Page 79 of Don't Believe A Word

As she considered it Cristy’s frown deepened. ‘Are you sensinga theme here?’ she said. ‘Lottie buys her sister a husband, then a child … Apparently to get some freedom for herself, and yet she never seems to have left.’

‘Something for Corny when we go over there?’ he suggested.

Remembering that she hadn’t had a chance to tell him about Mia’s turn last night she filled him in and took out her phone. ‘I promised to call Sadie when we left Edwin’s. Keep your fingers crossed that Corny hasn’t decided to stay on with Mia.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ Sadie groaned when Cristy asked. ‘She’s kind of planted herself, so I’m not sure coming now is going to be the best use of your time.’

Biting down on her frustration, and disappointment, Cristy said, ‘So how is Mia?’

‘She’s up and about, ticking us off for making a fuss over nothing. “I’m not ready to join Lottie yet,” she keeps saying, “so don’t even think it.” Fortunately, she seems to have forgotten about banning me from Lottie’s rooms because it’s where I am now and she sent Corny in with some tea ten minutes ago. In case you’re wondering, I haven’t come across anything else of interest today. Was Edwin Prosser able to shed any light on the letter I sent you?’

‘He was. We’ll put the details in an email when we get back, but as we suspected he doesn’t know anything about Janina and Lukas.’

Sounding fed up, Sadie said, ‘No surprise there, I guess. Did he tell you anything interesting at all?’

‘A few things, but most significantly, he confirmed that the scene in the hall at the Exmoor house happened more or less as Lottie described it. So, at least some of her writings are based in reality. It remains to be seen whether anything else is.’

‘Well, it’s much harder for photographs to lie, and today I’ve set myself the happy task of ploughing through boxes and boxes of them that predate the digital age. Most seem to be of people I have no way of identifying – a lot of children in refugee camps, or makeshift schools and in clothes that have clearly come from donations. There are various dignitaries in all sorts of uniforms and traditional dress … Plenty of cocktail parties in glorious sunsets, swimming off yachts, flying about in small planes …Lottie definitely didn’t slum it while she was out there doing her good deeds.’

‘Have you come across anyone who might have been significant in some way?’

‘Not really, but I’m not very far in yet. Are you thinking about someone she might have been romantically involved with?’

‘Amongst other things. Do you actually know of anyone she was involved with in that sense?’

‘She never talked about anyone specifically, but I don’t have a problem believing she had an active sex life when she travelled. She never brought anyone home for us to meet though.’

‘What about Mia? Did she have any relationships after Edwin?’

‘Not that I know of. It was like neither of them ever wanted to expose me to men, so Lottie played away, so to speak, and Mia, well, she didn’t play at all.’

Speaking up, Connor said, ‘Didn’t they have a lot of friends on the island? People they socialized with?’

‘Yes, quite a lot, actually, but no significant others, so to speak. Or, if there were, they were both very discreet. Am I allowed to ask now if anyone’s been in touch since Tuesday’s drop claiming to know Janina or Lukas?’

‘It’s still only Thursday,’ Cristy reminded her gently, ‘and listeners are contacting us all the time. Obviously, if anything comes up that we think is worth pursuing we’ll let you know right away.’

‘OK, thanks. And sorry again about the Corny thing.’

After assuring her it wasn’t a problem, Cristy rang off and waited until Connor had parked the car in front of the office before saying, ‘I keep coming back to the same thing with Lottie … She clearly had some sort of agenda going when she paid Edwin to “marry” Mia, and when she “found Sadie” … So why, when they took Sadie to Guernsey and Mia had a child to care for, didn’t she leave?’

‘Because she became attached to Sadie too?’ Connor ventured, without much conviction.

Certain it wasn’t that, Cristy got out of the car saying, ‘We need to find George Symmonds-Browne. I’m sure he’s key to it all.’

‘And wouldn’t it be great if someone in that high-pedigree, inbred family of his answered emails,’ Connor stated, leading the way inside. ‘Even Iz’s contacts don’t seem to be breaking down those hallowed doors.’

Cristy was right behind and almost collided with him as he came to a sudden stop.

Stepping around him to see what was wrong she cried, ‘What the hell?’

‘We found it like this when we got back from lunch,’ Clover declared from the floor, where it appeared the entire contents of Lottie’s boxes had been upended and unceremoniously dumped. ‘We’re trying to sort through it now and put it all back. The trouble is, we haven’t got a clue if anything’s missing, or which box any of it came from.’

‘Did anyone in the building see someone coming in or out?’ Connor asked, as he and Cristy trod carefully over the strewn contents to their desks.

‘Not that we know of,’ Jacks replied, ‘although there are a couple of dirty great footprints on some of the paperwork … We’ve put them to one side in case we need to show the police. Not that they’ll be interested in helping us. With the doors always being open, we can’t even claim it was a break-in.’

Looking at Connor, Cristy said, ‘Who the hell would do this? And what were they looking for?’