‘No, not at all. It sounds perfect to me … I just don’t want to let you go so soon.’
‘Says the woman who’s already booked on a flight tomorrow morning …’
‘Which could be changed …’
‘But doesn’t have to be.’
‘I could delay until Tuesday.’
‘Your decision, but we’ll have most of the summer to catch up on everything, and we – David and I – have already arranged a day’s sailing tomorrow.’
Astonished, Cristy laughed, ‘Well, please don’t let me stand in the way of that.’ Hearing a phone ring, she fished in her pocket, before realizing it was David’s.
‘Connor,’ he announced and turned away from the wind as he clicked on. ‘Hey, good morning,’ he said, pressing a finger to his other ear to hear better. ‘Everything OK at the cottage?’ He listened, looked at Cristy and said, ‘Yeah, she’s right here, I’ll put her on.’
Taking the phone, she automatically put it on speaker in time to hear Connor saying, ‘… if you don’t have your phone, you won’t have seen Honey Blackwell’s message.’
With a jolt of surprise, Cristy said, ‘She’s been in touch already? What’s she saying?’
‘Apparently, Nicole’s seriously considering letting us help her, so Honey is keen for us to keep going.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CRISTY: ‘It’s a bleak, sleety Tuesday morning in January, and Connor and I are in the car on our way to doorstep Nicole Ivorson’s aunt, Bridget Hawkes. We have an address for her near Chippenham, and we know she’s been there over the past weekend because our supersleuths have seen her, so we’re hoping to find her at home today.’
CONNOR: ‘To explain, she’s Bridget Hawkes’s aunt whose daughter, Lauren, is the cousin who was apparently close to Nicole back in 2005. At this time of recording, Nicole has confessed to the murder of her twins and has recently been released on parole, but we have reason to believe that there’s much more to the story than ever came to light at the time of the twins’ disappearance and Nicole’s trial.’
CRISTY: ‘It’s possible Lauren can fill us in on some, if not all, of the detail, so we’re hoping she’s either with her mother at this address or that perhaps Bridget will be able to point us in her daughter’s direction.’
CONNOR: ‘I want to mention here – no idea where we’re going to use it, but use it we must, and we’ll also put it on the website – that we, as a team, spent some of yesterday viewing a much younger Cristy’s reportsfrom the time of the arrest. She couldn’t bear to look while the rest of us had a few laughs at the fresh face and earnest style.
‘Curiously though, neither Cristy, nor other reporters whose footage we’ve got hold of from back then, made mention of Lauren Hawkes.’
Stopping the recording as the satnav announced they’d reached their destination, Cristy looked around to take in their surroundings. They were at the end of a small, balloon-shaped cul-de-sac in front of a neat, brick-built semi with a single-car garage to one side, solar panels on the roof and vertical blinds at the windows. There was no garden to speak of, just a small patio open to the street, where a doll’s pram and a child’s tricycle shared the space with a couple of empty planters.
It looked quite sad, Cristy thought. Then again, didn’t everything when the weather was so dreary?
Leaving the recorder in the car, they walked the short distance to the front door, where Connor rapped the knocker three times as Cristy pressed the bell. It played the sound of a train hooting.
As they glanced at one another, eyebrows arched, someone shouted from inside, ‘Coming! Hold your horses!’
A moment later, Bridget Hawkes – easily identified from the shots the supersleuth had taken – tugged open the door and gave a blink of surprise. She was a short, plump woman with neat grey-blonde hair, tired eyes and a rosy, faintly lined complexion.
‘Oh,’ she exclaimed. ‘I was expecting the plumber. You’re not him, are you?’ she asked Connor. ‘There’s a leak under the sink—’
‘I’m Cristy Ward,’ Cristy interrupted, ‘and this is my colleague, Connor Church. We were hoping to talk to Lauren. Is she here by any chance?’
Bridget Hawkes eyed her in astonishment. It turned rapidly to suspicion. ‘Are you the police or something?’ she asked carefully. ‘Is she all right?’
‘We’re podcasters,’ Cristy quickly explained. ‘We’re putting together a series about your niece, Nicole …’
‘Oh Lord!’ Bridget cried, clapping her hands to her cheeks in apparent distress. ‘Have you seen her? I’ve been trying to call Maeve, but she never rings me back. They’ll be together somewhere, and I reckon I know where, but I can’t get a response …’ She stopped abruptly and eyed them warily again. ‘Who did you say you were?’
‘We’re making a podcast looking into what happened back in 2005,’ Cristy explained, ‘and we’re hoping Lauren will be able—’
‘Lauren’s not here,’ Bridget interrupted. ‘I haven’t laid eyes on her in over sixteen years. Just a card at Christmas and on my birthday – nothing to say where she is or how we can get in touch with her. I don’t even know if anyone’s told her her father’s dead. It broke his heart, the way she went off like that, and properly screwed up our poor Julie. She was only fourteen at the time, idolized her sister, kept thinking Lauren would come back for her, but it never happened. She’s over it now, or I suppose she doesn’t think about it much any more. No time to, with two small kids on her hands and a husband who can’t find himself a decent job.’ She inhaled deeply and looked more flustered than ever as she said, ‘Gosh, it’s thrown me, hearing our Lauren’s name … I don’t suppose you know where she is? No, you’re here looking for her.’ Guarded again, she said, ‘What exactly is it you want to talk to her about?’
Cristy said, ‘We think she might be able to tell us something about what happened to the twins.’
