Eleanor ignored me. She slipped the bottle into the pocket of her kaftan and climbed the stairs. A few moments later came the sound of her bedroom door closing.

Outside Edie was lying on one of the sun loungers. She had put on some round mirrored sunglasses which reflected the sky, and her face was serene and untroubled. As I was about to sit down I noticed a daisy which was growing between two paving stones. I bent to pick it. It was perfect, the petals evenly spread, white and tinged with pink, the centre a brilliant yellow. I dropped it carefully into the breast pocket of my shirt, then lay down on the lounger beside her and closed my eyes. The sun flickered orange on the backs of my eyelids and my head swam in a champagne haze.

‘So here’s a question,’ she said then.

I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at her.

‘If you had to – if your actual life depended on it – do you think you could kill someone?’

‘In real life?’

She nodded.

‘And if I didn’t, I’d die?’

She smiled. ‘Yes. You’d die horribly.’

As I thought about her question, about whether I could kill someone, I imagined reaching over and putting my hands around her neck, imagined squeezing harder and harder until her face turned blue and her eyes bulged from their sockets. I pictured the look of horror on her face as she realised she was going to die and heard the sound of her mirrored sunglasses smashing on the paving stones.

I pushed the image away.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ I paused. ‘Could you?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, if I had to. If it was her or me. In that situation you have no choice, do you?’

‘Her?’

‘Or him,’ she said with disinterest. ‘Whoever.’

I closed my eyes and drifted away whilst listening to the lulling noises around me, the rhythmic waves below us, the gulls, and the sound of Edie’s easy breathing…

Eleanor Davenport came out of the house. Her kaftan billowed out behind her. As she approached the pool she peeled it off and dropped it on the floor. Underneath she wore nothing. I tried not to look at the dark triangle of hair between her legs or her breasts with their nipples standing proud. She walked down the steps like a queen. Her skin turned a pale, yellowy-green in the light which bounced off the pool walls. She appeared dead. Bled dry. Then as she swam the atmosphere darkened. Something was watching her. I glanced up to see the raven back on the guttering. Its shining eyes fixed on the figure in the water. My heart raced. It was then I knew something bad was hiding beneath the surface of the pool. The hairs on the back of my neck sprang upright. My skin prickled. I should warn her but I couldn’t move or speak. As I watched, helpless, whatever malevolent thing that lurked grabbed hold of her. Her face twisted in panic as it tried to drag her downwards. Her hands clawed the air as she fought to stay above the surface. But her struggling was in vain. She was pulled downwards. And as the water closed over her head, her fingers grasped at nothing…