one of them playing games with us? I’ve had a quick look in Ferdinand’s diary. He made a note of the appointments he’d set up with other students, but no names are mentioned. He might have had a meeting with someone he calls J yesterday, but it all seems very vague. We need to be aware that Joanna Tobin could be lying or could have been set up.’
She paused and checked that they were all with her. ‘Then there’s this business with the knife. Another game? Or does the killer not know enough about forensics to realize we’d tell the difference between blades? Did he think getting Joanna to the scene would be enough to convict her? Again, the whole business seems very theatrical to me. In any event, the murder weapon is still out there somewhere. I’ve organized a search of the grounds and that should start this morning.
‘Holly, will you get on the phone and check out Ferdinand? Talk to his university, St Ursula’s College, London, to broadcasters, publishers, anyone else he might have worked with. Usual stuff. Any enemies? Any recent scandals or problems? You’ll have the guest list of the Writers’ House, so see if one of those names crops up.’ Vera thought that Holly, with her clipped southern voice, would go down well with the London intelligentsia. You could almost see her as a pushy publicist, with her long legs and sharp suits. ‘And have a word with a woman called Chrissie Kerr. She runs a small publishing company based not very far from here. According to the woman in charge, she left the Writers’ House before Ferdinand was killed, but she might have picked up on tensions or problems, and she’ll have background on the whole organization.
‘Charlie, I want you digging around into the background of Joanna Tobin. She’s my neighbour, and I need to keep a bit of a distance, so this is your responsibility and, anything you find, you let Joe know as well as me. Seems as if she might have been set up. Or is she the one who’s playing games? We know she has a history of psychiatric illness and, according to her partner, there was at least one serious suicide attempt. Her family comes from Bristol or somewhere in the West Country, and I think she lived for a while in France. Check for any overseas convictions.’ Vera stopped for breath and looked across the room towards her sergeant. ‘Joe, you were there last night. Anything I’ve missed?’
He’d been sitting at the back, a biro in his hand, and she hadn’t even been sure he’d been listening. Maybe the squiggles on his notepad were doodles. From this distance it was hard to tell. Maybe he was remembering the delights of the night before, his very special birthday treat. But he answered immediately.