Robert for ages and I'd never have thought ... Billy's saying now that he doesn't want the girls anywhere near him. He's even wondering if his dad had a go when they were younger. I keep telling him he can't have done because they never stayed overnight with the folks, and his mum was always around in the daytime. But it's funny, looking back. It was Billy who insisted they had to come home before bedtime ... and I never really thought about it till now. I asked him the other day if it was because of all this-' she made a vague gesture toward Robert's email-'and he said, no, he'd forgotten. He just needed to know his kids were safe with me while he was on nights shifts. He thought it was because he was afraid of fire breaking out ... now he thinks it was these unrecovered memories working like instinct. That's weird, isn't it?'
She didn't expect a reply because she wasn't even looking at Sasha. Instead, she twined a strand of hair about her fingers and concentrated determinedly on the carpet. 'The trouble is, there's nothing specific. Billy never
Sasha watched her for a moment. 'It doesn't prove he was an abuser, Rachel. The daughter-dad thing is just as likely,'
The woman sighed. 'I know, that's the trouble.' She clasped her fingers in her lap. 'It's why Billy keeps surfing the Net. There are other things that are just as vague-but nothing that proves abuse. They just look suspicious when you put it all together.'
'Try me.'
Billy returned with a tray of cups while Rachel was talking and resumed his seat without interrupting her. He appeared relieved that she'd taken a lead and after a while began to interject memories himself. To Sasha, watching him, it was clear that some of these memories were coming back to him even as he was speaking. Did that make them true? She had no idea, but the picture he painted of his childhood was a disturbing one.
'You try to make sense of things when you're a kid,' he said at one point, 'so I thought Dad only liked ladies. He called Mum and Louise his 'beautiful girls,' but it was always Lou got the attention ... never Mum. She used to make me plait her hair in front of him, then push me away the minute he left the room.' He smiled rather crookedly. 'She said if I got a taste for it, I'd turn into a pansy. I thought she was talking about flowers.'
On another occasion: 'It was Lou started the Cathy McGowan thing. Dad slipped her some money and she came back with a miniskirt and loads of makeup. She was prancing around the sitting room in front of him, and Mum went completely crazy. Lou had this black eyeliner all round her eyes and pale pink lipstick, and Mum called her a tart and started hitting her. Dad just laughed...
'...He gave Cill money as well, so she could buy the same stuff as Lou. He called them his princesses. That's when Lou started getting uppity and saying she didn't want to be friends with Cill anymore. She was really jealous. I mean, she was skinny as a rake. You'd have to be blind not to see that Cill looked better than she did...
'... I don't know if my father abused Cill. You don't think about things like that when you're a kid. All I know is he liked her. He'd sit her on his lap when Mum wasn't around and play with her hair.'
'Why did your mother go out if she was worried about him?' asked Sasha.
Billy buried his head in his hands for the hundredth time that morning. 'I don't know if she was. I don't even know if I'm imagining all of this.'
Rachel squeezed his hand. 'Eileen worked in the evenings as well-four to eight. She was only at home when the kids were at school and her husband was asleep.'
'She hated being a mother,' said Billy. 'It was Dad looked after us.'
'Perhaps they needed the money,' said Sasha.
'Then why didn't she work in a supermarket? That's what Rach does.'
'Perhaps it was the only job available,' the woman said; 'Did Louise have any other friends who came to the house?'
'A few.'
'Did your father sit them on his lap?'
'Sometimes, but Cill was the only one who'd let him play with her hair. I think she did it to make Lou jealous.' He shook his head. 'He can't have done anything really bad to her because I'm sure she was a virgin when those bastards raped her. There was too much blood on her legs.'
'He may have been grooming her. That's usually how child molesters work.'
Billy stared at her with a sick expression in his eyes. 'It was never talked about in those days. There were kids like Cill who were given a larruping by their dads every time they stepped out of line, but this other stuff...' He shook his head. 'There was Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, but they were psychopaths and went for other people's children. It's as if sex in families only started in the last ten-fifteen years.'
'It's been going on for centuries,' said Sasha, who'd researched the subject in depth. 'It's society's attitude that's changed. We know now that if a child's forced into a relationship where the balance of power is unequal, the damage is irreparable. They tend to replicate that imbalance in future relationships, which is what Louise seems to have been doing.'
Jonathan shielded his own eyes against the sun. 'Louise persuaded Andrew not to look at it with the benefit of hindsight, but to keep in mind that no one knew Grace was going to die. In those circumstances the only thing the Burtons were guilty of was failing to ensure that Cill returned home. They'd have been as shocked as anyone when the police continued to report her missing.'
'Why didn't they say something then?'
Jonathan shrugged. 'They were worried about what the neighbors would say.'
George pulled a disapproving face. 'I can't believe any parent would behave so irresponsibly.'
'You're looking at it with hindsight again. As far as they were concerned, it was perfectly straightforward. Cill was alive, she was streetwise, her house was round the corner, she promised to go straight back to it. They
