Disordered Minds

by Minette Walters

  There was rustle of paper. "Number 18, Mullin Street," said Bronwen helpfully, completely unaware of the extraordinary face that George Gardener was pulling at the other end of the line.

  A check of the electoral register had shown that a Mr. William Burton and a Mrs. Rachel Burton were still living at 9 Galway Road, and George rang the bell in the full expectation that she was about to meet Louise's parents. But it was a man of around forty who answered the door. "Mr Burton?"

  "Yes." He was tall and broad-shouldered, with rolled-up shirtsleeves and tattoos on his muscular arms. Behind him, somewhere down the corridor, a television blared at full blast, overlayed by the sound of girls arguing. He wiped his hands on a towel and smiled inquiringly. "Sorry about the row. What can I do for you?"

  George pulled one of her faces. "If they're killing each other, I can always come back later."

  He listened for a moment. "Nn-nn. It's fairly mild tonight. They only get really het up when they find the other one's nicked their clothes."

  "Your daughters?"

  He nodded. "Identical twins with fiery hair and fiery tempers." He grinned amiably. "You can have them if you like. We'll pay good money to be rid ... the wife's close to strangling them."

  George laughed. "How old?"

  "Sixteen. I keep telling them they're old enough to marry but they won't take the hint." He flicked the towel over his shoulder and started to unroll his sleeves. "To be honest, I'm not sure there'd be any takers. The lads can hear 'em coming a mile off and they do a runner immediately." He chuckled. "How can I help?"

  He was too nice to be related to Priscilla Fletcher, George thought, raising a clipboard with a photocopied page from the electoral register. "Are you William Burton?"

  "That's me."

  She offered a hand. "My name's George Gardener. I'm a councillor. I'm canvasing for the local elections on May 1." It had seemed a reasonable cover story to detain him long enough to ask a few questions-the elections were certainly happening-but she realized it was a mistake when his face closed immediately.

  He released her hand and started to close the door. "Sorry, not interested. We won't be voting."

  "May I ask why not?"

  "I'm a fireman," he said, nodding to a cap and uniform jacket hanging on a hook in his hallway, "and I'm sick to death of politicians telling me I'm unpatriotic because they chose to declare war while I was trying to strike for a decent salary. How does that make me unpatriotic?"

  "Oh dear," said George, pulling a face. The withdrawal of labor had been very divisive. "The only answer I can give you is that I'm against both the war and the strikes. I've always believed that negotiation is the only way to solve problems."

  "Yes, well, war was declared in our names without anyone asking our permission to do it." He obviously felt strongly enough to elevate George to the position of Prime Minister because he glared at her as if she were responsible for sending the troops in. "Over a million people said no, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. For every one who slogged up to the peace march in London, there were another ten who couldn't make it."

  "Were you on it, Mr. Burton?"

  "Mm. Fat lot of good it did."

  "Me, too." She put a hand on the door to prevent him closing it. "Were your daughters with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Then that's the good it did, Mr. Burton," she said earnestly. "Youth's been quiet for too long, but it found a voice over this. I've been campaigning for nuclear disarmament for thirty years but I've never seen anything like that march." She lowered her clipboard but kept her other hand on the door. "You can't vote for me because this isn't my ward-and I'm an independent, so I have no clout at Westminster. My view is that abstention is a perfectly honorable tradition, so I won't waste your time trying to persuade you out of it."

  He exerted mild pressure against her hand and came up against resistance. "But?"

  "The person I really want to speak to is Louise Burton. I assumed the Mr. and Mrs. Burton in this house were her parents, but obviously not. You must be her brother, unless it's pure coincidence that Burtons have been registered here since the seventies."

  The question was clearly one he'd answered before, because he didn't seem put out by it. "It's getting on for thirty years since Lou left. The folks bought the house off the council at the end of the 1980s and I took it over seven years ago when they retired to Cornwall. I don't think Lou's been back once in all that time."

  "Do you know where she is now?"

  He shook his head. "We lost track of her after she got married."

  "Do you know what she's calling herself?"

  Billy didn't answer immediately. "Are you a private detective?"

  "No," she said in surprise. "I'm what I said I was-a councillor ... for Highdown ward. Also a care worker at the Birches in Hathaway Avenue. I live in Mullin Street, where you and your family used to live before you were transferred here." She paused. "Do you have many private detectives looking for your sister?"

  "I presume it's Cill Trevelyan you're interested in-it was Lou's only fifteen minutes of fame." She nodded. "OK, well, the Trevelyan parents pay up every so often to see if a private agency can track her down. The last one came about three years ago. They always get to Lou eventually-at least to the fact that she used to live here-but it doesn't help them. Apart from the fact we don't know where she is, she had no more idea than the rest of us what happened to Cill." He shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."

  "What about your parents? Have they kept in touch with her?"

  "No." He seemed to feel his parents needed defending. "It wasn't their fault. They did their best, but she always thought the grass was greener somewhere else. She left school at sixteen, became a hairdresser and got married almost immediately ... then we lost track. There was a rumor she went to Australia, but I don't know if that's true."

  George looked crestfallen. "Oh dear! I was so hopeful of being able to speak to her when I found that Burtons were still registered here."

  "Sorry," he said again, stepping back to end the conversation.

  She kept her hand on the door. "What was the name of her husband?"

  He smiled rather cynically. "No idea. We weren't invited to the wedding. As far as I remember, she referred to him as Mike when I managed to track her down for the folks, but he was in jail so I didn't meet him." He shook his head at her expression. "It happens," he said. "I was luckier. I married a gem."

  George nodded. "I know it's a terribly personal question, but did she have a baby when she was fourteen or fifteen?"

  He hesitated. "Not that I'm aware of."

  It was a strangely evasive answer. "Surely you'd have noticed," said George with a smile.

  "I was a lot younger than she was, so I probably wouldn't have understood what was going on. Put it this way: I don't recall a baby suddenly arriving in the family."

  "Was she ever married to a man called Roy Trent who runs the Crown and Feathers pub in Highdown?"

  His eyes held hers for a moment and she thought she saw a flicker of indecision. "Not that I'm aware of," he repeated, "but, like I say, we lost track of her."

  Perhaps it was his hesitations, or the fact that he didn't give a firm negative, that prompted George to pose her next question. "Was Louise raped at the same time as Cill?" she asked bluntly. "Is that why the family was rehoused?"

  "No." He was back on firm ground. "She saw it happen but she wasn't involved. Look, there's no mystery about it. We were moved because she was frightened out of her wits-first the rape, then Cill running away, then the police questions. My parents put her in a different school so she wouldn't keep being reminded about it."

  "Would she have told your parents if she'd been raped? Cill didn't tell hers."

  "It was a different time. Mini-teens today wear crop tops, but if they did it then they were accused of being tarts. Cill's dad went ape-shit every time she put on a miniskirt."

  "And your parents?"

  "The same." Another shrug. "Me, to
o, if it comes to that. I'm shotgun Dad. I hate it when my kids prance around half naked ... it's an open invitation to the first predator to have a go."

  "Then Louise may have been raped as well, but never admitted to it," George said reasonably.

  "She wasn't raped," he said bluntly, "and she didn't get pregnant as a result ... which I assume is the point you're trying to make." His eyes hardened suddenly. "Look, there was enough damn gossip at the time. None of us needs it resurrected."

  George dropped her hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It's just that-" She broke off on a sigh. "Does the name Priscilla Fletcher mean anything to you?"

  "No."

  She thought he was going to slam the door in her face, but he didn't. He waited, as if he expected her to go on. "Priscilla lives in Sandbanks," she said. "She's in her mid-forties and looks like an older version of Cill Trevelyan. She used to be married to Roy Trent and had a son by him when she was in her early teens. At that time, she was calling herself Cill. Do you know if your sister named Roy Trent to the police as one of the rapists?"

  Billy avoided the question. "Half a minute ago you were making out this woman was Lou, now you're saying she's Cill Trevelyan. Who is she?"

  "I don't know, Mr. Burton. That's what I'm trying to find out." She flipped over the top page on the clipboard and turned the pad toward him. "This photograph was taken five years ago. Do you recognize her?"

  His expression was unreadable. "No."

  "Does it remind you of Cill Trevelyan?"

  He shook his head. "I barely remember her. I was ten years old when she left."

  George flipped to the next page. "This is the picture of her that was in the newspapers."

  Billy stared at it for several seconds and his expression was genuinely appalled. "Christ! She's so young!"

  "She was only thirteen, Mr. Burton, just a child still."

  "Yes, but ... I've always had it in my head she was quite grown-up. Christ!" he said again, taking the board and staring at the image. "She still has her baby fat. My two looked older than this at thirteen." With an abrupt movement he flipped back to the photograph of Priscilla Fletcher. "Maybe you should tell the Trevelyans ... give 'em a chance to talk to this woman. Far as I know, they've never come close to finding a match."

  "Do you have an address or a phone number for them?"

  He shook his head. "No, but I think I kept the card of the last agency that came looking. They'd know." He glanced at his watch. "I can't look for it now-I'm on shift in an hour-but if you give me a contact number I'll see what I can do tomorrow."

  George took back the clipboard and wrote her name and number on the back of the electoral register duplicate. "Why do you remember Cill as quite grown-up?" she asked curiously as she handed the page to him.

  "She was a bit of a tart ... liked talking sexy. It's what got her raped."

  "How do you know?"

  Billy's expression blanked immediately. "Guesswork," he said, before nodding a curt farewell and closing the door.

  George would have put money on him trying to avoid any future contact so she was surprised to receive a call the following morning. He was briskly matter of fact, quoting the name and details of a Bristol-based detective agency. "You need to be careful how you go about it," he warned. "I talked it over with my wife last night and she said it would be cruel to raise the Trevelyans' hopes if it isn't Cill."

  Privately, George agreed with him. She was back on night shifts and she'd mulled the problem over during her quiet periods. Without any expectation of William Burton coming through with the name of the detective agency, she had considered hiring one herself to find out who Priscilla Fletcher was. A quick browse on the Internet on her return home gave promises of "confidentiality," "discretion" and "caution," with hourly prices and flat fees not entirely beyond her bank balance.

  Even so, there were too many ethical dilemmas for someone of George's sensibilities. Whoever Priscilla Fletcher was, she had the same right to privacy as anyone else-unless she'd committed a crime-and George could hardly argue that the theft of a wallet was justifiable grounds for breaking her cover. If she was Cill Trevelyan or Louise Burton, then it was a moral minefield. Both women had chosen to distance diemselves from their families, and George had no entitlement to expose them. Yet that would be the inevitable outcome if a detective agency made a link with Cill, for George had no confidence that the Trevelyans' long search for their daughter wouldn't prompt a sympathetic-but discreet-approach in return for a fee.

  Nor, from a selfish point of view, could George see what use the information would be to her. If the woman turned out to be Cill or Louise, George would still have to persuade her to tell her story; and what leverage could she use except threats of exposure? "Tell me what I want to know or I'll give this information to your parents." Apart from the absurdly childish nature of the menace, George wouldn't be able to carry it through. It rubbed against the grain of all her principles-namely the inalienable right of every individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

  In the early hours she'd recognized how much easier it would be if she could approach the Trevelyans' detective agency as a concerned citizen who'd spotted a similarity between Cill and a woman living in Sandbanks. Whatever the outcome, they'd feel obliged to tell her something, if only to stop her pursuing the search herself. Nevertheless, she appreciated as soon as William Burton gave her the agency's details that one avenue had been closed. George didn't believe he'd have given them to her if he thought Priscilla Fletcher was his sister. Or would he? Was it a double bluff? "Perhaps I should just abandon it," she said with a disingenuous sigh. "If it is Cill Trevelyan, then she obviously doesn't want to be found."

  He didn't answer immediately. "That's what I thought until my wife asked me how I'd feel if one of the twins went missing. You'd never get over it, particularly if you found out she'd been raped and hadn't told you. I've been thinking about it all night and I reckon the parents have rights, too, even if just to know she's still alive." He paused again. "If it's any help, I made the point about Cill not wanting to be found to this Bristol agency, and they said she couldn't be forced to see her parents if she didn't want to."

  "What's changed your mind, Mr. Burton?" George asked curiously.

  "About what?"

  "You've lived with this for thirty years but you're suddenly taking it personally. Why?"

  "No one bothered to show me a photograph before," he said flatly. "They were looking for Lou, so it wasn't necessary ... but it made me realize how young Cill was. My dad always said she was a flighty piece who was too forward for her own good and, once you get an idea into your head, it's difficult to shift. There wasn't much sympathy for her in our house, not after Lou started refusing to go out. The folks blamed Cill for everything. 'If only Louise had never met that bloody girl...'-that was all they could say for months." He fell silent.

  "Cill seemed to have suffered a lot of abuse," George said unemotionally. "Reading between the lines of the newspaper articles, I got the impression her father didn't think twice about hitting her."

  "He was always taking his belt to her. It didn't stop her acting up, though, just made her run away rather than face another larruping."

  "Because of the fight with Louise?"

  "Yes."

  George made a pencil tick on a notepad in front of her. "It seems odd the school only punished Cill for it," she said mildly. "You'd think they'd both be suspended."

  "Lou said Cill wouldn't explain, so the head gave her her marching orders. That's how it worked in those days."

  "What was Lou's explanation?"

  "Probably what she told our folks-that Cill had tried to persuade her to truant again."

  "It doesn't sound like the truth, though, does it? It's more likely she was teasing Cill about the rape ... maybe even threatening her. Something along the lines of: do what I want in this relationship or I'll tell on you." She waited through a brief silence. "It takes a lot of imagination t
o understand how devastating rape can be to the victim, particularly gang rape. It's as much a violation of the mind as it is of the body. The poor child was probably scrubbing herself raw every day in order to wash off their filth. Would Louise have understood how badly her friend had been damaged?"

  "No."

  "Which is why she did nothing to help her?"

  "She was too scared. They dragged Cill by her hair, then kicked the shit out of her. There was blood all over her legs ... that's why Lou went back for some trousers." His voice took on a sudden urgency. "You don't think about psychological stuff when you're a kid ... you can't ... most of the time you're struggling to understand why your parents never stop arguing. It might have been different if Cill hadn't launched in on us. She kept saying she'd kill us if we blabbed-" He broke off abruptly.

  George let the admission ride. "She must have been very frightened of her father. Have you never asked yourself why she talked sexy? How did she know so much about it? Physical and sexual abuse often go hand in hand."

  There was a long silence. "Why does he keep sending people to look for her?"

  "Any number of reasons. Guilt ... love ... obsession. A friend of mine's convinced he went too far and killed her, so perhaps he's trying to pretend she's still alive."

  "That's what my folks thought at the time-lots of people did-but I remember Dad saying he'd been questioned and let go because there was nothing in the house to show Cill had died. Plus, they never found a body."

  "And when they did find one, Cill was promptly forgotten," said George with deliberate flippancy.

  "I don't get you."

  "Grace Jefferies. She was murdered in Mullin Street a few days after Cill went missing. I've been wondering if the two events were connected."

  He sounded surprised. "It was Howard Stamp did that. I remember Dad telling me what a miserable little wanker he was."

  George took a breath to calm her irritation. "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, but in those days no one gave a damn if a miserable little wanker got sent down for something he didn't do. It was par for the course."