She definitely should not have let that come out of her mouth because if he wasn’t here for ill means that meant he was either a delivery guy or… a guest. He took a step forward and she retreated but then quickly held the bin out. ‘Stay back, I still don’t know who you are and you should keep your distance or… I’ll throw this at you.’
‘Wow, super hospitable and… a bin. That’s some weapon.’
He looked amused. Weird kind of hazel-coloured eyes.
‘No… there’s a… snake in here.’ What the hell was she saying? ‘Poisonous. Could be deadly.’ For the love of God someone shut her mouth for her.
‘What a welcome to Corfu.’ He shook his head.
‘Well, if there was a problem with the gate, why didn’t you press the buzzer?’
This was more like it. The buzzer connected to reception and if reception was unmanned then it connected to Faye’s phone. That wasn’t another thing that was broken too, was it? She could feel the start of panic nibbling at her insides. No, she didn’t panic any more. She managed.
‘I didn’t see a buzzer. Are you OK?’ the man asked her.
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Do you want me to hold the snake?’
The snake? Oh, the stupid wet tea towel. Before she could reply, he had continued.
‘Or take a look at the problem with the gate? It’s been a while since I did any electronics but I could?—’
‘Don’t touch it, please. Last time someone other than the engineer looked at it they ended up in hospital.’
‘You threw the snake at him. Wow. OK.’ He took a step back and held his hands up.
‘OK, I’m just going to ask before I decide if I’m going to call the police or not. What are you doing here?’
He smiled and opened his arms wide. ‘Please, call the police. I can tell them you are trying to kill me with a snake.’
‘No one said anything about killing.’
‘I believe the word you used was “deadly”.’
‘I believe the words I used were “could be”.’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I could be staying here. But given the whole crazy scenario right here I am already considering alternatives.’
She winced. ‘You’re booked to stay here. Are you sure?’ She was 100 per cent certain he wasn’t. Everyone due to come today had arrived.
‘I am sure,’ he said. ‘This is Hotel Margaritári. The sign outside is one thing that does work. You know, it says the right name. But my booking was changed and I was not supposed to arrive until tomorrow. I have the penthouse suite.’
Now Faye’s stomach dropped, and it wasn’t the only thing. The bin fell out of her hands and the wet cloth rolled out onto the ground, revealing its lack of any contents.
‘Theé mou!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have done magic. The snake, it has completely disappeared!’
5
This crazy woman had no idea who he was. This was good. This was really good. Usually Kostas saw the recognition flash in people’s eyes the second they caught sight of him; other times it took a few minutes, but it was always inevitable. Except there was no read from her at all yet. Another thing he also kind of liked was the way she rarely stopped talking. She was making absolutely everything sound interesting on their walk through the grounds of this hotel, heading towards what he hoped would be an air-conditioned suite with a shower he could set to ice cold. She was going to be a mine of information about the area he was planning to completely change.
‘Buggies,’ Faye said, pointing to half a dozen small golf-cart-style vehicles parked in a row. ‘We have them for guests with mobility problems but the penthouse suite also gets exclusive use of one.’
‘Can I drive it into the breakfast room, fill it up withspanakopitaand apple juice and drive it back to my suite?’ he asked.
She stopped walking then, looked at him as if trying to gauge if he was being serious. And he returned the gaze, kept looking, silence elongating, giving him more time to acknowledge her unusual grey eyes. Damn, why was he doing that? He definitely needed to sleep…
‘You would never get it up the steps,’ Faye told him, voice deadpan.
