tousled hayrick of hair, all helped buttress a sense of power.
‘It’s about the body in the tunnel,’ said Dryden. ‘I just wanted to do a follow-up feature, now it looks as though we know who chummy was.’
‘There’s a name?’ said Jayne.
‘Yes. We think it’s the body of an Italian PoW – Serafino Amatista. But he didn’t try to escape when he was in the camp. He was going in – as we saw.’ Dryden swallowed a couple of inches of beer but noticed the rest had nearly drained their glasses. He bought refills and threw the barman in the round for luck.
He returned and sat next to Josh, the rest of the diggers now lost in a conversation about Anglo-Saxon ritual. ‘Anyway, it’s clear this Amatista was going into the camp. By the end of the war the Italians were given a lot more freedom, as internees, replaced behind the wire by the Germans. The Italians were moved out on the land – to some of the larger farms which could organize the labour. There was one at Buskeybay – on the Lark – my family still talk about them. They were popular, friendly, good workers. Some of them stayed.’
Josh nodded, playing with Jayne’s ear. ‘Look,’ said Dryden. ‘Can you tell me exactly what happened that morning – the day you found him.’
The digger took his time making a roll-up. ‘Well, I’d been working on that stretch of the trench – the east lane we call it, running off the central crossroads out towards the old camp perimeter and the pine trees. I was walking the bounds – that’s like checking the edge of my area of excavation. You have to make sure nothing has contaminated the site – animals overnight, water damage, whatever. The dogs had gone, Valgimigli was worried, so we all had to check the site. The fog was really bad so I had to get right up close to the edge of the trench, and that’s when I found the tunnel.’
‘Right where we found the body?’
‘No. Not at first. I found the other side first. We’d cut through the tunnel, so it was in the walls of the trench on both sides. We hadn’t seen it at first because the soil was compacted and the trench was machine dug at that depth and that compresses the clay – like a layer of plaster spread on a rough wall. But overnight I suppose the looser soil had shifted and fallen slightly – so you could see the outline of the tunnel. I pulled at the edges with my fingers and found traces of the clapboard they’d used to shore the thing up when it was built. It was pretty clear to me what it was – especially at that depth. It was like the classic escape story, you know? I worked on that side for a while – five minutes maybe. Then I thought – what about the other side?’
He paused for effect, draining some more beer. The others were listening now, and Dryden saw some looks exchanged. Something was going on, and he wasn’t included.
‘That was very different. The first foot or so was open, the soil had spilled out into the trench. The clay inside was very unstable, clods and pebbles were falling from the roof, which had buckled.’
‘But you went in?’
‘Not far – a few feet. I used the long entrenching spade to work away at the earth. It was creeping all the time, it wasn’t difficult. Then the hand appeared, and the top of the skull. So I got out and went and got Professor Valgimigli – and you arrived.’
Dryden nodded: ‘Do you think someone had been working in the tunnel that morning, or the night before? Had someone been there before you? The dogs had gone that night, hadn’t they – so perhaps the site had been visited? By nighthawks?’
Josh shrugged. Jayne ran her hand up inside his T-shirt. ‘I guess it’s possible. I told the police – they didn’t seem bothered.’
‘It’s possible that the oilskin wallet you found – with the pearls – had once contained a canvas – an oil painting. A very valuable oil painting,’ said Dryden.
‘And you think we’ve got it?’ he said, gripping his pint glass.
‘Actually, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Dryden, drinking.
Josh tried to retrieve the situation. ‘I didn’t poke around. I found out what we were dealing with and then called for help.’
The Frog Hall’s windows were frosted, and the mist crowded out what little light was left in the day. A gull appeared in outline on the sill above their table, the sound of its feet shuffling on the wooden grating.
‘What’s Professor Valgimigli like to work with?’ asked Dryden, switching tack.
Another cat’s cradle of exchanged glances. It was the girl who broke the silence. ‘Too many airs and graces – all that Tuscan disdain. It pisses us off – but he knows his stuff. The rein rings are a big find – if we find a chariot burial we can all use it in our work – I’m doing an MA, it’ll help. He can just be a bit difficult. Haughty.’
They all nodded. ‘Which is laughable,’ added Josh, deciding to put the boot in. ‘When you think where he came from.’
They all smiled in a way which made Dryden’s skin creep, but he took the bait. ‘Tuscany?’ he asked, remembering too late that he’d had a chance to ask Valgimigli himself on the steps of Alder’s funeral parlour.
‘Yeah. But originally. All that Italian sophistication, eh? Try the Fens.’
Dryden looked incredulous. ‘You can’t be serious. The accent. The tan. The career?’
‘His passport’s British – we’ve seen it. We went to Oslo to see a ship burial when the dig started.’
‘Fine. So he’s a Brit.’
‘The Fens,’ said Josh. ‘He told us – later, when he talked us through the history of the site. He said he came here as a kid, from school – to see the huts. He left after university – Cambridge – for Italy.’
‘And he’s still got local connections here in the Fens,’ added Josh.
Dryden’s patience was thinning out rapidly, but he felt that he was getting closer to the heart of the mystery of Serafino Amatista, so he played the game one more time. ‘Really?’
The diggers crowded in and told the story between them, savouring its whiff of scandal, the assumption that somewhere lay a family secret which the unflappable
