‘Oh, sure thing, Carlos . . . Sorry. I was pondering pretty English ladies come to visit. But sure – hell yes, send your kids over. I have somewhere to be later in the evening, but not until way later.’

‘Excellent. I shall send them with a bottle of beer, and my thanks. And some dinner, of course. More fish – if you have the appetite for it?’

‘That’d be fine, Carlos. I’ll look forward it, and congrats on your news. That’s excellent, buddy. But if you don’t mind me dining and dashing, I’d best get back to my berth. I’d like to make a few calls, find out who this pretty lady was. There are not so many pretty ladies in my life that I can afford to let them get away these days.’

The other man nodded. ‘Of course, we will talk later. Perhaps I might have something more to offer than beer and fish after tonight.’

Carlos waved him away. Juanita smiled, a little bashfully, then busied herself with preparing the next piece of fish for the grill. They seemed to have a cooler brimming with fillets.

The Rhino folded the rest of the sandwich into his mouth as he walked down the end of the row to his boat. The pretty English lady was almost certainly Miss Julianne, although her calling on him could not be good news. They’d agreed after escaping the States and Henry Cesky’s vengeful reach that it would be better if they parted ways. The last he’d seen of her, she’d been walking away from him, up George Street in Sydney. They hadn’t parted on bad terms, despite the epic fuck-up in New York, but if Cesky had men looking for them, Jules and he were much more likely to stand out travelling in a pair than they were on their own.

He frowned murderously whenever he thought of Cesky. The man’s power seemed to grow every day. His wealth was approaching the levels of Boeing and Microsoft, two lucky corporate survivors of the Disappearance by reason of their being headquartered just outside the fall of the Wave, and having products that were still in demand. Starbucks too, unfortunately, thought Rhino. It was a sign of how far the pre-Wave corporations had fallen and how fast Cesky’s rise had been.

Why here? Rhino pondered that one. He couldn’t imagine why Julianne would be in Darwin, or how she’d even found him. That alone was reason to worry.