Page 42 of After the Accident
What I told them is that I’d probably heard about Alan’s fall the morning after it happened. I have a vague memory of being the first person down for breakfast out of our family. That essentially never happened, so I had a feeling something wasn’t right. Then Mum came down and told me there had been an accident involving Alan the night before and that it was potentially serious. I’m pretty sure I was eating a soggy bagel at the time.
Paul:The Emma we spoke to by the sign seemed very different from the Emma she was describing. She told us that, after breakfast, she went to lie by the pool for the morning, She wasn’t clear about the afternoon, although she said she’d probably have spent some time with a man she knew on the island.
The strangest thing to me in all that is that I couldn’t picture an Emma who could lie by a pool for hours at a time. I didn’t know her very well – but what I did know about her felt like the opposite of that person. She didn’t wait for the world to come to her.
Emma:I was watching Paul when I talked about Lander. I didn’t name him, not then, but I was trying to tell Paul with my eyes that I wasn’t the sort who came to Galanikos to hook up with people.
Paul:That’s not what I thought at all.
Emma:As I was telling them about what I did the day after Alan fell, I realised what a hypocrite I’d become. Liz and Daniel had spent the day at the pool after Dad fell, and I thought they were disrespectful. It took that interview for me to remember that I had done the same.
I think you sometimes need that perspective… not that it changed much about the way I thought of Daniel and Liz. There were so many more reasons to dislike them.
Paul:I’d never heard of Daniel Dorsey at that time, let alone met him. When Emma first started telling me about him, she would do this thing of wrinkling her nose every time she brought him up. It was like she was describing a smell. She made no attempt to hide her contempt for him.
Emma:They asked how Dad took Alan’s death – but he wasn’t the type of person who’d ever talk about anything like that. Dad came from a generation when they’d ram their feelings deep down inside and refuse to acknowledge they were there. He got it from his dad, I think. It feels like that was the norm back then, but perhaps I’m generalising.
The most I could say is that Dad was quiet for a few days afterwards. There was no big celebration, like we’d often have on our final night. That’s about as much as I remember.
Paul:I didn’t think it was strange that Emma said she couldn’t remember a lot of what happened. Nine years had gone by and a lot had happened to her in those years. When we were doing that interview, I didn’t know much of what that was – but, if anything, if I had known, it would have only cemented my opinion. After what happened to her, it’s no surprise there are gaps in her memory.
Emma:The complication was that Dad was named as a suspect in Alan’s death. The legal system is different on the island and there was a process the police had to go through, which enabled them to interview Dad. I think the closest equivalent in the UK is being cautioned.
Because of that, people instantly thought that meant he was guilty. In the couple of days between the fall and the naming of Dad as a suspect, there had been no issue with Scott. Then, from nowhere, he was convinced Dad had killed his father.
We were due to fly home the day after Dad was named but ended up delaying everything for a couple of days. I don’t know the official term, but, essentially, Dad was unnamed as a suspect. The police ended up concluding that Alan fell, but the damage was done by then. A few papers had picked it up back at home and were trying to turn it into a big story of a business rivalry. Once that was out, it was difficult to stop it.
The stupid thing is, Dad was only named as a suspect because he wasn’t in his room at the time Alan went over the cliffs. He said he’d gone out for a walk, but there were no witnesses to that. It was all supposition and circumstantial. If it hadn’t been for that, things might have been a lot more amicable with Scott.
Paul:I knew what had happened to Emma’s father in a legal sense, but it was interesting to hear her side of things. The simple fact is that her father left his room and said he went for a walk, even though there were no witnesses. He really could have been on the cliffs with Alan – but nobody knows except him.
Emma:They wanted to know what happened to the business after that. I don’t think they realised that I was working for Dad at the time of Alan’s death, so I knew more than they thought.
After Dad was named as a suspect in Alan’s death, it was understandable that Alan’s wife and Scott wanted nothing to do with the business. Dad needed someone to buy out Alan’s half and he was already friends with Daniel, who ended up buying in. Dad bought one per cent of Alan’s share – taking him to fifty-one – and Daniel took on the other forty-nine. That’s how things had gone for the nine years up until the holiday.
Paul:I remember glancing sideways to the cameraman when Emma said that. We hadn’t known any of it. It didn’t necessarily change anything – but the fact he went from fifty to fifty-one per cent ownership was something that piqued our interest. It was a motive that we hadn’t previously known about.
Emma:When I said it, I think I knew that I’d told them something they didn’t know. That didn’t mean it counted for anything. They’d have discovered that sooner or later anyway.
Things were winding down after that. Everyone thanked me for giving them my time and then started to pack away. I found a couple of minutes to talk with Paul away from the others and he told me they were all flying home that night.
Paul:I probably should’ve told her before then, but plans were fluid and… we’d had a couple of good evenings together. I didn’t want to spoil things.
Emma:I was disappointed, not annoyed. He said they were going back to the hotel to check out – and then they’d be heading to the airport. He asked if he could take my number so they could come back to me if there was anything to check. I gave him my email address – and then we went our separate ways.
Paul:I didn’t think I’d see Emma again.
Then again, I didn’t think her holiday would end with an attempted murder… or two, depending on who you believe.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE NO PLAN B
Emma:I was about to let myself into my cottage when I heard Daniel’s voice coming from next door. Mum’s front door was open and I let myself in. It was turning into this weird form of déjà vu in that Daniel constantly seemed to be hanging around those cottages, even though he had no reason to be there.
Daniel was standing by the alcove, going through the big suitcase on the table. Mum was watching him with her arms crossed, not saying anything as he said: ‘There should be an envelope.’ He was taking out Dad’s clothes and dropping them on the table as he searched underneath.
He spotted me but didn’t pay any attention as he kept hunting. It was after he’d emptied everything that he looked back to Mum and asked if she’d moved anything. She said her chargers had been in Dad’s case, along with some shoes – but that she hadn’t opened it since they’d been moved to the cottage.
