Chapter Forty-One
CRISTY: ‘It’s Tuesday morning, and Connor and I are in the car on our way to talk to Jean-Claude Meier.’
CONNOR: ‘We received a call from him about an hour ago, asking us to come, and apparently he’s OK with us recording whatever he’s planning to tell us.’
Hitting pause, Cristy said, ‘By the time this goes out, they’ll already have heard the interviews with him and Nicole, so we don’t need to explain any more about who he is.
I’m just wondering whether we say where we’re going to meet him.
He didn’t ask us not to, but maybe we should hold back for the moment? ’
‘Or we can edit it in later.’
Of course. Where was her head? She didn’t seem to be thinking very clearly this morning, although, distractingly, she was having no problem with feeling anxious about what might lie ahead – or with feeling bad about leaving Clove and Jacks to complete today’s episode, especially when it was so nuanced in tone as well as content.
However, it couldn’t be helped; she and Connor had had to respond to Meier’s call when it came, and it wasn’t as if Clove and Jacks were incapable of fine-tuning what was mostly already there.
Apparently sharing at least some of her concerns, Connor said, ‘If the guys need us, they’ll be in touch, and if necessary, we can record any links they might be short of and whizz them over.’
He was right, of course, and wishing tonight’s upload was the only reason she felt so on edge, she turned to stare out at the passing countryside, trying to gather her thoughts.
It was hard to imagine what Meier might have in store for when they arrived at Bryn Helyg, but whatever it was, she couldn’t shake the sense that it wasn’t going to be good.
Unless he was planning to tell them where to find the twins.
That would be beyond good, sensational in fact.
Provided they were alive and had, all this time, been living perfectly normal lives – if anything could be described as normal in these circumstances.
Could it be possible they were already at the farm? Maybe he’d had to fly them in from somewhere or go to fetch them or send someone else …
‘Do you have the children’s age-progressed images on your phone?’ she asked Connor, as they finally began the steep, meandering drive up to Bryn Helyg.
‘We both have,’ he reminded her. ‘Although I’m not planning to whip them out if the twins are there to make sure they match,’ he added dryly.
She turned to him sharply. ‘Do you think they might be?’ she asked, surprised that he was sharing her hopes and suspicions.
He shrugged. ‘Let’s just say something major must be afoot given what he said to you while you were in Vevey, and one way or another, it has to be about them, doesn’t it?’
Agreeing, she opened up the app on her phone and sat staring at the movingly lifelike faces for a while, so tender and similar to each other that she wanted to imprint the lovely features on her mind so that if they were confronted by the real thing, it might not be such a shock.
Connor leaned over to switch the recorder back on.
CONNOR: ‘We’re just turning into the place now, going past the massive hay barn where Cristy and I thought we were about to be savaged by a cow …’
CRISTY: ‘It wasn’t even two weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime, so much has happened in that time.’
She looked around, taking everything in: horses in the top field, a thin trail of smoke from one of the farmhouse chimneys, goats roaming freely …
CRISTY: ‘Is it just me, or does the place feel different to you?’
CONNOR: ‘I guess it seems pretty quiet for a working farm, kind of … abandoned? Do I mean that? The animals are here so …’
CRISTY: ‘Look out – someone’s backing out of the car park.’
Bringing his own car to a stop, Connor watched the vehicle in front, and as someone climbed down from the four-by-four, he said, ‘It’s Maggi, isn’t it?’
Cristy watched the woman, dressed in her usual jodhpurs and boots, hair scrunched under a cap, as she came towards them.
Lowering the car window, Cristy said, ‘Hi, is everything OK?’
Maggi looked pale and distracted. ‘I should probably thank you for coming, but to be honest, I wish this wasn’t happening. I thought you’d go away, if I told you she killed them …’
Unsure how to respond to that, apart from with the nerves that clenched her heart, Cristy said, ‘Is he here?’
Maggi glanced down the lane that stretched out ahead of them. ‘You need to follow me,’ she replied. ‘It isn’t far.’
As she returned to her vehicle, Cristy said to Connor, ‘Did we record that?’
‘We did,’ he confirmed. ‘So where is she taking us?’
For the next few minutes, they kept a close tail on the Defender as Maggi led them along the narrow, winding road away from the farm, dipping through a fast-running ford at one point before rising steeply between tightly packed hedgerows.
Eventually, she came to a stop in front of a large grassy bank that faced a row of old cottages.
Remembering that more staff were housed in a nearby hamlet, Cristy presumed this was it and got out of the car.
It was a pretty remote spot, that was for sure: picture-book, surrounded by sky and empty fields and home to hundreds of budding daffodils. The church, at the heart of it all, was clearly ancient, and protected by a crumbling dry-stone wall.
‘It looks medieval,’ Cristy commented as Maggi joined her.
Glancing up at the tower, Maggi said, ‘I’m told the last dragon in Wales was slain here, but they say that about a lot of churches in Wales.’ She turned as Connor came up behind them, and said, ‘We need to go over there.’
They followed her through a weathered stone gateway, its lintel crooked with age, into the churchyard filled with time-worn graves and centuries-old yew trees, classic symbols of immortality and eternity.
The earthy scent of moss and stale water tanged the fresh, cold air, while the sound of birdsong livened the eerie stillness.
‘He’s over there, with his grandparents,’ Maggi told them and gestured for them to go ahead.
Cristy finally spotted him, at the far side of the cemetery, squatting down in front of a grave, elbows resting on his knees.
She glanced at Connor and started through the haphazardly placed obelisks, tombstones and Celtic crosses.
She wondered about the ghosts they were passing, the people who’d come to lay their loved ones to rest, the passing of time and old stories long forgotten.
The whole place was as emotive as it was still, as alive with the past as it was filled with the dead.
By the time they reached Meier, he was standing, turned towards them, and though no more than four days had passed since Cristy had last seen him in Vevey, she was shocked by the change in him.
The light had faded from his eyes, leaving only soreness and sorrow; the colour had drained from his face.
He offered no greeting, simply looked down at the grave beside him, as if inviting them to do the same.
Cristy’s heart was pounding as she read the inscription: In loving memory of Gwyn Edward Jones 1936–2005 and his beloved wife; Marie Jones 1938–2012.
Then she saw it: the tiny ceramic plaque beneath the engraver’s simply hewn words, and her heart turned over so hard it hurt.
Marie’s two great-grandchildren 2004–2005.
Tears sprang to her eyes as a flood of despair engulfed her. Their precious lives really had ended back in 2005.
She turned to Meier and found him watching her, his face deathly pale, his expression drawn with grief.
‘Are they really in there?’ she made herself ask.
‘They are,’ he confirmed.
‘And you – you’re their father?’
He nodded, and as he looked down at the grave again, a sudden, blinding sunray broke free of a cloud, as though to single him out in some way. Or maybe it was offering a quiet surge of strength for what had to come next.