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.