‘Doesn’t sound as if you have an awful lot of interest in them while they’re here,’ Winsome commented.
Cooper gave her a surprised glance. ‘It’s a job,’ he said. ‘What can I say? They come and go. I remain.’
‘You were a friend of Gavin Miller’s both before and after the incident,’ Annie went on. ‘What did you make of it all?’
Cooper’s rumpled face took on a more serious expression, and he ran his hand over his hair. ‘Poor Gavin,’ he said. ‘I really am very upset about what happened to him. I still get angry when I think about it. I suppose I try to cover up my feelings with flippancy, but it’s a real loss.’
‘Not many people seem to agree.’
Annie was aware of Winsome giving her a puzzled look and realised that she might have been just a bit too harsh. Fortunately, Cooper didn’t notice, or he simply ignored it. ‘Gavin was a good mate,’ he went on. ‘I’ll admit he was a bit eccentric, and not to everyone’s taste, but I think the college could have treated him with a bit more respect.’
‘What did he say to you about what happened?’
‘You’re asking me if he confessed in private?’
‘If he did, I’d be grateful if you’d tell me, but I’d prefer the simple truth. Believe me, all we want to know is whether the sexual misconduct incident could be in any way connected with Gavin Miller’s death. We’re not after blackening his character.’
‘Just as well. You’d have to join the queue. And you’d be a bit late. The simple truth, eh? Now there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one. Surely even in your job you must be aware that the truth is rarely simple?’
‘Stop pissing us around, Mr Cooper. Did Gavin Miller maintain his innocence?’
Cooper swallowed and glared at her. ‘Always.’
‘And did you believe him?’
‘He was my friend.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘Does it really matter what happened in the Marabar Caves?’
Annie and Winsome gave one another puzzled looks. ‘What are you talking about?’ Annie said.
‘A Passage to India. David Lean or E.M. Forster, depending on your point of view. An Indian man is accused of raping an English girl in a cave. The viewer, or reader, doesn’t really know what happened. It’s the consequences that are important.’
Annie smiled at Winsome. ‘Well, don’t you just love intellectual show-offs?’ She leaned forward and stared hard at Cooper. ‘We didn’t do that one at school. We did Howards End, and I bloody well wished it would. End, that is. The consequences here were that Gavin Miller lost his job, and now he seems to have been murdered, so what went on in his office that day does happen to be important.’
‘I told you, the truth is never simple.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Annie. ‘It’s only complicated when people like you complicate it with literary allusions.’
‘Then, yes, as it happens, I did believe him.’
‘Alle-bloody-luia. Thank you. Now why would Kayleigh Vernon lie about something like that?’
‘Kayleigh? How would I know her motives? I’d guess it was probably her idea of a joke, a bit of fun. But I’d guess that Beth Gallagher probably put her up to it.’
‘You knew them both?’
‘I taught them Media Studies. It’s not the same thing as knowing them. They were both cheats and teases. Gavin’s first big mistake was letting himself be alone in his office with one of them. Kayleigh Vernon was failing. Half the time she didn’t turn up for his classes, and when she did she was too busy admiring herself in her mirror or touching up her nails to do any work. Failing the test would mean failing the course, and she’d have to repeat the whole thing the following year. She needed to pass that course in order to graduate.’
‘But why would he put his arm around her?’
‘To console her. For all his brains, he was soft, was Gavin. Not quite as cynical as me.’
‘And Beth?’
‘I’d say Beth was more of an opportunist. They often go far.’
‘Are you suggesting that Gavin Miller didn’t touch either of them?’
‘I’m saying we don’t know for certain that he did, but that it doesn’t matter. The whole thing was a joke, a farce. There was no evidence, no case.’
These were Annie’s feelings exactly, but she kept quiet. She didn’t want to show Cooper that she agreed with him on anything.
‘I told him he should go to the press with the story,’ Cooper went on, ‘but he wouldn’t. I should have known. Gav was shy of all the attention bad publicity like that would bring. He couldn’t have handled it.’
‘But weren’t the girls risking a lot by lying?’ Annie asked.
‘What were they risking? You can see what happened for yourselves. The deck was stacked in their favour. It could have been any one of us.’
‘But it was Gavin Miller.’
‘Yes. And I’m not sure he ever got over it. Gav wasn’t the sociopath some make him out to be; underneath it all, he was soft and sensitive. True, he was awkward with women. He was shy, yes, but even when they laid it on a plate for him, he wouldn’t take the bait. Hopeless.’
‘Are you sure he wasn’t gay?’
‘If he was, he never tried it on with me. No, he fancied women. There’s no doubt about that. I mean, sometimes we’d get pissed and watch a bit of porn together, and—’
Winsome held her hand up. ‘Whoa. Too much information.’
Cooper frowned at her. ‘What? Oh. It wasn’t anything illegal. Just... Anyway, Gav wasn’t gay.’
‘I take it you’re not married, then, Mr Cooper?’ Annie said.
Cooper grinned. ‘Never found the right woman.’
Annie could see why it might take a bit of searching, but she just nodded and went on. ‘What did you think of Dayle Snider?’
‘That ball-busting bitch. God knows why Lomax thought she was even a remote possibility for Gav. I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned out to be a dyke.’
‘Why don’t you tell us what you really think, Jim?’ said Annie.
He caught her tone and gave a sheepish smile. ‘It was just another humiliation for Gav, that’s all. So I have no reason to like her. I don’t know the details, but Gav probably felt so intimidated he couldn’t get it up or something, and no doubt she made her dissatisfaction known and humiliated him further. He didn’t talk about it. And she dropped him the minute his troubles started.’
‘What was she supposed to do? According to Dayle, he came over to her place drunk one night and started raving. Maybe she had good reason to think he was guilty?’
‘Why?’
‘Maybe he’d tried something similar with her?’
‘No way. Besides, he wouldn’t need to. She’d have spread her legs at the drop of a hat.’
Annie rolled her eyes. ‘What did the two of you talk about when you were together?’
‘Well, with Gav it wasn’t as easy as most blokes around here — you know, football, telly, complain about the students and the administration. He liked a drink, though, as do I, so we’d get in a bottle of Johnny Walker or a box of wine or even go out to the pub sometimes. The Star and Garter in Coverton.’
‘Who paid?’
‘Well, I usually paid the lion’s share. Gav was broke most of the time after he got the sack. They didn’t give him a nice pension, you know, and he spent all he had on the down payment for that bloody cottage. Wanted somewhere isolated, away from it all.’
‘Did he talk about the old days a lot?’
‘Sometimes. We’d listen to old sixties stuff. Dreadful, some of it. I’m more into punk, myself. He’d ramble on about escapades on the road in his American days, going to Grateful Dead concerts and what have you.’
‘Did he give you any details, like where he was at what time, names of people he knew, that sort of thing? Anything specific?’