I was wondering what I’d done to piss him off – or maybe he was just bored of me now – when he stopped a few rocks over, bent down and made a movement with his arm like he was dealing cards, looking intently at the loch. Maybe he’d spotted a white patch. The water began to move, and for a second it looked heart-stoppingly like a mass of hair, rising, before another, smaller cage came slowly out, slanted and low in the water, as if resisting him.

I went over. No dead fish heads this time. A dark tangle of things had gathered in the corner, making clicking noises. Crabs the size of blinis shifting over each other. A shiny fish, flopping alarmingly, and something bigger on top. He picked up the empty bucket and lay down on his stomach, leaning out over the water. His shirt rode up as he stretched one long arm. A flash of paleish skin. The bucket came back up, water smacking gently against the plastic.

He shoved his arm into a circular gap in the netting and pulled the biggest thing out. It had long protruding bits. Which moved. ‘Hold this for me.’

‘Oh – what? No, it’s OK. Thanks.’

He gave me a look that I couldn’t quite suss out. ‘Got to get that fish out.’

‘What is it?’

‘Squat lobster.’

‘Doesn’t look like one.’ I couldn’t see it tapping mournfully on the inside of a glass tank in a Chinese restaurant, or sitting on top of Dalí’s telephone.

‘You get more of them than the usual type here. He’s quite a big one, mind.’ He thrust it a bit nearer.

‘Oh, crap.’ I took it gingerly by the hard shell on the top, keeping it as far away from my body as possible.

Everything in me wanted to scream and fling it in his face. It was an oversized mutant prawn spliced with Edward Scissorhands. An armoured, candy-orange tail, three bent stubbly legs on each side and, in front, two really long legs – or arms, or killer pincers – covered in spikes.

It wiggled.

‘Fuck.’ I swivelled my wrist to look it in the eyes, which were like swimming goggles with furious, golden-glowing orbs in them. ‘Hello, little man.’ Its blood-red feelers waved slowly in the air at me, probably saying Yo. Put me back in the water or I’ll cut you, bitch. ‘You are really, really minging.’

The birdman popped a flapping, silver-grey fish into the bucket. ‘Don’t like shellfish?’

‘Yeah, I like shellfish,’ I said to my alien-critter. ‘When they’re covered with lemon or in a pie or something. I mean, he is just—’ I suddenly wondered why he hadn’t put him in the bucket first, before he’d gone for the fish. ‘Please take him off me.’ I had used up all of my nerve.

There was a faint light in his eyes as he took it back, chucking it into the bucket. I could hear it scraping feebly against the side.