Children of the Revolution

Chapter 2

The boardroom, with its polished oval table, whiteboards and fancy new glass board already christened Red Ron’s Folly, was ready for the morning meeting at nine o’clock, and the whole team was present, including Area Commander Catherine Gervaise, Annie Cabbot, PC Kirwan and Stefan Nowak. Black coffee in one hand and black marker in the other, Banks took to the front of the room and tried to bring some order out of fragments of information the team had dug up so far, starting with Gerry Masterson’s exploration of Miller’s life. The problem still remained that they couldn’t be certain Miller’s death wasn’t due to suicide. Dr Glendenning was set to perform the post-mortem later that afternoon, and Banks was hoping he would unearth something that might help them decide one way or the other. Even so, the death seemed suspicious enough that he believed it was vital to get at least the beginnings of an investigation going as quickly as possible.

Gerry Masterson looked very businesslike this morning, Banks thought, with her red wavy Pre-Raphaelite hair tied back, a crisp white blouse, and oval black-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. She shifted her papers in front of her and cleared her throat. ‘Well, sir,’ she began, then gave a shy glance towards Gervaise, ‘and... er... ma’am.’

‘Skip the formalities, Gerry,’ said Gervaise, ‘or else we’ll be here all day.’

Gerry’s pale skin blushed a pinkish-red. ‘Yes, ma’am... I’m sorry. I mean, right.’ She studied her notes, seemed undecided whether she needed them or not, then pushed them aside a couple of inches and rested her hands on the table, looking over her audience. ‘I assume you’ve read my notes on Gavin Miller?’

They all nodded.

‘Well, it’s slow going,’ she said, ‘and I apologise for not having very much to give you, as Mr Miller doesn’t seem to have had much in the way of social intercourse over the past while, or any sort of family life. Anyway, I’ve narrowed what I do know down to three areas that might benefit from fruitful enquiry.’

Banks raised his marker, ready to take down what she said.

‘First of all, and probably hardest of all to investigate, is the period he was overseas after finishing his degree at the University of Essex. We know that he spent the years from 1977 to 1979 at Simon Fraser University, near Vancouver, pursuing a graduate diploma in Film Studies and Literature, then... well, we don’t really know where he was or what he was doing for the following four years. I call them the “lost years”. We’re pretty sure he wasn’t back in the UK until late 1983, but other than that... I still have a number of inquiries outstanding on this, a few calls I’m waiting for, and I’ll follow up on them later today, when the time difference isn’t quite so awkward, but it doesn’t look too hopeful. It was a long time ago.’

‘You’re thinking something might have happened during that “lost” period that led to Miller’s death thirty years later?’

‘I’m just saying it’s possible, sir. It’s unknown territory. He could have made dodgy contacts that came back to haunt him.’

‘I think,’ said Gervaise, ‘that before we commit to putting any resources into investigating that period thoroughly, we should hear what else you have to say, or the next thing we know we’ll be sending a team out there. And you know what havoc that would play with the budget.’

‘Of course,’ Gerry went on, a little chastened. ‘Next is a little closer to the present. It’s his three years at Eastvale College from 2006 to 2009.’ She leafed through her notes. ‘I believe I made a note of how his department head Trevor Lomax seemed reluctant to talk about him.’

‘Any idea why?’ Banks asked.

‘No, sir.’

Banks looked at Annie. ‘Can you pay Mr Lomax a visit at the college?’

‘Be my pleasure. You never know, I might learn something.’

Everyone groaned.

Banks turned back to Gerry. ‘And the third area? You said there were three.’

‘Yes, sir. We need to know what Miller has been doing recently, since he’s been living at the signalman’s cottage outside Coverton. Someone must know something, but all I’ve managed to gather so far is that he was a loner with no friends in the village, and had few or no visitors, as far as anyone can tell. Not that they would have known, anyway, as his cottage was so isolated. I mean, I suppose he could have been having wild parties there every night, and nobody would have been any the wiser.’

‘Possibly not,’ said Banks. ‘Though the villagers might have noticed an unusual number of cars or motorcycles on their streets, or in their car park late at night.’

‘If they parked in the village,’ said Gerry. ‘All I’m getting at is that everyone’s pretty sure he lived a quiet life out there, but he could have had regular visitors — a girlfriend, say. Probably no one would have thought anything of just one car parked in the village occasionally, or perhaps his visitor knew the tracks and lanes to take to get to the cottage and drove straight there.’

‘True,’ Banks agreed. ‘But did he have a girlfriend? We’re calling him a loner, saying he didn’t mix. Would a girlfriend put up with the kind of life Miller led out there? Might she not want to go out occasionally? A club? The cinema? For a meal or a drink?’

‘Unless she was like him, sir.’

‘An odd couple, indeed. OK, I take your point. We’ll bear it in mind. Cherchez la femme.’

Gerry didn’t seem quite sure whether to smile or not. In the end, she didn’t. ‘Thank you, sir. We also know that that Miller was short of money. Maybe he got mixed up with some sort of fraud or a loan shark? They can be pretty nasty when it comes to getting their money back.’

‘They usually stop short of murder, though,’ said Banks. ‘After all, they do want their money back.’

‘Perhaps he wasn’t meant to die? It could have got out of hand. Miller fought back and ended up going over the bridge. Or he was used as an example.’

‘Possible,’ Banks agreed. ‘We’ll look into it. About the five thousand pounds in his pocket. Do you think perhaps he might have resorted to blackmail?’

‘He could have done,’ said Gerry, ‘though I haven’t found any evidence of it so far. I’m also checking into the drugs connection, possible involvement in rural crime rings, something of that sort. Poverty can push people into crime, sir, and that’s a dangerous and unpredictable world.’

Banks made more jottings on the board. ‘We’ll be making a thorough examination of all Gavin Miller’s recent comings and goings,’ he said. ‘We should also make inquiries at all the farms within, say, a five-mile radius. Can you arrange that, PC Kirwan?’

‘I’ll organise some of the local beat bobbies to get on it right away, sir.’

‘There has to be someone who knew him, or who saw something,’ Banks said. ‘Liam’s working on Miller’s phone and computers right now, and he should have something for us later today. Thanks, Gerry, you did a fine job. Stefan, anything on forensics yet?’

‘It pains me to say it,’ Nowak said, ‘but the rain washed everything away, if anything was there in the first place. We have no prints, either foot, finger or tire. It doesn’t look as if the road that runs from the cottage out into the moors has been used recently. It would at least appear churned up in places, even if we couldn’t get any clear tire tracks, but the surface seems smooth enough, even in patches where it’s muddy from the recent flooding.’

‘Someone must have used it,’ Banks said. ‘How did Miller get his post?’

‘He had a box at the post office in the village, sir,’ answered Gerry.

‘OK. We’d better check that out, too.’ Banks glanced back at Nowak. ‘Sorry, Stefan. Please go on.’

Nowak spread his hands. ‘That’s about it.’

‘Will the money lead us anywhere?’ Banks asked.

‘Up a garden path, most likely. The bills are relatively new, it’s true, but they’re still used. And fifties are fairly rare, but these are not sequential. We might be able to trace some back to specific banks, but I doubt very much that we’ll be able to trace them to a specific person or transaction, if the owner had his wits about him. There are some prints, which we can try to match against our database, but so far all I can say is that a number of different people handled the bills. Sorry.’

‘Anything on the drugs Winsome and I found at Miller’s house?’

‘Some hash and what appears to be two tablets of LSD,’ Nowak said. ‘We didn’t find anything else. Thing is, the quantities are very small. Strictly personal consumption.’

‘But he had to get it from somewhere, didn’t he?’ said Winsome. ‘However tentative, it’s still a drugs connection. That could link him with some dodgy people. Where there’s drugs there’s money, and where there’s money there’s always the possibility of violence.’

‘True,’ said Banks. ‘Maybe you should have a word with the drugs squad later today? See if they can suggest a possible source. Well done. Anything else?’

‘Well,’ Winsome went on, ‘there was no diary, nothing to give us an account of his daily activities, or an address book. No landline, either. He did have a scratch pad in one of his drawers, and it has a few numbers and names scribbled on it. I passed it on to Liam, and he’ll be trying to coordinate with the information he gets from Miller’s mobile and computers. Then Gerry can try and track down the names and addresses. It’s my guess he had so few appointments, and he knew so few people, that he didn’t need an address book or appointment diary. Then there were the photos we found. That’s it.’

Banks turned to PC Kirwan. ‘Find out anything more around the village?’

Kirwan opened his notebook. ‘A little, sir. Nobody had seen Miller since Friday, when he’d been to the Spar on the high street to buy a few provisions and some wine on sale. He’d also been drinking in the Star and Garter before heading home.’

Banks gazed at the glass board. There was a lot more written on it now than there had been at the start of the meeting, but how much of it was of any use? He needed connections, not disparate facts and guesswork.

‘There is just one more thing that might be of interest, sir,’ said Kirwan. ‘I talked to a Mrs Stanshall, who says she’s certain she saw someone come over the stile from the woodland path into the car park, then get in a car and drive off. She’s another dog walker. It was dark, though, and she couldn’t give any more details, either about the car or the person, but she’s certain it was about half past ten on Sunday night, same time she always takes the dog for a walk, rain or shine. The timing’s about right. If someone was coming out of the woods and getting into a car at that time, there’s a good chance he may be connected with Miller’s death, isn’t there, sir?’

‘If someone did kill Miller, yes, I suppose so. It was definitely a he?’

‘That was all she could be certain of. Something to do with his size and shape.’

‘There are big women.’ Banks looked at Winsome, who was six foot two in her stockinged feet.

‘Are you saying you think someone might mistake me for a man, sir?’ Winsome asked sweetly.

‘Well, no... I mean, perhaps, in the dark...’

Everyone laughed. ‘Don’t go on, sir,’ Winsome said, hardly able to keep back the laughter herself. ‘You’ll only put your foot in deeper.’

‘She said it was the way he moved as well, sir,’ Kirwan rushed on. ‘And his shoulders. There are streetlights that cast a little illumination on the car park. Not much, mind you, and the car was in one of the darker areas near the back, but enough to see silhouettes and such, so she’s probably being as accurate as she can be. There’s no locked gate or anything.’

‘CCTV?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Pay and display?’

‘No, sir. It’s free.’

‘Normally I’d rejoice at that,’ said Banks, ‘but a written record of the time our mystery man arrived would be nice right now.’

‘Sorry, sir. But at least we know when he left, for what it’s worth. Anyway, she said he was bareheaded, but with hair, not bald, and that he was wearing a raincoat and trousers, definitely the kind of style of clothes a man would wear. She saw him get into the car, and she said women get into cars differently. I don’t know about that, but she seemed certain. Maybe someone should have a word.’

‘There’s a few things to follow up in Coverton,’ Banks said. ‘This Mrs Stanshall might be more perceptive than you think she is. Seeing as Stefan tells us that the track from the cottage probably hasn’t been used by any cars recently, then it makes sense that our man parked in the village car park and perhaps walked through the woods or along the railway path. Anyway, I’ll head out there later this morning. Winsome, you can come with me and talk to Mrs Stanshall. Maybe check out the post office box, too.’ Banks turned to Nowak. ‘And Stefan, would you have your team go over the woodland path again. I suppose if anyone used it, there’s always a chance of some fabric caught on a twig, or even, God help us, a preserved footprint.’

Nowak nodded. ‘We’ve been over it once, but we’ll do it again.’

‘Anything else?’ Banks asked. Nobody spoke up. ‘Right, you’ve all got your tasks. Just one more thing to consider. You might bump into one or more members of the media on your travels. The AC has suggested, and I agree, that we should keep all knowledge of the five thousand pounds to ourselves for the moment. It gives us a card up our sleeves should we need it. All clear?’

Everyone muttered their assent, and the meeting broke up. When they had all gone, Banks stood and gazed at the pictures and writing on the glass board. He sensed Gervaise behind him. ‘No forensics,’ she said. ‘That’s a bit of a disaster for us.’

‘We’ll manage,’ said Banks. ‘I’ve often thought that solving a crime has far more to do with understanding people and their motives than it does with spectrographic analysis and DNA.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Gervaise. ‘But in the end it’s forensics that will get a conviction any day over motive.’

Gold and russet leaves were spiralling down from the trees that lined the street of large Victorian houses. Along with the chill in the air, they reminded Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot that winter was coming. She parked her car and got out. The weather was fine enough at the moment, and there were even a few patches of blue sky between the clouds drifting across the sky like balls of fluff accumulated in a vacuum cleaner.

Annie walked past groups of students carrying rucksacks and satchels, chatting and laughing as they came and went from the warren of bedsits and flats inside the houses. The Arts Department was housed in one of the sixties buildings at the heart of the old campus, all flat roofs, prefab concrete and glass, broad horizontal blinds. Most of the buildings were about three stories high but built in sprawling L-shapes, or forming squares around quadrangles in some sort of grotesque parody of Oxford or Cambridge.

To get to Lomax’s office, Annie had to walk through iron gates and across a square of scrappy lawn, then climb two flights of stairs. She tried to get plenty of exercise, including yoga and Pilates, but since the shooting and the time spent both in hospital and in convalescence, she found that she had less energy than before, and she was slightly out of breath when she knocked on the door. The doctors told her she would improve over time, but that it would be a long, hard haul. She already knew that. It had been a long, hard haul to crawl away from the bright white light that had beckoned as she lay bleeding on the floor of Banks’s conservatory over a year ago. There were sometimes days when she wondered whether it had been worth the effort. Something had broken in her, and she wanted the old Annie back.

She had telephoned ahead to make an appointment, so Lomax was expecting her. His voice called out for her to enter when she knocked, and she was surprised to find herself not in a vestibule with a fearsome secretary on sentry duty, but standing in the office itself.

To say it was book-lined would be both too generous and inaccurate; it was book-crammed, book-piled, book-besotted. They were everywhere. They probably bred overnight. The room even smelled of books. Here was a man who had never heard of a Kindle. The books were on the wall-to-wall shelves, on the floor, on the windowsills, the chairs, on every flat surface, and even balanced on some of the curved or angled ones. Oddly enough, Lomax didn’t look in the least bit bookish, Annie thought when he stood up to greet her, at least in the way she understood the term. There were no unruly tufts of hair sticking out at odd angles, no tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, no pipe, no thick glasses, no flyaway eyebrows. He was about fifty, Annie guessed, tennis-playing trim, casually dressed in a black polo-neck jumper and jeans, grey hair neatly parted on the left. He was quite handsome, with an engaging dimpled smile, a twinkle in his eyes, and a firm handshake.

‘Do pardon the mess,’ said Lomax. ‘I’ve been fighting for a larger office for some years now, but it never seems to materialise. Sometimes I feel they’d like to get rid of the arts faculty altogether.’

‘I know the feeling,’ said Annie, sitting on a chair Lomax had cleared of books for her. ‘Perhaps we should just give up and hand the country over to the bankers?’

‘I thought they already owned it? Anyway, you mustn’t talk like that. Never give up. That way lies philistinism and totalitarianism. Rage against the dying of the light, as Dylan Thomas put it. He was talking about death, of course, not revolution or protest, but perhaps the loss of all we value most could be seen as death of a kind, too, don’t you think? Kierkegaard said the loss of the self can occur very quietly, unnoticed, as it were. Anyway, just listen to me prattling on. You’d think I hadn’t talked to anyone in months. Would you like some tea or coffee? I can ring down for some. It won’t take a minute.’

‘If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. Coffee, just black, please, no sugar.’

‘Not at all.’ Lomax picked up the phone and asked for two black coffees, then smiled sheepishly. ‘It makes me seem more important than I am,’ he said. ‘Maria will only bring coffee when I have a guest in my office. When there’s just me, I have to go down and fetch it myself.’

Annie laughed. A few moments later, there was a soft tap at the door, followed by the appearance of a pale, plump woman in a peasant skirt, her mousy hair tied in a ponytail. She balanced her tray on one hand and handed Annie and Lomax cups of coffee without cracking a smile or saying a word. Then she was gone. ‘You must excuse Maria,’ Lomax said. ‘She’s from Lithuania. Her English isn’t very good. She’s got two young children to bring up alone. She takes evening classes, and she also does a bit of office cleaning. She’s a very hard worker, and she probably doesn’t have a lot to smile about.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Annie. She thought of Krystyna, the Polish girl she had helped out of a jam earlier in the year. She still received letters or postcards from her every now and then. Krystyna’s English was improving, and she seemed to be finding her feet in the restaurant business back home in Krakow. Her last letter had talked of trying to get into chef’s school. Annie wished her well; Krystyna knew how hard life could be when you started out with so little.

‘Was Gavin Miller a particularly good teacher?’ she asked.

‘No, not really. I’m not saying he didn’t know his subjects, or that he wasn’t passionate about them. Don’t get me wrong. He knew his stuff, all right. But Gavin didn’t suffer fools gladly, and as you can imagine, he often had quite a lot of fools in his classes, especially the film classes. He tended to be very sarcastic, and irony’s not a good teaching tool. It tends to go over the students’ heads and rub them up the wrong way. They just feel as if they’re being insulted.’

‘But you say he had a passion for his subject. Is that essential for a good teacher?’

‘You need some sort of engagement, commitment, some sense of vocation, as with anything in life. Besides, why would you do it, otherwise? The pay’s not very good, and you don’t get much in the way of thanks.’

‘Sort of like my job,’ said Annie, pausing a moment before asking, ‘Why did he leave? It all seemed rather sudden. He’d only been here three years and he was, what, only about fifty-five?’

Lomax avoided her eyes. ‘Well, you know. It was time to part company. Move on. He... you know. These things happen.’

‘Actually, I don’t know what you mean, Mr Lomax. Was he fired? Made redundant?’

‘I suppose you could say that, yes.’

‘Which is it? There’s a difference, you know. Did you fire him for being a sarcastic teacher?’

‘Look, this is all very awkward, I must say.’

‘Awkward? Why?’

‘It was a most delicate situation.’

‘What did he do? Shag one of his students?’ Lomax blushed, and Annie wasn’t certain that it was entirely due to her language. ‘He did, didn’t he? That’s why you’re so unwilling to talk about it.’

‘I’m not unwilling. It’s just... well, the college would rather avoid any adverse publicity. It was an internal matter. We’ve put it behind us.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m the soul of discretion. This could be a murder inquiry, Mr Lomax. I think you’d better consider that seriously and weigh it against your concerns for the reputation of the college.’

Lomax seemed to shrink in his chair. ‘Yes, all right then. His dismissal was due to a sexual indiscretion.’ He shot her a glance. ‘But it wasn’t what you think. He didn’t have sex with the girl, well, not with either of them, really.’

Annie sighed and leaned back, notebook on her lap. ‘I think it would be best if you just told me about it, don’t you? You’re saying that Gavin Miller’s passion got him into trouble, not his sarcasm?’

Lomax sipped some coffee and eyed Annie sadly over his mug. ‘I don’t think there was a great deal of passion in what happened to Gavin,’ he said. ‘Not on his part, at least. That’s what was so unfair about it all, I suppose.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gavin had no interest in young girls, especially girls like Kayleigh Vernon and Beth Gallagher, his accusers. They were just gum-chewing airheads to him.’

‘Gum-chewing airheads with big tits?’

‘Believe it or not, I doubt that really made a difference to Gavin,’ he said.

‘Why not? It does to most men.’

‘I think in some ways he was more interested in ideas than in life, in the dream rather than the reality. That was probably at the root of his problems.’

‘What problems?’

Lomax paused. ‘Before I go on, you have to understand that I wasn’t a member of the committee, or disciplinary board, that held the hearing and finally dismissed him. I was a mere outsider. As his friend and head of department, I was regarded as biased in his favour. If anything, I tried to defend him.’

‘What was his defence?’

Lomax slapped his desk. ‘That’s the problem. Right there. With this sort of thing, there really is no defence. It’s a “when did you stop beating your wife” situation.’

‘You’re saying that any lecturer who gets accused of sexual misconduct loses his job?’

‘Basically, yes. Pretty much. Sexual misconduct with a student, at any rate. That’s how it works. You could probably get away with murder and keep...’ He put his hand to his forehead. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Bad taste. That was stupid of me.’

‘That’s all right. Go on.’

‘Well, what I was meaning to say was that, in today’s climate, it’s the most heinous crime there is in the teaching environment. Next to plagiarism, perhaps. It not only has overtones of rape, but it also touches upon abuse of power and betrayal of trust. Put those things together and they can be a powerful combination. Very hard to forgive or forget.’

‘Or disprove?’

‘Practically impossible. Yes. I’m not saying that Gavin was a complete innocent, and he was certainly foolhardy, but in all the time I knew him, which admittedly was only two or three years, I had never known him behave in any other way than as a gentleman towards the opposite sex. He was, in fact, rather shy.’

‘So what actually happened? What was his “sexual indiscretion”?’

Lomax shrugged. ‘That’s just the problem. Nobody knows. They haven’t installed CCTV in all our offices. Not yet. Gavin said he put his arm around the Vernon girl to comfort her when she cried after failing an important test. She said he made a pass at her and indicated that if she slept with him, he would make sure her test result was modified accordingly.’

‘That’s it? But where’s the evidence?’

‘That’s all there is.’

Annie felt her jaw drop. As a victim of serious sexual abuse herself, she was hardly sympathetic towards predatory males, but even she could hardly believe that a man could lose his livelihood based on such flimsy hearsay. ‘That’s not evidence,’ she said. ‘It’s her word against his.’

‘I know. That’s my point. She could just as easily have been lying.’

‘Why would she lie?’

‘Search me. But it’s a possibility. Teenage girls, even when they’re nineteen, as Kayleigh Vernon was at the time, can be very confused emotionally, and very vindictive.’

‘And Kayleigh was both?’

‘I don’t know her well enough to answer that question. All I can tell you is that Gavin told me he got the impression she had been sort of flirting with him all term, you know, making innuendos, making eyes, leading him on, teasing, that sort of thing. He admits to putting his arm around her because she was distressed, which, whatever else you might say, was really his biggest mistake of all. Whether she took it as a sign of his affections and felt affronted when he rebuffed her...’

‘Is that what you think happened?’

‘I think it’s more than likely, and I think Gavin should have been given the benefit of the doubt, but as I said before, in this present climate, there is no benefit of the doubt.’

‘But if he thought she was leading him on, might he not have responded, and might he not have misread the signals?’

Lomax nodded glumly. ‘That’s also possible. But she didn’t say he attempted to assault her; she said he tried to blackmail her into having sex.’

‘What was the girl like?’

‘Ordinary enough, as far as I know. Unexceptional. No one ever claimed she was a slut or a trollop, or anything like that. And Gavin was certainly no Lothario.’

‘What happened to the girl?’

‘Kayleigh? She graduated eventually. I don’t know where she is now.’

‘And the other complainant?’

‘Beth Gallagher? Gone, too. Now, she was a troublemaker. She was also Kayleigh’s best friend. It was very likely she egged Kayleigh on in her pursuit of Gavin, if indeed such a pursuit did occur, perhaps with the goal of humiliating him, and that she came out in her friend’s defence when the going got too rough.’

‘She lied, too?’

‘That’s not what the committee or the board believed.’

‘But is it what you think?’

Lomax stared down at his cluttered desk, as if mentally rearranging the objects on its surface. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. It was more of a sigh than anything else. ‘She said he let his hand “accidentally” brush across her breast in his office when they were discussing an essay she had written.’

‘So again it was her word against Gavin’s?’

‘Her word and Kayleigh’s. Two to one. He didn’t stand a chance.’

‘Did either of them have any motive for hurting Gavin Miller?’

Lomax hesitated before answering, and Annie got the sense that he was quickly making a decision on just how much to tell her, that he was probably going to hold something back. She filed away the reaction for later. She often found it was good to have a little unexpected ammunition in your arsenal for a second meeting, should one be necessary. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘As I said, I think it was just an adolescent game, a cruel game that got out of hand. Beyond a certain point, there was no turning back.’

‘They could have retracted, told the truth.’

‘It wasn’t an option. If they did that, they would have been disciplined. They might have lost everything they had been working towards.’

‘Did Mr Miller try to get in touch with either of the girls later, to berate them or ask them to come clean about what they did?’

‘Not that I know of. If he did, they certainly didn’t report it to the college, and he didn’t tell me.’

‘Were their parents involved?’

‘Well, I assume they knew about it, of course, but they played no official role.’

‘Any further incidents?’

‘What sort of incidents?’

‘Involving Gavin Miller and the parents, for example, or the girls’ boyfriends, older brothers. Anything of a violent nature, threats made, that sort of thing?’

‘I never heard of anything like that. Look, I’m not an expert on this. There’s a lot I don’t know.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ said Annie. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d just bear with me and answer the questions as best you can. Did Gavin complain officially about his treatment?’

‘I believe he did put in a formal complaint and appeal after his sacking, but it went nowhere.’

‘Climate of the times?’

‘Exactly.’

‘There was no publicity about the incident or the dismissal. Why was that?’

‘It was what everyone agreed to at the time,’ Lomax said.

‘Even Gavin?’

‘Especially Gavin. Some members of the board made it quite clear to him how his name would get dragged through the mud in full view if it ever became public knowledge.’

‘So that’s why he never went to the press?’

‘Yes. Oh, there were rumours, of course. You can’t keep something like that a complete secret. But they died down. Gavin’s name and alleged offences were never made generally known.’

‘And the girls?’

‘They didn’t want their private lives splashed all over the morning papers, did they?’

‘Was there anything more to all this?’

‘Well, I’ve always thought the college had a hidden agenda, that they wanted rid of Gavin anyway, and this was their golden opportunity.’

‘Why?’

Lomax struggled. ‘Gavin was a bit of an outsider. He didn’t quite fit in. He marched to the beat of his own drum, and he didn’t always follow college guidelines in matters such as curriculum and set texts and so on. He often couldn’t be bothered to attend departmental meetings. That sort of thing. The college is a pretty conservative institution, on the whole, and Gavin was a bit of a maverick, not to mention politically left of centre.’

‘I thought all academics were lefties?’

‘Not here.’

Annie paused a beat. ‘Were either of the girls involved with drugs?’

‘I never heard anything about drugs.’

The answer had come too quickly and was too definitive, Annie thought. And Lomax didn’t look surprised enough by the sudden change of direction in questioning. More ammunition for a later interview, perhaps. She made some notes and sipped some more coffee before it went cold. ‘Not much more to go, now, Mr Lomax. I’m sorry to rake up all this unpleasantness, but we need to know.’

Lomax managed a grim smile. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You have your job to do. And if I can be any help at all. Poor Gavin.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘I wouldn’t say “well”, but I did consider him a close acquaintance, if not exactly a friend. There was always something a bit distant, a bit private, about Gavin. As if he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, let you get really close to him. We invited him to dinner once or twice — Sally, that’s my wife, and I — but he said he felt a bit awkward not having anyone to bring. We even fixed him up with one of Sally’s work colleagues once. She’s a physiotherapist.’

‘What happened?’

‘They went out together for a while, I believe, then it fizzled out. I told you he wasn’t very good with women. I should imagine he went on about the Grateful Dead, Fellini or existentialism a bit too much for her liking.’

‘Existentialism?’

‘You know, Sartre, Camus? The idea that the universe is arbitrary, meaningless, absurd.’

‘I know what existentialism is. I’m just surprised to hear that it’s a belief anyone subscribes to these days.’

‘Well, it wasn’t so much of a belief. I’d say when it came to that, Gavin was probably an atheist. But it was a philosophy that appealed to him.’

‘Can you give me the girlfriend’s name?’

‘Really, it was nothing.’

‘I’d still like to talk to her.’

‘Very well. Her name’s Dayle Snider. She works at the health centre in town.’

‘I know it.’ Annie had been there on several occasions for physio, but she didn’t know Dayle Snider. She made a note of the name. ‘Did Gavin have any other friends or acquaintances around here?’

‘I suppose Jim Cooper was a mate of his. He’s in Media Studies. He teaches some general courses and specialises in music, as Gavin did in literature and film. I have my doubts about someone who professes to like the Cure teaching music, but it’s not my decision. Give me a bit of Beethoven any day.’

‘I’m rather partial to One Direction, myself. Did you ever visit Gavin at his home?’

‘Where? You mean the Eastvale flat?’

‘No, sorry. The signalman’s cottage in Coverton.’

‘After he left? Yes. I dropped by now and then to make sure he was all right. Damn awkward place to get to.’

‘How did you get there?’

‘There is a sort of road that runs up to the front, but you have to go miles out of your way to get there by a very circuitous route. To tell you the truth, I found it easier to park in the village, walk up the old railway line and climb the embankment path, if the weather was at all decent.’

‘And was he all right on those occasions you visited him?’

‘Not really. I don’t think he ever recovered from the shock of what happened. Sometimes he got depressed. I don’t think it was clinical or chronic or anything, just sort of depressed, the way we all get sometimes. He was always short of money, too. I’m afraid the college didn’t come up with much of anything in the way of a settlement or pension. He’d only been with us three years, for a start, and then there were the circumstances of his dismissal. I’d give him a tenner every now and then, but it was just a stopgap, really. Beer and ciggies money. It wouldn’t pay his mortgage. I’m afraid, on my salary, I couldn’t run to that.’

‘How did he feel about what was done to him?’

‘How do you think he felt? He was angry, resentful, bitter.’

‘Even in a universe he believed to be absurd and without meaning? You’d think he’d be gratified at having his philosophy borne out by reality.’

‘Philosophy is one thing, Detective Inspector, but emotions are quite another.’

‘Did he ever talk of suicide?’

‘Only in a philosophical way. I mean, he never said he was actually contemplating it personally, or anything like that, but he sometimes argued for it as a valid philosophical proposition. I mean, if you read Schopenhauer and Camus, you can’t help but meditate upon the idea of suicide.’

Annie had read a little philosophy at university, but mostly old stuff like Plato and Aristotle. She knew nothing of the modern philosophical ideas except what she had picked up growing up in the artists’ colony with her father. That was where she had first heard of existentialism, and she had even read a Jean-Paul Sartre novel once to impress a boyfriend. It hadn’t worked, so she never read another. ‘What do you mean by the idea of suicide?’ she asked.

‘The idea, not the reality. I mean that you might discuss the philosophical validity of murder, for example, or of incest, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to go out and murder someone or sleep with your mother. And anyway, isn’t all this rather moot? I understand you said on the telephone you were investigating the murder of Gavin Miller. That indicates to me that he was killed by someone. There’s no possibility of suicide, is there?’

Annie could have kicked herself. She should never have said murder. It was far from definite yet, not until after the post-mortem. ‘We try to keep an open mind. Do you know of anybody who would want to kill him?’

‘Surely you must be dealing with a gang of yobs, or someone who kills for the pleasure of it? Like a serial killer?’

‘You’ve been watching too much telly, Mr Lomax,’ she said. ‘For a start, you need at least three murders under your belt to be called a serial killer, and in the second place, the manner of Mr Miller’s death... well, let me just say it wasn’t consistent with the psychology of that sort of crime.’

‘How do you know there aren’t any others?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How do you know that the person who killed Gavin hasn’t killed others before him? Perhaps not around here, but elsewhere. Don’t some of these people have jobs that take them all over the country? Isn’t that how the Yorkshire Ripper slipped through your fingers?’

‘I’m afraid my fingers were busy turning the pages of Jackie when the Yorkshire Ripper was caught,’ said Annie, ‘but you make a good point. I’ll make sure I take it up with my boss.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lomax. ‘I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job.’

‘That’s all right, sir. We’re always grateful for as much help as we can get from members of the public.’ Annie put her notebook away and got up to leave. ‘Just for the record, where were you on Sunday night?’

‘Me? At home. With Sally.’

‘All evening?’

‘Yes. We were watching TV. Downton Abbey.’

Annie smiled. ‘Ah, yes. Very good.’

Lomax glanced at his watch. ‘It’s almost lunchtime,’ he said, turning on the charm and smoothing his hair with one hand. ‘There’s a decent pub around the corner. Perhaps you’d let me buy you a drink and a meal? We could discuss existentialism. Or something.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said Annie, her hand on the doorknob. ‘I’ve got a nice rissole with my name on it waiting for me in the police canteen, and you’ve got a lovely wife called Sally at home.’

The computer lab was located in the annexe, just down the corridor through the double doors from Banks’s office, and it didn’t seem to have been suffering too much from budget cuts. Their computer equipment was state of the art, and the spacious room in which it was housed was fitted with a machine that surreptitiously sucked the dust off your shoes and clothes when you went in. As far as Banks knew, it even sucked the dandruff out of your hair. When computers were first used in businesses, Banks remembered, they filled whole rooms with whirring tape machines — the kind you see in old James Bond movies — and dust was anathema. It didn’t seem such a big deal today — his own computer got pretty dusty at times — but old habits die hard. Scientists, he had found, and CSIs in particular, were absolutely obsessed with contamination of evidence. He even had to wear a white lab coat over his suit, not to mention the ubiquitous latex gloves.

The turnover in CSI technical computer personnel was fast and frequent. Rumour had it that as soon as they reached puberty, they had to be replaced by a younger version. Liam Merchant, however, was at least forty, and Banks had known him for a couple of years. They even had a pint together occasionally after work, and sometimes Liam’s partner Colin joined them. Liam was an opera buff and something of a wine expert, so they had those interests in common. Before working for the North Yorkshire police, he had been a software designer for a successful private company. He was still a civilian, not a police officer.

‘Alan,’ he said, extending his gloved hand to shake. There was something rather perverted, Banks always felt, about the clasping of hands in latex, but he tried not to let it bother him. ‘Your timing is impeccable, as always.’

‘We aim to please. How’s Colin?

‘Thriving, thank you.’

‘Tell him I said hello. So what have you got for me?’

‘Where do you want to start?’

‘Anything on the computers?’

Liam led Banks over to a workbench, on which sat Gavin Miller’s laptop and desktop computers. ‘We’re only just beginning, but first off,’ Liam said, ‘I have to tell you that there’s nothing special about them. They’re your common or garden, on sale at PC World every other week, computers. At least they would have been about four years ago. Still using Windows Vista, for crying out loud. Of course, they’re perfectly adequate for most people, if a bit slow and prone to seizing up every now and then for no reason, but cheap and... well, not exactly nasty, but hardly in the Rolls-Royce or BMW class, either. Not even a Ford Focus, to be honest.’

Banks knew that Liam was as much a snob about computers as he was about wine and opera recordings, but it was worth putting up with an occasional outburst of snobbery for the useful tips that Liam tossed his way. ‘Anything interesting on them?’ Banks asked.

‘Depends what you mean by interesting. No modifications, just the bog-standard factory presets. Not even a few extra modules of RAM, which the laptop could certainly use. On them? Well, the usual. Antivirus and anti-spyware programmes. Reasonable quality, so-so settings, but free software, thus limited.’ He waved his hand from side to side to demonstrate the precarious nature of Gavin Miller’s computer protection. ‘Which is living dangerously when you visit some of the sites he did.’

‘Oh?’ said Banks, interested at last.

Liam grinned. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, old boy. There’s nothing illegal or exciting. No kiddie porn, thank God, nor sheep-shagging or what have you. Is sheep-shagging illegal, by the way?’

‘There are probably laws against it,’ said Banks. ‘Though I can’t say as I’ve ever had to enforce any. The animal rights people might have a thing or two to say about it, mind you. I mean, how would you know if the sheep said yes or no?’

‘‘I thought baaa always meant yes, your Honour? Anyway, I’m all for Sheep-Shaggers Liberation, if there is one. To move on... we have the usual free porn sites — boringly hetero, I’m afraid — and from what I can gather, his tastes run from the so-called normal to the slightly fetishistic.’

‘As in?’

‘Nylons and lingerie. American cheerleader uniforms, or at least professional ladies dressed in said uniforms. Apart from a few MILFs, he seems to like them young, teens and college girls, or what passes for young on these websites. He’s not fussy about type or ethnic origin, quite happy with blondes, brunettes, blacks and Asians, as long as they’re young.’ Liam scratched his chin. ‘There seem to be a lot more Eastern Europeans on these sites these days.’

‘Some of the girls are forced or tricked into it,’ said Banks. ‘Trafficked. It goes in waves. These days most of them are trafficked from ex-Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe. It used to be South-east Asia. Africa before that.’

‘Three cheers for good old capitalism, eh?’ said Liam. ‘Opening up new markets all the time. Anyway, you’ll be happy to hear that there are no dwarves or ladyboys. Doggy style, but not doggies. One on one, rather than threesomes or gangbangs. No fisting or machines of ass destruction.’

‘Ouch,’ said Banks.

‘My apologies. I’ve been reading too many American magazines. I have to say, your Mr Miller is disappointingly normal. No leads there. No Internet plots to murder anyone, or buy drugs. Not even Viagra. He certainly didn’t appear to buy any online medications.’

‘Who among us could stand such scrutiny of his computer?’

Liam narrowed his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t mind an hour or two with your hard drive one day, old boy,’ he said. ‘I’ll bet you’ve got a more interesting range of browsing than Mr Miller.’

‘You’d be disappointed, I’m afraid,’ said Banks. ‘It’s mostly music and emails. Sorry.’

‘So you say. Anyway, in my experience, it’s where many people live their secret lives these days, no matter how public it all is. That’s the irony, I suppose. People assume it’s private, but in reality it’s wide open. It’s also easy to hide there, to take on other identities, become anyone you want. You can stalk and slander to your heart’s content. You can praise your own work to the skies and piss on everyone else’s. Perverts and cowards love it. Then there’s Facebook and Twitter, the narcissist’s Elysian Fields. Bloody baby pictures and bad restaurant reviews because the waiter didn’t bow and scrape enough for your liking. It’s worse than those dreadful people who start talking on their mobile phones the minute they take their seat on a train. “I’m on the train, darling. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. It’s still raining here.” I mean, who bloody cares?’

Banks laughed. ‘So why do you spend so much of your time working with computers then, Liam?’

‘Because I love them! I love their purity, their simplicity. And because it’s just about all I can do to make a living. It’s not computers that’s the problem, it’s people. Not the machines, but the people who build them and run them. By the way, do you happen to be a connoisseur of fine champagne?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, but I enjoy the odd glass now and then as much as the next man.’

‘The odd glass? The next man?’

‘Stop being so arch, Liam. I like champagne. I just don’t have anyone to share it with as often as I’d like.’

‘Ah... yes, I see. Well, short of introducing you to a friend of mine I think would like you very much, if you think you can find your way to polish off the odd bottle by yourself now and then, without any help from the next man, I have a reliable source of decently priced Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. Various vintages. The 1979 will be well out of a policeman’s price range, but there are less expensive alternatives, if no parallels. Interested?’

‘I might be. Depends on the price.’

‘I’ll send you an email.’

‘Thanks. Did Gavin Miller have a Facebook page?’

‘No. He did contribute occasional reviews and articles to a number of fanzines and movie fan sites. Unpaid, I should imagine. I suppose you’ve heard of the Grateful Dead, too?’

‘Indeed I have. I was listening to them just last night. Great band.’

‘Well, there was a lot of web activity connected with them, including set lists for all the concerts they’ve ever played along with quite a lot of downloads. I must say I was quite astounded when I saw how many there were. In fact, Mr Miller seemed quite addicted to rock and roll in general, with a real passion for vinyl music sites.’

The emphatic distaste with which Liam pronounced the words ‘rock and roll’ was hard to miss. Music began and ended with opera, as far as he was concerned, and he and Banks had had a number of disagreements on the subject. Luckily, Colin was a bit more broad-minded and was at least fond of some jazz, just as long as it didn’t get too adventurous or discordant. Early, not late, John Coltrane. Cool Miles, not funky. Bix and Louis even better. ‘What do you mean by web activity?’ Banks asked.

‘The usual. Downloads, file sharing, discussion groups, blogs, tweets, chatrooms, threads, message boards, eBay, Craigslist, esoteric memorabilia sites, you name it. Nothing illegal, unless you count the file sharing and the occasional illegally downloaded bootleg recording.’ Liam passed him a print of the screen capture. ‘This was the page that was showing when he last closed the lid of the laptop. I don’t know whether it means anything.’

Banks took the photo from Liam. ‘Any idea what time?’

‘He logged off the desktop at 7.45 Sunday evening, but that doesn’t mean he went out immediately to meet his death.’

‘Point taken,’ said Banks. ‘We think it was later than that, anyway, and someone was seen leaving the car park in Coverton around half past ten. It just helps us pinpoint the timing a bit more accurately.’

‘Ah, one of those detective thingies.’

‘That’s right.’ Banks read the printed sheet. It was a simple Wikipedia article about the music of 1972, listing the albums released in that year. Banks remembered 1972. He had been living in Notting Hill and attending London Polytechnic, studying for his Higher National Diploma in Business Studies. Glancing down the page, he was surprised to find that Credence, Them and the Velvet Underground had all split up that year, and that the first album to be released was Jamming With Edward. He handed the sheet back to Liam. ‘Jamming With Edward, indeed,’ he said.

‘I assume you’ve heard of it?’

‘Yes,’ said Banks. ‘It was something to do with the Rolling Stones.’

‘There’s a lot of late 1971 and early 1972 in his recent memory. Top movies, current events, bestselling LPs, politics, what books were being read, that sort of thing. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Be Here Now, The Dice Man. Specific searches on movies such as A Clockwork Orange, Get Carter, 10 Rillington Place. And vinyl LPs like Rainbow Bridge, Harvest, Tupelo Honey. Whatever they are.’

‘Music, Liam. Music.’

‘If you say so. And what does all this add up to, oh great detective?’

‘Wish I knew,’ said Banks. ‘That he was interested in 1972? I’ve had a quick look around his home and his vinyl and DVD collections, too. It’s similar to what you found on his computer. I get the impression that our Mr Miller lived in a bit of a fantasy world since he lost his job. Or in the past. He satisfied his needs with DVDs and online porn and chatrooms. Definite loner. Anorak.’

‘No wonder he was a loner if he was sitting around at home listening to rock and roll records and watching porn. Who’d want to share that with him?’

‘Everyone needs a hobby, Liam. If he was searching all this 1972 stuff on his computer, maybe he was on a nostalgia fishing trip, searching for something from his past, reminding himself what happened back then? He certainly didn’t seem to have much going for him in his life around the time he died. He would have been at university back then. He was at Essex from 1971 to 1974, so 1971 to 1972 would have coincided with his first year. Maybe it was his annus mirabilis? His first great love? Or he could have been doing research for something. A book, or an article, maybe? You said he wrote pieces for fanzines and what have you now and then?’

‘Some film review sites and book reviews, yes.’

‘Were there any visits to suicide sites, assisted death, that sort of thing?’

‘None.’

‘Any other recent searches?’

‘Much of the same, really, music, current events, film, books, including a few for ’73 and ’74. Could they have any connection with his death?’

‘If they do,’ said Banks, ‘I’ve no idea what it might be yet, but I’ll make a note of it. As I said, those were the years he was at university.’

‘Perhaps he met an old friend who stirred it all up?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Or maybe he was meeting someone to buy or sell some sort of rare, forbidden Grateful Dead bootleg recording?’

‘I doubt that there are any. The Grateful Dead have put out just about every concert they ever played in one format or another, mostly for free. It’s a novel idea, though, Liam, someone murdered in a rare Grateful Dead bootleg deal gone wrong. I like it.’

‘Well, what would I know? I’m just a civilian.’

‘Let’s leave the speculation behind for the time being. Have you had a chance to work on the mobile yet?’

‘We’re still processing the SIM card, but I wouldn’t expect too much more. We did get a list of the recent calls made and received, along with the scratch pad numbers. It’s just a cheap phone, not a smartphone, or anything fancy like that, so there’s no email or web browsing. He didn’t seem to do texts, and there aren’t very many calls, which makes our job a lot easier.’ He passed Banks a sheet of paper. In the week before his murder he had made only three calls and received two. Before that, there were a few more to or from different numbers scattered about but, as Stefan Nowak had said, not very many.

‘Not much to go on, is it?’ Banks said.

‘I guess you could say our Mr Miller was definitely not a party animal. It’s a pay-as-you-go mobile, and his last top-up was five months ago, for a tenner. He’s still got four pounds sixty pence left. I know people who would go through that in an hour.’

‘So he lived his life online?’

‘So it appears. What there was of it. Sorry.’

‘And the photos?’

‘Just photos. I can’t say exactly how old they are, but they’re not digital. Some of them look to be late sixties or early seventies to me, judging by the architecture and what people were wearing. As far as we can tell so far, they’re all over twenty years old, anyway. The last ones were probably taken outside some college or other in the late eighties. Maybe where he got his first teaching job. Anyway, we’re getting them scanned, and you’ll have copies as soon as we can. We’ll be checking the originals for prints, of course, like the envelope and the money, but I wouldn’t expect too much.’

‘Too bad,’ said Banks. He held up the sheet. ‘Can I keep this?’

‘It’s your copy. Take this, too. We got it from the computer. It might come in useful.’

It was a head-and-shoulders shot of Miller. From the background, it was clearly taken by the computer’s built-in camera: straggly goatee, slightly hostile, lined face, deep-set eyes, thinning, longish hair. Banks thanked Liam and headed back to his office.