Dr Mann shivered as a skein of mist wrapped itself around the verandah, and the faltering light seemed to dim further. ‘In the past you have been kind,’ he said. ‘So, please. Coffee, perhaps, but I told the police everything.’
The house gave few clues to Mann’s early life, but what was there was plain to see. As coffee was fetched Dryden was invited to look round. The villa had been fashionably restored to its Edwardian dignity: stripped pine floors reflected the wall lights and an oak sideboard carried a china fruit bowl. Over the smouldering fire hung an enlarged photograph of Mann seated in what looked like a village square, a group of children at his feet, all of them shaded by an almond tree. An old man sat with him, worry beads clasped in the hand that also held a walking stick. The scene was lit by the fierce glare of the Mediterranean sun which bleached out the edges of the photograph.
On the sideboard a gilt frame held a picture of an elderly couple, the father with pince-nez, the mother’s hair in a tight grey bun. The elaborate dark wood of the chairs on which they sat was delicately carved, and behind them on a whitewashed wall hung a crucifix. A smaller snapshot had been more recently framed in modernistic chrome, showing a young Mann in uniform, jet black hair tucked beneath an infantryman’s forage cap.
Mann returned with coffees and threw a split log on the fire. They stood in awkward silence as the wood crackled and the world outside faded away in the thickening fog. The light level dropped, and when Mann lit a cigarette the match head blazed, throwing the lines of his face into even sharper relief.
‘Why did the police arrest you?’ asked Dryden.
Mann shrugged. ‘They had suspicions, understandably I think – but an arrest was unwarranted.’
‘Suspicions? That you had killed Professor Valgimigli?’
‘Azeglio?’ He laughed at that. ‘Perhaps they did think so. But why would I kill Azeglio Valgimigli? I had been his tutor, he was a fine student, he became my friend. I helped, I think, in a small way to get him his post here at the dig. It was something he wanted very much. No – I did not kill Azeglio. The police accused me of another murder – the man in the tunnel. They thought it was Amatista, but now…’
Dryden saw his chance. ‘Serafino Amatista was the village guard of Agios Gallini, a village you know…’
Mann held up his hand: ‘Please. All these matters were dealt with in 1947, Mr Dryden. The police have these records too. My position was always clear, and was corroborated by eyewitnesses. The action we took followed the discovery of a significant threat to the Wehrmacht and, indeed, the Italian civil authorities. I was an officer, the senior officer in this case, and I was compelled to observe the regulations set down in such cases. The tribunal in Salonika ruled that our actions could not constitute a war crime of any kind.’ But Mann’s smile was uncertain, and flickered out.
‘Though you do regret this… incident?’
Mann’s jaw jerked oddly to one side and Dryden saw the anger in his eyes. ‘The occupation of Greece was a brutal period. I have spent much of my life trying to help repair the damage that was done,’ he said, glancing at the picture over the fire. ‘For the rest of the war – until my capture by the British in 1944 – I was in charge of the garrison on Aegina. My time there is without blemish. Quite the opposite. Please consult the records if you wish.’
Dryden held up his hands. ‘No need. You were a prisoner? Here?’
Mann nodded, turning over the logs with a fire iron, the handle of which was fashioned into a cherub.
‘This man, Amatista, did you know he had preceded you at California?’ asked Dryden.
Mann paused. ‘Yes. I informed the authorities – in 1945 – that he was a deserter.’
‘How did you know he’d been in the camp?’
‘I found his picture. Family effects were left in the huts, I was detailed to organize their collection to a central point where we boxed everything up and informed the British they could take them away. They never did – at least not before our repatriation. As I say, this… man’s picture was amongst the others. A snapshot with a sweetheart, I think, sharing a bicycle ride. It was not a face I will ever forget.’
Mann threw another log on the fire and continued. ‘But it is not Serafino in the tunnel. So I am a free man again, Mr Dryden. What can I tell you?’
Dryden felt the tables expertly turned. ‘Amatista was a member of a group in the camp called the gardeners. They dug the tunnel and used it to carry out night-time burglaries on properties they cased while doing farm work. There is a picture, a painting, that I would like to recover for its rightful owner.’