Natalie was bent over the scanner again, working her way from the 80 million parties the Lambtons had held in the Seventies so she could get onto the 95 billion they’d held in the Eighties, when her phone rang.  She’d put it on silent, so as to be professional, but she felt it vibrating and took it out almost by instinct.

She would have let it ring off- everyone knew she had work this afternoon- but the screen said “Mariam,” and normally Mariam would have been the last person to annoy her friends when they were busy.  Even so, if Mama Lambton had been in the room, Natalie would never have dared to answer it, but she was on the phone in the living room again, discussing dinner plans with a friend of hers.  Natalie decided to risk it.

“Hello?” she said, but Mariam didn’t reply.  There were muffled voices and rustling and bumping noises, and then, just as Natalie was about to dismiss it as a pocket-dial, there was a scream.

But “scream” was the wrong word.  It wasn’t just a shrill, high-pitched wail- you could tell it had words in it, even though you couldn’t hear what the words were.  It was tearful and frantic, and it was recognisably Mariam’s voice.

“Mariam!  Can you hear me?”  Even as she said it, Natalie knew she might just be making things worse.  What if Mariam was being mugged, and Natalie had just shouted loud enough to let them know she had a phone on her?  She turned up the volume on the side so she could listen for more details, but it was no good.  The voices had stopped now.  All she could hear was a strange, watery sound.

All of a sudden, Mama Lambton appeared in front of her.  “Explain yourself.  Now.”

Natalie’s face and hands and body had gone numb.  Her phone was still connected.  The watery sound was still there.  Maybe there was a way of tracing where Mariam’s phone was through hers.  “I just got a call from…”

Mama Lambton held a hand out.  “Give me that.”

Natalie passed her phone to Mama Lambton.  Maybe she’d know what to do.  “It’s my friend Mariam.  She sounds like she’s in danger.  I don’t know where she is, but maybe we can…”  She caught her breath.  “I don’t know…”

Mama Lambton pressed the red button, hanging up.  “I have never seen such disrespectful behaviour in my life,” she hissed, “How dare you betray my trust like this?  Did you think I was paying you to gossip on the phone?”

Natalie’s breath hitched in her throat.  She couldn’t seem to get her voice loud enough to be heard. “She’s in trouble.  I heard her screaming.” 

Mama Lambton acted as if she hadn’t said anything at all.  “My son told me that you were a bright, capable girl.  I’m afraid I haven’t seen much evidence of that so far.”  She seemed to notice that she was still holding the phone out in front of her, and opened her jacket to tuck it into an inside pocket that Natalie couldn’t see.  “The rest of your life might revolve around your phone, but when you’re here, I expect you to do the job you’re paid for.”

“Please!”  Natalie finally got to her feet.  Her legs almost seemed as if they wouldn’t support her, they were shaking so badly.  “We need to call the police!”  And tell them what? she thought, That a crime’s been committed somewhere in Greater London, probably?  By the time they work out where Mariam actually is, she’ll…  “At least let me try and call her back!  If I reach here and she’s fine, I swear I’ll work an hour’s overtime to make up for it, but we need to…”

“This isn’t a negotiation.”  Mama Lambton walked out of the room, Natalie’s phone still in her jacket pocket.

Natalie stayed still, almost unable to believe what had happened.  It was as if Mama Lambton hadn’t heard anything she’d said.  Had she genuinely not understood, or just not cared?  Either way, somewhere Natalie couldn’t hear it, Mariam was screaming.

If she stayed still for too long- if she let herself think for too long- she’d end up collapsing on the floor in tears.  As far as she could see, she had two options:  Run out of the house and get the train back to Berrylands (wasting time travelling when she should be helping Mariam), or go after Mama Lambton and somehow persuade her to give her phone back (wasting time talking when she should be helping Mariam, and if she hadn’t listened to what Natalie had said already, what would she listen to?).

Natalie made her choice.  She got to her feet and ran down the hall to the front door.

Mama Lambton appeared at the top of the stairs.  “What on Earth are you doing?  Come back here!”

Natalie slammed the door behind her.  She was pretty sure she could make it to the station in five minutes if she ran.  She was pretty sure she remembered there being a taxi rank around there somewhere.  If she got back to Pallas House, maybe Isaac or Alex or Rosalyn would be around, and they might know what was going on.  At the very least, they might have some ideas about what to do next, because Natalie didn’t have a clue.

*

Rosalyn had got Mariam’s text just as her lecture finished, and she’d decided to walk up and meet them.  She got there just in time to see a man raise a hammer, a black one with a wooden handle like Rosalyn’s dad had in his toolbox, and bring it down on somebody’s head.

She didn’t recognise Bradley at first.  She didn’t even realise it was Alex he’d hit.  All Rosalyn knew was that it was a normal day, with pleasant weather and shoppers bustling around, until suddenly one man decided to break another man’s head open.

In the split-second before the people around them saw what had happened and started screaming, Rosalyn found herself walking towards the man with the hammer.  She didn’t know why.  Somehow it just seemed like the next thing that should happen.

She was behind the man when he raised the hammer again.  He hadn’t noticed her yet, but the only way Rosalyn could think of to stop what was going to happen next was to reach out and tap him on the shoulder.

He whirled around, his hammer leading him onwards in a wobbly circle.  When he saw her face, he let out an outraged noise, as if he’d just caught her trying to pick his pocket.  Rosalyn wasn’t scared.  She didn’t know why.  Maybe things had happened too quickly for the fear to get started yet.

The man raised the hammer.  Rosalyn couldn’t see any blood on it.  Maybe it was just invisible against the black, or maybe it had come away from the other man’s head before any blood had had time to flow out of the wound.  He was wobbling again, and this time he stumbled, his legs taking him off to the side, and Rosalyn saw her chance.  Before he could bring the hammer down on her, she brought her knee up and tried to kick his legs out from under him.

*

Mariam was underwater.  That Guy had her underwater.  She hadn’t recognised him until it was too late.  She couldn’t breathe- probably wouldn’t have been able to breathe even if her head had been above the surface, because he had something around her throat- and Alex was dead.  He was lying in a pool of his own blood on the pavement because Mariam hadn’t said anything in time, because she hadn’t quite believed that Bradley would smash somebody’s head in on a crowded street in broad daylight.

Mariam could feel herself thrashing about and trying to escape, even though she knew it wasn’t going to work.  That Guy had whatever it was wrapped tight around her neck, and he hadn’t budged an inch.  No matter how difficult she made it for him, no matter how long she refused to give him the satisfaction of just buckling under his weight and going quietly, Mariam was going to die.  She might not even have a minute left to think.

That Guy gave her an extra shove, pushing her further downwards, and when Mariam reached out behind her, she felt something solid.  There was mud, slimy and soft beneath her fingers.  It shouldn’t have been surprising.  If That Guy was able to keep such constant, unmoving pressure on her, the river must have been shallow enough for him to stand up in.

Mariam kept her hand on the mud.  Without even being sure what she was trying to do, she bent one leg back and braced it against the bottom of the river, and kicked out as hard as she could with the other one.  The thing around her neck loosened.  She thrashed about some more, and managed to break the surface, the air feeling like shards of broken glass in her throat.

In a moment, That Guy was on her again, trying to get the thing- it looked like a black electric cable, Mariam saw now- back around her throat.  Mariam could see some of the crowd running towards the riverbank and wading in, but if she relied on that, she’d be dead.  That Guy tried to force her underwater again, but Mariam was standing now, and she drove her elbow into his stomach, trying to throw him off her back.  It wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it was going to be.  All the energy had been knocked out of her when she’d been underwater, and at first it just felt as if she was pulling a muscle, not using it for anything useful.  But after the second or third try, she found herself able to take a step forward.  When That Guy tried to follow her, she threw a punch and hit him in the side of the jaw, then dived forward and swam the rest of the way.

Somebody helped her out of the river.  Quite a few somebodies, actually- most of the people on the riverbank had gathered around this particular spot .  A few of them formed a protective barrier behind Mariam, preventing That Guy from pulling her back in, and somebody else gave her their jacket.  She’d barely even noticed she was cold until now.

A lot of people tried to talk to her in the minute or two before the police and ambulances started to arrive, but when Mariam thought about it later, the only thing she remembered hearing was what Peps said.  Mariam spotted her crouched next to Alex, one hand on his chest and the other holding onto her own left shoulder, as if something had happened to it.  Not far away, a couple of men were holding Bradley, writhing and screaming, down on the ground- no sign of where the hammer had got to, but as long as he didn’t have it, things were probably under control.  Mariam looked at Peps, trying to work out how much she’d seen and how either of them could possibly put the last, awful few minutes into words, but Peps spoke first.  As soon as Mariam approached her, she looked up, met her eyes, and said, “He’s still breathing.”

*

They’d been walking for hours, and, while they hadn’t exactly been ready to call it a day- they were in this for the long haul, him and Judith- the last of that morning’s optimism had drained away a little while back.  By three in the afternoon, they’d been walking along the path they’d laid out for themselves out of sheer stubbornness, not because they still expected to find something.

The, for about the seventeenth time that day, they’d spotted something tall and brown through the trees, and gone to get a closer look.

It was a railway bridge, alright.  Or some kind of bridge, anyway- if there were any actual tracks going under it, they’d disappeared under the weeds years ago.  The letters, starting from twenty feet up and stopping just above Isaac’s head, were white and faded, so you had to read it through twice to be sure what it actually said.  Isaac had read it so many times in the last ten minutes that the words felt seared onto his brain.

The Story of Coney Park

Let’s say there was a man who stole a seal-woman’s skin and forced her to marry him, and, after she finally found where he’d hidden it and made her escape, took to the seas in a rage and didn’t rest until he’d slaughtered her new seal-husband and all their seal-children.

(The silkie)

Let’s say there was a man who saw a beautiful woman bathing in a lake, and, after deciding to swim up to her, found himself pulled underwater and feasted upon.

(The kelpie)

Wouldn’t the world be a much fairer place if it was the same man in both stories?

(Kelpie and silkie)

They’d actually done it.  They were actually here.

“Can I borrow your notebook?” he asked Judith, “I want to copy this down.”  He’d taken a picture with his phone, but he didn’t know if Rosalyn would be able to make out the words from that- and besides, the signal was so spotty out here that he was probably going to have to wait until they were back on the train before sending it to her.

Judith passed it over, along with a biro.  “Where do you think Coney Park is?”

“I don’t know,” said Isaac.  He felt light-headed, as if he was about to either take off and fly or faint dead away.  “But I bet Rosalyn will find out, if it’s the last thing she does.”

Judith turned to him, as if surprised, with a big, warm grin on her face.  Isaac thought he knew what she was thinking.  This would take her mind off the graffiti round the university.  And if they were really lucky, it might take everyone else’s mind off it as well.