Carlos adjusted the thin red sausages on the grill to make room for the king prawns. He glanced sideways at Ted, who was sitting wrapped in a blanket in his own armchair. For a fleeting moment, it crossed his mind how pathetic the usually quarrelsome, angry man looked like this. How easy it would be to shove him into the pool barely twenty centimeters away and watch him flail and bellow toward the steps.
“So what’s going on? How’s the investigation coming along?” he asked. “The police haven’t exactly been swarming around here since the incident. They haven’t questioned anyone.”
Ted adjusted his Coke bottle glasses awkwardly.
“I asked them to drop the investigation. It was an accident…”
Carlos’s mouth fell open. The arm holding the plastic grill tongs went limp and dropped against his thigh.
“What?” he asked slowly.
Ted didn’t answer. He took off his glasses and wiped them on the corner of the blanket.
“Ted, I don’t understand this,” Carlos stammered. “Weren’t there suspicious circumstances?”
“What suspicious circumstances are you talking about?” Ted shot back. “Viktoria tried to help because I asked her to. Then, when she couldn’t anymore, she called an ambulance.”
“They had to break down your door!” Carlos burst out.
“Of course,” Ted shrugged. “It was locked.”
Carlos tossed the tongs onto the small table next to the grill and ran both hands through his hair.
“Don’t mess with me, man,” he said, baffled. “If she called an ambulance, why didn’t she let them in?”
Ted’s eyes flashed.
“Carlos,” he began in his familiar, ominous tone, “once again you’re overreacting and reading something into this that isn’t there.”
He took a deep, pained breath.
“Viktoria waited for them out of habit on the courtyard side. The paramedics tried the street side.”
Carlos stared at him in disbelief.
“Fine!” Ted snapped. “Here’s Viktoria. Talk to her. Ask her yourself!”
Before the elderly Canary Islander could turn around, a soft hand settled on his shoulder.
“I’m here, Carlos,” Viktoria murmured, then glided on toward Ted’s chair. “Aren’t you cold?” she asked gently, addressing the man with the thick glasses.
Ted spread his arms with a grotesque smile.
“At twenty degrees, one shouldn’t be cold—even if one is miserable. Right?”
Viktoria pretended to adjust the blanket, smoothing it over Ted’s knee two or three times.
“I think you’re a hero,” she replied sweetly. “You wanted to recover on your own, without medical help,” she said in a tone that sounded like she was reciting a lesson.
Carlos’s face twisted into a grimace.
*
“This all seems very suspicious to me,” Adrian hissed into Dajana’s ear. “Look at their faces. They’re all grinning like we’re at some bizarre clown show.”
Dajana’s shoulder twitched.
“I don’t give a damn,” she whispered. “All I care about is that Ted’s okay and that that two-faced bitch doesn’t keep locking him in.”
“Hey,” Adrian chuckled. “Weren’t you two getting along so well before?”
“So I thought,” Dajana muttered.
Her eyes tracked Viktoria’s every move, poised to pounce.
*
“Have you noticed how on edge Dajana is?” Noud chuckled. “She’s watching Viktoria like her life depends on it.”
“That’s exactly it…” Bernard said, his mouth twisting.
“You know what else is strange?” Noud asked cheerfully. “Adrian’s behavior hasn’t changed at all.”
Bernard shook his head as he, too, watched the Slovak couple.
“That’s exactly my problem. Why is it only Dajana who’s been shaken by what happened to Ted? Why does Adrian seem completely unaffected?”
“Maybe he’s just a better actor.”
“Even at home, behind closed doors?” Bernard snapped.
“Shh,” Noud waved him off. “Let’s go and test Ted instead.” He smiled. “I’ll see it in his eyes if he looks at you like that…”