14
A rusted iron bridge joined Ma Trunch’s bungalow to the rest of the world, over a drain clogged with Day-Glo green water weeds just visible through the thick white gauze of the fog. The horizon of the Black Fen was a distant memory, the grey outline of the town dump just discernible half a mile to the east, climbing up towards the billowing polluted cloud which drifted from its summit. For a second Dryden saw the top, a silent tractor moving suddenly against the sky. Then the mist folded over itself and all was gone. The acid in the air made Dryden’s throat ache and his eyes water, blurring a landscape already swimming in moisture.
He paused on the bridge, the ironwork creaking ominously. He checked his watch: 10.30am. He wanted to get an update on the pollution story for the next day’s paper and he had time to kill before joining the Italian ex-PoWs for lunch at Il Giardino. Vee Hilgay had confirmed the link between Serafino Amatista and the robbery at Osmington. Who had killed Amatista? Why had he died crawling back into the PoW camp with the loot from Osmington? And, most importantly for the living, where was Richard Dadd’s
Dryden walked on in the smog until Little Castles, Ma Trunch’s bastion, came into view ten yards beyond the bridge. The house was stuccoed in grey, and a large plastic butterfly by the front door emphasized the lack of colour elsewhere. The door and window frames had once been a dark blue, but had peeled in the relentless Fen sun to reveal a mottled grey pine, dripping now in the mist. The house’s most eccentric touch were the fake battlements, two bricks high, which framed the flat roof, and a quartet of miniature corner turrets with fairy-tale lancet windows.
Ma Trunch could have walked out of a fairy tale, thought Dryden, making his way up the path, but she wouldn’t have been the princess, she’d have been the thing that made the princess scream. Which reminded Dryden of another reason why he wanted to call on Ma Trunch. The menace that she radiated was not due entirely to her stature. She seemed to have more than a passing interest in Ely’s Anglo-Saxon treasures. And the guard dogs from California had been found in the dump. Dryden wondered how much she knew about the nighthawks.
The downside was the dogs. In the litany of Dryden’s fears dogs loomed like hounds in the mist. His guts shivered with the certainty he was about to meet Ma’s infamous troop of canine guards. As he approached he heard skittering on floor tiles and the sound of a large animal thudding against the front door.
‘Boudicca!’ Ma’s voice effortlessly carried from the back of the house. The dog whimpered, but didn’t retreat. Dryden could hear it breathing loudly through the letterbox.
Ma appeared round the side of the house, hoving into view like a galleon out of a sea mist. She didn’t look overjoyed to see him. ‘Come round. I’m working,’ she said, disappearing again.
To the side of Little Castles she’d created a dog pen. Dryden counted six Alsatians padding the wire, but there might have been more in the fog beyond. None of them barked, a canine idiosyncrasy which only intensified Dryden’s anxiety.
The bungalow’s rear french windows were open and Ma was working at a rough deal table in her outdoor clothes. Dryden guessed that central heating was not one of her chosen luxuries. The table was strewn with documents, maps and letters spilling from a toppled box file.
She fetched a mug and slopped some tea into it from a shiny aluminium pot, adding Carnation milk and sugar without asking. The resulting brew was orange and vaguely translucent.
‘They’re threatening to close me down for six months,’ she said, two of the slabs of flesh in her face colliding to produce a central frown. ‘They want to dig out the combustible layer – stop the fire.’
Dryden nodded. ‘What do they think it is? I can see it’s still burning.’
She searched amongst the papers, found a single sheet headed with the Department for the Environment’s logo. ‘According to this their so-called experts think the sulphur dioxide is produced from subterranean incineration. From the estimates of the depth of the seat of the fire it’s stuff laid down in the early sixties.’
She glanced at the fireplace, which had a dull puce tiled surround and a heavy mahogany mantelpiece. There was one picture: a large black and white shot of a man in overalls standing proudly in front of Little Castles. The face was thinner than Ma’s but the lineage was unmistakable.
‘Father’s time. They didn’t know any better. My guess is they dumped plastic household bottles – detergent, solvents, that kind of thing. It’s a chemical sump, and the contents have reacted. I’m not a chemist,’ she added, as though Dryden had expected her to be.
He produced a notebook as casually as he was able and slurped his tea. ‘What will you do? The rest…’ he tipped his head west towards the dump. ‘Will they lose their jobs?’
‘Well, I’m not paying them to sit on their arses am I?’ She’d raised her voice and a fifties cabinet full of dusty cut-glass rattled slightly. ‘It’s not over yet. I’ve got lawyers too. The council could fight the fire and keep the tip open on this side.’ Even she didn’t look like she believed such a scenario was feasible.
‘If not, we’ll hunker down for six months – no choice. We’ll get through.’ Dryden wondered who constituted ‘we’ – and guessed the dogs. Boudicca pushed open the door and ambled in, flopping down at Ma’s feet. The greyhound carried its head low, its bony back high. The dog’s mouth flopped open to reveal gums the colour and consistency of slug skin.
The door stayed open and Dryden could see through into the next room. It was dark, the light slatted as through shutters, but he could see what looked like a row of polished cabinets.
Ma caught the glance. ‘Come and see,’ she said, hauling herself up.
She’d covered the cabinet tops with rough hessian but when she pulled the first one back the glass was fingerprintless. Below it there glinted gold, silver and metalwork caught in the light of small halogen bulbs mounted inside the wooden cases. There were three such cabinets, about eight feet long and two foot deep.
‘You’ve got these insured, Ma?’ said Dryden, leaning in.
She laughed, the sound lost somewhere deep inside her body.
‘The dogs,’ she said simply. She probably let the pack loose at night, thought Dryden. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t replace the best stuff,’ she added.
Dryden concentrated on the items set out on the green baize in the first cabinet. He recognized two rein rings like the ones found by Azeglio Valgimigli.
