CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cristy was watching Sadie’s face on the computer screen in front of her.
Everyone else in the office was quiet. They were allowing Sadie some time following the reading aloud of her aunt’s latest chapter describing the scene with Edwin Prosser.
Even though four days had passed since she’d found it, it was clearly still affecting her deeply.
Cristy understood why; knowing her mother’s and uncle’s names had brought a whole new depth to her longing for more knowledge of them – and the scene she’d just created with Lottie’s words, seemed to be proof that her aunts had stolen her.
What Cristy herself was starting to have even more doubts about, was the finding of Sadie on the beach. Could it really have happened the way Lottie described? Having visited the coast path it seemed both possible and yet not, which was why she hadn’t so far taxed Sadie with her concerns.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked Sadie softly.
The girl’s head came up as she took a breath.
She was slightly dishevelled and flushed, but her eyes were dry and her voice steady as she said, ‘Yes, I’m fine, it’s just …
’ She stopped and started again. ‘After listening to your interviews with the Brinkleys at the weekend, and putting them together with this …’ She held up the pages she’d just read from.
When she didn’t continue, Cristy said, ‘Would you like us to stop recording?’
Sadie shook her head. ‘No, it’s OK. Just a blip. I’ve got myself together now.’
Cristy wasn’t certain she had, but knew it would be easy to stop at any point, and edit out anything Sadie wasn’t comfortable with if necessary. So, noting the time-code, she began again.
CRISTY: ‘It’s clear that this extract, or chapter, has stirred up a lot of emotion for you. Do you mind telling us what about it is resonating so deeply?’
Sadie gave a small, mirthless laugh and tucked her hair behind her ears.
SADIE: ‘I guess it’s a few things … I mean, you can tell from what Lottie’s written that she …
that both my aunts were … Actually, it’s Edwin’s words that keep coming back to me.
He accused them of living in a different world, playing by different rules …
That’s how they were, so now I’m asking myself, was keeping me some kind of a game to them? ’
She stared down at the pages again as if they might somehow reveal more from between the lines if she only looked hard enough.
SADIE: ‘Lottie implies that they had different reasons for wanting to hold onto me, but there’s no detail of what the reasons might have been.’
CRISTY: ‘She writes about you with a lot of affection.’
SADIE: ‘Yes, and I don’t doubt that they really did care for me … They’ve proved it over and over ever since … I just wish … I wish they’d tried harder to find my parents, or at least to get to the truth of why I was with them.’
CRISTY: ‘We don’t know for certain yet that they didn’t.’
SADIE: ‘No, I guess not, but the way this latest chapter ends with Lottie having an idea … I think I know what it might have been. She told me once that their father had looked into moving the family to Guernsey. I guess it was for tax purposes, or maybe he knew the island and felt they could be happy here. They didn’t go, or not that I know of, but I’m wondering if Lottie remembered the plan and that’s what gave her the idea to bring us all here.
You could say they hid me in plain sight, because they weren’t known on the island, and everyone says it’s the right place to be if you don’t want to be asked too many questions. ’
CRISTY: ‘It certainly sounds plausible, especially given the timings, because didn’t they buy the villa sometime in late 2000?’
SADIE: ‘Mid-2001. They rented somewhere in town before the sale went through. Anyway, whatever their motives, or reasons, or secrets, I’m becoming more convinced by the day that these writings are Lottie’s way of laying some sort of trail for me.
She tucked random pages into all sorts of places, knowing that in the end I would most likely be the one to go through her papers.
Except, why not just tell me what happened?
Or at least keep it all together and put it into a safe somewhere for me to read after her death?
It feels … cruel of her to do it this way, and she wasn’t that. ’
CRISTY: ‘Have you asked Mia about it?’
SADIE: ‘Actually I have. She ended up in tears, and told me I should just burn everything, for my own sake and hers, but most of all for Lottie’s … I pointed out that Lottie wasn’t around any more to care, and anyway she must have wanted me to know everything or she wouldn’t have written it down.’
CRISTY: ‘And Mia said?’
SADIE: ‘That there’s no guarantee it is all written down, and even if it is you can never believe everything Lottie tells you.’
CRISTY: ‘Do you believe it? What you’ve read so far?’
SADIE: ‘Yes, I think so. I mean, I don’t have anything else to go on and at least some of it rings true.’
CRISTY: ‘Have you talked to Mia yet about the photographs you found? Or mentioned that you now know your mother’s and uncle’s names?’
SADIE: ‘I’ve shown her the photographs, and she’s adamant that they’re of a lovely young couple who helped take care of me from time to time when I was small.
I pointed out that I look exactly like the woman, but she just patted my hand and said that I can’t make something true just by wanting it to be.
I haven’t got round to the names yet, but I will.
Although, something I have told her that I know you’ll be interested in …
I showed her the results of the DNA test that prove I’m not related to her.
And do you know what she said? “It’s not kind of you to make these things up, Sadie, but whatever you do, you are very special to me, and you always will be. ”’
Cristy glanced up as Clover let out a sigh of frustration, and Jacks mimed a gun to his head. Understanding how they felt, and knowing how much worse it must be for Sadie, she pressed on.
CRISTY: ‘What about the interviews with Gita and Robert Brinkley? Has she listened to them?’
SADIE: ‘She said she will, but I don’t think she has yet. If it’s OK, I have a question for you now: have you managed to contact Butlin’s to find out if there’s any record of Lukas working there?’
CRISTY: ‘Our researchers are on it, but it’s likely to be a lengthy process, thanks to data protection. Obviously we’ll let you know as soon as there’s some news.’
SADIE: (voice cracking with emotion) ‘Do you think they’re still alive? Robert mentioned trafficking gangs, maybe that’s why no one came back for me. Something happened to them …’
CRISTY: ‘I promise we’re delving into that too.’
There was a lengthy pause as Sadie took this in, imagining only she knew what, but obviously the mention of gangs had thrown a whole new sinister light onto the search, and into her roots.
SADIE: ‘Does it sound crazy to say that since listening to Gita and Robert Brinkley I’ve felt …
more lost than ever. Knowing that my mother wasn’t English …
Having no idea where she was actually from …
It makes me feel like someone who’s grown up living a life that shouldn’t even have happened.
And then I start wondering about the child that got left behind, the one whose life, whose world, just stopped one day on a beach.
Who would she be today? Where does she belong?
‘Nowhere, of course. She doesn’t belong anywhere, because she isn’t anyone any more. She’s like a pile of dust that just got swept away in a wind; a ghost forever trapped in nothingness.’
Moved by Sadie’s distress and understanding completely her sense of abandonment, Cristy allowed some moments to pass before continuing. However, it was Sadie who spoke first.
SADIE: ‘It’s hard to see how we’re ever going to trace my mother when we don’t even know where she was from. And what about my father? No one ever talks about him, but who was he? Did he play any part in my life at all?’
CRISTY: ‘All very good questions that we’re going to do our best to answer.’
As Sadie’s head went down, Cristy decided she’d been through enough for now and glanced at Connor, a signal to end the recording. This was going to make a very strong episode with Sadie’s emotion and what it meant to her to learn her mother’s name being so prevalent.
‘We’ve stopped,’ she said softly. ‘We can always pick up at another time. Is someone there with you?’
Anna’s face appeared on the screen next to Sadie’s. ‘I am,’ she said, giving a little wave.
Cristy smiled as her heart flipped. Although Anna wasn’t like David in looks, she was his daughter and being reminded of him had taken her unawares. ‘You’re being a very good friend,’ she told her.
‘Do you think,’ Sadie said, ‘that Robert Brinkley would be willing to talk to me? I mean, I’m not expecting him to tell me any more than he’s told you, but the fact that he knew my mother, if only for a short while … It feels, kind of like a link, something to hold onto, if you know what I mean.’
Understanding completely, Cristy said, ‘I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to meet you, in person, or on Zoom.
I’ll drop him an email as soon as we’re done here.
’ She cast a quick glance around the room in case anyone had anything to add before she let Sadie go.
It seemed no one did, so she told Sadie to call her any time, day or night, and promised to be in touch as soon as they had something to report from their end.
‘And please send my love to the rest of the family,’ she said to Anna.
‘Will do. I know they’ll want me to send theirs, so big kiss and come see us soon.’