Roots of Evil (3 page)

‘I really am sorry about that,’ said Trixie Smith again. ‘I’d have liked to meet her. We got quite friendly on the phone – she was very interested in my thesis.’

‘“Crime in the Nineteen-fifties”?’

‘Oh, she told you that, did she? Yes, I’m hoping to use Lucretia von Wolff as the central case study. Remarkable woman, wasn’t she?’

‘I never thought so,’ said Edmund shortly. ‘Greedy and manipulative, I always thought.’

‘Yes?’ She sipped the cup of tea he had felt bound to offer. ‘Well, whatever she was, I’d like to find out what drove her that day at Ashwood Studios. Psychologically,
it’s a very interesting case. See now, that one man who was murdered, Conrad Kline, he was your grandmother’s lover, wasn’t he?’

‘She wasn’t my grandmother,’ said Edmund shortly. ‘I’m from another side of the family. Deborah Fane married my father’s brother – William Fane. So Deborah was only my aunt by marriage.’

‘Oh, I see. But you know the stories?’

Edmund admitted that he knew some of the stories. His tone implied that he disapproved of what he did know.

‘How about Alraune? Do you know anything about Alraune?’

Alraune
…The name seemed to shiver on the air for a moment, and Edmund frowned, but said, ‘The film?’

‘The person.’

‘There was never any such person. Alraune was just a legend. Everyone agrees on that.’

‘Are you sure? The police records show that a child, listed simply as “Allie”, was at Ashwood that day and—’

Edmund was not normally given to interrupting people in mid-sentence, but he did so now. ‘I’m afraid you’re starting to become enamoured of your theory, Ms Smith,’ he said. ‘Twisting the facts to suit it. That could have referred to anyone.’

‘—and I’ve talked to your cousin, Lucy Trent, about Alraune.’

Dear God, had the woman been working her way through the entire family! But Edmund said, ‘And what did my cousin Lucy have to say?’

‘She said Alraune had been created by journalists,
purely for publicity. Only I had the feeling that she didn’t entirely believe that. I’m good at picking things up like that,’ said Ms Smith. ‘In fact somebody once told me I was a bit psychic. Load of rot, of course, but still. I went to your cousin’s office – Quondam Films, interesting set-up, that. In fact—’

For the second time Edmund cut her off. ‘Ms Smith – I wonder if you’ll forgive me if I close this discussion. I’ve got an awful lot to do, and I’m only here for two days.’

‘You’d like me to go. Quite understand.’ She drained the tea and stood up. ‘But if you should come across anything that I might make use of…And if you could post it to me I’d be grateful. I’ll give you my address and phone number.’ She scribbled this on the back of an envelope. ‘You won’t forget? I mean – if there’s anything about Lucretia…Anything at all…’

‘I won’t forget,’ said Edmund politely.

After he had seen Trixie Smith to her car, Edmund went back into the kitchen and rather abstractedly began to prepare a meal from the groceries he had brought.

His mind was replaying the conversation with Trixie, but he was already thinking: faced with this situation, faced with Trixie Smith, what would Crispin do?

Crispin.

Even the thought of Crispin made Edmund feel better, and he knew at once that Crispin would say there was only one way to deal with this meddlesome female. You’ve shouldered this kind of responsibility before, dear boy, Crispin would say. Do so again. You know what needs to be done.

Crispin was an irreclaimable gambler, of course; Edmund knew that and he more or less accepted it, even though he privately deplored it. Still, there were times in life when a gamble had to be taken, and this looked like one of them. There was also the fact – and Edmund would not admit this to anyone, not even to Crispin – that the taking of a gamble was deeply and excitingly satisfying.

He went on preparing his food, his mind working.

In Pedlar’s Yard, Mother’s tales had almost always been spun at bedtime, because that was when
he
was out of the house. The warp of the stories had been threadbare and the weft was frayed and thin, but the tatterdemalion tales had still been the stuff that dreams could be made on, and they had been the cloth of gold that had tapes-tried a child’s unhappy life.

Once upon a time
…

The glowing promise of the phrase had never failed to work its enchantment. Once upon a time there had been a family in an old city, full of romance and music, and they had lived in a fairytale house among the trees, where princes had visited and ladies had danced, and where life had been wonderful.

‘The city was called Vienna. It’s in Austria, and it’s the most romantic city in the world, Vienna. And your grandmother lived in that house – she was maid to a lady called Miss Nina. It was a very important position, and it meant she saw all the grand people who came to the house for dinners and balls and concerts.’

‘Because they were very rich, that family.’

‘Yes. You like rich things, don’t you?’

‘Yes. So do you.’

‘Oh yes. Once I thought I would be rich. Perhaps I still will be one day. And then you’ll be rich as well.’

‘That would be pretty good. But tell what happened to the family in Vienna.’

‘Well, when your grandmother was seventeen, a handsome young man came to the house, and he saw her and fell in love with her. But they wouldn’t let him marry her, because she was a servant and he was important – perhaps he was a lord, or a duke…he might even have been royalty—’

‘And so they had to part? And it was very sad and very romantic.’

‘Yes, it was. You always ask that when we reach this bit of the story.’

‘You have to tell stories exactly the same every time. It’s like – um – like a jigsaw or painting. If you change anything, next time you tell the story there’ll be a wrong piece somewhere.’

‘You look like a worried pixie when you say that. A ragamuffin pixie. Have you brushed your hair this morning?’

‘I’ll brush it in a minute. Why don’t we ever go to see my grandmother?’ People at school often talked about going to visit grandmother; it always sounded a good thing to do.

‘Well, families are odd things, you know. If you marry someone your family don’t like—’

‘Oh. Oh, yes I see.’

‘I wonder if you do.’ Almost to herself Mother said, ‘But he could be very charming when he was younger.’

He could be very charming…But that was years ago, and now you’re terrified of him. This could not be said, of course, and it was a relief when Mother said, in her ordinary voice, the voice that always dispelled the fear, ‘But one day we will go. Just the two of us.’ This was said with a wary glance at the door. ‘One day we’ll do it.’

One day, when I can no longer stand the brutality
…
One day we’ll run away, just you and me
…

‘Where does she live? Do you know exactly? Is it miles and miles?’

There was a pause, as if Mother was trying to decide whether to answer this. Then she smiled, and said, ‘Yes, I do know. It’s a place called Mowbray Fen. That’s in Lincolnshire. You have to go through Rockingham Forest, and along by Thorney and Witchford, until you come within sight of Wicken Fen.’

The names were repeated softly, as if they might be a spell; a charm that would take you on to a golden road. Like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz,
or like the children who went through a wardrobe into a magic land.

‘There are marshes there, with queer darting lights that the locals call will o’ the wisps – they say if you can capture one it must give you your heart’s desire.’

‘What’s a heart’s desire?’

‘It’s different for everyone. But once you’d gone through all those places,’ said Mother, still in the same far-away voice, ‘you’d come to the tiny, tiny village called Mowbray Fen. There’s a house there standing all by itself and it’s called the Priest’s House because it was built at
a time when people could be put to death for believing in the wrong religion, and there are legends that priests hid there before being smuggled out of England and across to Holland. We’ll find the places on your school atlas in the morning.’

The names had been like a litany. Thorney and Witchford and Rockingham Forest. Rutland Water with the place called Edith Weston that sounded like an old lady, who knitted things and smelled of lavender water. And there was Whissendine and Thistleton.

‘They’re like the places in that book I read at school.
The Hobbit
.’

Books could only be read at school, because there were no books in Pedlar’s Yard. But the school had a small library where you could sit at dinner-time or in between half past three when classes finished, and four o’clock when the teachers went home and the school was locked up. It was quiet and there was a nice smell from the books and on Mondays there was a polish smell from the weekend cleaning. When I’m grown up and when I have a house of my own it will always,
always
smell of polish.

‘You’re a hobbit,’ said Mother, smiling.

One day they really would run away: they would probably do it at midnight which was when people did run away. They would go to the house where the will o’ the wisps danced, and the lady from the stories would be there.

It was a good thought; it was a thought to hold on to when
he
came slinking into the bedroom, and when he said that if you told anyone what he did to Mother
with his belt and with his hands, he would break your fingers one by one, or maybe hold your hand over the hotplate in the kitchen. And so you never told what happened, not once, not even on the night you were physically sick, doing it in the bed because you were afraid to attract his attention by going across to the bathroom.

When
he
did these things, all you could do was lie there with your eyes tightly shut and pretend not to know what was happening on the other side of the bedroom wall, and cling on to the knowledge of the house where the will o’ the wisps danced. One day you would find that house.

Lucy thought it was grotesque for the sun to shine at a funeral. Funerals ought only to happen in the pouring rain, so that the weather became part of the misery and the dreariness. It would not be any use trying to explain this to Edmund, of course.

Still, at least he was putting on some kind of hospitality after the service, although he would probably measure the sherry with a thimble. He had told Lucy on the phone that he was still searching for the title deeds to the house, and also for the will.

‘Is there a will?’ said Lucy in the sepulchral tones of one of their elderly great-aunts who, with true Victorian relish for all things funereal and fiscal, unfailingly asked this question whenever anyone died. But Edmund had no sense of the absurd, and he merely said that of course there would be a will and it would eventually turn up. He would see Lucy at twelve o’clock sharp, he said, and
they had better drive to the church together. Lucy thought that by the time she arrived Edmund would have found the deeds and the will, and have everything else filed and indexed and colour-coded.

She was taking along a copy of Jenny Joseph’s poem,
Warning
, hoping that there could be a reading of it. ‘When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/With a red hat which doesn’t go…’ It was purest Aunt Deborah, and Lucy thought Deb would have liked it read today. She would ask Edmund about it when she got to the church; she thought she might manage to read it herself if no one else would, although she might dissolve in floods of tears halfway through. But Deb would not have minded that.

Edmund was certainly not going to let Lucy or anyone else read some outlandish modern rubbish today. They were going to have a proper decent service, with Bach for the music, a reading from the New Testament, and ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’ and ‘Praise my Soul the King of Heaven’ for the hymns. It had all been arranged with the vicar, and it would all be very tasteful and entirely suitable.

‘Oh, very,’ said Lucy, and Edmund looked at her sharply because she had almost sounded sarcastic. Still, at least she was dressed more or less conventionally; Edmund had had a bad few moments last night visualizing the kind of outfit Lucy might wear today. But it was all right; she had on some kind of silk two-piece which he had to admit looked very well-cut and also very expensive. It was not black, but it was suitably dark – a deep rich brown, the colour of an old mahogany table. It made her hair look very nearly auburn, and if you
bothered to notice such things you might say it emphasized her good figure as well, not that Edmund was really noticing such things on the day of Deborah’s funeral. And now that he looked at Lucy again, he had to say it was a pity she had added that trailing tortoiseshell-coloured scarf to the outfit.

A lot of people thought Lucy was very attractive – my word, they said, that Lucy Trent, what a stunner! All that hair and those eyes – very sexy. It was to be hoped no one thought this today because it was hardly acceptable to look sexy at a funeral, although to be fair Lucy had pinned her unruly hair up into a chignon.

Everyone had been invited to Deborah’s house after the service, of course. This was what you did at funerals, and although there were not many actual relatives from Deborah’s side, there were Lucy’s father’s people, and also Edmund’s own side of the family. They had all had to be asked and most of them accepted, and it had added up to quite a lot. Edmund had called in a contract cleaning firm to sweep and scour and polish so that everywhere would be spick and span. A small local caterer had delivered sandwiches and rolls and wedges of veal and ham pie a short while ago.

Before leaving he had checked the house one final time to make sure that everything was satisfactory. Yes, the rooms were clean and bright and pleasantly scented with furniture polish; there were fresh towels and soap in the first-floor bathroom and the little downstairs cloakroom, and the food was neatly laid out in the dining room, covered with clingfilm to keep it fresh. Plates were stacked at one end of the big table, and the caterers had
provided two large urns, one of tea and one of coffee. There was also sherry and madeira for those who wanted it. All very civilized and correct, and people would tell one another that you had to admit Edmund Fane always did things properly. Elderly aunts would kiss him effusively – poor dear Edmund who had been so devoted to Deborah – and uncles would gruffly shake his hand.

He had set Aunt Deborah’s jewellery out on a little table downstairs, and he was going to ask the ladies in the family to each choose a piece as a keepsake. (‘How thoughtful,’ the aunts would say, pleased.) There were some really lovely amber beads that Lucy might like – amber was expensive these days and it did not date. Edmund suddenly had an image of Lucy wearing the amber beads with her hair cascading over her bare shoulders…And firelight washing over her body…He pushed this image firmly away, and rearranged the pieces of jewellery more neatly.

Crispin would be present today, of course, although he would dim some of that charm because he knew how to suit the manner to the occasion. He would be deferential to the older ladies – the aunts and Aunt Deborah’s friends, who all loved him – and he would be man-to-man with the younger men, and extremely polite to the younger females. Everything would be perfectly all right. Most of the people who were coming were family or long-standing friends, and there would be no surprises.

But there was a surprise, and it came shortly after the funeral.

People were dispersing from the graveside and there
was the customary slightly over-eager, goodwill-to-all-men atmosphere that pervades any after-funeral assembly. The aunts were telling one another what a nice service it had been, but oh dear, poor Deborah, who would have thought – and at her age, because she had not really been as old as all that when you counted up…The sprinkling of men who were there hoped they would be given a decent drink; Edmund Fane was a bit tight-fisted, in fact he was downright penny-pinching. Probably it would be viewed with disapproval if some of them nipped down to the White Hart, would it…? Oh well.

With the unpredictability of English weather, clouds had already started to gather, and the rain that Lucy had thought should accompany the proceedings began just as everyone was setting off for the parked cars, flurrying people into searching for umbrellas and scarves. Elderly ladies were helped along the wet path and sorted into the various vehicles, and there was much talk of soon being at the house where it would be warm.

Lucy, who had dashed back to retrieve someone’s gloves, saw Edmund helping people into his car; she saw him turn to look for her, and then to indicate that he would come back to collect her in about fifteen minutes. Lucy waved back to tell him not to bother because there were enough cars around for her to get a lift to the house. She delivered the errant gloves to their owner, who was an elderly great-aunt, and then helped her along to the car she was travelling in.

‘We’ll see you at the house, Lucy, will we?’ said the aunt, getting carefully into the remaining passenger seat of an already-crowded car.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Do tell me, dear,’ said the aunt, lowering her voice. ‘Is there a will?’

‘I believe,’ said Lucy gravely, ‘that it’s missing.’

‘Missing? How dreadful.’

The car drove off, the aunt twittering happily to the others about the missing will, and it was only after they had gone that Lucy realized all the other cars had left as well. She muttered an oath quite unsuited to the occasion and the surroundings, scooted back to the sketchy shelter of the lychgate, and foraged in her bag for her mobile phone. Or had she left it in her own car, parked at Aunt Deb’s house? Damn and
blast
, yes she had!

They would realize what had happened, of course, and somebody would drive back to the church for her, but it might be a while before that happened, and in the meantime the rain was coming down in torrents. Lucy was just wondering if she could sprint back to the church and find the rector to ask to use his phone, when she saw a man coming around the side of the church, his coat collar turned up. He stopped at the sight of Lucy, hesitated, and then came towards her.

‘Are you stranded?’

‘It looks like it. I was part of the funeral, but there seems to have been a mix-up over the cars.’

‘Deborah Fane’s funeral? I could give you a lift to the house.’ He was thin-faced with dark brown hair and expressive eyes and hands.

‘Could you? I mean, are you going there anyway?’

‘I wasn’t especially going, but I can take you. I know where the house is. My car’s parked in the lane over there.’

Lucy had no idea who he was, but he had a nice voice. He was probably somebody local; a teacher from the local school or one of the village’s doctors.

‘Funerals are always harrowing, aren’t they?’ said her companion as they drove off. ‘Even for the elderly, and especially when they hand you all that ghastliness about resurrection and only having gone into another room to await friends.’

This was so precisely in tune with Lucy’s own sentiments that she said, without thinking, ‘And that panacea they always offer about, not dead, merely sleeping. That’s quite grisly if you interpret it literally. Um – I’m Lucy Trent, by the way. Deborah Fane was my aunt.’

‘Do you read Edgar Allen Poe by any chance, Ms Trent?’

Lucy smiled involuntarily. ‘Today I wanted to read a modern poem about a lovely dotty old lady who got a kick out of being old and dotty.’

‘Was it called
Warning
by any chance?’

‘Yes, it was! Aunt Deborah would have adored it, but my cousin Edmund thought it wasn’t suitable.’

‘I met your aunt a few times,’ he said. ‘And I think you’re right that she’d have liked the poem. Oh – I’m Michael Sallis. I’m from a Charity called CHARTH. Charity for Rehabilitating Teenagers made Homeless, if you want the whole thing. We pick them up off the streets, dust them down, teach them a few basic social skills, and then turn them loose again, mostly on a wing and a prayer. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.’

‘Was CHARTH one of Aunt Deb’s pet charities? I know she had a couple of particular favourites. She used to do quite a lot of voluntary work.’

‘I don’t know about voluntary work,’ said Michael Sallis. ‘But she left her house to us. That’s why I wanted to come to her funeral. As a courtesy.’ He clearly sensed her shock, and took his eyes off the road for long enough to look at her. ‘Didn’t you know about the house? I assumed you would.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Lucy, staring at him. ‘And I’ve got a feeling my cousin Edmund didn’t, either.’

Edmund certainly had not known, and he was very much inclined to question this stranger, this Michael Sallis who had turned up, cool as a cat, and who appeared to consider himself Deborah Fane’s main beneficiary. Well, all right, not himself precisely, but his company or charity, or whatever it called itself.

But people did not blithely make over their entire properties to tinpot charities, ignoring their own families, and Deborah Fane would certainly not have done so. CHARTH, for goodness’ sake! An outlandish name for a charity if ever Edmund had heard one. What did it stand for? Was it properly registered? He, Edmund, had never heard of it, and it would not surprise him to find that this Michael Sallis was nothing but an adventurer. It would not surprise him to find that there had been undue pressure, either. This would have to be looked into very carefully.

Still, the conventions had to be observed, and Edmund beat down his anger and took Sallis into the small downstairs study. The subdued murmur of the funeral party was still going on across the hall; it was infuriating to remember that he ought to be out there, handing round
drinks, talking to people, gracefully accepting sympathy. Being admired for his control and his efficiency at such a time.

Michael Sallis said, ‘I’m extremely sorry about your aunt’s death, Mr Fane. I only knew her slightly but I liked her very much. As a matter of fact I spoke to her on the phone only a few days before she died.’

‘About the homeless teenagers?’

Michael Sallis took that one straight. ‘Yes. She was very interested in CHARTH’s work. I only meant to attend the service today, though. But then your cousin Lucy missed her lift outside the church, so I drove her here and she asked me to come in for a drink.’

So it was ‘Lucy’, was it! And on five minutes’ acquaintance! Edmund said coldly, ‘I suppose this bequest is all in order?’

Michael Sallis’s cool grey eyes met Edmund’s angry blue ones. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Perfectly in order. But this is hardly the time to discuss the legalities, is it?’

And now the man was putting Edmund in the wrong, and on Edmund’s own terrain as well! Arrogance, you see!

‘Quite,’ said Edmund, and added offhandedly that he dared say there was no objection to his having given out some pieces of his aunt’s jewellery to various members of the family. Only a few trinkets, really.

‘I suppose that strictly speaking there ought to be a probate inventory before anything’s actually taken,’ said Michael Sallis. ‘But that’s your terrain, more than mine. I do know that it’s only the bricks and mortar that are left to us, though.’

Well, of course Edmund knew there should be a
probate inventory, but he had not bothered to get one because he had assumed everything was coming to him. But he could not actually say this, so he merely said, frostily, that if Sallis would leave a card, they could be in touch in the next week or so. After probate was obtained.

‘Yes, certainly. I’ll give you our legal department’s direct number, as well.’

So it was not such a tinpot set-up after all. This annoyed Edmund even further, and he remarked that it was all very unexpected of his aunt. Of course, elderly widows were given to such enthusiasms, most people knew that.

Sallis looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, ‘Mrs Fane asked a lot of very searching questions about our work. About exactly how we would make use of the house if she decided to leave it to us. It was all quite carefully tied up.’ He paused, and then said, ‘I wish I had known her better than I did; she was a remarkable lady. It must have been an immense shock to you when she died so suddenly.’