Louise glanced at the screen. 'It'll be a recording. There's a video link to his study that means I have to watch whatever he's watching. Is it bothering you? Do you want me to turn it off?'
Sasha listened to the silence. 'No, it's fine. I wouldn't want to upset him.'
'He won't know unless he joins us,' said the older woman, reaching for the remote and killing the picture. 'Turning one off doesn't affect the others.' She crossed a neat leg over the other and looked encouragingly at the younger woman. 'How can I help?'
Sasha went nervously into her preamble about confidentiality, while recognizing that she might easily have been persuaded that William's story was fantasy if Louise had opened the door twelve days ago. The woman was composed, charming and elegant, and there was nothing to indicate a violent husband or a history of drugs and sexual abuse. Her voice was more educated than William's rough Dorset burr, although Sasha wondered how natural it was.
Louise allowed Sasha to finish her presentation without interruption. 'You mentioned Cill Trevelyan on your card,' she said then. 'Does that mean David and Jean are your clients?'
Sasha nodded. 'Do you remember them, Mrs. Fletcher?'
'Of course,' she said easily. 'Cill was my best friend ... as you know, or you wouldn't have written 'FAO Louise Burton' on your card.'
Sasha ran her tongue across her lips. 'I did, yes.'
Louise was watching too closely not to notice the signs of nerves. 'So how are the Trevelyans?' she asked. 'I often think of them-it must be desperate to lose a child like that.'
It was a very different start from the one Sasha had been expecting-more like the opening courtesies at a social function-but she went along with it, explaining that Jean hadn't been well recently. Louise produced several amusing memories of visiting the Trevelyan home in Highdown, then spoke of her shock when she learned that Cill had run away. 'We were incredibly close,' she murmured, before lapsing into an abrupt silence and waiting for Sasha to continue.
There was a sliver of sound from somewhere in the house and this time Sasha's nervousness was genuine. 'I expect you're wondering how I found you.'
'Not really,' said Louise. 'I'm hardly in hiding. You can't get more high profile than Sandbanks.'
Sasha fixed her automatic smile to her face. 'In fact it was your brother who passed your details to us, Mrs. Fletcher, because he knew we were acting for Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan. I gather he reestablished contact with you a month or so ago?' She was watching equally closely and saw the sudden narrowing of Louise's eyes. 'As you'll appreciate, David and Jean have never given up hope of finding Cill and we periodically reactivate the investigation when new information comes our way.'
She retrieved her file and notebook from her case and placed them on her lap. 'You may not be aware that various agencies have tried to locate you over the years without success,' she went on. 'Presumably because of your various name changes.' She bent her head to her notes, holding her glasses in place with a finger. 'First Louise Burton, then Daisy Burton, then Daisy Hopkinson, then Cill Trent, now Priscilla Fletcher Hurst.' She looked up again, inviting Louise to respond. 'I'm a little puzzled why you chose to take Cill's Christian name and marry her rapists, Mrs. Fletcher.'
Louise answered readily enough. 'Not that it's any of your business,' she said mildly, 'but I've known all three of them since I was a youngster. I'd have stayed with Michael if he hadn't died ... and with Roy if Colley hadn't come back. There's nothing sinister about it. Sensible people always marry their friends. That way, you know what you're getting.'
Sasha held her gaze for a moment. 'Except that, in this case, you knew you were getting three violent young men who gang raped your best friend. It traumatized your brother-he's still having flashbacks thirty years after the event. Were you not similarly affected ... especially as Cill vanished into thin air three weeks later?'
'Billy reinvents history to make his life more exciting.'' Louise said dismissively. 'I expect you would, too, if you'd married the most boring person you'd ever met, always done what your father told you and only ever lived in one house. He was ten years old and he was drunk. Whatever he remembers is bound to be distorted.'
Sasha made a note. 'You make him sound too unimaginative to reinvent history,' she remarked. 'He certainly believes his flashbacks are real.'
The classy accent began to slip a little. 'It was hardly a rape. Cill was desperate for sex with Roy, couldn't lift her skirt quick enough ... and it was only when Micky and Colley piled in on top that she started complaining. They were fourteen-year-old virgins, drunk as skunks on vodka, and at least two of them ejaculated before they even got in.' She shrugged. 'I'm not saying it's fun to have three teenage drunks wank over you, but Cill was as big as they were and gave as good as she got.' She paused. 'It's not what made her run away either. That was her dad taking the strap to her. She'd been saying for weeks she'd bugger off if he tried it on again.'
Sasha refused to be sidetracked. 'Your brother remembers it differently, Mrs. Fletcher. He describes a sickening level of brutality that was inexcusable whatever the age of the participants.'
'Then you'll have to choose which of us you want to believe ... though I can't say I'm happy about having my brother slander my husbands. The only time he spoke to any of them was that day, and he was so paralytic he could hardly string two words together.'
Sasha removed copies of the newspaper clippings that George had found and extracted Jean Trevelyan's interview. 'You told the police at the time that it was a gang rape,' she said, handing her the page. 'Jean Trevelyan refers to it as such in this article.'
Louise glanced at the headline, then laid it on the coffee table without reading it. 'How could I use a phrase I didn't know?' she countered. 'All I did was describe what happened. Gang rape was what the police called it ... and it's probably why Billy's embroidering his memories now.' She took a breath and went on in a more conciliatory tone. 'Look, is this really necessary? It's not going to help the Trevelyans to have Billy's version accepted. The boys were questioned at the time, but they weren't charged because it wasn't considered serious enough.'
'No charges were brought because Cill was missing and you refused to identify the culprits.'
'It wasn't a refusal. I
