Roots of Evil(51)

But it was still odd that he had so readily driven all the way to Ashwood that day to meet Trixie Smith. Not because of the distance, or because of the disruption it must have made to his carefully ordered life…

Because of Crispin.



It was rather a pity that Lucy had not responded to his approach, although there might be other opportunities. As Edmund drove out of London, he smiled in the driving mirror as he considered this possibility. And at least it had knocked her away from talking or thinking about Crispin, which had been the real aim. (Or had it? Be honest, Edmund. Yes, of course, it had!)

Once clear of London, the motorways were fairly light on traffic, and his mind wound back to before dinner at Lucy’s flat, and replayed the police interview. He was inclined to think that had gone quite well, and he was as sure as he could be that DI Fletcher had not suspected anything, although there had been one or two sharp-edged comments that he had not cared for. Sarcastic bitch.

One thing had lodged in his mind from the interview, though, and that was the brief reference to Ashwood’s ownership. Ought he to look into that? But if it had changed hands several times, any links to the past were likely to have become long since buried beneath land registrations and transfers. Company secretaries might have said disinterestedly, Haunted, is it? But they would have gone on to say, Well, so long as it doesn’t affect the value. We’re not scheduled to develop for two years anyway. And then some finance wizard somewhere would have decided that it was not a viable proposition after all, and the site would have been off-loaded as quickly as possible.

Still, it would not hurt to request an official search of the Land Registry, although the land would not necessarily be registered – it depended on how recently it had changed hands. But Edmund could certainly make an application. If necessary he could say he had a client who might be interested in the place. Yes, he would do that first thing on Monday.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN




There had been no anticipation of what lay ahead when Alice reached the streets surrounding St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

They were badly lit, these streets, and seen by night, seen when you were utterly alone and almost penniless, they were sinister and imbued with a menace that Alice had never before encountered or even dreamed existed.

‘People talk about Vienna’s beauty, and how its streets smell of good coffee and croissants, and how the very pavements thrum with music,’ she said to the absorbed child curled into the chimney corner, firelight painting shadows in the dark rebellious hair. ‘And that is certainly one side of it. But the Vienna I stumbled into on the night after Miss Nina’s parents ordered me from the house was cold and unfriendly, and the people were bedraggled and impoverished. There were narrow cobbled streets and alleys with stone arches overhead, and unexpected little flights of stairs leading down to cellars…It was still Vienna, but it was so different from the Vienna I had known that I began to think I had fallen into a completely new world.’

‘Oh, I can understand that. Because—’

‘Yes? Whatever it was, you can say it. You can say anything to me.’

‘I know. I was going to say that when I came here it felt like coming into another world. Not just because it’s different to Pedlar’s Yard, although it is. It’s more than that. To start with I thought it was this house, only now that I’ve lived here for a bit I don’t think it is. I think it’s you. But I don’t really understand why.’

This was the most intimate speech ever made since coming here, and there was a sudden stab of anxiety. What if Alice doesn’t like me saying that? What if she doesn’t understand?

But of course she understood, just as she always did understand. She said, slowly, ‘I think it might be because the whole world believes me to be dead. And,’ she said, ‘the whole world must continue to believe that.’



It was amazingly easy to call up the memories for this unusual child and to paint the word-pictures, although it was necessary to be selective; to employ a little censorship. The word made Alice smile rather wryly.

On that first night and on several nights afterwards, she had slept in a doorway in one of those very alleyways in the cathedral’s shadow. There had been others there with her; others who were homeless and hopeless. They had not exactly welcomed her, but there had been a curious comradeship. They were the dregs and remnants of humanity, and the rejected and the unwanted, but Alice had felt oddly comfortable with them. Because I, too, am rejected and unwanted.

But even with the casual fellowship of the homeless, it had taken a good deal of fortitude to get through those days. She had continued doggedly to search for the tall narrow house, because surely he would help her, surely he would not let her become one of the lost and nameless ones – the beggars and the paupers and the street musicians who wove their own melodies into the city streets. But she had known by the end of the second day that she was not going to find it. Vienna was too big, too bewildering, too intricately threaded with mazes of streets and unexpected courtyards.

By the end of a week, when her tiny savings were used up, she had gone with some of the other homeless people to stand near to the cathedral entrance, to wait for the rich visitors who came to sight-see. Begging. Am I reduced to this? Has he reduced me to this, that man with the golden-brown eyes? But by that time she had discovered that when you are sick and dizzy from hunger, and when your stomach knots into cramp-pains with emptiness, you no longer care. You would steal if you thought you could get away with it. You would do other things, as well as steal…