‘Yes.’
‘But? I can see a “but” coming.’
‘But he enlisted Beth and Kayleigh to help him get his revenge. They thought it sounded like fun.’
‘So that’s why they...?’
‘Yes. There’s no evidence either way, of course, but there never was in the first place.’
‘But this means that Gavin was telling the truth, doesn’t it? That he didn’t do it.’ Cooper surprised Annie by putting his face in his hands and sighing deeply. ‘My God, poor Gavin. I’m so sorry. I should have done more.’
‘You really didn’t know about any of this?’
‘No. On my word. Do you think I would ever have advised him just to give that dealer a warning if I’d known how it would all turn out? I’d have said to bring in the police right away.’
‘Life is full of what ifs,’ said Annie. ‘There’s no point dwelling on them. You never bought any drugs from Kyle McClusky?’
‘I didn’t even know him. And me? Drugs? What do you take me for?’
Despite herself, Annie actually found herself inclined to believe him. ‘You didn’t know it was a set-up. Gavin didn’t know. As far as we can gather, apart from the girls themselves, and Kyle, of course, the only people who knew were Trevor Lomax and the person who told him.’
‘And this person who told Lomax was the one who overheard Beth and Kayleigh talking about what they’d done?’
‘Yes. Three weeks or so after Gavin Miller was fired.’
‘God, this is awful. But why would they be talking about it so long afterwards?’
‘I have no idea. That’s a good point.’
‘Neither Lomax nor his informant told anyone else?’
‘Lomax told his wife. That’s all. Lomax said it was too late, and that the source was untrustworthy.’
‘But he didn’t even try.’ Cooper shook his head slowly. His earring dangled. ‘That’s Lomax all over. Why shake things up when everything’s running on an even keel? The bastard. I’ll bet that wife of his helped him make up his mind. The Snider woman, too, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it. Sally Lomax only thought about her husband’s career, and Dayle Snider had history with Gav. Bad history.’
‘Point taken. Look, I’m sorry this all came as such a shock to you,’ Annie said. She handed him her card. ‘But if you do think of anything that might help us, you’ll let me know, won’t you?’
Cooper held her gaze with his and nodded. His eyes were damp. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘I certainly will.’
After making arrangements to go to Armley Jail, as HM Prison Leeds was commonly known, to talk to Kyle McClusky on Monday, Banks had picked up the disk of scanned photos from the lab towards the end of Friday afternoon and got Gerry Masterson to print them off for him. She and Winsome had just got back from talking to Kayleigh Vernon in Salford, and they had found out nothing. Unlike Beth, Kayleigh still vehemently denied making up her accusations against Gavin Miller, said she had nothing to do with drugs and had not been in touch with anyone from the old college days in years. She said she had been working at the time of Miller’s murder, and her alibi checked out, as had Beth’s. Winsome had also taken a little time to check up on Lisa Gray’s alibi, and that checked out, too, providing that her friends were telling the truth, which was always a caveat in such matters. If they found any other evidence pointing to Lisa, they’d bring in the friends and give them a more comprehensive grilling. For the moment, though, it appeared that Beth, Kayleigh and Lisa Gray could be ruled out as suspects based on their alibis.
Now he sat in his conservatory, sipping red wine, listening to Van Morrison’s St Dominic’s Preview and examining the photos for the second time. It was the weekend, and the investigation would scale down a bit over the next couple of days. Not so much for Banks, or for Gerry Masterson, but for the rest of the team. The rain had stopped, and the weather seemed to have settled down to a sort of dull uniform grey, with occasional periods of drizzle. The remains of the pizza he had picked up on his way home still sat on the glass-topped table.
After separating out the pure landscapes and cityscapes, Banks pored over the group shots, some of which clearly featured a younger Miller, without beard and with a thicker head of fair hair, still worn long, fuller in the face. He had already asked Gerry to crop and print enhanced versions showing Miller alone, then to make several copies and distribute them among the team. Though the photographs had been taken in the late eighties, by the looks of them, outside a college of some description, they might come in useful when Gerry was trying to refresh people’s memories about Essex in the early seventies. Certainly no one from back then would recognise Gavin Miller from the more recent photograph.
The earliest photographs had clearly been taken at the Isle of Wight pop festival in 1970. Some of them showed the stage below, to the left, and the vast crowd stretching as far as the lens could see. It was impossible to make out who was playing, of course, but Banks recognised that the photos had been taken from the tent city that sprang up on ‘Desolation Hill’, where he had spent part of the festival with his girlfriend of the time, Kay Summerville. The rest of the time at the Isle of Wight they had been in the thick of the crowd, closer to the stage. The Who, the Doors, Miles Davis, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix. They hadn’t slept for three nights. After the festival, they had pitched their tent on a clifftop near Ventnor for a few days and done nothing but make love, stare out to sea and go to the pub.
The early seventies had been Banks’s own brief period of freedom between school and the police, then marriage and children. He sometimes regretted that he hadn’t simply flown the coop and gone on the road for a while after his time at London Polytechnic. It wasn’t so much that he regretted what he had done with his life, but he sometimes regretted what he hadn’t done. Sometimes it seemed that one life wasn’t enough. He wanted to live parallel lives. Do it all. The brief taste of freedom he had enjoyed in the Powys Terrace flat hadn’t amounted to a great deal, but it had been a lot of fun. He’d had no interest in drugs, but he went to a lot of gigs and met plenty of girls. He remembered the excitement of the music. Some of Banks’s favourite albums were from this period: Van Morrison’s Moondance, The Who Live at Leeds, Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. Then came the new crowd, with Bowie, Roxy Music, King Crimson and T. Rex leading the way. Heady times, indeed.
It was almost 10.30 when his mobile rang. Thinking it might be Brian on the road, he answered quickly. At first he heard only a faint voice on the other end, sounding more like a whisper.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Can you speak up a bit? I can’t hear you very well.’ Perhaps the music was a bit too loud, but Banks didn’t want to go to the entertainment room and turn it down.
‘It’s me, Ronnie,’ the voice said.
‘Ronnie?’ For a moment, Banks was puzzled. He didn’t know any Ronnies. Then it dawned on him. ‘Lady Chalmers?’
‘Please. Just Ronnie. Forget about the lady.’
But that was as difficult as before; her voice was still posh, even though she sounded the slightest bit tipsy. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘In London. In a hotel. Jem’s out with his luvvie pals at the Ivy, no doubt downing cognac and telling stories about Larry and Dickie. I’m watching TV and having a little drink, myself. Drinking alone. Isn’t that terrible of me?’
Banks looked at the glass in his hand. ‘Why didn’t you go with him?’
‘Those evenings bore me. Besides, I’m not feeling very sociable tonight.’
‘You shouldn’t be calling,’ Banks said. ‘I’m not supposed to be talking to you.’