Roots of Evil (24 page)

Wood-carving and violin-making, thought Alice. Wine festivals and toy-making and miniature castles overlooking the rivers. Yes, there was Ettersburg Castle
on a ridge of the hillside, with its pepperpot turrets and toy drawbridge. This was a place where you might come for a holiday, just as Goethe had done, and just as Liszt and Schiller had done. You would enjoy the quaintness and the fairytale atmosphere of the place, and if you were so minded you might write your music or pen your luminous essays. But most fairytales had a dark side, and now that they had driven out of the little town, the road was already starting to feel lonely and sinister. Like the feeling you got in a dream where safe, familiar things became suddenly imbued with menace, so that the dream slid down into a nightmare.

It was dark inside the truck, but she could see that they had left the town and that the road was fringed with the characteristic pine trees. Was it dark enough to jump from the back of the truck and trust to luck that she could reach the forest’s shelter before the soldiers opened fire on her? She was just trying to decide this when the truck rumbled around a curve in the road, and there ahead of them were immense iron gates – massive heavy structures, like the gates guarding a giant’s castle.

Konzentrationslager Buchenwald. The darkness at the heart of the nightmare.

At the sight of it the men and women in the lorry drew instinctively closer to one another for comfort, and even from the lorry, Alice could see the high fences surrounding the entire compound, with, beyond them, serried rows of barrack-like buildings. Guard towers jutted up from the fences at intervals, with massive black-snouted machine-guns mounted in each one. A terrible
bleak loneliness closed around her. No one knows where I am. Conrad doesn’t know, and Deborah doesn’t know. There’s absolutely no means of anyone reaching me here.

The gates swung slowly and silently open, as if some invisible machinery were being operated, and the lorries drove through. Alice glanced back and saw the gates close. Shutting her into the nightmare.

Lucy had almost finished the horror-film presentation for the satellite TV companies, and she was quite pleased with it. Her idea of setting it all in a tongue-in-cheek horror framework seemed to have worked quite well. Quondam’s technical department had dubbed part of Tartini’s
The Devil’s Trill
to use as background for
The Devil’s Sonata
, and although there had been a bit of a royalties tussle with the record company who had included it in a recent compilation of semi-and quasi-religious string music, Lucy thought the tussle had been worth it because the music gave terrific atmosphere to the film.

She was putting together a final set of visual and audio effects – she had unearthed some beautifully menacing out-takes from an ancient Tod Slaughter version of
Dracula
, which could be blown up and possibly tinted with suitably blood-hued crimson or even back-projected
on to a screen – and she had spent two hilarious afternoons in the sound department, helping them to fake creepy footsteps and creaking doors.

But since finding the old newsreel of Lucretia on Howard Hughes’ Stratoliner, the unreadable face of the dark-eyed child who had been at Lucretia’s side kept coming between Lucy and the grainy black-and-white images she was working on. With it came the familiar nagging curiosity from her own childhood: the need to know the truth about Alraune and to know whether Alraune had really existed. Who were you? said Lucy to the ghost-child on the film. And what were you? Did you exist, and if you did, what happened to you? But I daresay that even if I could trace you, I’d find that you were only on that newsreel because you were the son or daughter of one of the cabin crew, or a friend’s child that Lucretia was chaperoning to or from some Swiss resort.

If Aunt Deb had still been alive Lucy would have let her see the newsreel; Aunt Deb would have loved it, and she would probably have known the exact circumstances of Lucretia’s journey to or from Switzerland – she might have recalled some tantalizing fragment of scandal about Lucretia and Howard Hughes, and she might even have been persuaded to say whether the child in the newsreel could actually have been Alraune. Lucy felt all over again the ache of loss for Aunt Deb who had spun all those stories, and she remembered how she had always believed that Deb had known far more about Alraune than she had ever told.

Was there was anyone else she could talk to about the newsreel? How about Edmund? Edmund, finicky
and pedantic as he was, disapproving of Lucretia as he always had been, had always been deeply interested in Deborah Fane’s side of the family. And he did not have to have Alraune explained to him, because he had more or less grown up with all the stories and the rumours and the speculation, just as Lucy had. He was, in fact, the obvious person, but Lucy hesitated. ‘Oh, Lucy, you’re such a romantic under that tough façade,’ Edmund had said that evening, and there had been the sudden urgent thrust of his body against hers as they made the coffee. Or is my memory making it a bit more sexually charged than it actually was? thought Lucy. Even so, she felt awkward about phoning Edmund at the moment, although he would certainly like to know about this fragment of the past that she had uncovered. She was just trying to decide whether to ring him when a call came in from a Detective Inspector Jennie Fletcher.

‘We haven’t met,’ said DI Fletcher, brusquely polite. ‘But I know who you are, of course, and I expect you know that I’m heading the investigation into Trixie Smith’s murder.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Lucy, assuming the inspector wanted to know about that original meeting with Trixie.

‘I’ve got a favour to ask,’ said DI Fletcher.

‘A favour?’ This was unexpected. ‘What kind of favour?’

‘I want to know about Alraune.’

‘Oh,’ said Lucy a bit blankly. ‘The film or the child?’

‘The film. What exactly is it? I mean – what’s it about?’

Lucy had the feeling that DI Fletcher knew quite a lot about Alraune already – the fictional one and also
the real one – but the mental exercise of rolling up the plot into a couple of sentences was unexpectedly calming. She said, ‘Well, I’ve never read the original story, but I do know it’s a pretty freaky one.’

‘So I understand.’

‘It’s sort of
Frankenstein
re-told, only the “creature” is female: a girl who’s conceived in the shadow of a gallows-tree as an experiment, and named Alraune after the mandrake root that’s supposed to grow beneath the gibbet, due to – well, perhaps you know the hoary old myth about hanging, do you?’

‘Spontaneous ejaculation because of the spasming? Yes, I do know.’

Lucy thought that on balance this was a nicely polite and suitably clinical way of putting it. She said, ‘Alraune’s conceived from the mandrake’s – um – potency, I suppose is the term. She’s beautiful but evil and she ends up destroying both herself and the tormented genius who created her. Maybe it’s
Frankenstein
meets
Svengali
.’

‘Silent films used to evoke a remarkable atmosphere, didn’t they?’ said Inspector Fletcher. ‘As much because of the silence I’ve always thought.’

‘That’s true. The film versions of
Alraune
are all based to a lesser or greater extent on a book written around 1910 or 1912 by a German author called Hanns Heinz Ewers. At least three or four films were made of it – some silent, some with sound, all mostly in the 1920s and early 1930s, although Eric von Stroheim did a rather cheesy re-make in 1951 or 1952.’ Lucy thought it was not necessary to mention that von Stroheim was credited with having been one of Lucretia’s lovers.

Inspector Fletcher appeared to be making notes of all this. After a moment, she said, ‘What else?’

‘The early versions were considered rather shockingly erotic for their day,’ said Lucy, hoping she did not sound as if she was giving a lecture. ‘But the film my grandmother made is generally accepted as the darkest and most dramatic version of them all – in fact before the Ashwood murders it was regarded as one of the great examples of early
film noir
.’

‘But not any longer?’

‘After Lucretia died the cranks and the weirdos latched on to it,’ said Lucy. ‘And it achieved a sort of underground near-cult status. Unfortunately it’s got all tangled up with the legend – Conrad Kline and Leo Dreyer butchered at Ashwood, and Lucretia committing that spectacular suicide – so nobody’s very objective about it any more. That’s a great shame, because it really was a remarkable film. Very innovative and quite daring in parts. And the director achieved some terrific effects.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘Yes, I saw it when I was at university.’

‘Is it ever shown publicly now? On TV for instance?’

‘I don’t think so. It sometimes gets trotted out at film festivals, or rented by the more
avant-garde
film clubs – that was where I saw it.’ It had been fashionable, in her second term at Durham, to admire
film noir
and the gloomier epics of German Expressionism – she was always vaguely irritated that the loss of her virginity would forever be associated in her mind with Orson Welles and the zither music of
The Third Man.
To Inspector Fletcher, she said, ‘It’s probably a bit heavy for
modern tastes, so it isn’t usually seen—Oh, no, wait, one of the satellite TV companies showed it a few years ago. They offered it to viewers as a curio. A stormy petrel, or the
Macbeth
of the silent film era, the announcer called it.’

The inspector appeared to absorb this, and then said, ‘There are still copies of the film in existence, then?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ said Lucy, feeling on slightly safer ground. ‘Not too many, and what there are are a bit weather-beaten by now – it was 1928 or 1930, which means it’s the old cellulose nitrate composition, and that sometimes decomposes beyond recall. The layers of film actually weld together.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But it’s still around. D’you want to see it?’

‘Yes, I do. Could it be arranged?’

‘I think Quondam have got it, but if not I can probably track it down with one of our rivals,’ said Lucy, who knew perfectly well that Quondam had got it, because she had looked for it within a week of joining the company. ‘How about my grandfather’s backing music? Conrad Kline, I mean. He tends to get a bit overshadowed by Lucretia, but he was a gifted composer in his day. D’you want that as well?’

‘Well, if it’s to hand, yes. But it’s the film I really want.’ A pause. Lucy waited, hoping to find out what might be behind all this, but Fletcher only said, ‘We don’t know yet if there’s any connection between the old murder case and Trixie Smith’s death, but we want to consider every angle.’

‘Starting with a look at
Alraune
,’ said Lucy.

‘Yes.’

‘The murderer more or less copied the last scene of
Alraune,
didn’t he?’

‘It sounds as if you’ve been reading the tabloids, Miss Trent. Very unwise. How soon could you let me know about viewing the film?’

‘I’ll do it at once,’ said Lucy. ‘And I’ll phone you back. If I hit any problems, you can invoke the might of the British constabulary.’

‘What about actually running it? We’re fairly high-tech in the police, but I don’t know if we’d be equal to a seventy-year-old reel of – what did you say it was made of?’

‘Cellulose nitrate. Actually, a lot of the early stuff is being fairly successfully transferred to DVD these days. I don’t think that’s happened to
Alraune
though, so you’d probably need the old projectors. But that needn’t be a problem: I expect I can set up a viewing for you. We’ve got a couple of viewing rooms here, and the larger one will seat about ten people. Would that be enough?’

‘Yes, I think so. Thank you very much. I’ll wait to hear from you.’

‘The viewing’s on,’ said Fletcher to her sergeant after Lucy had called back to say that as she had thought, Quondam did possess a copy of the film, although it had not gone through any kind of restoration process. ‘But I still want you to work through that list of the film clubs. If anyone’s recently hired the von Wolff
Alraune
, I want to know about it.’

Sergeant Trendle said there was nothing to report
from the film clubs yet, and asked why they needed to view the film.

‘I want to see exactly how closely our man did copy this famous final scene,’ said Fletcher. ‘If it looks as though he knows the film in real detail, that might give us a lead – there can’t be all that many people who’ve seen the thing; not these days. And you’ve got the list of satellite TV companies as well, haven’t you? Lucy Trent said one of them put it out a few years ago. If it was eight or ten years back, it probably isn’t relevant, but if it was only a couple of years, we might have to start getting lists of satellite TV subscribers. Yes, I know it’s tedious, but think of it as an armchair version of door-to-door inquiries.’ She frowned, and then said, ‘I think we’ll fix this viewing for Saturday afternoon if Quondam will agree.’

Trendle, who viewed the prospect of
Alraune
with dismay (it had been made before
sound
even, could you credit it!), asked who was to be at the viewing. Just their own people, was it?

‘No,’ said Jennie. ‘I want to watch one or two reactions while it’s being played. Lucy Trent will have to be there, of course. Partly courtesy, because she works at Quondam, but I’m not forgetting she’s Lucretia von Wolff’s granddaughter. She knows the film, as well – she saw it when she was at university.’

‘We aren’t suspecting her, though, are we?’

‘We’re suspecting everybody at this stage. But I don’t really think she’s a contender. But listen now, the ones I do want to be there – and don’t make any mistakes or hand me any excuses, sergeant – are those three who
found Trixie Smith’s body. Francesca Holland, Michael Sallis, and that insolent Irishman.’

‘The solicitor?’

‘The solicitor,’ said Jennie Fletcher. ‘He’s an irreverent devil, although I’d have to say he’s an efficient irreverent devil. As a matter of fact he’s got rather a good reputation when it comes to criminal law – the ACC thinks very highly of him – and he’s a tiger in the magistrates’ court, I’ve seen him in action. That’s the silver-tongued Irish, of course.’

Sergeant Trendle, who had been checking the list of Ashwood’s previous owners, said it looked as if Liam Devlin had given them genuine information about the land.

‘It’s mostly been owned by small-time entrepreneurs, who thought they were getting a bargain, and then couldn’t get rid of the place quickly enough when they realized it wasn’t a bargain at all.’

‘Which is what we thought. I think Devlin’s all right, but we’ll still have him in for this film experiment, although we’d better have a pinch of salt with us when we’re talking to him. Do you ever read Shakespeare, Trendle?’

Trendle, who liked a bit of a laugh on his days off, said he did not.

‘There’s a line in one of the plays – “First thing we’ll do, let’s kill all the laywers,”’ said the inspector. ‘Remember that. Always watch a lawyer, Trendle.’

Sergeant Trendle, who could not cope with the inspector when she was in this mood, suggested that if they were speaking of lawyers, what about the other one?

‘Edmund Fane?’ said Fletcher, softly. ‘Oh, yes, I want him there as well.’

‘You don’t like him?’

‘I don’t trust him, Trendle. So I don’t care if you have to invoke Magna Carta or the European Human Rights Law, just make sure he’s there.’

Edmund was not best pleased to be telephoned by Sergeant Trendle and politely requested to come to Quondam Films’ premises on Saturday afternoon for the purpose of viewing the infamous von Wolff
Alraune.

He thought it a preposterous idea to screen the film – in fact he had thought the thing had been lost years ago. It had not been lost? It never had been lost? Oh well, Edmund had never bothered overmuch about all those old-fashioned films or books. Still, he would come along if the police really insisted.

He was, in fact, rather pleased at the thought of seeing Lucy again, and it might be intriguing to see her in her professional setting, so to speak. Would she wear a sharp, dark office suit? And would it be possible to have supper with her afterwards? Perhaps she would invite him to her flat again. His mind flew ahead, seeing the two of them seated at the little table in the deep bay window, and then moving across to that deep sofa before the fire…And then…? There was a sudden strong pleasure in remembering how his father had gone to bed with Lucy’s grandmother all those years ago, and in wondering if, on Saturday night, Edmund might go to bed with Lucy herself. There was a symmetry about it which pleased him. I’m not re-creating what you did, he
said to Crispin’s image in his mind; I’m really not. No? said Crispin’s voice, mockingly. Whatever you’re doing, the symmetry of it sounds slightly skewed to me. But let’s go for it anyway, dear boy. Lucretia’s granddaughter…Oh yes, Edmund, oh
yes
, let’s go for it…