“So, why haven’t you reported back?” Lady Kraken says. “Something is stirring in this town, plots are thickening, threads are coming together, and I am just a frail old lady with a cameraluna. I need you to help me, Herbert Lemon. I need you to help me before it’s too late and someone else gets the egg!”

“What?” I say, blinking. “You want the egg too?”

I wasn’t expecting this.

“I bet they are in it together,” says Lady K, ignoring my question. “Dr Thalassi and the girl. Working hand in glove, no doubt. A great conspiracy of scheming and plot, to take what’s rightfully mine.”

“The egg is rightfully yours?” I say. I’m still blinking.

“Have you cloth for brains, boy?” Lady Kraken croaks. “Haven’t you worked it out yet? Of course it’s rightfully mine. It destroyed my grandfather, then destroyed my whole family as we fought to end the curse and put things right. It has taken everyone I loved: dear father, my brothers, my sister even, when she too tried her hand at claiming the monster’s egg.”

She pauses for a gasp of breath. Then continues, “But if Grandfather has returned, then there is hope again. Maybe, finally, we can regain the malamander egg and I can use its power to wish my family back to life! That egg is rightfully mine. No one has paid a higher price for it than I. And with its power I could end my grandfather’s curse and set the Kraken family free.”

“Your grandfather?” I say, light slowly dawning in my poor rattled brainbox. “You mean…?” I gulp. “You mean the Boathook Man is your grandfather?”

“Captain Kraken is my grandfather.” The old lady narrows her eyes at me. “This, this Boathook Man, as you call him, is merely the wisp that remains on earth, growing thinner every year, destined never to die because he lost the egg. But with the power of the malamander egg, I could make him a real man once again. He can be set free!”

“But,” I can’t help saying aloud, looking at the wizened old woman in her antique electric wheelchair, “how are you going to get the egg?”

Lady Kraken grins her turtle grin. “I’m not, Mr Lemon. You are going to get it for me.”

A KRAKEN’S-EYE VIEW

“FIRST,” SAYS LADY KRAKEN as I sit down heavily in an armchair, “you are going to tell me exactly what Dr Thalassi and the girl are up to.”

With a swipe of her hand, the old lady flips a switch on her control box. The French windows swing closed behind her, bringing in a last flurry of snow.

“But, Your Ladyness, you’ve got it wrong,” I say. “The doc and Violet aren’t working together at all.”

“Violet?” says Lady Kraken.