Chapter One
‘We’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’
‘What kind of an offer?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough. I’ll have my PA reach out to make an appointment. I think you’re going to like it. Confidential for now, though. OK?’
That short, totally unexpected phone call, coming out of the blue as it had, just before Christmas, was still resonating with Cristy Ward two weeks later as she boarded the train to London.
She had already spent far too many hours trying to second guess what might lie in store today, letting all sorts of scenarios run away with her, although she felt quietly certain that the podcast she produced, Hindsight was going to be at the heart of it all.
It would be something big – she was sure of it, because the great Paul Kinsley wasn’t someone to waste her time, or his own.
It must have been ten years or more since they’d last met in person, at a party to celebrate the publishing of his book, Staying Tuned – a first-hand account of his journey through local and national media to become the head of a European-wide network of news and entertainment channels.
Back when Cristy was fresh out of UCL, he’d given her her first big break as a researcher for a London based current-affairs show.
That was where she’d met Matthew, her now ex-husband, and father of both her children, who’d been an associate producer at the time.
Kinsley had orchestrated their move to Bristol – her hometown, to set up The News Agenda, which Matthew presented to this day.
She’d been a senior producer on the programme until just over five years ago when her marriage had ended.
Since the divorce she’d reinvented herself as a true-crime podcaster, and now, thanks to some early successes, she felt that all was right with the world.
A dangerous conclusion for someone with a fiftieth birthday coming up and the menopause looming.
She was definitely no longer the bright young thing Kinsley probably remembered.
However, she now had experience and maturity on her side, and according to her astutely loyal nineteen-year-old daughter, Hayley, she carried off glamour as easily as if no effort went into it at all.
It did, although Cristy had to admit that she wasn’t as focused on her looks as some.
However, for today, her lively and magnetic – Hayley’s word – blue eyes were subtly enhanced by liner, and her normally scrunched up shoulder-length curls were falling loosely, hopefully stylishly, around her oval face.
Beneath her long padded coat, she was wearing a navy suit from The Fold, and since, at five foot nine, she didn’t need the discomfort of extra height, her matching ankle boots were low-heeled.
She simply wanted to look smart and elegant without appearing to have tried too hard.
She’d do that later today for the man in her life: the one she’d once tried, through her podcast, to expose as a triple-murderer.
David Gaudion. The man who was living proof that she didn’t get everything right, and in this case she couldn’t be happier for it.
Simply thinking about him caused her heart to skip a beat.
They’d been together for over a year now, and she still experienced teenagerish flutterings of pleasure at the prospect of seeing him.
Apart from being drop-dead gorgeous, at least to her mind, he was a Guernsey-based wealth manager, a father of three, a skilled yachtsman, a powerful and passionate lover, and though he was never around often enough, he somehow managed to feel like a constant and always welcome presence in her life.
Knowing that he was going to join her later today made her even happier about being in London, and as the anticipation of seeing Kinsley began to build, she found herself almost wanting to laugh.
It was just after eleven when she jumped into a cab at Paddington, and after giving the driver directions, she took a call from her podcast co-producer, Connor Church. ‘Hey, Con. Everything OK?’
‘I’m guessing you haven’t seen the news,’ he said, ‘or you’d have rung by now.’
‘What is it?’
There was a crackling on the line as he said, ‘… knew you’d want … Trying to remember …’
‘Hang on, you’re breaking up,’ she interrupted.
‘Sorry, in a bit of a dodgy area,’ he told her. ‘Any better now?’
‘I think so. Carry on.’
‘OK. Did you get the bit about Nicole Ivorson being released? Not sure about any of the conditions yet, but apparently it’s happened.’
Cristy’s eyes rounded as her heart skipped a beat. ‘We knew it was going to after she confessed … Did she confess? Do we know that for certain yet?’
‘All accounts say she did. The nation’s press has already flocked to Randall Lane apparently, but no sign of her yet – or her mother.’
‘Does Maeve still live there?’
‘My sources say, yes, but as of right now, no one knows where she is.’
Cristy’s mind was already reeling back to the time when she, as a thirty-year-old TV reporter, had stood outside 42 Randall Lane, reporting on the tragic and mysterious events that had happened inside the house. ‘Where are you now?’ she asked Connor.
‘On my way back from Devon. I can drop off Jodi and the baby and go on to the office to start pulling up old files.’
‘Great, and try to get more background on the release. Is she on temporary licence, or parole? Has she confessed? I should be on an early train back tomorrow. Let me know if you hear anything meanwhile.’
After ringing off, Cristy sat with the case for a while, selecting different parts of it from her memory, each one firing up as much eagerness as it did apprehension about going there again.
It had to be done; there was no doubt about that.
It was a mystery – an aberration almost – that still cried out for answers, which made it a perfect investigation for her crack team of podcasters: a brand-new series for Hindsight.
She just hoped that, this time around, it wouldn’t mess with her head the way it had back then, but she was a different person now, older, wiser and very definitely not pregnant.
At last, the cab turned into the exclusive, cobbled enclave of Soho’s Ham Yard, where a uniformed doorman was outside the hotel, ready to greet her.
After paying the driver, she followed the doorman into the hotel’s uniquely styled lobby and slipped him a ten-pound note. Too much, probably, but who knew in an establishment like this? It was so high-end it might actually not be enough.
‘Hi, I’m Ellie.’ A petite, smartly dressed hostess smiled as she came to greet her. ‘Welcome to the Ham Yard Hotel. Are you staying with us?’
‘I am,’ Cristy replied, looking around at the hugely excessive but beautifully artful flower displays, the arrestingly funky art on the walls and a curious bank of fast-moving clocks. ‘The booking should be in the name of David Gaudion. He’ll be coming later. I have a meeting at eleven with—’
‘Cristy! You’re here!’
At the sound of the voice she remembered so well, Cristy broke into a delighted laugh as her old mentor appeared from an open door at the other end of reception.
His arms were open ready to greet her, and she all but ran into them.
He was large in just about every way: tall, wide, loud and effortlessly charming, and being swallowed into his embrace had the feeling of coming home.
‘You look fantastic,’ he told her, holding her back to study her face. ‘More beautiful than ever, I see.’ His fleshy, crinkled face broke into a happy grin as he chuckled delightedly. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he told her. ‘You need to be in town more often. Dinah would love it.’
‘How is your lovely wife?’ Cristy smiled, enjoying his arm around her as he led her into the room he’d come from.
It was clearly a library given its high, book-lined walls and the cosy nest of sofas and armchairs grouped around a grand fireplace and coffee table.
‘It seems so long since I last saw her.’
‘She’s on great form and I know she’d love to see you. Now, let me introduce you …’
Two grey-suited men got to their feet.
‘Carl Finsberg, my CFO,’ Kinsley told her, as the shorter and older of the two came to shake her hand. ‘You guys might remember one another?’
‘Of course we do,’ Cristy replied, pulling Carl into a hug. ‘How are you? And how’s James?’
‘We finally got married,’ Carl told her, pushing his glasses further up his nose. ‘And he’s great. Wanted me to send his love.’
‘And this,’ Kinsley said, steering her to the other man, whom she recognized instantly in spite of never having met him in her life, ‘is Vikram Rathour.’
‘Not to be confused,’ Rathour said, reaching for her hand, his dark eyes suffused with irony, ‘with the famous cricketer. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cristy.
’ Cristy knew he’d been born and raised in the sub-Continent and had later relocated his growing empire to the US, it would account for why he sounded more American than Indian.
‘I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the cricketer,’ she told him, ‘but of course I know who you are, and it’s a pleasure to meet you too.’
What on earth was he doing here? Why did Kinsley want her to meet Vikram Rathour, one of the world’s leading businessmen?
Just wait ’til she told David – and Connor.
It was going to blow their minds. It occurred to her as she settled into one of the elegant cream-and-coral upholstered sofas that there might be something Kinsley and Rathour wanted her and Connor to look into.
That would be pretty mind-blowing in itself, given the stature of both men – also insane even to think it, when Kinsley alone had an army of people at his disposal to carry out all his investigative needs.
‘Will you have coffee?’ Kinsley asked, lifting a large silver pot ready to pour.
‘Black, thanks,’ she said, and settled her handbag between her feet, wondering if she should take out her laptop and mobile phone to join the others on the table.