After the Accident: A compelling and addictive psychological suspense novel

by Kerry Wilkinson

  Then we came to Galanikos for the first time.

  The hotel was the first major building in the resort and we were one of the first visitors. The iron curtain had come down and flights were starting to get cheaper. The other rich kids at school were still talking about France or Italy – but now I had something on them. I had this exotic place, far away from anything any of us could imagine.

  It felt like this island was my island.

  Mum and Dad came here every summer and so did I for a long time. I missed a few trips when I was in my late-teens and went away with my friends instead – but I was here for most of them.

  … That all stopped nine years ago, when Alan went off that cliff. He and Dad were in business from back when they started putting their money together to buy run-down houses. Maybe twenty years? Something like that.

  There was a big fall-out after that last trip and I never thought I’d see this place again.

  I didn’t think I wanted to be on the island again – but then I walked out of the hotel on that morning after Dad had fell – and I was that little girl again.

  Galanikos was suddenly this place of wonder once more.

  I thought about going down to the village itself but wanted to save it as a treat. Instead, I walked around the side of the hotel out towards the cliffs. There’s an amazing view where you can stand near the edge and stare out across the ocean. There’s nothing in the way: no trees, no rocks, no other islands. It’s like the view goes on forever, with the blue of the ocean driving deep towards the horizon and then disappearing into the sky.

  The sun rises on that side and, if you get up early enough, you can watch the night turning purple, orange and red before it fades to blue.

  …

  I say: ‘If you get up early enough’ – but the only times I’ve seen that is when I stayed up through the night. I was younger then…

  Julius: I’ve watched the sun rise on that cliff – I think most tourists have. If not there, then you can see the sun set from the beach on the other side. It’s one of the top-ten things they list in the guidebook for people to experience. But once you’ve seen one sunrise, you’ve seen them all.

  Emma: When I saw what was on the clifftop that morning, I almost laughed. There was a single traffic cone sitting close to the edge. That was how they’d marked the place where Dad had fallen. I thought about all the people who complain about health and safety culture in the UK – and what they’d make of it. Would even the solo cone be too much for them?

  There was a man standing close to that cone with his back to me. I could see the smoke from his cigarette drifting away and assumed it was someone from the hotel who had snuck out for a smoke. It was only when I got across to the cliff edge that I realised I knew him.

  I honestly think he was wearing the same black trousers from nine years before. They were the sort you’d wear to an office – but way too baggy on him. He had on this plain white shirt but had sweated through the sides and it was all so familiar. The same man wearing the same clothes – but nine years apart.

  Jin turned to me, looked me up and down, and then spun back to the ocean. ‘Ms McGinley,’ he said. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

  I think he was trying to make a joke, but it didn’t feel like that.

  ‘Jin’ (Galanikos head of police): I didn’t think they would ever be back. Would you, after what happened the last time?

  Emma: I never knew whether ‘Jin’ was his first name, last name, or a nickname. It was pronounced like the drink and that’s what he told everyone to call him. He was the head of police when Alan had fallen and it looked like he was still doing the job.

  We were standing side by side and I followed his stare along the coast towards the cliff from where Alan fell. It’s a little further away from the hotel, where there’s a path that winds down to the beach below. Alan landed on rocks, while Dad had apparently been found on the sand.

  Neither of us said anything for a while, but it did feel as if there was a connection. Like we were in the same place and thinking the same thing.

  Then he said it.

  Jin: ‘Here we go again.’

  Emma: It was flippant but not mean. I knew where he was coming from.

  After Alan fell, Jin got a lot of abuse for apparently ‘botching’ the investigation. I imagine that all took a long time to die down. He might have thought his career was over. Then we come back after all this time and, yeah… Here we go again.

  Jin: I told her what time her dad had been found – and asked where she was for the hours before that.

  Emma: I said I was in a bar. He wanted to know if I was with anyone, so I said ‘yes’, without giving a name. He didn’t push for more and didn’t write anything down. It wasn’t a serious inquisition.

  Jin: I can’t talk about who was a suspect and who wasn’t.

  Emma: I asked why there was no fence.

  Jin: It’s never the locals who fall.

  Emma: I didn’t like it when he said that. It was dismissive, as if the tourists who come to the island don’t mean anything. That they’re the only ones stupid enough to fall.

  Jin: Who would pay for this fence? Do you know how long it would have to be? If you don’t want the danger, don’t go near the edge. Everyone who lives here manages to figure that out.

  Emma: He’d annoyed me, which is why I told him that he’d have to do some work to find a real suspect this time. I knew what I was saying. I wanted a reaction, but he continued staring out over the ocean.

  Jin: She knows nothing.

  Emma: When Alan fell, the only named suspect was Dad. That wasn’t based on anything particular, simply that there was a small discrepancy about times – and that Jin didn’t want to do his job. There was no evidence, which is why no charges were ever laid.

  It had made the news back home and, because Dad had been named, the rumours took a long time to go away. It’s no wonder people say the investigation was botched. It ended up concluding that Alan had simply fallen – but, by then, there was already talk about business feuds and the like.

  Jin: Your system is not our system. People said we had a small mentality, that your way is better, but there was no problem with my investigation. No problem at all.

  Emma: As soon as Jin finished that one cigarette, he moved onto the next. I said I thought Dad must have been pushed. It was mainly because I couldn’t see a way Dad would have fallen, not after what happened with Alan. Why would he be right on the edge? Nothing made sense.

  Jin: I told her: ‘Maybe he jumped?’

  Emma: There was no reason for Dad to do that. He was happy, not suicidal. It was offensive that Jin even said it. He then added: ‘Funny you seem to know what I think’.

  I didn’t know what to say about that. It felt like a challenge: a way of telling me to stay out of his way. I was ready to go, but then he called me back.

  Jin: I said I’d seen Lander that morning – because I had.

  Emma: I know what he was trying to do when he said that. He wanted to show that he still held something over me, even though he didn’t.

  I’d not heard Lander’s name in a long while and I waited for a moment, wondering if he had something else to say. Jin gave me a card and told me to call if I thought of anything. He said he hoped Dad recovered – and I walked away.

  Jin: That was the first time anyone mentioned a push. It was her, on that cliff, the morning after.

  Chapter Six

  THE SMELL OF HOPE OR SEWERS

  Emma: I walked down the path, away from the edge and that stupid cone. I thought about heading back into the hotel, but it was late in the morning and the scent of the village was in the air. It’s always the smells that get me.

  Not long after I’d been released, I’d gone into a mall where the cleaners were busy working. They were using this detergent that must have been the same one from prison. I was frozen in front of the door, unable to shift until someone asked if I could move. I bet I could smell that again in thirty years and
it would still send me right back in time.

  That’s what it was like when I was outside the hotel. I was helpless to do anything other than follow my nose down the slope towards the centre of the village. It was déjà vu the entire way, remembering how I used to feel making this journey. I was a young woman then, a girl even, and I had my whole life ahead of me. This time, it felt like so much of my life was behind me. I’d wasted those best years and, if anything, gone backwards.

  Julius: Emma always had a thing about the village below the hotel. I didn’t see it myself. The hotel was about as luxurious as you’re going to get on an island like that, so why waste your time in a dump?

  Emma: Things must have changed over time, but, as I got to the edge of the market, it all seemed the same as I remembered. There were the stalls selling counterfeit football shirts, bags and branded tops. The rug stall was still on the corner, with a huge, faded carpet rolled up against a telegraph pole. I swear it was like that the last time I’d seen it.

  I suppose the sights are much like any market – but it’s the smell that sets it apart. It’s hard to describe because you have to experience it. It starts at some time after eleven, when the locals are cooking lunch, hoping to entice the tourists. There are these huge vats of rice, vegetables and spices, which blends with fresh fish being grilled on outdoor barbecues. Because the village sits down a path below the hotel, it all whips together on the breeze and drifts its way up.

  It’s just…

  …

  It’s the smell of hope and being young. Summer and sun. There’s nothing like it.

  Julius: I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a smell. Sometimes the sewers run over. Is that what you’re talking about?

  Emma: I ended up sitting at a table outside a café. There was shade and a gentle breeze. All I wanted to do was watch and listen. To absorb everything. I had a lump in my throat and cried a little bit to myself.

  I’d usually have found a place to be alone and hide everything – but I didn’t want to move in case the feeling went away. It was the village that caused that. It was that smell.

  I could tell you I was upset about Dad, but it wouldn’t be true… not completely. It was those feelings of the life I’d lost.

  At the sentencing, my solicitor talked about ‘genuine remorse’ and it always stuck with me. He said: ‘She has genuine remorse for what happened’ and it felt like one of those things a lawyer would say. I bet everyone has ‘genuine remorse’ because it makes their sentences shorter. Except, I was actually broken by it.

  Properly broken.

  I could barely dress myself, or get out of bed. I wasn’t eating. I had to be reminded to drink. People would whisper about me and wonder if I was planning to kill myself.

  And, as I sat outside that café, all I could think about was how younger me had walked through this village, had drunk the tea and eaten the fish. How she’d never have been able to guess the person I’d become.

  So, yeah, I cried for myself.

  Julius: I don’t think I visited the village once on that trip. Why would I?

  Emma: We went to the island so often that it would have been impossible not to pick up a little of the local dialect. I’m not saying I’m bilingual, but I do know the odd word and sentence, plus I can generally get the gist of what someone means.

  I was sitting at that table and there were these two men standing near the café door talking to each other. I heard the word ‘beach’ and ‘fall’, plus what I thought was the word ‘British’. I turned around and asked the man who was talking if he was the person who’d found Dad on the beach.

  He only knew a few words of English, but we managed to figure it out through a mixture of the two languages.

  I told him I was staying at the hotel and that my dad had fallen the night before. He came across and held my hand. He knew the word for ‘sorry’ and kept saying it, before the café owner had to help us piece together the next bit.

  He was saying a word that sounded like ‘smock’. I’m probably pronouncing it wrong. The owner was saying ‘fall’, ‘fall’ – and I didn’t get it. I felt like such an idiot because what he was trying to say was that the man hadn’t just found my dad on the beach, he’d seen him fall.

  Julius: Sometimes Emma hears what she wants to hear.

  Emma: The man said he was walking on the beach and heard a noise from up on the cliffs. It was dark by then, so he didn’t realise what was happening. He saw a shadow and thought it might have been a tree branch falling. It was only when he got closer that he realised it was a person… that it was Dad.

  He said he’d already talked to Jin about it that morning because he was sure the noise he’d heard from the cliff wasn’t just a voice. He said it was voices…

  Chapter Seven

  THE STUPID SENSE OF ENVY

  Emma: I can’t remember how I felt when I was walking up the hill from the village. I’ve been on that beach and, when it’s quiet, it’s almost as if it absorbs all the noises from around and above. You can hear boats from the other side of the island, or chatter drifting from the village. Perhaps he had heard voices from above – but that wasn’t proof Dad was with someone.

  It also wasn’t proof that he was alone.

  Claire: It was sometime on the morning after Geoff fell that I went for a walk on my own. I didn’t know the layout of the island but ended up on the beach underneath the cliff. I was following one of the paths at the side of the hotel, wondering where it went. I’d not necessarily planned to be there.

  The main thing I remember is how noisy it was down there. It was this little cove that seemed like it was sheltered by the cliff. You’d think it would be this peaceful postcard, but, instead, it was like all the sounds from the island converged there. There were birds chirping and car engines rumbling. There was nobody anywhere near me, but it felt like I was in a crowd. Then, as immediately as it began, the wind dropped and there was silence. It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever known.

  Emma: To get to the cottage, I had to walk around the pool. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything and certainly didn’t want to accidentally catch Daniel’s eye. I was almost past the area where they stack sun loungers when I realised Mum was sitting on the edge of a bed next to Daniel and Liz, close to the water.

  Liz: Beth got back from the hospital and not one of her kids were there for her. Good job she had us.

  Emma: I went across and asked how she was. She looked so tired. I know that shouldn’t have been a surprise because she’d spent the night at the hospital – but it was deeper than that. I think you can tell the difference when you see people. Someone might look like they need a good night’s sleep, but, other times, it’s like their eyes haven’t closed in days. Their whole face hangs and there’s a small delay when they try to talk, as if you’re in different time zones.

  When I asked Mum how she was, it took a second for her to blink her way up to me and open her mouth. She said she was ‘all right’, but only in the way people do when they don’t know what else to say. I think it’s a British thing, almost like our national catchphrase. Someone could have been hit by lightning and crawled their way across a county to the nearest hospital and then, when a doctor asks how they are, they’d say ‘all right’. It’s what people do. It’s what I said when Mum visited me in prison for the first time.

  I asked about Dad and she said he was breathing for himself now and making progress, even though he was still unconscious. I think she’d forgotten that she asked me to look for flights because she never mentioned it.

  Liz: Beth just wanted a rest. She’d been up all night, the poor thing. Instead of leaving her be, Emma kept on at her, asking how she was, how Geoff was, all that. I wanted to tell her to go away, but it wasn’t my place.

  Emma: Mum said she was going back to the hospital later in the afternoon and asked if I wanted to go with her. I told her that of course I would.

  Liz: It was obvious to anyone watching that Emma didn’t want to go. Beth pu
t her on the spot, where she couldn’t say no.

  Emma: I asked Mum what she thought of the cottage – but she didn’t know anything about it. I had to tell her that the manager had moved all her things to a private cottage, instead of the main hotel. Nobody had told her and, when she got back from the hospital, she’d gone straight to the pool.

  I ended up walking with her around the back of the pool out towards the cottages. That’s when I noticed the flowers.

  Julius: I only saw it later. The staff had put together this display of flowers next to the door of Mum’s cottage. Fair play to them.

  Emma: Someone had put in a lot of effort. They’d woven the flowers into a heart shape and then rested it up against the wall. Mum burst into tears the moment she saw it. She kept saying how kind it all was, but I was more worried about her physically. I was having to hold her up because she was so frail. I ended up guiding her over to the door and then I let her in with the key that the manager had left me.

  It was a lot cooler inside because of the air con, but Mum was like a ghost. She was drifting aimlessly around the room while constantly catching herself on the corners of things. She barely seemed to notice and I did wonder if she’d taken something. I didn’t want to ask.