So what did Miranda do for sex? The question came, unbidden, into her head. Vera sat on the stool and gave a wry smile into the mirror. She knew her team had sometimes asked the same question about her. But not recently. As you got older, folk seemed to think you could do without.
This is where Miranda would have sat to prepare herself to meet the residents. Again Vera was reminded of an ageing actress. Her dressing table was scattered with make-up. The woman hadn’t shared her son’s obsession with order and cleanliness. And beyond the mirror there was a view to the coast. It wasn’t possible to see the terrace from here – it was in the shadow of the big house. But the beach was visible. What had Miranda been thinking as she put on her face, as she brushed her hair and held it in place with spray? That her life as a writer was over? Or did she still hope for the big break, the posters on the Underground and the reviews in the Sunday papers? Was she still writing?
It seemed to Vera that this question was so important, so fundamental, that she’d been a fool not to consider it before. If Miranda had written a new book, and Tony Ferdinand had offered to help her find a home for it, of course Miranda would be shattered to find him dead. The stabbed body would symbolize her shattered dreams. It wouldn’t be easy for a middle-aged woman, considered a has-been, to find success again. If the police service was beginning to put its faith in bright new things, wouldn’t the publishing industry be even more that way inclined? It would want beauty, as well as talent, to promote. The scream of anguish Vera had heard on the afternoon of Ferdinand’s death was an expression of Miranda’s desperation about her own future. She would see nothing left for her now but to provide bed and board for younger, talented writers. She hadn’t cared for Tony Ferdinand in a personal way at all.
That, at least, was how it seemed to Vera. But she did have a tendency to get carried away by her own theories. Best not get too excited. Best to find out if Miranda had written a new book first.
She turned her attention to the bookshelves. One row was devoted to Miranda’s own work and most of the rest to paperback fiction. Some crime. There seemed to be a complete set of Giles Rickard’s novels. Had Miranda felt the need to read them, once the author had agreed to be a tutor on the course? Vera picked one up and looked at it. No dog-eared pages or coffee stains. A small square of paper slid onto the carpet. A comp slip from Rickard’s publicist. So Miranda hadn’t paid for the books or even, it seemed, read them; they’d been sent to her in the hope that she’d promote Rickard’s work on the course. Vera supposed that was how the thing worked.
Vera turned away from the shelves to consider the matter. Her head was still full of the notion that Miranda had started writing again. The first afternoon Vera had arrived here, looking for Joanna, she’d seen Miranda in the kitchen reading a manuscript. Her own book? Ideas chased each other in a crazy jig, and she could make no sense of them. Looking down at the beach, she was distracted for a moment by the sight of Nina Backworth almost at the water’s edge. Joe Ashworth came into view. They looked like a pair of lovers having a row. Vera smiled at the notion and turned back to the books.
She took Miranda’s novels out and laid them on the bed. A couple had been translated into foreign languages – one might have been in Polish and one was in German. There was a small pink version that must be Japanese. Vera set these aside. The rest she arranged in date of publication. There were four. Cruel Women, the book that had been adapted for television, was the third. She slipped it into her bag and put the others back on the shelf.
If there was no computer in the room, where would Miranda have done her writing? There was an office in the main house. When there were no students present, that would be a reasonably quiet place to work. But Miranda had been a romantic. The swept-up hair and the long skirts, the velvet and the silk, the rich colours in her bedroom, all were calculated to give a certain image, to portray a style. Vera could picture the woman sitting with a notebook and fountain pen in the grand drawing room of the big house, looking out to the coast, concentrating on the words perhaps, but also pleased to present herself as a writer. The inspector opened drawers and began her search for a manuscript or paper.
Half an hour later she gave up. There was lots of frilly underwear. The sort you might expect in a Paris whorehouse in the 1950s. An octopus of tangled coloured tights. But no notepad or exercise book. And no handkerchiefs with red hearts embroidered in the corner.
When she returned to the kitchen Alex seemed startled. It was as if he’d forgotten she was in the house. Vera sat at the table and turned towards him. ‘Was your mother still writing? She read the beginning of a story the evening she died. Was it from a new piece of work?’
‘I’m sorry?’ He looked at her with those soft, little boy’s eyes.
‘It’s ten years since she had a book published. Had she given up writing? Retired, like? I saw her reading something at the kitchen table once. Would that have been her own work? Or had she given up?’ The time spent rifling through Miranda’s belongings had made Vera impatient. She wanted to shake Alex Barton and scream at him.
He seemed not to give her question any importance. He shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. She always thought of herself as a writer. She wouldn’t ever stop. But I don’t have any details of what she might have worked on recently. Really she didn’t discuss that sort of thing with me.’
Why did you stay? Vera wondered. You had nothing in common with your mother, so why didn’t you move out? But she’d stayed with Hector. Perhaps things were never quite that easy.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The house was quiet. Nina Backworth had been allowed back into her own room. Vera had sent a female officer to sit discreetly on the landing with a view of the door. She didn’t think Nina would make a run for it – she was too intelligent for that – but Vera wasn’t taking any chances. Alex Barton was still in the cottage, with a bored plod and the cat that he hated as his only companions. Holly and Charlie were in the Coquet Hotel taking statements from the other residents. Vera knew that soon she’d have to put in an appearance there too, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the Writers’ House yet.
After walking out of the cottage she’d gone to the beach to see where the knife had been found. She pictured the scene following Miranda’s murder. The early hours of the morning. A thick frost, and cold that would take your breath away. There’d been a half-moon, but as Vera had discovered on the afternoon of Ferdinand’s death, visibility in the garden would be poor. She’d ask the search team if any of the residents had a torch in their room. Had the killer removed the waterproof jacket on the terrace, or worn it down to the beach? If he – or she – had taken it off at the terrace, there should be a blood-stained bag: he’d need to carry it and the knife in something. Where was the bag? If he’d left the jacket on, they should find traces of blood along the footpath.
Now, though, she was more interested in the contents of the jacket pocket. And food. And coffee. She and Joe sat in the Writers’ House kitchen.