Lots of them were naked. You weren’t allowed to swim like that, but you could be naked on the enclosed concrete. No one seemed to care about it, and Matty could see their willies, all shapes and sizes. Some were really small, like little moles poking their heads above the soil. Some men’s were longer and jiggled around more as they walked. They were different colours depending on whether the man had been for a swim or not yet. Different amounts of hair around them, small tufts or spreading down their thighs and up their stomachs.

Today, in the changing area, two men were talking about a baths in London where you could go and have a warm swim. One had an accent like thick hot chocolate, Greek or Turkish or Russian, and the other man would just murmur and hum occasionally.

The low wood of the gate scraped against the concrete, and there was a tiny gap in the men’s conversation, before they carried on.

Matty looked up and froze.

A man was standing in front of an opposite peg, his back turned as he removed his bag. White clothes. The man who looked like Death. White boots, white trousers, and white suit jacket. The arms of his sunglasses were white and sat straight against his head rather than curving around his ear. He turned round, sitting down on the bench, and looked straight at Matty.

***

‘You are such a wazzocky wanker. Fine. I’ll go again.’

It was OK, Nicks being horrible. He didn’t seem to really mean it and was always happy when Matty turned up in the Pond. He was like a whole packet of Fizz-Wizz. Right now, he was climbing back up the ladder to the walkway. He’d already done one backwards roll in the air, smashing down into the water, before clucking repeatedly. But Matty just didn’t feel like it today.

‘Ready?’

Matty trod water a little way from the board, looking around at the swimmers. Dad was never going to be here, not alive, but it was automatic to look. Just to check. ‘Yeah.’

Nicks stood backwards on the diving board, craning round to check that Matty was watching. Flexing his shoulders, rolling his head.

A sudden chill. The Man in White. There he was again, doing breaststroke down the left side of the Pond, his grey-white hair the same colour as the goose down that floated on the surface of the water. He was still wearing his sunglasses. Maybe he had red albino eyes, like lasers. He was an albino and a spy, except you were supposed to not draw attention to yourself if you were a spy, or—