Page 83 of Don't Believe A Word

‘No, no. It’s fine. I think I understand where you’re coming from, so leave it with me. And when you have Sadie’s answer about the will I’ll be happy to talk through what you make of it.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

‘I’ll let you go now. Have a good time with Hayley and we’ll speak soon.’

*

‘Mum? Are you listening?’ Hayley demanded, glancing up from her phone to check she had Cristy’s attention.

‘Absolutely,’ Cristy smiled, still focused on her laptop screen.

Moments passed until she registered the silence and looked up to find Hayley watching her through narrowed eyes.

‘So what did I just say?’ Hayley challenged.

Cristy thought fast. ‘That you’re about to make a cup of tea?’ she suggested hopefully.

Rolling her eyes, Hayley unwound her long legs and stalked over to the kettle. ‘You are so bad, do you know that?’ she declared. ‘Anyone would think my love life meant nothing to you.’

‘It means everything, but you’ve got to admit, my darling, we’ve been going round and round in circles ever since we got up this morning, and it’s now …’ she checked, ‘almost four o’clock.’

Unembarrassed, Hayley said, ‘I just need to talk things through, and sometimes saying things out loud makes them clearer. And did you just kind of call me boring?’

Cristy feigned shock. ‘The thought never entered my head, but I would say that if you’re having doubts about Hugo then maybe he isn’t the one for you.’

‘So I should end it?’

‘Your decision, not mine. Remind me when we’ve agreed to FaceTime with Marley?’

‘Seven our time. You’re not backing out, are you?’

‘If only. No, I just need to send some emails first …’

‘You never stop working. I bet you can’t even remember the name of the other guy I’ve been talking about.’

‘Stefan and he’s messaged you at least fifty times today …’

‘Exactly, and Hugo’s only been in touch once.’

‘Clever Hugo, I say.’

‘Why?’

Stifling a scream, Cristy said, ‘Let me finish this and then I think we should go for a walk.’

‘Great idea, if it weren’t chucking it down out there, but it’s OK, I get the hint. Do we have any cake to go with the tea?’

‘There should be some hot-cross buns in the top cupboard.’

‘It’s not even February yet – well, just! Do you want one?’

‘Sure. Toasted, if you don’t mind,’ and going back to the message from Camille Jardine atNice-MatinCristy forwarded it to Connor and read through it again.

Great to hear from you, Cristy. Hope you’re doing well. I was really sorry to hear about you and Matthew, you guys were always so great together, definitely his loss. Hope you’ve met someone more worthy of you by now.

Regarding Symmonds-Browne. Sorry, no idea where he is these days, didn’t even know he was working out of the Riviera, tbh. Hadn’t seen the photo from UK database before you sent it. If he is/was in this area he’ll have been mixing with some seriously hardcore types back in 2016 (see list below for names that might interest you – advise you to stay clear of them all). Definitely something unusual about S-B because it seems every time he’s taken in for questioning he’s just let go again. So, is he an informer? Or does he have something on someone that buys him a get-out-of-jail card?

Cristy scanned the list of names. They didn’t mean anything to her, she couldn’t even pronounce half of them, but she did recognize the countries of origin that Camille had assigned to each one. Three were Serbs, two Albanian … and now she wasseeing one that she had come across before. How the heck had she missed it first time around?