CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
TWO MONTHS LATER
BONUS EPISODE
‘OK, recording,’ Connor announced. ‘Over to you.’
CRISTY: ‘Hi, it’s Cristy.’
CONNOR: ‘It’s Connor, and welcome to this bonus episode of Who’s That Girl.’
CRISTY: ‘A lot has happened since the series officially ended, but I’m afraid we haven’t been in a position to share anything with you until now.’
CONNOR: ‘Legal reasons, you understand.’
CRISTY: ‘All will soon come clear, but for now, we’re going to start with something we don’t normally do.’
CONNOR: ‘It’s very popular on other pods and because we’ve had so many requests to do the same, we’ve decided, for this episode only, to share an update on what’s been happening to us since Sadie Winters was charged with murder.
Should you not be up for hearing our personal chitchat, and no one can blame you for that, please feel free to fast forward now.
If you are, here goes: Cristy, you’re much more interesting than I am, so why don’t you take it away? ’
CRISTY: ‘Ha! Not true that I’m more interesting, but one of us has to set the ball rolling. So, what can I tell you that you haven’t already read about in the press?’
CONNOR: ‘For those who somehow managed to miss the blitz of tabloid fascination with Cristy’s love life a couple of months ago, she is now happily involved with the extremely eligible and disgustingly photogenic David Gaudion.
You might remember him from our series Nothing to See Here in which he was proved not to have committed a triple murder.
Great guy, who’s helped us quite a bit with Who’s That Girl. ’
CRISTY: ‘I have to admit it was much easier, and even more enjoyable, being the focus of a new romance than it was being the pitied victim of a broken marriage, as I was for so long.’
CONNOR: ‘Speaking of Matthew Jennings, which we kind of were – FYI he’s Cristy’s ex, also known as husband of actress Marley Dukes and anchor of TV news – I guess most of you are aware that he became a father again at the beginning of the year.’
CRISTY: ‘It was a boy, his name’s Bear, and he’s currently in the UK bonding with his dad and half-brother, Aiden.’
CONNOR: ‘Have you seen much of the baby yourself, Cristy?’
CRISTY: ‘Now and again. He’s very sweet – aren’t all babies. In fact we took him to Guernsey a couple of weeks ago where we all – Matthew, our daughter Hayley and Aiden – spent some time with David and his family.’
CONNOR: ‘Amazing. So everyone’s good friends and the past is in the past where it belongs?’
CRISTY: ‘Something like that. Actually we had some extremely welcome news while we were on the island – Aiden, who is sixteen, is NOT about to become a father. Any parent who’s been through similar angst with a teenager will know what a relief it was to find that out.
‘You know, Con, I’m really uncomfortable with that, so let’s edit it out. No one needs an update on Aiden’s careless attitude to sex.’
CONNOR: ‘Got it. Noted – and … moving on. There was something else going down with you during this time, Cris, do you want to tell us about that?’
CRISTY: ‘Yes, I was the victim of a phone stalker and it really wasn’t pleasant.
In fact it was downright scary at times …
We’re considering giving much more coverage to this truly despicable way of menacing people, even hounding some to their deaths, during a future series.
For now I’ll just say that in my case, Jacks, one of our researchers, managed to track the stalker down.
It turned out to be someone Jacks himself had long trusted to carry out deeper dives into phone and technology issues for the series. ’
CONNOR: ‘Apparently the guy had some sort of unhealthy fixation on Cristy and Jacks was so upset by it all that he offered to withdraw from the series. Fortunately, we’ve managed to talk him out of it.
He’s a fantastic and highly valued member of the team, as is Clover, our other researcher, who will also be on board the next time Hindsight sets sail. ’
CRISTY: ‘So, how about your news, Con?’
CONNOR: ‘You know, I reckon we should get into mine at the end, because what everyone out there really wants to hear about now is what happened to Sadie Winters after she was charged with murder.’
CRISTY: ‘Sure. Your turn to take it away.’
CONNOR: ‘Actually, you have the first link.’
CRISTY: ‘Ha! So I have. OK, well, almost as soon as Sadie was remanded in custody for murdering her aunt, we were inundated with requests for as much inside intel as we could share. Most particularly, you wanted to know if we at Hindsight had played any part in helping to answer the question of “Did she jump, or was she pushed?”’
CONNOR: ‘An electrifying question if ever there was one, and it got so much debate going on our social media channels that for a while there they looked in danger of going into meltdown. Well, the mystery is now solved and we’ll be bringing you details later in this episode of Hindsight’s role in proving the case against Sadie Winters.
It didn’t happen in quite the way you might think, and there are others who deserve far more credit than us, namely Mia Winters, and the god-of-mobile-phones. But we’ll come on to that.
‘For now we’re going to address as many of the other questions you’ve been firing at us as we can. Starting with: “Where was Sadie held in custody?”’
CRISTY: ‘The short answer to that is Guernsey Prison – and this is probably a good time to explain, for those keen to know about the island’s legal system, that it is basically the same as ours in England.
There are a few anomalies, and some different terminology, for example criminal cases are generally presided over by a judge of law – aka bailiff – with between seven to twelve jurats, aka the jury.
If you’d like to find out more about the Bailiwick’s composition of the court you’ll find several helpful links on our website. ’
CONNOR: ‘I’m sure that most of you will know by now that Sadie entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.
Were we surprised by that? No, not at all.
We’d already heard that it was going to happen, and whatever you might think when we play you the evidence we submitted later in the episode, you’ll probably agree that there was a plausible case for temporary insanity. ’
CRISTY: ‘So she avoided a mandatory life sentence and received fifteen years instead with no recommendations, which means she could be out again in less than ten, maybe even sooner than that. We were in court to witness the judgment, and we were also able to record a short interview with her father and uncle after she was taken away. Before we share that with you, let’s talk for a minute about Sadie’s demeanour during the passing of her sentence: did she show remorse?
Shock? Was she emotional? Did she look at anyone? Did she speak at all?’
CONNOR: ‘The answers are, yes she appeared quite stricken by what she’d done and shocked, kind of bewildered actually, to find herself where she was. She didn’t speak to anyone, and the only person we saw her look at was Cristy.’
CRISTY: ‘It was a surreal moment, almost as if time was shifting somehow leaving just the two of us in a space that … Well, let’s just say it was weird and it still feels weird.’
CONNOR: ‘We need more, like what do you think her look was saying?’
CRISTY: ‘Actually, nothing at first, it was just … empty, and then – I’m still quite blown away by this – she seemed to be feeling kind of sorry for me, as if I was the one to blame for her actions, and she was sad that I was making her pay for them.
That’s what she made me think, so you see why I say weird. ’
CONNOR: ‘So she didn’t come over as angry, or vengeful, or even a little bit pissed off that you’d caught out her lies?’
CRISTY: ‘Not in that minute, no. It was only later, when her lawyer delivered her note, that we got confirmation that she really was – or is – on some other planet. I’ll read it out for you.
‘“Cristy, I realize now that I should never have trusted you, but we all make mistakes. Being as vulnerable as I was at the time I came to you with an overwhelming need to find my true family, I was perhaps more prone to making them than most. I can see now what easy prey I was for you, and how I continued to be throughout the making of your series. As I begin to serve a sentence for something you know I didn’t do, it will be for you to decide how to live with your conscience. Perhaps you don’t have one, so there will be no inner struggle for you.
Can I pre-empt any request you might be considering for an interview with me by saying: without trust there can be no further contact. Sasha.”’
CONNOR: ‘Wow, kind of powerful, definitely delusional – and if she didn’t do it, why plead guilty to manslaughter?
I guess she’ll have some sort of an answer for that, and I’m sure what I’ll want to say in response is “See how you like it.” These are the final words she spoke to her aunt before she pushed her to her death. ’
CRISTY: ‘We’ll play you an actual recording of it in just a few minutes. We’ll also be hearing from Sadie’s father and uncle about how she is justifying her actions to them.’
CONNOR: ‘But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we thought it would make sense to play you some selected highlights from all six episodes of Who’s That Girl to bring ourselves back up to speed.
We’re going to start with the pages, written by Lottie, that kicked the whole thing off when Sadie brought them to Cristy.
Incidentally, we only saw a few chapters of that story, Cristy.
Do you think there was more, or was the scene when Edwin came to the house as far as Lottie got with her memoir? ’