there, really. In a hotel like that, people get dressed up to go down for dinner. The women all seem to be in long dresses, with platform sandals, or heels. The guys all have dress trousers and a linen shirt. The skin tones range from light brown through to bright red. There’s this unmentioned holiday etiquette in that everybody kind of looks the same.
Emma wasn’t like that – although I didn’t know she was called Emma then. She was wearing a baggy T-shirt with a panda on the front. It would have been normal in a café back home – but it really stood out in that bar.
Emma: I have no idea what I was wearing that night.
Paul: Emma didn’t notice me at first, even though I put myself on the stool right next to her. She was busy watching everyone and I kept having to stop myself from watching her. Even I thought I was being creepy, but there was something hypnotic about her. She looked so out of place and yet it was also as if she belonged exactly where she was.
Emma: He kept opening his mouth as if he was going to say something and then he’d stop himself. He must have done it four or five times before I finally said: ‘You can talk to me, y’know?’
Paul: If she’d not said anything, I’d probably still be giving it my best goldfish routine an hour later.
Emma: I told him my name and asked if he was on a lads’ holiday. There were quite a lot of groups in that hotel, all wearing three-quarter trousers and football shirts.
Paul: I told her I was working.
Emma: I only turned to look at him properly when he told me he was working on the island. It wasn’t what I expected. He said he was part of a small team that was filming a documentary. The moment he said that, the hairs went up on the back of my neck and I think I knew.
Paul: I told her there had been a death on the island nine years before, where a man had fallen off a cliff in suspicious circumstances. I remember she bit her lip for a second and then she asked what the man was called.
Emma: He told me that a businessman named Alan had gone over a cliff and that they were investigating what happened.
Paul: In retrospect, I suppose I should have realised something wasn’t quite right. That’s easy to say now, of course – but there was no reason for me to have suspected who she was.
Emma: I didn’t tell him who I was. Not then.
Paul: Of course I fancied her. But, look, it’s not like I’m one of those blokes who has the confidence to go up and talk to any girl who’s by herself. I’m not someone who swipes right on everyone. I’m probably too old to be swiping in any direction.
It was one of those things. If she’d told me to get lost, or if she’d ignored me completely, then I wouldn’t have said anything. She instigated the conversation. I went with it.
Emma: He was trying to show off.
Paul: I was trying to show off, if I’m honest. I thought it might impress her if I told her that I was working on a big documentary. I might have mentioned Netflix was already on board, even if they, um… well…
Emma: He said there was already a bidding war between Netflix and ITV.
Paul: I was telling her that our team looks at old mysteries, where families or friends think there might be more to an incident than was ever revealed. It was massive at the time, with Making A Murderer, Serial, When They See Us, that OJ thing, and all that. There was this big boom in true crime stories. I thought she’d be impressed, but she didn’t seem bothered. When I later found out who she was, it seems obvious why. She had a true crime story to match any of theirs.
Emma: I let him talk. Men like to hear the sound of their own voices when they’re trying to impress someone. I didn’t mind.
…
Actually, that’s unfair. I don’t think it’s just men.
Paul: I feel so stupid now. I was telling her how this businessman named Alan had slipped off a cliff and hit the rocks below. The local police called it an accident at the time, but Alan’s family were never convinced – especially his son. Alan wasn’t a drinker, so he wasn’t drunk.