Page 147 of Don't Believe A Word

Since they all had experience of Cristy’s hunches bearing out, no one argued. ‘I don’t see we’ll ever have a way of proving anything,’ Connor said, ‘and I guess there’s a chance she didn’t intend for things to end the way they did – Mia called her, remember – but either something was said …’

‘Or Mia showed her something,’ Cristy put in.

‘And whatever it was Sadie – lost it!’

‘Jesus,’ Clove muttered, slumping back in her chair as if all the wind had gone out of her. ‘I mean, I can see where you guys are coming from, but …Really? After all the swearing that she doesn’t want revenge, that she still owes her aunt for a wonderful childhood … It couldn’t all have been lies. Could it?’

Cristy was asking herself the same question: could it all have been an act? Had Sadie known about the journals and her aunts’ part in her mother’s death right from the start? Was it possible the whole thing had been an elaborate, near faultless manipulation designed to punish Mia and provide herself with a cover, a victim role even, so she’d … what? End up with everything?

The girl Cristy had come to know wasn’t that devious or coldly calculating, she had a heart, an innate and wrenching need of the family that should have been hers …

‘Cristy?’ Connor prompted.

Quickly assimilating, she found, to her dismay, that she was no closer to believing the story Sadie had just told. ‘I’ll concede,’ she said, ‘that Mia might have been in Lottie’s rooms when Sadie got there, and it’s possible there was paperwork everywhere, although that could have been staged after the event to support her story. It’s highly likely they talked, or argued, got into a terrible fight about something, most likely the journals, and Mia ended up saying or doing something that pushed Sadie over the edge – poor choice of words, but you get my meaning. It’s the timing of it all that I’m having the biggest problem with, and the way she just delivered her version of events.’

‘It was too pat,’ Connor agreed. ‘And I agree about the timing. Why would Mia jump now when Sadie was promising to protect her from the real damage the journals could do? Sure, she didn’twant Sadie to leave, but taking her own life to try and stop her? What kind of sense does that make? OK, we know she was nuts, but she wasn’t as far gone as she kept trying to make out, so I’m going to say that something happened to blow everything wide open in a way that … Actually, I’ve no idea what it might have done, but we do know that Mia will never be able to tell us.’

Feeling her heart clench around the truth of that, Cristy said, ‘Her suicide threats play very neatly into Sadie’s narrative now, andwe,as luck would have it, are key witnesses to the fact that her aunt was mentally unstable and threatening to do away with herself.’

‘So you reckon she could have been playing us along ever since she met you?’ Clove cried incredulously. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Like she had some gross manipulation thing going?’

Cristy’s distaste for her own fears showed. Then, out of nowhere, she was picturing Sadie’s reaction when she’d seen her father and uncle for the first time in over twenty years. It was a reminder of how deeply she’d felt for Sadie, for them all, in those moments.

‘I’m prepared to believe,’ she said, ‘that Sadie didn’t know about Gabe and Lukas before the series started. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that right up to when we found them in Florida it was highly likely the search for her roots was as genuine and heartfelt as she portrayed it.’

‘But?’ Connor prompted.

She shook her head, wishing that she wasn’t seeing things the way she was. ‘It was very soon after discovering she wasn’t alone in the world, that she “found” Lottie’s journals. So was the timing of that simply coincidental, or had she been waiting for the right time to use them?’

‘Shit,’ Connor murmured. Then, ‘Who the fuck is that girl?’

Long moments passed with no one attempting to answer the question.

In the end Clove said, ‘So where the eff does this leave us?’

Connor shrugged. ‘Well, whatever happens next,’ he said, ‘it still remains one hell of a story – putting the likelihood of us being strung up like turkeys to one side.Abducted child murders her multi-millionaire captors and walks off with all the dosh. This is presuming she messed with Lottie’s meds, the way Mia claimed.’

‘Seen through that lens,’ Cristy said, ‘you’re right, it is a great story – if only we could tell it that way.’

‘I wonder if the injunction will be lifted now,’ Clove said. ‘We could tell it then.’

‘Small point,’ Jacks said, ‘actually, fucking great big one really,doesSadie get all the dosh?’

‘I presume so,’ Cristy replied.

‘Whether she does, or doesn’t,’ Connor said, ‘we have to ask ourselves if we’re sitting here crediting her with more …maliceand powers of cunning than she’s actually capable of?’ As Cristy’s eyes came to his, he said, ‘It’s not the way we’ve seen her until now, so we have to put it out there that we could be wrong.’

No one commented, in fact there seemed no more to say for the moment as the reality of how they might have been duped spread all its ghastly ramifications over their hard-earned reputations, and their futures.

In the end, Connor said, ‘Time’s running down on prepping the last episode so we need to start making decisions. I say we record as many accounts as we can of what happened last Thursday night – police, coast guard, David if he’s up for it – and then follow up with Sadie’s version of what went down. It’s all we’ve got, so it’s all we can do.’

The silence that followed showed how unenthused they all felt.

‘Getting away with murder is one thing,’ Clove grumbled. ‘Pulling one over on us is another altogether.’

Cristy almost smiled. After a moment she said, ‘I know, it’s disappointing to end with “did she jump, or was she pushed” when we’re all thinking the way we are, but it’s not a bad ending for the series. As Iz pointed out everyone’s already asking the question …’ She stopped, frowned and looked at Connor. ‘Call up the last episode and go to where Sadie reads the journals to Mia. I’d like to listen to it again.’

*

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