“Swim out really far and pretend to get cramp, making the lifeguard swim out further than he can manage and become exhausted. Drown the lifeguard.”

“Yes, something like that. I assumed he was waiting for a day when the sea was rough. Then when Ramiro had exhausted himself, swimming out, Kloster would duck him under and drown him. If they were far out enough, at that time of day no one would see.”

“Perhaps only you, with the binoculars.”

“That’s what I found most chilling: he wanted to kill Ramiro in front of me. And afterwards it would be his word against mine. It seemed so incredible, so unreal, I couldn’t tell anyone. At that very moment there were people nearby on sun loungers reading Kloster’s latest novel. And while I was imagining all this Kloster was inside, at the bar, quietly having coffee and reading the paper, apparently not even aware of us. A little later he went for a swim, going out as far as the day before. Then he left, without even glancing in our direction.”

“And then?”

“Then…There were two or three more mornings that went the same. Kloster would sit at the bar and read the paper. He only passed by us when he went for a swim. When he was in the sea I was trembling inside and I had to keep watching him until he came back and left. I realised that he was going out a little further each time. I think Ramiro had noticed too, and, as if it were some sort of competition-macho nonsense-he tried to swim just as far. Then we had the row about the cup of coffee.”

“The cup of coffee?”

“Yes. I asked again if we could switch to a different bar. Another one had opened, nearer his post. That left him no excuse. He got annoyed and asked why we should move when it didn’t look as if Kloster had any intention of bothering us. Or had something else happened between him and me? I knew he was only pretending to be jealous-he just didn’t want to have to stop ogling the waitress’s tits. I said I was fed up with the little tart bringing me my coffee cold. It was true: she seemed to do it deliberately. He hadn’t even noticed because he quite liked his coffee lukewarm. We started arguing and he told me not to bother having breakfast with him any more if I was just doing it to keep an eye on him. He said I could go and find another bar myself and leave him alone. I went home in tears. My mother and Valentina were about to go out mushroom gathering so I went with them. It was my parents’ anniversary the next day and my mother always made a mushroom pie, which only she and my father liked. Actually, I don’t think Daddy really did, but he’d never dared tell her because it was the first thing she’d ever cooked for him and she was very proud of her recipe. We always went to the same place to pick the mushrooms, a little wood behind the house where very few people ever went. My mother considered it to be almost an extension of our garden.

“When Valentina was out of earshot I told my mother about the row. She was surprised and a little alarmed to hear that Kloster was there. She asked why I hadn’t told her about it immediately. She wanted to know if he’d tried to talk to me and I said that since he’d seen me he’d had his coffee inside the bar and had never come near me. This seemed to reassure her. I almost told her what I was really afraid of, but my mother thought I’d become a little obsessed with the death of Kloster’s daughter. At the time she even suggested I see a therapist. I couldn’t see how to tell her that I thought Kloster was planning a murder without its sounding crazy. I ended up telling her about the waitress and my row with Ramiro. She laughed and said I should go back the next day and have breakfast with him as if nothing had happened and it would all work out. My mother was terribly fond of Ramiro and she couldn’t believe the quarrel was serious.”

“And you listened to her?”

“Yes, unfortunately, I did. When I arrived Ramiro had already got his food; he hadn’t even waited for me. Kloster was already there, in his usual place, at the bar. It was a cool, blowy morning and the sea was rough. The water was murky, with a big swell and spray flying in the wind. I ordered coffee with milk and when the girl finally deigned to bring it to me it was, of course, cold, but I didn’t say anything. Actually, neither of us said much. The silence was horribly tense. When Ramiro finished his coffee he took off his tracksuit to go for a swim. I asked if it wasn’t dangerous with the sea so rough. He said he’d rather go in the water than stay there with me. And then he said something even more hurtful that still makes me cry when I think of it. I watched him dive into the first big breaker and emerge on the other side. He had to swim through quite a few big waves until he got beyond the end of the breakwater, where it was a bit calmer. But he still seemed to be having trouble. Because the sea was so rough I’d lose sight of him every so often, but he’d reappear, a tiny dot in the waves. At one stage I couldn’t see him at all and when his head reappeared it looked as if he was waving to me desperately. I was frightened and I grabbed his binoculars, and when I spotted him again he was going under. I jumped up, terrified. The beach was empty and immediately I thought of Kloster. Not caring about anything, I ran inside the bar to beg him for help. But when I opened the door I saw that Kloster was no longer there. Can you believe it? He was the only one who could have saved him, but when I went into the bar he’d left. He’d left!”

“So what did you do?”

“I ran to the next breakwater to get the lifeguards, and the owner of the bar called the lifeboat. It took them almost an hour to retrieve the body. By the time the boat got back to shore a crowd had gathered, as if to witness the landing of a huge fish. Children were shouting with excitement and running to tell their parents: “A drowned man! A drowned man!” The lifeguards had laid a blanket over him but his hands were uncovered. They were blue, with a tracery of white veins. They carried him on a stretcher to the promenade where an ambulance was waiting. A woman police officer came over and asked me for his parents’ phone number. It all seemed like a bad dream. My legs gave way. Then, as if from somewhere very far away, I heard people shouting at me and felt them patting my face. I opened my eyes for a moment and saw a crowd of strangers around me and the face of the policewoman peering at me. I wanted to grab her arm and scream, “Kloster! Kloster!” but I fainted again.

“When I came to I was in hospital. I’d been given a tranquilliser and had been out for twenty-four hours. My mother told me it was all over. A routine postmortem had shown asphyxia by immersion, probably caused by hypothermia and cramp-the water that day had been very cold. Ramiro’s parents had arrived from Buenos Aires and returned immediately with the body so as to hold the wake there. Then I told my mother about what had happened that morning, as I remembered it: my despair when I saw Ramiro go under and how I’d run to get Kloster and found that he wasn’t in the bar. The only day he’d left early, without going for a swim. My mother didn’t find this odd: it had been obvious that the sea was dangerous that morning. The hazard flag had been up on all the beaches since first light and probably Kloster had decided, quite rightly, to go home and leave his swim for another day. When I insisted that I found it suspicious, my mother looked worried. “It was an accident,” she said. “God’s will.” I think she was afraid I was going to start obsessing about Kloster again. She refused to discuss it any more, at least not till I was out of hospital.”

“You think Kloster saw that your boyfriend was drowning and went home, leaving him to die?”

“No. From where he was sitting he could hardly see the sea. It wasn’t that. Or at least it wasn’t just that. I didn’t know exactly how but he’d achieved what he’d set out to do: to have Ramiro die before my eyes.”