Roots of Evil(6)

The kitchen range was cold, of course, but the gas was still on for the cooker. Edmund set a kettle to boil, and then wondered if the lack of power was simply due to a mains switch being off. He picked up one of the candles, thinking he would check the fusebox, and he was just crossing the hall, the prowling candle-flame shadows walking with him, when he heard, quite unmistakably, the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path outside. He stopped, his heart skipping several beats, because the footsteps had been rather slow, rather careful footsteps – they had walked around the front of the house and then paused. Exactly in the way an ageing, but still-agile lady would walk across the front of the house, dead-heading plants as she went and pausing to prune the wisteria growing near to the front door. (Aunt Deborah, returning to the house where she had lived for so many years? Of course not! Snap out of it, Edmund!)

But as Edmund glanced uneasily at the narrow windows on each side of the front door, a shadow appeared at one of them and a face swam up against the glass, peering in. Edmund prided himself on his unemotional temperament but fear clutched instantly at his throat. There is someone out there!

And then the shadow stepped back from the window, and there was the crunch of footsteps again, and then a sharp, perfectly normal rat-a-tat on the front door. And after all, it was barely five o’clock in the evening, and ghosts would not knock politely on doors, and there was no reason in the world why someone should not have come out here on a perfectly legitimate, entirely innocent, errand.

But Edmund was badly shaken and it took a moment for him to recover and open the door. When he did so, on the threshold stood a completely strange female, foursquare as to build, sensible as to garb.

‘Mr Fane?’ said the female. Her voice matched her appearance. ‘Mr Edmund Fane?’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Trixie Smith. I spoke to your aunt on the phone a few days ago. I’m very sorry to hear she’s dead – please accept my condolences.’

‘Thank you,’ said Edmund. ‘But—’

‘And I hope you won’t mind me turning up like this, but Mrs Fane promised me some notes about her mother and they’re very important to my research. So I thought, Better drive out to collect them before they’re destroyed in the clearing-out process.’

Edmund could hardly believe this was happening. He could scarcely credit the pushy impudence of this bossy female, or the fact that she had driven all the way here without even the courtesy of a phone call first.

‘I went to your office first,’ said Ms Smith. ‘Best to be businesslike, I thought. They said you were here, so as it was only a few extra miles to drive I thought I’d come along and see if it could all be dealt with on the one trip. But please say if this is a bad time – I shan’t be offended, I prefer people to be straight. And I can easily come back, or you can post the stuff to me.’

Clearly she was not going away, and equally clearly she would have to be asked in. Edmund did so, forcing a degree of politeness into his voice. No, he said, it was not especially inconvenient – he laid some emphasis on the especially – although not having any electricity at the moment was making things a touch difficult. But he was afraid he could not really help; his aunt had certainly told him about Miss Smith’s approach, although he did not know anything about any notes on Lucretia’s life. In fact, said Edmund, he doubted there had been time for her to make any notes, since she had died so very suddenly.

‘I really am sorry about that,’ said Trixie Smith again. ‘I’d have liked to meet her. We got quite friendly on the phone – she was very interested in my thesis.’

‘“Crime in the Nineteen-fifties”?’

‘Oh, she told you that, did she? Yes, I’m hoping to use Lucretia von Wolff as the central case study. Remarkable woman, wasn’t she?’

‘I never thought so,’ said Edmund shortly. ‘Greedy and manipulative, I always thought.’

‘Yes?’ She sipped the cup of tea he had felt bound to offer. ‘Well, whatever she was, I’d like to find out what drove her that day at Ashwood Studios. Psychologically, it’s a very interesting case. See now, that one man who was murdered, Conrad Kline, he was your grandmother’s lover, wasn’t he?’

‘She wasn’t my grandmother,’ said Edmund shortly. ‘I’m from another side of the family. Deborah Fane married my father’s brother – William Fane. So Deborah was only my aunt by marriage.’

‘Oh, I see. But you know the stories?’

Edmund admitted that he knew some of the stories. His tone implied that he disapproved of what he did know.

‘How about Alraune? Do you know anything about Alraune?’

Alraune…The name seemed to shiver on the air for a moment, and Edmund frowned, but said, ‘The film?’

‘The person.’

‘There was never any such person. Alraune was just a legend. Everyone agrees on that.’


‘Are you sure? The police records show that a child, listed simply as “Allie”, was at Ashwood that day and—’

Edmund was not normally given to interrupting people in mid-sentence, but he did so now. ‘I’m afraid you’re starting to become enamoured of your theory, Ms Smith,’ he said. ‘Twisting the facts to suit it. That could have referred to anyone.’

‘—and I’ve talked to your cousin, Lucy Trent, about Alraune.’