Water's Edge

Chapter XIII

Extinction Event

Twelve cigarettes in the tin. I had to leave, what, four by the end of the day. I smoked too much, and thought about it too much. I was turning into my Dad.

I stood just across the road, watching sixth formers with the Thorn Academy logo mill in and out of the Subway, arguing over the choice of filling, punching each other on the shoulder, laughing about which teachers looked most like a paedo. Some things never change. I used to get fish & chips for lunch, they get Maccy Ds. Same conversations though.

Across the road, which all the students avoided in fear of affiliation, the crowd of Environmentalists were performing a die-in. It seemed quite peaceful to enact such a thing, in that you could at least get some shut eye. Some had dressed up as Pandas and Lions to indicate that the construction of the dam would harm endangered species; I wasn't sure how many Pandas lived in Hull.

I admired them though: my curse, admiring everyone. Rarely a fan of the action, always there for the intent. I'd never admit it publicly, but I was quite the twitcher – saw a Chough miles from the Isle of Wight once – and the list of birds that the dam would sincerely damage was considerable. But in the same way that the Humber Bridge had ruined the steam ferry trade – and how the steam ferries had ended the businesses of the sail-boat ferries – some advancements were necessary evils. But this necessary evil had attracted an altogether different kind of evil: murder.

I crossed the road at a pace and peered down at all the bodies. They didn't move an inch. Well done. If you're going to do something ridiculous to prove a point, do it well, otherwise you'll just look stupid. A couple of the protesters at the top of the stairs though began to stir, tilting to watch me unscrupulously. I paused before a lass, or so I assumed, with cropped black hair and wicked purple lipstick, and a Spanish-looking fella with his fedora on his chest. I crouched when I knew it was time to say hello.

"You look like a pig."

"I was one." I reached into my jacket and the lad sat up ready for the worst, not sure what he would have done about it though. I instead offered them cigarettes, the universal sign for peace. Neither accepted. I remember when hippies used to smoke after free love; now it's all veganism and Fairtrade trousers. No wonder no one listened to them, "Can we have a word?" We all looked up when the doors to the council offices opened, a security guard giving us all a glance, "Have a room I can borrow?"

Flashing my badge, the security guard put me in a side office that had been deserted, too close to the crowd of protesters. No one wanted to be the one to have the inevitable brick through the window. The lad sat to the right, with his partner, who turned out to be non-binary. I apologised for my assumptions, which seemed to calm them down somewhat. 'Pigs' never apologise for pronouns, half still call black kids niggers.

"So?" The lad however, a Joseph Quintana, full name Josep Vicenç Quintana according to his ID, had yet to warm to me. I felt the same about him to be fair, "What do you want to blame us for?"

"Nothing yet." I sat down and unplugged the phone on the desk, I didn't want interruptions. I retrieved a notepad, "Catalan?"

He paused then. He had expected me to get him confused with a Spaniard, but a name like Vicenç gave it away, "Yeah. Home Lliure." He meant that he had retained his Catalan in the face of his English heritage. A man caught between two countries. Messy business. He told me his Dad was Catalan, his Mother from Pembrokeshire, had moved here only recently where he had met Wren Newport—the outcasts always find themselves. People joke that all hippies have the same gender or what-have-you, but in truth, if you keep casting aside the breadth of humanity they have to pool together somehow. Like attracts like, whether that's Tory MPs, construction workers, or the likes of Wren & Josep here.

"I just want to know what you've been up to the last few days, is all?"

"We read the papers, Runner," Wren had the countenance of an ox, I'd never shift them from any cause, "You want to lay this on our doorstep."

I took a deep breath and peered out the window, through the blinds, at the die-in going on, "What is it exactly you don't like about the dam?"

Joseph scoffed and I noticed Wren talked as quickly as they could to stop him ranting & raving, "The Humber should be regarded as AONB. It wasn't, of course, but when the bridge was reclaimed by birds and other fauna, if we could just allow it to become as it was, let it grow—they destroyed the Amazon, we haven't many places left for trees to grow."

"We should let nature reclaim itself." Joseph stormed to the window to inspect the troops, "It may not be beautiful to you, but it is to the birds, to the pondskaters." I had never seen anyone feel so passionately about pondskaters before, "The dam is illegal."

"Illegal?"

Wren sighed, "We looked into the records. We don't think it's being built to spec." What was nowadays.

"So is this an environmental issue or about building regulations?"

"Don't mock us." Wren stood up now and took Joseph's hand, tugging him from the window, "The Lincolnshire Wolds, they count. But here, because it's been owned by capitalists since before they even knew the word... it doesn't get a chance? It doesn't get a chance to blossom. It's cruel, that's what that is." They headed right past me to the door, I wish I could have detained them, just for being childish.

"And if they build that dam it'll be more than just that poor lad that dies." Wren shot their partner a glance and quickly scarpered. It would be easy to assume Joseph meant the wildlife, but you can never tell. I followed them out.

"What do you mean by that Josep?" I used his Catalan pronunciation, hoping for some kind of allegiance of respect, expecting nothing. The kid was pushing it.

"Avocets, of course. If you know what I mean."

"Recurvirostra avosetta," I betrayed my Twitching, "I hope that is all you mean, son."

"If I were you," Wren stood silhouetted at the glass doors, hands in thick pockets, "I'd chat to those Churchill worshipping psychopaths at the construction yard. That dam is dangerous, and not just because of what it destroys. It's being built on the cheap."

I let them go outside and stood in the hallway for a short while. I lit up another cigarette much to the security guard's chagrin. I shrugged, ignoring his glare, as a lift pinged behind me.

"Well, look who it is? The private detective." Becky Aster looked too beautiful in that moment, I had to buy her a drink.