CHAPTER ONE
TWENTY-THREE YEARS LATER
NEW YEAR’S EVE
‘And you found this, where?’ Cristy asked, looking up from the pages she’d just spent the past few minutes reading, pages that had taken her briefly to another world where clearly something wasn’t right. She already wanted to know more.
‘It was amongst my aunt’s papers,’ Sadie Winters replied.
She was sitting up tall, a little stiffly – nerves, Cristy suspected – and her voice wavered slightly as she spoke.
Her beauty was something Cristy hadn’t especially noticed when she’d come into the room; now it seemed almost mesmerizing in its subtle form of radiance.
In fact, it was as if the beauty itself was undecided on how far to go, how much it wanted to be recognized.
Her hair was golden blonde and fell in soft, luxuriant waves to her shoulders; her forehead was high, her almond-shaped eyes brown and intelligent, hesitant, as well, Cristy thought.
Right now they conveyed a sense of hope along with a quiet determination to stay focused on why they were there.
Sitting beside Sadie at the conference table in this spacious office in St Peter Port, with its vast picture windows framing the harbour and all manner of nautical-themed fixtures on the walls, was Sadie’s best friend, Anna Gaudion.
‘It could make a brilliant podcast,’ Anna declared eagerly, clearly thinking Cristy needed more persuasion.
Perhaps Cristy did, although she had to admit she was already more than half on board.
Whatever the mystery, presuming it was based in fact – two sisters, a child on a beach, an enigmatic note …
would it be right for Hindsight, the true-crime podcast series that she and her partner produced?
‘That’s why we’ve come to you,’ Anna ran on.
Cristy had to smile. This girl, young woman – she and Sadie were both mid-twenties – was as outspoken and excitable as she was rash and lovely.
Anna was still speaking. ‘It blew my mind when I read it the first time,’ she said.
‘It’s totally surreal, don’t you think? Like something out of a movie, only it really happened.
’ She turned uncertainly to Sadie. ‘Well, we think it did,’ she added.
‘I mean, it must have, because it explains everything.’
Sadie’s voice was gentle, her smile still hesitant as she said, ‘Actually it doesn’t explain anything, which is why we’re here.’
‘Of course,’ Anna agreed. ‘But all the names are real,’ she continued, turning back to Cristy.
‘Mia and Lottie are Sadie’s aunts, and we think, well we know, that Lottie, who died just before the lockdowns, so four years ago, wrote what you’ve just read.
It was her thing, you see, short stories.
She had lots published, back in the day, but then she stopped.
Well, we thought she did, but since Sadie started going through all her stuff she’s found dozens of them, all printed out, and not necessarily complete. ’
‘And then I found that,’ Sadie added, nodding towards the pages in front of Cristy.
Cristy sat back in her chair barely noticing the torrents of rain streaking the windows behind the girls while gale-force gusts chopped up the sea and tossed fishing boats about like toys.
She was about to speak when Anna said, ‘It’s a brilliant story, what we know of it so far.
We just need someone to help us find out the rest. So if you’re interested, I know you do cold cases … ’
From the doorway David said, ‘Anna, why don’t you let someone else speak?’
Cristy had to laugh even as her heart warmed to find him standing there, his dark-blond hair and handsome face wet with rain, his expression wry as he took in the scene and came to a quick conclusion about his daughter’s part in it.
‘Sorry if I’m interrupting,’ he said, his eyes on Cristy’s, ‘but I felt someone should.’
Anna said, indignantly, ‘I’m just trying to get things going here, Dad. You know how shy Sades is …’
‘She’s just not loud,’ he corrected, ‘otherwise she’s perfectly capable of speaking up for herself.’
Anna’s eyes shot darts at him. ‘You shouldn’t even be here,’ she told him. ‘I thought you had a meeting in town.’
‘It got cancelled, so I thought I’d call in and see how you’re getting along.’ As he came to stand behind Cristy she lifted her face and smiled as he kissed her.
‘They keep doing that,’ Anna grumbled to Sadie. ‘And it’s not like they don’t have a room.’ To her father, she said, ‘You have to go now or you’ll just end up taking over the way you always do.’
With a laugh, he said to Sadie, ‘Should I take her with me so you can get a word in?’
Apparently enjoying his tease, Sadie said, ‘She’s OK.’
With a smile, he dropped another kiss on Cristy’s forehead and was already answering a call as he left the room.
Taking a moment to refocus – why wasn’t Cristy over these teenage flutterings yet, it had been almost a month since they’d first ‘become official’ great euphemism, introduced by her nineteen-year-old daughter, Hayley.
‘Sadie,’ she said, firmly, ‘why don’t you tell me about yourself and your life today.
I’d like to have a fuller picture of who you are, what you do, where you live, although I take it it’s here on the island. ’
As Anna took a breath to answer, Sadie put a slender hand over hers and said, ‘There’s not all that much to me, really …’
‘Not true!’ Anna protested.
‘Maybe we need to call your father back,’ Cristy suggested.
Anna scowled as Sadie laughed and said, ‘I’m soon to be twenty-six – at least I think I am – and I’ve lived in Guernsey for most of my life.
Anna and I went to school together, that’s how we know one another.
I left for a few years when I went to uni in London and I worked there for a while after.
I came back when one of my aunts fell ill.
She recovered, thankfully, but by then I’d already decided I was going to stay on.
Jasper – my fiancé – works here in St Peter Port, he’s an investment analyst, and I’m trying to set myself up as a freelance editor of fiction.
No clients yet, but it’s still early days. ’
‘She’s going to be brilliant,’ Anna insisted.
Sadie’s eyes sparkled as she said, ‘We all need an Anna when it comes to confidence boosting. Anyway, that’s what I do when I work, which actually isn’t all that often.
Jasper and I have a small house on my aunt’s estate just a couple of miles along the coast from here.
She’s on her own now, since my other aunt passed away, so I’m glad to be nearby, although J and I spend a few days a month near Bath with his parents.
He’s not from the island, you see, so he feels the need to escape now and then, and I guess I do too, but I don’t like leaving Mia for long. ’
‘The two of you are close,’ Cristy concluded.
Sadie nodded. ‘We have been for as long as I can remember. Her name’s Emilia, Mia.
I grew up with her and my other aunt, Carlotta – Lottie.
They were the best parents anyone could ever wish for.
Real characters, in their different ways, often unpredictable, generous to a fault, sometimes bossy especially with each other, far too forgiving, but not gullible, never a great idea to get on the wrong side of them, but on the whole they were just …
kind.’ She thought for a moment and added, ‘Controlling as well, but there again, aren’t all parents?
Anyway, since Lottie died, just before Covid, it’s like Mia has …
This is going to sound strange, I know, but she seems to get confused about who she is.
She often talks to Lottie out loud, asking what she thinks about something, or what she, Mia, should do in a certain situation.
Then she answers herself and laughs at how “dotty” she must sound. ’
‘She’s not demented or anything,’ Anna put in, ‘well, maybe she is, a bit, but what matters for our purposes today is that she just won’t answer questions about Sadie’s parents.’
Cristy’s gaze returned to Sadie. ‘What exactly have you asked her?’ she prompted.
‘Lately, not very much,’ Sadie admitted, ‘but a while ago, I mean a few years back, I started looking into my roots and that’s when I discovered that I’m not their dead brother’s daughter, the way they’ve always claimed. In fact, I can’t find any record of them having a brother at all.’
Understanding how alarming that must have been, not to mention disorientating, Cristy said, ‘So are you thinking now that the child on the beach is probably you?’
Sadie swallowed dryly. ‘I think it’s possible, yes. And my aunts either kept me because whoever wrote the note didn’t come back, or …’
‘Or they stole her,’ Anna finished, clearly having reached her own conclusion. Then not quite so certain she added, ‘There’s also the chance they might have bought her and what we’ve read is a kind of cover story?’
Intrigued by both possibilities, random as they were, Cristy said, ‘Just to be clear … these pages here are written like fiction, but it’s your belief they are, in fact, or could be, a record of how you came to your aunts’… What shall we call it? Care?’
Colour seeped into Sadie’s cheeks as she said, ‘It’s the way she’s used our names,’ she explained, clearly worried that Cristy had already concluded she was reading too much into a few random pages.
‘We reckon this could be a fictionalized version of fact,’ Anna said, spelling it out helpfully.
Cristy nodded, still not entirely sure what she thought, although she was ready to accept that there might well be something more … sinister? manipulative? at play. ‘How old is your aunt?’ she asked Sadie. ‘The one that’s still living.’
‘She’s seventy,’ Sadie replied.
‘And still quite glam,’ Anna added, ‘in a bit of a funky way. I mean, she likes the Sixties look, flicked-up hair, mini-dresses, fake leather trousers and all that sort of stuff, but it kind of suits her.’