She covered her face in the cloth she had brought to wipe the marble headstone.
‘Marco told them – the boys – about the tunnel?’
She nodded. ‘But not Pepe.’
Dryden, so used to the jigsaw puzzle of this family’s past, slipped two pieces together in his mind. ‘So when he was about to die Marco told Azeglio and Jerome about the tunnel – and that there was something left? A painting perhaps? The pearls?’
‘Not Pepe. Not us.’
‘A painting?’ asked Dryden again, pushing.
She swept the cloth over the laminated picture of her husband, the features so clearly the template for Azeglio and Pepe.
‘So Azeglio killed Jerome? For money, or for love?’ asked Dryden, unable to suppress the image of the damp dark tunnel and the bones emerging from the earth.
She shook her head. ‘Azeglio. He was a jealous boy, always.’
‘He came back. He tried to see you?’
She turned away from the graveside and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. ‘Yes. I did not want to see him. I think his motives were clouded. I think he suspected I might have guessed. I am glad I did not see him. Now, I am glad he is dead. This is my tragedy, Mr Dryden. And Pepe knows now, so it is our tragedy.’
‘And you know who killed Azeglio for his crimes?’ asked Dryden, seeing again the cloven head in the moonlight. She crossed herself and left, a retreating figure in black, dogged by a long black shadow.
37
Gaetano was waiting outside the cemetery gates. He’d been into town to hire a car. It was mustard yellow, a Fiat, and he was revving the engine as Dryden got in.
‘Why don’t you spend more time with your daughter?’ said Dryden unkindly. ‘Talk about it.’
His father-in-law slipped the car into gear and pulled off with a screech of tyres. Dryden ostentatiously checked that his seat-belt was secure.
‘She is angry still. She wants me to tell Mamma. This I cannot do, Philip.’
They sped onto the main road, Gaetano oblivious to traffic approaching from the right. Dryden felt a pang of loss for the monosyllabic Humph.
‘I will go back later. Some wine, perhaps. I will try again.’ He knocked out an Italian cigarette expertly from the pack on the dashboard and lit up: ‘So – where to?’ he asked, eager to be free of his own problems.
Dryden, irritated by his father-in-law’s solicitousness, let him wait for an answer. He needed space to think, time to decide if he could be wrong. But The Crow’s deadline was pressing. The clear skies meant the town’s mini-smog was over, so he needed to check out the town dump first.
‘Dunkirk,’ said Dryden, enjoying Gaetano’s confusion. ‘Take the next right, the farm drove, then left at the T-junction. You can see it on the horizon – there.’ He pointed east to where the dump now stood out clearly, a plateau of household waste, trailing only the slimmest wraith of white smoke. ‘Then you can leave me – please. I don’t need a chauffeur.’
He rang the hospital on his mobile and got put through to the nurse on station at intensive care. No news. Condition stable.
Then Dryden rang The Crow, briefly filling Charlie in on his movements and promising to be in the office by 1.00pm.
‘Would you fight, Philip?’ asked his father-in-law, picking at the scab of his guilt. ‘If there was a war – perhaps one in which you did not believe.’
Their relationship had always been marked by honesty, and Dryden did not see any reason to alter the terms of engagement now. ‘So – we’re a conscientious objector now? I thought you ran away because your friend was killed beside you. I think that’s a good enough reason, Gaetano – stick to it. Especially with Laura, she has a nose for cant.’
Gaetano was silent, a very bad sign, and the Fiat’s speed increased.
Long before they got to the gates of the dump they’d passed half a dozen cars speeding back to town, still clearly crammed with the waste they had failed to jettison on Ma Trunch’s artificial mountain. At the gates one of Ma’s former employees in a fluorescent jacket stood guard.
Gaetano parked up, but the jobsworth was soon tapping on the window.
‘Can’t park here. Dump’s closed.’
Dryden got out. ‘Where’s Ma?’ He reckoned that by now the police would have released her on bail.
The guard nodded towards Little Castles. A police squad car was outside, and a large van, into which uniformed officers appeared to be hauling Ma’s treasured museum cabinets.
‘What’s up?’ asked Dryden.
‘No idea. Don’t work for her no more,’ said the guard. He brandished a card – METROPOLITAN RECYCLING. FOR A CLEANER FUTURE. – and pressed it into Dryden’s hand. ‘New owners.’