Water's Edge

Chapter XLVI

You Do Not Have to Say Anything

I stepped down the hill towards the outlet pipe converted into Saxon Church. Godwine approached, and those cempan broadened their shoulders in response to my arrival. But I had no more fucks to give. It was time for answers.

"Where's Becky!"

"Who?"

I raised my gun and the cempan reached for shivs on their leather belts, harvested from their blue collar jobs, "You're going in for this. Winthrop, Babbitt, now Becky. Where is she?"

Godwine raised his hands in quiet surrender, but his boys didn't look ready to back down yet. He had trained them well, that English Army resilience imparted into these poor fools in the woods. I had a gun, they had home made knives, and they still didn't flinch. I would have respected that if it wasn't so stupid, "Rów, Fields. Rów, and listen. We know of no Becky."

I shot the gun up above them and that made them jump, "Where is she?"

"There is no Becky here." He approached me, and Womack came up alongside me. I could feel how angry she was at me. I had given them a scapegoat if they had heard that shot.

"Sam Godwin, you are hereby arrested for multiple homicide. You do not have to say anything. But it may..." Yazmin began but Godwine just shook his head.

"They were not murders, Miss. They were sacrifices."

Nazis always admit what they did.

"Wada disapproves of this dam. We approve. This cannot continue. As I told you, Detective Fields, we made sacrifices to save the children. Wada must be honoured, but we must protect ourselves as well."

"So you admit to the deaths of Winthrop, Particular, the others?"

Godwine frowned at this and looked between his cempan who shrugged in confusion, "Particular Babbitt is dead?"

"Found this evening."

All the calm had been vanquished from the cultist, face devolving from pious priest to cruel murderer. The truth of his history became written on his face, "Babbitt was not killed by our hand, he was a friend and a teacher. And this Becky, why would..." He looked to his nearest and dearest captain, "Did êowleahtrian Barnaby lýtesne ðe?"

"Barnaby?" Yazmin had lowered her weapon. We knew we had them, they'd probably even walk with us. They always did when they were this open about their criminality. But now, another layer.

"You don't think we'd kill members of the community without permission." Godwine said, honestly hurt we'd consider such a thing.

And now it all became clear. Everyone had opposed the dam, but it had to keep being built. Soames Construction and the skimming off the top couldn't stop just because some old mayor and a few hippies had sounded the alarm on how poorly it was being constructed. Hector had opened the floodgates. He had just tripped and fallen after a lovers tiff. We had begun to investigate something being covered up from the top to the bottom. Everyone was happy. The Neo-Saxons got their sacrifices, and Barnaby got to shut up anyone opposed to him.

But now they had overstepped. Babbitt had been sniffing around, and so had I, and Becky. They hadn't asked permission this time.