Disordered Minds

not?'

'Because she'd have killed me for ratting on her. We'd had one fight already-I didn't want another one.' Louise's lips twisted into a bitter smile. 'Everyone pictures her as this poor little girl who ran away because she was unhappy, but she wasn't like that ... she was a bully. You didn't cross her unless you wanted your head caved in.'

'What did you and she fight about?'

'What girls always fight about. Who's more attractive, me or you?' She shook her head at Sasha's expression of incomprehension. 'Oh for Christ's sake! What planet are you from, sweetheart? Lose some weight ... get your hair done ... talk dirty once in a while. You'll be a spinster all your life, if you don't. Sex-darlin'-men! She kept boasting that she was more fanciable than me, so I said I'd tell her folks about the rape if she didn't shut up. It was getting on my wick something chronic.'

Sasha concentrated on her notes. 'So you did know it was a rape?'

'Figure of speech,' Louise said scornfully. 'Who the hell cared what it was? As far as Cill was concerned, it was a walk in the park ... proof that she was attractive enough to be fucked.' She watched a look of distaste cloud Sasha's face. 'Don't fret yourself. It'll never happen to you. You're not the type to get jumped. You have to show a bit of flesh if you want guys to be interested.'

Sasha's fingers fled automatically to her spectacles, but she stuck gamely to her interview plan. 'If Billy had been questioned, he'd have mentioned Grace. Is that the real reason you didn't want him involved?'

Louise lit another cigarette, then leaned her head against the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. 'If you got all this off Andrew Spicer or his tame author, then I might as well save my breath. None of it would have mattered if the stupid girl had gone home. I was trying to do her a favor-give her an excuse for a bit of sympathy. Instead, she landed me in it by vanishing. She'd've been mad as hell if I'd let Billy name the boys, because she still fancied Roy. She'd have milked her mum's heart and thrown a wobbly if the police had tried to take it any further. That's the way she worked.'

'You, too?' Sasha asked curiously. 'Your mother became very protective of you afterward.'

Scorn sparked in her eyes. 'Protective of herself, you mean. She wet herself every time she thought of what the neighbors'd say when they found out I'd seen Cill at Grace's on the Saturday. The whole bloody family would've been hung out to dry.'

'When did you tell her?'

'About Cill being at Grace's?' She lifted an indifferent shoulder. 'Can't remember.'

'It's important, Mrs. Fletcher.' Louise lowered her gaze.

'Why? What difference does it make? Mum'll tell you I'm lying. She's like Billy-been rewriting history for years.'

'So you told her on the Saturday?' A brief nod. 'Before or after you went to the police station?'

'Before.'

It was like pulling teeth, thought Sasha, as a silence developed. She wondered how contrived the strategy was, and who had instigated it. 'How exactly?'

'It was a Saturday. She didn't work on Saturdays.'

'And?'

'We were in the kitchen when the phone rings. It was Jean Trevelyan wanting to know if Cill was at our house. Mum says no, and hangs up, then gives me the third degree. What had I done? Why would Cill run away? What did I know? So I go looking round Grace's place. By the time I got back Dad was home, and he was in a right schiz because David Trevelyan had thumped him at work. Mum said it'd serve them right if Cill stayed away for good, so I told them she was holed up with Grace.'

'Your mother told the police she had no idea where Cill was.'

'Only because Dad was pissed off with David Trevelyan. He said it'd do him good to worry a bit. Then the cops turned up saying I had to go down the nick for interview because I was Cill's best friend. That really fired Dad up. He wanted them to talk to me at home, but they quoted the rules about questioning kids and Dad jumped to the idea that David had grassed him up about their fight. Dad's the one wanted me to tell the cops about Cill having sex, so the Trevelyans would know what a slut their daughter was.'

'Your parents knew about that?'

A curl of smoke drifted out of Louise's mouth. 'Dad did,' she said curtly. 'I don't know about Mum.'

'Who told him?'

'Who do you think?'

'You?'

'Like hell!' she said dismissively. 'There was nothing in it for me. Why would I want to give him a reason to get worked up over her? You seem to have worked out that he liked her.' She regarded the other woman cynically. 'It was Cill. That's how she operated. As long as men were fighting over her, she had what she wanted. It drove Dad crazy to think she'd let Roy have a bit of the action. It drove David crazy the amount of time she spent round our place.' She gave a mirthless laugh at Sasha's shocked expression. 'Oh, come on! You weren't born yesterday. Why the hell do you think the bastard kept thrashing her? It wasn't because he needed the exercise. It was because his wife was frigid and he creamed every time he lammed into Cill's arse.'

Shock tactics were effective, thought Sasha, as she stared at the photocopy of Jean Trevelyan's interview on the table-'Mother's Anguish over Missing Teen'-and remembered David's forceful voice on the taped interviews. 'Did Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan know that you and Cill truanted at Grace's house?' she asked.

Louise shook her head. 'Not unless Cill told them.'

'But your parents knew?'