‘Oh, really? By threatening me with illegally obtained footage, saying you’ll end my career and bring my husband into this unless I sell my land to you? You’ve got some fucking nerve.’
‘You should be careful. You don’t want to end up like your mother, do you?’ Maxime laughs and I want to kill him with my bare hands for making light of my mother’s death.
‘Are you actually threatening me?’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Your problem, Madame Vinge, is that you and your life both look shiny and perfect on the outside but none of that matters when it’s built on lies.’
‘Lies?’
‘Indeed. I looked at your Instagram, as one does. Impressive number of sheep who feel the need to follow you and your endless low-carb reels, but I was mostly interested in your cute description of yourself. Happily married Keto Queen. What a fucking joke. As far as I know, happily married suburban mums don’t feel the need to engage in threesomes with their girl friends and guys young enough to be their sons. As for Keto Queen, I mean, what is that even? Or is it Viking Keto these days? Maybe Streamstar will be impressed by your adult movie skills, too.’ He laughs.
‘Fuck you,’ I say, but Maxime just laughs more, and louder. Then he turns around and continues onto the path that leads to the finca. Bianka and I follow behind him but have to break into a run to keep up. He turns back briefly and chuckles at the sight of us, only a couple of steps away from the finca’s front door. Then he wrenches it open and disappears inside.
‘No,’ I scream, lurching after him.
Twenty-Three
Bianka
30 minutes later
‘Thank God you’ve come to,’ says Bianka. ‘I’ve been so worried.’
‘I…’ The look in Charlotte’s eyes is wild, desperate, and miles away, as though she isn’t really here in her mother’s finca in Ibiza with a dead body, the murder weapon ice cold and terrifying in the palm of her hand. She must realize what she is holding and where it has been, deep in the jugular vein of the man on the floor, and she drops it so it rolls noisily on the crude stone slabs, its silvery length glinting sharply in the meagre light streaming in. ‘I… no…’
‘Yes,’ says Bianka. ‘Do you remember what happened?’ Charlotte shakes her head forcefully, sending more tears scattering.
‘Anything?’
‘No,’ whispers Charlotte.
‘I have an idea,’ whispers Bianka urgently, shooting nervous glances at the door. ‘We’re going to fix this. But you have to listen to me. And do what I say. Okay?’ Charlotte looks from the dead man to Bianka and back again, too shocked to speak. She nods.
Bianka reaches across to cup Charlotte’s face in her hand and strokes it gently. Then she gets up and pulls her to her feet.
The Charlotte Bianka knows has disappeared, or at least receded into herself, leaving behind this shell-shocked, trembling woman with a deep frown and scratchy, whispered voice.
‘I don’t think I—’ she says, stopping herself and releasing a little gasp as they stand over the dead man lying on his back. He has a gaping, deep slash on his neck. Charlotte has been unconscious for quite a while, probably around fifteen minutes, after striking the side of her head as she fell after Maxime lunged at her. Bianka grew increasingly hysterical as Charlotte remained unresponsive and Max charged around the finca trying to stop the bleeding, crashing into furniture and Ximena’s many trinkets which still sit in their places on wooden shelves. Then he slumped to the ground on his knees, muttering and crying, and Bianka remained over by the door, holding unconscious Charlotte in her arms as he began pleading with her.
‘Please,’ he’d said. ‘Call a doctor. Please. I’m not a bad guy. I don’t want to die here, please…’ He grappled with his phone, but dropped it and was in no state to recover it.
Bianka didn’t move. She didn’t for a moment entertain the idea of calling for help. She could tell from the state of him that his wound would be imminently fatal – the amount of blood he was losing was beyond anything she could have imagined. He wasn’t even able to complete the sentence before he slumped forward and began convulsing. The cramps went on for a long time and Bianka tried to focus on helping Charlotte come to rather than on the rhythmic thumping of Max’s shoe on the wooden floor during his final moments. Then, finally, he went quiet.
‘I don’t think I did this,’ Charlotte whispers. ‘It’s… It’s not possible.’
‘You had no choice,’ says Bianka, sending Charlotte a gentle look intending to convey her full empathy.
‘It’s him,’ says Charlotte. ‘Max. From the other night.’
‘Yes. Do you really not remember?’
Charlotte closes her eyes, winces a little, and shakes her head as if dispelling rather than evoking a memory. Bianka watches her carefully; she’s good at reading people and uncovering whether they are telling the truth. Charlotte is lucky if she really can’t remember what happened to Maxime, unlike Bianka herself. She can feel the little hairs at the back of her neck stand up at the horror of it, the moment the hairpin was plunged full force into Maxime’s neck.
‘What is the last thing you remember?’
‘Uh. It was evening. We went to dinner. Me and you down by the beach. We swam in the moonlight.’
‘Nothing since then?’
‘No. Oh wait. Yes. This morning, we all had breakfast together. After, I sat in that little wicker chair in the garden answering emails because reception is better down there. You came and found me. Then we went down to the beach.’
‘Yes. Then what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That guy, Max, came here. You saw him approach on the path, I think. The others had already gone up to the house.’
‘Oh.’
‘Can you remember the conversation?’
‘No.’
‘None of it?’
‘No.’
‘He threatened you. He said that he was going to make you sell the property or else he’d publish footage from the other night. That night. You… You do remember the other night, right?’
