Roots of Evil(112)

Mengele turned to the trolley to select a second needle, and the second man’s screams increased, shrilling through the small room. As Mengele walked towards him, the screams faded and gave way to a wet retching.

‘Wipe his face,’ said Mengele impatiently. ‘I cannot work with a man’s vomit on my hands – you should know that by now.’ He lifted the syringe again.

The second thing to strike Alice very forcibly and very clearly, was that Alraune had watched everything with silent absorption. And that he appeared entirely untroubled by any of it.



‘So much pain,’ said Francesca softly, when Michael finished speaking. ‘And yet all that courage and all that humanity throughout. Alice and those women—’

‘Remarkable, weren’t they?’

‘It reminded me a very little of Anne Frank hiding in the attics to escape the Nazis,’ said Fran. ‘Her diaries are unbearably sad, but the people she described were so brave. Or that Frenchwoman – Odette somebody, who was imprisoned as a spy.’

Michael said, ‘And Mahler’s niece, Alma Rosé, who led an orchestra inside Auschwitz. Alice met her a couple of times, I think.’

‘It’s an incredible story, Michael.’

‘You believe it, though? You believe what I’ve told you? I do know how far-fetched it must sound.’

‘I believe you now that I’ve seen your own photo of Alraune,’ said Fran slowly. ‘Until then I was – well, I was questioning it all. But you couldn’t have faked that photograph in your wallet. You couldn’t have known I’d find the photo of Alraune as a child, either. And they’re unquestionably photos of the same person.’

‘The child is father to the man.’

‘I had been thinking of Alraune as a girl,’ said Fran, thoughtfully. ‘Trixie always referred to Alraune as “she”. That’s because of the film, I suppose. And that photograph could be a girl or a boy, couldn’t it?’

‘Yes. But if you look at the shot with my mother—’

‘She’s not pretty exactly, but she has a quality,’ said Fran, thoughtfully. ‘What happened to her? To both of them? Or am I stepping over the line asking that?’

He hesitated. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘And one day I will tell you. Not yet, though.’


‘OK. He – your father – is actually very good-looking.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Michael. ‘He had a magnetism.’

Fran picked up the photo of the child again. ‘Do we need to show anyone this? Is it likely to be connected with Trixie’s murder?’

‘I don’t know. But Trixie was delving into the past, wasn’t she? If she found Alraune’s photograph, she might have found other things – I can’t think what other things they could be, but I do know Alice didn’t tell me everything about Alraune. So I suppose there could be something in the past I don’t know about.’

‘Something to cause her to be killed?’ said Fran doubtfully. ‘To – to shut her up about something?’

‘It’s only a wild theory. I don’t really think it’s likely.’

‘Michael, what happened to Alraune after Auschwitz?’

‘That’s one of the things I don’t know,’ said Michael. ‘I think he lived mostly abroad until the early Sixties,’ said Michael. ‘Then he came to England – he was in his early twenties by then. He changed his name of course; he lived for a while in Salisbury, so he took the name Alan Salisbury. Very English, isn’t it? After I ran away, I shortened that to Sallis.’

He frowned and made an abrupt gesture as if to shake off the past. ‘I think I’d better let Inspector Fletcher know Trixie had Alraune’s photograph,’ he said. ‘She can make of it what she wants. And truly, Francesca, that’s enough about me. More than enough. Tell me about you. I’d like to know – that’s why I drove out here.’

‘To see me?’

‘To find out about you,’ he said. ‘You’re “Mrs”, but you don’t wear a wedding ring. That’s one of the things that’s intriguing me most.’

‘There’s nothing intriguing about it,’ said Francesca. ‘It’s boringly ordinary. I was married to a rat, and the rat deserted the ship for a blonde.’

‘How ridiculous of him. I’m very glad to hear he’s no longer around, though.’

Fran did not say she was starting to be quite glad as well. She said, ‘I’ll make us some coffee, shall I?’ and got up to switch on the kettle, running hot water on the plates stacked in the sink. She reached for the washing-up liquid at the same moment that Michael leaned over for the tea-towel; his hand brushed hers, and there was a sharp jab of excitement beneath her ribcage. Ridiculous, of course, but still…

But still, when his hand took hers again, there was a soaring delight. Fran discovered that she had turned from the sink to face him. He was standing so close to her that she could see the little flecks of light in his eyes. She was just trying to decide whether to make some light, subtly inviting remark (although she had rather forgotten how to do that kind of thing and she had never been particularly good at it anyway), or to step back and finish the washing-up and pretend nothing had happened.