Roots of Evil(83)

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘Yes, I saw it when I was at university.’

‘Is it ever shown publicly now? On TV for instance?’

‘I don’t think so. It sometimes gets trotted out at film festivals, or rented by the more avant-garde film clubs – that was where I saw it.’ It had been fashionable, in her second term at Durham, to admire film noir and the gloomier epics of German Expressionism – she was always vaguely irritated that the loss of her virginity would forever be associated in her mind with Orson Welles and the zither music of The Third Man. To Inspector Fletcher, she said, ‘It’s probably a bit heavy for modern tastes, so it isn’t usually seen—Oh, no, wait, one of the satellite TV companies showed it a few years ago. They offered it to viewers as a curio. A stormy petrel, or the Macbeth of the silent film era, the announcer called it.’

The inspector appeared to absorb this, and then said, ‘There are still copies of the film in existence, then?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ said Lucy, feeling on slightly safer ground. ‘Not too many, and what there are are a bit weather-beaten by now – it was 1928 or 1930, which means it’s the old cellulose nitrate composition, and that sometimes decomposes beyond recall. The layers of film actually weld together.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But it’s still around. D’you want to see it?’

‘Yes, I do. Could it be arranged?’

‘I think Quondam have got it, but if not I can probably track it down with one of our rivals,’ said Lucy, who knew perfectly well that Quondam had got it, because she had looked for it within a week of joining the company. ‘How about my grandfather’s backing music? Conrad Kline, I mean. He tends to get a bit overshadowed by Lucretia, but he was a gifted composer in his day. D’you want that as well?’

‘Well, if it’s to hand, yes. But it’s the film I really want.’ A pause. Lucy waited, hoping to find out what might be behind all this, but Fletcher only said, ‘We don’t know yet if there’s any connection between the old murder case and Trixie Smith’s death, but we want to consider every angle.’

‘Starting with a look at Alraune,’ said Lucy.

‘Yes.’

‘The murderer more or less copied the last scene of Alraune, didn’t he?’

‘It sounds as if you’ve been reading the tabloids, Miss Trent. Very unwise. How soon could you let me know about viewing the film?’

‘I’ll do it at once,’ said Lucy. ‘And I’ll phone you back. If I hit any problems, you can invoke the might of the British constabulary.’

‘What about actually running it? We’re fairly high-tech in the police, but I don’t know if we’d be equal to a seventy-year-old reel of – what did you say it was made of?’

‘Cellulose nitrate. Actually, a lot of the early stuff is being fairly successfully transferred to DVD these days. I don’t think that’s happened to Alraune though, so you’d probably need the old projectors. But that needn’t be a problem: I expect I can set up a viewing for you. We’ve got a couple of viewing rooms here, and the larger one will seat about ten people. Would that be enough?’

‘Yes, I think so. Thank you very much. I’ll wait to hear from you.’



‘The viewing’s on,’ said Fletcher to her sergeant after Lucy had called back to say that as she had thought, Quondam did possess a copy of the film, although it had not gone through any kind of restoration process. ‘But I still want you to work through that list of the film clubs. If anyone’s recently hired the von Wolff Alraune, I want to know about it.’

Sergeant Trendle said there was nothing to report from the film clubs yet, and asked why they needed to view the film.

‘I want to see exactly how closely our man did copy this famous final scene,’ said Fletcher. ‘If it looks as though he knows the film in real detail, that might give us a lead – there can’t be all that many people who’ve seen the thing; not these days. And you’ve got the list of satellite TV companies as well, haven’t you? Lucy Trent said one of them put it out a few years ago. If it was eight or ten years back, it probably isn’t relevant, but if it was only a couple of years, we might have to start getting lists of satellite TV subscribers. Yes, I know it’s tedious, but think of it as an armchair version of door-to-door inquiries.’ She frowned, and then said, ‘I think we’ll fix this viewing for Saturday afternoon if Quondam will agree.’

Trendle, who viewed the prospect of Alraune with dismay (it had been made before sound even, could you credit it!), asked who was to be at the viewing. Just their own people, was it?

‘No,’ said Jennie. ‘I want to watch one or two reactions while it’s being played. Lucy Trent will have to be there, of course. Partly courtesy, because she works at Quondam, but I’m not forgetting she’s Lucretia von Wolff’s granddaughter. She knows the film, as well – she saw it when she was at university.’

‘We aren’t suspecting her, though, are we?’


‘We’re suspecting everybody at this stage. But I don’t really think she’s a contender. But listen now, the ones I do want to be there – and don’t make any mistakes or hand me any excuses, sergeant – are those three who found Trixie Smith’s body. Francesca Holland, Michael Sallis, and that insolent Irishman.’