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.