Page 54 of After the Accident
I suppose what I’m saying is that I wasn’t that bothered about him coming towards me. He’s big – but it’s not like it’s lean muscle.
Daniel:Body-shaming fat jibes. Is that what I’m here for?
Emma:He said: ‘Listen, girl, this isn’t about you. It’s about your family and your father.’
I was ready for that, so I replied: ‘I thought I was a disappointment to my parents?’
He bit his lip at that, probably wanting to tell me that I was – but also knowing he wanted something from me.
I decided then that there was no point in holding back any longer and that I might as well try to get some answers. I said: ‘Why has Dad got an ID for a dead man with his face on it?’
That was the end of any pretence we’d been going through. He knew that I had the envelope – and that I’d looked through what was in it. He clenched his teeth and moved so close that I could smell the wine he’d been throwing down his throat all day.
He said: ‘I want that ID and I want that key.’
I replied: ‘I want a lot of things. You can’t always get what you want.’
Daniel:I might have asked this before – but did anyone everseethis key and ID she’s talking about?
Emma:He wanted to know what I’d done with the key, but I suppose he was really asking if I knew what it was for. The only clue was that sheet of paper with ‘Ag Georgios’ and the PO box number.
I didn’t answer, but he must have seen something because he quickly added: ‘You’ve been there, haven’t you?’
That was when he really lost the plot. He’s not the sort who builds slowly up to a rage. He goes right to eleven. He shouted: ‘Where is it?’ or maybe: ‘Where are they?’
I was in the doorway of the bedroom and told him that he wouldn’t find what he wanted in the safe, or the whole of my cottage. I stood aside and told him to keep looking.
He started to seem worried then.
I asked what he and Dad had been arguing about at the airport. Julius had told me there was something about money, but Daniel shook his head and said he didn’t know what I was talking about.
He stood in the bedroom, looking between me and the safe, not knowing what to do. I don’t think he doubted that I was telling the truth about the envelope being somewhere else. That’s when I pointed him towards the back door and told him to get out. I said I’d call security if he didn’t leave.
Daniel shuffled past me, huffing and puffing like an asthmatic walrus. He shoved across the curtain and stood in the doorway at the back of the cottage and then said: ‘I’ll get what I want sooner or later.’
I don’t know what he thought might happen, but I said: ‘You won’t’ – and then he marched out.
It would have made more of an impact if he hadn’t turned the wrong way after leaving. About two seconds after he left, he ended up walking past the doorway for a second time.
That’s the story of him, I suppose. He’s a windbag who is all bluster and, when it really comes down to it, he’ll make the wrong choice every time.
Daniel:It’s the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever heard. She should be writing books with an imagination like that.
Here’s a question you should be asking. She’s created an entire fantasy and conspiracy that’s backed by no one but her – but, even within her own rantings, she’s admitted she’s a thief. If she stole something from her parents, then what was it?
Emma:Doesn’t that make it more likely I’m telling the truth? If it was a lie, I could have easily come up with something that didn’t involve me taking the licence and key from my parents’ room. I told you those things because that’s what happened.
Daniel:If this happened like she says, then how did I get into the cottage? I bet she can’t answer that.
Emma:I… I don’t know how he got in. Maybe I left the sliding doors unlocked, or perhaps the cleaner did.
I don’t know.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Day Six
THE DYED HAIR AND PERMATAN
