“Mate,” he said, not looking at me. “Mate, come on. It’s just up here. In this pond.” Pond, I thought. Maybe that’s a local name because it looks like a lake to me. But then again, I’m no fisherman. If I was, I probably wouldn’t be here. I’d be somewhere safe, a long way away.

He’d told me the story in the pub, if you can call the Spartan shack with ten barrels propped against the far wall and a prolapsed dartboard a pub. Lived in the water, he said. Only seen at twilight, but there again always seen at twilight. You gotta see it, you look like the kind of bloke would like it.

On that he was right, anyway. I’d been a traveller my whole life – army brat, following my parents from posting to posting – and a mystery seeker my whole adult life. I’ve seen things… The Grey Man of Ben McDhui, the faeries at Cottingley, the horse of Hisgins Hall. All with my own eyes.

Now here I was, feet dangling from a small wooden jetty, watching the Sun leave the sky. Waiting. My new friend cracked open a can of lager and sat with his shoes and sock off, toes in the water. “Just wait,” he said, voice barely above a murmur. “Twilight’s coming.”