Roots of Evil (6 page)

Trixie said gruffly that Monday afternoon would suit her very well. ‘Have to admit I hadn’t expected to hear from you, Mr Fane,’ she said. ‘In fact I thought you were giving me the brush-off that day at your aunt’s house.’

‘Surely not,’ said Edmund politely.

‘And I’ll reimburse you for your time, of course. Never be beholden, that’s my maxim.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Edmund. ‘It’ll be quite interesting to see the place, although I gather it’s been derelict for years, so I don’t know what value it’ll be to you.’

‘Atmosphere,’ said Trixie at once. ‘Background details.
And you never know, I might even pick up something the police missed.’

‘After more than fifty years? Oh really—’

‘Why not? History teaches us perspective, Mr Fane, and hindsight gives us twenty-twenty vision. And wouldn’t it be satisfying to discover that the baroness wasn’t a murderess after all?’

‘She wasn’t a baroness. The title was just another of the publicity stunts.’

‘Even so.’

‘Yes,’ said Edmund politely. ‘Yes, it would be marvellous.’

On the following Monday Edmund gave himself a half day’s leave of absence, issued his staff with instructions as to how various clients should be dealt with were they to turn up or phone, and set off. It was barely two o’clock, but it was such a grey rain-sodden afternoon that it was necessary to drive with full headlights on. This meant he almost missed the Ashwood sign, which was obscured by overgrown hedges. But he saw it just in time and turned off on to a badly maintained B-road, so narrow it was very nearly un-navigable. Edmund winced as the car’s suspension protested, and frowned as bushes scratched against the doors and painted sappy green smears on the windscreen.

A couple of miles further on he came to some tall rusting gates, sagging on their hinges but with the legend ‘Ashwood Studios’ still discernible. Edmund, peering through the car’s misted windows, thought he had never seen such a dismal place. Astonishing to think
that London was only about twenty minutes’ drive from here.

There was a small security guard’s booth on the right of the gates, and on the other side were what appeared to be a series of neglected airfields strewn with single-storey, corrugated-roofed buildings. Edmund sat for a moment, the car’s engine still ticking over, and stared at the straggling dereliction. So this was Ashwood. This was the place that once upon a time had spun silvered illusions and created celluloid legends.

Trixie Smith was waiting for him, in a weather-beaten estate car. Edmund reached for his umbrella, switched his car’s engine off, and shrugged on a quilted rainproof jacket before getting out to walk across to her. She was wearing a long mackintosh that in the damp atmosphere smelt slightly of dogs.

‘I hadn’t realized it would be quite so tumbledown,’ said Edmund, peering through the grey curtain of rain.

‘It looks to me,’ observed Ms Smith as they plodded across the squelching mud, ‘as if the whole lot’s about to sink into the mud anyway.’

‘It’s a mournful place,’ agreed the person propped against the inside of the security booth, clearly waiting for them. ‘Practically the end of the world, and myself I wouldn’t waste petrol on coming here. Still, that’s your privilege, and I’ve brought the keys to let you in as you wanted.’ He came out of the sketchy shelter of the booth and introduced himself as Liam Devlin. He was dark and careless-looking, and he looked as if he took the world and its woes very lightly indeed. He also looked as if he might be wearing yesterday’s clothes
and had not bothered to take them off to go to bed last night.

‘I thought,’ said Edmund severely, ‘that your firm acted as site agents.’

‘So we do. But if,’ said Mr Devlin, ‘you can find a reliable contractor who doesn’t mind the ghosts, and who’s prepared to tidy this place up and keep it tidied, you’ll have done more than I ever could.’

‘Ghosts?’ said Edmund sharply.

‘Lucretia von Wolff. Who else did you think I meant?’

‘Oh, I see. You know Ashwood’s history, then?’

‘Everyone in the western world knows Ashwood’s history, Mr Fane. This is the place where the baroness killed two people and then committed suicide.’

‘She wasn’t a baroness,’ said Edmund, who was tired of telling people this.

‘You believe the official version, do you?’ demanded Trixie of Liam Devlin.

‘Isn’t it what most people believe?’

‘I don’t. I’ve been doing some delving,’ said Trixie. ‘And I’m becoming less and less convinced of Lucretia’s guilt.’

‘Is that theory or fantasy, Ms Smith?’ Devlin appeared perfectly happy to enter into a discussion in a field in the middle of a rainstorm.

‘Neither. The facts are there, and the reports about Alraune fall into a coherent chronological pattern. The birth at the beginning of World War II – the disappearance before the war ended. And,’ said Trixie, ‘I’m perfectly used to people scoffing at my theories, Mr Devlin, so you needn’t raise your eyebrows like that. I’m
particularly used to men scoffing. And usually,’ added Ms Smith pointedly, ‘they’re men with inadequacies.’

‘Ah. In that case I stand chastened and rebuked.’

‘Well, don’t stand too long, because if we stay out in this rain any longer we’ll all catch pneumonia,’ said Edmund crossly. ‘How far is Studio Twelve from here? That’s the one Ms Smith wants to see.’

Liam glanced at Edmund’s shoes, which were leather, and with what Edmund could only feel was a slightly malicious air, said, ‘Well, now there’s the unfortunate thing. Studio Twelve’s on the very far side from here, wouldn’t you know it would be.’

‘Can’t we drive across to it?’

‘You can try,’ said Liam cordially. ‘But in this quagmire you’ll probably get bogged down within about ten seconds.’ Again there was the faintly mischievous look to where Edmund had parked, as if he found the meticulously polished car rather amusing. ‘Come on through the gates and we’ll view the terrain, though. They’re not locked nowadays, not that there’d be any point because as you can see the hinges have long since rusted away. And they say the gates are always open to those who ask.’ He surveyed the rain, and then turned up his coat collar. ‘Have we enough umbrellas? Good. Do you believe in ghosts by the way, Mr Fane?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Do you?’ demanded Trixie.

‘Not at all,’ said Liam cheerfully.

Studio Twelve was a long low building, exactly like all the others, windowless and weather-beaten, with narrow
windows that had probably once had screens or shutters, but that had all been firmly boarded up, giving the place a blank, blind appearance.

Edmund was not in the least surprised when they had trouble getting the door to open; he had never seen such a collection of worm-eaten shanties in his life.

‘It’s only warped by the damp,’ said Liam. ‘It’s a new lock – all the buildings had new locks on after some teenagers got in last year and held a seance on the anniversary of the murder. Wait now, while I try a bit more force—’

This time the door swung protestingly inwards, and old, dank air gusted into their faces. They stepped warily into what appeared to be a dim lobby area with the floor covered in dead leaves and bird droppings, and then through a second door.

‘It’s very dark,’ began Trixie. ‘We shan’t be able to see much.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s any electricity on anyway,’ said Edmund.

But Liam had found a battery of switches just inside the door, and was pressing them all in turn. The first ones brought forth a sputtering crackle from the defunct light bulbs, but one lone bulb near the wall, apparently made of sterner stuff than the others, gave out an uncertain illumination.

‘Good God Almighty,’ said Edmund.

‘Dismal, isn’t it? But this,’ said Liam, ‘is what you wanted to see. This is where a legend died and a fable began. The stuff that good theses are made on, Ms Smith, isn’t that so?’

‘I did say I wanted background atmosphere,’ said Trixie, sounding slightly doubtful. ‘But I’d have to say that after the build-up this is a bit of a disappointment.’

‘Isn’t that always the way with life.’

Studio Twelve appeared to be little more than a massive warehouse-like structure, perhaps seventy or eighty feet in overall length, its walls mottled with damp and grey fingers of cobwebs stirring in the draught from the opened doors. Edmund tutted and brushed the cobwebs aside before advancing deeper in. The floor creaked badly under their footsteps, but it seemed fairly sound which was one mercy. The amount of dust was deplorable though, and it was probably as well not to look too closely into the corners, or into the dark void beyond the roof girders overhead. There were huge shrouded shapes looming out of the dimness as well, and it took a moment to realize that they were only the discarded junk of years: pieces of scenery and furniture and odd stage props, and cumbersome-looking filming equipment. But most of them were covered in dust-sheets or lightweight tarpaulins, which gave an oddly macabre appearance to the place. As if someone had deliberately blinded the eyes of this place…

‘What’s over there?’ said Edmund, abruptly.

‘Doors to the dressing-room section, I should think.’ Liam’s footsteps echoed uncannily as he walked to the far side, threading his way through the dust-sheeted shapes, and moving around the jumbled piles of furniture. After a moment he called back, ‘Yes, I think they are dressing-rooms – there’re four, no, five of them. Two fairly small ones – star dressing-rooms, I should think –
and three large ones. Probably communal. Loo and washroom in between. Oh, and there’s what looks like an abandoned wardrobe-room as well, but I wouldn’t recommend going inside that unless you feel like being sick: the smell’s appalling.’

‘Mice and damp, I daresay,’ said Trixie briskly. ‘Especially if there’re any clothes still stored in there.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Liam, coming back. ‘Listen now, I’m going to leave you to it if that’s all right. You’ve got the address of my office, haven’t you, in case you need it? It’s only a couple of miles from here.’

‘I’ll bring the keys back,’ said Edmund.

‘No need. It’s a Yale lock, so you can slam the door when you leave.’

‘You don’t suspect us of having a van parked discreetly outside to load the entire contents on to it and flog them in a street market?’ asked Edmund.

‘I hadn’t thought about it. Do you have contacts within street markets?’ inquired Liam politely, which was a remark Edmund chose to ignore.

‘How late can we stay?’ asked Trixie.

‘You can stay here until the last trump sounds for all I care. But it’ll start to get dark around four, and you won’t be able to see much at all then.’ He moved to the door. ‘Also,’ said Liam, ‘I’m reliably informed that the ghosts come out when the darkness closes down.’

Trixie Smith was glad when that buttoned-up iceberg, Edmund Fane, rather pointedly consulted his watch, sighed a couple of times, and finally said if she wanted to stay for a while he would leave her to it. He really should be getting back, he said. Was there any reason why Trixie could not pull the door to when she left, making sure that the Yale lock clicked down?

There was no reason at all, and Trixie would far rather make her notes and scout around, working out who had died where, without being watched by Mister Fish-Eyes. So she said she reckoned she could manage to close the door securely.

‘You won’t mind being on your own in here? It’s a bit eerie.’ He glanced round as he said this, and Trixie even thought he repressed a slight shiver. Ha! A gleam of humanity at last. But she said briskly that anywhere would be a bit eerie in the middle of a field on a dark
November afternoon. ‘I’m not expecting to encounter any lurking ghosts if that’s what you mean.’

‘Ah. No, of course not. Well, in that case,’ said Edmund, ‘I’ll leave you to it. Goodbye. Good luck with the thesis.’

‘Thanks. Thanks for setting this up, as well.’

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said, which was a whopping great fib if Trixie had ever heard one because it had not been his pleasure at all, in fact he had stonewalled her from the start, and she would just like to know what had caused his change of heart: Edmund Fane did not strike her as a man who would do anyone a favour without first calculating what return he was likely to get. She watched him go out, and heard him close the outer door, and then turned her attention to plotting the exact layout of Studio Twelve. The thesis was going to incorporate a plan showing where the murders had actually happened. Neat and businesslike and informative. Now then. Conrad Kline had been killed in the wardrobe-room; Leo Dreyer in Lucretia’s dressing-room. Better look at both places. Wardrobe-room first.

Liam Devlin had been right about one thing at any rate; the wardrobe-room stank of damp and decay. Even so, Trixie stood for a moment looking into the dark cavernous interior, remembering that this was where Conrad had lain dying and that his bloodied handprints had been smeared over one of the walls. He was supposed to have dragged himself to the wall dividing this room from the baroness’s dressing-rooms, and tapped feebly on the wall, in the hope that someone would hear and come to his aid. But no one had done so because they
had all been scurrying around summoning ambulances and police.

Leo Dreyer had been the financier for the film they had been making, and Trixie, reading the reports, had received the impression of a rather calculating man, probably given to patting the bottoms of wide-eyed would-be starlets, and lubriciously murmuring in their ears, I could do a lot for you, my pretty dear…She had not much liked the sound of Mr Leo Dreyer, although you would not wish his death on anyone.

Measuring up so that the plan would be to scale was difficult in the near-dark. There was a faint glimmer of light from the boarded-up windows, but even at high noon they would not provide more than a thread of daylight. Trixie had brought a tape measure, but she had not brought a torch. There was one in her car, but it was still raining hard and she did not fancy trekking back across the mud-fields. She would try to manage with the light there was.

She came back into the main studio and looked around. It really was an appallingly desolate place. Before she set off, Francesca Holland, who was staying with Trixie at the moment, had asked if it was really worth making the journey – all that way, and in the middle of a November rainstorm, Fran had said, peering doubtfully at the weather. Still, if it had really been such a
cause célébre
…

Trixie had at once said, God, Fran, your
accent
! at which Fran had replied defensively that it was all very fine for Trixie and her posh education, but not so fine for people who had only attended Brick Street Junior
School! She could be a bit prickly at times, that Fran, although there was a definite touch of the spaniel-eyed romantic several layers down.

Here was the baroness’s infamous dressing-room, next door to the wardrobe. It was not quite as dark, but Trixie had to feel around to locate the door handle, and even when she found it and opened the door, she could not see very much. But she set to with the tape measure again, going more by feel this time than anything else.

One of the versions said that Conrad Kline had caught Leo Dreyer making love to Lucretia in here, which in Trixie’s view would have been a mad thing for them to have done, what with people milling around outside and anyone likely to come in. But maybe Lucretia had got a kick out of the danger; Trixie believed some people did get kicks in that way.

But what had really sparked the Ashwood murders had been a version of the eternal triangle, or so the police had finally decided. The story that was afterwards pieced together – the one that was put out as the official verdict – was that there had been a monumental row between the three main characters, with everyone accusing everyone else of any number of debaucheries. Leo Dreyer had apparently said Conrad Kline was a shameful libertine from whom no female was safe – which taunt Kline had not minded – and that his music was rubbish, which Kline had minded very much indeed, retorting that he, at least, stipulated that his women should be over the age of consent.

After this, Lucretia, never one to stay out of the action for long, had flown into one of her celebrated tantrums
and had snatched up a stage prop which somebody had left lying around and which unfortunately had been a stiletto or a knife that the props department had not yet blunted. She had gone after Kline, who had stormed off to the wardrobe-room to sulk, and had stabbed him and then returned to Dreyer and stabbed him as well. Then she had slashed both her wrists, either out of an extravagant burst of remorse or as a means of escaping the ugliness of the gallows. Either way, you could not say she had no style, that Lucretia, even if the style was
Grand Guignol.

Whatever the truth of it, it all made for a damn good case study. Trixie sat on the floor directly beneath the solitary light and marked the salient points carefully on her plan. One body
here
, a second
there
. Cameras and technicians presumably grouped about
here
– she would take an educated guess at that. And then Lucretia’s suicide
here
. Lying gracefully on the floor of her dressing-room it had been; trust the baroness to be gracefully arranged, even in a blood-dripping death, thought Trixie, and added a note to explore and if possible analyse the complexities of an ego that cared how its mortal coil looked after it had been shuffled off.

She came back to where the solitary light bulb cast its sullen glow, and sat down to make some notes about the actual studio – the floor was cold and disgustingly dusty, but sitting on it was preferable to burrowing under one of the shrouded piles of furniture to find a chair. She was trying to ignore those pallid shapes under the dust-sheets and tarpaulins, and she was also
trying to ignore an increasing sensation that she was not on her own in here. Ridiculous, of course, although it would be a bit of a laugh if she did turn out to be psychic after all! She could just see Mr Edmund Fane’s face if she was able to give him an action-replay account of the murders! Oh sure, said her mind sarcastically.

But there
is
something here, I can feel that there is. What is it, though? Lucretia von Wolff? The kohl-eyed baroness, still bound to the scene of her crime, resentful of intruders? Suicides did not rest, most people agreed on that.

But the murdered did not rest either. Was it Lucretia’s victims whose presence she was sensing so strongly? Lot of rubbish, all this ghost business, but still—

But still, she was hearing
something
. Soft creakings and rustlings. Mice? Or even (shudder) rats? Or was it the dying Conrad Kline butchered and mutilated, left to die in the dark, but scrabbling on the wall for help…?

Tap-tap
…
Help-me
…
Tap-tap
…
Help-me
…

For a moment this last image was so vivid that Trixie almost believed she could hear him.

Tap-tap-tap
…
I-am-dying
…

Who had really killed Dreyer, and who had really killed Conrad Kline? The question sounded slightly absurd, like the old rhyme about Cock Robin. How did it go? All the birds of the air/Came a-sighing and asobbing/When they heard of the death/Of poor Cock Robin…

So, who killed Leo Dreyer? Not I, said the baroness, with my stiletto. And all the ghosts of Ashwood/Came
a-sighing and a-sobbing/When they heard of the death/Of poor Leo Dreyer…

Except that ghosts did not sob, any more than they existed, and there had been nothing poor about Leo Dreyer, in fact it was Trixie’s guess that no one had especially sighed or sobbed at his death. But the method of his dying, yes, that had been bad. And quite a number of people had probably both sighed and sobbed for Conrad Kline.

The rain was still beating on the roof, sounding for all the world as if somebody was throwing hundreds of tin-tacks on to a metal tray, but beneath it, Trixie caught a sound from beyond the inner door. Someone out in the lobby area, was it? Or perhaps Edmund Fane had not closed the outer door properly and it was the wind. No, she had heard him slam the door herself. But he might have come back for some perfectly innocent reason, or Liam Devlin might have done so. Something to do with the keys or the parking of the cars. But surely they would not creep around out there; they would come straight in, calling out to her.

The sound came again, a little more definitely this time, and Trixie’s heart skipped several beats, because what if there was someone out there – someone who had been watching her as she paced out the murder trail and scribbled her notes, occasionally muttering to herself as you did when you believed you were on your own? Someone who had stolen in after Edmund Fane left, or even someone who had been in here all along. She turned to look towards the door leading to the lobby. Was it moving? As if someone was inching it cautiously open, trying not to be heard?

Trixie set down her pad and pen, got stealthily to her feet, and began to step back because like this, standing directly in the fly-blown circle of light, she was as vulnerable and as exposed as if she had been on a spotlit stage. And the door was definitely being pushed open, she could see that it was.

Before she had taken more than a couple of steps away from the light, the door opened more fully, and for a split-second a dark shape was framed there. And then whoever it was closed the door softly and moved into one of the patches of darkness. Damn! Had he seen her? Yes, almost certainly he had.

She dodged deeper into the shadows, but before she could decide what to do next, there was a sudden darting movement near the door and then a soft click. The friendly illumination from above shut off and the entire studio was plunged into darkness.

This was certainly no spook; ghosts did not switch off lights for goodness’ sake, and she could hear the brush of human clothes against a wall as he – it would certainly be a ‘he’! – began to make his way towards her. She could hear the creak of the sagging old timbers as he trod on them as well: like a hoarse voice saying, I’m creeping across the floor to get to you, my dear…

With her heart pounding and sweat forming between her shoulder blades, Trixie started to back away from the sounds, keeping near to the wall because if she could circle around the edges of the studio, she could get to the door—And if she could do that before his eyes adjusted to the darkness…

On this last thought she dropped down on to all fours
so that she would not be in his sightline – ha! he would be searching for her on his own eye-level, and that would fool him! She was shaking with fear, but if she kept her nerve she could reach the door and be out into the night before he realized it. And then across the waste ground – never mind how muddily squelchy it was – and into her car, still parked near the old gates. She began to crawl stealthily towards the door, the wall comfortingly on her left, but she had not got more than a couple of feet when a blurred face suddenly swam up in front of her, the eyes huge dark pits, the hair a grey cobwebby veil.

Trixie gasped and recoiled, her stomach clenching in panic, but she had already realized that it was only her own reflection in an old looking-glass propped against a pile of discarded furniture, her features distorted by the green depths of the mirror’s surface. And now he
will
know where you are, you wimp! Of all the stupid, uncontrolled things to have done—But it was too late for regrets; Trixie had already felt the sudden burst of triumph from him.

OK, no need to pussyfoot around any longer. She stood up and in a voice sharp with fear called out, ‘Who’s there? What do you want?’ There was just the faint possibility that it was simply someone setting her up: someone laughing quietly to himself, and saying, I’ll take the piss out of that daft old Trixie Smith…One of her own students? One of the middle years who had found out about the thesis and followed her down here? Yes, she could think of a couple of possible contenders very easily! She was gratefully aware of a little curl of anger,
and when she caught another of the furtive movements over to her right she took a deep breath and lunged forward. If this really was some malicious joker, he had picked the wrong person to play jokes on!

She was halfway across the floor when a figure with smoky darkness where the face should be stepped out of the shadows, and there was another of those moments of frozen terror –
ghosts after all?
Before she could recover, he had moved behind her, grabbing her arms and twisting them halfway up her back. Pain shot through her so that she cried out, but she struggled against him because she was damned if she was letting some weirdo overpower her! But he had imprisoned her wrists now, and he was jerking her arms even higher; his hands felt like iron bands and pain was shooting through her shoulders, but Trixie was still clutching on to that burst of anger, and she managed to kick out backwards. She encountered solid bone and flesh – his shin, had it been? Good! But wherever the blow had landed, it had drawn an angry grunt of surprised pain from him as if he had not expected her to resist. Serve you right, you bastard!