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on-the idea of forking out money for two weeks in self-catering accommodations somewhere hot. We're supposed to be saving up the deposit for a mortgage, after all.

    "How about Crete?" she asks from the kitchen table, drawing a careful red circle around three column-inches of newsprint.

    "Won't you burn?" (Mo's got classic redhead skin and freckles.) "We in the developed world have this advanced technology called sunblock. You may have heard of it." Mo glares at me.

    "You're not paying attention, are you"

    I sigh and put the book down. Damn it, why now? Just as I'm getting to Tanenbaum's masterful and witty takedown of the OSI protocol stack ... "Guilty as charged."

    "Why not?" She leans forwards, arms crossed, staring at me intently.

    "Good book," I admit.

    "Oh. Well that makes it all right," she snorts. "You can always take it to the beach, but you'll be kicking yourself if we wait too long and the cheap packages are all over-booked and we're left with choosing between the dregs of the Club 18-30 stuff, or paying through the nose, or one of us gets sent on detached duty again because we didn't notify HR of our vacation plans in time. Right"
    "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just not that enthusiastic right now."

    "Yes, well, I just paid my Christmas credit card bill, too, love. Face it, by May we're both going to be needing a vacation, and they'll be twice as expensive if you leave booking it too late."

    I look Mo in the eyes and realize she's got me metaphorically surrounded. She's older than I am — at least, a couple of years older — and more responsible, and as for what she sees in me ... well. If there's one disadvantage to living with her it's that she's got a tendency to organize me. "But.

    Crete"

    "Crete, Island of. Home of the high Minoan civilization, probably collapsed due to rapid climactic change or the explosion of the volcano on Thera — Santorini — depending who you read. Loads of glorious frescos and palace ruins, wonderful beaches, and moussaka to die for. Grilled octopus, too: I know all about your thing for eating food with tentacles.

    If we aim for late May we'll beat the sunbathing masses.

    I was thinking we should book some side tours — I'm reading up on the archaeology — and a self-catering apartment, where we can chill for two weeks, soak up some sun before the temperature goes into the high thirties and everything bakes ...

    How does that sound to you? I can practice the fiddle while you burn."

    "It sounds — " I stop. "Hang on. What's the archaeology thing about"

    "Judith's had me reading up on the history of the littoral civilizations lately," she says. "I thought it'd be nice to take a look." Judith is deputy head of aquatic affairs at work. She spends about half her time out at the Laundry training facility in Dunwich and the other half up at Loch Ness.

    "Ah." I hunt around for a scrap of kitchen roll to use as a bookmark. "So this is work, really."

    "No, it's not!" Mo closes the newspaper section then picks it up and begins to shake the pages into order. She won't stop until she's got them perfectly aligned and smooth enough to sell all over again: it's one of her nervous tics. "I'm just curious.

    I've been reading so much about the Minoans and the precedent case law behind the human/Deep One treaties that it just caught my interest. Besides which, I last went on holiday to Greece about twenty years ago, on a school trip. It's about time to go back there, and I thought it'd be a nice place to relax. Sun, sex, and squid, with a side order of archaeology."

    I know when I'm defeated, but I'm not completely stupid: it's time to change the subject. "What's Judith got you working on, anyway?" I ask. "I didn't think she had any call for your approach to, well ... whatever." (It's best not to mention specifics: the house we share is subsidized accommodation, provided by the Laundry for employees like us — otherwise there's no way we could honestly afford to live in Central London