Page 158 of Don't Believe A Word

Cristy was once again considering, as she had many times over the last few weeks, the words Lottie had written when she’d read the note Mia had found in two-year-old Sadie’s pocket. She’d experienced aconfliction of feelingsand this perfectly described Cristy’s own response each time she thought of Sadie. There was still anger and despair over what the girl had done, but this was followed all too quickly by a sense of betrayal in itself underpinned by compassion. Sometimes she found herself recalling only the affection she’d felt for the girl, the empathy that had allowed her to connect with her confusion and need, that made her want to turn back the clock and make things right. Without even knowingit she’d developed a maternal sort of feeling towards Sadie, with all the complexity and challenges that entailed.

Now, almost as if it were Hayley at the heart of her confliction, Cristy could feel the confines of Sadie’s prison, the shutting down of a young life, the terrible, pointless stifling of so much. And through it all, erupting like sudden tides on a calm day, came surges of guilt, harsh and unforgiving reminders of the part she’d played in putting Sadie where she was. Never mind that she’d had little choice, it wasn’t ever going to feel good or satisfactory, or even right, to know that justice had been served when Sadie, her start in life, her upbringing, her motives and her reasoning, were so much more complicated and multi-faceted than the law allowed for.

Cristy guessed all this emotional turmoil was going to be with her for some time, haunting her, testing her conscience and her heart in ways that would serve neither her, nor Sadie. It would simply be a part of who she was going forward, until like all forms of grief it eventually began to lose the power of its hold.

She watched David get up from the lounger, wearing only shorts that he didn’t actually need given the privacy of their pool area, and releasing the difficult reflections she took a long, desirous moment to admire his newly acquired tan. It was only when he returned, bringing a pitcher to refresh their cocktails, and regarded her askance, that she realized Connor was cueing her to begin the next stage of recording.

‘Yeah, I’m here,’ she said, pressing a finger to her earpiece. ‘Are you going to lead us back in?’

‘Sure thing.’

CONNOR: ‘So there you have it, the series in a dozen or more soundbites, but what you still don’t have are the so far unshared extracts of Lottie’s journals. They are crucial to just about everything and at last we have clearance to use them.’

CRISTY: ‘So here they are, read by Sadie herself. Lottie’s account of what happened the day Janina, a tragic young mother desperate to reunite with her child, left St PeterPort to make a rendezvous with Lottie and was never seen again.’

Here Sadie’s voice took over, conveying tenderness, passion, angst, confusion, horror, as she lifted Lottie’s words from the page, and Cristy could only wonder why they hadn’t connected sooner with what a gifted actress she was. In her ear, Connor said, ‘How didn’t we see this? She could be red-carpeted for this kind of performance.’

Cristy didn’t respond, simply listened until the insert came to an end, feeling as far away from knowing Sadie as she ever had.

CONNOR: ‘So, now you know what most of you guessed anyway, that Mia, according to Lottie’s journal, was responsible for Janina’s death.’

CRISTY: ‘This is something Mia strenuously denied when Sadie read the journals to her … Take a listen to this …’

As Connor played in Mia’s distraught, terrified voice insisting that Lottie was twisting everything, Cristy’s eyes closed and for the next few minutes she found herself transported to the room where Sadie had confronted her aunt. It was as though she was watching, and even believing in something she’d never actually seen: Mia’s panic, shock and helplessness; Sadie’s steely determination to finish reading, before outrage and fury had made her trash the place.

‘Ready?’ Connor asked in her ear.

‘There,’ Cristy confirmed, moving her script into the shade.

CONNOR: ‘Pretty dramatic stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree, and frankly, after many listens on our part, Mia still sounds pretty convincing to me.’

CRISTY: ‘So you think Lottie purposefully lied in her journals to cast Mia as the villain of the piece?’

CONNOR: ‘That’s the trouble, I’m not sure I do believe that.’

CRISTY: ‘On this, I tend to agree with Sadie, that to whateverdegree, they were both responsible. I can’t say it goes as far as falsifying journals for me, but Lottie hasn’t tried to get out of her involvement. She writes about sending Janina to Sark View House, and she clearly knew about Janina’s death at the time it happened, so she’s every bit as guilty as Mia.’

CONNOR: ‘OK, so it was both of them. I think we can all get on board for that.

‘Let’s move on to what came next, something neither of us will ever forget: that horrifying scene when we went into Mia’s house to find the kitchen and sitting room trashed and her sat right under a noose. Jesus, that’s an image I don’t think will ever leave me.’

CRISTY: ‘We couldn’t record any of it, Mia refused to allow it, but we did describe it in episode five, and made it pretty clear there that Mia wasn’t flying with many feathers in her wings by then, if she ever really was.’

CONNOR: ‘And I think we can conclude that Sadie reading out the journals pushed her aunt even closer to the edge. Did she know that would happen? It seems reasonable to conclude that she did, at least on some level, given how well she knew her aunt, and her various eccentricities, as she called them.’

CRISTY: ‘So we move closer to Sadie’s decision to make her aunt pay for her mother’s death with her own life – and in the same way.’

CONNOR: ‘She could, of course, simply have handed the journals to the police and let the law take its course – God knows prison, or a secure mental facility, would have been a severe enough punishment for Mia. It would have been the end of everything for her, and Sadie, would well deserve to take control of the Winters’ fortune, in the court of public opinion at least.’

CRISTY: ‘But – and it’s a really big but here – for as long asMia remained alive there was always a chance she could be deemed fit enough to change her will and cut Sadie out completely.’

CONNOR: ‘Meaning Sadie would lose out on upward of forty million quid. Nice if you can get it. So, to make sure Mia didn’t even think about doing anything silly, Sadie acted – it could have been spur of the moment, or maybe it was already planned. We know the court has accepted the former. See what you think as you listen to this next clip. I should point out that it’s the recording of a pocket-dial from Mia’s phone, so it’s not always as clear as we might like. But the salient points are, I think you’ll all agree after hearing it, that God, or fate, or the universe can move in just as swift and decisive ways as Sadie Winters managed that night.’

CRISTY: ‘A quick warning before we play it, it is distressing. So please, either choose not to listen, or, if you feel in need of support after you can go to our website where you’ll find appropriate links.’

Not wanting to hear Mia’s pathetic and helpless cries again, or Sadie’s gentle coaxing and horrendously vengeful words at the end, Cristy removed her earpiece for the next few minutes. But even as she gazed up at the palm fronds, and listened to their rhythmic rustle, she could still hear the disturbing echoes of that final scene.

David reached for her hand, and as she turned to him she watched him listen until he signalled it was time for her to plug back in.

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