The Search for Anne Perry

by Joanne Drayton

  The One Thing More opens in 1793, in the crowded public gallery of the National Convention, where the deputies have been debating for three days the sentencing of King Louis XVI, who has been arrested and tried for high treason. They file back, exhausted, and in the flickering candlelight Célie Laurent sees their faces as they make their pronouncements of ‘Death’. Since the storming of the Bastille in 1789, Célie’s life has changed so that it is barely recognizable. Her husband and infant son are dead, and her genteel way of life has been reduced to one of impoverished servitude as laundress for Monsieur Bernave. She finds herself drawn into a plot that begins as a mission to rescue the king and ends with the revelation of the murderer of Bernave, after the discovery of ‘the one thing more’ — which is the solution to this complex whodunit.

  The backdrop is a fascinating slice of French history that involves a delicious assortment of visionaries and tyrants — including Maximilien Robespierre, Jean-Paul Marat, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just — at a time when Paris is the ‘centre of the world’. But the heart of the novel is an intimate tale of personal calamity. In avenging the death of her son, Célie implicates Georges Coigny, an innocent man whose life is now in mortal danger. She ‘let her grief destroy her humanity, even her knowledge of what was right’. Now she must save him. Her guilt is more intense because of her crisis of faith. Although Célie hates the Church, ‘its hypocrisy, its oppression and its greed’, she needs ‘its promises of a God who loved’. As Georges explains, the Church offers hope, ‘and faith in a justice beyond anything there is here … which is too often a farce, or worse. If we are all there is … we haven’t got much, have we?’

  Célie and her fellow conspirators are, of course, unsuccessful in their plot to save the king and he is guillotined, like so many other aristocrats and commoners whose severed heads fill the wicker baskets of the Place de la Révolution. ‘There were stories of heads that moved, eyes, tongues.’ This is the justice of the convention, and Célie has no authority to change it. The only power she has is personal, and it takes the form of her own redemption. At the end of the book, as she rushes through the streets to meet Georges Coigny, she realizes that ‘the guilt, the contempt for herself was gone’.

  II

  The frozen stillness in the courtroom had ended. People murmured, moved uneasily in their seats, turned to one another and shook their heads. The registrar, GE Pollock, asked Pauline, then Juliet, if they had anything to say, and ‘their Counsel in each case said they had no further submissions to make’. The girls stood impassively in the dock. Justice Adams asked for formal confirmation of their ages, and, while the judge and lawyers conferred, Pauline spoke to Juliet, who smiled back reassuringly. Haslam and Gresson suggested that ‘there was proof in the testimony of Mr Rieper and Mrs Hulme respectively — of the age of the accused’: Pauline was 16, Juliet 15.28

  When Brown came to make his submission that the relevant evidence should be read to the jury, he broke down. This was not the first sign during the morning that his emotions were close to the surface. At times he had to clear his throat to continue, his voice trembled and he kept rubbing his hands over his eyes. Having ascertained the girls’ ages by means of a jury ruling, Adams stiffly, and to a hushed courtroom, pronounced the sentence:

  You both being held to be under the age of 18, the sentence of the Court is detention during Her Majesty’s pleasure. That sentence is passed upon each of you.29

  He then ordered the prisoners to be removed from court. Juliet, Pauline and the policewoman filed out, taking the door to the cells upstairs. Pauline looked directly ahead of her. Juliet glanced towards her mother, whose eyes were shut in despair. After the girls had gone, the judge addressed the jury, thanking them for their ‘long and careful attention to the case’.30 Because of the nature of the trial, he suggested they might consider taking a three-year exemption period from jury service, starting that day.

  At 3.40pm, the covered prison van that had transported the girls to the Supreme Court each day took them away to Paparua Prison, where they would begin their sentences. The prison superintendent told the newspapers that although the girls were in separate cells, they saw each other at exercise sessions in the morning and again in the afternoon.

  Juliet and Pauline were saved from the gallows by a recent law change. Section 5 of the Capital Punishment Act 1950, which reintroduced the death penalty to New Zealand, stated that ‘where a person convicted of an offence punishable with death was under 18 the sentence passed should be a sentence of detention during Her Majesty’s pleasure instead of a sentence of death’.31 Their case was the first time section 5 had been applied. The issue of capital punishment was as contentious in New Zealand as it was in the United Kingdom, from where it had come in codified form in 1840 when New Zealand became a British territory.

  In Britain the matter was raised controversially when the Marilyn Monroe-like Ruth Ellis was hanged on 13 July 1955 for the murder of her gigolo boyfriend David Blakely. There was a storm of protest from opponents of capital punishment, among them regular columnist ‘Cassandra’, writing on the front page of the Daily Mail:

  It’s a fine day for hay-making … And if you feel that way — and I mourn to say that millions of you do — it’s a fine day for a hanging … If you read this before nine o’clock this morning, the last dreadful and obscene preparations for hanging Ruth Ellis will be moving up to their fierce and sickening climax … If you read this after nine o’clock, the murderess, Ruth Ellis, will be gone. The one thing that brings stature and dignity to mankind and raises us above the beasts of the field will have been denied her — pity and the hope of ultimate redemption … If you read these words of mine at mid-day the grave will have been dug … and the Chaplain will have read the burial service.32

  Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom; however, capital punishment was not properly abolished until after the executions, on 13 August 1964, of Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans for the killing of John Alan West.

  In New Zealand, the first execution took place in 1842. The Labour Party, which became the government in 1935, was against the death penalty and soon promoted legislative reform. The Crimes Amendment Act, passed in 1941, changed the penalty for murder from death by execution to a life sentence with hard labour. A change of government in 1949 heralded a more conservative era. Almost as soon as the National Party assumed power, it reintroduced capital punishment for murder, which had been a campaign pledge. During National’s three terms in power, from 1949 to 1958, 22 people were sentenced to death; eight of these were hanged. Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Clifton Webb was prudent in his use of the death penalty, but his successor Jack Marshall was not. Between 1955, when Marshall assumed office, and 1958, when he left, there were five executions.

  Section 5 contained a number of clauses that were about to cause the Minister of Justice a headache in Juliet and Pauline’s case. Juvenile prisoners were to be ‘detained in such a place and under such condition’ as the minister directed, and could ‘at any time be discharged’ under a licence which, if it was contravened, could be revoked. As the Truth reporter pointed out, ‘it does not mean that Juliet Hulme or Pauline Parker will necessarily be detained in a prison or a penal institution’.33 In the case of James Frederick Dodd and Cyril James Pascoe, there were fewer difficulties over the execution of their sentence or where they would be detained. Dodd and Pascoe, aged 15 and 14 respectively, were found guilty of the murder of Raymond Douglas Brinkman at Te Whakarae near Taumarunui on 12 January 1947. Because of the repeal of the capital punishment legislation in 1941, both boys’ sentences were automatically commuted to life imprisonment.34 Mercy was recommended for Pascoe, who was released from prison early in 1954 after serving seven years. Dodd was still in prison when Juliet and Pauline were sentenced, and was the only juvenile in prison in New Zealand for murder at the time. For the boys there was no death penalty pending or section 5 amendment to negotiate, and there was more choice o
f facilities for incarceration. Because there was only a small number of female serious offenders in New Zealand, and few juvenile prisoners, it was difficult to find the right place for Juliet and Pauline. The choices were: Arohata Borstal, a women’s and girls’ reformatory situated close to Wellington; Paparua, where there ‘is a small prison of the bungalow type to house three or four women on remand or short sentence’; and Auckland or Mt Eden Prison, which had a small unit to accommodate older women and young women considered unsuitable for Arohata. The dilemma for authorities was whether a reformatory institution such Arohata was sufficiently stringent to manage the girls’ punishment and detention. ‘Borstal,’ wrote one commentator, ‘is designed as corrective treatment, and is not designed for holding perpetrators of this type of crime, however young.’35 Whatever was decided would be a compromise, further complicated by the need to separate the girls, which was seen as an imperative. Should they remain at Paparua, they would continue seeing each other twice a day; if they were remanded together to another institution, there would be inevitable contact.

  To add to this difficulty, according to newspaper reports both girls were threatening to commit suicide if they were parted, and there was also the problem of their intelligence. Both were deemed to be exceptionally bright — one reporter claimed Juliet was ‘inside the maximum mark set for genius’.36 What obligation did this put on those responsible for their custody, and what extra facilities might be required, if any? And how would an undetermined sentence affect two highly intelligent girls? As a Star Sun headline said, ‘Detention of Murderesses Is Problem’. To solve this problem it was decided that the Secretary of Justice, Sam Barnett, who was also Controller General of Prisons, would meet and consult with psychiatrists and physicians on 2 September before making his recommendation to Minister Webb. The matter would then be discussed in Cabinet before a final decision was made. The result was that Juliet would be moved from Paparua to the women’s section of Mt Eden Prison. Pauline would remain at Paparua until a ‘new security section now being prepared at Arohata Women’s Borstal institution near Porirua is completed. She is likely to be its first inmate.’37 It was also decided that the girls should be treated as if they were adult serious offenders, not minors. ‘They will wear the ordinary prison clothes, eat ordinary prison food, do the ordinary prison tasks set long-sentence women prisoners and be subject to the ordinary prison discipline.’38

  The prisons to which the girls were sent were dramatically different. Arohata was a local, low-security modern institution in the process of expansion. Mt Eden was a nineteenth-century fortress-style catchment prison for the country’s worst offenders. The reason for the inequality in accommodation arose partly from the contrasting perceptions of the two girls, promulgated especially by the media. Juliet was identified as the more forceful character and the more dazzlingly brilliant of the two. ‘Hulme is the more dominant personality and the leader of the two,’ the Secretary for Justice was reported in the Dominion as saying.39 The implication was that she had manipulated, even led events, and therefore had greater culpability and the stronger will that would need to be controlled or broken in custody.

  Although it was never overtly stated, there was a generally held belief, too, that Juliet was ‘snobby’ and ‘arrogant’. There was a strange twist in public feeling, perhaps intensified by a sense of betrayal. Everything English had a gloss, glamour and authority in New Zealand — until it fell short. And the Hulmes were judged to have fallen terribly short. Juliet undoubtedly symbolized more, but both girls were vilified, occasionally in hysterical fashion. Brown’s phrase ‘dirty-minded little girls’ resounded through the press, as did Medlicott’s ‘grossly insane’. Such a reaction was promoted by a trial that set out to establish guilt or innocence on the basis of ‘badness’ versus ‘madness’. Both sides of this dichotomy would outlive the trial and continue to fan public outrage and contempt in almost equal measure. But the essential, over-arching label was ‘evil’. This contained both bad and mad, but was bigger and beyond human redemption. ‘Entries in Diary “Like An Evil Mirror”,’ read a headline in the New Zealand Herald, during the trial. ‘The barbarity and hopelessly irrational confidence of the accused, their youth, and Parker’s diary reflected the deterioration of the two girls “like an evil mirror”,’ ran the text. And they were callous and unfeeling. ‘Girls Hear Murder Verdict Unmoved,’ read the heading in the NZ Truth after their sentencing.

  In court, the girls’ juvenile fictional writings had been meticulously interrogated. Adolescent fantasy was listened to with the same grim intensity as aspects of the murder, and given the same weight. Pauline’s diary was read largely as a factual account, and, although it was not used in evidence against Juliet, it was seen as a reflection of her thoughts, motives and actions, too. This made brilliant newspaper copy, as did revelations of the intensity of the girls’ relationship, and their alleged homosexual conduct, which was viewed publicly, at least, as an ‘abomination’. There was no attempt to understand or interpret events from any other perspective: whether mad or bad, the girls were remorseless killers.

  As Joann Deak and Teresa Barker write in Girls Will Be Girls:

  It would be a mistake to say that most girls live just this side of anorexia, depression, and suicide … But it is no exaggeration to say that most girls are in touch with these grim realities as part of the context of their everyday lives.40

  The issues Pauline and Juliet faced — such as anorexia, depression and suicide, and the tight pairing of a friendship ‘pash’ — were commensurate with their age. A fantasy-fuelled coupling of girls in their early to mid-teens was common, as were assignations to run away and stay together regardless and forever.41

  Although juvenile murder — and matricide especially — are rare, many aspects of the girls’ behaviour were not. The teenage years are a time of gradual separation from family. This usually happens in tandem with intensifying and sometimes exclusive same-sex peer relationships. It is part of a natural preparation for adulthood. Ultimately, the sense of urgency in the ‘pash’ dissipates, or is overwhelmed by life events and hormones that pull in new and incompatible directions. Joann Deak and Teresa Barker call them ‘the “smarter-than-thou” years’: when teenagers reject their parents as models and mentors, and experiment, take risks, and rebel against convention. According to developmental psychobiology researchers Laurence Steinberg and BJ Casey, this is evolutionary — it is how human nature has evolved, and is therefore universal across time and culture. The ordeal for parents is how to guide adolescents through this turbulent period of re-alignment and initiation. Deak and Barker’s advice is:

  … you need to be as sure as you can be about the bottom line, the core value or philosophy you have as a parent. After that, you need to really understand the problem. The only way to do this is by engaging, connecting, interacting with your daughter.42

  In a crisis, this connection with a parent or guardian is crucial. ‘Friendship and loss are two very clear examples of crucible events in the lives of girls … most girls have a very high need for a close friend during the ages of about nine to fourteen.’43 For Juliet and Pauline, the threat of separation became a crucible event. If either set of their parents had been more involved with the girls, they would have realized the significance of the problem. ‘Being an effective parent is like being a tightrope walker on the fine line of setting the boundaries and opportunities for a child.’

  Honorah Parker’s rigidity alienated Pauline, setting her adrift. Hilda Hulme’s overly liberal parenting left Juliet rudderless. With little guidance from their parents, the girls were left, in the words of Deak and Barker, to ‘negotiate the gray’ alone while their parents floundered in the murk of their own personal traumas.

  What makes negotiating the gray such a challenge is the fact that most of us are helping our girls negotiating the gray at the same time we are negotiating the gray ourselves, both in our own lives and also in our roles as parents … Most adults … are strug
gling with their own identity, priorities, and values.44

  Hilda was conducting an affair with Bill, Henry had been forced to resign and was planning to leave the country, and Henry’s resignation signalled a shift of roles, positions and countries. Honorah and Herbert faced ongoing challenges, too — a Down’s Syndrome daughter in psychiatric care, financial constraints, the burden of a secret wife and family, and the socially treacherous fact that they had never married. All the significant adult lives in this situation were in flux and under stress.

  In her seminal book Cries Unheard: Story of Mary Bell, Gitta Sereny examines the 1968 murders of two small boys by Mary Bell (aged 11) and Norma Bell (aged 13). (They were unrelated, even though they shared the same surname.) The pair formed a pact of friendship and, although they were younger and from more deprived backgrounds, there are resonances with Juliet and Pauline.

  The essential contradiction of the trial was that ‘killing’ had a fantasy connotation for both these children, and neither of them … understood ‘death’ in the sense of ‘for ever’ or of ‘loss’ … [They] could not conceive that every action has a consequence … [and they dissociated themselves from the act itself using a] psychological blocking mechanism which protects the mind from the unbearable …45

  People watching Mary Bell in court and when she testified were horrified by her apparent heartlessness, seeing it as proof of something monstrously evil. ‘Yes, I remember,’ says Mary Bell, ‘we laughed — I can’t think why and what about, but whenever we looked at each other, we laughed.’ Twenty-five years later, at the 1993 trial of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables for the killing of James Bulger, Sereny observed ‘the two boys doing exactly the same [thing, laughing] almost every time their eyes met’.46

  Sereny describes the overwhelming disturbance of the trial for these children, who, in spite of ‘careful provision’, were still grossly ill-prepared for both the spectacle and the mind-numbing boredom of the courtroom. In the dock, their compelling, sometimes compulsive, childish friendship collided head-on with the solemnity of the situation and the seriousness of their crime. To the public their behaviour seemed unambiguous: they were cruel and dispassionate. Yet they were also immature children ‘acting up’ on an adult stage. In Sereny’s experience, trauma affects children differently: some are ‘silent to the point of being catatonic’, while others are ‘hyperactive’ and excitable.47