Chapter Forty-Seven #2
‘I am now. Promise.’
Nicole remained where she was, behind Meier, and seemed to hug him tighter as Connor said, ‘Take it away.’
Nicole laughed, and Cristy decided to begin with the kind of question she didn’t usually favour. In this instance, however, it seemed fitting.
CRISTY: ‘Tell me how it feels to be back in the world after so long in prison.’
Nicole frowned as she thought. She seemed troubled, on the brink of tears all of a sudden, until she let go of Meier and threw out her arms and let her head fall back.
NICOLE: ‘It makes me want to dance, and embrace everyone, but Claude doesn’t like to dance.’
She was rotating slowly, dreamily, then shrieked as he suddenly scooped her into his arms. He spun her round and round, not so much a dance as a mad, joyous whirl, with her arms and hair flying and him laughing, until he set her back on the ground.
Flushed and breathless, she gazed up at him in a way that was so intense, so private, that it was easy to tell no one else existed for them in this moment.
Keeping his voice low, Connor said, ‘Wish we were videoing this.’
‘Even if we were, it’s so intimate I don’t think it would feel right to use it.’
Returning to the table, Meier sat Nicole down beside him and put an arm around her, as if to keep her anchored.
‘Sorry,’ Nicole said, ‘I’ve spoiled things again.’
‘You really haven’t,’ Cristy assured her. ‘We’re in no rush; we can take as long as you like.’
‘But you did promise to answer some questions,’ Meier reminded her, ‘so let’s try again.’
Nodding agreement, she wound her fingers through his and waited for Cristy to begin again.
She decided to take a more practical approach this time:
CRISTY: ‘Did you come straight to Bryn Helyg following your release?’
NICOLE: ‘Yes. Claude was waiting for me outside the prison, and we drove here together.’
MEIER: ‘Your mother came too.’
NICOLE: ‘Yes, and she’s still here, somewhere, but we might soon be going back to the house on Randall Lane.’
A light seemed to go out inside her as she connected to how things were about to change again. So it seemed the joy, the relief and euphoria really were part of a mask to keep her in the moment, all no doubt aided by Meier’s careful counselling.
Deciding to explore the post-sentencing plans later, Cristy steered them back to her release.
CRISTY: ‘Were you surprised when you first saw this place?’
Nicole visibly brightened, although this time there was no mistaking her fragility as she turned to look at Meier.
NICOLE: ‘Not as much as you might think. Claude had already described it to me, and I’d heard your podcast series by then, so you brought it to life for me too.’
CRISTY: ‘What was the first thing you did when you got here?’
Meier laughed, and as Connor put his head in his hands, Cristy realized her mistake. She could have kicked herself. However, Nicole didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with the question.
NICOLE: ‘The very first thing we did was go to see the twins. Claude had shown me photos of the grave before I was released, but I wanted to see it for real. So he took me there and we sat with them for a long time, didn’t we?’
Meier tightened his hold on her hand and brought it to his lips.
NICOLE: ‘We go regularly. It makes us feel close to them. We take picnics and storybooks – I know they’d be older now, but we still think of them as babies, so that’s how we speak to them.
They’ll always be babies, but sometimes we allow ourselves to imagine the kind of children and teenagers they might have grown into and who’d they be now.
‘I think Noah would be a doctor or a scientist, a rock climber and skier, a farmer and a terrible dancer like his father.
‘And I think Abigail would be nothing like me.’
MEIER: ‘In my mind, she is exactly like you – troublesome, beautiful, strong and vulnerable – and I wouldn’t want her any other way.’
NICOLE: ‘He’s only saying that because I’m sitting here. Really, he imagines her as a concert pianist, an astronaut, a gifted entrepreneur able to turn her hand to anything.’
MEIER: ‘And by the time she’s twenty-five, I expect her to have sorted out the world.’
Nicole laughed, closed her eyes and seemed to fill up with emotion. There were tears in her voice as she continued to speak.
NICOLE: ‘We always know where they are, but at the same time, we don’t know at all, and that’s our greatest punishment.’
As the sadness and loss washed over her, Cristy allowed several moments to pass, recording only the natural sounds around them, while thinking of her own children, so close to the twins in age.
How fortunate she’d been to have had them every day of their lives to love and cherish and watch grow into adults.
It compounded her sadness for Nicole and made her wish she could do more to help her through what lay ahead.
Feeling Meier’s eyes on her she turned to him and realized he was probably aware of what was going through her mind.
Addressing him she began again.
CRISTY: ‘It must be hard for you right now, knowing you’re going to be sentenced soon. Has your lawyer given you an indication of how long you might have to serve?
MEIER: ‘We’re hoping the sentences, whatever they are, will run concurrently.
If not, I could receive up to ten years for the charge of Assisting an Offender, and they think maybe five years for Perverting the Course of Justice.
That can carry a life sentence, but no one is expecting it to be so harsh. I just hope they’re right.’
CRISTY: ‘So the worst-case scenario is fifteen years in total – or a maximum of ten if they run concurrently?’
MEIER: ‘That’s right. Donc, une éternité, but by the end of it, hopefully society, at least, will feel that we have both paid for what happened to our children and how we kept it hidden from the world.’
NICOLE: ‘It’s a shame that locking us up won’t ever bring them back. I just wish we’d been sent away at the same time; then we wouldn’t have to be parted again.’
As Nicole’s voice turned husky, Meier dropped his head against hers. He spoke so softly that it wasn’t possible to hear what he was saying, but when she turned to him, the way her eyes scanned his face was a clear search for reassurance. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled her in closer.
Cristy glanced at Connor, not sure whether they should continue. Their questions, their very presence was starting to feel like such an intrusion.
MEIER: ‘Would you like to ask anything else?’
CRISTY: ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind.’
MEIER: ‘Please. We wouldn’t have invited you here if we didn’t want to speak.’
Cristy turned to Connor again and was relieved when he took his cue.
CONNOR: ‘Nicole, are you planning to be in court when Claude is sentenced?’
NICOLE: ‘Yes, of course. I can’t let him go through it without me.’
MEIER: ‘I have asked her not to come, but she is determined. My brother also intends to be there, as does Maeve, so she won’t be alone. Will you be there?’
CONNOR: ‘Yes. Obviously, we won’t be recording, but afterwards, we’ll precis the hearing for the end of the episode.’
Meier nodded slowly, thoughtfully and as his eyes came to Cristy’s, she could sense the quiet, immutable inner strength that was going to get him through this, no matter how hard he might find it, but it wasn’t going to be easy – not easy at all.
Very quietly he said, ‘If anyone can perform miracles, now would be a good time.’
Much later, as Cristy and Connor drove back to Bristol, they were silent for a long time.
It was hard to put into words everything they were thinking and feeling, the lasting and deepening effect the visit was having on them both.
In her mind’s eye, Cristy was seeing Meier and Nicole as if they were ghosts, no longer real as they haunted the Bryn Helyg hillside, the churchyard and even the future.
For one awful moment, she wondered if they were devising a suicide pact with instructions to bury them with their children.
Would they? Really?
It would mean they wouldn’t be parted again.
Turning to Connor, she said, ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’
He glanced at her and took his time before saying, ‘Apart from all the other stuff spinning around in my head, I’m wondering how the hell we describe them to the Terrier so she won’t savage them just for being who they are.’
Having almost forgotten about Molly Terrance, Cristy felt her heart sink. ‘She won’t be able to if we have final copy approval.’
‘Maybe not in an interview with us, but separately, once she has our take on things, she can do what the hell she wants. And if it gets her more clicks and shares …’ He glanced at Cristy again, then turned back to the road, letting a few more miles pass, before saying, ‘If she got you into this position because of Kinsley’s offer, she could be feeling even more vengeful now she’s out of the running for the project too. ’
‘That was nothing to do with me – and anyway, we don’t know for certain that she is out, only that the entire thing is going to be New York-based now rather than London-based. So, Rathour gets his way, and my guess is he’d have continued to push for it even if I had accepted.’
‘And you were never interested in moving to the States.’ It was a statement, not a question, since he already knew the answer to that. ‘Meanwhile,’ he continued, ‘we have Kinsley’s backing for Hindsight Extra, plus the investors David’s bringing on board, so I’m calling an all-round win for us.’
Cristy nodded and closed her eyes. ‘I wonder if Meena and Harry have signed the lease on the new premises yet? Wasn’t it supposed to be happening this morning?’
‘Apparently it did, so the big move will be underway as soon as this episode has been uploaded.’
Feeling suddenly edgy, Cristy said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I might be as nervous as Meier and Nicole about next week’s sentencing.’
‘Dreading it,’ he admitted, and neither of them spoke again until they were back in the office, where so much was going on that it would be easy to think the big move was already going ahead.