Roots of Evil(38)

Fran had tried not to be a nuisance to Trixie, who thought nearly all emotions a waste of time, and she had taken on a share of the household expenses, along with half the cooking and cleaning. She had tried not to mind the smell of the dogmeat that had to be stewed for four hours at weekends and stank out the house for the rest of the week, and she had tried not to mind Trixie’s habit of noisily getting up at six a.m. every morning so that the dogs could be exercised on the heath. In her gruff way, Trixie had been very kind. Fran had been in pieces all over the floor about Marcus, and Trixie had been the only one to offer any kind of help, especially after everyone heard how Fran had burst into tears in the middle of taking Middle Year Three for English Literature.

‘I dare say,’ the Deputy Head had said, interviewing Francesca in some embarrassment, ‘that it was the Shakespeare lesson, was it?’ Fran had said, yes, that was what it had been, but had not bothered to try explaining how the words of Shakespeare – and come to that, the words of John Donne and Robert Browning and his Elizabeth, and all the rest of that gang – could suddenly come smack-down on a tender spot and send you into floods of stupid tears in Middle Three’s English-lit class. The Deputy Head, who taught maths and chemistry, would not have understood, although some of Middle Three might have understood it only too well, providing you discounted the bored and sophisticated fourteen-going-on-twenty-five-year-olds, condom-carrying as a matter of course and imbued with the your-place-or-mine culture.

So in view of Trixie’s brusque kindness, Francesca could not simply let her vanish and do nothing about it, and after thinking it over, she decided to begin the search with Lucretia von Wolff’s family. Trixie had been in the process of arranging an interview with the surviving daughter – an elderly lady called Deborah Fane. Mrs Fane had died before the interview could take place, although Trixie had driven up to her home all the same, Fran did know that, and she also knew that Deborah Fane’s address was in Trixie’s address book. It had felt like the worst kind of intrusion to go through this, but Fran had done it because she had needed a starting-point. And there the address had been, in Trixie’s firm clear writing.

There had not been a phone number though, and Directory Enquiries did not have anything listed, which was why Fran had decided to drive up there to see if Mrs Fane’s family would talk to her. It was a reasonably straightforward journey – a small market town on the edge of Nottinghamshire – not quite Derbyshire, but nearly. A couple of hours’ drive? Yes, not much more than that. She would do it, and she would look on it as a small adventure.

The family might still be knocked out by Deborah Fane’s death, in which case Fran would retreat with as much tact and politeness as she could manage. But they might remember Trixie’s visit, or even know about the research, and they might provide a couple of clues that could be passed to the police. A house where Lucretia von Wolff had lived, perhaps, and where Trixie might have gone, or even an address of someone who had known the baroness or worked with her, and who was worth paying a visit. Fran would have to make it very clear to them that she was not taking up the mantle of Trixie’s researches; she was simply trying to track down a mysteriously vanished colleague. It was annoying not to know names or anything; Trixie had merely said that as well as Deborah Fane, there was a granddaughter and some man who was related to Deborah from her husband’s side of the family. Edmund Fane, had she said? Yes.

She waited until Friday afternoon, when Middle Three were allowed to finish at two o’clock in order to go about their lawful occasions, God help them; consigned the dogs to their spare-time kennels, threw a few things into a weekend case, topped the car up with petrol, and set off. It felt rather good to be doing something like this on her own, without Marcus pointing out her inadequacies in driving, or sneering if she missed a turning or went wrong at a traffic island.

Deborah Fane’s house, when Francesca finally negotiated the narrow lane, turned out to be quite large and also quite old, although Fran, whose tastes ran to the clean uncluttered lines of the later Georgians, thought it rather ugly. It had a lot of character though, and it probably had a lot of history, as well. She wondered how long Lucretia’s daughter had lived here.

She was relieved to see lights on in the downstairs rooms, because there had always been the possibility that the house would be empty and shut up. But someone was definitely here, even if it only turned out to be squatters or gypsies or men with a distraint on the furniture. The baroness seemed to have had such a colourful history that Fran was prepared for anything from her descendants.

But the man who opened the door to her was clearly neither a bailiff nor a gypsy. He was thin-faced and he had what Francesca could only think of as a quiet air about him. He asked politely enough if he could help, although he sounded wary.

Francesca had rehearsed what to say on the way here, and it came out more or less all right, although like most rehearsed speeches it sounded a bit stilted.

‘I’m sorry to turn up out of the blue like this. I’m Francesca Holland and I’m a colleague of Trixie Smith – the lady who’s been researching Lucretia von Wolff’s life. And I’m sorry if this sounds melodramatic, but I’m a bit concerned about Trixie, because she seems to have vanished.’

She thought there was a reaction at the mention of Lucretia, which, if this really had been her daughter’s house, was understandable. But he appeared to be waiting, quite politely, to see if there was any more, so Francesca went on to the next part. ‘I have phoned the police—’ That was intended to provide a reference if it was wanted. ‘But they’re not inclined to crank up the missing-person machinery yet – not for an adult anyway. So I’ve driven up from North London to see if I can retrace Trixie’s steps and pick up any odd clue that might spur them into action.’