Roots of Evil(86)

On Lucy’s left, Edmund had donned a pair of spectacles and was looking over the tops of the lenses with scarcely veiled disapproval.

Liam Devlin, on Lucy’s right, was watching the film as well and with unexpected absorption. But as if becoming aware of Lucy’s covert regard, he half turned his head to look at her and sent her a slightly quizzical grin. He had the mobile mouth of many Irish people, and very bright, very intelligent eyes. Lucy blinked, and turned hastily back to the screen, where the scientist, by now realizing the evil results of his gallows-tree experiment, was carrying his sulky and soulless child through the night to place her in the keeping of the cloisters. The music went with him, a faint element of menace creeping in now, like a heart knocking against uneasy bones. There was a nicely brooding shot of the convent for which they were bound, standing wreathed in mist in some unidentifiable forest remoteness.

And then without any preliminaries, she was there. The young Lucretia von Wolff, her face flickering and erratic and her movements slightly jerky because of the hand-cranked camera of the day. But smoulderingly charismatic and chockfull of sex appeal. Lucy realized afresh how incandescently sexy her grandmother had been.

When Inspector Fletcher suddenly leaned forward and said, ‘Could we just freeze that frame?’ several people jumped.

‘Certainly,’ said the projectionist, and there was a loud click. Lucretia, reclining Cleopatra-like on a sumptuous, absurdly unmonastic chaise-longue, preparing to be seduced by the convent’s music-master, regarded the world from insolent slanting eyes, half predatory, half passionate. Her curtain of dark hair swung silkily around her face, and the actor playing the music-master knelt adoringly at her feet.

‘Oh, Grandmamma,’ murmured Lucy, ‘why couldn’t you crochet sweaters and join ladies’ luncheon clubs, or take up gardening like other people’s grandmothers?’

‘It’s a perfectly respectable scene, though,’ said Liam, his eyes still on the screen. ‘Your man’s still got one foot on the floor.’

‘The old censor’s law,’ said Lucy, amused.

‘Of course. You can’t get up to much if you’ve got to leave one foot on the floor.’

Edmund frowned, as if he thought this to be another remark in questionable taste, but the others grinned.

‘She was a stunning-looking lady,’ said Liam thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t realize what a knock-out she was. In fact—’

‘Yes?’

He frowned. ‘Oh, I was only thinking that the reputation’s suddenly very understandable. Wasn’t she supposed to have had a fling with von Ribbentrop shortly before the outbreak of World War II? Or is that another of the rumours?’

‘Nothing would surprise me,’ said Lucy. ‘Ribbentrop was a champagne salesman before World War II, wasn’t he? And Lucretia was never especially discriminating, and she did have a taste for champagne.’ Sorry, Grandmamma, but you did bring this kind of conversation on yourself. Fairness made her add, ‘The spying rumours were never proved, of course.’

‘I don’t know about spying, but with looks like that I wouldn’t be surprised if she took the entire Third Reich to bed on the same night,’ remarked Liam.

Edmund made a tsk sound of impatience, and the inspector glanced over her shoulder to where the projectionist was waiting. ‘Thanks, we can go on now if you would. I just wanted to check the faces.’

As the film rolled on again, Lucy saw Edmund set his coffee cup down and lean back in his chair with an air of bored resignation.

Edmund was bored and resigned in about equal measures. He had not been in the least apprehensive about this afternoon’s outlandish experiment, because he knew he had nothing to worry about; there was nothing anywhere to link him to Trixie’s death, and it was patently clear that this female, this Detective Inspector Jennie Fletcher, was simply casting around in the dark. Looking for clues within the film – which she would not find, because there were none there. He would be glad when the charade was over and he could catch his train home, although it was a pity that he would not be having that cosy alluring meal with Lucy.

But as for this film, this apparently acclaimed piece of early cinema, Edmund simply could not see the point of it. If you asked him, Alraune was nothing but a dismal dreariness, the story incomprehensible, the behaviour of the actors meaningless and overdone. He sneaked a quick look at his watch, and saw that they had about another half hour to sit through. To while away the time he looked surreptitiously at the others. They all seemed to be watching with interest – Lucy was clearly enthralled, which annoyed Edmund.

Francesca Holland looked enthralled as well. Edmund considered her for a moment, remembering that she had been staying with Trixie Smith, wondering whether the two of them had talked about Trixie’s research for the thesis. Presumably you did not share a house with somebody without referring to your work. What shall we have for supper tonight, oh, and by the way, I’ve found out who really killed Conrad Kline…Or: Your turn to pick up the dry-cleaning, and did I tell you that Lucretia von Wolff had an affair with a young man called Crispin Fane…Now Edmund came to think about it, he could see that this was exactly the kind of thing that might have been said. Was there any real danger here? He thought probably not. Still, Francesca Holland might need to be watched.

Michael Sallis was seated at the end of the small row of chairs, leaning back slightly, one arm resting on the arm of his chair. Edmund was about to look back at the screen, when Sallis half-turned his head to say something to Francesca. His profile caught the faint glow of the overhead light, and Edmund stared at him, the juddering screen images and the other people in the room momentarily forgotten. Deep inside his mind something was starting to thrum and he thought: I know that profile. Those eyes, that slightly too-wide mouth – I’ve seen them somewhere. But where? And then: why am I so concerned? he thought. So Michael Sallis resembles a client or someone on TV or the man who services the photocopier in the office. So what?