‘You won’t know this,’ said Dryden, realizing there was only one way to recapture Pepe’s co-operation. ‘The body in the tunnel. It isn’t Serafino Amatista – unless he lived on for up to half a century after he disappeared. The bones date to sometime between 1970 and 1990.’
Dryden thought of all that had happened to Pepe’s family in those two sorrow-filled decades. Pepe held Dryden’s eyes for a moment, and then the china handle of his cup broke, the black gritty coffee pooling on the worn Formica.
As he swept the spillage away with a cloth Dryden carried on. ‘Which means someone was using the gardeners’ tunnel long after the war had ended, long after the gardeners had started their new lives as model citizens. Why would someone do that?’
Pepe swabbed the table in a sudden burst of manic energy. ‘Dad always said the tunnel had been filled in by the British when they switched the Germans into the camp. That they’d ripped the huts apart, to make sure there was nothing there.’
Dryden nodded, ignoring him, but beginning to see what had been hidden for so long. He thought about the private education, the bills and the struggling post-war restaurant in the Fens. Where had Marco Roma kept his treasures? What better place than the old tunnel?
‘Did Azeglio bring his wife with him when he visited?’ asked Dryden, setting his plate on the counter.
‘No. No, she didn’t come. But she knew us well enough.’
‘Of course – I’d forgotten. She was at the university with Azeglio. So you’ve known her many years…’
Pepe laughed, standing. ‘Beautiful girl,’ he said, setting down the mug he was drying. ‘Very beautiful.’ He smiled, and looked ten years younger. ‘Everyone loved Louise.’
30
Lost in Ely’s spreading smog the tiny village of Queen Adelaide was invisible: reduced to a mysterious series of mechanical sounds, each one a clue to its railway past. Goods trains criss-crossed its four level crossings, and the klaxons which blared as the automatic barriers were raised and lowered were a constant motif. Two mainline routes, a branch line and a great, sweeping loop for the goods trains had given Queen Adelaide its Victorian role as a microscopic Clapham Junction, a village overwhelmed by the railways. By one of the automatic barriers a tethered goat looked constantly startled by the passage of cars making their way out towards the more distant villages of Burnt Fen.
Humph, ignoring the dismal visibility, took the first two crossings at the Capri’s top speed of 53 mph, achieving a satisfying degree of lift-off and percussion on re-entry. This was one of the joys of his life and he was deeply satisfied to hear the exhaust hit the ground on the second attempt – a hollow clang like a Chinese dinner gong – followed by the faint but exotic scrape of the rear bumper touching the tarmac. But the third barrier was flashing red before he got within distance, so he was forced to pull up in the mist and wait. A train clattered past devoid of passengers, rocking the cab slightly as it rolled over uneven sleepers.
‘That was very childish,’ said Dryden, looking pointedly out of the side window at the tethered goat, its eyes a pool of satanic yellow and black. ‘Well done.’
‘Cheers,’ said Humph. ‘Terrific.’ He thrummed his fingers on the furry steering-wheel cover he’d bought in a job lot with a pair of fluffy dice.
Dryden reviewed his conversation with Pepe Roma. He was convinced that the clues to Azeglio Valgimigli’s death lay in his family’s past, and with the body in the moon tunnel. To build on his suspicions he needed to know more: what, for example, was the family secret he couldn’t share? Clearly the brothers had disagreed about the future of their father’s business. But Pepe had made it clear there was another, deeper reason for the bad blood which seemed to have poisoned the family. Dryden knew one man who could help, and it was a man who owed him a favour.
About 100 yards beyond the village a drove road broke north, climbed the railway embankment and crossed another, hidden railway crossing before turning back towards the line. The track petered out here but left a clear footpath ahead. Humph executed an inexpert hand-brake stop and killed the engine. The mist, free of the contamination of the town dump upriver, was sharp and cold with a touch of frost. Dryden could see nothing but the neat rows of late salad crops in the rich black soil of the fields. They were alone together again, a situation neither saw as a disaster.
Dryden cracked the door open and the mist slipped in, making Humph shiver, a physical reaction in the cabbie which involved counter-swinging several layers of flesh in both a clockwise and anticlockwise direction. He pulled a tartan rug off the back seat and tucked it under his chin like a giant napkin, meanwhile drilling his bottom down into the sheepskin rug on his seat like a dog on heat. Dryden let some more mist seep in before re-interring his friend in the vehicle which had become his moving, living mausoleum. Then he set off alone into the whiteout.
At the top of the embankment Dryden was startled to find himself so close to the line and, rather than follow the trackside path, he dropped down a few paces to give himself plenty of clearance in case a train came through. He stopped once, listening for the clatter, but all he heard was the hint of Humph’s onboard stereo language tape and the distant bongs signalling the rise and fall of Queen Adelaide’s barriers. A bird crossed his field of vision, swooping from invisible to visible to invisible in less than a second. Then he saw it: a crazy wooden pile of eccentric architecture, twisted high into the mist. A plaque in old British Rail typography read: QUEEN ADELAIDE, PRICKWILLOW ROAD SIGNAL BOX. 1936. Dryden, taking a closer look at the rails, saw that weeds sprouted from the gravel between the sleepers; it looked like the branch line was defunct, as well as the signal box.
The three-storey wooden house dripped in the mist. Dryden climbed the exterior stairs to the first floor where a long picture window, which had once looked out over the two lines which joined about fifty yards to the south, showed the old switchgear and levers. Casartelli was sitting in a kind of wooden inglenook seat set amongst the polished wood and brass – like a human cog in the machine.
He welcomed Dryden with a smile more redolent of the Lido than Littleport. In one hand he held a copy of the
‘A thousand thanks to you,’ said Casartelli. ‘Already more than ?2,000. We are well on our way and thanks to you – sit.’ Dryden sat, suppressing a vague feeling of guilt at the effortless manipulation he was about to exert on his victim.
Then Casartelli realized his mistake. His hand rose to cover his mouth. ‘What am I thinking? You are here about Azeglio, of course. Terrible news. I heard on the radio. His family, what pain for them. He was not a good son, but he was a successful son, perhaps you cannot be both.’
