After the 1988 World Fantasy Convention in London, I took the train up to Edinburgh. My week wandering around the city included a walk up Arthur’s Seat. I was happily hiking along when a voice next to me said, “Are you all right?” It was a policeman who’d seen me from the road that runs around the bottom of the park; he’d climbed up to make sure I was all right. He stayed with me until we met another group of hikers. It was clear to me, although he never exactly said so, that he was alarmed to see a woman in the park by herself. That encounter was the genesis of this story.