'She'll lie.'
'At least they might find out why she's pretending to be Cill.'
'How's it going to help us if they don't report back?' Billy said. 'We'll be just as much in the dark as we are now.'
Rachel had a more positive character than her husband. 'Then we need to find a way of making them.' She stroked his face. 'You can't go on like this, love. Right's right and wrong's wrong, and you'll have a breakdown if you don't do something pretty damn quick. You were ten years old. Whatever happened wasn't your fault.'
'Perhaps it wasn't Louise's either. Perhaps that's why she went the way she did.'
'Then the truth won't hurt her,' said Rachel, with a minimum of sympathy. Her own knowledge of Louise was confined to a brief period at school when the older girl had singled her out for spiteful attention. Chubby, freckle- faced, copper-haired, and very unsure of herself, Rachel Jennings had been teased mercilessly by dark-haired Daisy Burton who reveled in calling her a 'fat gingerbread freak.' Her hatred for Daisy had made her avoid Billy for years, and it wasn't until he admitted that his sister's name was Louise, that she was a redhead herself, and, better still, had probably died of a drug overdose, that Rachel had discovered the eternal truth-siblings are rarely alike.
Nevertheless, it was no surprise when Billy explained his preoccupation of the last few weeks on Louise's resurfacing. Rachel had always feared it would happen one day. She'd asked him why he hadn't told her that he'd recognized the photograph Councillor Gardener had shown him, and he'd answered, 'Because I hoped I was wrong. Nothing good ever came from Louise. She's been easier to live with since I thought she was dead. At least that way, I could feel sadness for her.'
From: [email protected]
Send: Sat. 5/10/03 21:10
Subject: Cill Trevelyan
Dear Sir,
I am Louise Burton's brother. One of your detectives came looking for her three years ago and gave me your card. It was in connection with Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan's search for their daughter, Cill. I can supply you with Louise's name and address. However, I have only recently found her again and am concerned about her welfare. If you decide to talk to her, then I would appreciate a follow-up meeting with you afterward in return for me telling you where she is. I am finding it difficult to speak to her and hope you will have more success, but I would need some guarantees before I release the information. It might be of interest to you to know that she is calling herself Priscilla and styling herself to look like Cill Trevelyan. I understand that all dealings are confidential.
I wait to hear from you.
Yours sincerely
William Burton
PECKHAM, LONDON
SATURDAY, MAY 10, 2003, 9:30 P.M.
When his doorbell rang, Andrew looked up from the manuscript he was reading with a frown of irritation. Off the top of his head, he couldn't think of a single acquaintance who would be so crass as to visit unannounced at nine thirty on a Saturday evening. As his daughters were asleep upstairs, he didn't immediately leap to the idea that it was the police, but waited to see if the bell rang again. When it did, he rose reluctantly from his seat.
One of the downsides of living in a poky mews cottage, where every window faced forward and table lamps threw his shadow against the curtains, was that whoever was at his door certainly knew he was there, and he was too courteous a man to pretend otherwise. But he wasn't pleased about it. He was wearing scruffy corduroy trousers and an old denim shirt with soup stains down the front, and he had a sinking feeling that he was going to find Jenny and Greg outside, dressed to the nines for a party and hiding their smiles at his sad old man's appearance.
He slipped the Yale latch and opened the door, and if he hadn't recognized his visitor immediately as the woman he'd seen at the Crown and Feathers, he would certainly have known her from George's photograph. Priscilla Fletcher. He was quick-witted enough to see that he had two choices-to acknowledge her or pretend ignorance-and he rapidly assessed the advantages of each while hiding his astonishment behind a polite smile. 'Can I help you?'
'Do you know who I am?' she asked bluntly.
Andrew prevaricated. 'I believe so. You're Jonathan Hughes's mystery woman. I saw you at Roy Trent's pub in February.'
Close up, she looked nothing like the black-and-white snapshot of plump, unlined Cill Trevelyan. Her face was thin and drawn, with signs of aging around her eyes, and Andrew was surprised at how dyed her hair looked. She reminded him more of an anorexic Wallis Simpson playing at being queen to a vacillating Edward VIII than she did of a vibrant thirteen-year-old on the threshold of life.
'Do you know my name?'
Andrew chose to play it straight. 'It depends which one you're answering to,' he said dryly. 'Priscilla Fletcher ... Cill Trent ... possibly Daisy Burton or Louise Burton? Which do you prefer?'
'Louise,' she said. 'I never really got used to the others.' She jerked her chin toward the room behind him. 'Are you going to let me in?'
He examined her face for a moment, then pulled the door wide. 'As long as you're not planning to steal my wallet. I'm even poorer than Jonathan, so it won't do you any good.'
'I didn't steal it,' she said, walking past him. 'I borrowed it for an hour to see what I could find out about him.' She looked critically about the small, open-plan room that had a kitchen at one end, stairs rising out of the middle and a couple of armchairs and a coffee table at the other. 'It's not much of a place, is it? I guess being an agent doesn't pay.'
Andrew closed the door. 'Who told you where I lived?'
She drew some business cards from her pocket and handed them to him. 'These were in your friend's wallet. Yours has your home address written on the back of it.' Andrew flicked through the cards, most of which carried New York zip codes, until he came to his, dog-eared, at the bottom. He could even remember the fit of loneliness, shortly after he moved, that had prompted him to jot the number and street in Peckham on the back of it. He'd spun the card across a restaurant table at Jonathan and asked him to drop by one evening when he had nothing better to
