Laughing, Cristy said, ‘Maybe don’t rule it out. What about Satanic? I know we’re not believing Mervyn Wilson’s fantasy world, but nevertheless …’
‘Yeah, they’re here,’ Jacks confirmed, ‘creepy as fuck, but same as with the social media stuff – without knowing if Claude’s group was actually demonic, or if it’s still operational, or even it ever was, I can’t see how I’m going to get to sign up for the “About Us” page.’
Clove’s eyes were fixed on the screen in front of her. ‘I might have something here,’ she said. ‘Not about cults … I’m going through some outtakes from your early reports, Cristy, and I reckon this girl in the background here could be Lauren.’
‘Share,’ Jacks commanded.
Moments later, a mid-shot of Cristy, aged thirty – a clear-eyed, very blonde and unsweaty version of her fifty-year-old self – was on their screens, announcing to camera that Nicole Ivorson had just been led from the house and taken into custody. ‘We can’t get close enough to see what’s actually going on,’ she was saying, ‘everything’s cottoned off … Did I just say cottoned? Shit, cut!’
Clove froze the image and said, ‘See her? Just over your right shoulder at the edge of the crowd … Is that her?’
‘How do you know what she looks like?’ Jacks challenged. ‘We don’t have any shots of her. Do we?’
‘Sorry.’ Cristy grimaced. ‘Bridget sent a couple through this morning. They should be on the board by now – I forgot to do it.’
‘Other things on your mind?’ Connor enquired, seeming to tease although she couldn’t be sure.
‘Something like that,’ she responded irritably. Had he clocked the text she’d received earlier when he’d returned her phone from where she’d left it next to the coffee machine? Even if he had spotted Kinsley’s name, it surely wouldn’t have triggered any sort of alarm, only interest in why her old mentor might be in touch.
And feeling annoyed with Connor because he was irking her conscience was pretty shameful.
‘Could be her,’ Jacks agreed, comparing the images he now had in front of him. ‘And what about the bloke next to her, the one with his hand on her shoulder? Tall, longish dark hair … He’s kind of turned away, so can’t really see his face, but could we be looking at the infamous Claude?’
Peering closer, Cristy said, ‘With no reference shots, we’d have no way of knowing, even if he was looking straight at camera.’
Connor turned to consult the whiteboard. ‘According to Bridget, he wasn’t in the country when it all “kicked off”, so we need to find out when the police actually spoke to him. Was it at the time of the disappearance, or after Nicole was arrested? Five days between the two. No idea right now how the timing’s relevant, but it might be useful to know.’
‘Well, if it is him, or Lauren,’ Jacks said, ‘feels a bit weird that they’re standing on the sidelines watching what’s going on, doesn’t it?’
‘Just a bit,’ Clove agreed. ‘As Nicole’s cousin, why wasn’t she in the house with Nicole? Or at home with her parents? Or anywhere except in the crowd watching eventslike some sort of … I’m struggling to come up with the right word …’
‘Perp?’ Jacks suggested. ‘That’s what it’s making me think of: perpetrators hanging about the scene of a crime? Maybe a bit extreme? Anyway, leave it with me. There might be a way of pulling up an ID for this bloke using some facial recognition software …’
‘But you don’t have anything to compare it with,’ Connor reminded him.
‘Apart from a million social media profiles,’ Clove said helpfully.
‘It’s a start.’ Jacks grinned. ‘And AI’s a lot faster than you think.’
Returning to her thirty-year-old self on the desktop, Cristy sat staring at the image for a while, feeling almost as though she was seeing a stranger. She hadn’t known on the day they’d shot this item that she was pregnant – that had come later, eerily followed by the bouts of paranoia and confusion over who Hayley really was.
Even now, it unnerved her to think of that bizarre dysmorphia, how deeply she’d been affected by the twins’ disappearance, the possibility that their own mother had somehow been involved in harming them. She remembered how desperate she’d been to believe Nicole’s claims that she knew nothing about what had happened to the twins, how conflicted she, Cristy, had felt by the suggestion that someone had taken them while Nicole was burying a cat – a cat that had never been found but that could so easily have been responsible for the animal blood in the house.
Then and now, it was all so surreal, so oppressively macabre and disturbing it was making her head spin.
She closed her eyes.
‘Even when Nicole was professing her innocence,’ she said, apropos of nothing as far as the others were concerned, ‘she never put forward a theory as to whomighthave takenthe twins. I remember that striking me as odd at the time, even though it obviously could have been complete strangers. Also, if she really is guilty as she now claims, do the police accept that she acted alone? I mean, how credible is it that she could actually kill her own children and get rid of the bodies with no one’s help? I’d say not credible at all, but there’s been no mention of questioning anyone else since she confessed, has there?’
‘These are questions for Honey,’ Clove said, adding them to the clipboard.
‘Could she have been covering for someone?’ Cristy wondered aloud.
‘For killing or at least stealing her children?’ Clove cried, aghast. ‘Why would she do that? Why would anyone?’
‘No one would, if they were in their right minds,’ Cristy replied pensively, ‘but if you’ve been brainwashed, fallen prey to someone who knows exactly how to manipulate you, how to get what he wants out of you … It’s how cults operate, don’t forget. Coercive control, abuse dynamics, stripping away your ability to think rationally, making you dependent …’
‘OK, I get that she could have been under some sort of influence back in 2005,’ Connor said, ‘possibly even during her trial, although it’s a stretch given they were almost a year apart …’
