Natalie was at the scanner.  You put the photo on the glass, you pressed the button, you saved the file, and then you moved onto the next one.  Mindless, repetitive work.  Which meant that her brain decided to occupy itself by listening to Mama Lambton on the phone in the next room.

“No, she asked me for the facts, and I gave her them.  I’m sorry if she doesn’t like it, but I can’t help that.”  There was a pause while the other person spoke.  “No, I’m sorry, but if I’m going to be donating the money, I want a say in what it’s spent on.”

Natalie wasn’t even trying to listen in.  Mama Lambton’s voice was just that loud.

“Let her use it as an incentive.  If she…  No.  No, I’ve said my piece.  That’s all there is to it.”  There was another pause, presumably the person on the other end trying to get a word in edgeways, and then the sound of the phone being put down.  Not slammed down, because Mama Lambton thought she was far too classy for that, but the sentiment was probably the same.

Natalie heard Mama Lambton’s footsteps in the hall, and turned just in time to see her in the doorway.  Natalie was kneeling on the floor to work the scanner, so Mama Lambton could literally look down her nose at her.  She probably didn’t get the chance to do that as often as she’d have liked, so she was making the most of the opportunity.

“I can’t help but notice that you’ve been singularly incurious,” she said, after thirty seconds or so of glaring.

Natalie frowned.  “I’m… sorry about that?”

“Look at this!”  She slapped the pile of photos on the sideboard, the ones still waiting to be scanned in.  “Any other girl would be delighted to learn about this time in history.  The people.  The atmosphere.  But you just sit there looking bored.  Are you really so dull?”

Natalie wasn’t sure what she was expected to be interested in- as far as she could tell, Mama Lambton had just given parties for a bunch of theatre hangers-on- but, for the sake of not making things awkward for Isaac, Alex and Jonathan, she stuck to her previous line.  “I’m sorry about that.”

“Sheer ingratitude,” Mrs Lambton spat, “I wanted to encourage you to use your mind.  Now, I’m beginning to wonder if you even have one.”

She was being surprisingly vitriolic.  That person she’d been talking to on the phone must have really pissed her off.

Mama Lambton stared at Natalie for another few seconds, waiting for her to answer back or burst into tears or something.  When Natalie did neither, she let out a huff of disgust and walked out of the room  Natalie was suddenly sure that Mama Lambton had wanted to dramatically scream at her to get out of her sight, but was too worried that she actually would.  And then she’d have nobody to scan in her stupid photos.

Natalie went back to working the scanner.  Speaking of photos, she hadn’t seen many of Jonathan or his sister around the house.  She wondered what their childhood had been like, with Mama Lambton around.  Some things just didn’t bear thinking about.

*

Judith had made them an annotated map.  She’d drawn a big spiral centring on Merstham Station, and that was going to be their path.  “I drew it a little bigger than it needed to be, just in case,” she’d explained on the train, “But I’m generally taking Kim Peacock at her word.”

They were at the top of a hill.  The sun was bright, gradually making its way to the centre of the sky, and the little row of houses in the distance looked like wooden toys.

Judith nudged him in the side.  “Not a word to Rosalyn until we actually find something, right?”

“Right,” said Isaac.  Now that they were out here, he wondered how likely that really was.  They’d probably have to comb through every inch of the countryside to get anything even resembling what they were looking for.  But if there was a chance…

He and Judith walked down the hill towards the fields and hedges at the bottom.  The whole area reminded Isaac of a kids’ picture book.  He kept expecting to see the Brambly Hedge mice running by.  He’d probably lose that feeling when they ran into actual people (most likely farmers or posh twats who didn’t want any scruffy students wandering round their land), but it was a nice thought, anyway.

The first field they passed had a couple of black and white horses, who glanced their way momentarily before turning back to their oats.  Judith smiled at them, as if they’d brightened up her day just by being there.

Isaac took a wild guess.  “Have you ridden horses before?”  (She had that vibe.  It was the accent, mainly.)

“Yes.  Not for a while, though.  There was a riding school near where my aunt and uncle lived, but it got harder to find time for it once I started secondary school.”  She put her hands in her coat pockets.  “Have you?”

“No- my parents got me to play football instead.”  He grinned.  “Then later on, I was too busy going out and creating havoc.”

Judith smiled back.  “Sometimes we need a little havoc.”

They rounded a corner and ended up in a kind of miniature wood.  A grove?  A spruce?  There was probably some kind of specialised countryside term for it that no-one had ever bothered to teach him.  “Judith?”

“Yes?”  She had an inviting smile, like a primary school teacher who never lost her temper.

“How come you’ve been so helpful?  With the Kelpie and Silkie thing?”

Judith thought about it for a moment.  “Well, at first it was just because I was excited to show you the graffiti.  There’s something thrilling about being the one to let new people in on a secret.  But when I saw how Rosalyn reacted to it…”

“I know what you mean,” said Isaac.  Rosalyn had always denied it, but he’d swear that there had been actual tears in her eyes.

“When I saw how gobsmacked she was- and how happy you were for her, of course- I couldn’t not have tried to help out.”  She smiled again, a little more dreamily this time.  “It’s rare to see somebody struck with a sudden passion like that.  It’s infectious.  You just want to be around them.”

“Right,” said Isaac.  He’d suspected it before, but now he was almost certain- Judith had a crush on Rosalyn.

And now he had to figure out how he felt about that.  Was he jealous?  A little bit, maybe… but, if he was honest with himself, Isaac had to admit that he’d happily sleep with any of his female flatmates.  Even Alex would probably just have to get him drunk and ask nicely.  In a situation like that, jealousy seemed kind of ridiculous- he couldn’t very well keep all of them to himself.

Besides, on a day like this, picking fights over who fancied who seemed…. Shallow.  Beneath them.  The point of today was to find the original Kelpie and Silkie message.  They’d walk through the countryside, not resting until they were done, and they’d clear Kelpie and Silkie’s name and make Rosalyn happy.  Just making her happy, even if it turned out she wasn’t into either of them, would make today something to look back on with pride.

Judith looked at the map.  “Better go that way,” she said, pointing to the right.

Isaac smiled.  “Off we go.”

*

In her follow-up emails, SciFiChick had suggested meeting at the Starbucks on the High Street.  It wasn’t until they were nearly there that Mariam thought to text Rosalyn and ask if she wanted to come and meet them after her lecture.  The other two weren’t around (Natalie was at work, and Isaac had gone down to Merstham for some reason), and Mariam didn’t want Rosalyn to go home to an empty house if she didn’t have to.

She put her phone away and looked around.  They’d decided to walk along the river, past all the expensive pubs and restaurants, and there were a few ducks gathering around the side of the pavement looking at passers-by and begging for bread. There were a lot of passers-by, all around them.  Public place, she reminded herself.

She turned to Alex.  “when you were choosing universities, did you pick Berrylands just because it was near where Denny lived?”

“Not even as proactive as that, I’m afraid.  Jonathan Lambton paid my tuition for Berrylands just because it was near where Denny lived. Otherwise, I’d be living with my sister and working at Asda to help her with the rent.”

“So it was his idea for you to go to university?” A guy walked past them, and Mariam was sure she recognised him from somewhere.  Short and stocky, with brown hair.

“Oh, I’d probably have got round to it eventually, but I’d have had to save up.”  (The stocky guy crouched down to feed the ducks.  Mariam and Alex walked on past him.)  “At the time, my only real goals were mending fences with Roxanne and getting Denny back on his feet.”

The Starbucks was just a little way down the road.  Mariam could see the green mermaid sign spread out above the customers on the outside tables, who were numerous even though it was only just spring and the breeze over the river was sharp as buggery.  People did strange things.  “He wasn’t the one who got you to study photography, was he?”

Alex laughed.  “No.  I’d been thinking about it for a while.  I don’t know if it’s what I‘d have done if I’d gone to university straight out of school, but I’d probably have taken it up eventually.”

Mariam would have replied with something bland like, Well, I’m glad you’re here now, anyway, but at that moment, a face appeared over Alex’s shoulder.  And unlike the stocky guy from before, Mariam recognised this one right away.

My name is Bradley, and I am a badass.

She didn’t have time to say anything before he raised the hammer.  In the moment afterwards, she tried to warn Alex, to give him a split-second of reaction time, but she’d barely opened her mouth when a pair of hands went over her head and he felt something cold around her throat, stopping the words from coming out before they even got started.

It was a public place.  There were people around.  But none of them moved fast enough to stop Bradley from bringing that hammer down on Alex’s head.

Mariam felt herself being pulled backwards.  Before she could do anything to stop it, she was in the river, being held underneath.