Page 41 of After the Accident
I’d been visiting the island since I was a girl. My impression of a bank is something like a HSBC, or a Barclays. I thought that I’d have noticed a branch in all that time. Lander went quiet for a moment and I thought it might be something to do with Rhea and the fact that his wife didn’t want us talking. Then, suddenly, things started to make sense.
He said that the Bank of Galanikos isn’t something used by locals. There are no high street branches, or special interest-rate deals for new mortgages. They don’t advertise on the TV or radio.
He made the bank sound like a myth… something that may or may not exist. He said he didn’t know of any branches but that he’d heard it operated out of a fishing village to the north, close to the volcano. It was a word-of-mouth thing that wasn’t on any maps. There was no website, no logo or advertising.
Rumours were that people who lived offshore would open accounts to hide money from their local governments. He said it went back to the days of pirates. Boats would turn up with gold and treasure that they wanted stored.
It sounded… far-fetched – especially the pirate bit. But then I thought about stories like the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers, with rich people doing everything they can to hide their money. And I thought about Dad and the way we had visited this island religiously year after year for such a long time. I’d often wondered why, with all Dad’s resources, we kept coming back here of all places.
Then, in that café with Lander, it felt as if I knew.
It felt as if Lander was worried for me after the talk. He reached across and took my hand. His skin always used to be so smooth, but it was rough in that moment. The hands of a man who’d spent nine years doing manual labour.
Maybe I shouldn’t have let him touch me – but it didn’t mean anything, other than two people who used to know each other sharing a moment. It was comforting.
He asked if I was OK – but it meant more than that. He was asking if I was safe. I wanted to ask what he meant – but didn’t get a chance because he suddenly pulled his hand away. His whole body went rigid – and I knew Rhea was behind me a moment before she said his name. She was like a ninja. That’s all it took, not even a proper sentence, and then he said that he had to go.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE SOGGY BAGEL
Emma:The crew were setting things up so that the ‘Welcome to Galanikos’ sign was directly behind where I was standing. It’s not a traditional black-on-white sign like the ones from the UK. Someone had painted this beautiful sunshine and beach scene, with the words blended across the top. I had my photo taken in front of it when I would have been eleven or twelve. It was starting to fade, but it was still glorious. I remember I once asked Mum why places in the UK didn’t have these types of colourful ‘welcome to’ signs. I don’t think she ever answered.
Paul:I told the crew that Emma and I had run into one another on the street and that I’d asked her if she’d do the interview. That’s all they knew about us at that time.
Emma:The cliffs were behind the sign, with the ocean stretching into the distance. I saw the symbolism, obviously. I also knew that Mum and Dad wouldn’t be happy with what I was doing. At some point, a documentary would be released, with me as a part of it. Alan was the subject of which nobody dared speak in our family, so I knew a line was being crossed. I wanted to do it, even though I knew the trouble it would cause.
It was Paul who did the prepping. He told me that I could stop at any point and that nobody wanted it to turn into some sort of ‘gotcha’ interview. I asked if that’s what their interviews were usually like and he laughed it away. They all did.
Paul:It was standard stuff. We often take it in turns to prep the interviewees, depending on circumstances. I’d persuaded Emma to speak on camera, so it was left to me.
The interview itself was a bonus we didn’t expect. We came to the island to help flesh out what we already had – and then stumbled across Emma and her family. Plus, there was the second story about Emma’s father falling. Not to diminish anything that happened – and no disrespect to anyone – but, from a professional point of view, we couldn’t have asked for better luck.
Emma:Paul picked up his boom mic and the cameraman did a bunch of light tests. After that, the questions began. There was a lot of background stuff about my earliest memories of the island and how often we came here.
I felt so strange talking about all that in the moment because those memories now felt tainted. Perhaps they weren’t cosy family holidays – because Dad had more sinister reasons for coming to the island time after time.
Paul:If she was nervous, then she didn’t seem it. I don’t remember any particular hesitations and the only breaks were for passing cars and things like that.
Emma:There was a question about whether we stayed in the same hotel every time and I answered ‘yes’, but then I had to stop myself because there was a jolt of being in a villa that appeared from nowhere. One of those half memories that you can’t quite tell whether they’re true. I couldn’t remember if we’d stayed there or if it had been someone else’s and we were visiting.
Julius:I don’t remember a villa – but then I didn’t go with Mum and Dad every year. I think it was probably just the hotel.
Emma:They asked what drew my family to the island and it stumped me. The obvious answer is sunshine – but you can get that in so many places at that time of year. All I could come up with was: ‘I suppose Mum and Dad liked coming here.’ I could hardly say that I had a sneaking suspicion that Dad was coming here to launder money. I still hoped I was wrong at that point.
Paul:I thought she was telling the truth. I would never have guessed she was so conflicted.
Emma:That was the set-up and then things moved on to Alan. I genuinely struggled to remember some things because it was so long ago. I remembered more about growing up with Scott. I remembered this epic game ofWhat’s The Time, Mr Wolf?that we played in Scott’s back garden. It must have gone on for hours, in the way those things can when you’re younger. We took it turns and somehow didn’t get bored. I think we only stopped because it was time for me to go home.
There was an abrupt shift when they asked about Alan falling. I was well into my twenties by then and life was different. I’d been to university and then come back and ended up working for Dad. It wasn’t the career I wanted, but it was difficult at that age. Employers advertise for people with degrees – and then want to pay barely above the minimum wage. There was a part of me who wanted to do my own thing – and then another one who’d grown up into this privilege and was seduced by it.
My priorities changed immediately after the car crash. My son had died and, suddenly, those materialistic things meant nothing. I stopped caring about money and, in particular,Dad’smoney.
That wasn’t the case when I was in my twenties, though. I wanted expensive shoes and bags. I wanted nights out where money was no object. The only way for me to get any of that was to work for Dad, because he’d pay me a salary that was much beyond anything I could get elsewhere.
…
I didn’t say any of that in the original interview by the sign outside Galanikos. I don’t think the crew knew about my son at the time. It’s not like I lied, more than I stuck to a particular time frame.
