Page 60 of Don't Believe A Word

‘Again lots of puky suggestions – you’ve got to seriously wonder about some people, or not, best just to shut them down, I say. Anyway, lots reckoned they were of the child being abused; others went for something unspecified from the sisters’/aunts’ past; the favourite was of the aunt leading the child from the beach, a lead up to the aforementioned blackmail.’

Meena nodded. ‘OK, well, plenty of engagement is what we want, however it comes. I guess nothing particularly helpful yet?’

‘Not from the listeners,’ Cristy replied, ‘but we’re making some headway with other avenues.’

‘Good, then I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy the photoshoot, Connor, can’t wait to see you inOK!magazine.’

As Meena left with a wave, he rounded on Cristy. ‘Tell me she wasn’t serious?’ he growled.

Laughing, Cristy shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea who or what the shoot’s for, but think of it this way …’

‘No! You’re going to say something outrageous, I know it, so let me get in first. I shall expect some serious progress to have taken place by the time I’m back, because in spite of what you just told Meena, as far as I can see right now, we’ve hit a wall and no one has a plan for how to get past it.’

*

An hour later, with Clove and Jacks out for lunch and Connor still posing for the press, Cristy was alone in the office reflecting on his parting shot. He wasn’t wrong, of course, they were at something of an impasse, although she wasn’t unduly worried given how many balls they had in the air. He was just grumpy because he didn’t like Iz any more than he enjoyed publicity. Being no fan of it herself, she understood. However, getting the series noticed mattered, and if the early stats were anything to go by then Iz’s strategy, whatever it actually was, seemed to be working very much in their favour.

Connor would cheer up as soon as he forced himself to come on board with that.

Turning in her chair to study the whiteboard, it was a moment before she realized she was seeing past the shots of Janina and Lukas, now added to those of Sadie and her aunts, to how very different the board had looked during their last investigation – and to how conflicted and challenged she’d felt as it had unfolded. David’s headshot had dominated then, along with those of his murdered wife, mother-in-law and a family friend. He’d unnerved her a lot during that time, long before they’d even met. What she’d heard about him, all that she came to learn, had made looking at him an almost interactive experience, as though his piercingly watchful eyes were actually seeing right into her, and following her every move. It had been deeply discomfiting to find herself so affected by a total stranger, especially when she’d fully believed in his guilt for most of the series – in fact right up until she had proven his innocence.

She felt sure that his case, its complexities and its success, were the reasons she was finding it so hard to let go of him now. Living and breathing the triple murders day in, day out, and for so long, had all but taken over her life, but it wasn’t just the series, she knew that in her heart. She’d been deeply attracted to him from the moment they’d actually met, and he was the first man she’d lowered her defences for since Matthew. It hurt a lot to know that she’d got it so wrong.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself sharply.It’s over, already fading into history and sitting here dwelling on it isn’t going to change a thing.

Refocusing on the headshots of today, most particularly Mia’s, she was soon wondering, again, what she’d been protecting Sadie from for all these years. They already knew that a crime had been committed through the abduction, but if Sadie’s fake identity was taken into consideration, and added to the possibility that Janina had been trafficked into the country and had since disappeared, they were looking at a lot more than one crime. In fact, the most troubling issue for Cristy right now was how very hard she was finding it to believe that they were going to find Janina alive after all these years. The same went forLukas who seemed to have disappeared around the same time as his sister.

If they were they’d surely have come back for Sadie long before now.

Unless they had and …

Quickly going to the transcript of the latest extract, spoken by Sadie, she scrolled almost to the end and hit play.

Everything you have, Edwin, everything you are, is in our control. Never forget that. We could, if necessary, discredit you to a point where you’d make yourself disappear without a trace to save us the trouble.

Had Lottie written those words simply for effect, or had she actually said them? Was she the kind of woman who’d do whatever it took to ‘disappear’ someone who stood in her way? Perhaps more relevantly right now, was she someone who’d pay for a child to be taken from its mother in order to make it her own?

But who would she have paid? A trafficker? It begged the question, how would she have known such a person? Although, who knew what contacts anyone had if you delved deeply enough. Even Cristy’s own address book contained some very murky characters, and Lottie’s work with various charities would have opened her up to a whole world of immorality and corruption. But how had she known about Janina and Sadie? Had they been ‘introduced’ by a third party and that was the real reason Mia and Lottie had taken a house on Exmoor that year?

If the story about finding Sadie on the beach was true, then there had been no illegal transaction of that sort, but it still didn’t rule out the possibility of it being some kind of a set-up. Something that the sisters had ‘spent many years protecting’ her from.

Thinking again of how the pages were being ‘discovered’ more or less in order, Cristy wondered if, in fact, Sadie might have found them some time ago and put them together to build the story they had so far. If that was the case then she’d presumably decided to feed them an extract at a time, maybe as a way of keeping Cristy’s interest alive?

‘If you’re right about that,’ Connor said when he and the others returned and she shared her thoughts for discussion, ‘then there’sa high probability that she’s already got more extracts lined up and is working out the best time to hand them over.’

‘I can buy into that,’ Clover said.

‘Me too,’ Jacks agreed.

‘And for what it’s worth,’ Clove continued, ‘here’s what I’ve been thinking about Sadie being sold to the sisters. Why would they choose her when Lottie had access to any number of kids in need of parents? The answer is Sadie’s white, while the others would have been of a much darker hue, and if the child was for Mia, which I’m getting the impression it was … Do you agree with that …?’

Though neither Cristy nor Connor had actually articulated this suspicion, they both nodded.

‘Then maybe Mia has a bit of a race problem?’ Clove finished.

Wrinkling his nose, Jacks said, ‘OK, I get all that, but what’s your actual point?’

‘There isn’t one yet. I’m just doing what we always do and putting it out there.’

---