About 100 yards beyond the village a drove road broke north, climbed the railway embankment and crossed another, hidden railway crossing before turning back towards the line. The track petered out here but left a clear footpath ahead. Humph executed an inexpert hand-brake stop and killed the engine. The mist, free of the contamination of the town dump upriver, was sharp and cold with a touch of frost. Dryden could see nothing but the neat rows of late salad crops in the rich black soil of the fields. They were alone together again, a situation neither saw as a disaster.
Dryden cracked the door open and the mist slipped in, making Humph shiver, a physical reaction in the cabbie which involved counter-swinging several layers of flesh in both a clockwise and anticlockwise direction. He pulled a tartan rug off the back seat and tucked it under his chin like a giant napkin, meanwhile drilling his bottom down into the sheepskin rug on his seat like a dog on heat. Dryden let some more mist seep in before re-interring his friend in the vehicle which had become his moving, living mausoleum. Then he set off alone into the whiteout.
At the top of the embankment Dryden was startled to find himself so close to the line and, rather than follow the trackside path, he dropped down a few paces to give himself plenty of clearance in case a train came through. He stopped once, listening for the clatter, but all he heard was the hint of Humph’s onboard stereo language tape and the distant bongs signalling the rise and fall of Queen Adelaide’s barriers. A bird crossed his field of vision, swooping from invisible to visible to invisible in less than a second. Then he saw it: a crazy wooden pile of eccentric architecture, twisted high into the mist. A plaque in old British Rail typography read: QUEEN ADELAIDE, PRICKWILLOW ROAD SIGNAL BOX. 1936. Dryden, taking a closer look at the rails, saw that weeds sprouted from the gravel between the sleepers; it looked like the branch line was defunct, as well as the signal box.
The three-storey wooden house dripped in the mist. Dryden climbed the exterior stairs to the first floor where a long picture window, which had once looked out over the two lines which joined about fifty yards to the south, showed the old switchgear and levers. Casartelli was sitting in a kind of wooden inglenook seat set amongst the polished wood and brass – like a human cog in the machine.
He welcomed Dryden with a smile more redolent of the Lido than Littleport. In one hand he held a copy of the Express, complete with its story on the appeal for Marco Roma’s memorial.
‘A thousand thanks to you,’ said Casartelli. ‘Already more than £2,000. We are well on our way and thanks to you – sit.’ Dryden sat, suppressing a vague feeling of guilt at the effortless manipulation he was about to exert on his victim.
Then Casartelli realized his mistake. His hand rose to cover his mouth. ‘What am I thinking? You are here about Azeglio, of course. Terrible news. I heard on the radio. His family, what pain for them. He was not a good son, but he was a successful son, perhaps you cannot be both.’
Dryden had sensed since their first meeting at Il Giardino that Casartelli was the collective memory of the PoWs – the chronicler of the first generation. Although excluded from the elite club that was the six gardeners, he had been a prisoner himself – one of the handful of survivors.
‘No trains today?’ asked Dryden, sitting and trying to lighten the mood. The signal box switch room had been turned into a remarkable living space. The machinery sparkled, even in the thin white light of the mist, while the deep mahogany of the woodwork radiated a warm reddish-brown, like sun-dried tomatoes. There was a TV, a bookcase with a few ornaments, and three upholstered wooden chairs. Casartelli put down the Express and went to make coffee in the kitchen beyond. A set of stairs led up to what Dryden presumed were bedrooms.
‘No trains any day, no more,’ shouted the old man. ‘The line closed in 1996. Trains still beyond – at the village, but here very quiet.’
Dryden heard from the kitchen the satisfying gurgle of an espresso pot bubbling over.
Casartelli emerged, his still-powerful fingers cradling two small espresso cups with a lifetime’s ease.
‘Did you live here before, before the trains stopped?’
‘No, no. My family we lived in Ely, near the station. Now, the children are married, their mother long dead, they have their lives. The price here was good, I like the view, the space out there. I am happy here.’
While one wall of the room was taken up by the great array of switchgear and levers the two end walls were stencilled with smaller windows to give a clear view up and down the line. By one hung a framed photograph of Casartelli and a woman: a blonde, she looked younger than her husband, and pale skinned.