Roots of Evil(136)

Lucy leaned forward. ‘Will you tell me about him later on? I mean – tell me properly about him?’

‘Of course. You’re very like him, you know. The same colouring, the same eyes,’ said Alice, and Lucy stared at her, and thought: now I really know I’m touching the past. How extraordinary. After a moment she managed to say, ‘Thank you. Uh – I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on about Alraune.’ And was glad to hear that she had managed to say the name without flinching this time.

‘Alraune should have died on the night Michael ran away,’ said Alice. ‘He was badly injured. But he lived.’

‘A survivor,’ murmured Lucy, remembering what Michael had said earlier.

‘Yes. But not sufficient of a survivor to escape justice for murder. He was convicted, and given a life sentence, but three years ago he was diagnosed with cancer. Last year the doctors said they could do no more for him, and the prison authorities released him on compassionate grounds. It seemed to me that the best help I could give him was to make sure he had sufficient money to die in whatever comfort could be provided. So I transferred Ashwood to him.’ She glanced round the table. ‘Ashwood isn’t only the overgrown fields and the tumbledown buildings,’ said Alice. ‘There are several houses on the outskirts, which are quite profitably rented, and some of the land is leased to farmers. And if the existing income from that hadn’t been enough, Mr Devlin could have arranged to sell the land fairly quickly.’

Liam said, ‘Any property developer would snap it up at once. It’s a prime site, and I’ve obtained outline planning permission for building, so it would be a good package for a builder.’

‘But,’ said Francesca, ‘until we saw the film that afternoon, you never knew who “A. V. Wilson” or “Alan Salisbury” really were?’

‘No. Only that I was dealing with a widow who had an invalid son.’

‘Edmund knew who Alan Salisbury was when he saw him, though,’ said Lucy. ‘He knew it was Alraune – and he knew Alraune was a real person. How did he know that?’

‘Deborah had Alraune’s birth certificate,’ said Alice thoughtfully. ‘Edmund could have found it after she died.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘And my father was – is – very like Alice,’ said Michael. ‘And I’m very like both of them. Even with the disfigurement to the eyes, Edmund must have recognized Alraune.’


There was silence for a moment, and Lucy felt a stir of apprehension, because she sensed they were coming to the real heart of this. In another moment they would know exactly what had happened that day at Ashwood. The silence stretched out, and just as Lucy was thinking she could not bear it any longer, Alice said, ‘And of course, the past has always influenced the present.’ She stopped, as if waiting for a cue.

It’s up to me, thought Lucy, and taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Alice, what really happened at Ashwood?’





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE




‘I didn’t get out of Auschwitz until the war ended,’ said Alice. ‘Nineteen-forty-five. We were all exhausted and sick – you can’t imagine how sick we all were, my dears. Mind and body and soul – every way you can imagine. But we were free and somehow we had survived, and our lives were soldiers march into the camp and when we understood what it meant…That was so intense an emotion that I don’t think you could experience it more than once in a lifetime. I think you might die of it a second time.’

They had moved back to the comfortable sitting-room with its faint scents of woodsmoke. Michael had switched on a coffee percolator, and Francesca had helped him to hand round the cups.

‘I can’t imagine how you survived Auschwitz,’ said Francesca thoughtfully. ‘I can’t imagine how anyone could.’ our own again. The feeling when we saw the Russian ‘There was nothing else to do but survive,’ said Alice. ‘To keep hoping it would finally come to an end. And although it was never said, I think most of us had a private image in our minds, something we held on to, something that would happen when we got out. Simple things – lying in a hot bath perhaps, or reading a favourite book. Ilena, my dear good friend, used to talk about the two of us walking out through the gate arm in arm, and her brother waiting there for us. And it happened,’ she said. ‘We did walk out arm in arm, and Ilena’s brother was there.’

Lucy said, ‘Some dreams do come true.’

‘Yes.’ Alice smiled. ‘My dream was that I would one day dance again with Conrad – a waltz, to one of his own compositions.’

For Lucy the words instantly conjured up the image of a well-lit ballroom: men in the sharp black and white formality of evening dress, ladies wearing silks and velvets, the air laden with expensive perfumes…

‘By the time the camps were liberated,’ said Alice, ‘Alraune had long since left. A year earlier he had been taken away by a man who was – who had reason to believe himself the father.’ She paused to drink her coffee. Lucy had no idea if she was playing for time, or if she was deliberately creating an effect, or if she was simply taking a drink before going on with the story.

‘You do not need to know the circumstances surrounding Alraune’s conception and birth,’ said Alice. ‘They were macabre and violent and deeply disturbing, and something no female should ever have to endure. But I will say that there was a young German officer who could have been Alraune’s father, and I found that he had constantly tried to see the child. His wife and baby had died in the air-raids on Dresden, and although he had no heart to remarry he liked the idea of having a son. So one day he came to Auschwitz and he took Alraune away with him.’