But the stranger on the beach wasn’t a boy. He was a grown man, with long, dark hair. He wore high boots, like a pirate in a storybook, and a coat that came down to his knees. He flicked the skirts of the coat back and stuck his thumbs through his belt, and Wren saw a gun in a holster at his side.
She knew that she was out of her depth. She wanted to run home and tell Mum and Dad of the danger. But the two men had wandered closer to her, and if she ran, she would be seen. She wriggled deeper into the low gorse bushes behind the beach, timing each movement to coincide with the rasp of the little waves breaking on the shingle.
The man called Gargle was speaking, sounding as if he were making some kind of joke, but Caul suddenly cut him off. “What have you come here for, Gargle? I thought I’d seen the last of Lost Boys. It was a bit of a shock to find your message under my door. How long have you been creeping around Anchorage?”
“Since yesterday,” said Gargle. “We just dropped by to say hello and see how you were doing, friendly-like.”
“Then why not show yourselves? Why not come and talk to me in daylight? Why leave messages and drag me out here in the middle of the night?”
“Honest, Caul, I wanted to. I’d planned to land my limpet on the mooring beach, all open and aboveboard, but I sent a few crab-cams in first, of course, just to be sure. Good thing I did, ain’t it? What’s happened, Caul? I thought you were going to be a big man in this place! Look at you: oily overalls and raggedy hair and a week’s worth of beard. Is the mad tramp look big in Anchorage this season? I thought you were going to marry their margravine, that Freya What’s-her-name.”