It was as if someone had stored the foulest fish-bits for centuries and boiled them down to the most rank bouillabaisse ever, then reduced it further into a highly-concentrated essence of decrepit zombie fish hell. And rubbed your face in it.

I backed off a bit. ‘That is just really – God.’

He dropped another in as lightly as a sugar cube into a bone china cup.

‘Do you do this for fun?’

‘For lunch.’

Maybe that’s what he’d been doing with the bird that time. Though running into it with your jeep and pulling it to pieces with your bare hands seemed a bit much. Extreme Chef-ing.

I was never going to forget that smell. That was it. Stuck for life. I absolutely did not want to give him the impression that hurling my guts out was something I did every single day so turned away, putting a palm over my entire face.

‘You can help with something.’ He tilted his head slightly towards me. ‘If you like.’

I collected a couple of large stones by a row of silver-trunked oak trees and pines, before coming back to stand next to him, trying not to breathe or look at the fish-torture porn. He took a stone from me, holding it in his hand as if assessing the ripeness of a melon, and I had a sudden flash of panic. I was in the middle of nowhere with a man I didn’t know. A man who hardly spoke and liked hanging out with dead animals. I’d unwittingly been sourcing the blunt instrument for my own remote lochside murder. That Nick Cave and Kylie song. Well, I still had the other stone. I could just brain the hell out of him. My fingers curled around it.

False alarm. He carefully placed the rock in the net and put his hand out again. Scalpel, nurse. I attempted to look nonchalant as I gave him the second one and he squinted up at me in a way that might have been a thank you.

He stood, checking the netting the same way Lottie would check a cardi for moth holes at the end of summer. The walls of the cage tightened as the rocks and fish-carnage rolled together at the bottom. Giving it a slow swing he sent it into the air, the string feeding quickly through his fingers. It hit the water a few metres out with a light slap and disappeared into the black folds.

‘Cool,’ I said.

He secured the string on a jutting rock and picked up his bucket, striding away. Midges followed him like his own personal raincloud, not that he even seemed to notice.

They were even worse here, horrible fuckers. The anti-bug juice didn’t make them scarper, just not bite. They were headbutting and elbowing each other, desperate for my attention like I was the greatest celebrity they’d ever known. I kept bashing my hands on my arms, or flailing in the air, trying to wave them away.