The Moon Tunnel(25)

‘The annex, then,’ said Dr Mann, aware and clearly intrigued by Dryden’s enquiry, leading him through the ground floor towards a Nissen-hut extension which had been added to the museum in the 1950s, having been rescued from one of the nearby bomber aerodromes which dotted the Isle of Ely. Mann stopped in his tracks, plunging both hands deep in the tweed jacket pockets in frustration. ‘Forgive me – I’ve forgotten the keys. Can you hang on – I’ll be two minutes.’

The curator fled, leaving Dryden alone in one of the older, unmodernized, rooms. A Roman skull looked out of the nearest display box, its cranium holed above the right eye by what looked like an axe blow. According to the printed legend it had belonged to a soldier uncovered on the site of a villa north of Littleport. A display in the corner attempted to recreate life in this outpost of fenland civilization, with two full-sized mannequin figures dressed stiffly in crisp togas. He dismissed the thought that one of them had just moved, but as he turned his back he felt the hairs rise on his neck.

Then he heard a footfall from the next gallery, then heard it again. A series of tiny taps followed, the sound of a pen top dotting on glass. Dryden slipped his feet forward noiselessly over the parquet flooring and moved towards the interconnecting doorway. The far room was dedicated to Anglo-Saxon finds in the area, principally the hill fort uncovered near Ely in the 1950s at Wardy Hill. Leaning over one of the display cabinets, her head almost touching the glass, was Ma Trunch.

‘Ma,’ said Dryden, surprised that she should jump guiltily at the sound of her own name.

Dryden peered into the cabinet with her. It contained some bronze items from an Anglo-Saxon burial in the north of the county.

‘Hobby?’ asked Dryden, remembering the metal-detector.

‘Not much else to do now the site is closed. The Crow didn’t help.’

She straightened up and blocked out quite a bit of light. Dryden couldn’t prevent himself from stepping back. The dog’s lead hung lifelessly at her side. She must have left Boudicca outside.

One of the slabs of meat which made up her face slid over another: ‘I can be interested like anybody else,’ she said. ‘I was a student once, you know.’

Dryden tried to imagine this but failed. ‘Cambridge?’ he said, playing the flattery card.

‘Oxford,’ she said, trumping him.

‘Find much?’

‘Yes. That’s mine,’ she said, pointing at a tiny gold pin mounted on a black card in a separate case. ‘Saxon tunic jewellery. Field over West Fen.’

‘Any news on the dogs?’ said Dryden.

‘It’s treasure trove, but I let the museum have it,’ she said, ignoring him.

‘The security firm guarding the archaeological site at California lost its three dogs two nights ago. I guess the police have been in touch?’ said Dryden, ignoring her now that it was his turn.

She looked at Dryden and he noticed the whites of her eyes were a mucky colour, like the old fridges at the dump.

‘Why’s that your business to mind?’ she said.

Dryden, intimidated, felt his Adam’s apple bobble.

Dr Mann reappeared with the keys to the annex and Ma Trunch melted away, an impressive feat given the terrain.

The annex, opened only for group visits or at weekends and in high summer, housed three large displays. The air was chilly, and a thin stratum of mist had seeped in through the louvred windows in the Nissen-hut’s roof. On one side stood a tableau of masons working on the cathedral roof, with gargoyles half finished, and stone being hauled using block and tackle. On the other wall an eel-catcher’s cottage had been built, complete with glowing fireplace and a smoking shed. And in the centre stood the PoW hut, the number 14 stencilled in black paint on the façade. The figure of a British squaddie in 1940s kit stood guard at one corner, a misshapen stuffed Alsatian at his side.

‘It’s a bit of a shock to see it,’ said Dryden. ‘You just don’t think…’

‘That the British had PoW camps too? Oh, yes. What else could they do with prisoners – there were more than 400,000 Germans taken, let alone the Italians. Something like three hundred camps in the UK.’

‘What do the kids think?’

‘It’s a popular exhibit, Mr Dryden. Possibly for the wrong reasons. They just think its like Colditz or The Great Escape. I’m not sure it sinks in that it happened here – in their own town. We used to do the occasional tour out to California, when the huts were still standing. Visiting German tourists were very interested, you see. I suspect it helps redress the balance of the mind: they too were victims.’ He smiled, but the hard edges of his face killed any warmth.