There was only one thing wrong, Dryden noted, coughing loudly: there was no barman. In the silence he heard a train on the main line to Lynn, a seagull screeching on the chimney pots above and, intermittently, the sound of someone snoring close by. Years of attention to inconsequential detail told him something particular about the snoring: it was the outward sign of an inward hangover. Peering over the bartop Dryden found the snorer, asleep on a low bench below the barrels from which beer was directly dispensed to The Frog Hall’s discerning clientele. Dryden tinkled a delicate brass bell placed on the bar for that purpose. The barman uncurled himself and rose, attempting no explanation. He gloomily poured Dryden a pint without asking him what he wanted.
‘Busy lunchtime?’ asked Dryden.
‘Belter,’ said the barman, revealing a rich Ulster accent.
‘Diggers?’
The barman consulted a railway station clock about five feet in diameter which hung on the far wall.
‘Does that say 6.30?’ he asked, rubbing his eyes and producing a slightly gritty sound. Dryden nodded. ‘Any time now, then. Clockwork.’
Dryden let this remark hang in the air. He drank his beer while the barman emptied ashtrays and, with bucket and corks, began to clean the pipes. Less than a minute later they heard the front door open and a gaggle of excited voices filled the outer corridor. The digging team arrived, led by Jayne, the girl with the sensational hips. Dryden judged the moment and bought a round, securing a place in the circle at one of the heavy iron-legged tables. Josh, the digger who had found the body in the tunnel, sat next to the leggy blonde and wrapped an arm round her waist. The group broke open a collective packet of Golden Virginia, but Dryden could smell that on site they might have had different tastes – the aroma of cannabis clung to them.
Josh sported a Save the Whales badge on a T-shirt emblazoned Glastonbury 2003 across his wide chest. The girl slumped in his arms, her breasts wandering under a loose-fitting hand-dyed top. Dryden liked misfits but this lot were annoyingly co-ordinated in their eccentricity: a troop of lost souls from a less materialistic decade who spent their days unearthing an even more distant past – a time before money existed.
Josh was, Dryden had long ago decided, the nominal leader. His height, the obvious good looks, the carefully tousled hayrick of hair, all helped buttress a sense of power.
‘It’s about the body in the tunnel,’ said Dryden. ‘I just wanted to do a follow-up feature, now it looks as though we know who chummy was.’
‘There’s a name?’ said Jayne.
‘Yes. We think it’s the body of an Italian PoW – Serafino Amatista. But he didn’t try to escape when he was in the camp. He was going in – as we saw.’ Dryden swallowed a couple of inches of beer but noticed the rest had nearly drained their glasses. He bought refills and threw the barman in the round for luck.
He returned and sat next to Josh, the rest of the diggers now lost in a conversation about Anglo-Saxon ritual. ‘Anyway, it’s clear this Amatista was going into the camp. By the end of the war the Italians were given a lot more freedom, as internees, replaced behind the wire by the Germans. The Italians were moved out on the land – to some of the larger farms which could organize the labour. There was one at Buskeybay – on the Lark – my family still talk about them. They were popular, friendly, good workers. Some of them stayed.’
Josh nodded, playing with Jayne’s ear. ‘Look,’ said Dryden. ‘Can you tell me exactly what happened that morning – the day you found him.’
The digger took his time making a roll-up. ‘Well, I’d been working on that stretch of the trench – the east lane we call it, running off the central crossroads out towards the old camp perimeter and the pine trees. I was walking the bounds – that’s like checking the edge of my area of excavation. You have to make sure nothing has contaminated the site – animals overnight, water damage, whatever. The dogs had gone, Valgimigli was worried, so we all had to check the site. The fog was really bad so I had to get right up close to the edge of the trench, and that’s when I found the tunnel.’
‘Right where we found the body?’
‘No. Not at first. I found the other side first. We’d cut through the tunnel, so it was in the walls of the trench on both sides. We hadn’t seen it at first because the soil was compacted and the trench was machine dug at that depth and that compresses the clay – like a layer of plaster spread on a rough wall. But overnight I suppose the looser soil had shifted and fallen slightly – so you could see the outline of the tunnel. I pulled at the edges with my fingers and found traces of the clapboard they’d used to shore the thing up when it was built. It was pretty clear to me what it was – especially at that depth. It was like the classic escape story, you know? I worked on that side for a while – five minutes maybe. Then I thought – what about the other side?’
He paused for effect, draining some more beer. The others were listening now, and Dryden saw some looks exchanged. Something was going on, and he wasn’t included.
‘That was very different. The first foot or so was open, the soil had spilled out into the trench. The clay inside was very unstable, clods and pebbles were falling from the roof, which had buckled.’
‘But you went in?’
‘Not far – a few feet. I used the long entrenching spade to work away at the earth. It was creeping all the time, it wasn’t difficult. Then the hand appeared, and the top of the skull. So I got out and went and got Professor Valgimigli – and you arrived.’
Dryden nodded: ‘Do you think someone had been working in the tunnel that morning, or the night before? Had someone been there before you? The dogs had gone that night, hadn’t they – so perhaps the site had been visited? By nighthawks?’
Josh shrugged. Jayne ran her hand up inside his T-shirt. ‘I guess it’s possible. I told the police – they didn’t seem bothered.’
‘It’s possible that the oilskin wallet you found – with the pearls – had once contained a canvas – an oil painting. A very valuable oil painting,’ said Dryden.
‘And you think we’ve got it?’ he said, gripping his pint glass.
‘Actually, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Dryden, drinking.
Josh tried to retrieve the situation. ‘I didn’t poke around. I found out what we were dealing with and then called for help.’
The Frog Hall’s windows were frosted, and the mist crowded out what little light was left in the day. A gull appeared in outline on the sill above their table, the sound of its feet shuffling on the wooden grating.
‘What’s Professor Valgimigli like to work with?’ asked Dryden, switching tack.
Another cat’s cradle of exchanged glances. It was the girl who broke the silence. ‘Too many airs and graces – all that Tuscan disdain. It pisses us off – but he knows his stuff. The rein rings are a big find – if we find a chariot burial we can all use it in our work – I’m doing an MA, it’ll help. He can just be a bit difficult. Haughty.’
They all nodded. ‘Which is laughable,’ added Josh, deciding to put the boot in. ‘When you think where he came from.’
They all smiled in a way which made Dryden’s skin creep, but he took the bait. ‘Tuscany?’ he asked, remembering too late that he’d had a chance to ask Valgimigli himself on the steps of Alder’s funeral parlour.
‘Yeah. But originally. All that Italian sophistication, eh? Try the Fens.’
Dryden looked incredulous. ‘You can’t be serious. The accent. The tan. The career?’
‘His passport’s British – we’ve seen it. We went to Oslo to see a ship burial when the dig started.’
‘Fine. So he’s a Brit.’
‘The Fens,’ said Josh. ‘He told us – later, when he talked us through the history of the site. He said he came here as a kid, from school – to see the huts. He left after university – Cambridge – for Italy.’