...They looked inside at a beautiful little shrine, bedecked with fresh flowers. And not a hint of graffiti.

“I can’t imagine anything like this in Britain,” Simon mused.

“There’s stuff like this all over the place around here. S’pose it’s because it’s a Catholic country. It’s kind of nice.” Matt broke into a sudden grin. “But I didn’t stop here just for that. Fancy a swim?”

“Here?” Simon looked around.

“Yeah, there’s a landing stage down there, but no one ever seems to moor up at it. You sometimes see divers setting off from there. It’s a good way of getting into the water—the stones are hell on bare feet if you just walk out from the beach.”

“Um, I haven’t brought a towel…”

“You don’t need one! You’ll dry off in minutes in this heat.”

It was undoubtedly true—Simon’s shirt was already starting to stick to him. “Well…”

“Come on!” Matt was already climbing the wooden fence bordering the path.

Feeling very daring, Simon followed him down a grassy slope to a wooden jetty that stuck out into the water like a very short pier.

“I like it around this side of the lake,” Matt said as they reached the quay. “It’s quieter—less chance of seeing anyone from the hotel. They all tend to go the other way, around the lake to Fürberg.”

“Oh? What’s at Fürberg?”

“Remember that bay we passed yesterday, where there was a hotel with loads of tables outside? That’s Fürberg.”

Simon remembered it had looked rather inviting in its picturesque setting amongst the trees, the only building in sight. Still, this place was lovely, too—and its relative privacy was a definite advantage.

Matt, of course, was stripping off his shirt as he went, baring that enviably tanned torso. Simon, on the other hand, possessed the almost luminous pallor of the office worker and the traditional Englishman’s deep-seated aversion to revealing any more of himself than absolutely necessary. Said aversion seemed to have passed Matt by. When Simon looked around, he saw Matt unselfconsciously stepping out of his denim cut-offs to reveal skin-tight bathing shorts.

His mouth going a little dry, Simon peeled off his outer layers with reluctance, folding them into a neat pile and placing his glasses on top. Matt threw him a grin and then dived smoothly into the lake, making Simon wonder just how deep the water was here. Gingerly, he lowered himself into its icy depths. “Good God, that’s cold!”

Matt had surfaced and laughed at him. “You’ll get used to it. Watch out for the fish, though!”

“Fish?” Simon looked down nervously, but the lake water wasn’t clear enough to make out anything about to nibble at his toes or, indeed, any other parts of his anatomy. Although some parts were probably quite safe, having retreated inside his body at the shock of the Arctic water.

“Yeah, they like to hang about the landing stage…don’t know why. Feels a bit weird when they rub up against your ankles.”

Shivering, Simon decided to swim out a little from the jetty. The exercise would warm him up. He was relieved to discover a pocket of warmer water and basked there a moment.

Matt didn’t follow. “Not scared of a few fish, are you?” he teased, a sun-kissed blur in Simon’s uncorrected vision. “They won’t hurt you, you know.” He swam along the shadowy edge of the dock toward the bank.

Simon joined him. “Are you sure they won’t bite—ah!” He started as something cold and slippery brushed intimately against his thigh. “Where are they? I can’t even see them. Good Lord, there are hundreds of them!” His eyes, good enough at such short distances, had at last adjusted to the shadow, and he stared in amazement at what must be a fisherman’s wet dream. His initial estimate of their number might have been an exaggeration, but not by much. The fish, which ranged in size from about six inches to over a foot long, seemed oblivious to his presence. Simon jumped as he felt something rather warmer brush up against him.

It was Matt.