Children of the Revolution

by Peter Robinson

  ‘This is Alan Banks, Oriana,’ said Lady Chalmers. ‘Brian Banks’s father.’

  Oriana’s loam-brown eyes widened. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Oriana’s a big fan, too,’ Lady Chalmers explained as Oriana walked away. ‘But she’s probably too embarrassed to say so. I don’t know what I’d do without her,’ she whispered when Oriana had left the room. ‘She takes care of everything.’

  It must be nice to have someone who takes care of everything for you, Banks thought, especially someone as lovely as Oriana.

  ‘By the way,’ Lady Chalmers went on, ‘Jem and I are attending a function in Harrogate with your chief constable next weekend.’

  ‘Be sure to give him my regards.’ Banks picked up his cup and saucer carefully. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t invited.’

  Lady Chalmers didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Must have been an oversight.’

  ‘It’s all right, anyway,’ said Banks. ‘I have a previous engagement.’ They looked at each other and started to laugh.

  ‘I suppose I should let you get around to business and ask you why you’re here, shouldn’t I?’ said Lady Chalmers into the silence after the laughter had subsided.

  ‘It’s a minor matter, really,’ said Banks, ‘and I was hoping we could clear it up quickly and easily.’

  ‘I suppose I should get nervous when a policeman says it’s a minor matter. Like when a doctor says it. It’s usually the prelude to something cataclysmic.’

  ‘Hardly, in this case. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but a man was found dead on the disused railway line up around Coverton early Monday morning.’

  Lady Chalmers frowned. ‘I do believe I heard something about it on the news. But how can I possibly help?’

  ‘Does the name Gavin Miller mean anything to you?’

  ‘It sounds vaguely familiar. Is that the name of the person you just mentioned … the dead man?’

  ‘Yes. Naturally, we’ve been trying to find out all we can about him, and one of the things we discovered was that he telephoned this house a week ago Monday, just before two o’clock in the afternoon. Do you remember that call?’

  Lady Chalmers put her hand to her chest. ‘Here? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Someone did ring that Monday afternoon, just after lunch, asking for money. Something to do with the alumni society. Said he was from the university. His name may have been Miller. I must confess, I wasn’t paying much attention. I already give quite generously to my alma mater. I try to maintain close connections.’

  ‘Which university was that?’

  ‘Essex.’

  ‘What did he want to talk about?’

  ‘What do alumni people usually talk about? Donations, scholarships, that sort of thing. He was very chatty. I must say, it was hard to get him off the line.’

  ‘But you didn’t know him? He hadn’t called you before?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘You see, the phone call went on for nearly seven minutes. That seems rather a long time to deal with a request for alumni donations, especially when you’ve already given at the office, so to speak.’

  ‘I suppose it does, when you put it like that. But I assure you that’s all it was. Seven minutes? Are you sure?’

  ‘Was Oriana here?’

  ‘No, she has Mondays off. She visits her grandfather in a care home near Malton. I’m afraid I was quite alone. Is that a problem?’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. How did Gavin Miller get your number? It’s ex-directory, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I have no idea. I should imagine it’s easy enough if anyone really wanted it. The university might even have it on file, I suppose.’

  ‘They probably do.’ Banks made a mental note to check with Gerry. He took the photograph of the old, haggard Gavin Miller that Liam had given him and showed it to Lady Chalmers. ‘Do you recognise this man? Have you ever seen him?’

  She studied the picture. ‘Is that him? Your victim?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t recognise him at all. He’s not familiar.’ She paused. ‘He looks so … old.’

  The front door opened, and Banks heard footsteps in the hall. Not Oriana’s. Then a voice called out. ‘Mummy? Mummy? Are you home?’

  ‘In here, darling,’ Lady Chalmers called back.

  The door opened and a young woman in her early twenties stood there. She bore a striking resemblance to Lady Chalmers. Blonde, sporty and healthy – though perhaps just a little horsey around the large mouth and jaw – was the first description that came to Banks’s mind. She was also wearing a riding jacket, boots and breeches.

  When she saw Banks, she slowed down, her eyes shifting from one to the other. ‘Is something wrong, Mummy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Has something happened to Daddy?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, dear. Of course nothing is wrong.’ She turned back to Banks. ‘DCI Banks, this is my eldest daughter Angelina. She’s just back from Middleham. We keep some horses with a trainer there. I don’t know why, but Angelina likes to go out on the gallops early in the morning. She’s been living with us here ever since she finished university.’

  ‘And you can’t wait to get rid of me, can you? To marry me off.’ Angelina walked over to Banks. Her handshake was firm and dry. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you DCI Banks. Wait a minute? Aren’t you …? The Blue Lamps? My little sister listens to them all the time. She wants to be a rock star, too. But what are you doing here? I mean what are the police doing here?’

  ‘It’s nothing, really,’ Banks said, sitting down again. ‘I was just talking with your mother about a case I’m working on.’ He got the distinct impression that Lady Chalmers had expected him to leave when her daughter came home, and that she was disappointed he hadn’t taken the hint. But he thought he might as well see if Angelina knew anything. He asked her about the phone call and showed her the photograph, which she also didn’t recognise.

  ‘You say his name’s Gavin Miller? I’ve never heard of any Gavin Miller. And I wouldn’t have known about any phone call. I was at an auction in York a week ago Monday, all day, so I wouldn’t have been here, anyway.’

  ‘An auction?’ said Banks.

  ‘Yes, a horse sale.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He paused. ‘I don’t suppose either of you collects vinyl records, do you?’

  ‘Vinyl? You are joking, of course?’ said Lady Chalmers.

  ‘Just a thought. By the way,’ he asked, ‘I was admiring the MG when I came in. Whose is it?’

  ‘It’s mine,’ said Lady Chalmers. ‘I always wanted one.’

  ‘A bit damp in this weather, I should think?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  There was an awkward silence, and Banks felt it would be best not to overstay his welcome by too long. However vague the description of the car in the Coverton car park they had got, it was nothing like a red MG, and the witness was certain it was a man she saw getting into it. He got to his feet again and walked over to the door. The ladies followed suit, and Angelina opened the sitting-room door for him. ‘Well, thank you very much, Lady Chalmers, Angelina,’ Banks said, then, at the risk of inviting their wrath, he couldn’t help but ask one more question, Columbo-style, before he left. ‘What were you doing on Sunday evening, around ten o’clock?’

  ‘Why, we were here,’ said Lady Chalmers, a puzzled expression on her face.

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘Yes. Except for Jem, of course. He left for New York from Heathrow on Friday. And Sam. She’s up at St Andrews, just started her final year. Oriana made dinner for about eight o’clock. In addition to everything else, she is a wonderful gourmet cook. Then she and I attended to some business in the study, and I think after that the three of us watched a DVD.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Angelina said to Banks. ‘I remember. It was an old one. Night of the Iguana. Richard Burton.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Bank
s. ‘Excellent.’

  Lady Chalmers smiled at Banks, moved closer to her daughter and put her arm around Angelina’s shoulder. ‘We love watching old movies together.’

  Banks handed Lady Chalmers his card and asked her to call if she remembered anything useful. Oriana, who didn’t seem to have been too far away, walked him back across the chequered hall to the front door and opened it for him.

  ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t be of any more help,’ Lady Chalmers called after him from the door to the sitting room. Her voice echoed slightly in the high reception hall.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Banks said. ‘I told you it was a minor matter. Now you’ve cleared it up for us. Nothing to it.’

  But when he sat behind the wheel of his car feeling a little punch-drunk from the conversation, his mind echoing with conflicting thoughts and feelings, he began to wonder. That phone call still bothered him. There might be nothing to it, and possibly, just possibly, Gavin Miller had been calling about alumni business, but seven minutes was a long time, and he wasn’t convinced that Lady Chalmers had been telling the whole truth. Besides, from what he knew of Miller, he was hardly likely to be the kind of person collecting for the university alumni society. He didn’t even have enough money to feed himself. There had been something brittle about Lady Chalmers’ responses when Banks had questioned her, like a fragile eggshell that would crack if you prodded it too hard. But what was inside? What was the shell protecting?

  Normally, when Annie walked into a physiotherapy department, she was there for treatment, but today, when she and Winsome called by the medical centre attached to the Swainsdale Centre, she was there on other business entirely. The centre was a modern brick building, two stories high, and the physio department was on the ground floor. The foyer smelled of menthol and embrocation. When they asked for Dayle Snider, the receptionist pointed them in the direction of a corridor to the right.

  ‘She should be in her office,’ the receptionist said, glancing at the clock on the wall and checking the computer screen. ‘Her next appointment isn’t until after lunch.’

  Annie knew that. She had called ahead and timed their visit for a gap in Dayle Snider’s calendar. She saw the name on the door and knocked.

  ‘Come in.’

  Annie and Winsome walked into a small office with a window looking out on the river at the back of the centre, and across to the Green. There were the usual filing cabinets and rows of box files, a bookshelf full of medical texts, a laptop computer on the desk, and a small printer on the window ledge. The room smelled of some sort of aromatherapy mixture.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dayle, standing up to greet them. ‘I’m afraid my office wasn’t built for consultations between more than two people. Let me get another chair.’

  ‘Its all right,’ Winsome said. ‘I can stand.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ She disappeared next door for a moment and came back carrying another chair. ‘Gary’s not in today, anyway, so he won’t mind. Now, please, sit.’ Dayle Snider was rather severe, Annie thought, with her cropped and streaked dark hair and white coat, glasses on a cord around her neck, though she was attractive in an angled, chiselled sort of way, and she had the sort of body you only get from regular and strenuous exercise – taut, perhaps a little sharp on the curves, but not without a certain feline grace. She was also used to giving the orders, it seemed; though her manner was polite, there was a commanding tone underneath it all. She was also, Annie noticed, perhaps tall and strong enough to tip the emaciated Gavin Miller over the edge of the bridge. And the massages and physio she gave would increase her strength and keep her in shape. Annie hadn’t really considered Dayle as a suspect, but she realised that, at this point, everyone connected with Miller had to be viewed with suspicion.

  ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ she said to Annie.

  ‘Probably. I’ve been here for treatment a few times. Terry Feldman.’

  ‘Yes, of course. One of Terry’s. I hope everything’s satisfactory?’

  ‘Just hunky-dory.’

  They sat. Winsome took out her notebook and pen.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ asked Dayle. ‘You didn’t tell me very much on the telephone.’

  ‘Did you know a man called Gavin Miller?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Gavin? Yes. Why?’

  ‘I suppose you’ve heard the news?’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘The news of his death.’

  Dayle remained silent for a few seconds, then she blinked and whispered, ‘No. No, as a matter of fact I hadn’t heard. I’m afraid I haven’t been paying a great deal of attention to the news lately. Too busy. I’m very sorry to hear it. How did he die?’

  ‘He died as a result of a fall,’ Winsome said, leaning forward in her chair. ‘We think he might have been pushed.’

  Dayle patted her chest. ‘Good Lord. Killed? But who would want to murder Gavin?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Annie said. ‘We were hoping you could help us. We understand you knew him? Dated him?’

  ‘Well, yes … I suppose I did. For a while. But that was a long time ago.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘About four years. We didn’t go out together for very long.’

  ‘Oh? Why was that?’

  Dayle seemed affronted by the question; a frown appeared between her eyebrows and her lips tightened, but she stiffened her back and said, ‘We just weren’t compatible, that’s all. Hasn’t that ever happened to you? I’m sorry if I seem a bit distracted. This is just very hard to take in. I’m not saying that Gavin was a close friend or anything, I haven’t seen him for years, but when it’s someone you know who dies, no matter how little you knew them, well, it gets to you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I understand,’ said Annie. ‘And I’m sorry if I gave you the bad news in a brutal way. We’re not here to interrogate you or upset you at all. We just thought you might be able to tell us a bit about Gavin. He seems to have been something of an enigma.’

  Dayle let out a harsh laugh. ‘Enigma? You can say that again. I mean, that’s putting it mildly. Gavin had all the social graces and people skills of a Trappist monk. And you ask me why we didn’t go out for long.’

  ‘But he was a teacher, wasn’t he? That’s what I can’t understand. Surely he had to deal with people all the time in his job? He must have had some social skills.’

  ‘Yes, but that was his work. It’s like an actor being on stage, then being shy and retiring in real life. Gavin was like that. He came alive in front of a class.’

  ‘You attended his classes?’

  ‘He invited me to a lecture he gave at the local film society once. Something about Ozu. Anyway, he was a good public speaker. What I mean is that he was socially inept in the real world, and especially one-on-one,’ Dayle said. ‘He was fine with groups, on his favourite subjects, and more than competent at his job, but for Gavin, well, I suppose you could say Sartre’s maxim was true: “L’enfer, c’est les autres.” ’

  ‘ “Hell is other people”,’ said Annie.

  ‘Yes. A bit melodramatic, I suspect, but there you are. He didn’t know what to talk about, how to engage people, how to have a simple conversation.’

  ‘So he could have offended someone by his manner?’

  ‘He could have. Certainly. Very easily. But it wasn’t his nature to be offensive. If he was, it would have been because he didn’t realise it.’

  ‘Insensitive, perhaps?’

  ‘That’s more like it. But even that indicates a certain amount of self-awareness. Gavin was absorbed in his own world. It was a bit of a fantasy world.’

  ‘We know about his interests and his online life.’

  ‘Yes. They took up a lot of his time, and even more of his energy, even then, when he had a full-time job. Apart from being fairly well informed on literature and world affairs and politics in general, he couldn’t relate to much else that people talked about. He’d be the kind of person to interject some doom-laden q
uotation from Nietzsche or Camus at an inappropriate moment in a dinner conversation. It could be quite charmingly gauche, but more often it was not. It ended a few conversations, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I understand you met him at Trevor Lomax’s house?’ Annie said.

  ‘Yes. A dinner party. It was one of Sally’s little attempts at matchmaking. I’m a physiotherapist by training, but I also studied philosophy as a subsidiary subject at university, and I like to read. Booker nominees, that sort of thing. Sally thought we might have something in common.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I actually quite enjoyed Gavin’s company at first. He was bright, and passionate about his interests, and he could be quite witty when the spirit took him. It was OK as long as you were willing to do all the listening.’

  ‘Do you know if he had any enemies?’ Annie asked. ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm him?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Do you remember the problems he had at the college?’

  ‘Do I remember? That was one of the things that hastened the end of our relationship, such as it was. He even came around to the house one night in a terrible state wanting to talk to me all about it.’

  ‘What state? Was he drunk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you listen to him?’

  ‘I didn’t have much choice. You never did with Gavin. He’d just barge in and start talking, especially when he’d had a few. Oh, I could have sent him away, thrown him out physically, even, but I have to admit that I was intrigued.’

  ‘What did he say about it?’

  ‘That it was pure fabrication, of course. That the girls were lazy lying sluts. All sorts of things. He was venting his feelings and his frustrations. What you’d expect, I suppose, from someone who claims he’s being wrongfully persecuted.’

  ‘And was he, do you think?’

  Dayle paused and put a finger to her lips for a few moments before answering. ‘I’m not so sure,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but Gavin was sexually insecure. He could appear quite an attractive man, in his way, but he had very low self-esteem in that department, something to do with his failed marriage, I think, and he … well, he wasn’t good at seizing the moment, shall we say.’