Free No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories by Brian Lumley

and a filthy great bottle of retsina—or maybe two filthy great bottles!”
    I cleaned the fish into the toilet, flushed their guts away. Then I washed them, tossed some ice into the sink unit, and put the fish in the ice. I didn’t want them to stiffen up in the fridge, and they’d keep well enough in the sink for a couple of hours.
    “Now you stink of fish,” Julie told me without ceremony. “Your forearms are covered in scales. Take a shower and you’ll feel great. I did.”
    “Are you OK?” I held her with my eyes.
    “Fine now, yes,” she said. “System flushed while you were out—you don’t wish to know that—and now the old tum’s settled down nicely, thank you. It was just the travel, the sun—”
    “The moussaka?”
    “That, too, probably.” She sighed. “I just wish I didn’t love it so!”
    I stripped and stepped into the shower basin, fiddled with the knobs. “What’ll you do while I shower?”
    “Turn ’em both on full,” she instructed. “Hot and cold both. Then the temperature’s just right. Me? I’ll go and sit in the shade by the sea, start a book.”
    “In the taverna?” Maybe there was something in the tone of my voice.
    “Yes. Is that OK?”
    “Fine,” I told her, steeling myself and spinning the taps on. I didn’t want to pass my apprehension on to her. “I’ll see you there— ahh!— shortly.” And after that, for the next ten minutes, it was hissing, stinging jets of water and blinding streams of medicated shampoo…
    Towelling myself dry, I heard the clattering on the roof. Maintenance? Dimitrios and his galvanized bucket? I dressed quickly in lightweight flannels and a shirt, flip-flops on my feet, went out, and locked the door. Other places like this, we’d left the door open. Here I locked it. At the back of the chalet, Dimitrios was coming down his ladder. I came round the corner as he stepped down. If anything, he’d pulled his hat even lower over his eyes, so that his face was just a blot of shadow with two faint smudges of light for eyes. He was lethargic as ever, possibly even more so. We stood looking at each other.
    “Trouble?” I eventually ventured.
    Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. “No troubles,” he said, his voice a gurgle. “I just see all OK.” He put his bucket down, wiped his hands on his trousers.
    “And is it?” I took a step closer. “I mean, is it all OK?”
    He nodded and at last grinned. Briefly a bar of whiteness opened in the shadow of his hat. “Now is OK,” he said. And he picked up his bucket and moved off away from me.
    Surly bastard! I thought. And: What a dump! God, but we’ve slipped up this time, Julie, my love!
    I started toward the taverna, remembered I had no cigarettes with me, and returned to the chalet. Inside, in the cool and shade, I wondered what Dimitrios had been putting in the water tanks. Some chemical solution, maybe? To purify or purge the system? Well, I didn’t want my system purified, not by Dimitrios. I flushed the toilet again. And I left the shower running full blast for all of five minutes before spinning the taps back to the off position. I would have done the same to the sink unit, but my fish were in there, the ice almost completely melted away. And emptying another tray of ice into the sink, I snapped my fingers: Hah! A blow for British eccentricity!
    By the time I got to the taverna, Dimitrios had disappeared, probably inside the house. He’d left his bucket standing on the garden wall. Maybe it was simple curiosity, maybe something else; I don’t know—but I looked into the bucket. Empty. I began to turn away, looked again. No, not empty, but almost. Only a residue remained. At the bottom of the bucket, a thin film of…jelly? That’s what it looked like: grey jelly.
    I began to dip a finger. Hesitated, thought: What the hell! It’s nothing harmful. It couldn’t be, or he wouldn’t be putting it in the water tanks. Would he? I snorted at my mind’s morbid fancies. Surly