Klaus was trying to reason with Ester, but this was like trying to reason with a hurricane. She was heaving herself up and out of the baths, and once she was out she stamped and screamed, and screamed and stamped, pointing to the door. Trying to make Klaus leave.

Klaus sank deeper into the bubbles and mist, looking almost sulky.

Ester was attracting attention. A worried lifeguard tried to plead with her to calm down, but she snapped at him so viciously that he whimpered and hurried back inside, skidding on the wet floor as he ran. He returned a minute later looking smug and much less whimpery, with a large man in black behind him: security. When Klaus saw this, his sulky expression hardened into something more menacing, and he heaved his body out of the bubbles to go and stand by Ester.

As his shoulders rose out of the mist, Max noticed a tattoo: a line of arrowheads, black then red, then black then red, snaking angrily across his left shoulder. It wasn’t a pretty tattoo. Somehow, it made her feel uneasy. She sank back deeper into the comforting bubbles.

The security man was large, but Klaus was larger. A lot larger.

If Klaus alarmed the security man, he didn’t let it show. He said lots of calm and sensible Hungarian, with lots of calm and sensible nodding of his head. Ester blared over him in German. He raised his voice. Ester blared over him some more. He went to put a heavy hand on Ester’s shoulder.

Quick as lightning, Klaus’s hand was on his wrist, restraining him. The security man opened his mouth to object. Then he saw what the twist of Klaus’s arm had revealed: the tattoo on his shoulder.

He turned very pale. He apologized and lowered his arm. He murmured some more soft apologies, shuffling his feet. And, just like that, he left.

Max wallowed about uncertainly in the water. What did that mean? Was it something to do with the tattoo? If not, what else could have changed his mind?

That was the end of the argument, and the end of Max’s blissful time in the bubbles, because Ester and Klaus stamped off together to the changing rooms. Max sighed, and decided to allow herself three more somersaults before she got out. She could change faster than them anyway. All right, five more somersaults.

Maybe six.

Twelve somersaults later she pushed herself out into the cold air, found her locker, changed hastily, and hurried to wait outside the front doors, tucked out of sight behind a tree. She waited. She waited. She shivered as the cold air clung about her wet hair. She waited.

She did some more waiting, while she wondered about who Klaus Grob really was, and why the security guard had been so afraid of him.