Page 40 of After the Accident
Paul:I didn’t want to be the one to say it.
Emma:He didn’t mention the similarity to what had happened with Alan, though he must have been thinking it.
Paul:We moved on to chatting about other things. It was either that, or go our separate ways. She told me a bit more about the shop where she works and I told her how I’d got into film-making. It was one of those talks that lasts for hours and yet, at the end, you can’t remember what you were talking about.
Emma:I didn’t tell him about prison, or the car crash. I thought about it but didn’t want to spoil the moment. I thought there was a chance he’d know, anyway. If you search for me on the internet, it’s impossible to escape stories of my sentencing.
…
I probably should have told him – but…
…
I think I probably liked him.
Paul:We left the bar and walked back through the village. It was late by then and the sun was all the way down. The market stalls had been packed away and the only sound was the vague noise of music coming from the hotel bars. I saw the village in a different way that night. It wasn’t only the front that everyone gets to see, with the all-inclusive buffets and the sun-burned tourists. It felt like a real place, with real people.
We stopped outside my hotel, tucked into the shadows underneath the palm trees where nobody could see us. It was a few degrees cooler. I held her hand.
Emma:He asked if I’d give an interview for the documentary. Ever the romantic.
Paul:It wasn’t like that was the only thing we talked about in those shadows. It was a private moment.
Emma:I don’t think I want to say any more.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Day Five
THE DAYS OF PIRATES
Emma:I got up early the next morning. I’d probably only had four or five hours’ sleep – but I’d had such a good time with Paul that I was feeling fine anyway.
I walked down to the village while people were still setting up. Café owners were trying to wave me inside, hoping I’d have breakfast, but I waved them away and kept walking.
It probably took around twenty minutes or so until I spotted Lander. He was carrying trays of soft drink cans from the back of a truck into a restaurant. I waited until he’d finished and then asked if I could have a word.
He hesitated and, if I’m honest, I know I probably shouldn’t have put him in that position. It was clear that his wife knew who I was and that she didn’t want him talking to me. He ummed and erred for a moment and said he’d be about fifteen minutes. When I said I didn’t mind waiting, he didn’t have much option, unless he outright told me to go away.
Lander:I don’t have to do what I’m told. I’m my own man.
Emma:I went to a café over the street, ordered a mountain tea and then waited. Lander came across after about half an hour. He might have been waiting for me to give up and go away – but I needed to talk to him.
Lander:I cannot remember what she wanted that day. Something to do with a bank, I think. We talked, that’s all.
Emma:Inside the envelope that I’d got from the PO box was a letter addressed to Alan Lee, with the name ‘Bank of Galanikos’ across the top. It was dated from more than a decade before, with a series of account numbers listed and linked to him.
I’d been wondering why Dad had an ID with his photo but Alan’s details. I couldn’t come up with any reason other than that he wanted to move money from those accounts.
It felt as if this was the reason we’d returned to Galanikos, as opposed to anything else. It was all being done under the guise of a family holiday – but then Dad went off that cliff on the first night and everything changed.
That left all sorts of unanswered questions about what might have happened to Alan nine years before – but I had no way of answering those at that time.
I’d also never heard of any sort of local bank, which was where Lander came in. I asked him about the Bank of Galanikos, which, it’s fair to say, confused him. He asked what I wanted to know and I said I’d never heard of it.
Lander:I really can’t remember what she wanted.
Emma:He asked if I was thinking of opening an account. When I said I wasn’t, he went quiet. He said: ‘What do you know?’ and there was this impasse where it felt like we were speaking a different language.
