‘OK.’ Maude sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, and Carolyn put the shoe on the mattress next to her.

‘Good girl,’ said Carolyn, ‘and when we’re done, we’ll think about some lunch.’

*

The cafe was quiet and reassuringly normal, a scattering of wooden tables, a gleaming Gaggia machine, seventies music playing softly, and Gina was sitting by the window, a pot of tea and two cups set on the table in front of her. She looked up as Nell came in. ‘Hello, pet. Is everything all right? Is it Maude?’

Nell took the seat opposite Gina, trying to catch her breath. The walk across the bridge had left her chilled; another sea fret was rolling into town. It was an odd summer, she thought – it was as if the weather couldn’t quite hold on to the land, as if the sea was going to claim it all.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘for coming. I just needed to . . . Sorry. This is going to sound – odd. Again.’

‘I don’t have long,’ Gina said, ‘I’ll need to get back to the shop. Sorry.’

‘OK,’ Nell said, ‘OK. I was cleaning up the bedroom.’ She fumbled in her bag. ‘I wanted to put the shoe back, so I pulled out the panel and – there’s this, written on the inside of it. It’s – freaked me out a bit, I’m not sure why.’ She held out a scrap of paper, the words from the panel copied onto it. ‘But I’m pretty certain I’ve seen it somewhere before, in the museum, I think. And I wondered if you knew anything about it.’ It felt good, in a way, to have something to show Gina, something tangible that might help make sense of things.

Gina unfolded the paper ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Goodness.’

‘What? Do you recognise it?’

‘Yes.’ She picked up her phone. ‘Let me just . . .’ She hit an icon and scrolled down the screen. ‘It’s this.’ She put the phone on the table so Nell could see the screen.

It was the display in the museum. The finds from the yard, the little brass owl and the jet beads, the scraps of glass and all the metal pins, blackened and bent; the bone comb with its broken teeth.

Not ivory, but animal bone.

Gross, Nell.

‘The scratches on the comb are runes,’ said Gina as Nell leant closer, zooming in on the image, examining the fine vertical scratches on the surface. They looked mathematical, purposeful, ‘but there is a translation.’ She enlarged the image on the screen.

The text was broken, where the original was indistinct, Nell supposed, or too obscure to read.

Oh Dear God . . . God Almighty Help Me . . . Help . . .

And underneath, another label, typed and held in place by yellowing Sellotape.