"What do you want me to say? I'm black and I'm proud?"

"Why not? It's my mantra. I say it all the time. I'm a short, fat, ugly white bloke so I tell myself, 'I'm black and I'm proud' and I go out and strut my stuff. It doesn't mean anyone sees anything except a short, fat, ugly white bloke, but it gives me a hell of a buzz. I'd swap with you any day."

"No, you wouldn't. It's hell being black."

"Would you swap with me?"

"Yes."

Andrew laughed. "Like hell you would! It's no fun being five foot five. I can't even reach the pedals on this blasted car without jamming the seat against the steering wheel. You need a big personality to be a midget."

"At least you've got a car."

Andrew refused to rise and a silence fell. He wanted more explanation than Jonathan had given but he was wary of provoking further self-indulgent misery. Whether Jon was genuinely depressive, or simply depressed by a combination of circumstances, he was in no mood to view his situation objectively. And that was a pity because his best opportunity to learn how to do it was now. Objectivity was a talent Andrew had in spades, and not for the first time he wondered what Jonathan would say if he knew the truth about his agent.

Jonathan watched Andrew follow two signs to Highdown before he spoke. "Where are we going?"

"You dropped your wallet and passport at the Crown and Feathers. We're stopping off for them on the way."

"Who says?"

"The sergeant phoned the landlord. He found them after you left."

Jonathan leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "He can't have done," he murmured. "I took everything out of my breast pocket and put it in my briefcase when I removed my jacket. George Gardener watched me do it. I put the passport in the wallet and the wallet in the napped pocket."

"Then it fell out," said Andrew reasonably.

"No. I checked when I put the correspondence back in the case. It's habit. The last wallet I had was stolen at a party when I left my jacket lying around. Now I always remove it and put it somewhere safe. And I never go anywhere without my passport."

"OK."

The corner's of Jonathan's mouth lifted in a faint smile. "Don't you believe me?"

"I'm too tired to care," Andrew said bluntly, drawing up behind a black BMW. "It doesn't make any difference anyway. The sergeant told me to pick the damn stuff up from the Crown and Feathers, and that's what I'm going to do ... the emphasis being on I, Jon. You can wait in the car while I go inside."
 

There were a few more customers in the bar than when Jonathan had been there but Andrew's impressions were no more favorable than his friend's. He approached a young woman behind the bar. "Is Roy Trent around?" he asked.

"He's at the back. Can I help?"

"A friend of mine left his wallet here at lunchtime. I believe Roy's expecting someone to call for it."

"Oh, yes." She looked doubtful. "He told me it'd be a policeman."

"The man he spoke to was Sergeant Lovatt. He said he would send a car ... but he didn't specify who would be in it. I was volunteered." He took out a card. "My name's Andrew Spicer and I'm a literary agent. The wallet belongs to one of my authors, Jonathan Hughes. Would you mind asking Roy to bring it out?"

"I guess it's OK." She raised the hatch in the counter. "If you go through that door over there, it takes you past the saloon and into the kitchen. It's a white door. He's in there."

Andrew questioned the business's viability as he negotiated the walkway behind the counter of the darkened, empty saloon. Overheads alone must have been crippling, and to keep a room that size unoccupied was financial suicide. Nor did it make any sense. All the manager had to do was recruit a decent chef and build a reputation for good eating. He crossed the hall where Jonathan had stood listening to George's outburst, tapped on the white door opposite and pushed it open.

A man was sitting at the table watching a couple of television monitors in the corner. He switched one off as Andrew came in, then rose aggressively to his feet. "You're in the wrong room, mate. This is private."

"The barmaid told me to come through. Are you Roy Trent?"

"Yes."

Andrew proffered his card. "My name's Andrew Spicer. I'm Jonathan Hughes's agent. Sergeant Lovatt asked me to pick up his wallet and passport from you."

Trent glanced at the card, then used his bulk to shepherd Andrew out of the room. "She's a complete dipstick, that girl," he said with irritation. "I left them behind the till in the bar and told her to hand them over when the car arrived. If you retrace your steps and tell her I said you could have them, you'll be fine." He looked up the stairs as footsteps sounded on the landing.

Andrew followed his gaze. "It wasn't her fault. She was expecting a policeman."

A woman appeared on the landing and started down the steps, only to pause when she saw Roy had company. The light was dim but Andrew had a glimpse of a pale face beneath a dark fringe before the landlord thrust against him and forced him to step backward. "I'll come with you," he said affably. "Knowing Tracey, she probably won't be able to find them. You know the saying the lights are on but there's no one at home�it was written for her. She's pretty enough�decorates the bar nicely� but that's about all."

Andrew, annoyed by the shoving, recognized that Trent was talking for the sake of talking and decided to dig his heels in. "Is that the woman who helped Jonathan at the station?" he asked, coming to an abrupt halt and turning round. "If so, I'd like to thank her."

Trent shook his head. "No."

"No what? No, it wasn't her ... or no, I can't thank her?"

"It wasn't her."

Andrew showed surprise. "How do you know without asking? She matches the description Jon gave, and the woman said she knew you."

Trent's smile didn't reach his eyes. "A lot of people know me, mate, but that's not the lady that helped your friend. This one's just arrived." He gestured impatiently to Andrew to proceed. "Now ... do you want this wallet or not?"

Andrew led the way back into the lounge bar and watched Trent retrieve a slim black leather holder from behind the till with a passport tucked between its folds. "Check it by all means," he said, "but, like I told the copper who phoned, there's very little in it. If anything's missing, it went missing before Dr. Hughes got here."

Andrew opened it and flicked through the contents. "Nothing's missing," he agreed. "The only thing unaccounted for is how it came to drop out of his briefcase. It's the old-fashioned upright sort and it doesn't fall over very easily. Even if it did, it wouldn't lose its contents."

There was a lull in the conversation on the other side of the bar as curiosity drew the customers to listen. Suddenly, Trent had time on his hands. "Listen, mate, I'm just the guy who found it," he said good-humoredly. "If it wasn't in his briefcase, then it was in his jacket pocket. I don't see it matters one way or the other�long as he gets it back. You just tell him I'm glad it worked out for the best."

Andrew smiled. "Ms. Gardener watched him transfer it from his jacket to the case ... and Dr. Hughes checked that it was still there before he left the pub."

Trent shrugged. "Then he made a mistake. What's the big deal, anyway? You said yourself there's nothing missing." He caught the eye of one of his customers and pulled a comical face. "What's the world coming to, eh, Tom? You keep a guy's wallet safe, and the next thing you know you're being hauled over the coals for it. Me, I was expecting thanks ... but I might as well have been pissing in the wind. Forget gratitude�" he shifted his attention back to Andrew�"it's all about compensation these days."

Andrew chuckled as he tucked the wallet into his own breast pocket. "At least be honest�er�mate. The police have already told you there's no question of compensation." His eyes snapped in challenge. "I'm sure you know as well as anyone that truth is in the detail ... and I'm one of those boring people who finds detail interesting." He extended an open palm. "Thank you. Jon will be very grateful to have everything back intact." He gripped Trent's hand, very much as Jonathan had done earlier, crunching the metacarpals in a surprisingly strong grasp for a small man. "It's been interesting seeing the way you do business."
 

*9*

Andrew folded himself into the car and leaned across Jonathan to retrieve his mobile from the dashboard pocket. He punched in the numbers for directory inquiries. "Yes, please, Bournemouth. The Birches, Hathaway Avenue ... it's a nursing home." The sergeant wasn't the only one with a retentive memory, he thought, as he clicked onto the nursing home number. "Yes, hello, I'm sorry to bother you at such a late hour but I was wondering if I could have a quick word with George Gardener ... no, it's not personal ... it's a follow-up on the call she had earlier from Sergeant Lovatt." He absorbed the irritation from the other end. "I do apologize. You have my guarantee I'll only keep her for a minute or two. Yes, I'll wait ... thank you."

He plugged the mobile into the car microphone, then took out Jonathan's wallet and handed it to him. "Trent's a bastard," he said cheerfully, "and I think I've just seen your dark-haired thief."

Jonathan looked at him in surprise. "You don't know what she looks like."

"No," Andrew agreed, "but she had a dark fringe and Trent didn't want me anywhere near her. He frogmarched me away."

A breathy voice came through the car speakers. "Hello. This is George Gardener."

"Andrew Spicer, Ms. Gardener. Jonathan's agent. You contacted him through my office, if you remember."

"They said it was the sergeant again."

"It's the same matter. I was with Sergeant Lovatt when you spoke to him earlier. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to confirm one small detail for me. Jon tells me you watched him take off his jacket and put his wallet and passport in his briefcase. Is that right?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation. "He was very meticulous about it."

"Did he take it out again at any point?"

"No ... well, not when I was in the room with him at least. He may have done so after I left." There was a beat of silence. "I don't understand what's going on. Why all these questions? What's happened to Dr. Hughes?"

Andrew stared through the windshield. What the hell...? There'd almost certainly be a piece about it in the local newspaper tomorrow. "He became distressed after his wallet was stolen," he said curtly, "and, unfortunately�the way things are at the moment�a dark-skinned Arab who shows visible agitation is viewed as a threat. He's been under arrest for six hours and was only released after I drove down from London to vouch for him."

She sounded baffled. "I thought Roy found the wallet at the pub."

"Let's just say it was in his possession, Ms. Gardener. I picked it up from there ten minutes ago. Whether Dr. Hughes dropped it is another matter altogether."

"I still don't understand."

"No," agreed Andrew, "neither do we, so I suggest you ask Mr. Trent for an explanation. It's not as though the wallet was even worth stealing."

"Was anything missing?"

"No."

"Is Dr. Hughes saying Roy stole it?"

"No," said Andrew again. "He believes it was a dark-haired woman on Branksome Station who helped him when he wasn't feeling well."

She took time to assimilate this information. "Well, I'm sorry he was ill, but I still don't understand what it has to do with Roy."

"The woman claimed to be a friend of Mr. Trent's ... and she clearly must be, Ms. Gardener, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to return the wallet to me."

"She said she was a friend of his ex-wife's," corrected Jonathan in an undertone.

"Did you hear that, Ms. Gardener?"

"Was that Dr. Hughes speaking?"

"Yes."

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I can't help feeling partly to blame. None of this would have happened if I hadn't been late."

Jonathan shook his head but didn't say anything.

"He said the woman claimed to be a friend of Mr. Trent's ex-wife," Andrew prompted her. "She has a dark fringe and speaks with a Dorset accent. Does that ring any bells?"

"I'm afraid not. I've never met his wife, and certainly none of her friends. Perhaps she was lying?"

"Then how did Mr. Trent get the wallet back?"

Another silence while she considered the conundrum. "Perhaps Dr. Hughes is mistaken," she said unhappily. "Perhaps he took it out again after I left. We were both rather rattled." She waited for Andrew to respond, and when he didn't: "It all seems very strange," she finished lamely.

"I agree. If Mr. Trent provides you with an explanation, I'll be interested to hear it."

She didn't answer immediately. "If nothing's missing, he'll say it's a storm in a teacup."

"Of course he will," Andrew acknowledged. "He's obviously more used to lying than telling the truth."

She tut-tutted indignantly. "That's a terrible accusation to make against a man you don't know."

"Surely not," said Andrew ironically. "As the saying goes: what can you expect from a pig but a grunt?"
 

Cill lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into Roy's face. He'd backed her into a corner of the kitchen and his thrashing finger had been lambasting her for what seemed like hours. It reminded her of their tempestuous marriage before she left him for Nick. "Give it a rest," she said sulkily. "There's no harm done. I got the sodding thing back to you quick enough, didn't I? How was I to know he'd go running to the cops instead of making a phone call?"

"He's a wog, you stupid bitch. They always go to the police. Why the fuck did you do it?"

"Because it seemed like a good idea at the time." She whooshed out another cloud of smoke to force him into retreat. "I wanted his address, and the letters only had his agent's address."

"Why?"

"In case you've been lying to me."

His eyes narrowed. "About what?"

"How much you've told the fat spinster. You're too damn friendly with her. I thought maybe she's been pricking your conscience. Nick thinks you've gone soft, Roy�there was a time when the only thing a bleeding heart liberal was worth was a damn good kicking."

He gave a snort of angry laughter. "Nick thinks!" He turned to the CCTV monitor. "You're married to a gorilla, Cill. All he thinks about is sex and food. You made a bad bargain there, darlin'."

She ignored him. "All right, I think you've gone soft. What difference does it make? Nick always agrees with me if I give him what he wants."

"Jesus, you're so thick! What were you planning to do if you did get his address? Kill him? Thanks to me, he was away and done with. George didn't want anything more to do with him." He jabbed the finger in her face again. "He's a faggot�no fucking guts; I knew the minute I clapped eyes on him he'd be a pushover. I riled him, so he riled George ... happens every time. Then you have to stick your nose in and land me with his sodding agent."

She smacked his finger away. "What's he going to do?" she demanded crossly. "The wogs got his wallet back intact. If you stick to your story, there won't be a problem."

"I know blokes like Spicer. Once they get the bit between their teeth, they never stop. He knows damn well Hughes didn't drop his wallet here."

"He's a midget," she said dismissively. "Since when were you frightened of midgets?"

"Since I was taught some sense. It's a pity you never learned any, darlin'. Small guys use their brains ... big guys like your brain-dead husband put all their energy into getting atop the nearest available tart."

"What's he gonna do?" she repeated sulkily.

"Talk to George," Roy said grimly. "I'll put money on it."

"So?"

"She'll be at me with the questions again." He brought his fist up and rested it under her chin. "If you'd let it alone, Cill, she'd've gone on with her research and got precisely nowhere because I was the only source she had." He moved his knuckles up her soft skin, caressing it gently, before pressing them against her cheekbone. "Now she'll come looking for you, and if you drop me in it one more time�" he spread his lips in an evil smile�"I'll use this in such a way that even the gorilla you married won't recognize you."

Cill ignored him again. Roy's threats were never more than bluster. "Nick's getting worse, you know. He's been dropping things, but he won't go near the doctors. I think the paralysis is spreading."

Roy lowered his fist and turned away. "Well, you won't be shedding any tears over it. He's worth more to you dead than alive."

"Maybe I have feelings for him."

"Don't talk crap," said Roy dismissively. "The only feelings you have are for his money. You're getting quite a taste for the high life one way and another."

"Someone had to look after him."

He gave an angry laugh. "You're so full of it, darlin'. You thought you'd get a pussycat ... instead you get a drooling lunatic whose anger control mechanism's shot to pieces."

Her pale eyes glittered malevolently. "He adores me," she said, "always has. I make him feel better about himself."

"Only because he doesn't know who you are."

It was true, but she was damned if she'd admit it. Half of Nick's brain had been scrambled seven years ago in London when two Metropolitan coppers ran him head first into a lamppost before taking their boots to him. They claimed they mistook him for a drug baron who was known to carry a gun. The fact that a gun was never found, the only drugs he had on him were class-C tranquilizers and he was held in a cell for three hours before he was given medical attention meant compensation of two hundred thousand for brain damage, wrongful arrest and imprisonment. It had taken his solicitors five years to win it through the courts, but Cill had thought dumping Roy to play Florence Nightingale to a cripple was a gamble worth taking.

"You won't be shedding tears neither, darlin'," she said, running a soft hand up between Roy's shoulder blades. "I always said I'd share it, and I will." She dug her fingernails into the nape of his neck. "In any case, it was you told me to do it."

He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets. "I'll swing for you one of these days, Cill."

She touched her lips to his cheek. "Don't be silly, darlin'. I'm the only girl you've ever loved."
 

It wasn't until Andrew turned onto the A31 and put his foot down that Jonathan roused himself to speak. "Thanks."

"Pleasure. We'll stop at the first service station and get something to eat. There's one on the M27."

"I'm OK. Don't worry about me."

"I'm not. I'm worrying about myself. I haven't eaten since breakfast." He glanced at Jonathan's tired face. "You'll be eating, too, pal, whether you like it or not. You can't go on starving yourself ... not if you want to remain sane."

"I'm not starving myself."

"Then why are your clothes hanging off you?" He flicked the indicator and pulled out into the fast lane of the dual carriageway. "You can stay with me tonight, then tomorrow I'm taking you to my doctor."

"I can't. I have a tutorial at eleven."

"I'll phone your department and say you won't be in till Monday."

"I really�"

"Cut the crap," Andrew said sharply. "I've hauled my arse halfway across the country to bail you out. The least you can do is humor me. If nothing else, the doc will give you some knockout pills to help you sleep."

Jonathan hunched his shoulders. "They don't work. I've tried ... nothing works when your brain won't switch off."

"Is it Emma?"

His friend gave a mirthless laugh. "No."

"Then what's the problem?"

It was a moment before Jonathan answered. "The usual," he said with sudden resignation, as if recognizing that Andrew needed something for his trouble. "Rueing the day I was born into this bloody awful country ... wishing I was white and rich. It's an apartheid thing. Either you belong or you don't."

He spoke with such bitterness that Andrew didn't doubt he believed what he was saying. Perhaps it was true. "Who said you don't belong?"

Another humorless laugh. "You mean apart from immigration officials, policemen, Dorset landlords and anyone else who fancies a swipe?"

"Apart from them," Andrew agreed calmly.

"Everyone's prejudiced�it's been worse since the attack on the Trade Center."

"That was eighteen months ago, and you've only been twitched since Emma left."

Anger sparked briefly in Jonathan's eyes. "Drop it, OK. If it makes you feel comfortable, then go ahead, blame my problems on a failed relationship�it's how you excuse yours."

"I don't recall ever discussing my problems with you, Jon. We usually pore over yours for hours on end."

"Yes, well, stop blaming Emma. The truth is what happened today. Strangers don't see me, they see someone who isn't a member of their cozy club. You try dealing with that day after day and then tell me you sleep soundly at night."

"We're all in the same boat. When strangers look at me, they see a bald short-arse with zero status. It's just as painful ... particularly when women do it. I watch their eyes skate over my head while they look around for a big, handsome fellow with a full head of hair�" he gave an amused chuckle�"and I wouldn't mind if I didn't have a preference for tall women. That's life. You have to recognize it's going to happen and be willing to make a few compromises."

"Like what?"

"Don't wear your heart on your sleeve. People react badly if you show you care. They either take advantage or leg it as fast as they can." He slowed as they approached a roundabout. "Calling the police fascists wasn't the best idea you've ever had."

Jonathan stared grimly through the windshield. "Do you know how many times I've been stopped and searched in the last six months? Four, including last night. How many times has it happened to you?"

"In the last six months? Not at all. In my life? Once, when a fight broke out as I left a pub."

"Point made then. As a kid, I was stopped every other week."

"Only because you were expecting to be. If you flag a prophecy, it'll fulfill itself immediately. I'm not saying it's fair, but suspicion breeds suspicion."

"And which came first?" Jonathan growled. "Police suspicion of me or mine of them? Try applying your simplistic rules to that little conundrum. I was hoping for some sympathy, not another damn lecture on the dangers of alienation. I'd tolerate it if I thought you'd ever experienced it, but you haven't. A broken marriage hardly counts, not when your wife still invites you to dinner and your girls stay weekends."

"You'll be telling me next how lucky I am," said Andrew mildly. "All the joys of family life without the irritation of living with any of them. Despite their age, the parents are fit and independent�courtesy of a share in a thriving little agency�the wife and kids are safely parked with a man who appreciates them�courtesy of a generous divorce settlement�and I can dedicate myself to what I really enjoy doing: working to support them all."

"Considering the divorce was your fault, you're damn lucky Jenny didn't break off all contact."

"Mm ... except she was having an affair too. It's easier to maintain relationships when both parties feel guilty."

Jonathan looked at him. This was something he hadn't known. "I thought it was only you."

"I know you did."

"You should have told me."

"Why?"

"I always thought what an idiot you were to chuck Jenny over for a woman who only lasted a few months. I can't even remember her name now. Claire? Carol?"

"Claire," said Andrew, "a blonde, blue-eyed bombshell, just like Jenny. They say men are always attracted to the same type of woman, but it doesn't seem to work the other way. Greg�Jenny's lover�is ten feet tall and looks like Brad Pitt. I can see exactly why she was attracted to him. The girls, too. They adore him as much as she does."

Something in his tone caused Jonathan to frown. "If Jenny was equally to blame, how come she did so well out of the divorce?"

Andrew glanced at him. "I made it easy for her."

"Then you're a fool. She got the house, the bloke and the kids�" he made a dismissive gesture�"and you got a miserable two-up, two-down in Peckham. What kind of trade was that, for Christ's sake? No wonder Claire buggered off."

Andrew gave a small laugh. "I'll take that as a compliment. Obviously, I mistook my profession."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm a better actor than Greg."

There was a short silence.

"I don't understand."

"Claire never existed. The only blonde, blue-eyed bombshells I've ever had relationships with are Jenny and the girls. You don't have a monopoly on pride, Jon. What did you expect me to do? Get down on my knees and beg? I was happy as a sandboy�beautiful wife, beautiful children, house, secure job, good social life�then, wham, the wife hits me between the eyes with the muscled actor from next door who's been shafting her for months. The irony was, I really liked him ... still do, as a matter of fact."

"You're mad," said Jonathan in disbelief. "Why would you lie about a thing like that? It's cost you a fortune in guilt money."

"It depends what you value. As long as the business isn't threatened, I'd rather be thought of as a bit of a dog than an embarrassing burden on my wife's conscience. Do you think Jenny would be on the phone all the time, or Greg would invite me to dinner, if they thought I was a sad, lonely git who still hankered after his ex-wife? Would the girls be happy to stay overnight if I'd slagged off their mother for two-timing me?" He spoke matter-of-factly without any attempt at sympathy. "More importantly, the parents see their grandchildren whenever they want. They castigate me regularly for causing the breakup but go on treating Jenny as their daughter-in-law. All in all, I'd say it was cheap at the price."

Jonathan's incredulity deepened. What did a man have to gain by turning himself into a whipping boy for an errant wife and critical parents? "They were flogged for the failings of others ... it's a very twisted, concept..." "Why let Jenny off scot-free? She bad-mouthed you enough at the time. I remember her telling me what a shit you were."

"I hope you agreed with her. I was never too sure she totally believed in Claire."

"I did as a matter of fact. I said you'd married too young, and the marriage was bound to fail." He thought back. "She wasn't very happy about it."

"Her pride was dented. She thought she was the only woman in my life."

"What about your pride?"

"Shot to pieces till I invented Claire. She was a great restorative."

"I'd have wanted revenge."

Andrew shrugged. "I couldn't see the point of going to war over something I couldn't control. You can't force people to love you ... you can't force them to be loyal. All you can do is keep affection alive and hope for the best."

He was living in cloud cuckoo land, thought Jonathan. "Are you expecting Jenny to come back?"

"No."

"Then I don't get it. What's the quid pro quo for acting honorably if no one knows you're doing it?"

"I don't have to walk around with a neon sign on my forehead, saying 'loser.' "

Jonathan felt the familiar anger knot inside his jaw. "Meaning that I do, I suppose?"

" 'Fraid so. You're a sitting duck for the Roy Trents of this world."
 

COUNCILLOR G. GARDENER
25 Mullin Street, Highdown, Bournemouth, Dorset BH15 6VX

 

Andrew Spicer
Spicer & Hardy Authors' Agents
25 Blundell Street
London W4 9TP

April 2, 2003

Dear Mr. Spicer:

I hesitate to write to Dr. Hughes as he may not wish to correspond with me, but I would be grateful if you could pass on my apologies to him and my best wishes for his recovery. I have had a long conversation with Sergeant Lovatt and, though he refused to go into details, he did say that Dr. Hughes had been unwell.

The circumstances of our meeting were unfortunate, and I take much of the blame. I have some experience of illness, and I should have realized that Dr. Hughes's reticence was physiologically based. He was clearly exhausted, but I made no allowances for poor health, jet lag or even the severity of the weather that day. My only excuse is blind dedication to exculpating Howard Stamp, and a long history of disappointment in the attempts I've made to do so. I am now so programmed for failure that I see it before I need to.

Re: our short phone call on the evening of February 13: Roy Trent stands by his story that Dr. Hughes left his wallet at the pub. However, after Sergeant Lovatt gave me the details of Dr. Hughes's arrest, I made inquiries at Branksome Station. The clerk in the ticket office remembers Dr. Hughes well because some passengers expressed concern about his behavior. The gist of the clerk's story is as follows:

He thought Dr. Hughes was drunk as he was swaying and trying to focus on the other platform to keep his balance. His face was wet�the clerk thought it was rain until he realized Dr. Hughes was sweating�and he was clutching his briefcase to his chest. Several trains went through but he didn't take them. At least two people thought he was a suicide bomber trying to pluck up the courage to go through with it. The clerk was worried enough to consider phoning the police. However, a woman approached Dr. Hughes for what appeared to be a prearranged meeting. They smiled and talked and Dr. Hughes gave her his briefcase from which she removed some papers. The clerk remembered seeing the woman earlier in the ticket hall, and assumed Dr. Hughes had misunderstood where the meeting was to take place. He admitted he wouldn't have been worried if Dr. Hughes hadn't been an Arab�he would have dismissed him as a drunk. He was relieved when the woman helped him onto a train and took the problem out of his hands. She had dark hair and held a scarf to her mouth, but he couldn't remember anything else about her except that she left in a black BMW that had been parked for forty-five minutes in the "drop-off only" zone.

Because this seemed to validate Dr. Hughes's version of events, I made some discreet inquiries about Roy Trent's ex-wife. Her name is Priscilla Fletcher, formerly known as Cill Trent. I was unable to discover her maiden name, but she has been described to me as midforties, medium height, slim, dark hair cut in a straight fringe, light-colored eyes (possibly blue) and attractive. Her current husband, Nicholas Fletcher, is in "business"�there's some mystery over exactly what he does�and they live in Sandbanks, an expensive part of Poole. She had a child by Roy�a son, now in his thirties (!)�but none by Fletcher. Because of the son, she and Roy remain on good terms. While there is no evidence that this is the woman who approached Dr. Hughes, the description seems to fit.

Nevertheless, I remained puzzled as to why Priscilla Fletcher, an apparently wealthy woman (or indeed one of her friends) would have taken the wallet. For this reason I related the clerk's story to Roy Trent, embroidering the description of the woman to more closely resemble Priscilla Fletcher, and asked him what he made of it in view of Dr. Hughes's certainty that she was the thief. Roy's reaction was interesting. He treated it as a joke and said if Dr. Hughes was right, the woman must have returned to the pub after it closed for the afternoon in order to leave the wallet on the floor of the room where Dr. Hughes and I had lunch. And that hadn't happened. I agreed the story was absurd, pointing out that she must also have known where the lunch took place, which would suggest someone very familiar with the running of the pub. Therefore, unless Roy recognized the woman's description, Dr. Hughes must be mistaken. Roy agreed that he did not recognize the woman's description.

I should say at this point that I've never had reason to disbelieve anything Roy has told me in the past. Our relationship is an informal one, based on two years of friendship after he gave me permission to use his pub as a "surgery." I don't claim to know him well�he is not a forthcoming man�but I've always found him pleasant and supportive, particularly with the help he's given me in unearthing information about Howard Stamp. Of course I was intrigued by the lie, particularly as I could see no reason for it. He might easily have said, "I know several women who match that description, my ex-wife being one, but none of them came to the pub that day." I was, after all, agreeing with him that Dr. Hughes was mistaken.

I was interested enough to do some further research and began by making a number of assumptions, any one of which might have been false, but which seemed worth testing. These are the assumptions I made:

1.     Roy's ex-wife stole the wallet.

2.     She did so because she: (a) is an opportunist thief; or (b) was told to; or (c) was interested in Dr. Hughes; or (d) a combination of the three.

3.     If it was an opportunistic theft, how did she know: (a) to return the wallet to Roy; (b) that he would protect her?

4.     Because she returned it, she must have known: (a) that Dr. Hughes had been at the pub earlier; (b) what he looked like.

5.     She knew these facts because: (a) she had been at the pub herself; or (b) they had been given to her by someone else.

6.     Apart from myself, Roy Trent is the only other person who knew when, where and why I was meeting with Dr. Hughes.

7.     The only way Priscilla Fletcher could have known these details is if Roy told her.

8.     If theft of money wasn't her motivation, then she wanted to know more about Dr. Hughes.

9.     She did not ask Roy for details because: (a) she didn't think he would tell her; or (b) he didn't know the answers; or (c) it was he who told her to commit the theft.

10. If (b) or (c), Roy did not want to display undue interest in Dr. Hughes by quizzing me about him.

11. Dr. Hughes's only reason for coming to Bournemouth was his interest in Howard Stamp.

I already knew that Roy Trent was acquainted with Howard Stamp, if only "by sight" (Roy's words), but it seemed reasonable to infer that Priscilla Fletcher was also connected with him in some way. Out of curiosity, I went back to the newspaper coverage at the time of Grace Jefferies' murder to see if there was anything I'd overlooked. I came across an unrelated story about a thirteen-year-old called Priscilla "Cill" Trevelyan who went missing from her home in Highdown a week before Grace's body was found. As yet, I have been unable to establish whether Cill Trevelyan and Priscilla Fletcher are one and the same. However, there are similarities between the photograph of the missing girl and the one I've managed to track down of Priscilla Fletcher/Trent, taken five years ago at a Crown and Feathers barbecue, courtesy of Jim Longhurst. I hope Dr. Hughes will appreciate the irony! (Copies enclosed.)

While I am reluctant to jump to conclusions at this stage, it seems that Cill was subjected to a gang rape before she ran away and this would accord with Priscilla Fletcher (midforties) having a son in his thirties. I attach photocopies of the newspaper clippings which might be of interest to Dr. Hughes when he's well enough to read them. He will, of course, note immediately that Cill Trevelyan had shoulder-length dark hair. He will also note the descriptions of her assailants�none of whom was named and none of whom was charged through lack of evidence. Interestingly, the story of this missing thirteen-year-old never made it into the national press, presumably because she was posted immediately as a "runaway."

There is nothing to link Cill's story with Howard's except the coincidences of time and place and some thought-provoking descriptions. However, the synchronicity of events, coupled with the unnecessary theft of a wallet thirty years later, does raise questions. At the moment I have no idea what the linkage might be, but I am left with the suspicion that Priscilla Fletcher feels she has something to lose if Howard's case is resurrected. I am willing to forward further information that comes my way, if you think Dr. Hughes would be interested. I will, of course, understand if he prefers to wash his hands of it.

In conclusion, Roy Trent is not party to this information and, for the foreseeable future, I intend to remain on good terms with him. I would be grateful if you and Dr. Hughes would avoid doing anything to prejudice that position. Thanking you in advance,

Yours sincerely
George Gardener

Encs
 

Bournemouth Evening News�Saturday, May 30, 1970

CONCERN FOR MISSING GIRL

Bournemouth Police today asked for help in the search for Priscilla Trevelyan, 13, who went missing from her home in Highdown during the early hours of this morning. She is 5' 5" tall, weighing approximately 8 stone, with shoulder-length dark hair, possibly dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. Known as Cill, the youngster is believed to have run away after an argument with her father. Mrs. Jean Trevelyan, 35, blamed her daughter's school. "Her father was upset because she was given a week's suspension for fighting. But it takes two to make a fight and the other girl wasn't punished at all. Cill's bright and she knew that wasn't fair." She broke down as she made a plea for her daughter to come home. "We love her and we want her back. No one's going to be angry."

Police are following various lines of inquiry. "She's mature for her age," said a spokesman, "and she was in the company of some older boys three weeks ago. There's a possibility she may be with one of them now. Two were described as dark-haired and of medium build, the third as tall and thin with ginger hair. We are asking these boys to come forward. They have nothing to fear if they know where Cill is. The imperative is her safe return."

Police have not ruled out abduction. "Runaways of this age are vulnerable. They may accept offers of help from people who seek only to exploit them." The Metropolitan Police has been alerted. "London is a magnet for unhappy children," said the spokesman.
 

Bournemouth Evening News�Monday, June 1, 1970

HUNT FOR 13-YEAR-OLD CONTINUES

Three teenage boys were released without charge today after being questioned by police over the disappearance of Priscilla Trevelyan. They matched descriptions given by one of her school friends, but all three denied knowing Priscilla or having any knowledge of her disappearance. A police spokesman says there is no evidence to link them with the missing girl.

Priscilla's father, David Trevelyan, 37 was also questioned after neighbors mentioned constant rows between the two. "They didn't get on," said one. "He was worried about her truanting." Police denied that Trevelyan was a suspect. "Parents are always questioned in these circumstances," said a spokesman, "but we are satisfied Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan know nothing of their daughter's disappearance."

He admitted that the authorities are baffled. "Several sightings of a girl matching Cill's description have come to nothing, and we are no further forward. After leaving her house she appears to have vanished." They have made a fresh appeal to the public by issuing a series of photographs of the girl in the hope of jogging memories.
 

Bournemouth Evening News�Saturday, July 25, 1970

MOTHER'S ANGUISH OVER MISSING TEEN

It's just two months since 13-year-old Priscilla Trevelyan left home after an argument with her father, yet her file has been shelved and the team looking into her disappearance disbanded. In simple terms, a runaway does not command the same level of police attention as a child who's been abducted, and Priscilla has joined the frightening statistic of 75,000 children under 16 who run away from homes or institutions in this country every year.

While most of these children return after one night away, some 1,000 will still be missing months later. They are in danger of physical and sexual assault, and many of them resort to crime and prostitution to stay alive. "Cases like these are always difficult," said PC Gary Prentice, who holds a watching brief over Priscilla's file. "If a runaway doesn't want to be found, there's little the police can do. We've circulated her photograph to other forces and we hope someone will recognize her. Many children return home at Christmas when memories of family are strong. I hope this happens in Cill's case."

Priscilla's mother, Jean Trevelyan, is heartbroken. She acknowledges that trouble at home was a contributory factor but she insists it's out of character for her daughter not to have telephoned. "The police say there's no evidence of abduction, but little girls don't vanish into thin air. I wish I'd never mentioned the row with her father. He was trying to support the school's punishment, but it gave the police an excuse to stop looking for her."

PC Prentice denies this. "We pursued every lead we were given. Sadly, Cill was a disturbed adolescent with complications at home and at school. She'd been truanting for some time before she decided to ran away. There's always concern when a 13-year-old goes missing, but we're optimistic that Cill is bright enough to survive. Her friends described her as 'street-smart,' which is an American expression she taught them after reading it in a magazine. She used it to describe herself."

Jean Trevelyan remembers it differently. "Cill was always in trouble. People expected her to behave responsibly because she was well-developed for her age, but at heart she was like any other 13-year-old. One of her friends told the police she was gang raped before she ran away, but they were less interested in that than they were in the argument she had with her father."

PC Prentice admits the rape allegation but says there was no evidence to support it. "If it happened, then it's tragic that Cill was too ashamed to tell anyone about it." He agreed that the stigma of rape is a disincentive to reporting it. "Police forces are working on ways to encourage women and girls to come forward," he said, "but there's still a long way to go."

This is no consolation for Jean Trevelyan who sits by her window, praying for Priscilla to come home. "We've lost more than our daughter," she weeps, "we've lost our good name. People say we were unkind, but she was our only child and we wanted the best for her. The police claim to be sympathetic, but they've never once portrayed us as loving parents."

The photographs of Priscilla that line the room endorse Jean's love for her daughter, but she admits they've only been on display since Priscilla vanished. Like so many mothers, she found the balance between disciplining an errant adolescent and continuing to show love a difficult one. "We were strict because we worried about her, but we didn't know what worry was until she left. David is devastated by it all. It's a terrible way to learn that the time to show your child affection is when you're most angry. We disciplined her because we loved her, yet she must have believed it was done out of hate or she wouldn't have run away."

Her greatest anguish is that Priscilla felt unable to tell anyone she'd been raped. "Her friend said she thought people would say it was her fault because she was wearing a miniskirt, but we live in a terrible society if a 13-year-old thinks she'll be blamed for what happens to her. The police have cast doubt on the rape, but I know it happened because Cill threw her skirt away. She saved up for it and it was her favorite. She wouldn't have done that if she had nothing to feel ashamed about."

One is left with a sense of enormous tragedy. A grieving mother, indefinitely confined to her house for fear her daughter comes back to find no one at home. A father crippled by guilt because he upheld a school punishment. A house empty of laughter. A child missing because there was no one she could ask for help. �Bronwen Sherrard
 

SPICER & HARDY
AUTHOR'S AGENTS 25 BLUINDELL STREET LONDON W4 9TP

Cllr. George Gardener
25 Mullin Street
Highdown
Bournemouth
DORSET BH15 6VX

Monday, April 7, 2003

Dear George Gardener,

Thank you for your letter of April 2, and your kind wishes for Jonathan's recovery. Prior to your meeting he had been suffering for some time from severe stomach cramps and nausea which he foolishly put down to stress and overwork when the problem was a bleeding ulcer. His trip to the U.S. only exacerbated the problem and he developed complications on the day he visited you. Fortunately, it was caught in time and he's now well on the road to recovery. No thanks to him! I am telling you this because he won't tell you himself as he feels there are no excuses for his behavior. My own view, as I understand from Sergeant Lovatt that you are not well yourself, is that it was a clash of illnesses and is best forgotten. May I return the compliment you paid Jon, and send you my good wishes for your speedy recovery.

I enclose a letter from Jonathan re: Priscilla Fletcher/Cill Trevelyan. However, I wish to stress: (a) his willingness to be involved in your project; and (b) the expertise he can bring to it. Jon has many strong points but self-promotion isn't one of them. When he tries, he sounds patronizing. When he doesn't, he looks smug. Both traits are deeply infuriating, but they're easier to ignore if you view them as a disability.

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Spicer
Andrew Spicer
Enc.
 

DR. JONATHAN HUGHES
Flat 2b Columbia Road
West Kensington
London Wl4 2DD
Email: jon.hughes@Iondon.ac.uk

Saturday, April 5

Dear George,

I'm embarrassed to think how badly I behaved the day we met, so please don't feel you have anything to apologize for. My trip to Bournemouth was a salutory lesson in my own stupidity. They say every cloud has a silver lining, and mine certainly has. I won't bore you with the Damascene conversion�you probably hate the cliche as much as I do�suffice it to say that I have taken Andrew's advice to live at peace with myself.

I was fascinated by your letter and the enclosures. You may by now have validated or refuted your assumptions. However, I draw your attention to the following:

·        Having studied the photograph of Priscilla Fletcher, I believe she may have been the woman who approached me on Branksome Station.

·        While there is a similarity between the photographs of Priscilla Fletcher and Cill Trevelyan, it appears superficial. It may be a result of the child having lost baby fat, or the fact that her picture is in black and white, but to my eyes the bone structure of the faces is very different. Cill has a heavier jaw and more pronounced cheekbone than Priscilla's rather delicate equivalents. Cill's eyes look darker, although this may be due to the monochrome.

·        Priscilla is extremely fair-skinned, giving her a "Snow White" look�dark hair, pale face. While it's a common enough combination, fair skin is more usually associated with red or blonde hair, except in the Irish and Welsh(!!). Interestingly, my impression of the woman at Branksome Station was that her look was a manufactured one. The photograph gives the same impression. (Painted eyes, reshaped eyebrows, dyed [?] hair.)

·        If these are the same person, then there are some interesting discrepancies.

·        If they are two different people, then the similarity is striking, particularly as they are both called Priscilla, and Cill Trevelyan would now be in her midforties.

I imagine you have already scoured the newspaper archives for any information on Cill Trevelyan's return. You may even have located her parents, assuming they remained in the Bournemouth area. But if, as I suspect, you've found no evidence that she ever came back� (I'm guessing you did this research before you wrote to Andrew)�then the obvious question is: if Priscilla is not Cill, then why would she want to adopt the name and looks of a girl who vanished thirty-plus years ago?

Here are some other details that struck me as I read the newspaper clippings:

·        Compare: "Three teenage boys ... matched descriptions given by one of her [Cill's] school friends..." with Jean Trevelyan's claim: "One of her friends told the police she was gang raped..." There are various inferences to be drawn from these two statements: the friend either witnessed the incident or was told about it afterward; the friend only revealed what had happened after Cill went missing.

·        Compare: "the youngster is believed to have run away after an argument with her father..."; "neighbors mentioned constant rows between the two..."; "[her father] was worried about her truanting..."; "Cill was always in trouble..."; "[Jean Trevelyan's] greatest anguish is that Priscilla felt unable to tell anyone she'd been raped ... [Cill] thought people would say it was her fault..." The strong presumption in all these statements is that David Trevelyan would not have been sympathetic if Cill had admitted to being raped.

·        "It takes two to make a fight and the other girl wasn't punished at all." Again, there are various inferences to be drawn from this. The most common reason for children to fall out is when one says, "I'll tell on you." If "the friend" was also "the other girl," then the rape was the secret they shared and a threat to reveal it may have been the cause of the fight. If it was a different girl, then either Cill lost her temper over anything and everything or the secret was out. The fact that Cill was punished and the other girl wasn't suggests Cill started it and/or was the more violent and/or refused to give a reason.

·        From all of the above references, it is reasonable to accept PC Prentice's analysis: "Cill was a disturbed adolescent with complications at home and at school." (There was an unusual amount of aggression in her life�hitting out at school suggests she was no stranger to being hit at home.) While a child like that may well abscond�research suggests that most runaways have suffered physical or sexual abuse�she was unlikely to keep her name. Indeed, if she hadn't been found in two months, and was still alive, she must have been calling herself something else. I believe that's the name she would continue to go by�even if she returned, home�because it would have been a demonstration to her father that the rules had changed and a new "she" was setting the agenda.

I don't pretend to know any better than you which assumptions are correct. However, I do believe it might be worth trying to put a name to Cill Trevelyan's school friend. Presumably she was the same age as Cill, and a 13-year-old would have been deeply traumatized by the rape (more so if she witnessed it and did nothing to help), closely followed by the guilt of not speaking out, a spiteful threat to "tell" and Cill's disappearance.

I am no psychologist so I'll rely on your expertise to throw the idea out if it's too far-fetched. The schoolfriend seems a more likely contender for Priscilla Fletcher than Cill Trevelyan. (Transference reaction? Mitigation of guilt by "resurrecting" the wronged person? Envy/hero worship�Cill got away and she didn't?) Are any of these credible? Can trauma in childhood define behavior through to middle age?

I have failed dismally to make a connection between Cill's story and Howard's, although I have noted the skinny, ginger-haired "rapist." (Also the medium-build dark-haired duo, one of whom may have been Roy? Is that your thinking?) All I can say re: the boys is that it would require considerable chutzpah to leave a police station following questioning about a rape, only to break in on a vulnerable woman a few hours later and torture her to death. Again, I rely on you for an analysis of juvenile behavior.

Finally�unless you come back with evidence that Cill resurfaced�my strongest suspicion from reading the newspaper reports is that she never ran away at all, but was killed by her father. According to one of the articles, David Trevelyan was exonerated after being questioned by police, but I would need some very strong evidence to believe that. Statistics don't lie. Children who vanish into "thin air" are usually dead, and children who "vanish" are usually victims of their parents. David Trevelyan was a violent man, and I fear Cill may have made the mistake of trying to excuse "the fight" by telling him about her rape.

I look forward to hearing from you again.

Yours sincerely
Jonathan Hughes
 

From: George Gardener [geo.gar@mullinst.co.uk]
Sent: Tues. 4/8/03 19:20
To: jon.hughes@london.ac.uk
Subject: Cill Trevelyan

Dear Jonathan, You are absolutely right. I can find no record that Cill Trevelyan ever resurfaced. David & Jean Trevelyan left Highdown in the 80s but I have no forwarding address as yet. My new friend (!) Sergeant Lovatt is looking into it for me. He is also trying to locate the file on Howard. Apparently records from all the divisions were collected together in a central archive 20+ years ago. However, as redundant files are usually destroyed, he isn't holding out much hope. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Re: the schoolfriend and transference. Transference is commonly an emotional response�often experienced during therapy�where people transfer personality characteristics of parents/partners/friends to someone else. It's an immature reaction, where neurotic patterns of behavior, often formed in childhood, color subsequent relationships�e.g. in very simple terms, a child who grows up afraid of a stern father will fear all men in authority. Clearly, it's more complicated than that but, generally, transference relates to an imbalance, or perceived imbalance, of power within a relationship, which is taken forward to other relationships and will certainly persist into middle age. [NB: It's not necessarily a negative response. If a child grows up admiring his father, he will look up to men in authority.]

If you're right that Priscilla Fletcher is the school friend, then it's highly likely that trauma at 13 has lingered into adult life. However, the most obvious contender for that is Cill herself as she's the one who experienced the abusive relationships! In some ways, I'd say idolatry or hero worship is closer to what you're looking for.

Interestingly, Howard was a case study in hero worship. You made the point yourself when you said he aped his hero, Ginger Baker. He wanted to look like Baker, wanted to have the courage to rebel in the same way, wanted to be admired in the way Baker was. It was a displacement of his unloved self to a more acceptable substitute. I shall have to do more research, but it's not inconceivable that Cill became a "totem" to a traumatized child, particularly if her disappearance meant the loss of a best friend. I question how long those feelings would have lasted, however.

I shall certainly follow your advice to track down the friend. If nothing else, she will be able to tell us something about Highdown in 1970. Fred Lovatt suggested that one of the reasons Cill's disappearance dropped out of the headlines so quickly was because attention shifted within days to Grace's murder and Howard's arrest. The coincidences of time and place continue to fascinate me, however. It seems so unlikely that two unrelated events should happen within such a short period in the same area, although I take your point about the boys and chutzpah. It's not unknown, of course. Jack the Ripper killed two women within half an hour of each other, even though he'd been disturbed performing the first murder and the hue and cry was up. Adrenaline does strange things to the mind as well as the body.

Best wishes, George

 

*10*

9 GALWAY ROAD, BOSCOMBE, BOURNEMOUTH
FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2003, 6:30 P.M.

George drew up in front of a smart semi-detached house and left the motor running while she listened to the end of a dispatch from Baghdad. The news was still dominated by the fall of the Iraqi capital, although reports of rampant looting now took precedence over correspondents' and politicians' surprise at the lack of opposition to the U.S. army. For George, a longtime peace campaigner, the three weeks of over-the-top war coverage had been depressing. State-sponsored killing had become a showpiece for technology�smart bombs, laser-guided missiles, embedded journalists with videophones�when the reality on the ground was chaos and death.

She sighed as she switched off the engine. Ideas and words were being twisted to distance sensitive Western consciences from what was being done on their behalf. The killing of Iraqi civilians was "collateral damage"; the deaths of British servicemen at the hands of their own side were "friendly fire" or "blue on blue"; questions about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction�the excuse for war�the only excuse�were brushed aside with "we know they exist." How? In the same way the police had "known" that Howard Stamp was a murderer?

Justice demanded honesty, and there was no honesty in validating war through euphemism and vague suspicion. She particularly disliked assertions that the aim of invasion was to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. You have no vote, was the overbearing message. Do as we say because we know what's good for you. It was the same sanctimonious self-righteousness that had caused every miscarriage of justice in every democracy in the world.

I accuse you because I dislike you ... I accuse you because I can...

J'accuse...
 

It had been easier to obtain the name of Priscilla Trevelyan's school friend than George had feared. A request to the Bournemouth Evening News to find out whether Bronwen Sherrard, the byline on the piece "Mother's anguish over missing teen," was still on the staff had come up with a negative. However, the name was uncommon enough to prompt a not very hopeful look in the local telephone directory. Even when she found an entry and dialed the number, she wasn't optimistic it would be the same woman. Or if it was, that she'd remember details from an article she'd written in 1970.

However, it was indeed the same woman, now retired, and though she couldn't recall the information off the top of her head, she had kept meticulous files of all her work. George explained her interest by saying she was researching Highdown of the 1960s and 1970s, and Bronwen phoned back the next day with the name Louise Burton and the additional bonus that the family had been rehoused in Galway Road, Boscombe. "I never spoke to her or her parents," she finished. "When I went to the house, her mother called the police."

"Why?"

"I imagine they'd had enough of doorstepping journalists," said the woman with a laugh, "so let's hope you have better luck than I did."

"Do you know where they lived when they were in Highdown?"

There was rustle of paper. "Number 18, Mullin Street," said Bronwen helpfully, completely unaware of the extraordinary face that George Gardener was pulling at the other end of the line.

A check of the electoral register had shown that a Mr. William Burton and a Mrs. Rachel Burton were still living at 9 Galway Road, and George rang the bell in the full expectation that she was about to meet Louise's parents. But it was a man of around forty who answered the door. "Mr Burton?"

"Yes." He was tall and broad-shouldered, with rolled-up shirtsleeves and tattoos on his muscular arms. Behind him, somewhere down the corridor, a television blared at full blast, overlayed by the sound of girls arguing. He wiped his hands on a towel and smiled inquiringly. "Sorry about the row. What can I do for you?"

George pulled one of her faces. "If they're killing each other, I can always come back later."

He listened for a moment. "Nn-nn. It's fairly mild tonight. They only get really het up when they find the other one's nicked their clothes."

"Your daughters?"

He nodded. "Identical twins with fiery hair and fiery tempers." He grinned amiably. "You can have them if you like. We'll pay good money to be rid ... the wife's close to strangling them."

George laughed. "How old?"

"Sixteen. I keep telling them they're old enough to marry but they won't take the hint." He flicked the towel over his shoulder and started to unroll his sleeves. "To be honest, I'm not sure there'd be any takers. The lads can hear 'em coming a mile off and they do a runner immediately." He chuckled. "How can I help?"

He was too nice to be related to Priscilla Fletcher, George thought, raising a clipboard with a photocopied page from the electoral register. "Are you William Burton?"

"That's me."

She offered a hand. "My name's George Gardener. I'm a councillor. I'm canvasing for the local elections on May 1." It had seemed a reasonable cover story to detain him long enough to ask a few questions�the elections were certainly happening�but she realized it was a mistake when his face closed immediately.

He released her hand and started to close the door. "Sorry, not interested. We won't be voting."

"May I ask why not?"

"I'm a fireman," he said, nodding to a cap and uniform jacket hanging on a hook in his hallway, "and I'm sick to death of politicians telling me I'm unpatriotic because they chose to declare war while I was trying to strike for a decent salary. How does that make me unpatriotic?"

"Oh dear," said George, pulling a face. The withdrawal of labor had been very divisive. "The only answer I can give you is that I'm against both the war and the strikes. I've always believed that negotiation is the only way to solve problems."

"Yes, well, war was declared in our names without anyone asking our permission to do it." He obviously felt strongly enough to elevate George to the position of Prime Minister because he glared at her as if she were responsible for sending the troops in. "Over a million people said no, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. For every one who slogged up to the peace march in London, there were another ten who couldn't make it."

"Were you on it, Mr. Burton?"

"Mm. Fat lot of good it did."

"Me, too." She put a hand on the door to prevent him closing it. "Were your daughters with you?"

"Yes."

"Then that's the good it did, Mr. Burton," she said earnestly. "Youth's been quiet for too long, but it found a voice over this. I've been campaigning for nuclear disarmament for thirty years but I've never seen anything like that march." She lowered her clipboard but kept her other hand on the door. "You can't vote for me because this isn't my ward�and I'm an independent, so I have no clout at Westminster. My view is that abstention is a perfectly honorable tradition, so I won't waste your time trying to persuade you out of it."

He exerted mild pressure against her hand and came up against resistance. "But?"

"The person I really want to speak to is Louise Burton. I assumed the Mr. and Mrs. Burton in this house were her parents, but obviously not. You must be her brother, unless it's pure coincidence that Burtons have been registered here since the seventies."

The question was clearly one he'd answered before, because he didn't seem put out by it. "It's getting on for thirty years since Lou left. The folks bought the house off the council at the end of the 1980s and I took it over seven years ago when they retired to Cornwall. I don't think Lou's been back once in all that time."

"Do you know where she is now?"

He shook his head. "We lost track of her after she got married."

"Do you know what she's calling herself?"

Billy didn't answer immediately. "Are you a private detective?"

"No," she said in surprise. "I'm what I said I was�a councillor ... for Highdown ward. Also a care worker at the Birches in Hathaway Avenue. I live in Mullin Street, where you and your family used to live before you were transferred here." She paused. "Do you have many private detectives looking for your sister?"

"I presume it's Cill Trevelyan you're interested in�it was Lou's only fifteen minutes of fame." She nodded. "OK, well, the Trevelyan parents pay up every so often to see if a private agency can track her down. The last one came about three years ago. They always get to Lou eventually�at least to the fact that she used to live here�but it doesn't help them. Apart from the fact we don't know where she is, she had no more idea than the rest of us what happened to Cill." He shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."

"What about your parents? Have they kept in touch with her?"

"No." He seemed to feel his parents needed defending. "It wasn't their fault. They did their best, but she always thought the grass was greener somewhere else. She left school at sixteen, became a hairdresser and got married almost immediately ... then we lost track. There was a rumor she went to Australia, but I don't know if that's true."

George looked crestfallen. "Oh dear! I was so hopeful of being able to speak to her when I found that Burtons were still registered here."

"Sorry," he said again, stepping back to end the conversation.

She kept her hand on the door. "What was the name of her husband?"

He smiled rather cynically. "No idea. We weren't invited to the wedding. As far as I remember, she referred to him as Mike when I managed to track her down for the folks, but he was in jail so I didn't meet him." He shook his head at her expression. "It happens," he said. "I was luckier. I married a gem."

George nodded. "I know it's a terribly personal question, but did she have a baby when she was fourteen or fifteen?"

He hesitated. "Not that I'm aware of."

It was a strangely evasive answer. "Surely you'd have noticed," said George with a smile.

"I was a lot younger than she was, so I probably wouldn't have understood what was going on. Put it this way: I don't recall a baby suddenly arriving in the family."

"Was she ever married to a man called Roy Trent who runs the Crown and Feathers pub in Highdown?"

His eyes held hers for a moment and she thought she saw a flicker of indecision. "Not that I'm aware of," he repeated, "but, like I say, we lost track of her."

Perhaps it was his hesitations, or the fact that he didn't give a firm negative, that prompted George to pose her next question. "Was Louise raped at the same time as Cill?" she asked bluntly. "Is that why the family was rehoused?"

"No." He was back on firm ground. "She saw it happen but she wasn't involved. Look, there's no mystery about it. We were moved because she was frightened out of her wits�first the rape, then Cill running away, then the police questions. My parents put her in a different school so she wouldn't keep being reminded about it."

"Would she have told your parents if she'd been raped? Cill didn't tell hers."

"It was a different time. Mini-teens today wear crop tops, but if they did it then they were accused of being tarts. Cill's dad went ape-shit every time she put on a miniskirt."

"And your parents?"

"The same." Another shrug. "Me, too, if it comes to that. I'm shotgun Dad. I hate it when my kids prance around half naked ... it's an open invitation to the first predator to have a go."

"Then Louise may have been raped as well, but never admitted to it," George said reasonably.

"She wasn't raped," he said bluntly, "and she didn't get pregnant as a result ... which I assume is the point you're trying to make." His eyes hardened suddenly. "Look, there was enough damn gossip at the time. None of us needs it resurrected."

George dropped her hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It's just that�" She broke off on a sigh. "Does the name Priscilla Fletcher mean anything to you?"

"No."

She thought he was going to slam the door in her face, but he didn't. He waited, as if he expected her to go on. "Priscilla lives in Sandbanks," she said. "She's in her mid-forties and looks like an older version of Cill Trevelyan. She used to be married to Roy Trent and had a son by him when she was in her early teens. At that time, she was calling herself Cill. Do you know if your sister named Roy Trent to the police as one of the rapists?"

Billy avoided the question. "Half a minute ago you were making out this woman was Lou, now you're saying she's Cill Trevelyan. Who is she?"

"I don't know, Mr. Burton. That's what I'm trying to find out." She flipped over the top page on the clipboard and turned the pad toward him. "This photograph was taken five years ago. Do you recognize her?"

His expression was unreadable. "No."

"Does it remind you of Cill Trevelyan?"

He shook his head. "I barely remember her. I was ten years old when she left."

George flipped to the next page. "This is the picture of her that was in the newspapers."

Billy stared at it for several seconds and his expression was genuinely appalled. "Christ! She's so young!"

"She was only thirteen, Mr. Burton, just a child still."

"Yes, but ... I've always had it in my head she was quite grown-up. Christ!" he said again, taking the board and staring at the image. "She still has her baby fat. My two looked older than this at thirteen." With an abrupt movement he flipped back to the photograph of Priscilla Fletcher. "Maybe you should tell the Trevelyans ... give 'em a chance to talk to this woman. Far as I know, they've never come close to finding a match."

"Do you have an address or a phone number for them?"

He shook his head. "No, but I think I kept the card of the last agency that came looking. They'd know." He glanced at his watch. "I can't look for it now�I'm on shift in an hour�but if you give me a contact number I'll see what I can do tomorrow."

George took back the clipboard and wrote her name and number on the back of the electoral register duplicate. "Why do you remember Cill as quite grown-up?" she asked curiously as she handed the page to him.

"She was a bit of a tart ... liked talking sexy. It's what got her raped."

"How do you know?"

Billy's expression blanked immediately. "Guesswork," he said, before nodding a curt farewell and closing the door.
 

George would have put money on him trying to avoid any future contact so she was surprised to receive a call the following morning. He was briskly matter of fact, quoting the name and details of a Bristol-based detective agency. "You need to be careful how you go about it," he warned. "I talked it over with my wife last night and she said it would be cruel to raise the Trevelyans' hopes if it isn't Cill."

Privately, George agreed with him. She was back on night shifts and she'd mulled the problem over during her quiet periods. Without any expectation of William Burton coming through with the name of the detective agency, she had considered hiring one herself to find out who Priscilla Fletcher was. A quick browse on the Internet on her return home gave promises of "confidentiality," "discretion" and "caution," with hourly prices and flat fees not entirely beyond her bank balance.

Even so, there were too many ethical dilemmas for someone of George's sensibilities. Whoever Priscilla Fletcher was, she had the same right to privacy as anyone else�unless she'd committed a crime�and George could hardly argue that the theft of a wallet was justifiable grounds for breaking her cover. If she was Cill Trevelyan or Louise Burton, then it was a moral minefield. Both women had chosen to distance diemselves from their families, and George had no entitlement to expose them. Yet that would be the inevitable outcome if a detective agency made a link with Cill, for George had no confidence that the Trevelyans' long search for their daughter wouldn't prompt a sympathetic�but discreet�approach in return for a fee.

Nor, from a selfish point of view, could George see what use the information would be to her. If the woman turned out to be Cill or Louise, George would still have to persuade her to tell her story; and what leverage could she use except threats of exposure? "Tell me what I want to know or I'll give this information to your parents." Apart from the absurdly childish nature of the menace, George wouldn't be able to carry it through. It rubbed against the grain of all her principles�namely the inalienable right of every individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the early hours she'd recognized how much easier it would be if she could approach the Trevelyans' detective agency as a concerned citizen who'd spotted a similarity between Cill and a woman living in Sandbanks. Whatever the outcome, they'd feel obliged to tell her something, if only to stop her pursuing the search herself. Nevertheless, she appreciated as soon as William Burton gave her the agency's details that one avenue had been closed. George didn't believe he'd have given them to her if he thought Priscilla Fletcher was his sister. Or would he? Was it a double bluff? "Perhaps I should just abandon it," she said with a disingenuous sigh. "If it is Cill Trevelyan, then she obviously doesn't want to be found."

He didn't answer immediately. "That's what I thought until my wife asked me how I'd feel if one of the twins went missing. You'd never get over it, particularly if you found out she'd been raped and hadn't told you. I've been thinking about it all night and I reckon the parents have rights, too, even if just to know she's still alive." He paused again. "If it's any help, I made the point about Cill not wanting to be found to this Bristol agency, and they said she couldn't be forced to see her parents if she didn't want to."

"What's changed your mind, Mr. Burton?" George asked curiously.

"About what?"

"You've lived with this for thirty years but you're suddenly taking it personally. Why?"

"No one bothered to show me a photograph before," he said flatly. "They were looking for Lou, so it wasn't necessary ... but it made me realize how young Cill was. My dad always said she was a flighty piece who was too forward for her own good and, once you get an idea into your head, it's difficult to shift. There wasn't much sympathy for her in our house, not after Lou started refusing to go out. The folks blamed Cill for everything. 'If only Louise had never met that bloody girl...'�that was all they could say for months." He fell silent.

"Cill seemed to have suffered a lot of abuse," George said unemotionally. "Reading between the lines of the newspaper articles, I got the impression her father didn't think twice about hitting her."

"He was always taking his belt to her. It didn't stop her acting up, though, just made her run away rather than face another larruping."

"Because of the fight with Louise?"

"Yes."

George made a pencil tick on a notepad in front of her. "It seems odd the school only punished Cill for it," she said mildly. "You'd think they'd both be suspended."

"Lou said Cill wouldn't explain, so the head gave her her marching orders. That's how it worked in those days."

"What was Lou's explanation?"

"Probably what she told our folks�that Cill had tried to persuade her to truant again."

"It doesn't sound like the truth, though, does it? It's more likely she was teasing Cill about the rape ... maybe even threatening her. Something along the lines of: do what I want in this relationship or I'll tell on you." She waited through a brief silence. "It takes a lot of imagination to understand how devastating rape can be to the victim, particularly gang rape. It's as much a violation of the mind as it is of the body. The poor child was probably scrubbing herself raw every day in order to wash off their filth. Would Louise have understood how badly her friend had been damaged?"

"No."

"Which is why she did nothing to help her?"

"She was too scared. They dragged Cill by her hair, then kicked the shit out of her. There was blood all over her legs ... that's why Lou went back for some trousers." His voice took on a sudden urgency. "You don't think about psychological stuff when you're a kid ... you can't ... most of the time you're struggling to understand why your parents never stop arguing. It might have been different if Cill hadn't launched in on us. She kept saying she'd kill us if we blabbed�" He broke off abruptly.

George let the admission ride. "She must have been very frightened of her father. Have you never asked yourself why she talked sexy? How did she know so much about it? Physical and sexual abuse often go hand in hand."

There was a long silence. "Why does he keep sending people to look for her?"

"Any number of reasons. Guilt ... love ... obsession. A friend of mine's convinced he went too far and killed her, so perhaps he's trying to pretend she's still alive."

"That's what my folks thought at the time�lots of people did�but I remember Dad saying he'd been questioned and let go because there was nothing in the house to show Cill had died. Plus, they never found a body."

"And when they did find one, Cill was promptly forgotten," said George with deliberate flippancy.

"I don't get you."

"Grace Jefferies. She was murdered in Mullin Street a few days after Cill went missing. I've been wondering if the two events were connected."

He sounded surprised. "It was Howard Stamp did that. I remember Dad telling me what a miserable little wanker he was."

George took a breath to calm her irritation. "If they'd had DNA testing in 1970, Mr. Burton, Howard wouldn't even have been charged, let alone sent for trial. It was someone else who killed Grace, but in those days no one gave a damn if a miserable little wanker got sent down for something he didn't do. It was par for the course."

"What makes you think Cill's disappearance was linked to the murder?"

"Statistics," said George bluntly. "Lightning never strikes in the same place twice ... or if it does, there's a reason. Louise said one of the rapists was ginger-haired. Do you know what his name was?"

"What's ginger hair got to do with it?"

"Grace's murderer had ginger hair."

This time the silence was interminable, as if the man at the other end was putting together pieces of a jigsaw. "I knew them by sight," he said at last, "but the only name I remember was Roy. He's the one kept kicking Cill."
 

*11*

WEST LONDON
SUNDAY, APRIL 13, 2003, MIDDAY

The Spicer & Hardy offices were on the third floor of a converted townhouse in a smart Victorian terrace in west London. Courtesy of Andrew's ex-wife, who made a living as an interior designer, it had been revamped six years previously to reflect a more modern taste than Mr. Spicer and Mr. Hardy's (deceased without issue) penchant for a donnish library look of dark walls, heavy leather furniture and mahogany bookcases. Andrew, who had loved the old style and still recalled the happiness of childhood days curled in an armchair in his father's office reading whatever was available, had never come to terms with the acres of space that Jenny had created using glass, color and artificial lighting. However, no one shared his feelings. To everybody else, the frequently photographed decor was a triumph.

George Gardener was no exception. "Goodness!" she said admiringly as Andrew escorted her up a flight of unremarkable stairs into the reception area, where a trompe 1'oeil reflection converted a quadrant of glass and chrome into a sweeping semicircular desk. "It's huge."

"Smoke and mirrors," said Andrew, opening another door. "Be careful you don't walk into a pane of glass by mistake."

She caught a glimpse of her reflection and hastily buttoned her jacket. "You must have a very confident receptionist. I'm not sure I'd want to be looking at myself all day long."

Andrew chuckled. "We're not big enough to afford one, so the phones are all inside. It was my wife's least good idea. She was either planning for a future that was never going to happen, or she got it into her head that agents' offices are like doctors' waiting rooms, and people drop in off the street clutching manuscripts to their chests." He invited her to go in front of him. "It makes a good quiet room for reading or one-on-one meetings, so it isn't entirely wasted."

The next room was open plan with three desks, isolated from each other by glass screens, foliage plants and pools of artificial light. There were no drawers below the L-shaped ebony tabletops, and only computers and telephones stood on them. "Goodness!" said George again, astonished by so much neatness. "Isn't this room used either?"

"It certainly is. This is the hub of the whole operation. All the paperwork's done in here ... correspondence, contracts, payments, manuscript returns." He nodded to the first desk. "That's where my rights manager sits. She works on a stack of files every day."

"Where are they?"

He stooped to release a catch under the table top, and a mirrored panel swung back to reveal shelves of papers. "The doors are set at a slight angle to reflect the carpet but the illusion vanishes the minute you open them. Personally I think it's awful, but then I'm boring and old-fashioned. The staff love it. It's about creating space, even imaginary space. I'm told it's good for stress levels."

"It makes sense," said George, thinking of the tiresome clutter in her Mini, "but it wouldn't do to put me in here. I'm far too untidy. I'd never be bothered to clear away at the end of the day and that would spoil the impression for everyone else."

"Me neither," said Andrew, leading her down a short corridor to a room at the end, "so you'll feel at home in here. This is where I drew the line."

The room wasn't exactly as his father had left it, but it was close enough for comfort. The leather armchair, double-sided partners' desk and mahogany bookcases remained, but it was lighter and cleaner than when Mr. Spicer Sr. had dropped cigarette ash on the floor, coated the books and ceiling with nicotine and allowed a single walkway through the piles of manuscripts that littered the floor. Secretly, Andrew still hankered after the old man's eccentricity, but Jenny had convinced him that image was everything. Visitors viewed a man's surroundings as a reflection of his professionalism.

He hadn't seen the truth of that until she left him for the actor. There was a tragic irony that he'd allowed her virtually free rein with his business premises while failing to appreciate that "image is everything" was a coded message for him. Occasionally he indulged in depressive navel-gazing, when he wondered whether she'd have stuck by him if he'd lost weight, worn lifts in his shoes and bought a toupee. There was no argument that the business had perked up since the refurbishments, which was a good indication that superficiality worked.

As if to prove the point, George gazed about the room with approval. "If you drew the line, does that mean your wife didn't have a say in what was done?"

"No, but we agreed I could keep the antiques and make it a mirror-free zone." He gestured for her to sit down and placed himself in his ergonomic swivel seat. "To be strictly accurate, she's my ex-wife, but don't let it worry you. We parted on amicable terms." He watched her settle herself in the worn armchair and wondered why she and Jon had come to blows. She was smartly dressed in a navy blue suit, makeup had toned down the ruddiness of her cheeks and soft gray hair lay in fluffy curls on her forehead. She reminded Andrew of one of his aunts�a favorite of his�and he was predisposed to like her. "I'd have invited you to my house, but it's in south London and difficult to find, so I thought this would be easier for both of you."

"Is Jonathan coming?"

Andrew nodded. "I told him twelve-thirty so that you and I could have a quick chat before he arrived." He put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward. "He's placed himself under a self-denying ordinance, George�keeps telling me this is your story, not his. He's happy to assist, but he wants you to write it and take the credit." He lifted an eyebrow. "How do you feel about that? If you have a facility with words you can make some money as well as highlighting the injustice against Howard. Jon's keen for me to act for you, and I'm willing to do so if you want to give it a shot."

She watched him closely. "Shouldn't you argue against that if you're his agent?"

"Not if he instructs me otherwise. In any case, he's not an easy man to argue with."

"It sounds as if there's a 'but' coming."

Andrew smiled. "The book will be much easier to sell if Jon's the author. He's the one who put Howard on the map, and his publisher will be interested in a follow-up if there's good evidence that Howard was innocent."

George shrugged. "I didn't expect anything else. I only know how to write dissertations." She flipped open the small case that she'd brought with her and removed a pile of notes. "I'm quite happy for Jonathan to take what he can from these ... although I'm starting to question how valuable they are. I have a feeling I've been steered away from anything important, which is why I asked for this meeting. I hoped if we put our heads together we might come up with some fruitful leads."

"Mm." Andrew folded his hands under his chin. "The trouble is, Jon wants to play the martyr at the moment. It's a very tedious side to his character. He beats himself up every time he falls short of whatever unachievable standard he's set himself. If he wasn't an atheist I'd sign him into a monastery and give myself a break." He watched her face screw into a sympathetic twist. "What I'd like to suggest is a joint enterprise, with Jon's name at the top because he'll be writing the book and your name underneath because you'll be providing the bulk of the research. You can negotiate percentages between yourselves, or I can give you the name of an arbiter. Either way, you should end up with a fair return for your work. Does that appeal to you?"

"Not at all," she protested. "I wasn't expecting to be paid when I first approached Jonathan, and I certainly wouldn't have proposed a second meeting if I thought it was going to be a discussion about property rights and money. I was hoping to do what we should have done the first time�pool information and see where it takes us."

"Gre-eat!" said Andrew with mild irony. "Now I have two martyrs on my hands. We have the potential for a book that can exonerate a man's name ... and no one to write it. What do you suggest I do? Postpone this meeting until I can find a ghostwriter to sit in on it and take notes? Offer the idea to another agent?"

George was a sensible woman whose only affectations were comical expressions and an inclination to giggle. "I misunderstood," she said. "Do I gather the joint enterprise was less a suggestion than an order? Am I to insist on my name on the cover in order to make your friend feel comfortable?"

Andrew tipped a finger at her. "The more insistent you are the better, as far as I'm concerned. Self-denying ordinances don't suit him. He's easier to live with when he's battling for his rights, a pain in the neck when he turns himself into a doormat."

She looked amused. "How's his blood pressure? Perhaps being a doormat is better for his health."

"No chance. Sitting around twiddling his thumbs is sending it way up."

"I'm no actress," George warned. "If you're expecting me to be angry, I won't be able to do it. I'm a negotiator, not a table-thumper."

"Is that a yes?"

She shrugged. "I suppose so ... as long as you ask him in front of me if he's still refusing to run with the project himself. I'd like to hear him say no for myself."

"Agreed. If he does, are you willing for me to act as agent in the joint enterprise?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Most certainly. I'm sure any agent would be willing to represent you�I can even recommend the better ones. The difficulty will be if Jon prefers to stay with me."

"Then it'll have to be you."

"Excellent!" He stood up and reached across the desk to shake her warmly by the hand. "I'll have a contract drawn up tomorrow, but in the meantime you've given me authority to fight for your best interests ... which means I'd rather you said nothing until I ask for your agreement on a deal. Can you do that?"

"As long as you don't misrepresent anything I've said."

"Other than emphasizing your insistence on a joint enterprise, there's nothing to misrepresent," said Andrew. "As part of the Spicer & Hardy stable, you're as valuable to me now as Jon is."
 

When she looked back on it, George could only admire Andrew's skillful manipulation of his friend. As predicted, Jonathan arrived in metaphorical (and literal) sackcloth and ashes, having taken the trouble to dress down for the meeting while George had put on her glad rags, but he wasn't so crass as to draw attention to either. He merely complimented George on the work she'd done on the Cill Trevelyan story, then refused outright to take on the project when Andrew asked the question. His arguments were persuasive.

He had come across Howard by accident after reading Clinical Studies and most of his theories about the case were guesswork. To prepare a compelling rebuttal would require more definitive research, including interviews and legwork, and he couldn't commit the necessary time or energy. Andrew had worked with first-time authors before and was perfectly capable of editing an amateur up to publishable standard, or paying a mentor to help George achieve it herself. While Jonathan had a known interest in miscarriages of justice, his real commitment was to the mistakes made in the areas of asylum-seeking and economic migration. By contrast, George's known commitment was to Howard Stamp, and Howard's interests were best served by someone who had absolute faith in his innocence�which Jonathan didn't have.

Andrew showed his impatience. "I explained all this to George before you arrived," he said, "and it doesn't pass the so-what test, pal. I'm starting to question whether this book's worth anyone's time ... mine included." He leveled an accusing finger at Jonathan. "You are having second thoughts about Howard's innocence and George�" he swiveled the finger toward her�"supects her research is compromised. I'm willing to act for either of you if you offer me somediing solid, but I'm not interested in half measures. Any editor worth his salt will throw it straight back at me if the case for miscarriage isn't proven."

Jonathan turned a surprised face toward George. "How is your research compromised?"

She looked at Andrew.

"If you're not interested in the project then it's none of your business," Andrew answered for her. "George was hoping to negotiate a fifty-fifty split, but as you're not keen I suggested we approach Jeremy Crossley."

Jonathan's eyes narrowed immediately. "Why him?"

"He's an historian, and it's the sort of project he enjoys." He raised a calming hand. "I know, I know ... he slated Disordered Minds, but that should work in George's favor, especially when I tell him you've changed your mind about Howard's innocence." He grinned. "He'll bust a gut to prove you wrong."

"You're doing this on purpose," said Jonathan curtly.

"What?"

"Riling me. You know bloody well what I think of Jeremy Crossley. I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy, let alone someone like George. He'll take every piece of research she can give him, then cut her out of the equation. That's how he works."

"Don't be an idiot," said Andrew dismissively. "I'm acting for George, so no one will have access to her information until we've agreed a contract. She won't get a fifty-fifty split with Crossley, of course, but she'll get something, as long as her research has demonstrable value." He tapped the desk with the tip of his forefinger. "But that's the issue, I'm afraid. The message I'm getting from both of you is that there are major flaws in your analyses ... so the scheme looks dead in the water before we even start."

"I see you've learned Crossley's review by heart," said Jonathan sarcastically.

"I can't even remember it," said Andrew indifferently.

"Like hell you can't. Every other sentence referred to 'flawed analysis' of data. It was a hatchet job by a second-rate academic who thinks he can write." He turned abruptly to George. "Don't let Andrew railroad you into this. It's a bad idea. Write it yourself ... you're perfectly capable."

"You know that's not true," said Andrew firmly. He nodded to a pile of manuscripts beside his desk. "That's my slush pile," he told George. "If there's one halfway reasonable script in there, I'll be surprised. Writing's a craft�no one can expect to master it the first time they put pen to paper�and Jon knows that as well as I do."

"There are other authors," said Jonathan. "It doesn't have to be Crossley."

"Agreed. What about that fellow you work with ... published by Hodder? Henry Carr. He might be interested. I was talking to his editor the other day and she said he's green with envy ... wants to find any idea that will outclass Disordered Minds."

Jonathan bared his teeth. "Even you wouldn't stoop that low."

"You'd better believe it," Andrew warned. "I'm after the best deal for George, and Evans will agree to a sixty-forty split if it means he can get one over on you."

"You're being ridiculous. There are plenty of good young authors on your list who'd jump at this chance. Why aren't you offering it to one of them?"

"Because the advance will be higher with an established name, and that's to George's advantage, particularly if she can earn the money before a word's been written."

Jonathan considered for a moment, then shifted his attention back to George. "Are you sure this is the route you want to go, because I'd be happy to advise you if you think you can do it yourself."

She opened her mouth to say something.

"Jon's not the best person to do that," Andrew warned her. "You want someone who believes in Howard's innocence.

"Stop putting words in my mouth," said Jonathan irritably. "The expression I used was 'absolute faith.' It's important to keep an open mind when looking at issues like this. You can't ignore contrary evidence just because it doesn't suit your theory. You have to examine it even more rigorously."

"Which is the opposite of what you said earlier. Now you're advocating healthy skepticism in George's coauthor. I wish you'd make up your mind." He looked at his watch. "To be honest, I can't see the point of this ... we're just going round in circles. If you're not interested, then you might as well leave so that George can convince me she's got something worth selling. It's a waste of time arguing over coauthors if there isn't enough proof even to get them excited."

"Is there a link with the Cill Trevelyan story?" Jonathan asked.

George spoke before Andrew could. "I'm not sure," she said. 'That's why I wanted to talk to you. You were right about the school friend�her name was Louise Burton. I've managed to locate her brother and he�"

Andrew broke in. "You're doing this against my advice, George. Jon should only be party to this information if you've agreed a contract with him."

She gave a guilty sigh. "I'm sorry, but it's obvious he doesn't want one ... and we are going round in circles. I told you half an hour ago that I'd like to work with Dr. Hughes, but he's not obliged to return the favor if he doesn't want to. I'm no writer�" she smiled apologetically at Jonathan�"and I'm not much of an academic either ... so I quite understand your reluctance. The trouble is, if what William Burton told me is true, then Roy Trent was one of Cill's rapists. I rather hoped..." She petered into an unhappy silence.

Jonathan hunched his shoulders. "I'll go with fifty-fifty."

Clever girl, thought Andrew, staring at his hands.

"I know it's tempting to see linkage in synchronicity," said Jonathan, "but it's very dangerous. Coincidences happen. It's why PACE and CPIA were introduced, and why DNA has become the major plank in police investigations. Everyone's looking to eliminate malign chance."

"But if Howard was innocent then malign chance is precisely what convicted him," George protested. "It was the hair in the bath that persuaded the jury, but the prosecution proved it could only have come from the murderer. Yet Howard wasn't the murderer."

"All the more reason not to fixate on another ginger-haired suspect. A goodly percentage of the population carries the gene." He smiled to take the sting from the words. "Which isn't to say we'll ignore your rapist�he certainly fits the profile�just be wary. The real pity is that the only name William Burton remembers is Roy ... it was a popular name in the fifties and sixties so there were probably quite a few of them."

"Not that popular," said George. "Surely it's Roy Trent?"

"Roy Rogers ... Roy Orbison ... Roy of the Rovers ... Roy Castle..."

"At least one of those was a comic-book character," said Andrew.

"So? Bill Clinton and David Beckham named their children after places. All I'm saying is we can't assume Roy Trent from Roy."

"It's a reasonable guess, though," said Andrew. "The man's an ape."

"That doesn't make him a rapist. Or let me put it another way�which of you is willing to go in and suggest it to him with no evidence to back it up ... and what do you think his answer is going to be?" He glanced from one to the other. "Right! We need to find Louise or, even better, the Burton parents. They might be able to give us a surname."

"Assuming they'll talk to us," said George doubtfully. "I got the impression from William that they're extremely reluctant to be involved."

Jonathan nicked to the end of the transcript. "Did you tape these conversations or make notes?"

"I made notes in the car after the first one and used shorthand for the telephone call. I typed them up immediately afterward so I'm confident they're accurate."

He read the description of William Burton that she'd added at the end. "Forties, six foot approx, well-built, tattoos on his arms, thinning sandy hair, gray eyes, pleasant smiling face, fireman. Married with twin daughters." "You liked him," he said more in statement than question.

"Yes. He was very upfront and friendly at the beginning. We talked about his daughters who were arguing inside the house, and he was very amusing. He only tightened up when I mentioned his sister. He kept saying he hadn't heard from her for years, but I didn't entirely believe him."

"You say here that he 'looked troubled' after you asked him if Louise had had a baby when she was fourteen," remarked Andrew, tapping a page of the transcript copy that she'd given him. "He answered: 'Not that I'm aware of.' You've put 'evasive' with a question mark. Is that how it struck you at the time?"

George nodded. "He went on to say he was a lot younger than she was and wouldn't have understood what was going on�it's a couple of lines down. I thought that was a very strange response ... as if something had happened and he didn't want to lie about it. I've also put a question mark beside the 'a lot younger.' Louise would be forty-five or forty-six now, and William looked a good forty plus."

Jonathan drew her attention to some notes that came after William Burton's description. "(1) He wouldn't have phoned if he'd recognized Priscilla Fletcher as Louise. [Double bluff?] (2) Did he recognize her as Cill Trevelyan? (3) Why does he feel so 'connected' suddenly? [Because of Cill's photo? Because of his daughters? Because Priscilla F. is Cill and he knows it?]"

"What's the significance of his daughters?" he asked.

"It's at the beginning of the telephone transcript. He said his wife had asked him how he'd have felt if one of them had gone missing at thirteen. Also, he was very struck by how young Cill looked. He remembers her as quite adult and was shocked to see she still had her baby fat." She paused. "It's as if he saw her as a person for the first time ... and I'm wondering if that was because he recognized her in Priscilla Fletcher."

"I should think it's more likely your first statement was correct. Thirty years after the event, he saw Cill for what she really was�a vulnerable child�and it shocked him."

"He said his parents blamed her for everything that went wrong. They called her 'that bloody girl' and made out she was a tart."

"What sort of things?"

She shrugged. "The rape ... Louise becoming agoraphobic ... the police questioning. Those are the ones he mentioned, but he said it went on for months."

"The agoraphobia?"

"Presumably."

"Interesting," Jonathan said slowly. "What was she frightened of? The boys? Being raped herself?"

"He didn't say. There was a passing reference to her parents moving her to a different school so she wouldn't be reminded of Cill's disappearance, but that's all."

Andrew clicked his fingers suddenly. "Go back to the first paragraph where George has given a synopsis of the conversation about the girls," he told Jonathan. "Second line: 'Mr. Burton joked about his daughters' fiery hair and fiery tempers ... said he'd pay to be rid of them.' "

"And?"

"Red hair runs in families, but I'm damn sure the gene has to be on both sides to produce fiery red."

Jonathan ran a thoughtful finger down his jawline. "Go on."

"You're hooked on the ginger-haired rapist, but what color hair did Louise have?"
 

From: George Gardener [geo.gar@mullinst.co.uk]
Sent: Thurs. 4/17/03 15:07
To: jon.hughes@london.ac.uk
Cc: Andrew Spicer
Subject: Louise Burton

Dear Jonathan and Andrew,

The Bristol agency was very unhelpful, refusing to share any details of their investigation or divulge the Trevelyans' address. They cited issues of confidentiality, but they refused to phone the Trevelyans for permission. I'm afraid they thought I was a journalist. In the circumstances I decided against making them a free gift of Priscilla Fletcher, and re: Louise they simply referred me back to William Burton.

Our friend Fred Lovatt has had no success with the archives, nor has he found any colleagues who were involved in Howard's case or Cill's disappearance. PC Prentice, who was mentioned in the newspaper clippings, retired in 1982 and is believed to have died of a stroke some time in the 1990s.

As I am reluctant to "scare" William Burton away, I have decided to approach this from a different angle. The school the girls attended prior to Cill's disappearance was almost certainly Highdown Secondary Modern, situated in Wellingborough Road. It was reinvented during the 1970s as Highdown Community School and subsequently moved to new, larger premises in Glazeborough Road (coincidentally utilizing the site of the demolished Brackham & Wright factory where Wynne Stamp worked!) They only keep records of past staff and pupils who sign up for the OH (Old Highdowners) Register. However, I have the name and address of the headmistress who was in charge from 1968 to 73. It is: Miss Hilda Brett, 12 Hardy Mansions, Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset.

I have made some inquiries and I understand that Hardy Mansions is sheltered accommodation for "active" elderly�i.e., people who still have their marbles. This is very good news as Miss Brett must be the one who suspended Cill and should remember both girls. I am willing to talk to her on my own, though I would prefer Jonathan to come with me, not only because his status of research fellow and author will lend the questions academic authority�and may persuade her to be more forthcoming�but also because I am unsure how to structure the interview.

Do we say we're looking for Cill Trevelyan? For Louise? Do we mention Howard? None of them ... just say we're researching Highdown of 1970 and were given her name by her old school? Help, please!

Best, George

PS. If Jonathan can come I shall need some dates when he's free. On balance, I think we should just turn up, rather than attempt to book a meeting with her, as if she says "no" we will lose this opportunity.

 

*12*

DORCHESTER, DORSET
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2003, MORNING

This time Jonathan had opted for smartness, and he was relieved to see George had done the same when she met him at Dorchester South Station. "What happened to the mobile filing cabinet?" he asked as he climbed into the car. "I hope you didn't move it on my account."

"I had a spring-cleaning," she told him, starting the engine. "Everything's in its proper place at home." She flashed him a smile. "I decided Andrew's ex-wife is right: 'Fine feathers make fine birds.' "

Jonathan grinned. "Except Andrew doesn't agree. He prefers, 'Don't judge a book by its cover.' "

"Me, too," she said cheerfully, pulling away from the curb, "but we're in a minority, so I'm going for the two-second sound bite�smart car ... smart home ... smart clothes ... smart mind."

Jonathan laughed. "How long will it last?"

"It depends how determined I am." She turned right onto Weymouth Avenue before filtering left to head toward the western outskirts of Dorchester. She drove hunched over her steering wheel as if she couldn't see where she was going, and Jonathan closed his eyes to avoid flinching at every near miss.

"To do what?"

"Strike the right impression from the off. I realize I've only myself to blame that I'm never taken seriously."

Jonathan had known it was a conversation that would come eventually. Unresolved issues never vanished of their own accord. "If it's any consolation," he said lamely, "I said far worse things to Sergeant Lovatt. According to Andrew I called him a fascist ... although I honestly don't remember it."

"Oh, for goodness sake! I'm not doing this for you."

"Who then?"

"Roy. He's been running rings around me because he thinks I'm a woolly headed spinster." There was a hiatus while she maneuvered between oncoming traffic and parked cars on her left. "I've tucked a map of Poundbury behind your sunblind," she told him, negotiating a five-way junction. "We're looking for Bridport Road and then Western Crescent. I'm fairly sure of the way but it's two years since I was here and, what with all the new building, the layout of the roads has probably changed."

He pulled out the map and spread it on his knee. "What sort of rings?"

She sighed and took her eyes off the road to look at him. "I didn't bring enough rigor to the information he's been giving me. Instead, I've wasted two years talking to people who were even more ignorant than I was about Howard."

"Names supplied by Roy?"

"Mm. Mrs. So-and-so who worked at Brackham & Wright in the 1960s and might have known what happened to Wynne. Mr. So-and-so who used to buy newspapers from Roy's dad and might have known Grace. Ms. So-and-so who was at St. David's Primary around the time Howard was there. I must have spoken to about twenty people who had vague connections with the story ... but none of them actually knew anything."

Jonathan pressed his feet into the floor as they drew up six inches behind a juggernaut. "Irritating!"

"I'd call it devious," George said, mounting the pavement to bypass the lorry and pull left onto Bridport Road as Jonathan stared stoically ahead. She nodded toward a cream-colored building ahead of them with a Germanic red-tiled spire. "That's where Poundbury begins. Have you visited it before? Do you know what it is?"

"No."

"Then you're in for a treat. It's Prince Charles's whack at modern architects and developers who build cheap estates full of identical redbrick boxes and expect people to be grateful. I mean, who wants to live in something boring?"

Roy Trent was promptly forgotten in her enthusiasm for the Prince of Wales's vision of how to build a new community. She insisted on making a detour into phase one of Poundbury which was less than ten years old but which, through its architecture and design�irregular roads, variety of building styles, use of local materials and housing arranged in mews, lanes, squares and courtyards�suggested history and permanence.

Jonathan was more impressed than he thought he'd be, although he doubted a similar estate would work in London. "It would be difficult to translate to a city," he said as she pulled out onto the main road again.

"I don't see why," said George. "The principle of local tradition and local materials would work just as well in Harlesden as they do in Dorset. It's the uniformity of cheap brick and reinforced concrete that people hate. A house should be an expression of its owner's individuality, not a clone of the one next door."

"What about Victorian terraces?" he murmured ironically. "They were built to off-the-shelf blueprints and you can't get more uniform than that. In a hundred years people may be as fond of redbrick boxes as we are of the nineteenth-century equivalent."

George chuckled. "Assuming the boxes are still standing in a hundred years. Victorian terraces were built to last ... these days everything's obsolete within a year." She slowed to read a street sign. "Poundbury Close," she announced.

Jonathan traced the map with his finger. "Which makes Western Crescent the second on the right," he told her, "over there." She flicked her indicator and pulled into the center of the road. "Tell me about Roy's deviousness," he invited.

"What's to tell?" she said dispassionately. "He's been sending me on wild goose chases because he doesn't want me finding out he was involved."

"You can't be sure of that," Jonathan warned. "He may be quite innocent but keeps his ear to the ground because he knows it's important to you. The fact that he's never come up with anything valuable might be evidence that he's as ignorant as you and I."

George gave a derisive snort. "You don't believe that anymore than I do. He's been playing me for a patsy. He wasn't remotely friendly until I mentioned an interest in Howard Stamp, then he became my newest pal. I should have smelled a rat then." She was driving slowly up the road looking for house names. She came to a halt beside a large building built in Purbeck stone. "Here we are ... Hardy Mansions."
 

They were both surprised by the ease with which they gained entry to the old woman. They expected to pass their request through a warden, but it took just the press of a buzzer with "Hilda Brett" beside it, and George's mention of Highdown Secondary Modern into the intercom, for the door to swing open and a barked instruction to come to Flat 12. "She's far too trusting," said George disapprovingly as they followed arrows marked 5-12 down a corridor. "We could be anyone."

"Perhaps she likes living dangerously," said Jonathan.

"I'm surprised it's allowed."

"Then she's rebelling against living in a prison," he murmured.

George pulled a face. "It's supposed to be the exact opposite�liberation from care and worry."

"Mm, but are undesirables being kept out or the inhabitants kept in? You can pay too high a price for freedom from care�fear of crime is more isolating than crime itself."

George's protest against this slur on sheltered accommodation remained unsaid, because the door to Number 12 opened and a gaunt woman gestured them inside. ''Hello, hello!" she said happily. "Come on in." She leaned on a walking stick and drew back to let them pass. "Into the sitting room on your right ... my chair's the upright one with the cushions." She closed the door and followed, examining her visitors brightly as she lowered herself into her seat. "Sit down ... sit down. Make yourselves comfortable."

Jonathan folded his tall frame onto the sofa while George chose an armchair. "This is very good of you, Miss Brett," she said. "We were given your address by the school, but as they didn't have your phone number we decided to take a chance on finding you at home."

The woman was frail and looked well into her eighties, but her faded eyes were full of intelligence. "You'll have to help me," she said. "I'm afraid I don't recognize you at all. Obviously this young man was well after my time, but when were you there, my dear?"

George screwed her face into immediate apology. "Oh, goodness, I didn't mean to suggest we were ever pupils of yours." She watched disappointment cloud the old woman's expression. "May we introduce ourselves? My name's Georgina Gardener and I'm a councillor for Highdown ward where your school still is, and this is Dr. Jonathan Hughes�" she gestured toward the -sofa� "who's an author and research fellow in European Anthropology at London University."

Jonathan stood up and bent to shake her hand. "This is a great privilege, Miss Brett. I've long wanted to meet a headteacher who had responsibility for steering a school into the comprehensive era. It must have been a difficult and stressful time ... but exciting too, perhaps?"

She frowned slightly, as if doubting this was the purpose of their visit. "All of those," she agreed, "but, of course, there was a strong crusading zeal at the time which carried us through. My staff and I had seen too many children relegated to what was effectively a second-class education because of their failure at the eleven-plus examination."

"With little or no chance of going to university," said Jonathan, sitting down again.

"Certainly. The direct route to higher education was through the grammar schools and private schools, which made it so pernicious that a child's future was decided at eleven." She paused, glancing doubtfully from one to the other. "Is this really what you came to talk to me about? I can't believe the opinions of a doddery headmistress�long past her sell-by date�add anything useful to the current debate on education."

George looked guilty. "Well..."

"In a way it is," said Jonathan, hunching forward to address her more directly. "We're doing a case study of troubled children in the decades after the Second World War. There are two from Highdown that interest us. Howard Stamp, who was convicted of murdering his grandmother, and Priscilla Trevelyan, who disappeared in 1970. Howard was certainly before your time, but I believe Priscilla was one of your pupils?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow which she answered with a nod. "Would you be willing to tell us what you remember of her?"

She sighed wearily as her disappointments were compounded. "If you're detectives, then you're wasting your time. As I told your predecessors, I have no idea what happened to the poor child."

Jonathan took a card and security pass from his inside pocket and passed them to her. "That's my photograph, name and title ... and at the bottom of the card is my departmental telephone number. I am more than happy for you to call and verify that I am who and what I say I am. Councillor Gardener can be similarly verified through her office or by telephoning one of her colleagues at the Birches Nursing Home in Highwood."

George promptly took one of her own cards from her case and offered it across. "We aren't detectives," she assured the woman, "although I had the same response from Louise Burton's brother. I understand the Trevelyans have been trying to find their daughter for years."

Miss Brett barely glanced at the cards before shifting herself forward, preparatory to standing up. "I'm sorry but I can't help you. It was a devastating event ... if I'd known anything useful I would have told the police."

It was a clear dismissal but Jonathan ignored it. "Georgina and I are approaching this from a very different angle," he told her. "We're more interested in why Priscilla became a statistic rather than where she is now. If her parents are to be believed from the press coverage, most of her problems stemmed from the fact that she was brighter than her peers ... and that's not an unreasonable assumption. The links between truancy and delinquent behavior are well documented, and boredom is a trigger for both. Do you agree�indeed did you agree at the time�with Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan's assessment of their daughter? Would Priscilla have been a less disturbed juvenile if she'd won a place at grammar school?"

It was a question that was pitched at the educationalist in her, and it worked. She remained sitting. "Truancy is commonly a symptom of underachievement, Dr.�" she consulted Jonathan's card again�"Hughes, while disruptive behavior in class can be a symptom of an above-average IQ that is not being thoroughly tested. Priscilla certainly fell into the latter category ... so in that respect I did agree with Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan. But although her brightness made her a difficult and unruly child, I don't believe it was the cause of her truancy ... or, more importantly, her disappearance."

"What was?"

Miss Brett tapped her forefingers together. "You must put that question to her father."

Jonathan glanced at George, who stepped seamlessly into the conversation. "William Burton told me she was knowledgeable about sex," she said matter-of-factly. "I know it was less understood in those days but�looking back�do you think she was sexually abused?"

"Yes."

"By her father?"

"Yes."

George reached for a notepad and pen. "Is that something you told the police?"

There was a short silence. "No," said the old woman, then, "it's a conclusion I've come to in the last ten years. For a long time I blamed myself�it's a devastating event in a teacher's career to feel responsible for a child's disappearance. I liked to think I was approachable�I should have been approachable..." She broke off abruptly.

George's inclination was to stretch out a sympathetic hand, but Jonathan spoke before she could do it. "A student of mine was murdered in New York recently after I sponsored him to a scholarship out there," he said evenly, "and I'm left with 'if onlys': if only he hadn't been black ... if only America and the U.K. hadn't whipped up hysteria against world terrorism ... if only the man in the street could recognize that Muslim and terrorist are not synonymous." He smiled. "I'm guessing your 'if only' was to do with the rape? If only Priscilla had told you about it, you wouldn't have punished her for fighting with Louise, her father wouldn't have had an excuse to hit her ... or worse ... and she wouldn't have run away."

Miss Brett nodded. "That and more. She had a precocious, sexual vocabulary and didn't think twice about using it, particularly around the male teachers, but it never occurred to any of us that that might be a symptom of abuse." She gave another sigh. "I'm afraid it just made her unpopular in the staff room and her punishments were always more severe because of it. I regret that deeply. One wonders where the poor child found kindness if she wasn't getting it at home."

"There was so much ignorance then," said George. "It seems incredible now, but it wasn't until the Maria Colwell inquiry in '74 that the issue of child abuse really surfaced." She caught Jonathan's eye. "It wasn't until poor little Maria was dumped at hospital by her stepfather that the authorities recognized they should have protected her. He was her murderer, for goodness sake ... he'd beaten a starving seven-year-old to death and he didn't think anyone would object."

"Things haven't improved much," said Jonathan, thinking of his own upbringing. "The trouble is, there's a thin dividing line between child protection and eugenic experimentation. We object to children being forcibly removed from inadequate parents, but complain when the same children die of neglect and brutality. It's a catch-22 for the authorities."

Miss Brett looked interested. "First define inadequacy," she said dryly. "There were many other parents I came into contact with who would have fitted the description better than the Trevelyans. Who's to say which father is harming his child?"

"Or how?" said George thoughtfully. "There's evidence that David Trevelyan hit Priscilla�even the mother seemed to admit it by talking about his strictness�but I'm less sure about the sexual abuse. William Burton's account of the rape suggests Cill was still a virgin. He said there was so much blood on her legs that Louise had to go home to find a pair of trousers to hide it. It may have been a period, of course, but I'm more inclined to think her hymen was broken ... and that would make the rape the first time she was penetrated."

"It doesn't mean she hadn't been introduced to sexual activity," said Jonathan.

"I agree. And if her father was responsible it would explain why she didn't want him to know about the assault. He'd certainly believe she provoked it. It's how molesters and rapists excuse their behavior�it's not their fault, it's the fault of the victim for arousing them." She tapped her pen on her notepad. "The same arguments would apply to her mother. I came across a case study that showed that as many as twenty-five percent of sex-abuse offenses are committed by women. Any number of dynamics might have been operating within the family."

"Or outside it," said Jonathan. "A neighbor or relative might have been grooming her�perhaps her father was as troubled by her sexual precocity as her teachers, and didn't know how to deal with it. He may have been guilty only of heavy-handed discipline." He looked inquiringly at the headmistress. "What sort of man was he? Did you know him well?"

"Not really. I spoke to him once about Priscilla's truanting and once after she disappeared. On both occasions he was very angry. There was no meeting of minds. On the first occasion he told me it was the school's responsibility to ensure his daughter's attendance, and on the second he took me to task for suspending Priscilla and not Louise. He said that had he realized that Louise Burton was the other girl in the fight, he wouldn't have upheld my punishment."

"Why would he say that?"

She considered for a moment. "Each set of parents thought the other child was to blame for the truanting, but I believed then�and still believe�that Mr. Trevelyan was trying to shift the blame onto me. If he could place on record that all he'd done was reinforce a school punishment, then he could excuse whatever it was that caused Priscilla to run away."

"You didn't like him?" said George.

"Indeed I did not," said the old woman firmly. "He was an overweight bully who shook his fist under my nose and expected me to agree with him. I made it clear both times that I had no responsibility for Priscilla when she was off the premises�other than to report the fact to her parents and the relevant authorities�so he promptly blamed the school for her difficulties." She shook her head. "We'd held her back ... she was bored ... we weren't challenging her enough ... she was too bright to be at Highdown. It was very depressing."

"And all reported in the press?"

"Indeed." Another sigh. "And there was nothing we could say in rebuttal. It would have been shabby to contradict their assessment of Priscilla, shabbier still to suggest the Trevelyans were�" she canted her head toward Jonathan�"inadequate. It was very much a case of: de mortuis nil nisi bonum."

Jonathan eyed her curiously. "Is that a figure of speech or did you believe she was dead?"

"Both. A missing child inspires intense emotion ... we all grieved for her. Everyone expected a shallow grave to be found somewhere, and when it wasn't..." She broke off with an unhappy shrug. "Her parents continued to hope, but no one else believed she could survive on her own."

He nodded. "So why did the police abandon the investigation?"

"I don't think they did. They kept the case open for years, but they were really just waiting for a skeleton to turn up. As one of the inspectors said, she vanished into thin air after she left her parents' house, almost certainly abducted by one of these monsters who prey on children. She could be buried anywhere:"

"Her father was questioned and ruled out," said George. "Do you know why? He seems the most obvious suspect."

"He was working a night shift that week and her mother said Priscilla was still at home after he left for work. He reported her missing when he came home at six o'clock in the morning and found her bed hadn't been slept in, but his work colleagues said he hadn't left the factory all night."

"What was his job?" asked Jonathan.

"He was a foreman at Brackham & Wright's tool factory. It closed a few years later and they used the site for the new comprehensive school."

There was a long and thoughtful silence.

"What was that you said about linkage and synchronicity?" asked George, leveling her pen at Jonathan. "'Don't be tempted by it ... coincidences happen.' Well, I am tempted." She switched her attention back to Miss Brett. "Do you remember Grace Jefferies's murder? Her body was discovered a week after Priscilla went missing."

The old woman nodded. "It was very shocking. You mentioned her killer earlier."

"Howard Stamp," said George. "His mother, Wynne�Grace's daughter�also worked at Brackham & Wright. It stretches the imagination to think a single workforce should be hit by an abduction and a murder within seven days of each other. Surely the two events must have been connected in some way? Did the police ever suggest that to you?"

"Not to me, although I do remember being surprised during the trial to learn that Mrs. Stamp worked there ... but that was a year after Priscilla vanished, of course." Miss Brett fell into a brief reverie, staring toward her window as she sifted through memories. "It seems an obvious connection to make with hindsight," she said, "but it wasn't obvious at the time. Brackham & Wright was a major employer in Highdown in the 1960s�at a rough estimate there were two thousand on the payroll�and a large number of my parents worked there. I believe Louise Burton's father was also a foreman, and many of our pupils went into their training schemes."

"What sort of people were the Burtons?" Jonathan asked before George could speak.

"I don't believe I ever met the husband�there wasn't a great deal of contact with parents in those days�but I spoke to Mrs. Burton about Louise's truanting. She was rather more amenable than Mr. Trevelyan, accepting some responsibility for her daughter's behavior, but she blamed Priscilla for it. She wanted me to separate the girls but, as I pointed out, it would achieve nothing while they continued living so close to each other."

"How close were they? We know the Burtons lived in Mullin Street but we haven't been able to find an address for the Trevelyans."

"If memory serves me right, they were in Lacey Street."

"Two on," said George, making a note. "Do you know which number in Lacey Street?" she asked Miss Brett.

She shook her head regretfully. "It was a long time ago."

"Was Mrs. Burton right?" Jonathan prompted. "Was Priscilla the leader in the friendship?"

"Oh, yes. She was by far the stronger character. Also, it was she who started the truanting�afternoons at first, then whole days."

"Every day? How long did it go on?"

Miss Brett considered for a moment. "I can't be precise ... perhaps once or twice a week during the spring term. Both sets of parents were given warnings when we broke up for Easter, but I do remember the girls were absent for much of the first two weeks of the summer term. It ceased abruptly after the rape, although we only learned afterward that that was the cause. I'm afraid I assumed the sudden improvement was because of a letter I wrote to their fathers, threatening immediate expulsion if the behavior persisted."

"When were the letters sent?"

"As far as I could judge from what the police told me, it was the same day as the rape. They failed to register again that morning, which is why I decided to take action."

"And Louise just went along for the ride? She wasn't an instigator?"

Another pause for reflection. "She was a strange child ... rather deceitful. I felt she maligned Priscilla to the police. It was a damning picture she painted. A violent, promiscuous, out-of-control teen who hated her parents, truanted to have sex with boys and used threats to make other children do what she wanted. There may have been elements of truth in it�Priscilla was big for her age and she could retaliate strongly when she was teased�but she wasn't a bully, not by my understanding of the word, anyway. She was a magnet to smaller, shyer children, but I don't recall her being unkind to them ... rather the reverse, in fact; she tended to protect them."

"William Burton said the police questioning frightened Louise. Perhaps she was trying to win sympathy?"

"Indeed," said Miss Brett with an ascerbic edge to her voice. "It was certainly her character. She was prone to tears and fainting and wouldn't look you in the eye when she spoke to you�quite the opposite of Priscilla, who squared up and tried to battle her way out of it. It didn't mean Louise had no hand in the mischief, merely that her friend took the punishment for both of them."

"As in the rape?"

"I would think so."

"And the fight that caused Priscilla's suspension?"

"Yes. That was very typical of Louise. I was told by their teacher that she'd been whispering in Priscilla's ear all morning, but Louise insisted it was the other way round�that Priscilla had been trying to persuade her to truant again and attacked her when she refused."

"What did Priscilla say?"

"Nothing," said the woman regretfully. "I warned her she'd be suspended if she didn't give me an explanation, I even suggested it was Louise who'd provoked her�" she sighed again�"but she wasn't prepared to lie."

"Unlike Louise."

"Mm."

"Do you think with hindsight she was teasing Priscilla about the rape?" George put in.

"Oh, yes."

"It would suggest a cruel streak, if she were ... either that or a complete lack of imagination."

Miss Brett thought for a moment. "As to being cruel ... well, possibly. She was certainly very pleased about Priscilla's suspension. But I've never met a deceitful child who lacked imagination," she finished with a small smile. "Telling stories against one's peers rather demands it, don't you think?"
 

*13*

SANDBANKS PENINSULA, BOURNEMOUTH
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2003, MORNING

Billy Burton had been sitting in his elderly Renault station wagon for over an hour watching the Fletchers' house for signs of life. It was getting on for two weeks since he'd passed the Bristol detective agency's address to Georgina Gardener, and he'd given up hope that she'd done anything about it. He wore a baseball cap over his thinning hair and a pair of cheap, black-rimmed reading glasses from Boots to break up his face. On the steering wheel in front of him was an open file of documents which he was pretending to study, but as time went by he became increasingly nervous that someone would mistake him for a thief and call the police.

The house was in a side street behind Panorama Road, where property prices were exorbitant because of the uninterrupted views of Poole Harbor and Brownsea Island but, even without a view, Billy would have been surprised if the Spanish-style, balconied villa he was watching was worth less than a million pounds. He'd read somewhere that the Sandbanks Peninsula commanded the fourth highest price per square foot of land in the world, with only Tokyo, Hong Kong and London's Belgravia coming in more expensive. But why this should be so was a complete mystery to him. Given the choice, he'd prefer a property on Malibu Beach in California, where the weather was temperate all the year round.

He hunkered down in his seat as a car cruised past, his heart beating fiercely. This was crazy. Celebrities bought weekend retreats here�half the houses were empty for months on end. He'd probably been under surveillance from a CCTV camera. Who the hell was this Fletcher guy and how could he afford to live cheek by jowl with pop stars and footballers? It didn't make sense. Every inquiry Billy had made had come up blank. "Never heard of him..." "Sorry..." "If he's on Sandbanks, he's out of my league, mate..." "What does he do?"

Billy had been tempted to visit the Crown and Feathers and put some questions to Roy Trent, but had thought better of it. There were a number of adages governing ill-conceived action against animals like Trent, but "beware of stirring up a hornets' nest" seemed appropriate. Trent had been a forgotten secret in Billy's brain for over thirty years and he cursed Georgina Gardener for resurrecting him.

Now he was trying to function on two hours' sleep in twenty-four, and driving his daughters mad by monitoring their every movement. He'd relived every minute of Cill's rape, but from the perspective of a grown man, not that of a naive, tipsy ten-year-old who hadn't a clue what was going on. He even knew what he was suffering from�post-traumatic stress disorder�because he'd been a firefighter long enough to recognize the symptoms. It was a disease of the job�the lingering trauma of dealing with car deaths and burn victims was devastating�although he could not account for the thirty-year delay in the onset�nor the intensity�of his guilt.

Why now? He'd dealt with detectives looking for Cill without blinking an eyelid, but a dumpy little stranger turns up, shows him a photograph and he promptly goes to pieces. The woman had told him too much, that was the trouble. "It's more likely she was teasing Cill about the rape ... It takes a lot of imagination to understand how devastating gang rape can be to the victim ... the poor child was probably scrubbing herself raw every day in order to wash off their filth..."

Thirty years on, he could work out what the blood on Cill's legs had signified, and it made him sick even to think about it. In the way of dreams, it was his twins who wandered in and out of his nightmares, hymenal blood pouring down their thighs and baby fat swelling their tiny breasts. Had Louise understood? She must have. He recalled her smirk when she came back with some trousers and dropped them on the ground. "Blokes can tell," she'd said. "You'll never get married now." And he remembered Cill's tearful answer: "At least I'm not a coward."

He'd never spoken to Cill again. The friendship with Louise had ceased abruptly and Cill was gone within a month. There had been some weeks of unease until the family moved to Boscombe, and then the child had been excised from their minds. Billy had never asked his sister why she hadn't told the police he was a witness to the rape. At ten years old, he'd thought she was trying to keep him out of trouble and loved her for it. In his forties, he wasn't so sure.

"Grace's murderer had ginger hair..."

He remembered the day the police came to Mullin Street. He'd thought it was to do with Cill, until a uniformed officer rang their bell and said Mrs. Jefferies was dead. His mother had been watching anxiously from behind a curtain as teams of coppers worked their way from house to house, then she'd ordered Billy upstairs to Louise's bedroom before she opened the door. Billy remembered her hands were shaking, and he remembered wondering why she was scared.

He'd stood just inside his sister's bedroom, listening to the conversation downstairs, while Louise's eyes grew huge in her white face. His mother's voice had been higher than usual as she said she'd never spoken to Mrs. Jefferies and didn't know which house she lived in. The policeman pointed it out to her�Number 11�and asked her if she'd seen anyone enter or leave during the week. No, said his mother, but then she hadn't been out much. She'd been looking after her daughter, who was Cill Trevelyan's best friend. The man was sympathetic. He had daughters of his own.

They'd never been troubled again. Howard Stamp was arrested and charged within two days of Grace's body being found, and the "Mullin Street murder" was as little visited in the Burton household as Cill's disappearance. "Don't upset your sister," had been the watchword for months. Billy's knowledge of both events had been gleaned from friends whose parents were willing to share information with their children. The accepted story on Cill was that she ran away to London. The accepted story on Grace was that Howard went berserk after she ticked him off for slacking.

It was a conclusion that had puzzled Billy when he was ten, because Howard hadn't seemed capable of hacking anyone to pieces. He was even afraid of Billy and Louise, sliding into shadow whenever he saw them because Louise giggled every time he passed and called him a spastic. She even tried to trip him up once and Billy remembered how frightened he looked. On one occasion, Mrs. Jefferies came to their house and asked their mother to put a stop to it. She was a plump, gray-haired woman who wrung her hands nervously and had difficulty getting her words out. Billy remembered her saying please, all the time, as if she were the one at fault.

Their mother hadn't been particularly angry with them�"Everyone knows there's something wrong with that boy"�but she had warned them to leave Howard alone. "According to his grandmother he's suicidal, and I don't want anyone saying you two were to blame when he does something silly." Afterward, Billy assumed the "something silly" was murder and that his mother had lied to the police about talking to Mrs. Jefferies because she didn't want the family involved again. Their father was already furious that Louise had been questioned about Cill's disappearance. He kept talking about a terrible atmosphere at work where rumors were rife that if his daughter knew about Cill's rape, so must her parents.

It was a bewildering few months until they moved. Louise's fainting fits meant she stayed at home, while Billy was expected to go to school. He was suspicious and jealous of his mother's relationship with his sister and fearful of his morose father, who bit his head off every time he asked what was wrong. The Trevelyans featured strongly in his parents' invective. When it wasn't that "little tart Cill" who'd ruined Louise's life, it was "that bastard David" who was forcing his father out of Brackham & Wright. Grace Jefferies was never mentioned at all, except in passing. "The whole damn street wants to move since that bloody woman's murder..."

When they transferred to Boscombe life settled down again. Their father took a new job, Louise changed her name to Daisy and wore her hair differently and Billy found new friends. Only their mother seemed to carry the baggage of Highdown with her, spying from behind the curtains every time the bell rang. Once in a while Billy thought he recognized a face in a crowd, but after a couple of years even that ceased to trouble him. In the great scheme of things, the events of three short weeks in the life of a ten-year-old�events he hadn't understood and couldn't control�became irrelevant. It wasn't his fault that Cill had disappeared or that Mrs. Jefferies had been murdered.

"If they'd had DNA testing in 1970, Mr. Burton, Howard wouldn't even have been charged, let alone sent for Trial. It was someone else who killed Grace..."

"...someone with ginger hair..."
 

George retrieved the photographs of Priscilla Fletcher and Cill Trevelyan from her case and handed Priscilla Fletcher's to Miss Brett. "Could this be Cill Trevelyan? Do you remember her well enough to say?"

The old woman studied the picture for a long time before shaking her head. She admitted to a vague sense of recognition, but it was over thirty years since she'd last seen the child and all she remembered was long brown hair and an overgrown body. George offered her the duplicate of Cill's photograph from the newspaper clipping and Miss Brett's response was the same as William Burton's. "Oh dear, dear, dear! I'd forgotten how young she was. What a terrible tragedy."

"Do you think they're the same person?"

She compared the pictures. "I really couldn't say. Some of my ex-pupils have barely changed at all in adulthood, others are unrecognizable. There are strong similarities, of course..." She broke off with another shake of her head.

"We did wonder if it was Louise Burton," said George.

The woman gave a surprised laugh. "Goodness me, no. Louise was a ferrety little thing with a pinched face and sharp nose. It was why she latched on to Priscilla's coattails�I think she hoped some of the other child's appeal would wash off." She stared at Cill's smiling face. "It was rather pathetic, to be honest. She went through a phase of trying to ape Priscilla's looks and mannerisms and merely succeeded in turning herself into a mimic. It was an unbalanced friendship, of course. There was a lot of jealousy on Louise's side."

"What color hair did she have?" asked Jonathan mildly.

"She was a carrottop," said Miss Brett, returning to the photograph of Priscilla Fletcher. "This certainly isn't her."
 

A black BMW slowed as it came up behind Billy's Renault and he had a glimpse of a dark-haired woman in his rearview mirror before the car turned left into the driveway in front of the Fletchers' house. He dropped the spectacles into his lap and lifted a pair of mini-binoculars to his eyes, using his hand to shield them.

He watched the car door open and the woman climb out. She was slim and smartly dressed in navy blue trousers and a pink polo-neck cashmere jumper with dark hair brushing her shoulders. He couldn't see her face because she had her back to him and, when she let herself into her house, he thought he'd put himself through the ringer for nothing. But she, reappeared almost immediately, looking directly at him as she went to the rear of the car and released her boot. It was a trip she repeated several times in order to carry her shopping bags inside and, even if Billy hadn't recognized her the first time, he couldn't have failed to identify the way she walked. Quick, small steps that spoke of an impatient nature.
 

"The Burtons moved after Priscilla disappeared so that Louise could go to a different school," George said. "Do you know what became of her after that?"

"No. She went to Highdown's equivalent in Boscombe, but where she went from there..." Miss Brett shook her head. "I did follow up with her new headmaster but I'm afraid he wasn't very flattering. I believe "unteachable' was the expression he used. Her parents changed her name and encouraged her to put the past behind her, but the headmaster said it was a mistake."

"Why?"

"Oh, I imagine because it sent the wrong message. Changing one's name is such an easy way to wriggle out of one's difficulties, don't you think?" She was looking at Jonathan as she spoke, as if she suspected him of doing the same thing, and he felt his face heat up.

"What name did she take?" he asked.

"I believe it was Daisy."

"Did she keep her surname?"

Miss Brett nodded. "It was common enough not to worry about." She paused. "To be honest, I thought the Burtons overreacted. It's true Louise was picked on when she returned to school the following week, but it would have passed. The other girls thought she was responsible for Priscilla being punished�and indirectly for the child running away�so she had a difficult two days. I urged her mother to take a tougher line, but I'm afraid she wasn't up to it. In the end it seemed sensible to compromise on a move."

"You don't think it was Louise who was overreacting?"

"Without question," said the old woman dryly, "but, as I wasn't privy to what had gone on between the two girls, it was difficult to know how genuine she was being. I understood from her mother that her greatest fear was bumping into the Trevelyans, so clearly guilt played a part." She gave a regretful shrug. "It was desperately sad. None of us was immune. We all felt responsible."

There was a wistful note in her voice as if her own guilt still lingered and George wondered if that was one of the reasons why she needed to paint David Trevelyan as an abuser. "I'm sure you're right about it being trouble at home that caused Cill to leave," she said gently. "It's impossible to read her story without seeing her as a victim. Do you know if she had ever run away before? It tends to be a pattern of behavior that's repeated until the child decides to leave for good."

Miss Brett eyed her for a moment before leaning back to stare thoughtfully toward the window again. "Do you know I've never considered that? How very interesting. I always put her absences down to truanting." She fell silent for a moment or two. "I think it's unlikely. On the one occasion when she was absent for three days in a row, Louise was also absent, and neither set of parents reported their daughters missing, which suggests they were going home at night."

"Did the mothers work?" asked George. "Perhaps the girls stayed in all day."

"Oh, no, that wouldn't have been tolerated by either woman. I believe Mrs. Burton had an office-cleaning job, but she was home at lunchtime. Mr. Trevelyan worked nights, of course, so he'd have been sleeping during the day." Miss Brett's mouth thinned with irritation. "We had several persistent truants, particularly among the boys. It was an impossible problem, made worse when the leaving age was raised to sixteen. Short of tying them to their desks, there was little we could do if their parents wouldn't cooperate."

"And ninety-nine percent of teachers would rather turn a blind eye and be shot of the disruptive element, anyway," said Jonathan lightly. "The job's hard enough without having to cope with an illiterate Neanderthal dragging his knuckles along the ground."

The old woman gave a grunt of amusement. "Are you referring to the students or their parents, Dr. Hughes? The more disruptive the child, the more ignorant and ill-disciplined the parents, I usually found. So many of the underachievers were lost causes before they ever reached Highdown. All one could ever do was pass the buck to the police and juvenile detention."

"Was Roy Trent one of those lost causes?"

She studied him for a moment, a small frown creasing her forehead. "I remember the name but I don't know why."

"Dark-haired, medium height ... his father ran a newsagent in Highdown Road. We believe Louise may have described him as one of Priscilla's rapists."

Her eyes widened as memory surged back. "Good heavens, you are well informed. Roy Trent, Micky Hopkinson and Colley Hurst." She watched George make a note. "In fact, Louise was insistent she didn't know who they were and could only give a vague description. It was the police who settled on those three because of their past history. They denied it, of course."

"Were they on the school roll?"

"Not at that time. They had a history of expulsion and transfer to different schools but I don't know where they were registered in 1970 ... if at all, frankly. I believe social services tried various supervision orders but it was an intractable problem. They should have been sent to approved schools to break the links with home�but there were too few specialist units left after the Government cut the funding." She fell silent while she marshaled her thoughts. "I don't remember Micky's or Colley's circumstances, but Roy's father remarried and wouldn't have anything to do with him. It was a cruel way to treat a child ... did the poor boy no good at all."

"We've been told that one of them had ginger hair," said George.

"Colley Hurst," she agreed.

"Where did he live?"

Miss Brett closed her eyes briefly as if looking back down a passage of time. "I believe all three boys were in Colliton Way. It was a dumping ground for difficult families. Most of our underachievers came from there."

George glanced at Jonathan. "I hope that rings some bells."

He gave a doubtful shake of his head. "Should it?"

"It's in your book," she said mischievously, "and it's another example of synchronicity. Wynne and Howard lived at 48 Colliton Way."

Miss Brett was as intrigued by the coincidences as George was. "One wonders why the police settled so quickly on Howard Stamp," she said. "As I remember it, he was taken in for questioning almost immediately."

"Several witnesses saw him running from Grace's house," said George. "He was a regular visitor, so everyone knew who he was, and when he confessed the police didn't need to look for anyone else."

"But you don't accept the confession?"

"No. Dr. Hughes and I believe it was coerced and that the story he gave in his defense fits the facts rather better. Do you remember it?"

"Only that he said his grandmother was already dead when he found her."

George took a copy of Disordered Minds from her case. "This is Dr. Hughes's book, which includes Howard's case in Chapter Twelve. You might like to read it. It's a very well-argued rebuttal of the prosecution evidence." She handed it across. "He questions the pathologist's timing of the murder, the psychological profile of the murderer or murderers and whether that profile fitted Howard, as well as the forensic hair evidence which, along with the confession, persuaded the jury of Howard's guilt."

"May I keep it?"

"Please. You have our cards and phone numbers. We'd be interested in any ideas you might have."

Miss Brett reached for some spectacles. "I remember Howard was a redhead," she said, examining the cover, "and if hair evidence was involved, that presumably explains your interest in Louise and Colley Hurst? You think one of them was the murderer?"

"It's a possibility. Colley fits the psychological profile, and Louise was living in the same road as Grace."

"Mm." She lowered the book to her lap and folded her hands over it.

"You're not even tempted by the idea?" asked Jonathan with a smile.

The old woman studied him over the rims of her tortoiseshell half-moons. "I won't know until I've read it," she said, "but I fear you're clutching at straws ... certainly where Louise is concerned. She would never have done something like that on her own�she was far too frightened�and if she had any knowledge of it she'd have spilled the beans immediately; that was her nature. She was a tale-teller."

"Perhaps she wasn't asked?"

Miss Brett shook her head. "She'd have found a way. Her favorite trick was to do what she did with Priscilla: needle away at whoever had annoyed her until they lost their temper, then plead innocence. I assume the aim was to get her own back on Priscilla for publicly breaking their friendship ... but I never doubted that she was genuinely shocked by the poor child's disappearance." She shrugged. "You need to understand Louise's personality. She was a beastly little girl whose sole aim in life was to be the center of attention�and telling tales on others was the only way she knew how."
 

Priscilla Fletcher gave a frightened start as she slammed her boot and turned round to find a tall, well-built man in a baseball cap behind her. "My God!" she snapped angrily. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Billy removed the cap and smoothed his balding scalp. "Hello, sis," he said. "I was about to ask you the same thing."
 

*14*

Close up, Billy could see the tail end of bruising under Louise's left eye, a yellow crescent, masked with makeup. He put a hand under her chin and lifted her face. "Who's been hitting you?" he asked.

She pushed his arm away and pulled down a pair of dark glasses that had been holding back her hair. "No one," she snapped.

"I thought you'd done with all that, Lou. Never again, you said, the last time I saw you."

She spun on her heel and marched purposefully toward the front door. "You've got the wrong woman," she called over her shoulder. "My name's Priscilla Fletcher and I don't have a brother. I want you to leave."

Billy followed her. "And if I don't?"

"I'll call the police."

He blocked her attempt to close the door. "Don't be an idiot, sis. What would you tell them? That you've never seen me before in your life? All I'd have to do is phone the folks and get them to come up. Mum'll know you immediately. You've probably still got that mole on your thigh and the scald mark where you spilled boiling tea on your stomach." He watched her shoulders slump in resignation. "They've been worrying about you for twenty bloody years. We were told you'd gone to Australia."

She stood irresolutely in the doorway, her head to one side as if she were listening for something in the farther reaches of the house. "Look, you can't come in," she said, touching a small hand to his arm. "Nick's in his office and I don't need anymore aggro. I'll meet you somewhere. When are you free?"

"Now. I'll take you for a drive."

"I can't. He knows I'm home." They both heard the sound of a door opening. "Oh Jesus!" she hissed. "I'll meet you outside Dingles at four this afternoon. Now, piss off quick, or I'll get my face smashed in again."

He put his hand out instinctively to stop her closing the door. "This is crazy. Tell him I'm your brother."

But she was too fast for him. "He won't believe me," she whispered as the latch locked against him.
 

"I hate meeting women like that," said George of Miss Brett as she unlocked her car door.

"Really?" said Jonathan in surprise. "I thought she was incredible. Brain like a laser ... memory like a computer. If I'm like that when I'm in my eighties I won't have any complaints."

"Exactly," said George, slinging her case onto the backseat. "Life is so bloody unfair."

He waited while she reached in to release the lock on the passenger side then stooped to face her across the seat. "Loads of people beat cancer, George. There's no reason why you shouldn't make eighty if you do what your doctors tell you. You mustn't get hung up on genetic history�it's the curse of modern living. Just because your mother died of it doesn't mean you're going to."

She settled herself on the seat. "That's not why I don't like meeting women like Miss Brett. She's a wonder, Jonathan. She should have had babies. Imagine what they would have been like�intelligent, healthy, wise. It makes my heart bleed, it really does. What's wrong with men that they can't recognize a peach when it's under their nose?"

He wondered if she was she talking about herself. "Genes aren't everything. Nurture's just as important. Miss Brett's role in life has been to mold other people's children, and that's a far harder prospect than thirty seconds' drunken copulation that produces a random selection of dodgy chromosomes. In any case," he finished with a grin as he attached his seat belt, "how do you know she hasn't had a child?"

"If she did, she wouldn't have been allowed to keep it ... or talk about it. They'd never have put an unmarried mother in charge of a secondary school in the sixties." She fed her key into the ignition and locked her own belt. "It's a crazy world that helps the least able in society to go on reproducing but discourages intelligent career women."

It was a surprisingly illiberal view for a woman who portrayed herself as the opposite. "It's better than it was," he murmured. "At least women aren't stigmatized for having children out of wedlock these days."

"Maybe not," she said roundly, "but you're certainly penalized for it financially. You try holding down a full-time job and paying for forty-plus hours of childcare on what remains of a single salary after taxes have been deducted. That's the disincentive. It's a ridiculous waste of good genetic material. If I were in government, I'd make it a requirement of law that every workplace had a creche."

"Too expensive and impossible to manage," said Jonathan. "Imagine the cost to a small company if only one female employee had a baby at any given time."

"Then they form a cooperative creche with other businesses in the area," said George, starting the engine. "What's the alternative? I read a report recently that said over thirty percent of professional women are choosing to remain childless. That's a disaster. What happens if the rate reaches sixty percent? What happens if we end up with a society produced entirely by underachievers?"

"That's a very bleak view."

"I wish it were," she answered, pulling away from the curb and performing a three-point turn.

"It's just as hard for men," said Jonathan.

"Except your clocks take longer to run down," George said with a smile, "and you can father a baby a week if you find enough accommodating women."

"It's not that easy," he said morosely.

She glanced at him as she drew to a halt at the junction with the main road. "Then start making compromises," she said bluntly. "You're an attractive and talented man, Jonathan, and you should be a father."

He gave a low chuckle. "Thank you, George. Sadly, the more usual response to my clumsy efforts is: 'I wouldn't have a baby with you if you were the last man on earth.' "

"Then do something about it."

"Like what?"

"Make compromises," she repeated, waiting for a car to pass.

"Did you?"

"No. There was always something better round the corner ... and by the time I realized what a flawed philosophy that was, I'd become redundant." She flashed him a bright smile to quell any attempt at sympathy. "Don't make the same mistake, Jon. There's nothing worse than living with regrets."

In an uncharacteristic gesture, Jonathan put his hand on hers and gave it a quick squeeze. "If it's any consolation," he said, "you're just as redundant if you do pass on your genes. Once a child is born�and barring the few years of nurturing that allows him to achieve independence�there's nothing you can add to him that isn't already there. It may be good, it may be bad, but by the third generation your genes will have become so diluted that your great-grandchild will carry only a tiny percentage of you. People's value is in their achievements, George, not in their ever diminishing gene pool."

It was on the tip of her tongue to say achievements were empty when there was no one to share them with, but instead she gave a relaxed laugh. "Then let's find somewhere to eat while we work out who really killed Grace," she said, pulling left onto Bridport Road. "That would be one hell of an achievement."
 

She drove to the Smugglers Inn at Osmington Mill, to the east of Dorchester, which had been built in the thirteenth century, beside a stream, in a cleft between two swooping downlands that rose to meet the spectacular Jurassic cliffs of the Dorset coast. The car park overlooked the sea�a turbulent gray that April lunchtime, whipped by an easterly wind�with the thatched inn accessible via a steep ramp and a flight of steps. "My treat," said George firmly, leading the way. "I had a paycheck this morning so I'm feeling flush."

Jonathan made a halfhearted protest. "Why don't we go Dutch?"

"Because you're broke and I'm old enough to be your mother," said George, pushing open the door. "Also I'm starving, and I refuse to feel embarrassed about eating three courses while you pick away at some miserable little starter because it's all you can afford. Reason enough?"

He followed her inside. "I suppose Andrew's been dishing the dirt on me again?"

"It depends how you define dirt. Most of what he said was highly laudatory." She turned to look at him. "What do you think?"

"That you're feeling sorry for me."

"Thepub, Jonathan. What do you think of the pub?"

"It'll do," he said, taking in the impressive oak beams that crisscrossed the low ceiling, the open fireplaces with glowing embers and blackboards advertising local lobster and a healthy wine list. "At least it's an improvement on the Crown and Feathers."

"You're very difficult to please," she said with a sigh. "Anything's better than the Crown and Feathers. I hoped you'd appreciate some atmosphere."

He laughed and steered her toward the bar. "I was teasing, George. If you want to pass yourself off as my mother, you'll have to learn to take it."

This sharing of a meal was so different from the first that Jonathan wondered whether George's remark about a bad beginning making a bad ending was true. If so, he blamed Roy Trent for it. However ill Jonathan had been feeling that day, it was the other man's use of "black" and "wog" that had really raised his hackles. "Tell me something," he invited when a natural lull came in the conversation. "Did you phone Roy to tell him you were going to be late for the lunch in February?"

George paused with her fork, laden with steak-and-kidney pudding, halfway to her mouth. "Of course I did. I said I'd be lucky to be there before twelve-forty-five and asked him to take you up to the room. Why do you ask?"

"Just interested in why he was so aggressive. He left me standing at the bar for a good ten minutes before he put in an appearance, then the first thing he did was call me a wog, but he must have had some suspicion of who I was. The only other people there were a middle-aged couple and Jim Longhurst, so it's not as though there were droves of potential Jonathan Hugheses to choose from."

George looked appalled. "Did he really call you a wog?"

Jonathan nodded. "Wog ... black ... darkie�the only thing he didn't call me was a nigger."

George's face went through several gargoyle gyrations. "Good lord! That's outrageous! No wonder you were so cross."

Jonathan grinned as he cut into his fillet of salmon. "I think he was trying to get rid of me before you arrived."

"He'd have succeeded, too, if my neighbor hadn't come home when he did. I'd reckoned another half hour on the charger before there was enough juice in the battery to give me a spark, then Barry turned up with jump leads and had me ticking over in a couple of minutes." Her forehead creased in a frown. "I phoned just after midday, and Roy said you were already there."

"Then he was watching me through a spyhole," said Jonathan bluntly, "because he didn't emerge till twelve-fifteen. I thought at the time it was a damn strange way to run a pub."

"He has a CCTV camera above the till and a couple of monitors in the kitchen." She chewed a piece of steak. "I'm completely shocked. He told me the only racist remark he made was that he was expecting a white man and you took off like a rocket. Do you still think he isn't involved?"

Jonathan shook his head. "I'd probably agree a ninety percent certainty that he was one of Cill's rapists, but I can't see the connection with Grace unless the police missed a hell of a lot of evidence. Even if Colley Hurst was the murderer and bath taker, there was nothing to indicate the other two boys were there." He shrugged. "I suppose Colley might have told them about it afterward, but it doesn't explain why Roy would want to protect him now."

"Perhaps we should ask him," said George lightly.

"He'd laugh."

"Not if we concentrate on Cill's rape," she said. "We know he was taken in for questioning about it and we know the names of his friends. It'll be interesting to see his reaction." Impatiently, she pushed her plate aside and propped her elbows on the table. "He's so smug, Jonathan. At least let's put him on the back foot."

The idea was tempting. "What good will it do if we can't link him to Grace?"

"It'll scare the bejabbers out of him," she said, "particularly if we ask him who Priscilla Fletcher is and why she would want to steal your wallet. As far as he's aware, his ex-wife is completely unknown to us. In any case, I can't believe he called you a wog�it's so rude."
 

The closer they came to Bournemouth the more Jonathan regretted agreeing to accompany her. Sticks and stones might break his bones but rudeness had never killed him. In one form or another, he'd lived with it all his life. It had turned him into a deeply repressed individual, but it was the sticks and stones that frightened him.

"You're such a coward, Jon ... it's embarrassing. When are you going to stand up for yourself?"

"I'm not sure I can do this," he said suddenly.

George, who had been prattling through his increasingly long silences, was unsurprised. A couple of glasses of wine had released his inhibitions long enough for him to accept the challenge, but the Dutch courage hadn't lasted the fifty-minute drive. "He'll avoid any difficult confrontations for as long as he can," Andrew had warned her. "His expertise, as he'll tell you again and again, is researching documents. He'll want the longest paper trail you've ever seen before he'll tackle Roy Trent. It's a defense mechanism."

"Against what?"

"Being in a situation he can't control ... being found wanting ... being afraid. I had the devil's own job persuading him down to Bournemouth to talk to you."

"Why?"

Andrew shrugged. "He didn't know who you were, or what to expect. He's a fish out of water with strangers."

"Is it shyness?"

"Not entirely. He was badly bullied at school and it's left him paranoid about everything�rejection, in particular."

"Like Howard."

Andrew nodded. "Except Jon's scars don't show, and I think that makes it harder for him. He doesn't have an obvious excuse to feel like an outsider�except his color�which is why he portrays himself as a victim of racism. It's easier than admitting that what he's really afraid of is derision."

George made no response to Jonathan's remark until she was able to pull off the main road and draw up behind a parked car in the first side street she could find. "What don't you think you can do?" she asked, killing the engine.

"Talk to Roy," he said, rubbing his face furiously with his hands.

"Why not?"

"We don't have enough information. What are we going to say to him?"

She watched him for a moment, not doubting that he was in a genuine funk. "I'm planning to describe Cill Trevelyan's gang rape as told to me by William Burton," she said unemotionally, "then make it clear that I believe Roy was involved along with his friends, Colley Hurst and Micky Hopkinson."

"He won't like it."

"Should I give a damn?" asked George with an amused laugh.

"He'll deny it. You don't have any proof."

"I'm not planning to arrest him, Jonathan, just let him know what I know and see where it takes us."

He lowered his fists to his lap and banged them against each other. "I can't see the point of putting him on his guard before we need to. Supposing he gets angry?"

"You should be more worried about me getting angry," she said mildly. "I hate rape with a passion, Jonathan, particularly gang rape of a child. If Cill had been my daughter�if I'd been Jean Trevelyan�I'd have camped on Roy's doorstep thirty-three years ago till he confessed, then I'd have ripped his head off. He should count himself lucky I wasn't."

Jonathan stared at her in wide-eyed desperation. "I really can't do it."

She put a hand on his arm. "What are you afraid of? That he'll hit me? I quite hope he does, as a matter of fact�I'll have him charged with assault�but he won't do it for that reason."

Jonathan shook his head. "You can't be sure."

"No," George agreed, "but I'm damned if I'll let that stop me. In any case, I have a pepper spray in my bag. It's highly illegal�I bought it in America�but I'd rather be in prison for zapping a mugger than dead because he had a knife." She paused to let him take the information in. "I'm not easily intimidated, Jonathan. I may not be the fittest thing on two legs but my dad taught me to stand up for myself, and it was a good lesson. I'll tackle Roy alone, if necessary, but it won't help you if I do."

He raised a mirthless smile. "It'll do me more good than having my jaw broken."

"Has that happened before?"

"Once."

"By bullies?"

"A bully," he said flatly.

"Did you report him?"

"No. I pretended I'd fallen off my bike."

"Why?"

"Because he said he'd break it again if I didn't." His smile became twisted. "I didn't have a father like yours, George. The last thing you did with mine was stand up for yourself ... unless you wanted more of the same, of course."

There was no point telling him it was a variation on a theme repeated in every case study of physical abuse George had ever read. For Jonathan, and every abused child, their individual story was unique. A low-income family, struggling to survive. Secrecy, coupled with threats of retaliation if the abuse was exposed. A child who hid in the school lavatories because he was too frightened to go home. An angry father whose violent tendencies were aggravated by alcohol. A despised mother who allowed her son to be beaten in preference to herself. A dysfunctional parental relationship made worse by an elderly grandfather whose demands for attention increased the stress within the family. A skinny, fast-growing adolescent with ill-fitting clothes who was targeted by bullies because he wore his timidity too openly. A reinvention of history because lies were less painful than the truth. Repressed emotions, limited social skills, inability to commit to relationships, fear of criticism, fear of failure...

"Andrew told me you had a steady girlfriend until Christmas," George said. "What happened to her?"

"You're such a coward, Jon ... it's embarrassing."

This was not a story Jonathan wanted to narrate, and he wouldn't have done so if George hadn't retreated into a deadening silence which became more insistent the longer it went on. He understood that hers was a far more determined character than his, and he began to wonder if she and Andrew had cooked up this plot to persuade him to talk about Emma.

"Were you lying about wanting this meeting with Roy?" he asked angrily, as if George were party to his thought processes.

And perhaps she was, because she addressed his unspoken question. "Is it really so hard to tell me about her?"

"There's nothing to tell," he said harshly. "It didn't work out so we split up. It happens every day."

Again the silence drifted, nagging at Jonathan's nerves like a toothache. An interminable number of cars drove past while George sat calmly on, more prepared than he to wait it out. He wanted to despise her for her inquisitiveness, but he couldn't. An inquisitive woman would have pestered for an answer. He wanted to feel angry at her attempts to manipulate him, but he couldn't, for when he finally told the story it was because he wanted to.
 

*15*

DINGLES DEPARTMENT STORE, BOURNEMOUTH
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2003, 4:30 P.M.

Billy Burton took another look at his watch, then dropped his cigarette butt to the pavement and crushed it underfoot. He'd arrived early and had been standing close to the store entrance for forty-five minutes and, though crowds of shoppers had passed, Louise had not been among them. He was disappointed but not surprised. She'd failed to make several such rendezvous before the family lost touch with her, and the circumstances had been tediously similar.

At first, spurred on by his father, Billy had tracked her down each time she moved�always when her useless husband was given another stretch in prison�made an appointment to meet, only to hang around on a street corner waiting for her to show. In the end he became impatient, and he told his father to let her stew for a while. She'll call you when she's ready, he'd said confidently. But he was wrong. All contact with her had been lost, and they'd been out of touch for more than two decades.

There were no recriminations. Indeed, sometimes he thought they were secretly relieved to be shot of her. His father said he'd always expected it, his mother said Billy had tried his best, and, like a cracked record�never mind a whole river had passed under Lou's bridge�the parents returned to blaming Cill Trevelyan. Louise had never been the same since the "little tart" had run away. If they'd understood how much influence the beastly girl had wielded over their own naive Lou, they'd have strangled the friendship at birth.

Nevertheless, Billy had always felt guilty. Once in a while�usually under pressure from his wife�he would ask himself why his parents had never gone knocking on doors themselves in search of their errant daughter, but it wasn't an excuse that sat easily with him. Louise's prostitution and heroin addiction had been so inexplicable that on the rare occasions when she paid a visit home the Burtons' initial pleasure at seeing her had invariably degenerated into a blazing row, leaving Billy�no less puzzled by his sister's rapid descent from wife to hooker�as the only conduit of communication. The one thing he'd never told his folks was that among her various aliases was the name Cill.

Their mother was convinced she'd died in Australia, either from drugs or AIDS, and there was endless speculation about children. Had she had any? Where were they? Who was looking after them? Councillor Gardener believed she'd had a baby by Roy Trent in her teens, and, while Billy knew that to be untrue, he was less sure about a marriage. Her name changes had been as hard to keep track of as her changes of address.

He took another look at his watch, toying with the idea of driving back to Sandbanks. Lou hadn't denied it when he suggested she was still on the game, but her remark about having her face smashed in again implied it was Fletcher who'd given her the black eye. God knows she'd had plenty in her time, from either her husband or customers, but what kind of pimp lived on millionaire's row and sent his wife out prostituting?

He lit another cigarette and promised himself he'd leave when it was finished. He couldn't make anymore sense of Lou's situation today than he had twenty years before, but he'd give her another five minutes...
 

"It was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but without the lappy ending," said Jonathan. "We lived together for a year before Emma allowed me to meet her parents�she iisisted we wait until we were sure we wanted to get married." He smiled painfully. "So we invited them to the flat on Christmas Eve to give them the good news ... and it was worse than anything I'd imagined. She warned me ier father wouldn't like it, but she didn't tell me he'd call me a 'dirty nigger' and then start lamming into her. I left the room when he slapped her ... and she moved out on Christmas Day. She hasn't spoken to me since."

"Where did you go?"

"I hid in the lavatory."

"What did Emma say?"

"That I was a coward and I'd embarrassed her�nothing I didn't deserve. She was looking for a man who would stand up to her father, and I couldn't ... so we split up."

"Is she with anyone else?"

"I don't know."