Children of the Revolution

by Peter Robinson

  ‘Very much so.’

  ‘What about Trevor Lomax? How did Gavin feel about him?’

  ‘OK. They got on all right. He didn’t place Trevor in the enemy camp. Trevor didn’t sit on the committee. He called it a kangaroo court and tried to defend Gav. He got into trouble over that himself. Gav respected him. He’s just a bit wishy-washy, that’s all. No balls. I think it’s the wife who wears the trousers in that house, as they used to say.’

  ‘Sally Lomax?’

  ‘Right. And she’s a good friend of that Dayle Snider woman. Makes sense to me.’

  ‘Did Gavin have any other close friends?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say anyone was close to him, really, except me. He didn’t seem to have any old friends from school or university days. Still, I can’t say I have, myself. You lose touch, don’t you?’

  ‘Might Gavin have arranged to meet one of the girls on Sunday for some reason? Kayleigh or Beth?’

  ‘I can’t think why. Unless she’d promised to give him a blow job or something, which I very much doubt. Besides, they’re not around here any more.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I told you, I neither know nor care. I’m sure the college authorities will be able to tell you. Due to some fault in the stars, no doubt, they both graduated.’

  Annie realised that the sooner they tracked down the girls and talked to them, the better. She didn’t think they’d get much from Kayleigh or Beth, especially if they were liars and expert manipulators, but it had to be done. At least Annie would get the chance to decide for herself whether she thought they were lying or whether Gavin Miller really was guilty as charged. A police interview can be a bit more challenging than a committee already weighing in your favour. She could ask a few more awkward questions than an academic panel. Her back was hurting like hell from the chair she was sitting in, and she didn’t think there was much more to be gained from continuing their conversation with the obnoxious Mr Cooper, so she gave Winsome the nod and stood up to leave.

  ‘Is that all?’ Cooper said, remaining seated.

  ‘For the moment,’ Annie said.

  He grinned in what he probably thought was a charming, lopsided way. ‘But don’t leave town, right?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, you can go where the hell you like, Jimmy,’ said Annie, and walked out with a shocked Winsome following in her wake.

  ‘This is police harassment, this is,’ complained Lisa Gray when Winsome approached her as she left the converted Victorian terraced house near the college, where she rented a flat.

  Winsome opened the passenger door. ‘You saved me from having to climb the stairs. Thanks. Get in. And that’s enough of the attitude.’

  It was pouring down again, naturally, and the street, with its tall dark brick houses and dripping trees, seemed very bleak. The trees weren’t quite bare yet, and soggy leaves lined the gutters and stuck to the potholed tarmac surface of the road.

  Head hidden inside her hoodie, Lisa slid onto the front seat and hunched down. ‘I’m clean, you know. I don’t know what your drugs squad buddies told you, but you won’t find anything on me.’ The rain was hammering on the roof of the car and streaming down the windows.

  ‘Fasten your seat belt,’ Winsome said, turning on the ignition and setting off.

  Lisa did so. ‘Where we going?’

  ‘That’s up to you. We can go for a nice cup of coffee in the Swainsdale Centre, or to a cold, smelly interview room at the nick. Your choice.’

  Lisa looked at her with clear, bright eyes, the hood slipping back just a little to reveal a fringe of damp hair and a pale complexion. ‘What’s the catch?’

  ‘No catch. If you’re willing to talk to me, it’s the coffee shop, just you and me, nice and easy. If it’s going to be like pulling teeth, it’s the nick.’

  Lisa appeared to mull this over for a few moments. ‘You buying?’

  Winsome sighed. ‘I’m buying.’

  ‘Grande latte?’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Lisa, but a grande latte it is.’

  ‘And one of those big chocolate chip cookies.’

  ‘Enough,’ said Winsome. A few moments later, she pulled into the shopping centre car park and found a spot on the fourth level. From there, they could walk straight through to the floor they wanted. The coffee shop at the far end was busy inside, but there was a table free out front, where they could watch the crowds of shoppers come and go to Next, Argos, Boots and Curry’s Digital. She told Lisa to go and sit down and went inside to buy the coffees, keeping an eye on her as she waited. She didn’t expect Lisa to make a run for it, but she didn’t want to seem like a fool if that did happen. She had brought down a runner with a rugby tackle in Marks & Spencer once and never lived it down back at the station. It was almost as notorious as the so-called drop kick she had used to knock a troublesome drug dealer off a third-floor balcony on the East Side Estate.

  When she saw the cookies, she decided that she might as well have one herself. A treat for doing a miserable job on a miserable day. There were umbrellas and wet coats all over the place, but the smell of hot coffee and fresh ground beans overwhelmed it all, for which Winsome was truly thankful.

  ‘Service with a smile. And from a copper, no less,’ said Lisa, who seemed a small, shrunken figure huddled at the table. Conversations and children’s cries buzzed around them, and the hissing and sputtering of the espresso machine vied with the grinder in the background to make conversation almost impossible. Eventually, Lisa pulled her hood back and Winsome got a full view of the pretty pixieish young face with the large grey-blue eyes. Lisa’s dyed blonde hair was cropped short and streaked pink and yellow here and there, which somehow made her appear even younger than her twenty-three years. She also looked odd enough, with her various piercings on display, that one or two people glanced over at them, the big black woman and the skinny punk, and turned away quickly. Winsome wondered who frightened them the most.

  ‘I know you, don’t I?’ said Lisa. ‘You’re not DS.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ve seen one another around town from time to time. Actually I am DS. Detective sergeant that is, not drugs squad. DS Jackman.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve seen your picture in the papers, too. I know you. You’re the one who drop-kicked the Bull over the balcony of Hague House, on the East Side Estate, aren’t you?’

  Winsome sipped her coffee and smiled at the memory. ‘Yeah, well, he did ask for it. But it wasn’t a drop kick.’

  ‘Awesome,’ said Lisa. ‘He was a real mean bastard. Used to beat up the girls. But what do you want with me?’

  ‘Your name came up,’ said Winsome. She wasn’t here to persecute Lisa. Her name was on the list of people Gavin Miller had called over the past month, and the drugs squad had picked her as the most likely person to be supplying Miller with small amounts of cannabis, even though she wasn’t a dealer herself. She knew people, they said, she could get her hands on small amounts, act as the middleman, put people in contact with those who had what they needed. A facilitator. The drugs squad kept an eye on her in case she led them to any of the bigger players, but they had no particular interest in her themselves. What also caused them to pick Lisa was that she had a connection with Eastvale College and had taken courses with Gavin Miller four years ago, during the academic year of his humiliation and dismissal. ‘I need information,’ said Winsome. ‘I want to talk to you about Gavin Miller.’

  Lisa sipped some latte. It left a line of froth on her upper lip that almost covered the ring that was stuck through it. She wiped the foam off with the back of her hand. Winsome noticed a tattoo of an angel on her pale, thin wrist. ‘Poor bastard,’ said Lisa. ‘I heard what happened to him.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Of course I did. You already know that, or you wouldn’t have brought me here, would you?’

  ‘That’s the way I like things to be,’ said Winsome. ‘I ask questions and you answer them. That way we don’t need to go down the nick.’
r />   ‘No skin off my nose. I told you, I’m clean. And anything incriminating you claim I told you, I’ll deny it.’

  ‘Nobody’s interested in arresting you, Lisa. Not even the drugs squad. We know what you do. You’re not a big enough fish.’

  ‘Yeah, right … well, just so’s you know. How did you find me?’

  ‘You talked to Gavin Miller on the phone recently, and the drugs squad have heard of you.’ She paused. ‘Let’s get this straight before we begin, Lisa. They say you’re not exactly a dealer. You say you’re not a dealer. I’m not interested in what your business is. I’m only interested in Gavin Miller. Not only did you supply drugs to him, which, by the way, makes you technically a dealer, but he was your teacher at Eastvale College four years ago, and if you find it hard to be frank about all this, then we’ll go to the nick right now.’

  Lisa held her hand up. ‘OK. OK. I get it. Fine. I’ve got nothing to hide. But if you know all that already, what do you need me for?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What do you mean, “what happened”?’

  ‘You were in college, doing well, as I heard it. What happened?’

  ‘Oh, you mean why am I wearing a hoodie and mixed up with drugs, not to mention covered in tattoos and piercings?’

  Winsome couldn’t help but smile. She might be a moralist and a bit of a prude at heart, but she admired true spirit and individualism. Lisa could be a challenge. She bit into her chocolate chip cookie. It was good. An elderly lady passed them on her way to the toilet and cast a look of unmistakable hatred at them both. Neither could fail to notice.

  Lisa turned to Winsome. ‘Tarred with the same brush, huh? Sorry, I didn’t mean anything racist by that.’

  ‘I know what you meant. I’ve been getting that sort of treatment all my life.’ She looked Lisa up and down. ‘It seems as if you’ve had to work a bit harder for it.’

  Lisa seemed surprised for a moment, not sure whether to be insulted or not, then she burst out laughing and reddened. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, you got that right. I suppose you could say that.’ When she laughed and blushed she looked like an innocent teenager, but the hard expression quickly returned.

  ‘So what happened?’ Winsome asked again.

  ‘Nothing happened. Not in the way you mean it. I didn’t suddenly get abused by my uncle or raped by a gang of retards or anything. Things changed in my life, that’s all. For the worse. And that fucking place was full of phonies. I suddenly saw through them, is all.’

  ‘A revelation?’

  ‘Yeah. Like Saul on the road to Damascus. A blinding light.’

  ‘Did you graduate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You chose to get involved with the fast crowd instead? Was that another sudden conversion?’

  ‘Something like that. Anyway, what’s it to you? I don’t deal drugs, but if I did, I’d argue they’re a commodity like anything else. I’d argue that I was supplying a need that would only be supplied elsewhere if I didn’t do it. It’s one of the basic functions of capitalism, an open market, a choice of products and suppliers. I’d also argue that what I’m selling, or facilitating, is pretty harmless, probably less so than alcohol and cigarettes.’

  ‘But it’s still illegal.’

  ‘So was booze in America during Prohibition, and Coca-Cola used to have cocaine in it, and you could buy laudanum at the local chemist’s. I could go on. Anyway, who are you? Eliot Ness or something? Are you on some sort of moral crusade?’

  Winsome shook her head. ‘No, I’m not on any sort of crusade. Just curious what sends someone with so much potential as you obviously have down a wrong turn, that’s all. What can you tell me about Gavin Miller?’

  ‘He was one of the good ones.’

  ‘You liked him?’

  ‘As a teacher. Yes.’

  ‘Did you ever meet with him one-on-one?’

  ‘Sure. We had to discuss essays and stuff. He liked my work. He said my grammar and spelling weren’t too good, but I thought for myself and didn’t just regurgitate what I’d read in books or what he said in class. We talked about life and stuff sometimes.’

  ‘In his office?’

  ‘Mostly. A couple of times we went for a drink or a coffee. That’s all.’

  ‘Trevor Lomax said Gavin Miller wasn’t a particularly good teacher because he insulted the students.’

  ‘He could be sarcastic sometimes, but most of them deserved to be insulted. And he loved his subjects, literature and film studies, which were my passion, too, and if he found the slightest grain of interest in anyone, he’d cultivate it. The problem was that he rarely did. Find a grain of interest.’

  ‘Is that what he did with you? Cultivate your grain of interest?’

  Lisa turned away. ‘I suppose so. Tried. I could have been a better student.’

  ‘Didn’t you find him odd?’

  ‘A total fucking weirdo, but so what? So was I. We were both outsiders. And he was cool without trying. It was natural. We could talk about anything. He didn’t judge me. He respected my intelligence, for what it was.’

  Lisa was the first person who had ever said that about Gavin Miller, at least to Winsome, and most likely to anyone else involved in the investigation of his death, or so she believed. ‘Did you sell him drugs?’ Winsome asked, sensing a mood of candour and pushing the envelope a bit. ‘And you can put all this “hypothetical” business aside. It doesn’t fool anyone, except yourself, maybe. As I said, I’m not interested.’ She held her arms out. ‘No wires.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to look.’ Lisa paused a moment to enjoy some coffee and cookie, then she said, ‘Sell Mr Miller drugs? You must be fucking joking. If you must know, I scored for him. Yes. I know people. He didn’t. Sell? Most of the time I had to pay for them myself.’

  ‘You bought him drugs?’

  ‘Just cannabis, right.’ Lisa leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘Mr Miller never had much money. I do OK – and not from dealing drugs, if that’s what you were thinking. So what if he enjoyed a little weed now and then? The man was a throwback to the sixties, politically and artistically. Spreading the wealth around.’

  ‘So you gave him drugs because you shared his Marxist philosophy?’

  ‘I’m no more a Marxist than I’m a drug dealer. Not in the way you see it. Sure, I put people in touch with one another sometimes or, as in Mr Miller’s case, yes, I got him what he wanted. But I didn’t profit from it. Like I said, it cost me more often than not. Drugs aren’t how I make my living.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘Well, I’m sort of unemployed at the moment, but I’ve published a few short stories and poems, and I’m working on a graphic novel and a movie script at the moment.’

  ‘What are they about?’

  ‘They’re dark fantasy. Sort of an alternate-world thing.’

  ‘Like Harry Potter?’

  ‘Darker, but just as successful, I hope. I also do a bit of busking. And I make jewellery. Sell it down the market.’

  ‘Do you have a studio?’

  ‘Hah! You must be joking. But I have a friend who does.’

  ‘Well, good luck with all that. Let’s get back to Gavin Miller and the drugs.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t much. Can’t you just leave it alone?’

  ‘Were you supplying him with drugs when you were his student?’

  ‘No way! I never even knew he was interested until a few months ago. Besides, I didn’t have access to any of that stuff at college.’

  ‘When did you last talk to him?’

  ‘About three weeks ago?’

  ‘Was there anything different about him?’

  ‘Different? No.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘We didn’t talk. I was in a hurry so we just … you know … did the deal.’

  ‘Did he pay that time?’

  ‘No. He said he’d catch up with me later. I was used to it by then.’

&n
bsp; ‘Where did you get the drugs you sold, or gave, him?’

  ‘You don’t think I’m going to tell you that, do you? I know people, that’s all. I grew up on the East Side Estate. You never really leave it.’

  ‘I take it you didn’t have anything to do with Gavin Miller’s murder?’

  ‘What do you expect me to say to that? No, I didn’t. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Where were you on Sunday night?’

  ‘At home in the flat. I had some mates around. We were watching telly.’

  ‘Downton Abbey?’

  ‘You must be fucking joking. We had a DVD. This is England ’88.’

  ‘Would they vouch for you?’

  ‘Course they would. Would you believe them?’

  ‘Do you own a car?’

  ‘What? Yeah. A Peugeot. It’s about ready for the knacker’s yard, but it gets me around.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Coverton?’

  ‘Why would I go there?’

  ‘It’s where he lived.’

  ‘He never told me where he lived. Why would he? We always met in town.’

  ‘Was Gavin Miller a dealer? Was he in the business, on the moneymaking side, or trying to get in?’

  ‘Mr Miller? No way. Mr Miller a dealer? He wouldn’t have had the bottle for it, for a start. And he wouldn’t have had to come to me, would he? Besides, there was no way he could have financed it himself.’

  ‘No matter how you dress it up,’ Winsome said, ‘what you do is illegal. You know that. And you might think that smoking cannabis is a harmless enough pastime that should be legalised, but LSD is a Class A drug. There’s a reason for that. It can do really bad things to a person’s mind. Gavin Miller had two hits of LSD in his possession at the time of his death. I suppose he got that from you, too? We can check. You can go to jail for that. How long do you think you could survive there?’

  ‘Well, thanks for your concern and all, but to tell you the truth, I don’t really think about it. I live one day at a time. And Mr Miller only ever wanted a couple of tabs of acid, once. He said he wanted to try it again. Relive the experience. I knew someone who had a source, that’s all. Reliable quality.’