Plot reminder: Having promised Irene not to reveal her existence to her half-sister and brother, Mary is unable to share in the family's grief and is forced to proceed with investigations alone, feigning to be a journalist. In a previous chapter she described her arrangements to meet with an expert on local history who has been helping police with their investigations.

~~~~~

I've never been one for fairytales. For bloated myths and legends. Neither did I have any great desire to see my mother's coffin lowered into the same fenland soil which for more than 60 years had enveloped my father. As the priest offered transubstantiation to those of the congregation thus inclined, I made my discreet exit, snuck back out into the rain. There was my appointment with the local history expert John Simmonds to keep.

The short journey out towards Northdyke was a route I'd taken once before, eighteen months earlier following one of my visits to Irene. The B-road was a thin treacherous thread lined on either side by more or less continual ditches, the fields it traversed little changed, I suspected, from 1943. Green lines of sugar beet shoots in the main, military straight, the passing perspective creating a rolling loop of diagonals. Though still two or three months short of harvest, I could almost picture the teenage Irene stooped there alongside the other Land Girls, the animated figures of the Italians scattered all around.

Camp 106a had been located half a mile from the western fringe of the village. My visit there, I remember, had proved disappointing. Though the perimeter barb had for obvious reasons of public safety long since been removed, the replacement fence had been quite some distance - a hundred metres perhaps - from the tight cluster of huts it had encircled. The numerous rusted 'Keep Out' signs seemed to have had limited effect with the local youth, this judging from the smashed windows and braindead spray-can graffiti. Indeed, there had been a gaping tear in one section of the fence - work, clearly, of a voraciously applied wire-cutter. The temptation to squeeze myself through, have a good peek around, had been a strong one. It hadn't so much been the risk of ripping my raincoat or scratching the back of my hand which had held me back, more the potential ignominy of me, a near-retirement-aged primary school headmistress, being caught trespassing in what had still officially been the off-limits property of the British government.

Given the viewing distance, it had been difficult therefore to get a sense of the place, for my mind to animate it with the voice-booming latin comraderie which had once echoed throughout its confines. Through the dreary winter mist, it had even seemed foreboding, somehow sinister. As if on some subconscious level I had already been able to perceive the dark atrocity which had taken place there.

*

The scene which awaited me on the morning of my mother's funeral was markedly different. Gone were the huts, the surrounding fence. All hint of the site's historical significance.

Instead, I was faced by a sort of muddy moonscape, one churned by snaking binaries of tyre tracks, the various diggers and loaders which were dotted around the site standing idle. In front of a small copse of ash trees over on the lefthand side was a portacabin, its padlocked door further evidence of forced cessation of work. The reason was evident: towards the centre of the expanse stood two white scene of crime tents approximately thirty metres apart. The figure of a forensics officer could seen trudging between the two, boots raised high to counter the down-sucking mud.

"Place had always fascinated me," John Simmonds explained, glancing across at me as we surveyed the scene. "Ever since I was kid."

He'd unfolded himself from his car moments earlier, extended a firm handshake of greeting as I'd pulled up at the edge of the site, offered me partial shelter beneath his umbrella. Despite his advancing years, he retained still half a head of silvery hair, a youthful bounce to his stride. As a retired teacher I would under normal circumstances have enjoyed swapping classroom anecdotes with him, sharing a head-shaking lament on the deterioration of educational standards over recent decades. I had to remind myself that I was playing at being a freelance journalist however, had to feign a purely professional level of interest in the case.

"Used to cycle out here," he continued, voice raised above the drum of the rain on the umbrella. "You know, just wander around the huts, try to imagine what it had been like. Not so difficult really for a resourceful young boy to shimmy himself over the perimeter fence. Wasn't just the altar that grabbed me, it was the graffiti. It was everywhere - pencilled onto the walls, carved into doorways. All those strange, elegant-looking words. Got hold of an Italian dictionary once, looked some of 'em up. The meanings weren't always quite so elegant, I can tell you." There was a smile: easy, pleasant. "And the doodles! Oh my goodness. Must have learnt more about the birds and bees from those Italian POWs than I did from anyone else."

His attention was then taken by the figure which had now emerged from the larger of the two forensic tents, was ducking himself back under the police tape in front of us. A thickset man in his late-thirties, there was something both boyish and somehow rugged to his face, a combination which brought to mind the American actor Robert Mitchum. Black hair flattened by the rain, shoes and trouser bottoms caked in mud, he was the very image of wet and miserable. It was difficult to believe it was supposed to be June.

"Forgot your umbrella inspector," Simmonds commented.

The man was the chief investigating officer, I could only presume. D.I Kubič.

"Gust of wind did for it," came the doleful reply, one accompanied by a curious glance over in my direction.

Simmonds provided a dutiful introduction, the word 'journalist' seeming to propel the inspector even more quickly towards the shelter of his car, like a mouse sighting a cat. Clearly, media relations wasn't an aspect of his job which he particularly relished. Neither, I imagined, was trudging across muddy fields to pore over human remains.

"Any new developments inspector?" I called after him. As a pushy journalist, I was quite convincing.

Throwing himself into his car, he let out a relieved exhale that he was finally out of the rain. Somewhat grudgingly it seemed, he then lowered driver's window. "They've found another couple of coins. Makes a pound and eight shillings now in total."

Two more, I thought to myself. There were two more shilling coins buried somewhere beneath that soil.

"Might not sound much to our ears," the inspector continued, "but Mr Simmonds here informs me it was the equivalent of a hundred quid or so today." The Robert Mitchum face briefly turned away as he fumbled key into ignition. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Why the hell was a prisoner of war carrying so much money around in his pocket?" Reversing several metres, the inspector spun the wheel towards the road which led back to Ravensby. "Nick on one of the ribs is consistent with a knife injury. Either that or the toothmark of some hungry damn animal." His shoulders jerked into a shrug. "Take your pick." I felt my insides lurch with nausea. "Oh, and in the interests of journalistic accuracy, you might be interested to know my surname's Czechoslovakian. There's one of those funny squiggles over the last letter. A softener. Kubitch not Kubick. "

And with that he was gone, a ripping blare of exhaust.

"Well, no point standing here in the rain," Simmonds announced once the rural quiet was restored. "How about you follow me into the village? I'll show you where they put that altar mural."

The safe removal of the wall had been part of the construction company's land purchase agreement, he'd earlier informed me over the phone. It was currently being displayed in the village church, awaiting an executive decision from the National Trust.

He took a step away, umbrella held high as if to indicate that he would shelter me towards my car. I stayed rooted a moment however, peered through the rain one last time at the scene before us. "I was just wondering why there are two tents."

At this he scrunched face into a grimace. "Poor sod got a bit mashed up I'm afraid. One's where he always was. The other's where the digger dropped its load.'

In the most sombre of silences, we then began picking our way through the puddles towards my Renault.

*

Though the village of Northdyke is a mostly unremarkable sort of place, the parish church of St Luke's is pretty enough - a grey-stoned Anglo-Saxon affair with castellated tower. As the two of us quick-footed it along the graveyard path, the drum of rain ever harder against his umbrella, Simmonds sought to explain the logistical nightmare which had been the removal of the mural to its new home - a hellish to-do involving cranes, winches and all manner of cobbled together rollers and pulley systems. An expert had come up from London to oversee the operation, one they'd planned to pay through charitable donations. In the end he'd been so taken by the whole project that he'd given his time for free.

Upon pushing open the heavy church door, it immediately became apparent why. Propped against what was obviously a purpose-built wooden frame towards the back of the church, it was the first focus of a visitor's eye - a colourful splash of Catholic ostentation amidst all that bare Protestant grey. Much like my first visit to Stonehenge on a class trip as a young teacher, it was a little smaller than I had imagined, its condition more weathered, but was no less impressive for all that, the whole thing so majestic in its sweep and ambition. Uppermost of the figures was a light-haloed Jesus, his apostles assembled six to each side, their serene, collective gaze turned towards the cherubim-swirled firmament above. Though completely ignorant in matters of art, to my eyes it wouldn't have looked out of place in even the grandest of Catholic churches.

"The Geneva Convention allowed for ten-hour working days, six days a week," Simmonds explained beside me. "There's little doubt the authorities made 'em toil every last minute of it. Not much free time left for painting. Not much energy left for it either I shouldn't wonder. Then there were materials at the artist's disposition."

The artist, I thought... They didn't know then. Those smashed up bones they'd found, it was the same prisoner who'd painted the altar.

"Not like he could just nip down to the nearest art shop," Simmonds continued, "buy himself a few tubes of oil paint. Had to make his own - natural dyes mixed with oil from tinned sardines, we believe. Would no doubt have roped some of his fellow prisoners into lending a hand, but even so, all quite an enterprise. The altar itself would gave been decorated by crosses made of wooden objects found in Red Cross parcels and candlesticks fashioned from Bully Beef tins."

My father, a voice was whispering in my mind. It was my father who created this. I was forced to suck down a breath, suppress the rising tide of emotion. Standing there in front of his life's masterpiece, it served to make it all seem so much more real somehow. His DNA which was stamped into my every cell. The brutal manner of his premature passing. Both my connection and obbligation to the man.

It was in that moment that I truly steeled myself. Swore a silent oath not just to myself but also to him. Whatever it took, and in whatever small measure the passing of time might now allow, Vincenzo D'Ambra would receive justice.

Those staring celestial faces of Jesus and his apostles, they seemed to ordain it somehow.

~~~~~