Chapter One - Part One

1960 The South of England

At the beginning of the school summer holidays Amy Denver phoned her sister, Dotty. They had a lengthy conversation and it was decided that Amy’s nine-year old daughter, Leila, should visit her for a while – a change of scene to hopefully clear her young mind of the unfortunate happenings in her village. Dotty and Fred lived where the landscape was much harsher. Instead of ripening strawberries on the slopes, there were sheep. Instead of softly undulating hills from the top of which could be seen the glistening horizon of the sea, there were gorse covered craggy mountains, sometimes shrouded in a heavy dank mist. Some public houses still held fast to the "Men Only" rule, and favoured spittoons and floors heavily sprinkled with sawdust.

The train journey took almost eight hours in total with the changing of trains and crossing London from Victoria to Euston. As the landscape changed, so did the temperature of the air blowing through the open windows of the carriage. As the train travelled further and further towards the north it became cooler and cooler. After five hours travelling the skies turned grey and the first raindrops spattered the windows, until finally the scenery blurred through the globules of water streaming down every pane.

Robert Denver sat opposite his daughter watching her carefully for any telltale signs. He was not sure that sending her away was such a good idea. Not that he thought that this was in any way encouraging Leila to run from her experiences exactly, but he hadn’t seen any sign of her harbouring any traumatic affects himself. But then he wasn’t at home all day as Amy was, so perhaps he had missed something.

Watching her now, she did seem deep in thought. He just hoped that those thoughts were not dwelling on anything unpleasant. Some woman at work had mentioned that sometimes these things do not surface immediately. It may take years, and then some minor happening, hardly related to the incident at all, could trigger off a memory and cause untold grief.

This had really upset him.