Bridget blinked sadly. ‘If you manage to find Lauren, maybe you’ll let me know?’ she said hopefully.
‘Of course,’ Cristy promised, and after moving aside to allow the plumber through, she followed Connor back to the car.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
An hour and a half later, Cristy and Connor were with Honey Blackwell in a crowded, steamy coffee bar adjacent to Bristol’s Justice Centre, a stone’s throw from the waterfront. The noise and heat were making Cristy, in her menopausal state, want to scream but she somehow managed not to.
‘I don’t have long,’ Honey told them, stirring sugar into her latte. ‘I’m due back in court at twelve, but you’ve spoken to Lauren’s mother, and … ?’
‘During your chats with Nicole,’ Cristy said, ‘has she ever mentioned anyone by the name of Claude Major?’
Honey frowned as she shook her head. ‘I’d remember if she had,’ she replied. ‘Why? Who is he?’
‘Does he get a mention anywhere in your case files?’ Cristy persisted.
‘I’ll have to check, but tell me, who is he?’
‘We already have our team working on it,’ Cristy assured her, ‘but Lauren’s mother seems convinced that her daughter ran off with him when she left the family home sixteen years ago.’
Appearing mystified now, Honey said, ‘And how does this relate to Nicole?’
‘Apparently, she introduced Lauren to this guy, and Bridget thinks he was interviewed at the time of Nicole’s arrest. Others might have been as well – we don’t have any names for them – but we’re thinking they were part of thisso-called “Clifton set”, and we’re hoping you might have some disclosure records you can share.’
Honey appeared thoughtful. ‘I’ll certainly take a look,’ she promised. ‘There are a lot of them, and some are still in the archives, but I’m happy to dig through when they’ve been retrieved.’
‘Great. Anyway, as far as Bridget remembers, this guy – she thinks he might have been French; the name Claude clearly is – she’s fairly certain he wasn’t in the country when the twins disappeared. However, Lauren stayed in touch with him during the years after Nicole went to prison. I don’t know what we should draw from that right now, but taking into consideration the kind of things both Nicole and Lauren are known to have said about him, there’s a possibility that at least some of the rumours about a cult could be true.’
Honey looked concerned.
‘We think the nutty neighbour is responsible for the Satanism crap,’ Connor put in. ‘No one else has mentioned anything like it, but the way some have described this Claude – my words here – he sounds a pretty charismatic character. Requirement number one for a cult leader.’
Still frowning, Honey said, ‘Did Bridget Hawkes suggest he might have harmed the twins?’
‘No, she didn’t say that,’ Cristy replied, ‘but if he was interviewed by the police … Actually, if he was, they must surely have swabbed him, so I guess he was ruled out as the father?’
Connor nodded. ‘A reasonable assumption.’
Honey was checking her watch. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go …’
Cristy said, ‘Apparently Maeve knows – or knew – this guy, so do you think she’d speak to us about him?’
‘I can but ask,’ Honey replied, ‘and I will the next time I speak to her. Not sure when that’ll be right now, but I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve had an opportunity to check the files.Just bear in mind that getting things out of the archives takes time, so it might not be this week.’
‘Meanwhile,’ Connor remarked, after she’d gone, ‘we need to redouble our efforts into finding someone from the police who worked the case and more crucially, is willing to talk.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Over the next two days, the team remained office-bound, cosy and safe from the storms outside, as they dug even deeper into the Ivorson case. This meant scrutinizing every frame of footage they could lay their hands on from 2005 and 2006, every audio report, each print story – those that were digitized and many that weren’t, the latter acquired from the cuttings libraries of both local and national newspapers and TV stations.
Much was made of the post-partum depression when the diagnosis was revealed at trial, although the salacious possibility of a sex-cult was given more coverage, especially by the tabloids. So far, they’d found no mention of a Claude Major in any of the reports, and there were so many individuals with the same name listed on the various social media platforms that it was like diving into an impossible warren of rabbit holes and never finding the right way up again.
‘The three big problems,’ Connor declared on the second day, after spending another fruitless few hours on several LinkedIn profiles that had led him precisely nowhere, ‘we’re not even sure it’s his real name, or if he actually is French, never mind where on the entire planet he might be now—’
‘Or if he’s even still alive,’ Cristy finished with a sigh, and pushed back from her desk retying her hair. She hadn’t managed much sleep last night thanks to her very first night-sweat – what a joy life was at fifty – so she was feeling slightly detached today, kind of spacey. Thankfully no one seemed to have noticed. ‘Given that Bridget Hawkes is only certain about Claude, not the surname,’ she said, ‘unless we can get something out of Nicole or Maeve – or Honey when she comes back with the files – you’re right: we’re wasting our time.’
‘How are you getting on with the cults?’ Connor asked Jacks.
Looking up, Jacks said, ‘Which ones in particular? Doomsday, political, religious, health. There’s even one devoted to female orgasm that I’m thinking of joining.’
