Let This Be Our Secret

by Deric Henderson

  Coleraine Baptist Church was packed for the first of the two funerals to be held that day, Tuesday, 21 May. Howell’s parents Sam and Sarah, his brothers Jim and Gordon and his two sisters Maud and Pauline were all there. Lesley’s brother Chris, his then wife Jen, and many of Lesley’s friends, including all those who had been closest to her, especially those with whom she had nursed, were among the mourners who took up the pews towards the front. Some of her old girlfriends stood over the coffin and wept. Pastor Hansford, wearing a clerical collar, stood waiting until everybody had found their place, before delivering his words of welcome. Extra seats had to be brought in to accommodate all the mourners.

  Valerie Allen and Hilary Scargill came to see Lesley off together. The night before they had stayed at the Golf Hotel in Castlerock, where they met up with Chris Clarke and were able to regale him with some stories of Lesley’s exploits. Toasting the life of their dear and well-loved friend, they reminisced about the charming young mother who had a wicked wit, a fine taste for melodrama and who told a great story. Chris really hadn’t had the chance to see as much of that side of his sister as Valerie and Hilary, and he enjoyed listening to their fond memories of Lesley.

  Of the funeral service itself, Valerie Allen recalls: ‘Nobody said anything about the reasons why Lesley took her life, but then there were little children there. It seemed to me that they tiptoed around the awkward issues. It felt hollow.’ Lesley’s friend was no more than cordial towards Howell and once the day’s formalities ended she wanted nothing more to do with him. His demeanour at the funeral and his attitude to Lesley’s death somehow left Valerie cold. ‘Colin apologized prettily enough for me at the funeral, and he seemed sad and sombre. He sounded distressed when he called. He wasn’t crying and was obviously embarrassed talking to me … I felt angry at him. He took away my friend. I felt sad about the whole system …’ Another friend of Lesley’s, Pat Chambers, who travelled up from Dublin, refused to shake Howell’s hand at the funeral. She clearly blamed him for driving his wife to take her own life: ‘Lesley would not have harmed a mouse … She adored her children. She would never have left them. She was such a bubbly girl, so full of life …’

  But if some members of the congregation at the service for Lesley felt nervous and uneasy and maybe a touch awkward because of the circumstances surrounding her death, the atmosphere was nothing, compared to the behind-the-scenes tensions, resentment and acrimony which threatened to overshadow the funeral of Trevor Buchanan later that afternoon.

  Nobody dared say a word at the time, but the ill-feeling probably began to simmer from the moment the tearful and apologetic Hazel opened her front door to acknowledge and embrace the first wave of sympathy from her friends and neighbours. Even then, the Elkin and Buchanan families kept their distance from one another, with Trevor’s family quickly settling in one room and Hazel’s in another.

  Trevor’s family members were hurt and disappointed by the way in which Hazel had decided to handle the funeral arrangements; it was very far from the typical country wake they would have expected and been hoping for. Trevor’s coffin was not kept for a period in the Buchanan house, as would have been the custom; and this meant that there could be no official mourning in the family home. Instead, Hazel had decided that once the post-mortem examination was complete her husband’s body would be transferred directly to Wade’s funeral parlour at the corner of Abbey Street, just across from Coleraine Baptist Church, and would remain there, in one of the three small viewing rooms, next to where Lesley Howell’s body rested. Trevor’s family was disappointed about this, not least Trevor’s father, for it meant that the first time they would see Trevor’s body would also be the time they would have to say their final goodbyes to him.

  Gordon Buchanan recalls that moment with devastating clarity: ‘At the funeral parlour, I can remember Dad, Mum and our immediate family. Donna, my wife, was in the hallway. The room was very small. There [were] quite a lot of people and some from the Elkin family. I can’t recall if Hazel was there … This scene is indelibly imprinted in my mind. Trevor was in the coffin. I noticed bruising on his face. It was explained away that there had been some alleged scuffle between him and Colin Howell at Howell’s house. It was said that Trevor had gone to confront him. When Dad entered the funeral parlour to see Trevor for the first time since his death, he paused briefly and then went straight to the coffin and lifted Trevor’s head and upper body out of the coffin. He held him in his arms and said to him: “Why did you do it, son? Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you come to me?” It was horrendous, an unbelievable scenario. Dad basically died [himself] that day. He lived a lot of years after that, but he retreated to his house, sat in the corner and lost the will to live … He was still a great man and a caring father, but he had lost his spark … That pain and hurt was always there. He never got a release from it.’

  Jim Buchanan would have preferred his son to have been buried in the graveyard of the Holy Trinity Church of Ireland in Dromore, the family’s spiritual home. It was the church where he and the rest of the family were once regular attenders. But the family did not insist, out of respect for Hazel’s wishes, as Trevor’s sister Valerie explains: ‘Dad wanted Trevor’s body back in Dromore … to be buried there. Again, being the dignified people that we are and with Lisa and Andrew in mind, we thought it would not be fair. Trevor stayed at the funeral parlour, but it was nothing to do with procedures, or post-mortems. Hazel just didn’t want him at the house.’

  While the Buchanans were prepared to let the issue of the funeral parlour go, they could not agree to Hazel’s proposition – endorsed, it seemed, by those in charge at the Baptist Church – that there should be no church service for Trevor, but that the ceremony should take place in the funeral home, as Gordon explains: ‘… The funeral was going to take place from the funeral parlour. I’ve no idea why. We assumed it was something Hazel, Colin Howell and the church had decided. Both were going to be buried from the funeral parlour. We insisted there was a funeral from the church. Trevor was part of that church. He was a member taking part in Christian services and was entitled to be buried from that church.’ Valerie confirms her brother’s impression: ‘They didn’t want a church service, because it was suicide. Pastor Hansford definitely said that to Victor at Trevor’s house, the day after he died … At the time I felt the church was trying to distance itself. I could understand why at the same time, because this was an awful situation for any church … I felt they wanted it over and done with and out of the way. [But] I would never say they did anything deliberately underhand.’ Death notices in the previous night’s Belfast Telegraph newspaper said both funerals would take place at Wade’s funeral parlour.

  When the Buchanans insisted that there should be a proper church service for Trevor, Pastor Hanford agreed to accommodate their wishes, as Gordon recounts: ‘Once we brought it up, there was no real resistance to it. But if we hadn’t brought it up, Trevor would have been buried from the funeral parlour. If anything, I think we were too dignified.’ Pastor Hansford’s recollections differ from those of the Buchanans, and he denies that there was any resistance to a church service: ‘It is wrong to say the church did not want the funerals to take place from the church. I never thought of not doing the funerals from the church. The church was not embarrassed. That was not the case. There were huge congregations at both funerals. There was no debate about the funerals not being in the church. Nobody raised any objection to that at all.’

  The pastor is also adamant that he asked that a Union flag which had been draped over Trevor’s coffin be removed: ‘… Symbolism may mean everything in Northern Ireland, but historically Baptists believe in the separation of the Church and the State … I felt the situation in Northern Ireland was best helped by the separation of Church and State, not bringing the two together … It was purely the symbolism on the coffin in the church. The flag was taken off the coffin, and then put back, in the foyer, as it left …’ But, as Trevor’s relatives can co
nfirm, at no point was there a flag on his coffin – his was a private, family funeral, without any police trappings.

  Hazel’s questionable dress sense at the service was also a source of disquiet, as Trevor’s sister Valerie recalls: ‘… She definitely wasn’t a grieving widow, the way she was dressed at the funeral. She wore a black skirt which was quite short for that time, and a red jacket. I don’t recall what she had under it, but you could see her cleavage. It wasn’t appropriate at all for your husband’s funeral.’ Gordon agrees: ‘She came dressed completely inappropriately … It was not fitting for a funeral. I just felt, this woman clearly is not thinking straight.’ And as far as his family were concerned, it seemed that Trevor’s widow showed no obvious signs of grief, as Valerie recalls: ‘Hazel didn’t have a reaction. I think women are more perceptive, but you could see she didn’t care. No doubt it was a relief to her that he was gone. That’s how she behaved, as if it was almost relief to her. She didn’t behave like someone who is [was] grieving and hurting.’

  Valerie also found the way the church service was handled irksome and insensitive: ‘I remember, during the service, Pastor Hansford talking about the loving wife and mother Hazel was. I was getting angrier, angrier and angrier and thinking: “If he doesn’t shut up, I’m going to shout at him.” He didn’t mention Trevor’s mum and dad, or his family, who really loved him. It’s very clear Hazel didn’t love him, or she wouldn’t have had an affair. And here he [the pastor] is [was], talking about this loving wife and mother, but no mention of those who really loved him … he didn’t acknowledge us as a family – even Mum and Dad – when we were grieving. He could see that they were broken and he didn’t acknowledge that.’

  Valerie was so annoyed by what she felt was the pastor’s lack of recognition that, once the service ended, she hurriedly ushered her parents from their seats to stand in front of Hazel, as her brother’s coffin was carried out of the church. And she asked that the procession wait at the cemetery gates until her Church of Ireland clergyman, the Rev. Brendan McCarthy from St Columba’s Parish in Omagh, emerged from the back of the queue of mourners to take his place by the graveside to say a prayer on behalf of the family. It was a wet and miserable Tuesday afternoon.

  Even some of Trevor’s police colleagues in ‘B’ section, dressed in civilian clothes, felt that there was a strange atmosphere. They had contributed to a collection but decided against joining the family afterwards. Derek Ewing, then a police crime prevention officer and near neighbour of Trevor’s, remembers: ‘There was a lot of talk about the church, verging on a conspiracy. It was very much a closed shop. I got the impression – as did a lot of people who were there – the funeral was something the church had to have, but might have preferred there wasn’t as many people present … You just got the impression you were somewhere where you were not really wanted. I felt intrusive … Hazel was very composed. It was a strange affair, not like a normal, standard funeral – [it was] a strained event with a strange atmosphere.’ If anyone could feel the tension – and sense of guilt – then it was surely Hazel when she arrived with her family to take her seat. Howell was not there. She told police: ‘I remember walking up the aisle. I knew Colin had killed them and for me to walk into a church, yes, I felt a hypocrite. My life died then.’

  Trevor’s family and some of his friends and colleagues felt strongly that the church had not handled the affair and its aftermath very well. Derek Ewing sums it up: ‘It was beginning to emerge the church had been involved in the counselling process and hadn’t done Trevor, or Lesley, any favours. It seemed as if it was a crowd of well-meaning amateurs trying to reconcile a problem and did not have the expertise to do it. There were problems on both sides and they were trying to bring them back together. If they had kept their noses out of it and left it to the professionals …’ Valerie was very much of the same opinion at the time: ‘I just thought Hansford handled it really badly, from start to finish. He told us he had been counselling both couples, which seemed very unusual. Then he went away, just before Trevor and Lesley died … They were left with nobody to counsel them while he was away … He should have referred them to professional help. Obviously he did care for them, and thought he was doing his best. I met him at a conference in Belfast a few years later, because he recognized Brendan [the Church of Ireland clergyman who spoke at Trevor’s graveside on the family’s behalf]. I can’t remember exactly what he said. But he admitted that he had handled things badly at the time. I went over to him, shook hands with him, told him who I was and that I had become a Christian and said that if anything good came out of Trevor’s death that was one thing … He was very pleased about that.’

  Pastor Hansford defended himself, however. He said: ‘People looked back and said: “Why wasn’t that done? Why wasn’t this done?” They were trying to find some reason why the event had happened. It took its toll on me. But the elders were all united, all of one mind. There was no cover-up. I don’t feel a responsibility that I messed things up, or that the church did.’

  The Buchanans wish that they – and the police – had asked more questions of Hazel at the time. But they felt that Trevor’s widow had enough to cope with already, as Gordon explains: ‘As far as we were concerned, an affair had happened and as a result of it Lesley and Trevor had taken their lives: that Hazel could not have anticipated that and would not have wanted to see him dead. In many ways, we looked at her – albeit she had played a part in Trevor’s death – that she hadn’t sought it and that in many ways she was a grieving widow with children who had a massive burden to carry … Through our own decency, we didn’t question her. We didn’t quiz her. We were convinced the police had done a good job … In retrospect I wish we had asked more questions. I wish the police had asked more questions. But I have to emphasize how much faith we had in the police, believing what they told us was accurate. In my wildest dreams, I would not have predicted murder.’

  The deaths left his congregation shattered, according to the pastor, as the small community struggled to come to terms with the horror of the double suicide: ‘I assumed a lot of people would not come to church because they couldn’t cope with being there. And yet the church on the Sunday afterwards was full. They wanted to make a rhyme or reason why this happened, and why it happened to us …’

  Jim Buchanan would never recover from his grief. Gordon suffered a deep depression. Lily, Trevor’s mother, appeared to be coping in the immediate aftermath, as Valerie recalls: ‘Poor Mum was there, but she wasn’t there. Mentally she appeared to cope very well at the time, but the reality wasn’t hitting her.’ Three months later, however, Mrs Buchanan was admitted with a nervous breakdown to the Tyrone and Fermanagh psychiatric hospital in Omagh.

  One of Gordon’s most abiding memories will always be the day of his brother’s funeral: ‘I remember standing in the rain … I remember standing at the hearse outside Wade’s. I was completely in another world … I remember standing, staring at the coffin and thinking that this cannot really be happening … All these years we have been asking ourselves: “Why? Why? Why? What could we have done? Why did we not recognize what was going on?” Trevor had no choice. If Trevor had taken his life, at least it would have been his choice. Now we know he was given no choice … Trevor’s death was murder. It was so cruel, so calculated and so unnecessary.’

  11.

  ‘I have taken a mother from my children’

  His wife wasn’t even buried when Colin Howell sat down and penned his lover an extraordinary and impassioned letter, imploring her not to walk away, and to ignore Pastor Hansford’s strong recommendation to dissociate herself from him altogether. Fearful of being seen by others to be renewing contact with Hazel so soon after the deaths, Howell didn’t hand the letter to her himself. Instead, he folded the three foolscap pages, sealed them in a white envelope with Hazel’s name on the front, and gave this to her close friends and near neighbours, Derek and Hilary McAuley. It was just hours before he would take his place beside his wife
’s grieving friends and family at the cemetery, where they would watch her coffin being slowly lowered into the ground.

  These were the killer’s words to his lover:

  Hazel – The pastor has given me the message from you that, although with your heart, you want you and me, you now realize with your mind that it is best that we never get together again. Is that true? I must know, because if it is, you must ring me and only to say: ‘It is true’. Don’t allow me to think there is hope, if there is none. You will kill me. I can accept it now if you say it, but I can’t allow myself to progress to find out later … And you must decide now about our future, and not wait and see. I will not ever try and change your mind, no matter how lonely I get.

  Read the rest only if you want to know why I disagree about [with] certain things [with what] the pastor said to you. First. He told me he will do everything in his power to stop us getting together. That, I believe, is not his thinking mind, but his very strong emotional reaction of anger and guilt at their deaths. He is a very clever man and is capable of convincing you that our marriage would be a disaster and will, in the days to come, continue to convince you if you remain uncertain. If, with your mind (not your feelings) you accept what I think, then we will both go to the pastor and tell him that in the long term (maybe one to two years), we have decided now to get together later, but we will give him certain reassurances, so that he can accept for the sake of the church what we would say to him. I will set out my proposals at the end. I will deal with the three [sic] things he used to convince you our marriage would be a disaster:

  Lisa and Andrew: I heard Lisa twice said that she didn’t like me. That is hard. But I believe she is talking about a time eight months ago, when I was with you more than you were with Trevor. That is what she didn’t like. Trevor is gone, so when I come back on the scene in a year’s time, if you haven’t got someone else, then she will be needing a father figure, and the threat I used to be will be replaced by a need. I will talk to her and Andrew about Trevor and what they did with him, and tell them I understand that they miss him. I will allow Andrew to cut the grass and do manly things, to copy what his dad did. They will be so loved by me that difficulties (which there will be) will be overcome and sorted out. If I understand and talk to them: they are not a reason for disaster.