Water's Edge

Chapter XXII

1+1 = 3?

Curtis Pond escorted me out and shook my hand firmly. I may have misjudged him, "Please find out what happened."

"I intend to."

"I don't really like your kind of vigilantism," People thought the strangest things about me, "But I just want—he was a good kid."

That I could understand.

I nodded and went my way, walking back to my precious Zee. I couldn't imagine this being some kind of hate crime; I don't think the ex-mayor, the environmentalist and Hector were all linked by sexuality. That would surprise me. But this town had already surprised me in every other conceivable way, so why not.

I clicked on the tape and stretched my hands over the wheel, taking a deep breath. Something must link them. If I was following the thread from furthest out to closest in I had to return to the point of origin: the bodies themselves. Too many distractions. Too many drinks.

Who took your measurements

From your toes to the top of your head?

Who bought you clothes and new shoes

And wrote you a book you never read?

"Drink?" Margaret said the moment I walked in, "It's only tea I'm afraid. Something stiffer later perhaps." She pointed to the body, "Get it?"

"Why are all pathologists bad comedians?" I asked, sincerely, taking a mug of tea with WORLDS GREATEST DAD written on the side.

"We only sound bad because our audience doesn't laugh." Viv spoke up from behind a computer at the back of the room, "You two going to behave?"

"No." Margaret said before I could get a word in, "I suppose you're here for Benny?"

"Anything really."

I got them all up to speed with what I had so far, what was confusing me. I found myself a chair and nursed the tea like it was the only warmth in the world.

"Well, we identified Winthrop with ease. He was... quite an eccentric man in his older age. Fatter than the Hindenburg and twice as incendiary." Umberwood had all the drawers open with each of the bodies, walking between them, "Benny we didn't know what he looked like, because he liked it that way. We only figured it out when you called in with Joseph, found him on a watchlist."

"You don't like him? Josep I mean."

"Fields, he's a whiny brat. Wren, they're alright. But Joseph can do one."

"I see."

"Hector we could identify easily. He hadn't been in the water long. The other two, not a clue. We're still scraping off the excrescences."

"Lovely."

"It's a lovely job but someone has to do it." She winked and began to close-up all the drawers, one by one.

I ran my hand through my hair in the hopes it would dislodge an idea. I still couldn't see it. Usually I could see it by now. Was it just Dad clogging up my nerves, or something else? Was it really just too strange to find an anarchic vegan, an 80-year-old ex-mayor, and an MPs kid in the same throne of bodies?

"There's no surviving members of the Suggitt clan?" I asked.

"No one. His missus passed a few years ago. No children."

"That's odd though."

"Luck of the draw, I guess." She turned to look at me, "You going to the funeral?"

"I am."

"That's where you find out what's going on around Suggitt—"

There was a strange pause and Viv stood up suddenly, "Will you two just go to the pub already? I can feel you trying to find reasons to work at The Bottle from here, it's painful."