The machine jumped, and he watched appalled as the individual letters were spelt out: PRIVATE.
She deserved privacy, now that all her life was open except what was in her head. But he bridled at this exclusion, and wondered what possible secret she would want to keep from him.
He stood, unable to think how he could repair the damage she had done in that single word.
‘I must sleep,’ he said. ‘There’s a press conference at eight tomorrow morning – on Valgimigli. Forgive me – I’ve been – I’m sorry.’ He felt more anger that he should seek to apologize. He lowered her head on to the pillow, turned off the lights and said, ‘Goodnight’ kissing her by moonlight, but unable to see her eyes in the shadows of the room.
26
Dryden walked out of The Tower, past Humph’s cab, tapping briefly twice on the roof, their habitual signal that the day had ended. The Capri overtook him a minute later on the drive. Dryden did not look up from his footsteps as it swept past, but raised his hand in farewell.
‘Footsteps,’ he said out loud, walking on towards the river, trying to concentrate only on the rhythmic click of his heels on stone. He thought of home, the boat at Barham’s Dock and the chill damp of the river, and a wave of self-pity made him feel physically sick, so he increased his pace and thought of nothing but the night around him.
Since the crash at Harrimere Drain five years earlier, Dryden’s emotions had been cauterized: all feeling burnt away where self-knowledge met the outside world. His love for Laura, which had stunned him with its intensity in the hours after the accident, had been transmuted by degrees into the dutiful attentions of a carer, a hospital visitor, a past husband, a future husband, but never today’s husband. It was like trying to love an old photograph, a black and white vision of what once had been.
But he felt an emotion now – anger – and he let it flow, feeling its strength and vitality. ‘Secrets,’ he said, slamming his heel into the pavement. He passed the town’s police station where a solitary drunk stood guard, supported by a bollard, swaying to a tune only he could hear.
Dryden walked on, letting his anger build, knowing that with it he could justify retaliation.
Every day since Laura’s coma had begun he had been at her bedside, even through those first months when she hadn’t made a single microscopic movement. And then every day, again, through the intermittent, half-senseless period in which she had begun to broadcast messages on the COMPASS. He had kept faith with her, and kept faith with their dream. He had dealt with the real world in the best way he could while she lived in her own world, about which he knew so little.
How could she have a secret? He felt his anger surge, displacing other stored emotions.
The problem was words, he knew that now. For all that his trade had taught him, and for all of Laura’s talent with a script, they were bad at words. When they’d married they’d almost stopped using them, retreating instead into a comfortable and intimate partnership where almost nothing needed to be said. Now everything needed to be said, their relationship reduced to a series of computer printouts, e-mails and text messages, and the strain was distorting his ability to feel anything, let alone love.
Which was why he could savour his anger now: how dare she keep a secret from him, how dare she refuse to share everything, as he felt he had done?
He reached the riverside, slumped on a bench and threw his head back to look at the sky. The smog of the day had again been swept away; stars jostled for position in a sky teeming with light.
A nearly full moon. He thought about Etterley, dancing beneath the moon, as he’d seen her the first night he’d met the Water Gypsies. There was something redolent of the harvest festival about her body: her full breasts, her ample figure, her opulent blonde hair. He imagined that body, swaying under the moonlight, sinking to her knees in the long grass gilded with the moon’s white light.
He stood, setting off for the water meadows.
He’d made the Faustian pact with the first step: if they were dancing, he’d join them, if not, he’d walk towards his boat and drink his anger away before the inevitable nightmare, the familiar one now, the claustrophobia of the sand in sharp contrast to this, the overarching vastness of the night sky. He walked along the old wharf, past the darkened gables of The Frog Hall, and out on to the fen.
He saw the fire first, flickering where the water meadows folded down a slope. Here, in the lee of the flood bank, the Water Gypsies were gathered in a half-circle around a burning pile of wood and cardboard. He stood on the edge of the pool of red light and saw her immediately, dancing on the far side of the flames, and when she saw him she stopped, holding her hand out for his.
Dryden could smell the dope on the breeze, and – closer – the heat on his face which made his blood race. He took a drink from Speedwing, who pressed his shoulder, and he looked down into the amber liquid in the tumbler and drank as he felt Etty’s arm loop itself around his waist and then rest at the base of his spine. Dryden felt her mouth, warm and moist on his neck, and he felt then the need to say something, so he held her close and as he kissed her said, ‘Secrets.’
The moon was overhead when the dancers fell to the ground. Dryden could feel the sweat running between his shoulder blades and across his chest, while his mouth hung open, drawing in the cool night air. He let Etty take his hand and lead him along the river bank, away from the light of the fire, but into a field of meadow grass which almost reached Dryden’s shoulders. Someone by the fire played a drum, a rhythmic beat which made him feel safe, even out by the water’s edge.
He reached out for her but she stood back, put a hand to her shoulder and unfastened her dress, which fell in a single slide into the grass. The moon, ample itself, revealed her nakedness, and Dryden drank her in. He took her then and pressed their bodies together as she tore at his buttons and belt, then they knelt, briefly kissing before tumbling together to the earth. Quickly inside her he felt warm, enveloped, and when he came he was looking at her eyes, the familiar aqueous brown reflecting perfectly two nearly full moons. She cried out, and the drumbeat stopped, and he knew then that he too had a secret.
He saw them through a keyhole, that first time. It dated his passion, the shape of that vision – the heavy Victorian lock on the old outbuilding, the clunky key removed, to leave this window into their world.
Summer: 1983.
It had been the dairy once, his mother had said, for the farm which had stood on the bank above. Marco used it for wood, delivered into this treeless landscape by the merchant’s barge. But his boys had oiled the lock, and kept the key between them, securing for themselves a secret place for their childhood games.
But this wasn’t a childhood game.
He’d lost them quickly that day, as he increasingly did, and knew with a sickening certainty that they had contrived an escape. Which meant only one thing, that they were what he hoped they would never be.
But he didn’t have the key, so he knew where they’d be. He’d crept to the woodstore and sat in the grass, soaked in sunshine. At first he’d heard only the whispers: lips pressed to ears, obscuring what meaning there was. Then the sound of clothes slipping to the floor, a zip, a shirt drawn over shoulders and hair. They were out of sight, on the floor and then he heard the sound of a cork, not freshly drawn, but twisted out by hand. But no sound of the wine pouring, just the drinking from the neck, and the smack of a hand passed across wet lips.
The jealousy made him dizzy, so he sank down on his knees and closed his eyes. When he looked again he could see them: and it was worse, their mouths locked and her long pale fingers searching over his dark naked body. Summer: so a single ribbon of sunlight from the missing tiles in the roof crossed their backs, from the muscles of his thigh to the cool curve of her breast. He watched the bodies, moving awkwardly at first, but then with the twin powers of lust and youth.
His own excitement rose, giving him something of his own from their betrayal of him. He touched himself, only briefly
, but the release was almost immediate, and although he caught the cry before it broke free he knew he’d made a noise, a whimper for the loss of his self-respect.
Hidden in the stifled cry was a name: Louise.
But they were deaf to the world outside the foetal bundle they had made of each other, the human jigsaw puzzle without a gap. He saw her arch her back when he came, and the redness of her breast darkened amongst the shadows of the woodstore. The silence was luxurious and intense, and he heard his own heart beating within it.
Then, guiltily, he slunk away into the long grass beyond the garden, his passion gone, only to be replaced by the jealousy of Cain.
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.’
The Moon Tunnel Page 18