Disordered Minds

by Minette Walters

  Priscilla's mother, Jean Trevelyan, is heartbroken. She acknowledges that trouble at home was a contributory factor but she insists it's out of character for her daughter not to have telephoned. "The police say there's no evidence of abduction, but little girls don't vanish into thin air. I wish I'd never mentioned the row with her father. He was trying to support the school's punishment, but it gave the police an excuse to stop looking for her."

  PC Prentice denies this. "We pursued every lead we were given. Sadly, Cill was a disturbed adolescent with complications at home and at school. She'd been truanting for some time before she decided to ran away. There's always concern when a 13-year-old goes missing, but we're optimistic that Cill is bright enough to survive. Her friends described her as 'street-smart,' which is an American expression she taught them after reading it in a magazine. She used it to describe herself."

  Jean Trevelyan remembers it differently. "Cill was always in trouble. People expected her to behave responsibly because she was well-developed for her age, but at heart she was like any other 13-year-old. One of her friends told the police she was gang raped before she ran away, but they were less interested in that than they were in the argument she had with her father."

  PC Prentice admits the rape allegation but says there was no evidence to support it. "If it happened, then it's tragic that Cill was too ashamed to tell anyone about it." He agreed that the stigma of rape is a disincentive to reporting it. "Police forces are working on ways to encourage women and girls to come forward," he said, "but there's still a long way to go."

  This is no consolation for Jean Trevelyan who sits by her window, praying for Priscilla to come home. "We've lost more than our daughter," she weeps, "we've lost our good name. People say we were unkind, but she was our only child and we wanted the best for her. The police claim to be sympathetic, but they've never once portrayed us as loving parents."

  The photographs of Priscilla that line the room endorse Jean's love for her daughter, but she admits they've only been on display since Priscilla vanished. Like so many mothers, she found the balance between disciplining an errant adolescent and continuing to show love a difficult one. "We were strict because we worried about her, but we didn't know what worry was until she left. David is devastated by it all. It's a terrible way to learn that the time to show your child affection is when you're most angry. We disciplined her because we loved her, yet she must have believed it was done out of hate or she wouldn't have run away."

  Her greatest anguish is that Priscilla felt unable to tell anyone she'd been raped. "Her friend said she thought people would say it was her fault because she was wearing a miniskirt, but we live in a terrible society if a 13-year-old thinks she'll be blamed for what happens to her. The police have cast doubt on the rape, but I know it happened because Cill threw her skirt away. She saved up for it and it was her favorite. She wouldn't have done that if she had nothing to feel ashamed about."

  One is left with a sense of enormous tragedy. A grieving mother, indefinitely confined to her house for fear her daughter comes back to find no one at home. A father crippled by guilt because he upheld a school punishment. A house empty of laughter. A child missing because there was no one she could ask for help. -Bronwen Sherrard

  SPICER & HARDY

  AUTHOR'S AGENTS 25 BLUINDELL STREET LONDON W4 9TP

  Cllr. George Gardener

  25 Mullin Street

  Highdown

  Bournemouth

  DORSET BH15 6VX

  Monday, April 7, 2003

  Dear George Gardener,

  Thank you for your letter of April 2, and your kind wishes for Jonathan's recovery. Prior to your meeting he had been suffering for some time from severe stomach cramps and nausea which he foolishly put down to stress and overwork when the problem was a bleeding ulcer. His trip to the U.S. only exacerbated the problem and he developed complications on the day he visited you. Fortunately, it was caught in time and he's now well on the road to recovery. No thanks to him! I am telling you this because he won't tell you himself as he feels there are no excuses for his behavior. My own view, as I understand from Sergeant Lovatt that you are not well yourself, is that it was a clash of illnesses and is best forgotten. May I return the compliment you paid Jon, and send you my good wishes for your speedy recovery.

  I enclose a letter from Jonathan re: Priscilla Fletcher/Cill Trevelyan. However, I wish to stress: (a) his willingness to be involved in your project; and (b) the expertise he can bring to it. Jon has many strong points but self-promotion isn't one of them. When he tries, he sounds patronizing. When he doesn't, he looks smug. Both traits are deeply infuriating, but they're easier to ignore if you view them as a disability.

  Yours sincerely,

  Andrew Spicer

  Andrew Spicer

  Enc.

  DR. JONATHAN HUGHES

  Flat 2b Columbia Road

  West Kensington

  London Wl4 2DD

  Email: jon.hughes@Iondon.ac.uk

  Saturday, April 5

  Dear George,

  I'm embarrassed to think how badly I behaved the day we met, so please don't feel you have anything to apologize for. My trip to Bournemouth was a salutory lesson in my own stupidity. They say every cloud has a silver lining, and mine certainly has. I won't bore you with the Damascene conversion-you probably hate the cliche as much as I do-suffice it to say that I have taken Andrew's advice to live at peace with myself.

  I was fascinated by your letter and the enclosures. You may by now have validated or refuted your assumptions. However, I draw your attention to the following:

  · Having studied the photograph of Priscilla Fletcher, I believe she may have been the woman who approached me on Branksome Station.

  · While there is a similarity between the photographs of Priscilla Fletcher and Cill Trevelyan, it appears superficial. It may be a result of the child having lost baby fat, or the fact that her picture is in black and white, but to my eyes the bone structure of the faces is very different. Cill has a heavier jaw and more pronounced cheekbone than Priscilla's rather delicate equivalents. Cill's eyes look darker, although this may be due to the monochrome.

  · Priscilla is extremely fair-skinned, giving her a "Snow White" look-dark hair, pale face. While it's a common enough combination, fair skin is more usually associated with red or blonde hair, except in the Irish and Welsh(!!). Interestingly, my impression of the woman at Branksome Station was that her look was a manufactured one. The photograph gives the same impression. (Painted eyes, reshaped eyebrows, dyed [?] hair.)

  · If these are the same person, then there are some interesting discrepancies.

  · If they are two different people, then the similarity is striking, particularly as they are both called Priscilla, and Cill Trevelyan would now be in her midforties.

  I imagine you have already scoured the newspaper archives for any information on Cill Trevelyan's return. You may even have located her parents, assuming they remained in the Bournemouth area. But if, as I suspect, you've found no evidence that she ever came back- (I'm guessing you did this research before you wrote to Andrew)-then the obvious question is: if Priscilla is not Cill, then why would she want to adopt the name and looks of a girl who vanished thirty-plus years ago?

  Here are some other details that struck me as I read the newspaper clippings:

  · Compare: "Three teenage boys ... matched descriptions given by one of her [Cill's] school friends..." with Jean Trevelyan's claim: "One of her friends told the police she was gang raped..." There are various inferences to be drawn from these two statements: the friend either witnessed the incident or was told about it afterward; the friend only revealed what had happened after Cill went missing.

  · Compare: "the youngster is believed to have run away after an argument with her father..."; "neighbors mentioned constant rows between the two..."; "[her father] was worried about her truanting..."; "Cill was always in trouble..."; "[Jean Trevelyan's] greatest anguish is that Pri
scilla felt unable to tell anyone she'd been raped ... [Cill] thought people would say it was her fault..." The strong presumption in all these statements is that David Trevelyan would not have been sympathetic if Cill had admitted to being raped.

  · "It takes two to make a fight and the other girl wasn't punished at all." Again, there are various inferences to be drawn from this. The most common reason for children to fall out is when one says, "I'll tell on you." If "the friend" was also "the other girl," then the rape was the secret they shared and a threat to reveal it may have been the cause of the fight. If it was a different girl, then either Cill lost her temper over anything and everything or the secret was out. The fact that Cill was punished and the other girl wasn't suggests Cill started it and/or was the more violent and/or refused to give a reason.

  · From all of the above references, it is reasonable to accept PC Prentice's analysis: "Cill was a disturbed adolescent with complications at home and at school." (There was an unusual amount of aggression in her life-hitting out at school suggests she was no stranger to being hit at home.) While a child like that may well abscond-research suggests that most runaways have suffered physical or sexual abuse-she was unlikely to keep her name. Indeed, if she hadn't been found in two months, and was still alive, she must have been calling herself something else. I believe that's the name she would continue to go by-even if she returned, home-because it would have been a demonstration to her father that the rules had changed and a new "she" was setting the agenda.

  I don't pretend to know any better than you which assumptions are correct. However, I do believe it might be worth trying to put a name to Cill Trevelyan's school friend. Presumably she was the same age as Cill, and a 13-year-old would have been deeply traumatized by the rape (more so if she witnessed it and did nothing to help), closely followed by the guilt of not speaking out, a spiteful threat to "tell" and Cill's disappearance.

  I am no psychologist so I'll rely on your expertise to throw the idea out if it's too far-fetched. The schoolfriend seems a more likely contender for Priscilla Fletcher than Cill Trevelyan. (Transference reaction? Mitigation of guilt by "resurrecting" the wronged person? Envy/hero worship-Cill got away and she didn't?) Are any of these credible? Can trauma in childhood define behavior through to middle age?

  I have failed dismally to make a connection between Cill's story and Howard's, although I have noted the skinny, ginger-haired "rapist." (Also the medium-build dark-haired duo, one of whom may have been Roy? Is that your thinking?) All I can say re: the boys is that it would require considerable chutzpah to leave a police station following questioning about a rape, only to break in on a vulnerable woman a few hours later and torture her to death. Again, I rely on you for an analysis of juvenile behavior.

  Finally-unless you come back with evidence that Cill resurfaced-my strongest suspicion from reading the newspaper reports is that she never ran away at all, but was killed by her father. According to one of the articles, David Trevelyan was exonerated after being questioned by police, but I would need some very strong evidence to believe that. Statistics don't lie. Children who vanish into "thin air" are usually dead, and children who "vanish" are usually victims of their parents. David Trevelyan was a violent man, and I fear Cill may have made the mistake of trying to excuse "the fight" by telling him about her rape.

  I look forward to hearing from you again.

  Yours sincerely

  Jonathan Hughes

  From: George Gardener [geo.gar@mullinst.co.uk]

  Sent: Tues. 4/8/03 19:20

  To: jon.hughes@london.ac.uk

  Subject: Cill Trevelyan

  Dear Jonathan, You are absolutely right. I can find no record that Cill Trevelyan ever resurfaced. David & Jean Trevelyan left Highdown in the 80s but I have no forwarding address as yet. My new friend (!) Sergeant Lovatt is looking into it for me. He is also trying to locate the file on Howard. Apparently records from all the divisions were collected together in a central archive 20+ years ago. However, as redundant files are usually destroyed, he isn't holding out much hope. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

  Re: the schoolfriend and transference. Transference is commonly an emotional response-often experienced during therapy-where people transfer personality characteristics of parents/partners/friends to someone else. It's an immature reaction, where neurotic patterns of behavior, often formed in childhood, color subsequent relationships-e.g. in very simple terms, a child who grows up afraid of a stern father will fear all men in authority. Clearly, it's more complicated than that but, generally, transference relates to an imbalance, or perceived imbalance, of power within a relationship, which is taken forward to other relationships and will certainly persist into middle age. [NB: It's not necessarily a negative response. If a child grows up admiring his father, he will look up to men in authority.]

  If you're right that Priscilla Fletcher is the school friend, then it's highly likely that trauma at 13 has lingered into adult life. However, the most obvious contender for that is Cill herself as she's the one who experienced the abusive relationships! In some ways, I'd say idolatry or hero worship is closer to what you're looking for.

  Interestingly, Howard was a case study in hero worship. You made the point yourself when you said he aped his hero, Ginger Baker. He wanted to look like Baker, wanted to have the courage to rebel in the same way, wanted to be admired in the way Baker was. It was a displacement of his unloved self to a more acceptable substitute. I shall have to do more research, but it's not inconceivable that Cill became a "totem" to a traumatized child, particularly if her disappearance meant the loss of a best friend. I question how long those feelings would have lasted, however.

  I shall certainly follow your advice to track down the friend. If nothing else, she will be able to tell us something about Highdown in 1970. Fred Lovatt suggested that one of the reasons Cill's disappearance dropped out of the headlines so quickly was because attention shifted within days to Grace's murder and Howard's arrest. The coincidences of time and place continue to fascinate me, however. It seems so unlikely that two unrelated events should happen within such a short period in the same area, although I take your point about the boys and chutzpah. It's not unknown, of course. Jack the Ripper killed two women within half an hour of each other, even though he'd been disturbed performing the first murder and the hue and cry was up. Adrenaline does strange things to the mind as well as the body.

  Best wishes, George

  *10*

  9 GALWAY ROAD, BOSCOMBE, BOURNEMOUTH

  FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2003, 6:30 P.M.

  George drew up in front of a smart semi-detached house and left the motor running while she listened to the end of a dispatch from Baghdad. The news was still dominated by the fall of the Iraqi capital, although reports of rampant looting now took precedence over correspondents' and politicians' surprise at the lack of opposition to the U.S. army. For George, a longtime peace campaigner, the three weeks of over-the-top war coverage had been depressing. State-sponsored killing had become a showpiece for technology-smart bombs, laser-guided missiles, embedded journalists with videophones-when the reality on the ground was chaos and death.

  She sighed as she switched off the engine. Ideas and words were being twisted to distance sensitive Western consciences from what was being done on their behalf. The killing of Iraqi civilians was "collateral damage"; the deaths of British servicemen at the hands of their own side were "friendly fire" or "blue on blue"; questions about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction-the excuse for war-the only excuse-were brushed aside with "we know they exist." How? In the same way the police had "known" that Howard Stamp was a murderer?

  Justice demanded honesty, and there was no honesty in validating war through euphemism and vague suspicion. She particularly disliked assertions that the aim of invasion was to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. You have no vote, was the overbearing message. Do as we say because we know what's good for you. It was the same sanctimonious self-righteousness that h
ad caused every miscarriage of justice in every democracy in the world.

  I accuse you because I dislike you ... I accuse you because I can...

  J'accuse...

  It had been easier to obtain the name of Priscilla Trevelyan's school friend than George had feared. A request to the Bournemouth Evening News to find out whether Bronwen Sherrard, the byline on the piece "Mother's anguish over missing teen," was still on the staff had come up with a negative. However, the name was uncommon enough to prompt a not very hopeful look in the local telephone directory. Even when she found an entry and dialed the number, she wasn't optimistic it would be the same woman. Or if it was, that she'd remember details from an article she'd written in 1970.

  However, it was indeed the same woman, now retired, and though she couldn't recall the information off the top of her head, she had kept meticulous files of all her work. George explained her interest by saying she was researching Highdown of the 1960s and 1970s, and Bronwen phoned back the next day with the name Louise Burton and the additional bonus that the family had been rehoused in Galway Road, Boscombe. "I never spoke to her or her parents," she finished. "When I went to the house, her mother called the police."

  "Why?"

  "I imagine they'd had enough of doorstepping journalists," said the woman with a laugh, "so let's hope you have better luck than I did."

  "Do you know where they lived when they were in Highdown?"