Water's Edge

Chapter V

Moses had a bramble, Harry gets a thornbush

Thorngumbald means thorn, or tear. It means a thornbush owned by a high king, or something along those lines. A man in a pub told me, over a half pint, "Thomas de Gumbaud," he had barely any teeth and wheezed every word, "He owned from 'ere to the 'umber." Here was a town without any vowels, and barely any consonants, "Not like that any more tho'."

"That was in the 1200s." I remarked, putting down my glass.

"Aye, but... still different, int it?" He didn't ask rhetorically, and I headed back outside into the carpark, to feel the drizzle on my face. Fourth cigarette, forgot I had smoked in the car. Damn. Felt bad leaving him without an answer.

I felt it would be easy to find out what had happened to poor Hector, just had to find the right contact down to the dam, have a poke around the eddies and the secret corners schoolboys are bound to find. Edith didn't want the police to find Hector for the publicity. I can control the press a bit, but they'll find out whatever the case may be. Same as Gumbaud found a thornbush, I'd find this kid, and the press would find me. It bored me how easy this would be.

The half pints weren't just for my pleasure. Workers were bound to haunt the pubs around here. One of them would be working on the dam. One would let me in. All I had to do is keep a beady eye peeled for anyone in a fluorescent jacket and they would, for sure, be working on that brutalist monstrosity I had seen from Goxhill Marshes.

Time to log the obvious. The people would feel caught between two worlds, the old village greens and forgotten houses echoing an era long gone, the new buildings and the hundreds of cranes showing progress—but when timezones slam into each other like this, it leaves the civilian gasping. The new council building had attracted a horde, as they always do nowadays, this time teenage environmentalists. It looked out of place, a monster of glass and steel beside council flats and Grade II listings—but this is what comes with the flood, the flotsam and jetsam of past and present colliding. This was a town haunted by it's own future.

I popped into an off-license to get a Twix, and asked the Pakistani behind the counter where people went after work. She pointed out the door to a pub directly opposite, The Thornbush. Should have known. Always seems in times of prosperity for an area like this, it's the pubs that spread first. And Starbucks. Hadn't seen a Starbucks yet though, thank god.

The moment I entered the pub I could tell this was the right place, pocketing the second finger of Twix for later. A television hummed on the far wall, as big as a cinema: Hull were playing Brighton & Hove, down by one. No one seemed to be watching though, it too early in the afternoon, day shifts ending, night shifts starting, everyone too tired to even cheer their own team. And that lad would be some kids mate, whoever his parents were.

With half in hand I approached three men mumbling quietly. They did not appreciate my arrival. No one did, "Lads. You work on that dam?" They nodded. They didn't want to, "I need to get down there."

"Why's that?"

I flashed them my badge, two didn't understand – it wasn't something people often saw – but the other seemed to get it, "You here about that boy?"

"Yeah."

"They're trying to keep it hush-hush. Not gonna work."

"No. It isn't."

And like that I could sit with them for a little while, offered them a cig and two took one. Had to remember to roll two more. Keep to the twelve.

"I think the kid went missing by the dam."

"Oh aye, he did."

"Yeah?"

"My boy, Matthew, used to hang out with him. Fuck knows why."

"Posh brat."

"I see..."

Turned out the guy who hadn't taken a cig was the father of this Matthew. He was Leo Shanks, his son Matthew Shanks, and Leo worked for Soames Construction, "He was a weird kid."

"What way?"

"You really are an investigator, aren't cha?"

"I am."

"Pay good?"

"No."

He barked, "Why do it then?"

I just shrugged. Didn't have time to think about that, "Why was he odd? Did Matthew hang out with him the night he vanished?"

"Dunno really. Hector... like that's a posh fuckin' name but he didn't act like a posh cunt. He was good to my lad. I liked him."

"So he was odd because you like him?"

"Yeah. So did Matthew. He's heartbroken."

Leo – and his colleagues, Jim Naughton and Will Diver – agreed to let me in after they had finished their pints. They had just finished their shift, but they were sure their site manager, Dobson Sykes, would let me in. This would make it easier; it was always hit & miss if I would get the help I needed in this manner. Some people trusted a copper – having quit or not – without question. Others found private investigators to be nothing more than glory hunters. Some of them were.

I hopped into the Zodiac and followed their white Transit away from the township and into the edgelands where anything could happen. It was all upturned skips and chainlink fence out here. I kept the radio off so I could hear the moment the well-kept tarmac of the city centre became the grumbling slack of this nowhere country.

Soames Construction displayed a huge logogram as I passed onto the site, waved through by a guy in a little booth as Leo leant out the passenger window to tell him I could come in. Before I had time to think Dobson approached; I knew it was him. His hard-hat wasn't dirty.