(From On the Trail of Kelpie and Silkie by Rosalyn Pepper, published 2012)

We were in luck.  Raymond Underhill was not just still alive (aged 84), but still living in Coney Park.  He and his wife Frances had a little white house a few roads back from the high street, and when we called on them, they told us they’d be happy for us to drop by.

All three of us were taken aback by just how pleasant they were- a good-natured, sprightly old couple who seemed genuinely excited to talk to us.  Frances rushed off to make tea for everyone, while Raymond sat us down in the living room and chatted enthusiastically about his old newspaper days.  In the two hours we spent talking to him, I didn’t see a trace of the man who’d written that article fifty years earlier.  As the afternoon went on, though, I began to see why that was.

“There was a work-release programme, you see,” he told us, “A lot of the Elm Gates girls went to work at some of the local shops.  ‘Working their way back into society,’ the higher-ups said.”

“Which shops were these?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re all gone now.  The general store.  Pinkerton’s Haberdashery.”  (I started at that, but tried not to show it.)  “The Lakeside Cafe.  Not in the pub, though- people thought it best to keep them away from temptation.”  He chuckled.  “Didn’t want anyone falling off the wagon!  But around this time, a few of the girls started complaining.”

“What about?”

“Er… Well, in general, not being treated properly.  Starvation rations, being bullied by other staff members, that sort of thing.  I didn’t necessarily believe it- it all sounded a bit too much like Oliver Twist to me- but it wasn’t my idea to write that article.  Back then, you had to toe the editorial line if you wanted to keep your job.”

“Whose editorial line?” I asked, “I mean, who was your boss?”

“Peter Devereaux was the editor in those days.  He made out that he was angry that the Elm Gates girls had slandered the shopkeepers, when we all knew them and they were good, charitable people…  But honestly, I think he’d have taken any excuse to be angry.  He was one of those people who are never happier than when they’re looking down their nose at someone.”

I nodded.  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask about Siobhan McCluskey… but I didn’t.  He hadn’t mentioned her on his own, and I didn’t want to lead him.  Instead, I showed him the picture on my phone.  “The reason we started looking into Coney Park’s history is that it’s mentioned in this piece of writing.  Apparently, it’s been there since the 1970s.”

Raymond squinted at the phone.  “Can’t read anything from a screen that small.  Can you read it out to me?”

I did.  “Do you know what it might be referring to?”

Raymond sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful.  “Well, if it’s been there since the Seventies, then my guess is that it’s about that tourist girl who drowned.  Alison Winters.”

I think my mouth might have actually swung open in shock.  “I’ve read about her!”

Raymond smiled.  “But I bet you didn’t read about the things her friends said afterwards, did you?”

I shook my head.

“No.  ‘Course you didn’t.  The paper didn’t want to give them ‘the oxygen of publicity’- that was how they put it.  But her friends said that the lifeguards took a lot longer to come to their rescue than they should have.  And when they did come, they didn’t realise how badly Alison was hurt at first.  They told them off for ‘clowning around’ when they should have been helping her.”

I thought about the guy in the newsagent.  And of course they just got a slap on the wrist for it.  Life’s just not fair.  “Do you think that’s what happened?”

Raymond shrugged.  “Well, I wasn’t there… but it might have been.  Those lifeguards work long hours, and they‘ve never had much patience with the tourists.”  He tutted.  “But it never went anywhere.  The lifeguards all denied it, and nothing could be proved.  Besides, the coroner said she’d have drowned almost immediately- they wouldn’t have had much of a chance of saving her either way.”

I could imagine one of Alison Winters’ friends, in a fit of rage and grief, writing the message on the railway bridge.  But I could also imagine one of the girls from Elm Gates doing the same.  Or somebody who knew Siobhan McCluskey.  Maybe even Bernard French’s wife and daughter, if Ben Sugar was wrong about how long the graffiti had been there.

Later that afternoon, probably an hour or two before sunset, I was standing by the lake with Judith, and I finally asked her the question that had been playing on my mind for most of the last two weeks.  “How did you end up going to live with your aunt and uncle?”

As soon as I said it, I worried that it had been a rude question, but Judith answered it without hesitating for a moment.  “Well, our mother had substance abuse issues- has substance abuse issues, unfortunately- so it was decided that Harriet and me would be safer elsewhere.”  She leaned forward on the fence, looking out over the water.  “I think they did a good job.  Honestly, in some ways they really spoilt us.  Did you know, your friend Isaac guessed that I used to have riding lessons?  I must just have that aura.”

I laughed, less at what she’d said and more at how wrong I’d been.  I’d almost convinced myself that Judith’s leg-in-the-fireplace story had been the real story of what had happened to her and her sister.  It must have been the last few weeks catching up with me- there were so many stories floating around, and it was impossible to tell which ones I should pay attention to.

“Three more days,” I told Judith.

“Mm.”  She turned sideways, still hanging onto the fence.  “What are you going to do when you get back?”

“Um… there’s a few more weeks until university starts up again.  I’ll probably have time to look up some of Alison Winters’ friends, see if I can find out anything else.”  Maybe I shouldn’t have paid attention to any of the stories.  Maybe the person who’d written the graffiti had just been mucking about.  But if I’d come this far, then I might as well see it through to the end.  “Shame we have to go back, though.”

“Sorry,” said Judith with a wry smile, because in her head, we were only going home at the end of the week because her job needed her back.  It wasn’t true, though- my parents and Denny’s brother and sister would also start getting impatient soon.  “I am glad we came.  I’ve seen the effect it’s had on Denny, for a start.”

(Denny had hung back to get something from the shops.  It didn’t occur to me until that exact moment that he might have deliberately left me and Judith alone together.)

“He seems like he’s relaxing a lot more, yeah,” I said, “I was worried it might get too much for him, being in an unfamiliar place, but he doesn’t seem to have any problems.  None that he’s let me see, anyway.”  Jonathan and Octavia had run through a few worst-case scenarios before we left, but so far, I hadn’t needed to remember what they’d said.

Judith’s face was pointed into the wind, with her hair blowing out behind her like a flag or a banner.  I hadn’t really thought about it until then, but she looked a lot like Bronwen, the girl I’d met in Cornwall as a child.  The same long dark hair, the same long athletic limbs.  The same willingness to accommodate other people’s strange plans.

I moved over to her side, gripping the fence next to her.  “Keep a look out,” she told me, “I’m not completely sure, but I think I’ve just seen a couple of otters on the banks.  If we keep quiet, they might swim out so we can see them properly.”           

I moved closer to her, staring at the lake and waiting for the otters to appear.

(The End)