I figured that if he was spending money to make Mum happier in her final months, then good for him. It was certainly no business of Daniel’s.
Julius: We talked for a bit and then the girls wanted to go inside to get some food. They said ‘hi’ to Emma – and then Emma went back to her cottage. I figured her conspiracy theory would peter itself out. Everyone was concerned about Dad – but I don’t know how she thought she was helping.
Emma: I didn’t make it back to my cottage. As I passed Mum’s, I could see through the window that Daniel was in there. She was supposed to be sleeping, but I’d barely left her half an hour before and he couldn’t leave it.
I went inside to find out what was going on and he was talking about some sort of problem with the business back at home. He’d got reception to print out some documents and said something about ‘problem tenants’. He needed her signature to cover a bill that had come up.
Daniel: I’m not getting into specifics – but the business account needs two signatures for payments over a certain amount. That would usually be Geoff and myself. With Geoff in hospital, there were two choices – let the bill go unpaid or ask Beth to sign it.
Emma: Mum was sitting on the sofa, struggling to stay awake and he was looming over her, talking and talking. If I’d not got there, I think she’d have actually signed those papers.
Daniel: Sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
Emma: I told Daniel to leave Mum alone and that she needed to rest. Mum said she’d have a look later and that left Daniel nowhere to go. He could hardly continue to pressure her while I was there. He turned between us, but he wasn’t going to get his own way this time, so he had to leave.
Julius had just told me how Daniel was annoyed about Dad’s spending. If Dad remained unconscious or, worse, if he’d died, it wouldn’t be long until Mum had enough of co-signing documents. She’d have altered the paperwork so that Daniel had sole control of the company.
That’s why it was only as Daniel flounced out that I remembered what Scott had said that morning. I’d dismissed it at the time, but there was one person who benefitted the most from Dad falling off that cliff.
It was Daniel.
Chapter Seventeen
WHERE IS SHERGAR?
Emma: The phone rang when I was in the cottage half dozing, half keeping an eye out in case Daniel returned. At first I didn’t realise what was happening. My phone was charging on the table next to the bed. I picked it up, but there were no notifications. I then realised there was a landline phone on a table close to the door. When I picked it up, there was a woman from the lobby who said that I had a visitor.
I assumed it was going to be Paul – it was only that morning that we talked about meeting – but, when I got there, it was a far less friendly face.
Jin: I don’t have a friendly face?
Emma: It was only when I saw Jin that I remembered I’d called him to report that Dad’s ring had gone missing. He’d not bothered to call back and so long had passed that the ring was already back. I’d always thought that Scott was exaggerating when he kept talking about botched investigations – but that would be a slow reaction time in a massive city, let alone on a small island.
The first thing I said was that I’d called him and not got a reply.
Jin: There was a lot going on at that time. Other people, other cases.
Emma: He said: ‘I’m here now’ – but I didn’t get the sense he was there because he’d heard my message, I think he’d come to tell me something else. The problem was that I’d already said that I’d called, so he wondered why.
If Dad’s ring had still been missing, I would definitely have said – but it felt different now that it was back. If I’d mentioned Victor’s name to the police, there would be no going back. I only had that split second to make a decision, but I knew I’d be making an enemy for life if I said what had happened. I could potentially have set our family and Victor’s into a full-on war. With Dad and Daniel being business partners, that didn’t feel like a good idea. Which is why I didn’t bring it up.
I had to say something, though, so I told him I was hoping for an update.
That got a very large roll of the eyes.
Jin basically ignored me and said he needed to speak to Mum but that he thought he’d check with me first to see if she was up to it.
It was… I suppose, in isolation, it was odd. You might ask an adult if a child is up to speaking – but you wouldn’t usually do it the other way around. It made me think that he’d been talking to a lot more people than I’d given him credit for. He would have only had to speak with people at the hospital or hotel to know that Mum had been struggling.
I said that Mum needed some sleep, but that she’d likely want to see him if there were any updates. Jin was very tight-lipped at that, so I led him through the lobby and out past the pool towards the cottages at the back. The whole time we were walking, I had a sense that he was already well aware that we were staying there, as opposed to in the hotel itself. I thought about the way I talked to him on the cliffs and realised that I shouldn’t have interfered. At best, I’d managed to annoy him; at worst, I’d planted myself directly in his sights for no reason.
When we got to Mum’s cottage, I let myself in. I thought she’d be in bed, but she was sitting on the sofa instead, with cucumber slices over her eyes. She called out to ask if it was me – but when I said she had a guest, she grabbed those slices away and looked around, mortified.
Jin: I remembered Mrs McGinley very well. Always so polite… so full of truth.
Emma: It was another meeting of two people who’d not seen one another in nine years. That seemed to be a very common thing that week.
While they were saying hello to one another and asking things like ‘How is everything going?’, I was busy eyeing the suitcase that was still sitting in the alcove. The envelope that was inside, with the fake driving licence, was now in my cottage – but there was a small voice at the back of my mind saying I should hand it over to Jin. I could wash my hands of it and let Jin deal with whatever it might be.
The only thing that stopped me was that there would be no taking it back.
Before I knew it, Jin was asking Mum how Dad came to end up on the cliff. She said that he liked a walk in the evening, even back at home. That hadn’t always been true, but it was something that came about in the past couple of years. I didn’t know the precise details, but I think his doctor had told him that he had to cut down on red meat and wine in an attempt to lower his cholesterol. Dad took that to mean he could ignore the doctor as long as he did a bit of walking after dinner each day.
Jin was actually making notes at this point. He went through the list of people who’d come on holiday with us and it was as if his eyebrow got higher with each new name. I could tell that Mum was finding it hard because she kept over-explaining things.
There’s one big thing you learn when you’re in trouble and need a solicitor – and that’s to shut up. If you’re asked a question, you should answer it as succinctly as you possibly can, with no elaboration.
When I was arrested, I did not do that.
I don’t regret it, because I deserved what I got – but I still remembered the lesson afterwards. I suppose Mum never learned it.
She gave a long and winding reason for why she felt that Daniel and Liz were as close as family, before giving an even more detailed description of Julius’s break-up with Simone. By the time she got to Victor and Claire, it was clear to anyone that this holiday wasn’t Mum’s idea.
She said, ‘We’re all so close’ – and then Jin turned to me to ask if it was true. I had no idea what to say. Claire had just called her father-in-law a gluttonous turnip to his face. His son had thrown a coffee mug at a wall and called me a mad witch. We’d not even been there for forty-eight hours.
I think I came out with something like: ‘Some of us are closer than others.’ It satisfied Mum – but Jin knew what I really meant.
It was after that when he looked between us and asked: ‘Any grudges…? Problems…?’ It was very casual, almost throwaway, but Mum answered right away with: ‘Of course not.’
The problem was that Jin then turned to me.
Jin: Sometimes people speak the truth when they believe it is best for them. Other times it is because they think it is best for those they love.
Emma: I told him that Victor and Claire had had an argument and that Claire was on her way to the airport to fly home. He seemed largely uninterested in that and immediately came back with: ‘What about you and Daniel Dorsey?’
There wasn’t a lot I could say, other than that Daniel wasn’t my favourite person. Jin poked out his bottom lip and made a note or two. I figured I wasn’t telling him anything that he didn’t already know. That’s the thing about having a loud argument in public: people notice. While I thought Jin had been ignoring my calls, he would have been asking around the hotel. There was one clear thing that anyone in that restaurant knew – Daniel and I did not like one another.
I think that was the reason Mum became unsettled. After I’d answered, Jin turned back to her and asked if Dad and Daniel had any recent disagreements.
Even I was surprised when she started to nod.
Jin: I have the quote here: ‘There was a falling-out a couple of months ago. Daniel wanted to expand the business and buy some more properties. Geoff wanted to keep it the same, or go the other way by selling off some assets.’
Emma: It was the first I’d heard of any rift between Dad and Daniel. I also realised how clever Jin had been. He hadn’t called me down to reception to ask about Mum’s health – he’d done it because he wanted me sitting at his side. He wanted to unsettle me by making it clear he knew about my argument with Daniel. If it looked like there was some sort of rift, Mum would come to my defence by pointing out that it wasn’t only me with whom Daniel had a problem. If she had been talking to him on her own, she probably wouldn’t have said anything.
It was brilliant, really.
Jin: You British say I’m a botcher. You have the best police. The best laws. The best everything. Well then, let me ask you this: Where is Shergar? Where is Madeleine? Who killed Dando?
Emma: That was the entire reason for Jin to visit the hotel that day. He wanted to ask about Dad and Daniel – and everything else had been a smokescreen.
After Dad had been named as a suspect in Alan’s death, I thought Jin was a fraud. I’d believed those stories about a botched investigation, not because I thought Dad did anything – but because I thought Jin had used Dad as a scapegoat.
I spent nine years thinking that and then, in about thirty seconds, I totally changed my mind.
After Mum revealed the falling-out, Jin made a few more notes, closed his book and then said he’d be in contact if there was any more news. He flashed me the greatest eff-you smile I’ve ever seen – and then he let himself out.
Mum and me sat in silence for a few seconds. I wanted to ask if there were more details about the argument with Dad and Daniel, but it was clear she was having none of it. She’d been holding onto those cucumber slices the entire time and then hurried off to the kitchenette. She dumped them in the bin and then washed her hands for so long that it started to feel uncomfortable watching her.
Eventually the taps went off and she turned back to me. It wasn’t tiredness in her face at that point, there was a sort of stoniness… maybe an annoyance because Jin had got the better of her. I’m usually good at reading her – but not then.
She said she was going to get ready for dinner and that she wanted everyone to eat together again. I started to say that Claire had already left, but she snapped ‘I know!’ over the top of me.
It felt…
…
When that was coupled with finding the fake licence, I think that was the moment where I really started to believe that there was something going on that went far deeper than I was imagining. That going back to Galanikos wasn’t simply to give Mum a final holiday, or to celebrate an anniversary or birthday. That there was a reason that went far beyond those things.
Mum told me she’d see me at dinner, which was as close to ‘go away’ as she ever gets. There was no point in trying to press her any further, so I went back to my cottage.
It was a very strange feeling. You trust your parents, don’t you? They’re the people who bring you into the world and they’re the ones tasked to look after you. It’s unsettling when you begin to question those very foundations.
I did what I guess a lot of people do in situations that don’t feel quite right: I reached for my phone. The internet is a distraction or a comfort blanket if that’s what you want it to be. I wanted the comfort.
I’d left my phone charging when I got the call from reception on the cottage’s landline. After that, I had gone straight through to see Jin. So I went to the table next to the bed and reached for my phone… except that it wasn’t there.
Chapter Eighteen
THE FULL GIANT RADISH
Emma: I know people will be thinking that I put my phone somewhere else, or that it was under the bed – but it wasn’t. It was charging on the table at the side of the bed. When I went back for it, the cable was on the floor – but the phone was no longer attached.
I looked both under and in the bed. I checked the drawers – and then walked all around the apartment looking for it.
Someone came into the cottage and stole my phone.
Julius: Emma going on about how her phone had been stolen was the moment I genuinely thought she might be losing whatever plot I once thought she had.
Emma: I used the cottage phone to call front desk and ask them to put me through to Julius’s room. I didn’t know if he’d still be at the pool – but he picked up. I asked if I’d dropped my phone anywhere around the pool and he said he’d not seen it.
I passed on the message that Mum wanted us to all to eat together that night and asked if he’d tell the others, then I walked across to the lobby myself.
Julius: Emma didn’t mention anything about dropping her phone around the pool. She said someone had stolen her phone and asked me to call it. I did that as we were still on the line together. I heard her fussing on the other end before she came back and said she couldn’t hear anything vibrating. I assumed she’d left it somewhere.
There’s a lot of mysteries from that holiday that I’d like the answer to – but one thing I will one hundred per cent guarantee you is that nobody stole Emma’s phone.
Emma: I went to the lobby and waited in line for at least half an hour. A big party had just arrived and people were trying to check in. There were suitcases everywhere and people digging around for passports to show as ID. Someone was arguing about the name on their booking, someone else was saying their luggage had been lost. There was a measured sort of chaos.
By the time I got to the front, I almost felt guilty for having to bother the woman. She was being polite – in the way service workers have to be – but I could tell all she wanted was a bit of a sit-down.
I explained about leaving my phone in the cottage and then it not being there. She typed something into her computer and said she would be right back, before disappearing into the back room.
I think I sensed what was coming. When she returned, she said the only cleaning of the room had happened early in the morning. Those cottages used real keys, not the cards – and the spare key for my cottage was still in place in their office.
It was then I remembered that I’d heard another guest saying that cash had been stolen from her room that morning. I mentioned that – and everything changed. The woman’s face hardened and she shot back very quickly to say that the phone had likely been misplaced around the premises. It sounded practised. Like a line that was written down somewhere. She said she’d send someone over to the cottage to help me look.
It was frustrating, sure. You’d be annoyed if you knew something was true but nobody wanted to believe you.
I told
her not to bother…
I might have been ruder than that…
…
I started to walk away and I won’t pretend I wasn’t angry – but then I spotted Scott at the front of the hotel. They keep all the doors open to let the air flow through and I could see out to where they park the cars and the taxis wait.
He was standing there by himself, taking in the surroundings. If he’d been on the cliffs, or next to a fountain – something like that – it would have been understandable. A tourist doing touristy things. But I couldn’t understand what he was doing. This is the hotel where we’ve always stayed – he was here in the past – but Paul told me Scott had a villa. Why was he there?
Scott: I went for a walk that afternoon. It’s a beautiful island and the weather was great. Why wouldn’t I?
Emma: I think losing something is one of the worst feelings a person can have. It plays with your sense of perspective. Something like a phone can be replaced – but that’s not the problem. You try to remember when and where you last had something. It starts to play on you that a fact of which you’re certain could be a phantom memory. You gaslight yourself.
Scott didn’t see me that afternoon… but it was hard not to wonder if he’d walked through the hotel at some point. Anyone could wander in from the street, especially if they looked like a tourist and had some confidence about them.
After the Accident: A compelling and addictive psychological suspense novel Page 11
