Disordered Minds

*21*

9 GALWAY ROAD, BOSCOMBE, BOURNEMOUTH

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2003,11:30 AM.

The well-endowed young woman from WCH Investigations was nothing like Rachel or Billy's idea of a private detective. She was young and rather nervous and they both thought she resembled an Eskimo, with her sallow skin, heavy black hair, flat cheekbones and narrow eyes. She gave her name as Sasha Spencer and began by explaining that her firm's contract with David and Jean Trevelyan had long since expired, but that she had been interested enough by William's email to look up the file, as it was the second approach on Cill Trevelyan that the firm had had in four weeks.

"Who was the first?" asked Rachel.

"I can't answer that, Mrs. Burton. We take confidentiality seriously."

"Georgina Gardener," said Billy. "She's the one who put me on to Louise, although she doesn't know who she is ... just spotted a similarity to Cill that wasn't real. Why didn't you respond to her approach? Why wait for ours?"

Sasha glanced uncertainly at her notes as if to confirm the name. It was a reverse-psychology technique that usually worked for her. Signs of indecisiveness and nerves persuaded interviewees that they knew more than she did, and it encouraged them to set her straight by telling her more than they intended. "I didn't speak to the person in question, but I understand they were trying to discover the Trevelyans' address." She looked up again. "It's not the sort of information we can reveal, so the meeting ended fairly rapidly."

"Meaning you didn't tell her anything?"

The young woman nodded. "We couldn't take it any further at that stage, because we were given no details about why the person was interested in Cill or her parents. However, when we received your email I called Mr. Trevelyan and explained that we'd had two approaches from two different sources in under a month and asked him if he wanted me to pursue either of them. He told me he did."

Rachel leaned forward with a frown. "Are you saying that because your contract's with him, you won't be able to report back to us?"

"Not necessarily. I explained there was a quid pro quo-in return for divulging a name and address, one of the sources was asking for information for themselves. When I pointed out that it might be the only way to progress the search, Mr. Trevelyan instructed me to proceed as I thought best." She looked from one to the other. "I could, of course, approach the other party-whose contact details I have-and that person might give me the name and address for free, but I doubt they can give me the sort of background information that you can."

"Not if it's Georgina Gardener," Billy agreed. "I think she only came across Cill by accident when she was looking into Howard Stamp's story."

Sasha Spencer eyed him for a moment, then took a mini-cassette player out of her case and placed it on the coffee table between them. "Do you have any objections to my recording this? I'll be taking notes at the same time but it's useful to have a backup."

Billy looked unhappy. "Who are you going to play it to?"

"No one. It's just a memory aid." But Rachel shook her head firmly as she reached for the recorder and tucked it under a cushion. "Sorry, love," she said, "but it's more than Billy's life's worth. His folks'll kill him if it ever gets out that he talked on tape about family secrets. Plus, there's no guarantee he's right, so he'll spend another few months tossing and turning because there's a cassette somewhere with his voice on it." She nodded to the notepad. "Let's stick to the old-fashioned way."

"No problem," said Sasha cheerfully, recognizing that the wife was tougher and cannier than the husband. "I tend to concentrate better on what people are saying if the tape's running, but it's no big deal." She sent Rachel a laughing smile that went all the way up to her eyes, deliberately courting her, while working out ways to persuade her to leave the room.

Listening in Robert and Eileen's old sitting room to Billy's account of his sister's upbringing gave substance to Louise in a way that hearing the same story in an office might not have done. There was an album of childhood photographs in a sideboard, items of furniture which had moved with them from Highdown and passed on to Billy when his parents left for Cornwall, even a china doll that Rachel said had once belonged to his sister.

Nevertheless, there were glaring holes in Billy's picture of the girl he grew up with. He claimed his mother was very protective of her after Cill's disappearance, but couldn't explain why-"I used to think she was worried Lou would abscond as well, but I'm not so sure now..." He said his father allowed her to behave like a prima donna-"He hardly ever told her off"-but again couldn't explain why-"I assumed he shared Mum's fear of frightening her away..." Nor was he able to give a clear sense of Louise's character, vacillating between describing her as a lying bitch-"She was always telling stories about people..."-and as being scared of her own shadow-"She'd go catatonic at the drop of a hat." When he went on to describe her descent into prostitution and drugs, his clear implication was that her life had been wrecked by her parents' sudden relaxation of her moral boundaries when she was thirteen.

Sasha looked up from her notes. "I'm not sure I understand," she said carefully. "Are you saying they backed off after Cill vanished because they knew Louise was involved in some way?"

Billy exchanged a glance with his wife. "It just seems odd," said Rachel. "When you look at what became of her, you have to ask yourself why. It didn't happen with Billy. He turned out OK, but only because his folks never let up on him." She put a supporting arm through Billy's, hugging him close. "So why didn't I they do the same with Louise instead of making excuses for her all the time?"

"It doesn't necessarily follow," said Sasha. "Siblings' characters vary hugely because of the different dynamics that operate inside families." She paused to consolidate her thoughts. "It's interesting, though, particularly as you're both suggesting it was Louise who was in control. It may have been straightforward emotional blackmail-'Lay off me or I'll run away'-or you were right at the time," she told Billy, "they were afraid she'd imitate Cill." He flicked another sideways look at his wife, as if seeking permission to be more forthright. "Maybe she had something on them," he muttered uncomfortably.

"What sort of thing?"

"I don't know."

Sasha frowned. "You must have some idea."

Billy stared at her rather helplessly for a moment, then hunched forward and concentrated on the floor. "It all happened together. The rape ... Cill vanishing ... Lou being questioned ... Grace's murder..." He lapsed into silence.

"We don't think it's coincidence," Rachel put in. "I mean, if Eileen lied about Louise going to Grace's house, then she probably lied about other stuff." She moved her hand to her husband's back and rubbed it gently. "It's what we want you to find out. Billy's worried there's things he was never told, and it's driving him bananas."

Sasha watched them both for a long moment then sculpted an ironic 'T" with her hands. "Time out?" she suggested. "I'm quite good at what I do, but I'm not a policeman. My forte is tracking down missing people-mostly children-and I succeed more often than I fail. Murder is something else entirely."

"It was a long time ago," said Billy.

"It makes no difference. If you think you have information about a murder, you should take it to the police." She closed her notebook. "Apart from anything else, you're putting me in a difficult position. Withholding evidence is a serious crime and I can't be a party to it."

Billy would have abandoned it there and then but Rachel gave a disparaging laugh. "No wonder none of you has ever found Cill. How can you go looking for a girl and not know there was a murder on her doorstep a few days later? OK, I don't know how old you are, or if you were even born then, but David Trevelyan bloody well ought to have mentioned it. If it hadn't been for Grace's death, the police would have spent more time looking for Cill. Didn't he tell you that?"

"Are you saying the two events were linked?" Rachel shrugged. "All we know is that Lou was questioned about Cill going missing, then Eileen lied about knowing Grace." She gave Billy's back another comforting stroke. "And we don't know why, since Lou and Cill spent time in Grace's house ... and Eileen knew it."

Sasha pondered for a moment, then reached into her case for a file. "I think you should read the Trevelyans' statements." She took out a file and extracted some papers. "These are copies of the ones they made to the police." She passed them across. "Jean's is a factual account of sending Cill to bed on the Friday night and waking up in the morning to find her bed empty. David's is more interesting, because it was made in response to some tough police questioning."

She watched Rachel split the copies and pass one to Billy. "Last night I listened to tapes of the interviews my predecessor had with both of them. They mention the names of numerous children and adults that Cill was friendly with-I have a list in here-" she tapped the file on her lap-"but there's no one called Grace and there's no mention of murder." She jerked her chin at the papers. "As far as I'm aware, those statements represent the limit of their knowledge."

INCIDENT REPORT

Date: 5.30.70

Time: 0930

Officers attending: PC Lawrence Reed and PC Paul Prentice

Incident: Missing child-mother, Jean Trevelyan, interviewed at home

Mrs. Jean Trevelyan reported her daughter missing at 0917. Officers Reed and Prentice responded immediately. After taking and transmitting details of Priscilla (Cill) Trevelyan's description, the officers questioned Jean Trevelyan (mother) . She was extremely upset and not very coherent. However, she dictated the following statement and agreed it was an accurate and chronological record of events:

Cill was sent home from Highdown School yesterday afternoon [Friday, 5.29.70] at about two o'clock. She told me she'd been suspended for a week because she'd had a fight with another girl. The girl's name is Louise Burton and she was Cill's best friend until they fell out at the beginning of this month. They haven't talked to each other since, and my husband and I were pleased about it because Louise was a bad influence on our daughter.

Cill refused to tell me what the fight was about and I warned her that her father would be angry about the suspension. She lost her temper and stormed off to her bedroom, saying it wasn't her fault. I understood from something she said that Louise Burton had not been punished in the same way. As this seemed unreasonable, I telephoned Miss Brett at Highdown School and asked for an explanation. She told me Louise had said the fight started when Cill tried to persuade her to truant again, and Cill had not denied it. In the circumstances, she felt it proper to punish Cill.

The last three months have been a big worry to us. For no obvious reason Cill started truanting, and the school warned us a few weeks ago that she would be asked to leave if her poor attendance continued. She was encouraged to truant by Louise Burton, who struggles with schoolwork and finds lessons difficult. Both my husband and I have spoken to Miss Brett about moving Cill into a more challenging class. We have also asked Mr. and Mrs. Burton on two occasions to address Louise's behavior. Nothing has come of either approach.

My husband, David, works the night shift at Brackham & Wright's tool factory. At the time Cill arrived home he was asleep, and I decided to keep her in her room until he left for work at 8 p.m. I knew he'd be angry and felt it would be better to tell him about the suspension this morning [Saturday]. However, Cill was making so much noise that she woke him up. When he demanded an explanation, she swore at him and said she didn't have to say anything if she didn't want to.

Cill is our only child and David worries about her a great deal. She's well developed for her age and brighter than average, but she's easily led. We never had any problems with her until she went to Highdown School. Cill has accused David many times of being too strict, citing other children's parents as examples. She is angry that she isn't allowed to go out in the evenings or wear provocative clothing, and this has led to arguments with her father.

When she refused to say why she'd had a fight with Louise, he gave her three lashes of his belt. David has always taken the view that school punishments should be upheld and he ordered Cill to stay in her room until she was ready to explain and apologize. She went upstairs immediately and slammed her door again.

I knocked on her door shortly after David went to work and asked her if she wanted something to eat. She didn't answer but I could hear her crying. Her radio was playing pop music in the background. I decided against going into her room, but spoke to her for several minutes through the door. I can't remember exactly what I said, because I was angry myself, but I did urge her to show some sense in the morning and to apologize to her father at the first opportunity.

When I went to bed at ten-thirty there was no light under her door and the radio had been turned off. She certainly did not leave the house while I was downstairs, because I would have seen her. I am a light sleeper and I remember waking during the night. I believe the time was about twelve-fifteen.

I assume now that it may have been the front door closing, although I can't be sure.

When David returned from work this morning [Saturday] at seven-thirty I got up to make breakfast. We discussed Cill for about an hour in the kitchen before he asked me to call her down. We both agreed that confining her to the house and insisting she did chores was the best way forward. However, she was not in her room and her bed hadn't been slept in. A small rucksack is missing from her wardrobe along with her nightdress, two skirts and some T-shirts.

I immediately telephoned the parents of Louise Burton and three of her other friends [Rosie Xaine, Ginny Lawson, Katey Cropper] but none of them knows where she is. I decided to call the police after David set off in his car to see if he could find her. She has never run away before and we cannot think of anywhere she could go at twelve-fifteen in the morning. If she was with a friend, the parents would have alerted us. We are desperately worried that she's put herself in danger by hitching a lift with a stranger.

It has been made clear to me by Officers Prentice and Reed that runaways are treated differently from abductions. I understand that in most circumstances children who leave home after a row with their parents return within twenty-four hours.

Jean Trevelyan

WITNESS STATEMENT

Date: 6.02.70

Time: 1130

Officers interviewing: DC Williams and PC Prentice

Witness: David Trevelyan

Incident: Disappearance of Priscilla (Cill) Trevelyan on 5.30.70

Mr. David Trevelyan was invited for interview at Highdown Police Station. He presented himself voluntarily but was hostile to many of the questions that were put to him. The following statement was dictated and signed by Mr. Trevelyan.

I know nothing about my daughter's disappearance. You can call ours a love-hate relationship if you like, but it wouldn't be true. I have never hated Cill from the moment she was born. If I thought it would have done her any good, I'd have spoiled her rotten and given her everything she asked for. Instead, I put pressure on her to work because I know she is bright enough to do better than her parents. We had few problems with her until she reached puberty, but her difficult adolescence is putting a strain on the family.

I was upset when she didn't make it to grammar school. She has a good brain, but she was let down by her primary school. There's so much rubbish talked about the eleven-plus. It's supposed to be a test of IQ, but the more you practice the skills the better you are at them. Anyone can bump their level up by ten points when they know what's expected. Cill sat it blind and missed by a point, and you're not going to tell me that's fair. There's people I work with whose sons got through on lower scores. The system's rigged in favor of the middle classes.

I am strict because I want the best for her. The world's changing and women should have as good an education as men. I don't want her to be a packer at Brackham & Wright's or a lowly-paid hairdresser. I want her to find a decent job in London where she'll meet a good man who earns enough to buy his own house. My greatest fear has always been that some boy will take advantage and get her pregnant before she's sixteen.

It has caused a great number of arguments between us. My daughter developed early and thought she could look after herself. I have told her many times that she doesn't understand how vulnerable young girls are, and when the truanting began last term I felt I had no option but to take a sterner line. My wife and I have tried everything from delivering and collecting her from school ourselves to enforcing a curfew after six o'clock at night, but the only discipline that seems to work is physical punishment.

I object strongly to any suggestion that I take enjoyment from this. My relationship with my daughter has never strayed beyond a parental one with all my efforts geared to ensuring her future success. I recognize that my ambitions for her may exceed her own, but my hope has always been that she would never suffer my frustrations. If this has led me to be too severe on a child I love, then I am deeply sorry, but my intentions are good.

I was horrified to learn that Louise Burton made a statement on Saturday saying my daughter was gang raped at the beginning of May, and "brought it on herself." I understand that Louise blames my strictness for the fact that Cill was unable to tell my wife and me that it happened. We are deeply upset about this as we have long had concerns about Louise's truthfulness and fail to understand why this story of rape is believed when she could neither name the perpetrators nor identify the three suspects who were brought in for questioning. Nor do I understand why Louise failed to tell her own parents at the time. The Burtons take a relaxed view of their daughter's behavior and I cannot believe they were unaware of the rape if it happened. In summary, there is no evidence to support Louise's allegation and I am angry that it has been given credence when it reflects so badly on our daughter.

In reference to the argument I had with Cill on the afternoon of Friday, May 29, it was no different from the ones that had gone before. She and I are forceful people and there was a lot of shouting. My recollection is that she swore profusely and called me a "Victorian parent," "Hitler," "Methuselah, " and accused me of "playing God." She then turned on her mother and called her a "telltale creep" and a "sniveling bitch." She also accused us of trying to live her life, and of caring more about what the other parents at school would say than we did about her.

I insisted on an explanation for the fight with Louise Burton. When she refused, I asked her if Louise's version was true-namely that she'd tried to persuade Louise to truant again. Cill began throwing things about the room and I felt I had no option but to give her three lashes of the belt. I then sent her to her room and instructed her mother to make sure she remained there. It was an unhappy experience for all of us, but I was confident that the outcome would be the same as usual: Cill would apologize in the morning and her behavior would improve in the short term. Our difficulty, as ever, was how to deal with her behavior in the long term, specifically the truanting.

I left for work at eight o'clock [Friday] and at that time Cill was in her bedroom. As a foreman in the engineering department at Brackham & Wright's, I oversee a night workforce of approximately fifty. Louise Burton's father, Robert, has similar responsibilities in the packing department. A female work colleague of mine, Deborah Handley, noticed that I was upset on arrival and asked me if something was wrong. Deborah has two daughters in their late teens and I've regularly asked her advice about Cill's behavior. During the shift I explained what had happened and told Deborah that Jean and I were at our wits' end. She suggested I talk to Robert Burton and find out what the fight was really about. I believe her words were, "If Cill was too worked up to invent a reason, then I bet there's more to it than meets the eye."

I approached Robert in the canteen at approximately one o'clock in the morning. He was unwilling to talk to me, claiming the school's punishment showed that Cill was at fault, not Louise. I pointed out that Louise's version of events was very convenient, since she knew how worried we and Miss Brett had been about Cill's truanting. He asked me if I was accusing his daughter of lying, and when I said it was a possibility, he became abusive and a fight broke out. I did not do this to draw attention to myself and create an alibi or to disguise any bruises from a previous encounter with Cill. It happened as a result of my deep concern and anxiety for my daughter's welfare, which boiled over when Robert Burton referred to her as "a cheap little tart who deserved what she got."

I have no idea why he made this remark unless Louise had already told him about the alleged rape. If so, he had a responsibility to pass that information to myself and my wife.

In conclusion, I have accounted for my movements during the night of Friday, May 29, and Saturday, May 30, 1970. Also, my fifty-minute drive on the morning of Saturday, May 30, when I went to Branksome Station and Bournemouth Central in the hope of finding my daughter. I confirm that I know nothing about Cill's disappearance and that I am ignorant of her current whereabouts.

David Trevelyan

By the time Billy had finished reading and laid the pages on the coffee table, his hands were shaking. "God!" he said with feeling. "Do you think Mr. Trevelyan's right? Do you think my folks did know about the rape?"

Assuming he was addressing her, Sasha Spencer demurred. "David's never been convinced the rape happened," she said. "He thinks your sister was lying to shift attention away from her part in Cill's suspension. Jean believes it, though, and she beats herself up regularly for being a lousy mother. It's a very sad situation. Rightly or wrongly-and for different reasons-they each hold themselves responsible."

Billy lowered his face into his hands. "It certainly happened," he muttered. "I was there, I saw it. They took it in turns ... kept kicking her ... she had blood all down her legs. It makes me sick just thinking about it."

Rachel saw the distaste on Sasha's face. "He was ten years old and they'd filled him with vodka," she said, leaping to Billy's defense, "so he didn't understand what was going on. He thought it was a fight. If the police had included him in the questioning, it would have been different, but no one knew he'd been with Cill and Louise that day."

"Cill was that scared of her dad, she said she'd kill us if we ever breathed a word," Billy went on unhappily, "so I never did. And it wasn't until a bloke at school told me his mum had read it in the newspapers that I found out Louise had told the police ... I didn't even know what rape meant-he had to explain it to me ... and that was a good two months after Cill vanished. It wasn't mentioned in our house. Nothing was." He dropped a hand to David Trevelyan's statement. "I didn't know Mr. Trevelyan cared about his kid that much ... I didn't know my dad and him had a fight ... I sure as hell didn't know Dad was calling Cill a tart before anyone knew she was missing."

There was a long silence.

Sasha opened her notebook again. "Why is that important?" she asked.

"He said Cill 'deserved what she got.' I think it means he knew about the rape."

Sasha eyed him with a frown. "I still don't understand why it's important. It may not reflect well on your parents, but it doesn't mean they had anything to do with Cill running away."

Billy took a printout of his father's email from his shirt pocket. "Read this," he said harshly, "then ask yourself what else he's been lying about. You don't tell a man his kid deserves what she gets if you think he's abusing her ... and you damn well talk to the police if you think that man's been after your own daughter as well."