Roots of Evil (27 page)

It was nicely done. He had made the suggestion in a casual way, at the same time presenting her with a polite get-out which would not make either of them feel awkward. Fran said at once that she loved pasta. ‘And the only thing I was going to do this evening was pack away some more of Trixie’s things.’

‘Do I need to ring up to book a table?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. They get quite busy during the week because the food’s good, but Sunday evenings are usually fairly quiet. How about if I just rinse these coffee cups and then dash upstairs for a quick wash.’ She could scramble into something a bit more respectable than the ancient jeans and dust-streaked shirt she was wearing, although there was no need to say this.

‘All right.’

He carried his cup to the sink, and Fran turned on the taps and without thinking reached for the teatowel covering the photograph.

Michael saw the photograph at once, and he saw the slanting writing under it, and he flinched visibly as if someone had suddenly shone a too-bright light into his face, or as if he had received a blow. Francesca, still holding the teatowel, turned to stare at him. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained and harsh and so different from his normal voice that it was as if a stranger had taken his place.

‘Where did you get that?’

Fran said carefully, ‘It was among Trixie’s things. I found it this afternoon. I’m not sure what to do with it – I’m not even sure if I ought to do anything with it at all.’ When he did not speak, she said, ‘Trixie talked quite a bit about Lucretia von Wolff and Alraune while she was putting together her research, so I got very familiar with the stories. But I thought a lot of them were journalists’ exaggeration. Until I saw that photo I never really thought Alraune existed.’

Michael said very softly, ‘Alraune did exist.’ His eyes were still on the photograph.

Fran had no idea what to say. But because he was still looking shaken, and because clearly they could not pretend that nothing had happened, she said, ‘I don’t know why it was in Trixie’s things. I don’t think it’s anything to do with her family.’

‘No.’

The frozen look had not gone from his face, and Fran suddenly wanted to reach out to take his hand in hers. To dispel such a ridiculous idea she said, ‘I suppose it’s something of a find, isn’t it? I mean – to anyone interested in Lucretia von Wolff’s life it would probably be worth quite a lot.’

‘Oh yes.’

Fran had no idea what was behind all this, but clearly something was behind it, and so by way of edging nearer to the heart of the matter she said, ‘Uh – Michael, I’m not sure how much you know about Lucretia von Wolff—’

‘Quite a lot,’ he said. ‘I know quite a lot about Lucretia.’ He paused and then, almost as if he was bracing himself to plunge neck-deep into icy water, he said, ‘Lucretia von Wolff was my grandmother. I knew her very well indeed.’

The kaleidoscope received another shake, and this time the coloured patterns fell in entirely different, wholly incredible shapes. His grandmother, thought Fran. That can’t possibly be true. He can’t expect me to believe that.

She said, ‘But – you can’t have known Lucretia. She died fifty-odd years ago. She died at Ashwood – she killed herself to escape being charged with the double
murder. That’s the legend – it’s one of the famous murders of its time.’

‘Lucretia didn’t die at Ashwood that day,’ said Michael. ‘And when I was eight years old I ran away to her house and lived with her for the next ten years.’

Francesca ended up making the omelettes after all, since Michael’s astonishing revelation seemed effectively to put an end to any idea of going out and attempting to eat anything even approaching a normal civilized meal.

But when he said, rather ruefully, ‘Sorry, Francesca, I didn’t mean to explode a bombshell – there’s no reason why we can’t still go out to eat,’ Fran said at once that of course they could not go out; if Michael thought she was going to discuss Lucretia von Wolff and Alraune with waiters and other diners eavesdropping on their conversation, he had better think again.

‘Are we going to discuss Lucretia and Alraune?’

‘Well, not if you’d hate it and not anything that’s private, of course. Can you eat omelettes?’

He made a brief gesture, half defeat, half acceptance, and said, ‘Yes, of course I can eat omelettes.’ And then, as Fran reached into the fridge for eggs and cheese, he
said, ‘Where d’you keep the plates and cutlery? I’ll lay the table.’

‘In that drawer. Thanks. D’you mind eating in here? The dining-room’s a bit gloomy.’

‘Not at all,’ said Michael, setting out knives and forks on the table. ‘But telling your life story is the ultimate in ego-trips. Like telling your dreams.’

‘You’re forgetting I’ve lived with Lucretia’s life story – and with Alraune – ever since Trixie started her thesis,’ said Fran. Clearly he could not be asked about the running away part, but it should be acceptable to ask about Lucretia and about the years with her. Do I believe him, I wonder? More to the point, Do I trust him, because after all, I don’t really know anything about him. I suppose I could phone CHARTH tomorrow and verify that he works for them, but that wouldn’t tell me anything about his childhood. Surely he
can’t
have lived with Lucretia. She died years ago. If this is some kind of hoax, it’s a very elaborate one, though – unless he’s mad, of course, I suppose that’s a possibility. But she glanced at him again, and knew it was not even a remote possibility. He was unmistakably sane. And so when you have eliminated the impossible, my dear Watson, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

She discovered that he was looking at her. ‘You’re finding it difficult to accept,’ he said.

‘Well, yes. Did you really live with her? With Lucretia?’

‘I did. For ten years. In a nice old house on the edge of the Lincolnshire fens, on the outskirts of a little market
town, where she lived a perfectly conventional life. Women’s Guild and shopping and library reading groups. She did quite a lot of charity work – that’s how I got involved in CHARTH – and she had a good many friends locally, although I’ll swear that not one of them had the smallest suspicion of who she really was. Which was how she wanted it. Oh, and she loved music.’

‘Conrad’s influence,’ said Fran, remembering the film music yesterday at Quondam, and feeling that she was reaching back to grasp a handful of the past.

‘Yes, I think so. She used to take me to concerts in Lincoln and Norwich or Cambridge – and gorgeous choral stuff in Ely Cathedral at Christmas and Easter. I had never heard music or singing like that before and it knocked me for six – in fact at one stage it nearly swept me into a religious vocation.’

He glanced at her as if expecting a reaction. Fran said, ‘But – it didn’t?’

‘I found out I had a fairly unspiritual side,’ he said gravely. Fran grinned, and saw that he had relaxed for the first time since he had seen Alraune’s photograph. But then he said, ‘Shall I grate the cheese?’ and she felt the barriers go back into place.

Even so, it was friendly to have him sharing the small task of making the omelettes. Marcus’s forays into the kitchen had been rare, and had usually involved cooking an impossibly elaborate dish, the preparation of which necessitated using every saucepan they possessed and apparently absolved him from washing up afterwards. Michael simply reached for the cheese and got on with it.

‘Lucretia had no patience with men who expected to be waited on,’ he said, apparently picking some of this up. ‘She was quite domesticated as a matter of fact. And she made sure I knew how to cook a reasonable meal. I’ll make you my five-star gourmet Hungarian goulash some evening if you’d like that.’

Francesca had a sudden image of Michael’s flat or his house, which would be warm and comfortable and safe-feeling, and of the two of them eating goulash and drinking wine at a small dining-table. She discovered she was smiling at the prospect, so in case he got the wrong idea, she said, ‘I’d have to say that the words domesticated and Lucretia von Wolff don’t seem to belong in the same sentence.’

He smiled properly this time. ‘Her real name was Alice Wilson, and she had been a servant in a big house in Vienna until the late nineteen-twenties.’

Francesca finished beating the eggs and poured them into the omelette pan. ‘Not kidnapped Russian royalty or the heiress to a Carpathian castle, after all?’

‘Nowhere near. A perfectly ordinary background in fact.’ He passed the little heap of grated cheese to her. ‘Would you like me to open that bottle of wine?’

‘Yes, please.’ She handed him the corkscrew and reached for two wine-glasses. They might as well use the expensive ones Trixie had brought back from one of her walking holidays; perhaps Bohemian crystal would lend an air of grandeur to the very ordinary meal and the even more ordinary bottle of supermarket plonk. This discussion of resurrected legends and ghost-children ought to be given at least a smidgeon of ceremony
and be dignified by a touch of class. And Michael Sallis was somehow a person with whom you associated more than just a touch of class.

She tipped the grated cheese on to the just-setting eggs, and said, ‘It’s a remarkable thing, but ever since I heard about the Ashwood murders from Trixie, one thing seems to have overshadowed all the rest.’

He paused, and then said, very softly, ‘Alraune.’

‘Yes.’ Fran determinedly avoided looking towards the curtained windows which hid the dark whispering night. ‘Alraune seems to overshadow everything.’

‘That,’ said Michael, looking at her very intently, ‘is exactly what Alice said to me on the night before my seventeenth birthday. The night when she finally told me the truth about Alraune.’

One of the things Michael had loved about growing up in the Lincolnshire house had been listening to Alice’s stories about her past.

She had unfolded the stories bit by bit, as if she understood that he wanted to absorb the details gradually, and she told a story as his mother used to; making it vivid and exciting and real. Most of the time she had talked to him as if he were already grown-up, although he had always known there were parts of her life she had not told, and that she might never tell.

But on the night before his seventeenth birthday – the night she talked to him about Alraune – she did not make a story of it; she talked plainly and rather flatly, and several times Michael thought she was going to stop
partway through and not go on. And if she does that, I’ll never know.

‘Alraune’s birth seemed to overshadow everything else that had ever happened to me,’ she had said in the firelit room that night, seated in her usual chair, Michael in his familiar inglenook seat.

Alraune
…The name whispered around the warm safe room like a cold sighing voice. Like something sobbing inside a bitter night-wind, or like brittle goblin-fingers scratching out childish letters on a window-pane in the dark…

‘Alraune was bad,’ Alice said. ‘I don’t just mean dishonest or selfish or bad-tempered. I mean truly bad. Cruel. It’s as if – oh, as if Nature occasionally gets things a bit twisted and lets loose something wicked on the world.’

Something wicked…Michael shivered, and edged nearer to the fire.

At once Alice said, ‘You should remember, though, that it’s nearly always possible to spot the world’s bad people very easily. And once you have spotted them you’re perfectly safe, because you can give them a wide berth.’

‘It’s as simple as that, is it?’

‘Most of the time. Don’t be cynical, Michael, you’re still too young to be cynical.’

‘Sorry. Tell me about Alraune. You never have done, not properly. Tonight tell me properly.’

She studied him for a moment. ‘What a heart-breaker you’re turning into,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘I pity the girls you meet. And don’t grin at me like that, I’m quite
well aware of what goes on in the world of teenagers. But I don’t know how much I can tell you about Alraune. Alraune never seemed quite real to me.’

Her eyes had the sad look that Michael hated, and her face, with the framing of white hair, suddenly looked older. Once upon a time her hair had been a deep shiny black, and once upon a time her skin had been smooth and pale, like cream velvet. When she was younger. When she was Lucretia. One day I’ll see if I can find a photo of her as Lucretia, thought Michael. And one day I might be able to find one of the films she made and watch it. Would that be possible? Would she mind?

He said, carefully, ‘Alraune was part of a nightmare – that’s right, isn’t it? You lived inside a nightmare.’

‘That’s sharp of you. Yes, I did.’

‘I know about living nightmares – well, a bit about them.’

‘I know you do. And you shouldn’t have to, not at your age.’

‘It’s all right. I’ve forgotten most of that. So listen, start with the beginning – that was Buchenwald, wasn’t it? – and go on from there. That’s what you always tell me to do with difficult things.’

‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is…’ began Alice.

‘…to have a thankless child. Yes, I know. But I’m not thankless.’

‘You’re disgustingly precocious. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve brought you up all wrong.’

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘Well, how many other seventeen-year-olds would
quote
King Lear
? Why aren’t you staying out late and getting illegally drunk and listening to too-loud pop music like the rest of your generation?’ She smiled at him.

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. I do stay out late sometimes, though.’

‘I’m aware of it,’ she said, dryly.

‘Tell me about Buchenwald. Didn’t you try to escape? I would have done.’

‘At first I thought I would,’ said Alice. ‘I even thought it would be easy. All through that train journey I planned what I would do and how I would get away.’

‘To find Conrad and Deborah.’ This was entirely understandable. ‘So there you were on the train trying to plan an escape.’

‘Not just precocious, persistent as well,’ said Alice. ‘But yes, I was on the train, and I thought about escaping all through the hours and hours of jolting and the biting cold, with people being sick on the wooden floors from terror, or relieving their bladders in front of everyone simply because there was nowhere else to do it. Captivity isn’t romantic or noble, Michael, not like it is in stories. It isn’t the Prisoner of Zenda, or the rightful heir to a kingdom being shut in a stone cell by a usurper and then rescued in a swashbuckling fight. The reality’s squalid and horrible and dehumanizing – the Nazis loved the dehumanizing part, of course; it fitted very neatly with their propaganda and their murderous schemes against the Jews. Even so, all through that journey I clung on to how I would find a way to fool them and outwit the SS, and how I would cheat Leo Dreyer and get away—’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘No. There were escapes from the camps, of course, and quite a lot of them were from Buchenwald. Towards the end of the war there was an underground resistance network that smuggled people out. But in those early months it was a very difficult camp to escape from.’

‘What made it so difficult?’

Alice paused, as if arranging the memories in her mind. ‘All the concentration camps were dreadful places,’ she said. ‘You can’t believe how dreadful they were. Most of them were death camps – “
Rückkehr unerwünscht”
they were labelled. That means, “Return not desired”. Death camps, you see. Buchenwald wasn’t that; but it was “
Vernichtung durch arbeit
”. Extermination by work.’

Again the pause. Then, ‘Originally it was intended for political prisoners,’ she said. ‘So groups of people were taken into nearby factories or quarries in Weimar and Erfurt, and made to work there, sometimes for twelve hours at a time.’

‘Did you have to do that?’

‘Yes, for a while. I hoped I could escape that way, but the guards were with us all the time, and it was impossible. There were roll calls twice a day – sometimes three times – and the SS patrols were everywhere. Anyone caught trying to escape was shot at once.’ She paused again, and then said, ‘To me – to all of us – Buchenwald was an outpost of hell.’

Once the initial shock and the exhaustion of the gruelling journey had worn off a little, the days inside Buchenwald had begun to blur into a sick bleak misery that seemed
to have no end. Alice had found this almost more terrifying than anything she had yet experienced, because once you were caught in it you began to lose count of the days, and you stopped caring which day or which month it was anyway. But earlier on she vowed to keep careful count of the days, and she scratched a rough chart on the edge of her wooden-framed bunk so that she could cross off each day and know how much time had passed.

Some of the women with whom she shared the hut – Hut 24 it had been – believed themselves to have died, and to have gone to hell. This was the real hell of the preachers and the rabbis and the priests, they said with fearful eyes. This was the place where you paid for your sins and who knew how long that might take? Alice thought this a naïve outlook, but once or twice she found herself wondering whether there was some form of retribution at work. Supposing this is the reckoning, she thought – the payment for those enchanted ten years? For having Conrad and Deborah, and for all the extravagances and the fun and the admiration.

Supposing that like Faust, I sold my soul to the devil during those nights in Vienna’s Old Quarter, or on any one of the nights since? And supposing the devil has been stalking me ever since, watching his chance to settle the account…? Aha, there’s Alice Wilson, he might have said. I think it’s time to call in the debt on that one. Quite a lot of self-indulgence went on, I see. A great deal of money spent on personal adornment – a good deal of fornication as well – oh, and a bastard child: dear me, she’s had a very good run indeed, this one. A very
extravagant ten years. It’s certainly time for the arrogant little sinner to settle my account.