because of rent arrears, writes Philip Dryden. The county social services department offered Ms Vee Hilgay a place at the Cedarwood Retirement Home. Ms Hilgay, who had lived at her flat in Augustus Road on the Jubilee Estate for 12 years, said, ‘I offered them regular payments to try and clear the debt – which I acknowledge. I am not infirm, or unable to look after myself. This was my home, and I was perfectly capable of running it.’ A spokesman for social services said, ‘We have offered Ms Hilgay alternative accommodation and written off her debts. The council’s housing stock must be managed on a commercial basis to protect the interests of all council tax payers.’ Ms Hillgay is the secretary of the Ely Labour Party and a former charity worker. She was born and raised at Osmington Hall, her family home until debts and death duties forced her mother to sell in 1949. The house is now open to the public and run by the National Trust.
Dryden felt a pang of guilt, imagining Vee in the home she so despised. He wanted to end the search for the Dadd but didn’t know how, so he tapped Cavendish-Smith’s mobile number out on the desk phone.
Engaged. He left a message: ‘Call me. I know more about the family.’
Charlie had his coat on and was heading for the door. ‘Tonight,’ he said, pretending he’d just remembered. ‘I’ve got you and Garry down for the demo at the site. OK? Eclipse is 11.30. Split the time up between yourselves – Mitch’ll be there for the lot. Cheers.’
Garry beamed. ‘We could hit the pub.’
Dryden craved sleep, time to think, and solitude. ‘I’ll see you there at 11.00. You do the first two hours. Don’t turn up drunk.’
Dryden left
‘The boat,’ said Dryden. They drove in silence, the sunlight sending shots of pain through his eyeballs. He thought of visiting Laura but remembered his father-in-law had just returned from The Tower: ‘How’d it go?’ he asked.
‘Not good,’ said Gaetano. ‘But we talked.’
They skimmed down the drove road beside Barham’s Farm towards
‘I’m gonna sleep. I need a lift, later, at 10.45. Can you wake me?’
He took the dog and led her into the cabin where she slipped under the bunk. Dryden collapsed and embraced a, for once, dreamless sleep.
39
The first sight of the blood-red shadow sent a shudder through the crowd which pressed up against the security fence. Dryden stood on the roof-rack of the Fiat and looked towards the halogen lights illuminating the site. Between the car and the fence he judged the crowd at 300 strong, all heads tilted upwards, catching the amber moonlight, their hands raised in salute. Speedwing, sitting on someone’s shoulders, pointed his staff at the moon and began a chant. The crowd swayed with him, transformed into a congregation, and for the first time a sense of anger and menace emanated from the protesters, good natured high spirits evaporating as the white moonlight died, to be replaced by the shadow of the eclipse.
At 11.36pm precisely the earth’s shadow had clipped the moon. Even Dryden, immune to the romantic nostalgia of the druids, felt the change: the black hair on his neck bristled as the pine woods fell silent. Despite himself he sensed his heartbeat quicken, and the individuals who made up this shimmering crowd began to pulse too, as if to a common beat. But it was the silence which lent credence to the charge of desecration, and seemed to bless the hungry souls who had come to worship. Here they stood, where they felt thousands had stood before, to watch an eclipse plunge the night into blackness.
The police, who had thrown a loose cordon behind the demonstrators, stood back amongst the pine trees. By the gates a single squad car sat silently, only its rotating blue light indicating it was on duty. A walkie-talkie crackled but was hurriedly stifled. The silence, again complete, ushered the hypnotic shadow across the moon and as the pale rose red took the place of the high-voltage white the shadows deepened on earth. The glare of the moon faded, and stars – normally unseen at the moon’s edge – emerged from the black sky. Finally, only a single sliver of the full moon remained, a brilliant shard of white light, exploding at the edge of the red sphere like a sunburst.
Then the eclipse was complete. Speedwing stood on his supporters’ shoulders, a black figure against the site’s halogen floodlights. Above them the moon, in its subtle new radiance, hung for once like a sphere, not a mundane, flattened disc. On its surface the familiar seas and mountains reappeared more clearly, intimate, closer. And still, the impenetrable silence, until Speedwing spoke.
‘The fence!’
The crowd turned and pressed forward, the sound of buckling metal accompanied by the sharp cracks of the thin bands breaking between the reinforced poles. Then came the shot, and the screams. Dryden guessed it was an airgun, and the second shot found its target as one of the floodlights crackled and cut out, followed almost immediately by the others as the circuit was broken.
Dryden blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust, but it was as if the world had become a giant photographer’s darkroom, lit only in infrared. He heard a bark and turned to see Boudicca bounding past the line of white police vans from which uniformed officers in riot gear were being disgorged into the puddles of red light beneath the pine trees, where Gaetano had parked the Fiat. He saw fear in the dog’s eyes, which doubly reflected the red moon, so he grabbed the leash and joined the throng of demonstrators pushing through the gap in the security wire.
Ahead of him, just a few yards ahead, a hooded figure in black moved with the others, fair hair showing at the shoulders. The rest, agitated, cast round for Speedwing’s staff to follow. But the figure in black moved purposefully towards the ladder that led down into the main diggers’ trench, retrieved a torch from a pocket and checked the beam by shining it once into the face beneath the hood. Then, quickly, the figure descended.
Dryden followed, his scalp prickling with fear. At the top of the ladder he paused, holding Boudicca back on the leash, before climbing down, the dog bounding down beside him into the gloom of the ditch. Above him on the edge two demonstrators struggled with a policeman in riot gear, but below the way was clear, the only light the lunar red, and by it, ahead, he saw the figure pause at the central crossroads and turn east towards the moon tunnel.
He walked on, encouraged by Boudicca’s confident tugs, his own knees buckling with fear, as he relived the moment when the flailing figure of the mutilated Azeglio Valgimigli had thrown itself at his feet. He stumbled badly,
