The Moon Tunnel

Wednesday, 27 October

27

Dryden woke aboard PK 129; woke with a shout, the nightmare robbing his breath. He gulped air but the feeling of imprisonment and suffocation remained, making the muscles in his arms and legs jerk in spasm. He looked at the cabin roof panels and willed himself to remember where he was: on a small boat, on a great river, under the vast canopy of the Fen sky; but when he drew back the cabin blind he saw only the early morning mist and the bleak black surface of the water. He covered his face with his hands and remembered the night, remembered Etty. He could still feel her skin, and the subtle flexing of her thighs. Then he heard the cathedral bell toll, and the guilt made him sick. He listened as each hour passed in summary: seven chimes in all.

‘Get up,’ he told himself, knowing that without movement and action a dark depression lurked, ready to stifle him like the sand of the childhood beach of his dream.

He’d asked Humph to pick him up at 7.15, so he rolled out of the bunk, showered, dressed and made coffee, taking the enamel mug up on deck. The mist was still light and fresh and Dryden, breathing in deeply, found it was free of the metallic poison which normally laced the midday smog. There was a vague circle of light and warmth to the east where the sun rose. The press conference had been called for 8.00am at California, and he hoped for news on Mann’s arrest, and even – hopelessly – for the finding of the missing Dadd.

He heard the Capri rattle over a cattle grid in the mist and the exhaust hit the wet clay with a thud and a clang. He took coffees down to the car and was rewarded with his habitual early morning sandwich, although the usual crispy bacon had been tactfully replaced with egg mayonnaise, an innovation which had prompted Humph to double the rations. As the cabbie ate his breathing came in whistling gusts, as if he’d run to the boat from town.

‘You need more exercise,’ said Dryden pointlessly, cracking his knuckles.

They were at the site by 7.50am. In the gloom the white tent the team had used to sort artefacts glowed with an interior, ghostly light. It had been commandeered as a press centre. Inside it, plastic school chairs were set out in lines, a portable convector heater churned out dry warm air and the TV cameras were already in place on a plinth in the centre, nicely obscuring the view for the print journalists. There were about fifty people in the tent, drinking free coffee and scattering plates of biscuits over a green baize refreshments table.

Dryden grabbed a chair next to Alf Walker, a wireman who covered the local courts for the Press Association. Alf’s passion was bird watching and Dryden noted that his notebook was open at a sketch of what looked like a Canada Goose. The detail was exquisite, and Alf was just shading in some of the tail feathers. Alf’s talents extended to shorthand, an effortlessly fluid transcript flowed from his pen at 180 words per minute, which made him the ideal person to sit next to at a press conference – especially after a night without much sleep.

‘Bit of a circus,’ said Alf, closing his sketch book with a sigh. He had a copy of the Express on his lap. ‘Nice eyewitness piece,’ he said, running his finger over the cover. ‘I’ve run it on the wire as well.’ Dryden basked in the compliment. It had been a good piece, capturing the barbarity of the scene of the archaeologist’s murder.

Two radio reporters were trying to attach microphones to the dais and arguing about who should have pole position. The TV lights thudded on in time to catch the entrance of DS Bob Cavendish-Smith, followed by the chief constable of East Cambridgeshire, Sir Douglas Johns, who introduced himself and gave a brief outline of the facts with a quotable pledge to track down the killer, a performance marred by his innate pomposity. Sir Douglas was a self-inflating chief constable. He handed over to Cavendish-Smith for the difficult bit.

‘Right,’ said the detective, instantly more at ease than his superior officer. The chief constable helped himself to some water from a carafe while Cavendish-Smith poured his own from a bottle of Evian he had brought with him.

‘The statement being circulated now…’ A WPC began handing out a single photocopied sheet. ‘This sets out what we are able to say about the discovery of Professor Valgimigli’s body and the results of the initial examination by the pathologist.’

Cavendish-Smith waited for the room to settle, sipping his Evian, while Johns appeared to swell slightly in his beribboned uniform.

‘But to reiterate some of the basics. Early press speculation has centred on the so-called “execution” of the victim. We are now of the opinion that this murder was staged to look like an execution.’ The detective turned to an overhead projector and inserted a slide. ‘This picture shows the blindfold found around Professor Valgimigli’s eyes. Forensic examination shows that the powder marks on this piece of material, which we think may have been torn from a silk scarf, are not consistent with those on the skin of the victim beside the entry wound. We believe the blindfold was in fact held over the gun muzzle when the shot was fired, and then tied around the victim’s head. Secondly, we are suspicious of the manner in which the wrists were tied behind the victim. The knotting is loose,’ he said, replacing the slide with another. ‘Just here. It would not have been rigorous enough to prevent the victim’s escape. Similarly, the pine post against which the victim was slumped was only embedded in the ground two to three inches – hardly enough to support a kneeling man, let alone a standing one, taking the full force of a gunshot.’

Some hands went up but Cavendish-Smith waved them aside.

‘I’ll take questions at the end.’

Dryden considered the scene he had witnessed in the trench. The execution initially implicated Dr Mann. But who had known enough about his past to plant the connection?

‘Some other points,’ said Cavendish-Smith breezily. ‘You will all be aware that an arrest was made in connection with the offences at California. I can tell you that the individual in question has now been released and that we believe he has no connection with these offences. His name will be withheld. He was able to provide the investigation with valuable information which will help us in tracking down the killer – or killers.’

Dryden turned to Alf’s ear. ‘Whoops! That could cost them a few bob. Everyone in town knows who they nabbed. One wrongful arrest down, how many to go?’

‘Lastly,’ said Cavendish-Smith, looking straight into the main BBC local TV camera, ‘I’d like to ask everyone to be vigilant and help the police find the gun with which this cold-blooded crime was committed.’

The detective had a felt bag on the desk beside him, like the ones that bingo callers extract numbers from. He extracted a gunmetal grey pistol, a silver fountain pen through the trigger. The cameras whirred.

‘We believe that an Enfield No. 2 Mk 1 – a common Second World War officer’s pistol – was used to kill the victim. We believe the bullets which ended Professor Valgimigli’s life, which we were able to retrieve from the wall of the trench in which the body was found, were fired from a gun similar to this. There is an earlier version – the Webley – which may have been used. Both fire .38 calibre bullets and weigh about 800 grams. The victim’s wife has told us that Professor Valgimigli owned such a weapon, and he may have had it beside him at the site which he was guarding.’

Once the cameras had feasted on the pistol Cavendish-Smith asked for questions.

‘What about motive?’ said a voice from the back.

Cavendish-Smith shrugged, then quickly realized this was a mistake on TV. ‘Clearly we have several avenues of enquiry. Initially we are concentrating on the proposition that Professor Valgimigli had stumbled on thieves attempting to loot the site. He spent the evening with his wife – Dr Louise Beaumont. They had dinner together at a friend’s and then she dropped her husband at the site. They discovered the gates had been opened, the locks cut. He decided to stay and secure the site. The only person who saw him alive after that – around midnight – was the killer. We are making extensive enquiries, aided by the Regional Crime Squad, into the so-called “nighthawk” network.’

Dryden raised his hand. ‘What about the body discovered in the tunnel on this site last week? Are the deaths linked?’

Cavendish-Smith smiled sweetly and the chief constable deflated slightly. ‘Thank you for that question – it gives me the opportunity to update you on those enquiries.’

Dryden turned again to Alf. ‘What enquiries? They weren’t bothered twenty-four hours ago.’

‘There are clearly potential links between the two victims,’ said Cavendish-Smith briskly. ‘Professor Valgimigli, as you all now know, had family connections with this area and his father – Marco Roma – was a PoW We don’t, generally, believe in coincidences.’

The detective swallowed hard and shuffled his papers. ‘We now have some results from the forensic examination of the bones discovered by Professor Valgimigli’s team. An assumption was made in that case, understandably, that the death dated to the time when California was a PoW camp. Indeed, the archaeologist and his team helped verify the probable age of the bones. I have to tell you that their estimate was incorrect, as indeed was the initial estimation of the pathologist.’

He shuffled the papers again, sipped a glass of water and carried on. ‘We can now say that the man found in the tunnel died between 1970 and 1990. The conditions in the soil, particularly the encasement of the body in the tunnel, had greatly accelerated the deterioration of the bones, particularly from the action of water and parasites. This clearly alters the nature of the investigation and I have applied to the Home Office for permission to undertake an exhumation to obtain DNA samples. While it is unlikely further evidence is available, I do not think, in the light of the brutal murder of Professor Valgimigli, that we can leave any stone unturned.’

Dryden’s mind raced; his hand went up.

Cavendish-Smith glanced at his superior and both stood. ‘As Sir Douglas has said, we are determined to make an arrest soon. I’m afraid that at this time we can take no more questions. Thank you.’

Everyone else was on their feet, the room a minor riot of jostling camera crews. But Dryden sat, stunned. Where was Serafino Amatista? Whose body had the archaeologist uncovered? Had the PoW ID disc been planted to lead the police astray? The corpse had been found with some of the loot from Osmington Hall, and so was clearly linked to the ‘gardeners’ of California. But why were the gardeners still using the tunnel more than twenty-five years after the end of the war? The heart of the mystery must lay with the Roma family, and at Il Giardino. But first Dryden needed to move quickly, for Dr Siegfried Viktor Mann had a story to tell as well.