Disordered Minds

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,