Vera Stanhope Quotes

We don't often notice the people who look after us, do we? Though we'd miss them if they weren't there

But she thought the men’s brains had turned to jelly. They couldn’t see straight. Faced with a pretty woman they all seemed to lose their reason.

Vera thought for a moment that she might have found a man if she’d scrubbed up a bit better, then decided that no man was worth the time it took to plaster stuff on your face in the morning, when you could have an extra cup of tea instead.

Was it only possible truly to enjoy something if you knew there was a danger that it might be taken away?

the hugeness of the world was a pool to dive into, not somewhere to drown.

Not unless he crossed the line.’ Holly supposed she should let this go, but she was tired of Vera’s bullying. ‘Ah, that line . . .’ Vera leaned back in her chair with her eyes half-closed. ‘If only we knew exactly where it was.’ There

In theory Vera liked strong women; in practice they often irritated her.

She’d learned that it was important when you were dealing with professional do-gooders to keep calm. Otherwise they judged you. Wrote things like anger-management problems in their reports.

Oh, I’m interested in everything, Joe. That’s why I’m a bloody brilliant detective.’ She gave him her widest smile. ‘That’s why I’m in charge and you’re sitting there, doing as you’re told.

Vera watched him walk to his car, the champagne in one hand, the flowers in the other. Thought that if she'd been married to someone like Joe Ashworth, she'd be so bored she'd commit murder herself.

And once the others started shouting too, she stopped speaking and just watched. Pleased, as if it was what she had wanted all the time. That hate spreading like a wild fire on the hill.’ A pause. ‘It was as if she was drunk on the power.

He was never very good at talking about feelings. He'd been on his own for so long that it was as if he'd had to learn a new language

rooms, easy to heat. Now there was one L-shaped open-plan

You never answered back?

Mary watched her fondly. ‘My Clive

Now it came back in jagged flashes, like the sunlight on the pavements. She thought, This is what it is like to be old. This is how old people remember their childhood.

the light had the clear, sharp quality which comes before rain.

Don’t be daft, lad. I’ve worked with more loonies than you’ve had hot dinners. And I don’t just mean the offenders.

last

Vera had a stab of recognition which made her stop in her tracks. For a moment, the woman, overweight, aggressive, seen reflected in the shop window, looked very much like her.

It was much more organized than he would have expected, for a lad with a temper who’d been on the fringes of criminal activity since he was a boy. It came to Joe that perhaps Keane had needed order, to be in control, and the anger came out of chaos and situations he couldn’t handle. Three young kids and a flaky wife might do that to you. For the first time, he felt some sympathy for the dead man.

obligation to their parents. She said they don’t ask to be born. The obligation all goes one way. I didn’t see it then but now I think she

occasional

The vicar had already started speaking when the door banged open again. Rachael was reminded of an old, bad British movie, though whether it was a thriller or a comedy she couldn't quite say. The vicar paused in mid-sentence and they all turned to stare. Even Dougie tried to move his head in that direction. It was a woman in her fifties. The first impression was of a bag lady, who'd wandered in from the street. She had a large leather satchel slung across her shoulder and a supermarket carrier bag in one hand. Her face was grey and blotched. She wore a knee-length skirt and a long cardigan weighed down at the front by the pockets. Her legs were bare. Yet she carried off the situation with such confidence and aplomb that they all believed that she had a right to be there. She took a seat, bowed her head as if in private prayer, then looked directly at the vicar as if giving him permission to continue. Neville had booked a room in the White Hart Hotel and afterwards invited them all back to lunch.

occurred to her suddenly that Rachael looked very like an otter herself, with her chunky front teeth, the brown hair which would turn grey when she was still young,

When she married Jeremy she had assumed there was money in the background. It hadn't quite worked out that way.

was there,

She’d once read out a comment she’d been given at her appraisal: You shouldn’t believe that you’re indispensable. Your role is to pass on your skills to others. ‘Well,

She was tall, angular, striking in a Glenda Jackson sort of way.

Mary hadn’t said a word. She’d seemed frozen. It had been as if she were holding her breath.

Was anyone else seen in the place? We’re especially interested if they made their way down this valley.’ She pointed with a ruler to the map and looked around the room to check that she had their full attention. ‘This is where Randle’s body was found by Percy Douglas.’ Another stab at the map. ‘And this is the big house where Randle was the temporary house-sitter and where Benton’s body was found.’ A pause. ‘Joe, fill us in

Perhaps fear in the abstract is worse than facing the immediate reality.

There was candlelight for which she was grateful. Recently she had noticed fine lines above her upper lip and knew that she could no longer get away with sleeveless dresses.

We don’t often notice the people who look after us, do we? Though we’d miss them if they weren’t there.

one. ‘Is there a problem?’ The young woman sounded stressed. Maybe her summer hadn’t been so quiet and the last thing she needed was one of her cases to blow up. ‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that. What’s your involvement with the Keane family?’ ‘I’ll need to phone you back,’ Freya said. ‘Check out who you are.’ ‘Tell you what: I can come over and see you. I’ll have my warrant card and we can have a proper chat. It’s always better to talk face-to-face.’ Vera paused, in an effort to

She loved the way Peter disappeared from Baikie's with talk of a meeting at Trust Headquarters, only to return at dusk with flowers and champagne. She loved dancing with him on the lawn to the music from Constance's old wind-up gramophone. No one had ever made such a fuss of her before.

This is urgent. Please make sure Miss Willmore gets it immediately, wherever she is.’ She looked at her watch, then she made one more call and drove north.

She read detective stories when she wanted to escape, when she had flu or when she needed to forget some man or other.

She liked it when Joe stood up to her, as long as he didn’t do it too often.

But people often had a voyeur’s excitement when they were close to a violent death, as if it conferred a degree of celebrity on them.

They were flawed and cruel, but there was no intent to kill. Not within the meaning of the law. And the law’s all we have to hold things together.

she’d never had a best friend, no one with whom she could share her dreams. The nearest she had was Joe Ashworth.

She could make no more demands. He wasn’t sure whether the thought pleased or dismayed him.

she’d felt on coming into the house, made Vera angry. Bloody hippies! She’d given them a key for emergencies, not so that they could wander into her house whenever they felt like it. They had no respect for personal boundaries.

Perhaps that was why she drove so fast, because she didn’t want the girl to have the same sort of memories of childhood that she’d been left with: the fear in the pit of the stomach and the longing to be home in a familiar place.

Why did she feel the need to sneer? Because people who talked about books or pictures or films made her feel ignorant and out of her depth.

Cecilia Bertrand had sent through the synopsis of Kelsall’s novel.

She forwarded it to Vera

Let folk into your life and they started making demands. She hated people making demands.

And that brief contact allowed her to believe that her colleagues were wrong. She did have friends. She did have a life away from the job.

But I’ve come to realize writing’s not a noble calling. Like you said, it’s all about marketing, isn’t it?

Typical of this place. All show and no substance. And just like these people, who were acting their hearts out in an attempt to persuade her that they were sophisticated, intelligent and entirely blameless in the matter of Tony Ferdinand’s death.

She was scared of people when they were alive and dangerous. At least the dead could do you no harm.

We’re all selfish bastards at heart, aren’t we?

we all have secrets. We’ve all done things of which we’re ashamed.

He had a chip on his shoulder about anybody with a posh voice and a fancy degree.

There hadn’t even been the casual bad language she used herself to show that she was tired or cross. But still he’d shocked them because his anger was deep and real. They’d spent a week carefully putting words together, but his rage had a greater effect than any of their stories.

It occurred to her that there might be a greater proportion of psychopaths in Parliament than in prison.

Now, dressing for breakfast, she felt sluggish and tense.

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

That woman’s a ghoul – the delight she takes in other people’s misery.

Vera felt a twinge of sympathy. Perhaps the make-up and the sophisticated clothes were protection. Everyone had their own way of facing a hostile world.

He enjoyed moderating all that bile and aggression. He was entertained, and it made him feel powerful. It wasn’t just me he had a go at. He picked on anyone vulnerable.

I’m a writer, Inspector. I choose my words carefully.

Writers were like parasites, preying on other people’s stress and misery. Objective observers like spies or detectives.

The shock of waking suddenly had made her muscles tense and she’d never been any good at relaxing.

Vera chuckled and thought this woman wasn’t so different from her after all. They were in the same business. Clearing unpleasantness from the streets so that respectable people could continue their daily lives in blissful ignorance.

No dignity in death and not much more when she was living,

Getting her team onside was a piece of piss. Who needed management training?

She’d always thought he missed having his laundry done more than he missed his wife’s company.

When you got old there was the worry of indignity and dying.

She was big. No beauty. Bad skin and bad clothes, but lovely eyes. Brown like conkers.

His Susan had always been a lovely baker. There was no sweetness in her nature these days and Percy had the sudden notion that it all went into her cakes and puddings.

gossip was what brought her to life. Malicious gossip suited her best,

A tad jealous. She didn’t have any personal experience of happy families.

And while all those thoughts were rattling around in her brain something else was going on too. An excitement. Because this was a new case that was different from anything she’d ever worked before. Two bodies, connected but not lying together. And nothing made her feel as alive as murder.

Before she spoke again, he cut off her call because he didn’t need her misery as well as his own,

Annie found herself being drawn into the conversation despite herself. She’d been terrified of dying since she was a child. Not the reality of pain or illness, but the idea of the world going on without her.

He was a great family man, a bit too soft-hearted for a policeman, in Vera’s opinion; but then she thought Holly was heartless, so perhaps she was never pleased.

He was one of those quiet, sickly bairns. I was a nursery nurse before I married and I knew the sort. Given to asthma and feeling sorry for himself. It didn’t help that he was an only child and his mother loved the bones of him.

What did your neighbours do before they retired?’ Vera knew she should move on to the detail, to questions more relevant to the investigation, but she’d always been a nosy cow.

She’d always been eager to please – part of her problem.

Vera had never been bothered by post-mortems. Dead people couldn’t hurt you; it was the living you should be frightened of.

He was so restless and he had so much energy, but it was destructive. Like it wasn’t the sort of energy that got walls painted or the house cleaned. He just prowled like a lion in a cage.

If she’d asked me to swim naked three times round the island, I’d have said yes. I loved her.

After all, it was easy enough to be virtuous if there was no temptation.

It astonished him how many of the players in the case still lived in the town, or had connections with the place. It was as if they’d had no ambition, or lacked the confidence to uproot themselves and try life elsewhere.

He wasn’t given to strange thoughts, but it occurred to him suddenly that Mardle was toxic. There was something unhealthy in the air.

The room wasn’t a mess, but there was clutter. Last week’s Observer on the arm of a chair, a couple of books on the table.

Cold now as the statues of the saints in the church where she knelt to pray.

But Patty thought Vera couldn’t really know, because she couldn’t imagine the big woman giving up her independence for anyone. And anyway she was strong, not needy like Patty. Not desperate to be loved back.

Then she thought she was making a drama of the situation. She always did. Vera could never be part of a story without playing a leading role; this time the role was that of the heartless friend.

In the old days she would have dug in her heels, but she was old and canny enough to realize there was no point starting battles you could never win.

There’s nothing to fear from the dead. They can’t hurt us. And I owe her. If I’d been more patient when I first went to interview her, asked her the right questions, she’d still be alive. She was killed for the secrets she kept. Besides, you’re fitter than me. I’d show myself up by not keeping pace.

It’s just that she always seemed indestructible. I never saw her tired or upset or vulnerable. She was one of those women who can face anything the world has to throw at her.

She didn’t sound scared. Excited, if anything. The invulnerability of the young.

Vera had banned Sorry for your loss. ‘We’re not characters from an American cop show,’ she’d yelled at

That was the trouble when you got obsessed with a case: you lost perspective, saw everything through the prism of the investigation.

She decided it was time to get out of the water. If she stayed any longer, she’d go wrinkled and prune-like. Even worse, she might fall asleep and wake up only when it was cold.

Holly wondered how long it would be before he looked for promotion, a team of his own, and whether Vera would see that as progress – a validation of her skill as a mentor – or as betrayal.