Roots of Evil(25)

She sat up carefully, aware now that the light had been switched on again. Did that mean he had gone? Dare she hope that he had got his horrid kicks by knocking her out, and had simply scuttled out into the night? Was she going to be able to get away? Her senses were still spinning from the blow and she had a three-aspirin headache, but that would not matter if she could just get back to her car. Car keys? Ah, in her bag, and there it was, lying on the ground barely four feet away. She was just reaching out for it when several of the dust-sheets stirred slightly as if someone had walked past them.

She had not heard his footsteps this time, but he was already standing on the edge of the pool of light cast by the single overhead bulb, and for the first time Trixie saw that he was wearing one of those woollen helmets, like you saw on members of the IRA. His eyes glittered through the slits – it was extraordinarily eerie to just see someone’s eyes. Did she know him? Was there something familiar about him after all?

But then she forgot about who he might be, because in one hand he held something that glinted sharply, and the sight of it brought the panic rushing in all over again. A knife, was it? No, much thinner than a knife. She tried to get to her feet but she was still dizzy and uncertain from the blow, and even before she was halfway to standing up he was bending over her, one gloved hand curling around her throat, forcing her back down on to the floor. There was a smell of mildew and dirt from the hard floor, and he was raising his free hand high above her head, and whatever he was holding had flashed evilly in the overhead light…



There was a split-second – barely the space of a heartbeat – when Edmund felt the throbbing excitement falter.

But the childish whisper came in at once. Go on, Edmund! This is right! This is what you have to do! So do it, Edmund, do it NOW! And I will help you, said Alraune’s voice.

Incredibly there was the feeling of a small firm hand curling around the stiletto, and of Alraune’s hand guiding the glinting point downwards.

Down and down and down…Yes, thought Edmund, breathing fast, as if he had been running hard for miles. I can do this and I will do this. I am a giant, a titan, and I am invincible.

As Trixie began to scream and struggle, the person that most people knew – the polite, slightly pedantic Mr Fane – seemed to shrink into a tiny insignificance, and the other Edmund, the secret Edmund, the one whom only Crispin had ever known, surged uppermost. When the stiletto’s point punctured Trixie’s eye, this Edmund did not feel repulsed or disgusted, and when viscous eye-fluid spilled out over his gloved fingers he only felt the bursting strength urging him on.

He straightened up at last, looking down at Trixie. She was no longer screaming, but she was still moving which he had not expected. Could you survive with a steel point thrust into your brain? You could not tell with these things.

But dead or not-quite-dead, there was something not quite right about what he had done to her. What was it? Edmund studied her carefully. The right side of her face was grotesque; it was slicked in blood and not-quitecolourless fluid, and the eye socket was a wet dark wound…But the left side – Ah yes, of course, that was it. The left side of her face was untouched, unbloodied, and it was the lack of symmetry that was bothering him. He could not bear anything to be lopsided or uneven.

Edmund raised his hand again, and this time the stiletto came down with more intensity and more assurance. He felt the deep shudder go through the prying snooping creature, and he saw a spasm wrack her body. And then she was still. Ah, she had not been quite dead, then. He straightened up for the second time. Yes, that was better. Both eyes gone now. Now you really won’t be able to see anything that might be dangerous, my dear.

Her body would be found eventually, of course. Someone would miss her and make inquiries, and backtrack to her journey here; her car, still parked at Ashwood’s entrance, would be spotted. That was all perfectly in order, and it did not matter who found her; what did matter was whether Edmund had left any telltale traces.

But he was certain he had not. Any fingerprints or traces of his hair found here would be ascribed to his earlier visit, and he had worn gloves for the return. The stiletto was still in the left eye, though; he was uncertain whether it would be better to remove it.

But the point was embedded so deeply in the bone behind the eye socket he could not get it out. The gloves which he dared not take off slid over the smooth steel surface, and although he made several attempts, it resisted him. But did it really matter? The thing had been here all along; it was not as if he had purchased it anywhere and brought it with him. No, it would be all right to leave it in place.

The crackling starbursts of energy were gradually dimming and he was aware of a dull ache across his temples and of his hands trembling. No matter, he would overcome that sufficiently to drive home. But he did not move yet. He stayed where he was, looking down at the crumpled thing that had been Trixie Smith. Something was still not quite right. Something still needed doing.

And then he knew what it was. On the day Lucretia von Wolff died, the people who had broken down her dressing-room door had been greeted by a macabre tableau. If Edmund was really going to echo that day, he must re-create that scene as closely as he could.

He walked cautiously around the studio again, and after a few abortive explorations beneath the dust-sheeted mounds, he found a large, high-backed chair near one of the walls. On closer inspection it turned out to be a rather elaborate affair, ornately carved. The satin or velvet upholstery had long since gone, of course, but it was still an imposing-looking thing. Edmund smiled to himself as he dragged it clear and set it in the centre of the studio. It was exactly right. It might even be the original chair Lucretia had used that day. Your chair, Madame von Wolff. Your stiletto. Who would have thought it?