Roots of Evil(4)

None of it must ever be talked of. That had been one of the earliest lessons to be learned. ‘Tell a living soul what I do in here and I’ll break your fingers, one by one.’ And then the thin angry face with its cold eyes suddenly coming closer, and the soft voice whispering its threats. ‘And if you do tell, I’ll know. Remember that. If you tell, I’ll find out.’

On those nights not my pleas, not mother’s frightened crying – nothing – ever stopped him. She covered up the bruises and the marks and she never talked about the other wounds he inflicted on her in their bed, and I never talked about it either. She sought refuge in the tales she had stored away about the past; they were her armour, those tales, and they became my armour as well because she pulled me into the tales with her, and once inside we were both safe.

Safe.

But have I ever really been safe since those years? Am I really safe now?





CHAPTER TWO




Lucy supposed that she would get to hear the result of Trixie Smith’s researches eventually. Probably Aunt Deb would phone, which would be nice, because she could tell a good tale, dear old Deb, and Lucy would enjoy hearing all about the delvings into the squirrelled-away memorabilia. (Would the delvings turn up anything about Alraune…?)

But at the moment she was not thinking about Alraune and she was not thinking about her disreputable grandmamma; she was concentrating on Quondam’s presentation for the silent horror films.

There were going to be three films in the package. As well as The Devil’s Sonata there was a version of Du Maurier’s Trilby which Quondam had recently picked up somewhere, and also a very early edition of The Bells from 1913.

Lucy had finished the precis of The Devil’s Sonata, and was now immersed in writing one for The Bells. It was not the famous Henry Irving version but it was still a wonderful story of the murderer haunted by visions of his victim; in fact all three of the films were terrific stories. You could see why they were classics, each in their own way. Lucy rather liked horror stories, especially the dark-house, killer-prowling-up-the-stairs kind; she liked the way they reinforced your own sense of safety.

She re-read what she had done so far and thought it was reasonably all right but that it needed a lift, a sparkle, a bit of pizzazz to make it stand out. Such as what? Well, maybe such as setting the whole presentation against some sort of spooky Gothic background. Would that work? They would not want to use any of the actual film footage they were hoping to sell, of course, on the principle of the Victorian tart’s cry: If you don’t want the goods, don’t ogle them, dearie. But they might achieve some good effects with lightweight screens and graphics, or even with slides.

Lucy considered this. The mechanics would have to be kept extremely simple; a roomful of TV programme-makers would become impatient if there was too much scurrying about with extension leads, or propping up of wobbling display screens, and slides coming out upside-down, so that would have to be carefully planned. She was inclined to think they should pitch everything just very slightly over the top: maybe have a cobweb-draped mansion as back projection, and appropriate sound effects. One or two creaking doors, a few hollow echoing footsteps. All tongue-in-cheek stuff. If you wanted to grab people’s attention, it was a good ploy to make them smile at the beginning.

She typed and sent an email across to the technical department to see if there was anything in the archives in the way of creaking doors and sinister footfalls, and then passed on to the idea of music. Music as an intro for The Devil’s Sonata would be a terrific scene-setter – wasn’t there a piece that was supposed to have been actually devil-inspired? She scooted across to the small library section and rummaged through a couple of musical dictionaries to find out. Yes, there it was: The Devil’s Trill by Giuseppe Tartini. A violin sonata, supposedly inspired by a dream in which the composer sold his soul to the devil for the music. Tartini had woken from the dream with the music firmly in his mind, and had written it down, or so the story went. Story or rumour, the music ought to be beautifully eerie; Lucy would try to get hold of a CD.

She had just got back to her desk when the phone rang, and Edmund’s voice said, ‘Lucy? Thank goodness you’re there.’

Edmund would not ring her at the office unless there was something serious. Lucy said, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘There’s some very bad news,’ said Edmund in his solemnest voice. ‘I’m afraid it’s Deborah.’

‘Oh no—’

‘I went out there last evening, and I found her sitting in her chair—’ A pause. She’s dead, thought Lucy in sudden panic. That’s what he’s going to say. And then – no, of course she isn’t. People don’t die just like that, out of the blue. In her mind, she could already hear Edmund saying that no, of course Deborah was not dead.

But what Edmund said was, ‘Yes, I’m afraid she’s gone. A great sadness, isn’t it? A heart attack, they think. But apparently it would have been almost instantaneous.’


So dear, slightly scatty Aunt Deb really was dead and Lucy would have to find a way to bear it. And at some point Edmund would say wasn’t it a mercy she had had a quick death, and Lucy would hate him for saying it because Deb ought not to be dead at all. She had been so full of life, so warm and kind, always so pleased when Lucy came to spend part of the school holidays in the big rambling old house…She had always wanted to hear about Lucy’s life; encouraging her if work became difficult, staunchly partisan if a romance went wrong…