Page 96 of Don't Believe A Word

They all looked to Cristy, but she was still staring at the screen, her heart contracted in disbelief and something close to horror. ‘How the hell didn’t we see this coming?’ she muttered, and reached for the phone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Cristy was so angry with herself that she’d only narrowly avoided an accident while driving. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered the possibility of Robert Brinkley knowing Lottie Winters through their overseas work because she had. It had occurred to her more than once, so why in God’s name had she never asked the question? The answer was because she’d assumed – and who wouldn’t – that if he did know her he’d have said so, but he hadn’t.

She wanted to know why.

More than that, she wanted a full explanation of what the hell was going on.

By now she was seated at a corner table of the White Lion pub, part of the Avon Gorge Hotel in Bristol’s upscale area of Clifton. It was unusually quiet for a Saturday evening, most of the long bench tables were empty and only one server at the bar, but it was only just past six-thirty so it would probably start filling up quite soon. She wasn’t interested in who was coming or going, only in Robert Brinkley who was seated opposite her, scrolling through the photos on her phone. As she watched him she felt so much anger, and on so many levels, that she was finding it hard to keep it to herself.

As his head was down she had no way of telling how he was reacting to the shock of her finding out about his relationship with Lottie, apart from the tightness gathering around his mouth. No matter that things had ended between them a long time ago – if Lottie’s letters were anything to go by and actually they were everything – what Cristy needed to know was what the heck he was doing here, now, messing with Sadie, and with her?

When he eventually looked up she was momentarily thrownby his expression. He seemed both stunned and confused, as ifshewere playing some unfathomable trick onhim. There was none of the guilt or embarrassment or defensiveness she’d expected.

His voice was hoarse as he said, ‘Where …? How did you get these?’

‘Sadie found them,’ she replied coolly, ‘in her aunt Lottie’s safe along with your letters, the cards you sent, the journals she wrote about you …’

‘I don’t understand,’ he interrupted. ‘They’re … This is …Lottie?’

‘You must know …’

‘Oh God,’ he groaned, clasping a hand to his head as though sinking into an unimaginable horror. ‘If this is Lottie … Oh Christ, what can I tell you? How the hell is this even possible?’

‘I’m waiting for you to answer that very question,’ she told him tightly.

He regarded her helplessly, clearly not sure what to say, and looked at the photos again almost as if they weren’t real, or they were of someone he didn’t know, which couldn’t be the case because he was in them.

Warily, she said, ‘Have you never looked at our website?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t, but it seems if I had …’

‘You’d have known right away that Lottie –Sadie’s aunt Lottie– was the woman you had an intimate relationship with for … God knows how many years?’ Her tone was every bit as sarcastic as she intended.

He scrolled through the photos again. ‘Seeing these …’ He paused, took a breath and she noticed his hand shake slightly as he said, quietly, ‘So she’s dead?’

Cristy became very still.Did he really not know that? Was this truly how he was finding out that the woman he’d written so many beautiful letters to, who he’d apparently loved with a near blinding passion, was no longer alive?

She watched him inhale deeply, softly, and take a while to let the breath go.

‘We haven’t been in touch for years,’ he said quietly. His eyes were captured by a photo of Lottie laughing and looking as beautiful as Cristy had ever seen her. Had he taken it? He was inthe next one, and the next, in fact most of the others Sadie had found in a small wallet inside the safe.

‘I was never sure why she …’ He took a moment and started again. ‘The last time I saw her … We were in Nairobi. We’d stolen some time to be together … We often did that. She’d meet me a few days before I joined the medical team I’d been assigned to, or when I was on my way out … Sometimes we were at the same camp, or conference, or we were invited …’

‘Please just tell me this,’ Cristy interrupted. ‘When you met Sadie, did you already know who she was?’

He looked up at her, clearly aghast. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘You can’t seriously think … Jesus Christ, whatdoyou think? That I’m somehow involved in all this …?’

‘Persuade me you aren’t.’

He threw out his hands. ‘How am I supposed to do that when I apparently know even less about Lottie Winters than you do? She was Carla to me, Carla Andrews. She lived in London, was the daughter of some wealthy banker, a free spirit, had no children of her own, was devoted to those she helped.’

Was this the truth, or did Cristy just want it to be because she didn’t want to be wrong about him? ‘If you were that close,’ she said, ‘and your correspondence shows that you were … Did she never talk about her sister and her niece?’

‘Yes, often. Emilia and Sophie. I assumed they were mother and daughter … She was very close to them, but there were times when she needed to get away … She said they were … that sometimes she felt she couldn’t breathe when she was with them … If you’ve read the letters you’ll know all this.’

‘We don’t have the ones she wrote to you,’ Cristy pointed out. ‘When exactly did you meet her?’