CHAPTER 1

Voices

Asharp squeal galvanised the young teacher into action, but he was too slow. The terrified child had already wrenched the door open and exploded down the corridor, wailing with fear. The young man struck the newly installed alarm button and dashed off in pursuit. In the playground the headmaster joined him.

“Did you see where he went?”

“No,” panted David Williams, the younger teacher, “but he didn’t leave the yard. I’ve kept my eye on the gate. I’ll search the grounds if you guard the gate.”

So saying, he checked the familiar hiding places and found the terrified boy crouching behind the boiler house. Slowly he approached the whimpering child, who was waving his hands in a perverse parody of a priest’s blessing, as if trying to ward off some satanic assault. Speaking softly, he moved slowly, as though approaching a small, trapped animal.

“It’s all right, Ian. Nothing’s going to harm you.”

A dull light of recognition eventually returned to the child’s eyes, and the whimpering subsided. The young teacher caught him just as he slumped in exhaustion. Gently he carried him to the headmaster, who peered anxiously into the child’s shadowed features.

“We’d better get him to my study. I’ll contact his mother. Is he unconscious?”

“I don’t think so; I think he’s fallen asleep. He usually does after an attack.”

“Were any other children hurt?”

“No. He’s stopped accusing his classmates and become resigned to the attacks. There’s no anger or violence now, just fear. I suppose that’s a small blessing.”

“Well, I’m still worried about it. This just can’t go on. One day he might run out onto the road. Let him rest on the settee and I’ll phone his mother.”

David gently laid the boy onto the settee while the headmaster picked up the phone.

“Hello, Mrs Evans? Yes. I’m afraid it’s your son Ian again. He’s had another attack. I’d like you to come and collect him. No, nobody’s hurt, but the situation is deteriorating. It’s becoming more difficult to supervise him. He escaped into the yard this time, and it’s only a matter of time before he escapes onto the street.”

As the young teacher arranged the blanket, the child twitched violently and his shorts rode up to expose a thin, delicate frill of lace. The head glanced down perplexed.

“Good gracious! What’s that? Is it a lady’s handkerchief or something?”

“I don’t know,” replied the younger man. “It looks as though he’s wearing frilly panties.”

“Oh my gosh! Mr Williams, I think you’re right. Why d’you think that is?”

“It could be several reasons. Shortage of clean underwear, cross-dressing, it could be anything. Boys might go through a week’s under wear in a few days. Maybe the mother’s run out of boys’ pants or something and put him in those until washday.”

“But she would have chosen a less… less effeminate pair, surely—a plain cotton pair, for instance. Look at those girlish frills! D’you think it’s transvestism?”

“It’s possible, Mr Lewis. The boy’s quite disturbed at times. There might be some sort of connection, but I’m no psychiatrist. Surely it’s not important.”

“I don’t think anybody else knows about it,” Mr Lewis said. “When the children strip for games he’s always properly clothed. I hope he isn’t a transvestite. When he’s not having rage attacks, he’s a lovely kid, and exceptionally bright.”

“It‘ll be a pity if we lose him,” the headmaster agreed. “He’s one of our brightest pupils, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes. He’s quite brilliant. Even if he is a transvestite, I’m still keen to keep him in my class. He’s a dream to teach, and very responsive. Only his twin sister Megan can keep up with him; you know, the pretty little blond girl.”

“Yes, a very attractive little child. You can see they’re obviously twins if only by that incredible hair and those turquoise eyes. Quite remarkable colouring, isn’t it? They obviously get it from their mother. I’ve never met the father, though,” observed the head.

“Oh, he turns up occasionally but there’s obviously some sort of strain in the relationship,” replied the young teacher. “I’ve heard there’s alcoholism in the family, and I suspect the boy’s problems have put too much strain on the marriage. The mother’s family has been around here for generations; they live on her old family farm that lies deep in the mountains. It’s an hour’s bus ride to school. They own a huge swath of mountain pasture and a fair piece of the valley, but most of it is rented out. Mrs Evans isn’t very interested in farming but she keeps a flock of sheep. She’s a graduate botanist and more interested in herbal medicines and homeopathy. I’ve seen her stall at local fairs and festivals. The children run riot amidst the stalls, but they’re good enough kids, except for the boy’s attacks. He says the voices invade his head and he can’t understand why.”

David fell silent. There was little more he could tell the head.

“D’you think it might be related to epilepsy?” wondered the head master aloud.

“I don’t know,” replied David. “He doesn’t seem to have shaking fits or anything. His school medical file is very vague about it all, and the mother seems to steer shy of the doctors.”

“D’you think she knows about this underwear thing? Little boys can be very secretive about transvestism you know.”

“I just can’t answer that,” sighed David. “I’m not really bothered by it, and I’m not going to make an issue of it to the mother. As I said, if it doesn’t cause a problem, I’m prepared to ignore it. I’ve read that it’s almost impossible to cure, and it’s no indicator of sexuality. Apparently most transvestites are heterosexual, but of course I’m no doctor. If you’re happy just to amend his confidential notes, I’ll tackle his mother if it becomes an issue in the classroom.”

“Yes, I think that’s best. Now, what about any other action we can take concerning his escapes?”

They talked quietly while Ian slept fitfully on the settee until Ian’s mother arrived; then the young teacher left, and they talked at some length.

“As I said on the phone, Mrs Evans, the situation’s becoming unmanageable. Young Mr Williams is an excellent teacher, but he hasn’t got eyes in the back of his head. He’s compassionate and he likes your son. The boy’s an excellent pupil academically.”

A silence settled upon the room, and the head decided to risk the question of Ian’s underwear.

“By the way, Mrs Evans, are you aware that Ian is wearing a pair of lacy adult lady’s underwear under his shorts?”

Mrs Evans was stunned by this revelation. Her face paled visibly; as she slumped in the chair. The headmaster realised the woman was in shock and offered her a cup of tea. As she recovered, the head master reached out and fingered the exposed lacy frill under Ian’s shorts.

“I’m presuming, then, that you didn’t know.”

Ian’s mother shook her tired head and wiped a tear from her eye. Her son’s problems just seemed to get worse and worse. The headmaster recognised her distress and spoke to reassure her.

“Mr Williams noticed the lacy decoration when he carried Ian in his arms and we laid him down on the settee. I can assure you that we will respect your wishes about this. Mr Williams was adamant that he doesn’t want to lose your boy from his class. He’s quite brilliant and a joy to teach when he’s not having attacks. We’ve all learned to recognise the symptoms, and most times we can anticipate any problems. This afternoon’s business was simply an escalation, and it caught Mr Williams off guard. The school should be able to address the problems for now. Once again, I reiterate, we don’t want to lose Ian.”

Ian’s mother fell into a worried, introspective silence, for she had the same problems at home. Each afternoon Ian’s sister Megan would come home gushing and chattering about school, whilst Ian would arrive in a brooding silence and sneak up to his room. She often heard him arguing with imaginary voices, and it worried her deeply. The head master coughed discreetly, and Ian’s mother spoke.

“There doesn’t seem to be a lot I can do, Mr Lewis. Busy classrooms don’t suit my son. He simply says that the voices invade his head.”

“What does your family doctor recommend?”

The mention of doctors caused Ian’s mother to pale. Throughout her own childhood the medical authorities had dogged the family because of their eccentricity. She had managed to keep Ian’s problems hidden during infancy, but now that he was at school the condition was becoming impossible to hide. For generations the women in her family had held a local reputation as soothsayers and mystics, but with the arrival of modern medicine their strange powers were more likely to be diagnosed as psychiatric or personality disorders.

Ian’s mother knew this, and she avoided doctors like the plague—particularly psychiatrists.

She made vague mention of having seen a consultant but more or less left the headmaster’s question unanswered. At this point Ian stirred, and any further probing was averted. Grateful for the diversion, she gathered up her son and met Megan at the school gate. As they rumbled away in the Land Rover other parents were arriving to meet their children. Curious stares followed the Land Rover, for Ian’s mental condition was becoming common knowledge amongst the parents.

Over the remainder of that academic year, things slowly deteriorated until one day Ian was caught by other boys while wearing frilly panties under his shorts. The uproar in the playground led to a violent episode, and the weary headmaster reluctantly concluded that enough was enough.

After several meetings it was decided that Ian should be removed from the school environment. Other parents had begun to express fears about the boy’s violent attacks, coupled with the transvestite development. The authorities agreed that Ian’s mother could teach him at home. As a university graduate she satisfied the education authority, and the school agreed to support her efforts. Ian’s condition stabilised, and his mother made excellent progress with his education. Within months he was several years ahead of his contemporaries. She had high hopes for her son.

The voice attacks continued, but, away from the school and the crowds of children, they seemed less confrontational. He was less distressed and simply sought a peaceful place where he could enter a sort of self-induced trance during their onset. From the farmhouse win dows, his mother often watched him sitting statue-like on a favourite high rock like some meditating Oriental sage.

She was not surprised to see him develop a close relationship with a pair of ravens who took to sharing the rock with him.

The family history described similar occasions down through the ages. Often there had been stories of inexplicable adventures between family members and animals. Their sheepdog, Fly, seemed particularly close to Ian. Out on the moor it was quite safe to let the child handle the dog and their family’s huge flocks of sheep. Ian seemed to have an uncanny relationship with Fly as the dog’s unusually white coat flashed amongst the heather and moorland whilst following seemingly invisible instructions from the boy. Fly had become Ian’s best friend, and it amazed Ian’s mother to often see the dog sitting with the ravens in some inexplicable symbiosis. ‘Still,’ she thought,’ I shouldn’t be so surprised’. Similar events were recorded in a thick old family Bible with names, dates, and places going back hundreds of years.

Whenever Ian went up to the rock, he took some meat or table scraps with him, and his mother watched, fascinated, as the huge wild birds pecked the titbits from his hand whilst the dog lay beside him resting his head on Ian’s lap. Ravens were amongst the most cautious of birds, and it was incredible to see such wild creatures pecking trustingly from his hands whilst the dog’s jaws lay inches away.

Safe on his rocky mountain perch, Ian’s attacks continued, but there were no more hysterical rages, and he wasn’t harming other children. He would simply drift off into a deep introspective trance whilst the dog usually fell asleep beside him. His mother felt no worries for him, because Ian invariably appeared for meals with a seemingly insatiable appetite. She deemed his hunger to be a healthy sign.

Additionally his relationship with Megan had improved, and the sibling harmony was a welcome return to normality.

There remained one major problem. The twins’ older sister Margaret objected furiously to Ian stealing her panties, and she took to bullying her brother. Fortunately, Megan was more than happy to have a new twin sister of sorts, and she even agreed to allow Ian to borrow her clothes. As a partial measure to avoid further conflict, Ian’s mother took to buying matching outfits for the twins and the boy started to wear girls’ clothes almost constantly around the remote farm.

Margaret still objected to seeing her younger brother dressed as a girl, even though nobody else was there to witness it. Consequently, she took to sexually abusing her younger brother.

She felt that somehow he was mocking her burgeoning femininity. She was in her middle teens and sensitive about her body. Ian learned to avoid Margaret, but there was no room for total escape. Then calamity entered Ian’s young life.

Margaret contacted their father to complain about Ian’s transvestism. A few days later, in the late afternoon, their father turned up in one of his typically drunken states and caught Ian as he was returning home from the raven rock. At first Ian was just nervous at the sight of his father. All the children were alert to the occasional drunken returns, so Ian hesitated before opening the gate to the farm. His father finally focussed on the boy’s thin cotton frock and started cursing loudly.

“What the hell are you wearing that for?” he shouted.

Ian froze and Fly growled menacingly, but the father was in no mood to be afraid of him. He kicked at Fly viciously, and the dog retreated into the farmhouse.

Ian couldn’t think of an answer that would explain the situation whilst protecting his mother from any further trouble. All the children had seen their drunken father beating their mother, and Ian was desperate to avoid yet another such row. He tried the bold, obvious approach.

“I like wearing it. It’s nice and comfortable.”

“Damn it! You little pervert. Get the bloody thing off. What the hell do you think you are?”

Ian debated whether to stand or run. The only problem was that if he ran and hid until his father sobered up and left, there was no knowing what his father would do. He might take out his anger on his mother or Megan. Margaret was safe from their father’s wrath, for she was his favourite. Terrified of causing more trouble for his mother, Ian swallowed his fear and slowly started to tug the flimsy frock up over his shoulders. This exposed his frilly panties and “little miss” bra.

His father flew into an even greater rage.

“God in hell boy! What the bloody hell are you? Get those blasted things off as well!”

By now his father had reached the gate. As Ian reluctantly unclipped his bra and started to step out of his panties, his father reached over the gate and grabbed his shoulders. With a mighty heave he wrenched his son over the gate and proceeded to beat him senseless. Ian’s howls quickly attracted his mother, who ran screaming out of the house to protect the boy. This only caused the man to throw his son to the ground and turn his anger on his wife.

“What the hell are you doing allowing the little bastard to dress as a girl woman?” He bellowed as he rained blows on her head. Within minutes, Ian’s mother was lying senseless beside her son. Megan realised what was happening and released Fly to drive the man away.

Having vented his drunken fury and now confronted by a demented, snarling sheepdog, the bloodied man stormed to his car and drove off back to town, where he was soon caught by the police for drunken driving.

In the meantime, a terrified Megan had telephoned for the police and an ambulance to attend her mother and brother. By the time the emergency services arrived, the mother was conscious again. The dog’s brave actions had saved her from serious injury. Ian’s injuries were more severe. His father’s brutal blows had broken the boy’s collarbone and several ribs in addition to fracturing his jaw.

Ian’s father was sentenced to a year in prison and he was subject to a restraining order preventing him from ever visiting the farm again.

Naturally, this infuriated Margaret, who was now only able to see her father whilst away from the family. Her hatred for her brother increased and she blamed him and his perverted transvestism for causing their parents to break up. Margaret’s abuse consequently increased.

After leaving hospital and suffering the increases in Margaret’s abuse, Ian was now convinced he was truly the rotten apple, the black sheep, a thoroughly evil child with no hope of redemption. The voices became worse as he tried to curb his transvestism and struggled to resume constantly wearing boy’s clothes. His efforts always failed. The stress of self-denial precipitated the voice attacks, and Ian eventually resumed wearing the same clothes as Megan. It was the only way the family could achieve some sort of calm. The following year, Margaret left school, found a job, and started her adult life. She would deliberately buy provocative underwear just to torment her younger brother. Ian desperately resisted the temptation to raid her panty drawer.

Megan was delighted to have what had now become a permanent twin sister to play with. Their companionship alleviated the loneliness of the remote farmhouse. On weekends, Megan would join Ian and Fly on the raven rock and share the fun of feeding the great black birds. One Saturday, though, the headmaster arrived unannounced. He wanted to see what was going on, because Megan had finally suc cumbed to the temptation to brag about her brother and the birds. Megan had been accused by her classmates of lying.

Mr Lewis left the farm a chastened and thoughtful man. He had witnessed both the feeding of the ravens and the transvestite Ian, who was now almost indistinguishable from his twin sister. He fell to discussing the issue with Ian’s mother, who became angry at his inter ference, and he left undecided as to whether to report the circumstances to the authorities.

Fortunately, the headmaster had at least had the sense to ask the boy if it was his preference to dress as a girl. Ian had assured him it was. After he had made some further studies and investigations into trans vestism, he sensibly concluded that the situation at the remote farm was not causing any harm.

Ian was dressed outwardly as a boy whenever the family left the farm, so there was little evidence of any harm or abuse. He had not learned of the abuse Ian had suffered at the hands of his father and was still suffering at the hands of his older sister. Life at the farm continued fairly peacefully, for Ian managed to curb his preferences for Margaret’s frillier knickers and simply dressed much like his twin sister. Margaret had reconciled herself to her younger brother’s deviancy, and the sibling abuse subsided. Peace more or less came to the household.

This whole situation was to collapse in ruins one cold Friday in December, when Ian, Megan and their mother went into town for Christmas shopping. A child from the school recognised Ian and started calling him ‘crow boy’. This quickly induced a rage, and Ian attacked the boy, whose injuries were serious enough to involve the police.

The following Monday the family received an unexpected visit from social services. The authorities were amazed to find an isolated single-parent family living deep in the hills. The fact that the boy was not attending school raised further suspicion, and his transvestism was huge cause for uninformed concern.

Employing their usual prejudice and preconceptions, the social services quickly decided that there was obviously something seriously wrong with the child. Doctors were inevitably consulted, and further blunders ensued as their academic conceit found free reign. The psychiatrists were unable to determine exactly what was causing the transvestism, but Ian’s silent, truculent resentment antag o nised them.

Loath to confess that they were baffled, they fell back on safe old paediatric standbys and diagnosed that the boy was probably the victim of some form of abuse. The police report about his father’s attack served to reinforce this diagnosis.

The cruel irony was that Ian’s transvestism had preceded the abuse; indeed, it had precipitated it. But this obvious circumstance escaped the doctor’s blinkered perspective. In those dark days, transvestism was always deemed to have been triggered by some event or circum stance in a child’s early life. There was no understanding of transvestism being somehow genetically programmed and hardwired into an individual’s brain.

The mother’s childhood history was well known to social services, so eventually the courts decided that the children were at risk of significant harm.

A few weeks later a horrendous scene went unwitnessed in the January snows on the remote farm. Both the twins were forcibly seized. The terrified eight-year-olds were literally torn from their mother’s side. Ian struggled furiously, and his girly jeans got dragged down to reveal his frilly female panties. Confused tears fell from his mother’s eyes as she gaped uncomprehendingly at Ian’s underwear.

He had broken the cardinal agreement by stealing a pair of Margaret’s adult frilly panties. Obviously ordinary cotton knickers, even with lace, were not sufficient to alleviate Ian’s transvestite needs. Accusing stares and shocked gasps revealed the social worker’s prejudices, and both children were swiftly taken away.

Eventually Ian’s mother managed to regain custody of Megan, but she had suffered the agonising trauma of seeing her twin brother stolen from her family, perhaps never to be seen again. Megan would never feel secure again, for it seemed that children could be stolen on the complete whim of total strangers for little or no apparent cause.

Transvestism didn’t seem as horrible or dangerous to Megan as the cruel adults had claimed it to be. Indeed, when Ian had been cross-dressed, he had been a dream companion to her. Consequently, identity, sexuality, and kinship would become fragile, meaning less concepts to Megan. She would never trust anybody again, for she had lost the person dearest to her, her twin!

Meanwhile, Ian’s transvestism and explosive reactions only precipitated him deeper into the evil web of social services. The transvestism was the deciding factor, for in those days it was little under stood. The so-called experts believed it pointed to parental abuse that caused the child to have a sexual identity crisis. This, coupled with the record of Ian’s beatings by his father, served to reinforce the diagnosis. Of his mother’s love nothing was accounted. In the care home, his voice attacks quickly escalated into rage, and he reacted with furious violence towards all and sundry.

Psychiatrists clumsily misdiagnosed him as a dangerous transvestite and a paranoid schizophrenic with a high security risk. All parental contact was soon lost, and Ian’s condition inevitably deteriorated to catastrophic levels. He was not yet nine years old!

Far worse was to follow for Ian. Isolated deep in the wilds of mid-Wales was a children’s unit called Mabin Park. This was officially a high security unit built for the most disturbed children. In reality it was a horrendous place where a paedophile ring had infiltrated the institution and gained control thus acquiring carte blanche access to the damaged children. Because of his furious rages, Ian quickly found himself in Mabin Park, where his transvestism and excep tional colouring quickly made him a favourite target of the paedophile perverts.

Within months Ian’s nightmare was complete. Remote and in accessible for security reasons and with little proper external supervision, Mabin Park had become nothing less than a reservoir of children for the insatiable paedophile ring.

Forgotten, disturbed, and wounded children all became ideal victims who would never bear credible witness.

During those haunted years, Ian encountered a holocaust of violence, rape, and murder that ensured absolute silence and total obedience from the children. Furthermore, Ian’s transvestism was virtually a licence for any curious psychiatrist to test out his pet theories and cures. Ian was repeatedly subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, chemical aversion therapy, hypnotherapy, hormone therapy, psychoanalytical therapy, cognitive therapy or any other therapy that happened to be the fashion. Nothing worked, of course, so even tually the psychiatrists left him alone and gave up on him.

He was tossed to the slavering, paedophile wolves.

Rape, beatings, torture, and abuse followed as Ian watched the satanic destruction inexorably moving towards him. Month by month, child by terrified child, and corpse by mutilated corpse, death came ever closer to Ian’s bedroom door. Damaged forever by the horror, yet still coherent enough to realise his life was destined to be short, Ian decided to attempt one last escape or die trying.

He already had a record of attempted escapes, and he realised that this was his last chance. He was approaching twelve, and children that age rarely survived to fifteen. If his escape attempt failed, he thought he would probably end up dead anyway. His would be just another life snuffed out on film to gratify an obscene lust whilst one more pathetic body was added to the long line of unmarked graves hidden deep in the hills. Ian had been taken to see these graves. Every child unknowingly marked for death was shown them as a terror device to ensure obedience and compliance.

The poor victims invariably failed to realise that no amount of obedience, compliance or ‘good behaviour’ would protect them from their fate. The children simply disappeared and were never seen again. They were ‘lost in care’.

Of such a death Ian was certain. He was one of the few children intel ligent enough to realise there was no hope. He had witnessed too much to know he would never see his later teenage years especially, if he remained coherent and sane. Any child unfortunate enough to survive to fifteen was destined to end up as a drug-addicted prosti tute, or, if they had witnessed as much as Ian had witnessed, the prime player in a snuff movie. Secretly and with terrified urgency, Ian prepared his desperate plan.

Once committed, he knew he would have to create a diversion of monstrous proportions. This proved the easiest part. Damaged forever by his experiences and now a virtual psychopath, it would be an easy step to murder.

First he arranged to disappear and cause the staff to think he had finally succeeded in absconding. A widespread search of the hills failed to find him, and they wrote him off as lost. He found a secret hideaway on the hospital roof and laid low for a month. Each night he patiently gathered rocks and hid them on the roof. Then he loosened one of the large castellated coping stones and ritually carved in it the names of some of the children who were dead and buried in the hills. He piled the rocks high upon the loosened parapet to await the weekly arrival of the paedophile ringleaders. Finally, one hot August evening, a thunderstorm broke as the paedophiles were arriving for their pleasure.

It was a perfect opportunity, and Ian emerged from his filthy lair to spring his trap. The storm muffled his efforts and the rain lashed down to mask his presence as he crouched, shivering and naked, behind the parapet.

Timing his efforts perfectly, Ian heaved the carved stone and rocks over the edge when the three paedophiles were huddled close together by the private doorway, preparing to unlock it. The storm’s thunderclap drowned out the noise, and Ian crept away undetected as the torrential rain swept away any forensic evidence from the roof.

Later that evening the smashed corpses were discovered, and pandemonium ensued as the staff tried to explain the brutal murders of a well-known bishop, a judge, and a Member of Parliament, all famous for their pastoral work with children.

In the ensuing furore, all thoughts of Ian’s disappearance were wiped from the staff’s minds. Police efforts to discover the identity of the murderer were confounded by the desperate climate of terror amongst the children. The police were left baffled, for Ian had been inadvertently clever. Firstly he had been officially ‘missing’ for over a month so nobody connected him to anything. Secondly, he had committed the act alone and never mentioned his intentions. Fear of discovery had made him selfish, and he had included no others in his desperate escape plans. All the other children were genuinely ignorant.

The climate of terror that had been inculcated by the paedophiles now worked against them. The police realised that there were forces at work more sinister than they had first suspected. No amount of persuasion or threat could break the silent bond of terror amongst the remaining children. Nor did isolation or separation work, for the children knew nothing of Ian’s preparations and could not conspire or collude. With their suspicions deepening, the police started looking for other explanations.

Eventually a young policewoman had the bright idea of reintroducing one of the younger girls to her mother. The child was the most recent arrival and had done nothing but whimper for her mother since the police appeared.

The drug-dealing woman was brought from her prison cell in London, and the results were spectacular. The child clung desperately to her mother and whispered what she had witnessed.

The mother let out a howl and repeated the account to the police. A search of the hills revealed the graves of dozens of children who had been reported as ‘absconded’ over several years. All concern about the murder of the paedophiles was submerged in the ensuing uproar. Traumatised, sickened police just kept digging in growing disbelief as body after child’s body was exhumed.

Ian knew none of this. He naturally presumed he was deemed a transvestite, psychopathic murderer by the authorities. It was a conclusion that turned him into a terrified fugitive with just one objective: to hide and somehow survive. It also made him bitterly angry. The whole brutal experience of Mabin Park had cast in him an incubus of malice to one day spawn and fright the hounds of hell!