“Thinking about swimming?” Adrian asked. He was dressed in his swimsuit that was in his locker. It fit him perfectly – the host had done a great deal of research about them.
Eun looked up at him from where she sat at the edge of the pool. She shrugged. “I’m quite alright thanks.” She looked up suddenly, realizing what she had just done. When she saw Adrian busy putting on his swimming cap seemingly oblivious to her, she relaxed. “I do not feel like swimming now.”
Adrian’s show of obliviousness had worked. He could see Eun visibly relax, the slight pink in her white cheeks slowly fading.
“Alright then. Might want to step back,” he said. He placed the towel on a pool chair a few steps away and dived into the water.
Eun’s accent had slipped during her initial reply. She must have been in deep thought for that to have had happened. She had recovered quickly and fell back to her Korean accent she’d been using for the past three days.
Secrets. Lies.
Nobody here was what they claimed to be. Adrian was sure of that.
So who were they exactly?
Why would they lie about who they were? They had no reason to. He did but not them. Were they criminals? Was the killer condemning them to death for a crime they had committed? But then why bring in Adrian? To give them a chance at salvation? Would they be spared if he managed to save them?
He dived in deeper, touching the base of the swimming pool. He somersaulted in the water and pushed himself against the floor, rising sharply to the surface. He broke the water only to see that Eun was gone. With the earplugs in his ear, he couldn’t hear if anyone was playing pool in the other room or not.
He thought about the novel And Then There Were None by Dame Agatha Christie. In it, nine criminals had been gathered on an island by a murderer and he had killed them one by one over the course of several days.
The murderer at the end had committed suicide for now he was a criminal himself.
Is this what it really was?
Or was it something else?
He was once again at the base. This time, he held his breath and let the water lift him gently to the surface. He lay floating on the rippling surface, moving his legs back and forth to keep him afloat.
Think.
If they were criminals, why were they so calm?
Why?
That had bothered him since the day he had arrived here. Everyone was too calm. For someone under a death sentence, none of them were panicked at all. Three people had already died and they still seemed very calm. It was as if they were sure that they weren’t next on the list.
Adrian stopped moving his legs and held his breath, letting himself sink slowly beneath the surface.
Could that be it?
It must be.
He felt the cold hard surface of the floor touch his back. The light from the ceiling refracted and broke into several rays inside the water. He lay there at the base, holding his breath.
All of them were liars.
All of them.
For a good reason too.
Adrian smiled. That was one a part of the mystery solved. Now, all he needed was to uncover the identity of the host.
His lungs started burning due to lack of oxygen. He pushed himself up into an upright position with his hands. Then, using his legs, he propelled himself towards the surface like he had done a few moments earlier.
He took in big gulps of air as soon as he broke surface. He saw Raj leave the locker room and exit the pool room. He saw how the Indian walked. He noticed the muscles on the brown man. It seemed so obvious now. The mud on their shoes on their first day.
He was ninety-nine percent sure of his deduction.
He swam to the edge of the pool and hauled himself up, water dripping from his body to the floor. He walked to the pool chair where he had placed the towel and wiped himself off. Then he walked to the locker room to change.
Should I confront them? Adrian thought, putting on his pants.
No, he decided. Not yet. He couldn’t risk their lives with his one percent uncertainty. But if he was right, he had only two days to solve this case. That would mean two more deaths.
If Peter were here, he’d surely lecture me on being a cold calculating bastard.
Sorry buddy, he thought. But he had to go through with it. Besides, they weren’t innocent civilians as he had initially assumed. That eased his conscience somewhat. One more death tomorrow would confirm to him his theory of which he was ninety-nine percent sure. After that, by the day after tomorrow, he would have worked out the identity of the murderer.
Then it’d be case closed.
ns 15.158.61.11da2
