Roots of Evil(12)

‘You have?’

‘Yes. Rather an odd-sounding person. Abrupt. I said I didn’t know how much help I could give, but you know, Edmund, I was in my teens at the time of the Ashwood murders, so I remember quite a lot about it. Ms Smith – they all like to be called “Ms” these days, don’t they? – says she’d like to talk to me about Lucretia.’ It was typical of Deborah that she never referred to Lucretia as ‘mother’; or perhaps, thought Edmund, that was due to Lucretia herself.

He said, ‘She’ll be a sensation-seeker, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think she is,’ said Aunt Deb. ‘She wants to talk about all the people involved in the Ashwood case, not just Lucretia. I was there that day, and so—’

This time the room did not just blur, it tilted as well, and Edmund had to grasp the edges of the desk to stop himself from falling. From out of the dizziness, he heard his voice say, ‘I didn’t know you were actually there when – on the day it happened. You never told me that.’

‘Didn’t I? But I used to go to the studios with Lucretia sometimes – you knew that.’

‘Yes, but…Don’t you think,’ said Edmund after a moment, ‘that it might upset you to talk about it all? I mean – Lucretia’s death and everything…Won’t it be dreadfully painful?’

‘Oh, not at this distance,’ said Deborah. ‘It all feels as if it happened to someone else. You’ll understand that when you’re older, Edmund.’


A pulse was beating inside Edmund’s head, each hammer-blow landing painfully on the exact same spot, rapping out a maddening little rhythm against his senses, over and over. She-was-at-Ashwood-that-day, she-was-at-ASHWOOD…said this infuriating rhythm. She was there when it happened, she was THERE…

He forced himself to take several deep breaths, but the pulsating hammer blows continued. What-did-shesee…? they said. What-did-she-see-that-day-at-Ashwood…At ASHWOOD…?

‘And it isn’t as if any of this is going to be published and made into a best-seller or anything like that,’ Deborah was saying. ‘It’s a – a scholarly thing that Miss Smith’s going to write. She’ll be dealing mostly with the psychological aspects.’

‘How very modern of her.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic, Edmund, it doesn’t suit you. I suppose you ate too much rich food at the Law Society dinner last night and it’s given you indigestion: it always did make you disagreeable, indigestion…’

‘I do not have indigestion—’

‘…a good dose of Andrew’s liver salts, that’s what you need. If you haven’t got any you’d better get some on your way home tonight. So now, here’s the thing: I’m almost sure Trixie Smith is genuine, but I thought it might be better if you made the call setting up the meeting. You wouldn’t mind doing that, would you? She’s perfectly agreeable to driving up here at the weekend, and I can give her some lunch while we talk. But just in case she has got a – what d’you call it? – a hidden agenda, I thought a call from a solicitor would let her know that I’m not some half-witted old dear, all on my own.’

‘Nobody would ever call you half-witted,’ said Edmund automatically, and without warning the pulse stopped. An enormous silence flooded the inside of his head, and he saw, quite clearly, what he must do. From out of this huge silence, his voice said, quite calmly, very nearly absent-mindedly, ‘Still, now that you mention it, it would be quite a good idea for me to make the call. Give me the number and I’ll ring now. Or – no, wait a moment, I’m going out to a client’s house later this afternoon, and I’ll be driving past the end of your lane. How about if I call in and phone from your house? I’d rather do that; they’re such a gossipy lot here, and if anyone overheard—’

Deborah said certainly they did not want any of Edmund’s staff to hear such a conversation, not even that nice secretary who was so very reliable, or the good-looking young man who looked after the conveyancing work. If Edmund was not expected anywhere later, perhaps he would like to stay on to supper, she said.

‘That’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ said Edmund and rang off.



It was important to remain perfectly calm and not to give way to nerves, although Edmund thought he might have been forgiven for doing just that; you did not expect to be confronted with the dangerous resurrecting of your family’s ghosts while reading your day’s post, and you certainly did not expect those ghosts to come packaged, so to speak, with warnings about indigestion and a throwaway remark concerning the infamous locus in quo of a murder.

(She-was-there…said his mind, starting up its maddening tattoo again. Deborah-was-there…What-did-she-see…?)

As he drove to the house Edmund’s mind was working furiously. There must be no investigations of the Ashwood case – no prying researches so that some unknown female could write the letters MA after her name, no books written by sensation-seeking chroniclers, no idle delvings by anorak-garbed enthusiasts, or journalists constructing Fifty-Years-Ago features…

There must be no elderly ladies growing garrulous with increasing age, reliving memories, talking about the past to anyone who might listen.

The past…