Water's Edge

Chapter L

The Bridge

And if your friends think that you should do it different

And if they think that you should do it the same

You've gotta just keep on pushing

I caught up with the car swiftly. It was that black car, the smart thing, that Evgeny had picked me up in. Sometimes gut instinct knows everything you need it to know. Most powerful feeling in the world. Can save lives or start wars—

Immediately, they accelerated, rushing away from the scene of the crime. It was hopeless for them, but the fear had struck them like a lead balloon. Time to getaway, from themselves, as well as me.

We swerved out from Thorngumbald, the B-Roads swallowing us up; I could sense his desperation with every jolt in speed. I raced after him, the old Zee matching pace with no difficulty.

For a second, he nearly lost me, diving down some back road I hadn't seen. I couldn't lose him now, not after everything.

I realised too late where he was heading too, the water already lapping up the sides of the B-Road. I hadn't seen it, everything too dark, all the street lights turned off for tax purposes. These were the roads leading to the old wonder of the Humber, what the dam was meant to be protecting.

We were heading for The Humber Bridge.

It had once been the longest bridge of its kind in the world, and although it seemed minute in comparison to the vastness of the dam, a nostalgic fear struck me. It only leapt from the waves at its centre, the roads leading onto it, the tollbooths, all submerged. Wada had claimed so much already.

Barnaby slammed on the breaks. In the dark he must not have spotted the rising tide either. Water rushed up into the air like Roman Candles, the moonlight dancing off the drops. I stopped the Zee away from the rising floodwaters, as Barnaby escaped his own car, not quite deep enough to be consumed by the water, but enough to halt any chance of escape.

I got out the car, aiming the Glock over the open door. I lowered the weapon when Barnaby approached the shoreline, sopping wet, no weapon of his own.

"The dam had to be finished!" He yelled as he approached. I raised my gun only to keep him at a distance, "It had to be..." He was pleading now.

"Was it worth all that death, Barnaby? Your own son?"

"I didn't kill my son."

"Yes you did!" I stepped closer and he raised his hands, finally seeing my weapon, "You cut corners. That's what killed him."

Even now, the MP kept his indignation, "How dare you... I was protecting these people."

"Sure you were." I was having none of it.

"Winthrop was an old man, who knew nothing. Party principles, what did he know of that. Old Blue." I hadn't heard that term in a while; as much as there was New Labour, Sixtus Rees-Mogg era called those from Boris Johnson's short stint as PM The Old Blue. Conservatives who thought someone Old Blue thought them fools, "And those hippies! Queers. If it wasn't for them my kid wouldn't have been... tainted. Did you know that Pond wants to teach LGB whatever in his school. His school! I built that school." He was shouting now, and I let him. He approached, snapped under the weight of all his irresponsibility, all that malignancy, "The Dam. The town. All of it. It was mine. I built it. I saved all these lives, and how do they repay me."

"I'm taking you in, Barnaby."

"I'm Mr. Wharton, MP."

"And a murderer."

He hadn't heard that before, I could tell. He flinched, tried to remain angry, and then fell to the dirt crying. The water had reached him. His car was being carried to the bridge, like an offering to some long dead god.