Chapter Twenty-Three #2
NICOLE: ‘He used to call them the gifts instead of the twins. He even said prayers to them.’
CRISTY: ‘What sort of prayers?’
NICOLE: ‘Well, I don’t suppose it was that exactly – more like he was honouring their creation. Those were his words: he honoured their creation, and he used to pour these lovely smelling oils over them, rubbing in so gently … They loved it. Always sent them right off to sleep.’
CRISTY: ‘This was happening at the house on Randall Lane?’
NICOLE: ‘No, at his place in Clifton, near the university. We were there a lot after they were born.’
MAEVE: ‘Sometimes, you took the twins, but just as often you left them with me and your dad so you could go out and do the things you were missing out on …
‘Nicole was no saint – we’ve never tried to say that she was – but Noah and Abigail, they were our sunshine, our joy …
She loved them with all her heart and soul and did her best to take care of them.
No, she didn’t always get it right. Did you, Cristy, as a young mother?
I’m sure you made mistakes too. I know I did, but we do our best, and that’s what matters.
Nicole was only nineteen, she wanted to start at university, and we were supportive of that right up until … well, until …’
Cristy saw the shadow of grief cross her face. Nicole seemed not to be paying attention, but then she muttered for her mother to stop or she was going to set everyone off. Her voice was slightly harsher than it had been a few minutes ago. Emotional detachment? More self-protection?
Eventually, Cristy judged it right to start again, but gently, cautiously. She was about to tread on very difficult ground now, and there was no way of knowing how Nicole might react.
CRISTY: ‘Will you talk us through what happened the day the twins disappeared?’
Nicole eyed her curiously, as if she might not understand the question, but then she was talking in a toneless voice, recounting, as if by rote, something she’d long memorized that could be spoken without being felt.
NICOLE: ‘Mum went to Bridget’s like she sometimes did on a Monday.
The cat had brought something in the night before …
Sometimes, the place would look like a battlefield after he’d finished with his prey …
He was a beast, that cat, and there was blood that morning …
I promised to clear it up, but after Mum left, I saw that the cat …
‘He was just lying there in the kitchen … He wasn’t moving, and his eyes were open. It was horrible. He’d died, and no one had noticed. I remember it upset me a lot.’
CRISTY: ‘What was the cat’s name?’
NICOLE: ‘We called him George, but we never knew what it really was. He’d adopted us a couple of months before … He kept hanging around our garden, so we started to feed him, and then somehow he kind of became ours.’
MAEVE: ‘He was more of a stray, really, than the family pet.’
CRISTY: ‘So when you realized he’d died, what happened then?’
NICOLE: ‘I went back upstairs … No, that was after … I buried him first. That’s right. I couldn’t just leave him there on the kitchen floor. When I was little, Dad used to bury my guinea pigs in the woods, so I decided it was the best place for George.’
CRISTY: ‘Where were the twins when you left the house?’
NICOLE: ‘They were there … Upstairs … I should never have left them on their own – I know that – but I thought they were safe. How was I to know they weren’t? And I was only gone for …’
She broke off, seeming suddenly bewildered, and in the silence that followed Cristy felt the wrenching horror of what she, as a mother, might feel, or do, if she’d ever been unable to find her children.
She glanced at Connor, and knew he was thinking of his little daughter and how he or Jodi would cope if anything so terrible ever happened to them.
Cristy spoke quietly and gently as she continued.
CRISTY: ‘How long were you gone?’
NICOLE: ‘I don’t know. I had to find the right place to dig a hole and then fill it up again.
I knew I should have left it for Dad, but I was doing it now …
It felt like it took forever, but it couldn’t have been long …
Then I went back up to the house and I …
I didn’t go upstairs straightaway. I can’t remember what I did, but when I went, I remember … ’
Her breath caught, and she covered her mouth as she began to heave. Maeve went quickly to her side, held her firmly, assured her it was all right, that she didn’t need to be afraid any more.
NICOLE: ‘I couldn’t think where I’d put them. I didn’t understand … I started shouting their names like they might answer or come out from where they were hiding. I mean, I knew they couldn’t – they weren’t even walking yet … I panicked and rang Mum, thinking she must have taken them with her.’
MAEVE: ‘I went straight home when she called, terrified out of my mind. I couldn’t imagine what was going on … I didn’t want to …’
NICOLE: ‘I think I went outside to look for them. It’s all jumbled up in my head … They were there, then not … I thought I must have taken them down to the woods with me and forgotten, so I ran back to check …’
MAEVE: ‘As soon as I realized they weren’t in the house, I called the police … We were so scared, terrified … You can probably imagine, but I don’t think it sank in until later – maybe days later – that they really had gone.’
CRISTY: ‘Were you in touch with Claude at that time?’
NICOLE: ‘He was in Switzerland, but yes, I rang him … A few days after it happened, maybe it was the next day, I can’t … It’s all mixed up … now. I wanted him to come and he said he would, but then the police found some blood in one of the cots, and next thing, they were arresting me.’
CRISTY: ‘Do you know how the blood got there?’
NICOLE: ‘Abigail had nosebleeds sometimes … Her nails were too long – she could have scratched herself … I don’t know, but I swear I never hurt them …’
CRISTY: ‘Do you have any idea who might have taken them?’
NICOLE: ‘No. I mean, I thought it might have been Claude at first, but obviously I wasn’t thinking straight.
He wasn’t there. He was in Switzerland, but I carried on hoping it was him, because then I’d know they were safe.
But he didn’t have them, and no one saw anyone coming or going from the house.
How can that be? We live on a main road, and no one saw anything. That’s how they ended up blaming me.’
CONNOR: ‘Did you tell the police about Claude?’
NICOLE: ‘Yes. I told them about everyone who knew us.’
CRISTY: ‘Did you mention that he was probably the father?’
NICOLE: ‘I can’t remember. I mean, it might have been in my statement …’
MAEVE: ‘They made a big thing in court of her not knowing for certain who the father was … They painted her in a very bad light, as if she wasn’t in a bad enough one already.’
CRISTY: ‘So they didn’t test anyone? Take their DNA?’
MAEVE: ‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask the police.’
CRISTY: ‘Do you know if they questioned Claude?’
MAEVE: ‘Yes, I’m sure they did, but he couldn’t help – he had no idea where they were.’
NICOLE: ‘He came to the prison after they took me there, and I got hysterical … I wanted to leave with him, but they wouldn’t let me. The guard made him go, and I was terrified Claude wouldn’t come again, but he did. He said nothing would ever change between us, and it didn’t – it hasn’t.’
CRISTY: ‘You gave me the impression just now that he might know where the twins are. Did I understand that correctly?’
NICOLE: ‘No. I didn’t say that. You must have misunderstood me. He doesn’t know. None of us do.’
Nicole stared at the recorder for a hard, tense moment, then got up suddenly and knocked it to the floor. ‘I’ve had enough of this now,’ she sobbed. ‘You have to go. Mum! I don’t want to talk to them any more.’
Realizing there was no point in arguing, and feeling terrible for having brought Nicole to this point, Cristy got to her feet. If only there was a way to make up for the pain they’d caused, but of course there wasn’t.
Minutes later she and Connor were out at the car with Honey. As they started to get in, Maeve came out.
‘I’m sorry,’ Cristy said, ‘we didn’t mean to upset her. Will she be all right?’
Maeve nodded. ‘If there is such a thing for her any more. She needs to see him, but … Well …’
When she didn’t continue, Cristy said, ‘Do you think Claude knows where the twins are?’
Sighing, Maeve said, ‘What I think is that he and Nicole tell themselves a lot of things that they want to believe, but they’re not always true.’
‘So he can’t take her to them?’
‘If she’s given you that impression, it’ll be because it’s what she tells herself as a way to keep going. When there are no bodies, it’s very hard to give up hope.’
Understanding that at least, Cristy said, ‘Has Claude been here to see her since she was released?’
Maeve glanced towards the window where Nicole was inside, maybe watching through the opaque curtain. ‘He hasn’t come yet,’ she replied, making it sound as though she thought he would eventually.
‘Do you have any idea where he might be?’
‘Maybe in Switzerland?’
‘With the twins?’
Maeve regarded her curiously. ‘Of course we’d like to think so, but it seems unlikely, doesn’t it? How would he explain them when everyone knows what happened back in 2005?’
‘So what do you, in your heart of hearts, believe happened?’ Connor asked.
There was a long moment, before Maeve said, ‘All I can tell you is that I fear we’ll die never knowing for sure where they are or who took them.’