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.’
He shuffled the papers again, sipped a glass of water and carried on. ‘We can now say that the man found in the tunnel died between 1970 and 1990. The conditions in the soil, particularly the encasement of the body in the tunnel, had greatly accelerated the deterioration of the bones, particularly from the action of water and parasites. This clearly alters the nature of the investigation and I have applied to the Home Office for permission to undertake an exhumation to obtain DNA samples. While it is unlikely further evidence is available, I do not think, in the light of the brutal murder of Professor Valgimigli, that we can leave any stone unturned.’
Dryden’s mind raced; his hand went up.
Cavendish-Smith glanced at his superior and both stood. ‘As Sir Douglas has said, we are determined to make an arrest soon. I’m afraid that at this time we can take no more questions. Thank you.’
Everyone else was on their feet, the room a minor riot of jostling camera crews. But Dryden sat, stunned. Where was Serafino Amatista? Whose body had the archaeologist uncovered? Had the PoW ID disc been planted to lead the police astray? The corpse had been found with some of the loot from Osmington Hall, and so was clearly linked to the ‘gardeners’ of California. But why were the gardeners still using the tunnel more than twenty-five years after the end of the war? The heart of the mystery must lay with the Roma family, and at Il Giardino. But first Dryden needed to move quickly, for Dr Siegfried Viktor Mann had a story to tell as well.
28
Vintry House was an Edwardian villa, complete with a covered verandah which ran around three sides of the two-storey house, with neo-Gothic dormer windows dotting the high tiled roof. Dryden could imagine the whole façade swinging open on hinges to reveal a life-sized doll’s house. A brick wall encircled the property, topped with black iron spiked railings, while the garden within was thick with rhododendron, laurel, and magnolia.
He walked up the overgrown driveway, the unpruned laurels weeping on his head in the dense chill mist which seemed to sandbag all sounds except that of a radio playing dimly in the depths of the house, Classic FM perhaps, or Radio Three, a voice breaking a short silence to introduce the next selection. It was Vaughan Williams, and the volume rose. Dryden climbed the verandah steps and was thankful to be under cover. He ran a hand through his thick black hair and squeezed out the droplets of water.
The door opened before he could knock: Dr Mann stood, a coffee cup in his hand, and despite the ordeal of his arrest the china was steady. The white shirt was still immaculate, the bow-tie neat and high at the base of his tanned throat. Stepping into what light there was threw his face into relief, the lines of age etched deep, perhaps by something more than the passage of time. For the first time Dryden could see that this face had been built from some private agony, a face haunted by life.
‘Mr Dryden, an early bird?’ He could hear it now, of course, the slight edge of the Bavarian accent which clipped the vowels, and the over-punctilious syllables. But the voice was still light, the breezy tone that of a confident English academic. Mann nodded, and Dryden, seeing signs everywhere, thought the mannerism oddly military, the kind of practised movement which could dismiss a subordinate.
‘I can’t think of any good reason why you should speak to me,’ said Dryden. ‘It’s about Serafino Amatista.’
Dryden stepped back from the threshold. It was a trick he had used many times and with surprising success. The offered retreat, the winning lack of pushy Fleet Street tactics.