"Not that popular," said George. "Surely it's Roy Trent?"
"Roy Rogers ... Roy Orbison ... Roy of the Rovers ... Roy Castle..."
"At least one of those was a comic-book character," said Andrew.
"So? Bill Clinton and David Beckham named their children after places. All I'm saying is we can't assume Roy Trent from Roy."
"It's a reasonable guess, though," said Andrew. "The man's an ape."
"That doesn't make him a rapist. Or let me put it another way-which of you is willing to go in and suggest it to him with no evidence to back it up ... and what do you think his answer is going to be?" He glanced from one to the other. "Right! We need to find Louise or, even better, the Burton parents. They might be able to give us a surname."
"Assuming they'll talk to us," said George doubtfully. "I got the impression from William that they're extremely reluctant to be involved."
Jonathan nicked to the end of the transcript. "Did you tape these conversations or make notes?"
"I made notes in the car after the first one and used shorthand for the telephone call. I typed them up immediately afterward so I'm confident they're accurate."
He read the description of William Burton that she'd added at the end. "Forties, six foot approx, well-built, tattoos on his arms, thinning sandy hair, gray eyes, pleasant smiling face, fireman. Married with twin daughters." "You liked him," he said more in statement than question.
"Yes. He was very upfront and friendly at the beginning. We talked about his daughters who were arguing inside the house, and he was very amusing. He only tightened up when I mentioned his sister. He kept saying he hadn't heard from her for years, but I didn't entirely believe him."
"You say here that he 'looked troubled' after you asked him if Louise had had a baby when she was fourteen," remarked Andrew, tapping a page of the transcript copy that she'd given him. "He answered: 'Not that I'm aware of.' You've put 'evasive' with a question mark. Is that how it struck you at the time?"
George nodded. "He went on to say he was a lot younger than she was and wouldn't have understood what was going on-it's a couple of lines down. I thought that was a very strange response ... as if something had happened and he didn't want to lie about it. I've also put a question mark beside the 'a lot younger.' Louise would be forty-five or forty-six now, and William looked a good forty plus."
Jonathan drew her attention to some notes that came after William Burton's description. "(1) He wouldn't have phoned if he'd recognized Priscilla Fletcher as Louise. [Double bluff?] (2) Did he recognize her as Cill Trevelyan? (3) Why does he feel so 'connected' suddenly? [Because of Cill's photo? Because of his daughters? Because Priscilla F. is Cill and he knows it?]"
"What's the significance of his daughters?" he asked.
"It's at the beginning of the telephone transcript. He said his wife had asked him how he'd have felt if one of them had gone missing at thirteen. Also, he was very struck by how young Cill looked. He remembers her as quite adult and was shocked to see she still had her baby fat." She paused. "It's as if he saw her as a person for the first time ... and I'm wondering if that was because he recognized her in Priscilla Fletcher."
"I should think it's more likely your first statement was correct. Thirty years after the event, he saw Cill for what she really was-a vulnerable child-and it shocked him."
"He said his parents blamed her for everything that went wrong. They called her 'that bloody girl' and made out she was a tart."
"What sort of things?"
She shrugged. "The rape ... Louise becoming agoraphobic ... the police questioning. Those are the ones he mentioned, but he said it went on for months."
"The agoraphobia?"
"Presumably."
"Interesting," Jonathan said slowly. "What was she frightened of? The boys? Being raped herself?"
"He didn't say. There was a passing reference to her parents moving her to a different school so she wouldn't be reminded of Cill's disappearance, but that's all."
Andrew clicked his fingers suddenly. "Go back to the first paragraph where George has given a synopsis of the conversation about the girls," he told Jonathan. "Second line: 'Mr. Burton joked about his daughters' fiery hair and fiery tempers ... said he'd pay to be rid of them.' "
"And?"
"Red hair runs in families, but I'm damn sure the gene has to be on both sides to produce fiery red."
Jonathan ran a thoughtful finger down his jawline. "Go on."
"You're hooked on the ginger-haired rapist, but what color hair did Louise have?"
From: George Gardener [[email protected]]
Sent: Thurs. 4/17/03 15:07
To: [email protected]
Cc: Andrew Spicer
Subject: Louise Burton
Dear Jonathan and Andrew,
The Bristol agency was very unhelpful, refusing to share any details of their investigation or divulge the Trevelyans' address. They cited issues of confidentiality, but they refused to phone the Trevelyans for permission. I'm afraid they thought I was a journalist. In the circumstances I decided against making them a free gift of Priscilla Fletcher, and re: Louise they simply referred me back to William Burton.
Our friend Fred Lovatt has had no success with the archives, nor has he found any colleagues who were involved in Howard's case or Cill's disappearance. PC Prentice, who was mentioned in the newspaper clippings, retired in 1982 and is believed to have died of a stroke some time in the 1990s.
As I am reluctant to "scare" William Burton away, I have decided to approach this from a different angle. The school the girls attended prior to Cill's disappearance was almost certainly Highdown Secondary Modern, situated in Wellingborough Road. It was reinvented during the 1970s as Highdown Community School and subsequently moved to new, larger premises in Glazeborough Road (coincidentally utilizing the site of the demolished Brackham & Wright factory where Wynne Stamp worked!) They only keep records of past staff and pupils who sign up for the OH (Old Highdowners) Register. However, I have the name and address of the headmistress who was in charge from 1968 to 73. It is: Miss Hilda Brett, 12 Hardy Mansions, Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset.
I have made some inquiries and I understand that Hardy Mansions is sheltered accommodation for "active" elderly-i.e., people who still have their marbles. This is very good news as Miss Brett must be the one who suspended Cill and should remember both girls. I am willing to talk to her on my own, though I would prefer Jonathan to come with me, not only because his status of research fellow and author will lend the questions academic authority-and may persuade her to be more forthcoming-but also because I am unsure how to structure the interview.
Do we say we're looking for Cill Trevelyan? For Louise? Do we mention Howard? None of them ... just say we're researching Highdown of 1970 and were given her name by her old school? Help, please!
Best, George
PS. If Jonathan can come I shall need some dates when he's free. On balance, I think we should just turn up, rather than attempt to book a meeting with her, as if she says "no" we will lose this opportunity.
*12*
DORCHESTER, DORSET
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2003, MORNING
This time Jonathan had opted for smartness, and he was relieved to see George had done the same when she met him at Dorchester South Station. "What happened to the mobile filing cabinet?" he asked as he climbed into the car. "I hope you didn't move it on my account."
"I had a spring-cleaning," she told him, starting the engine. "Everything's in its proper place at home." She flashed him a smile. "I decided Andrew's ex-wife is right: 'Fine feathers make fine birds.' "
Jonathan grinned. "Except Andrew doesn't agree. He prefers, 'Don't judge a book by its cover.' "
"Me, too," she said cheerfully, pulling away from the curb, "but we're in a minority, so I'm going for the two-second sound bite-smart car ... smart home ... smart clothes ... smart mind."
Jonathan laughed. "How long will it last?"
"It de
pends how determined I am." She turned right onto Weymouth Avenue before filtering left to head toward the western outskirts of Dorchester. She drove hunched over her steering wheel as if she couldn't see where she was going, and Jonathan closed his eyes to avoid flinching at every near miss.
"To do what?"
"Strike the right impression from the off. I realize I've only myself to blame that I'm never taken seriously."
Jonathan had known it was a conversation that would come eventually. Unresolved issues never vanished of their own accord. "If it's any consolation," he said lamely, "I said far worse things to Sergeant Lovatt. According to Andrew I called him a fascist ... although I honestly don't remember it."
"Oh, for goodness sake! I'm not doing this for you."
"Who then?"
"Roy. He's been running rings around me because he thinks I'm a woolly headed spinster." There was a hiatus while she maneuvered between oncoming traffic and parked cars on her left. "I've tucked a map of Poundbury behind your sunblind," she told him, negotiating a five-way junction. "We're looking for Bridport Road and then Western Crescent. I'm fairly sure of the way but it's two years since I was here and, what with all the new building, the layout of the roads has probably changed."
He pulled out the map and spread it on his knee. "What sort of rings?"
She sighed and took her eyes off the road to look at him. "I didn't bring enough rigor to the information he's been giving me. Instead, I've wasted two years talking to people who were even more ignorant than I was about Howard."
"Names supplied by Roy?"
"Mm. Mrs. So-and-so who worked at Brackham & Wright in the 1960s and might have known what happened to Wynne. Mr. So-and-so who used to buy newspapers from Roy's dad and might have known Grace. Ms. So-and-so who was at St. David's Primary around the time Howard was there. I must have spoken to about twenty people who had vague connections with the story ... but none of them actually knew anything."
Jonathan pressed his feet into the floor as they drew up six inches behind a juggernaut. "Irritating!"
"I'd call it devious," George said, mounting the pavement to bypass the lorry and pull left onto Bridport Road as Jonathan stared stoically ahead. She nodded toward a cream-colored building ahead of them with a Germanic red-tiled spire. "That's where Poundbury begins. Have you visited it before? Do you know what it is?"
"No."
"Then you're in for a treat. It's Prince Charles's whack at modern architects and developers who build cheap estates full of identical redbrick boxes and expect people to be grateful. I mean, who wants to live in something boring?"
Roy Trent was promptly forgotten in her enthusiasm for the Prince of Wales's vision of how to build a new community. She insisted on making a detour into phase one of Poundbury which was less than ten years old but which, through its architecture and design-irregular roads, variety of building styles, use of local materials and housing arranged in mews, lanes, squares and courtyards-suggested history and permanence.
Jonathan was more impressed than he thought he'd be, although he doubted a similar estate would work in London. "It would be difficult to translate to a city," he said as she pulled out onto the main road again.
"I don't see why," said George. "The principle of local tradition and local materials would work just as well in Harlesden as they do in Dorset. It's the uniformity of cheap brick and reinforced concrete that people hate. A house should be an expression of its owner's individuality, not a clone of the one next door."
"What about Victorian terraces?" he murmured ironically. "They were built to off-the-shelf blueprints and you can't get more uniform than that. In a hundred years people may be as fond of redbrick boxes as we are of the nineteenth-century equivalent."
George chuckled. "Assuming the boxes are still standing in a hundred years. Victorian terraces were built to last ... these days everything's obsolete within a year." She slowed to read a street sign. "Poundbury Close," she announced.
Jonathan traced the map with his finger. "Which makes Western Crescent the second on the right," he told her, "over there." She flicked her indicator and pulled into the center of the road. "Tell me about Roy's deviousness," he invited.
"What's to tell?" she said dispassionately. "He's been sending me on wild goose chases because he doesn't want me finding out he was involved."
"You can't be sure of that," Jonathan warned. "He may be quite innocent but keeps his ear to the ground because he knows it's important to you. The fact that he's never come up with anything valuable might be evidence that he's as ignorant as you and I."
George gave a derisive snort. "You don't believe that anymore than I do. He's been playing me for a patsy. He wasn't remotely friendly until I mentioned an interest in Howard Stamp, then he became my newest pal. I should have smelled a rat then." She was driving slowly up the road looking for house names. She came to a halt beside a large building built in Purbeck stone. "Here we are ... Hardy Mansions."
They were both surprised by the ease with which they gained entry to the old woman. They expected to pass their request through a warden, but it took just the press of a buzzer with "Hilda Brett" beside it, and George's mention of Highdown Secondary Modern into the intercom, for the door to swing open and a barked instruction to come to Flat 12. "She's far too trusting," said George disapprovingly as they followed arrows marked 5-12 down a corridor. "We could be anyone."
"Perhaps she likes living dangerously," said Jonathan.
"I'm surprised it's allowed."
"Then she's rebelling against living in a prison," he murmured.
George pulled a face. "It's supposed to be the exact opposite-liberation from care and worry."
"Mm, but are undesirables being kept out or the inhabitants kept in? You can pay too high a price for freedom from care-fear of crime is more isolating than crime itself."
George's protest against this slur on sheltered accommodation remained unsaid, because the door to Number 12 opened and a gaunt woman gestured them inside. ''Hello, hello!" she said happily. "Come on in." She leaned on a walking stick and drew back to let them pass. "Into the sitting room on your right ... my chair's the upright one with the cushions." She closed the door and followed, examining her visitors brightly as she lowered herself into her seat. "Sit down ... sit down. Make yourselves comfortable."
Jonathan folded his tall frame onto the sofa while George chose an armchair. "This is very good of you, Miss Brett," she said. "We were given your address by the school, but as they didn't have your phone number we decided to take a chance on finding you at home."
The woman was frail and looked well into her eighties, but her faded eyes were full of intelligence. "You'll have to help me," she said. "I'm afraid I don't recognize you at all. Obviously this young man was well after my time, but when were you there, my dear?"
George screwed her face into immediate apology. "Oh, goodness, I didn't mean to suggest we were ever pupils of yours." She watched disappointment cloud the old woman's expression. "May we introduce ourselves? My name's Georgina Gardener and I'm a councillor for Highdown ward where your school still is, and this is Dr. Jonathan Hughes-" she gestured toward the -sofa- "who's an author and research fellow in European Anthropology at London University."
Jonathan stood up and bent to shake her hand. "This is a great privilege, Miss Brett. I've long wanted to meet a headteacher who had responsibility for steering a school into the comprehensive era. It must have been a difficult and stressful time ... but exciting too, perhaps?"
She frowned slightly, as if doubting this was the purpose of their visit. "All of those," she agreed, "but, of course, there was a strong crusading zeal at the time which carried us through. My staff and I had seen too many children relegated to what was effectively a second-class education because of their failure at the eleven-plus examination."
"With little or no chance of going to university," said Jonathan, sitting down again.
"Certainly. The direct route to higher educatio
n was through the grammar schools and private schools, which made it so pernicious that a child's future was decided at eleven." She paused, glancing doubtfully from one to the other. "Is this really what you came to talk to me about? I can't believe the opinions of a doddery headmistress-long past her sell-by date-add anything useful to the current debate on education."
George looked guilty. "Well..."
"In a way it is," said Jonathan, hunching forward to address her more directly. "We're doing a case study of troubled children in the decades after the Second World War. There are two from Highdown that interest us. Howard Stamp, who was convicted of murdering his grandmother, and Priscilla Trevelyan, who disappeared in 1970. Howard was certainly before your time, but I believe Priscilla was one of your pupils?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow which she answered with a nod. "Would you be willing to tell us what you remember of her?"
She sighed wearily as her disappointments were compounded. "If you're detectives, then you're wasting your time. As I told your predecessors, I have no idea what happened to the poor child."
Jonathan took a card and security pass from his inside pocket and passed them to her. "That's my photograph, name and title ... and at the bottom of the card is my departmental telephone number. I am more than happy for you to call and verify that I am who and what I say I am. Councillor Gardener can be similarly verified through her office or by telephoning one of her colleagues at the Birches Nursing Home in Highwood."
George promptly took one of her own cards from her case and offered it across. "We aren't detectives," she assured the woman, "although I had the same response from Louise Burton's brother. I understand the Trevelyans have been trying to find their daughter for years."
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