The Moon Tunnel

by The Moon Tunnel

  As twilight approached he had become lost amongst the hospital buildings. Beyond the main block the old RAF wards, now mothballed, ran in a graceful arc around playing fields. Towards the perimeter fence, in the same 1930s style as the main buildings, stood the pool – refurbished for use by the occupational therapists who worked with patients referred to the convalescent unit. The lights within showed that someone was swimming.

  Now he skirted the windows, keeping out of the setting sun, and found a door. He heard another door open and shut within and, intuitively, stepped quickly to one side and behind a buttress wall. He heard the outside door open and then footsteps moving quickly away along the gravel path. The figure dissolved quickly in the last shreds of the day’s mist but he knew the outline well: Pepe Roma. Why was Azeglio Valgimigli’s brother visiting his widow?

  Inside Dryden was enveloped by the warm, moist air. The sound of a swimmer, languidly making lengths, played like a mantra. She continued with the lengths, backstroke, for ten minutes, her style relaxed and unhurried, and he took one of the white plastic seats and pulled it to the edge of the pool. Her measured pace gave him time to think, to try and recall the first time he’d spoken to Louise Beaumont in the cemetery just hours before her husband’s ritual murder. She’d lied, he knew that then, when she’d said her husband had told her about the moon tunnel. And, he remembered now, he’d told her about the desertion of Serafino Amatista, and the execution at Agios Gallini.

  Finally she stopped swimming, climbing the ladder with practised ease, the muscles on her arms flexing in the light.

  She saw him quickly, but there was no reaction, and she continued drying herself before fetching a robe and a plastic chair which she placed six feet from his: the perfectly judged distance, a professional distance.

  ‘A coincidence? Hardly,’ she said, retrieving a bottle of mineral water from the pocket of her robe.

  ‘A perk?’ said Dryden, looking round the empty pool.

  ‘Yes. Not mine – I’m breaking the rules.’

  ‘And Pepe?’

  She drank from the bottle. ‘Visiting. He’s been kind.’

  Dryden was getting nowhere. He needed to ruffle that polished surface. ‘Forgive me. Who owns Il Giardino?’

  She laughed then, considering whether to say more. ‘Look. When Marco died he left the business to Gina. When she dies – I suppose – technically it would have gone to Aze unless she has made other provisions. Can you imagine? The business is Pepe’s – I told him that. I also – and this is none of your business – gave him some money. Aze would have wanted it.’

  Dryden felt things were going much better. Why had she told him about the money? She was trying to use the interview, trying to lead him somewhere.

  ‘Sorry. I’ll be brief. I’m interested in what has… what has happened at California – not for the paper. The man found in the tunnel may have had a canvas with him – a painting. It’s worth a lot of money, and it belongs to a friend of mine. Did your husband find it?’

  She narrowed her eyes and Dryden knew she was going to lie again. ‘Perhaps. The police think that is maybe why he died. I can’t help…’ she began to fold the robe around her legs.

  ‘One last question?’

  But she stood.

  ‘Jerome Roma. I understand you were engaged? Have you heard from him since he went to Italy?’

  She tried smiling again, failed, and sat instead. ‘Who told you that?’ she asked, adding before he could reply, ‘No matter. I am eternally grateful for his absence from our lives. He sent me his engagement ring as a memento – I threw it in the Cam. I haven’t thought about him since. I haven’t spoken to him since. Is that clear?’

  ‘But you married his brother. I’m told they were much alike.’

  There was a splash of colour on her throat now, a vivid flush even through the tan. ‘On that point your information is woefully inaccurate. Yes, superficially. The eyes, the voice, from a distance the way they stood…’ Her eyes slipped from his and watched the water lapping at the pool side. ‘But my life with Azeglio was very different from the one I might have imagined with his brother.’

  It was a curiously ambivalent statement. Dryden noticed how she had avoided Jerome’s name.

  ‘A happy life?’ he asked.

  She clutched the robe to her, seemingly unable to answer such a direct question.

  ‘Azeglio and I enjoyed our lives. We have our careers, which have been highly successful. We have supported each other in our work. This is very important in a marriage, Mr Dryden, do you understand this?’

  Her voice had risen too far, and they listened to the echo.

  ‘Busy careers. But you were close? No secrets?’

  ‘We were partners. Partners in many ways. I’m proud of what we achieved. My husband didn’t waste his life, Mr Dryden. I won’t waste mine.’

  ‘But Jerome did?’

  She shrugged, and Dryden sensed she knew now she’d gone too far.

  ‘But you had no children?’ he asked, knowing it was a question she could bite on.

  She looked at him, the level of suppressed anger in her eyes making him lean back. ‘How dare you! That is our business, our decision.’ She covered her eyes and Dryden wondered if that was a lie too.

  She swept past heading for the changing rooms and as Dryden watched he recalled something else about that first meeting, the way she’d clung to her husband’s arm while the rest of their bodies never touched, despite the sinuous weave of her hips. He considered the unruffled surface of the pool, and imagined the gold engagement ring dropping into the Cam, and the sluggish circular wavelets, radiating out.

  32

  Dryden stood in the moon shadow of the Archangel Gabriel, the statue which had guarded the gates of the town’s cemetery since the death of Queen Victoria. Sunset had been at 5.40pm precisely – Dryden had checked the time with the Met Office – and had been glimpsed momentarily through the rapidly clearing mist which always heralded the onset of the starlit night. It had been the signal for action: the removal of the medieval barrier to exhumation. The gravediggers, undertakers, police and pathologist had been in position since late afternoon. A Catholic priest had arrived at 5.00, and entered the white scene-of-crime tent which had been erected over the spot, and which was now lit from within. Just visible through this translucent screen were figures moving at the graveside. Beside this tent a second had been erected for the pathologist’s examination of the skeleton, and for the retrieval of a DNA sample from marrow in the bones. The Crow’s photographer Mitch Mackintosh had spent the last hour kneeling on the roof of his aged Citroën, a telescopic lens trained on the backlit tents. Mitch, a Scot with a passion for fake Tam o’shanters and idle gossip, was, Dryden noted, helping keep the cold night air at bay with the help of a hip flask.

  A PC stood at the gates, barring entry to all but those with official duties. What Dryden needed was to get closer, collect some ‘colour’ from the scene within, so that The Crow could carry an eyewitness account to accompany Mitch’s atmospheric shots. At the moment there was every chance he would have to make it up – or rely on some details gleaned from those leaving the cemetery.

  He shivered, unwarmed by the stars above and the full, pulsating moon. He was frightened now, frightened that he was so close to the truth about the moon tunnel. Should he go to the police? But they’d ask for evidence, and he had none. Humph, snug in the bubble of light and warmth which was the Capri, looked upon the scene outside with undisguised disinterest, pushing a Cornish pasty into his face. A thin film of sweat caught the moonlight, despite the frosty air.

  Police cars and other vehicles were parked haphazardly over the grass verges. A pair of headlights appeared out of the night, swung in towards the railings and died. A vanity light clicked on and Dryden saw the face of Dr Siegfried Mann, checking some paperwork and his watch. The volunteer assistant curator got out, made his way to the rear of the hatchback Ford and flipped up the boot, leaning in to retrieve a lar
ge wooden Red Cross box.

  Dryden appeared at his shoulder. ‘What’s up?’ he said. ‘Can I help?’

  Mann straightened up, running a hand down his spine. ‘Yes. Thank you. My back…’

  ‘Let me,’ said Dryden, stretching out his arms so that he could take the box’s handles at either end. He lifted the awkward shape, but could feel it was empty. ‘It’s no problem – I’ll follow,’ he said.

  Mann, oblivious of Dryden’s ulterior motive, led the way. Dryden reckoned he had a slim chance of making it to the graveside. If he met anyone he knew he’d be thrown out: worse, the Press Complaints Commission loomed.

  At the cemetery gate the PC stepped forward. ‘Gentlemen?’

  Mann showed his card. ‘I’m the curator from the museum. Mr Alder has asked me to attend – he said he’d leave the name. We have to remove some items from the coffin…’ He nodded towards the box Dryden held. ‘It’s Siegfried Mann. Dr Siegfried Mann.’

  The constable checked a clipboard by torchlight and waved them through, giving Dryden only a brief second look. ‘He’ll regret that,’ thought Dryden, keeping close to Mann as he wove his way between headstones towards the distant, dimly lit incident tent.

  Someone removing a white forensic coat approached from the shadows: Dr John Holbeach, the local pathologist. Dryden guessed he had been called in to take the DNA sample, a task mundane enough to excuse the Home Office expert who had attended the scene of Valgimigli’s murder. Dryden had covered many of Holbeach’s cases, none had been controversial.

  ‘Ah, Dr Mann. Thanks. I’m done in there,’ he said, breathing in the night air. ‘The coffin’s open, if you’d remove the items we can re-inter.’ The pathologist lit a cigarette, gave the reporter a nod, but asked no questions.

  Inside the tent the coffin stood on a trestle table, beside a second empty table. The bones were arranged carefully within the silk material of the coffin, but Dryden noticed a clean white hole which had been drilled in the thigh. The jaws of the skull gaped, apparently indignant at being hauled back into the world a second time.

  Mann reached into the coffin and removed the purple felt bag which had contained the artefacts he had collected to mark the burial of the unknown PoW, tipping the contents into the Red Cross box.

  ‘I don’t think all this is appropriate now,’ said Mann, carefully removing the furled Italian flag and the heavy brass military shield donated by the German Embassy, both of which had lain beside the felt bag. ‘Or these,’ he said, running his hand over the coins, badges and other memorabilia from the bag.

  Dryden nodded, his skin prickling slightly as he heard the voices outside the tent. ‘I don’t want to read about this in the paper, Dryden,’ said Mann. ‘I took your help as a kindness.’

  ‘Sure. I was never here,’ said Dryden. He could leave Mann out, and the coffin’s contents. He had enough for a great piece already, even better if he could get to the graveside.

  Mann began to extract some coins which had fallen from the bag into the silk lining of the coffin.

  ‘Just one thing,’ said Dryden. ‘You said you were good friends with Azeglio Valgimigli – it’s not really important but I’m curious. I met his wife. Would you say they were happily married?’

  ‘Louise was a beautiful woman,’ said Mann, straightening up and beginning to seal the Red Cross box with duct tape.

  ‘I can see that,’ said Dryden. ‘But did they seem suited?’

  ‘I don’t know. They say all marriages are different when viewed from the inside. I stayed with them once – in Lucca. They lived well, but perhaps worked too hard? I don’t know – it seems uncharitable now to say this – but it seemed a cold place. Though I never heard an argument between them… How many can say that of their own marriage?’

  ‘But Azeglio was unhappy?’ said Dryden.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mann as he finished sealing the box. ‘Yes. I think he felt very lonely, actually. Perhaps they both were… Now,’ he said, heaving the box around so that they could lift it between them. ‘Wait a minute, please – I need to find someone to close the coffin before we leave.’

  He slipped out through the folds of the tent. Dryden peered into the coffin in case Mann had missed anything. When he saw the button he felt his blood run deliciously cool, and he pocketed it quickly, a brief spasm of guilt making him glance at the skull exposed in the coffin beside him. He shivered then, not because he was in the presence of death, but because he felt very close to a killer. He held the button tight in his hand within his pocket, knowing it told him the truth.

  The silence in the next tent was profound, and tempting. He lifted the flap, saw that the space was empty and walked in. The scene-of-crime lamps were nearly blinding, and accentuated the darkness of the letterbox opening of the grave, which was neatly surrounded with plastic turf. Dryden moved to the edge and looked down. The overhead light penetrated to the bottom, where Dryden saw his reflection in water. The slender trench, the ultimate claustrophobic nightmare, made his knees weak and he swayed, perilously close to tumbling forward.

  He heard voices again approaching the tents, but found it extraordinarily difficult to break away from the graveside. The tent flap opened. ‘Dryden?’ It was Mann, his voice breaking the spell. ‘We should be gone now, please…’

  Wordlessly they lifted the Red Cross box as one of Alder’s assistants screwed down the coffin lid. They fled quickly to the car, passing only the priest returning to the graveside, his surplice catching the moonlight.

  Mann shook his hand. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry – about Azeglio – I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m sure they loved each other. I have no cause to doubt that.’

  Dryden nodded, discounting the retraction. As he watched Dr Mann drive away his mobile rang. It was one of Cavendish-Smith’s junior flunkeys. There had been a major development in the hunt for the killers of Professor Azeglio Valgimigli and a press briefing would be held at the local nick in the next ten minutes – a fact which explained the detective’s absence from the exhumation. Dryden pocketed the mobile, retrieving the button he had found in the coffin. He held it up to the moon, which shone through the mother-of-pearl with a ghostly light, illuminating the lion-and-bell motif.

  33

  Gladstone Gardens was a street of Edwardian terrace houses a short walk from the railway station, the decorated red brick and stucco work advertising the ambitions of the original builders, while each house bore a name etched into a keystone over the door: Balmoral, Windsor, Hampton, Sandringham… But by each front door, inset with stained-glass panels depicting sailing boats and rising suns, a vertical line of bell pushes proclaimed that the visitor was now in Bedsit Land, that dreary corner of the suburbs where every hallway is crowded with bicycles and junk mail festers on the doormat. But Gladstone Gardens was not just one of thousands of such streets shackling a great city, it was Ely’s only excursion into grotty suburbia – an outlier from the town centre itself, and a brief precursor to the Barratt lands beyond.

  The black police van into which the press had been packed was parked at the top of the street, with a decent view through the tinted windows at the façade of No. 56. The pre-raid briefing had been just that: brief. Cavendish-Smith reiterated his belief that the nighthawks were undoubtedly linked to Professor Valgimigli’s murder. The object of the operation codenamed Albert – was to raid a house known to be used by the nighthawks in the trafficking of stolen artefacts. The press and TV were in on the raid because the pictures would get the investigation plenty of airtime the next day.

  Detectives had infiltrated the nighthawks’ network in Lincoln, posing as London agents seeking Roman artefacts for non-institutional buyers – rich individuals prepared to enjoy their purchases in private. An officer working undercover had obtained a list of the gang’s contacts across the region. The name of Josh Atkinson, the late Professor Valgimigli’s senior digger, had headed the list. A small team had tailed Josh for a week, moving rhythmically between the site, The Frog Hall, his gir
lfriend’s shared house in the town centre and his ground-floor flat at 56a Gladstone Gardens. Visitors photographed entering Josh’s home in the last forty-eight hours had included two well-known members of the nighthawks network and a teenager with bright red hair and a dragon tattoo on his neck, known to local police. According to information received the nighthawks had some merchandise to sell: and an appointment with a buyer at 1.00am.

  The press sat meekly waiting for the action to begin. The regional TV crew were the most excited, strong-arm raids made great footage, even if there was bugger-all inside the house and they had to wait nearly twenty-four hours to get it out on prime-time news. But if the raid led to arrests linked to the murder they’d make the national news as well. In the cramped van the temperature rose, despite the frosty clear moonlit night. A woman DC was driving, a plain-clothes detective beside her. Another plain-clothes officer, unnamed but introduced to the press as an expert in stolen antiquities attached to the Regional Crime Squad, would enter the premises with the rest of the team. He was in another van, this one full of police officers, parked fifty yards further down the road, while a third was at the rear of the building with a view of a dirt alleyway providing vehicle access. A police radio crackled and the detective reached for it quickly, listened, acknowledged the call, threw open the passenger door, followed swiftly by the sliding door behind it.

  ‘Let’s go – unmarked van loading at rear of premises.’

  They ran, a scampering pack, across the road to the unhinged gate of No. 56. The other team got there first. Six officers in full protective gear charged up the path, armed with a lethal-looking door ram and stun guns, with Cavendish-Smith in the rear, just close enough to get in the TV pictures. The front door splintered with ease, the Victorian stained glass tinkling musically as it fell to the stone step. The TV crew had its lights on and bundled in after the six officers; Dryden – cruelly detained by a loose shoelace – was only twenty yards behind.