Speedwing was still talking. ‘And the police are taking it seriously even if you aren’t. They’ve been in contact and they’re putting officers out on the night. We don’t want trouble. I told ’em…’
That was good enough for Dryden, and should be good enough for the editor. He’d check with the station to make sure Speedwing was telling the truth. If he was, The Crow could hook the story on that, and then run Speedwing’s comments. That way everyone was covered.
‘Have you been on the site?’ asked Dryden, and knew immediately it was the right question.
The black eyes flashed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He thrust a hand into the trap, extricated the eel, and with a sharp twist of his wrists broke the cartilage of the backbone. The scrunch of crushed vertebrae echoed under the mist.
‘Was that why the police really came round?’
Speedwing began to walk back to his boat. ‘We’ve tried to keep a vigil. I spent a night up there, in the pines. Saw nothing and we’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘Get on the site?’
‘No. Never. Why?’
Dryden shrugged. ‘Someone did. The body in the tunnel, there was something buried with it, I think, something valuable.’
‘Valuable to whom?’ asked Speedwing. ‘All property is theft,’ he said, consulting what looked like a Rolex watch.
‘Did they ask about the nighthawks?’
‘Yup. We told ’em what we knew.’
They’d got to the boat. Dryden was tired pulling answers out like teeth. ‘Look – do you want something in The Crow about the demo?’
Dryden knew that without pre-publicity Speedwing’s event would be reduced to the usual suspects. But a good show in the paper might pull in new members, middle-class sympathizers who’d otherwise never think of demonstrating.
Speedwing checked the watch again. ‘’Course.’
‘Right. I need help too. And not just for a story. What did you see?’
Speedwing looked at his hands, over which was smeared the eel’s blood: ‘The night the dogs were killed – the night before they found that poor bastard in the tunnel? Well, we went up after the pubs closed and we saw ’im…’
‘Saw who?’
‘The professor. Working in the trench. By torchlight. That’s what we told them, OK? And that’s all I’m telling you,’ he said, walking away, the twitching eel held by its shattered spine.
25
Back in the Capri Dryden let his head rock back on the rest and as he closed his eyes he felt the grit under the lids, scratching. He had evaded sleep for more than thirty-six hours – but for his snatched few minutes in the Capri – and the adrenaline-fired lightheadedness was suddenly transmuted into exhaustion. It flooded through him, each muscle settling into individual sleep ahead of his brain, which continued to whirr under the effects of caffeine. He felt sick, but managed to say ‘The Tower’ before slipping off, descending immediately into a dream overseen by Valgimigli’s cloven head, the lips a livid deathly blue.
He awoke disorientated; clearly, hours had passed and the cab’s interior was illuminated by stark moonlight. Beside him Humph slept, an unconscious guardian angel, an oily fish-and-chip paper held in a ball in one of his tiny fists.
Dryden checked his watch: 11.48pm. The Victorian façade of The Tower showed no other light than a dozen images of the floating moon. He slipped past reception and, listening at the foot of the echoing stone stairwell, heard only a single distant cry of pain from the rest of the hospital.
Laura’s room was in darkness, the printer silent, the computer screen of the COMPASS dead. Dryden sat, lit one of the cigarettes from the bedside table and poured some wine, uncorking the opened bottle. Laura slept, her breathing so faint he leant forward to catch its reassuring rhythm. As he did so he touched the computer keyboard and the screen lit up, awakened from hibernation mode. A document stood open and Dryden recognized the typography as that from the online edition of Who’s Who.
MANN, Siegfreid Viktor, CBE, FRHS. Historian and writer. Reader in History at the University of Cambridge 1985–90, b 10 April 1920; s of late Prof Werner Mann and Elka Mann (nee Hauptmann) m Ruth Jane Holland 1948 d 1965; two s one d. Educ. Heidelberg Uni (BA) 1938–41. Oberstleutnant, German Wehrmacht 1941–5. St Edmund’s Coll, Cambridge. (MA 1949–52, Hon Fellow 1985–) Fellow and Tutor, New Hall (1953–65). Visiting Reader in Military Studies: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1965–83). Reader in German international relations, University of Parma (1983–5). Publications: Reconciliation and Contemporary Politics: the occupation of Greece and the development of post-war democracy 1943–1954, 1955; The German Army: a definitive history, 1966; Blitzkrieg: the utilisation of terror in war, 1971; Unholy Alliance: the politics of the Axis Powers: 1940–1945, 1980; The Soldier’s Story: a memoir, 1981; The Storm Passed: recovery and reconstruction in occupied Europe: 1945–1958, 1988; Never Again: contemporary European attitudes to war, a review of the literature, 1994. Recreations: Greek wine, gardening: volunteer assistant curator Cambridgeshire Museum Service. Clubs: The Cambridge Society, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA), British Association of German ex-PoWs. Address: Vintry House, West Fen Road, Ely, Cambridgeshire. e-mail
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