Roots of Evil(69)

‘That day,’ said his father, ‘that day at Ashwood, I believe I stepped over some kind of invisible line. I crossed a Rubicon or I forded a river somewhere, but whether it was the Jordan river or Charon’s Styx or the measureless sacred Alph, I never knew. But once you’re over that line, Edmund, you can never get back.’ A spasm of coughing wracked him.

‘Try to sleep,’ said Edmund rather helplessly. ‘Everything’s all right.’ But of course it was not all right, because the final strings of sanity were unravelling fast, and his father’s mind was moving beyond anyone’s reach.

‘Sleep, yes, sleep. To sleep perchance to dream, that’s the worry though, that’s always been the worry…And supposing death is only the prince’s hag-ridden sleep, after all…? Aye, there would be the rub, wouldn’t it? What punishment do they keep in hell for murderers, I wonder? Do you know, Edmund?’

‘You aren’t a murderer,’ said Edmund after a moment. ‘Lucretia von Wolff killed those two men. Afterwards she stabbed herself rather than face the gallows. She was – she was bad. Cruel.’

‘Was she?’

‘Murder is cruel and bad.’

‘Oh Edmund,’ said the unfamiliar voice from the pillow. ‘I know all about murder.’ A pause. ‘I’m a murderer,’ he said. ‘I was the one who murdered Conrad Kline that day at Ashwood.’



The silence that closed down was so complete that for a moment Edmund almost believed his father had died and pulled him down into death with him.

After what might have been moments or hours, he said, ‘Dad, listen. Lucretia von Wolff killed Conrad Kline.’

‘Lucretia didn’t kill Kline.’ The strength came back into the weak voice. ‘Listen to me, Edmund. I was nineteen when it all happened, and she was – I don’t know how old she was. Thirty-eight. Forty, perhaps. It didn’t matter. It was my first time with a woman – they’d laugh at that today, wouldn’t they: nineteen and a virgin, but it’s quite true. And I was clumsy and fumbling and mad with excitement, but I thought I had found the heaven that the religious talk about.’

I’m hating this more than I can ever remember hating anything in my entire life, thought Edmund. I don’t want to hear any of this.

‘It went on for three weeks. I would have died for her, killed for her. And then, that last day, Kline caught us together. He stood in the doorway of her dressing-room – I can see him now, standing there, insolent devil that he was. He said, “Oh, Lucretia, are you at that game again?” And he sounded so – so indulgent. So loving. As if he was reproving a wayward child. I said, “It’s not a game – we love one another,” and he laughed. He took me into some other room – a wardrobe store, it was – and he said, “You ridiculous boy, she’ll ruin your life. Let her go. Find some nice English girl instead. Someone of your own age.”’

He broke off, struggling for breath, and Edmund said, ‘You don’t need to tell me this—’

‘I told him she loved me,’ said the harsh voice. ‘But he said, “She doesn’t love you. It’s a diversion for her.” I snatched up a knife or a dagger – something they had used on the film set earlier – and I attacked him. I just kept on stabbing him – I had to wipe out the words, you see. “She doesn’t love you,” he had said, and I had to get rid of those words, so I brought the knife down on his face – on his mouth – over and over again. There was so much blood – you can’t imagine how much blood there is when you stab someone, Edmund. And it smells – it fills up a whole room within seconds, and it’s like the taste of tin in your mouth.

‘I ran away then. Kline’s blood was everywhere, it was all over me, and I didn’t know what to do next. But I knew I had got to save myself. They would have hanged me, Edmund, they really would—’ Once again the hands came out, clutching, seeking reassurance. ‘I ran out of Ashwood as if the Four Furies were chasing me, and I ran until I reached the road and somehow – I don’t remember it all – but somehow I got back to the house where I was living in Ashwood village. I locked myself in, and later I pretended I knew nothing about the murders; I pretended I had left Ashwood an hour before it all happened.’

He pulled Edmund closer. ‘But all these years I’ve wondered if someone did know and if someone had seen. I could never be sure, that was the thing.’ He turned his head away. ‘I was mad that day, and I think I’ve been mad ever since, Edmund. But if I’m really mad, I shouldn’t still be hurting, should I, not after all this time, thirty years since she died…’ His voice became fainter, not physically, but somehow spiritually, as if he was moving further away from the world.

Edmund had no idea what he should say. He kept hold of the thin hands. The echoes swirled and eddied all around the room.

Then his father said, very softly, ‘I think I’m going to die very soon, Edmund.’

‘No—’

‘Yes, I think so. I shall go down into oblivion and peace. Or will it be down into a tempestuous darkness, where hell’s demons dwell? People don’t know until they get there. But I’ll know quite soon, because I’m going to die tonight, aren’t I?’


Edmund stared down at the bed, watching the sanity come and go in the thin face, conscious of a dreadful pity. He could just remember the bright-haired, bright-minded man of his early childhood, and he could remember his father’s lively intelligence and imaginative mind, and the feeling of security he had given Edmund. When Edmund’s mother had died when he was tiny, his father had said, ‘I’ll always be with you, Edmund. You won’t need anyone else, because whatever you do and wherever you go, I’ll be there.’