‘Can I ask why you aren’t in touch with your mother?’
‘You’ve spoken to her?’
‘We have.’
‘How is she?’
Cristy glanced at Connor as she said, ‘She’s worried about you …’
‘Did she tell you I send cards on her birthday and at Christmas?’ Lauren asked shakily.
‘But you never see her. She says she doesn’t even know where you are, if the cards are even actually coming from you.’
‘They are,’ Lauren assured her.
‘Does she know she has grandchildren?’
Lauren didn’t reply.
‘Why would you keep that from her?’ Cristy urged. ‘Why deprive them of a grandmother … ?’
Sounding close to tears, Lauren said, ‘I can’t see her. I can’t see any of them and pretend I don’t know …’
‘Don’t know what?’ Cristy prompted when she didn’t go on.
‘It’s all a lie,’ Lauren cried helplessly. ‘What they tell themselves, what they believe …’
‘You mean that the twins are dead – or still alive?’
‘I’m sorry, I want to help – really, I do – but not if I’m going to incriminate myself and end up in prison. I’m sorry … I … I need to ring off now.’
As the connection dropped, Cristy let go a breath and sat back in her chair, tense with frustration and bewilderment. ‘What the hell … ?’ she muttered, throwing down her pen.
After a beat, Connor said, ‘One of the stand-outs for me was that she seems to have got herself a lawyer.’
‘Which can only mean,’ Jacks volunteered, ‘that she is – or was – involved in the crimes she mentioned.’
Cristy went to take some wine from the fridge. ‘Tell me none of you made a sneak recording for reference,’ she warned, reaching for the glasses. ‘If you did, you need to destroy it now or it could jeopardize a police investigation going forward.’
‘If anyone finds out about it,’ Clove pointed out, ‘but promise, handwritten notes only.’
‘Same here,’ Connor and Jacks confirmed.
‘So,’ Cristy said, passing around the drinks, ‘what should we take from the call, apart from the fact that she was either involved in the twins’ disappearance or at least knows what happened and has kept it covered up all these years?’
‘When she said she can’t see her mother,’ Connor said, ‘or “any of them”, I’m presuming she’s including Maeve in that. We know she doesn’t mean Nicole, because she’s visited her in prison. She also said that she couldn’t pretend and that what “they” tell themselves is all a lie. Who’s she talking about there? Maeve and Bridget? Meier and Nicole?’
‘Clove, what are you looking at?’ Cristy demanded.
Reading from the whiteboard, Clove said, ‘Just getting a timeline going. According to Meier, Lauren went to the farm in 2010, while his grandmother was still alive, so did she already know the old lady? And whether she did or didn’t, what made it the right place for her to go? Her mother mentioned her depression, but the Bryn Helyg project wasn’t up and running then, so I’m asking myself, was Meier treating her, while keeping her close?’
Seeing the potential logic of that, Cristy said, ‘We know she met her husband at the farm, and they left in 2014. Remind me how old her children are.’
‘Ten and seven,’ Clove provided.
Connor said, ‘Are you thinking the eldest might be Meier’s? I know I am. The dates kind of work, and if he’s let the boy go to the US with her and her husband, that gives him a pretty big hold over her.’
‘In that he could take him back at any time?’ Jacks asked.
