Roots of Evil

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘Yes, it does. I’d have thought,’ said Lucy, speaking as if she was choosing her words very carefully, ‘that Ashwood and Studio Twelve would be the very last place you’d want to visit.’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked back at him, and this time Edmund was aware of a flicker of apprehension. What’s she going to say? What might she know that I wasn’t expecting?

  Lucy said, ‘Well, because of Crispin.’

  Crispin. Silence came down between them. In a moment I’ll be able to say something, thought Edmund. Something quite ordinary, so that she won’t think I’m at all thrown by this. But alarm bells were sounding in his mind, because Lucy had used Crispin’s name so lightly and so familiarly. As if she knew all about Crispin. Did she? But how much could she know – really, actually know…?

  He resumed eating, and said offhandedly, ‘Oh. Yes, I see what you mean. Crispin. Did you say there was pudding, Lucy?’

  ‘What? Oh yes, sorry.’

  The pudding was some kind of pastry concoction with honey and nuts in it.

  ‘It’s Greek baklava,’ said Lucy, when Edmund expressed his appreciation. ‘And before you ask, no, I didn’t make it myself, I bought it from the delicatessen on the corner. I’ve tried to get the recipe out of them, but they won’t tell anyone; it’s a family secret, or something.’

  A family secret. The words set the alarm notes jingling in his head all over again. Family secrets…And some things must be kept secret, at all costs.

  Lucy was saying, a bit hesitantly, ‘Edmund, while you were there, did you actually go inside Studio Twelve?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, I did. Just for a short time.’

  She had stopped eating, and she was fixing him with a wide-eyed stare. ‘What was it like?’

  It was peopled with ghosts who watch while you commit murder, only the ghosts at Ashwood don’t call it murder, they call it mord…And what would you say, Lucy, my dear, if I told you that I think one of those ghosts was Alraune…

  Edmund said, ‘It was dark and dismal and the whole place was in a disgraceful state, in fact it was little more than a few muddy fields with most of the buildings falling down where they stood.’

  ‘How sad,’ said Lucy softly. ‘I rather wish I hadn’t asked you, now. All those years of films and people, and all the friendships and romances and quarrels and feuds there must have been inside the studios. All those years of spinning dreams and now it’s just a clump of ruined bricks and mud.’

  Go on, said Crispin’s voice in Edmund’s mind. There’s your cue. And she’s always attracted you, hasn’t she, hasn’t she…?

  ‘Oh, Lucy,’ said Edmund softly, ‘you’re such a romantic under that tough façade.’

  Lucy, disconcerted, looked sharply up and met Edmund’s eyes. ‘Am I?’

  ‘I’ve always thought so,’ said Edmund very deliberately. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No,’ said Lucy, still staring at him. Silence hung over the table for a moment, and then, with what was clearly an effort to return the conversation to a more ordinary level, she said, ‘But Edmund, you have to admit Ashwood is romantic. All the ghosts of the past—’

  ‘Oh, I’m not very keen on ghosts,’ said Edmund.

  ‘I know you’re not.’

  ‘I’d rather have the living than the dead.’ He put his hand out to take hers. Good! said Crispin in his mind. Go for it, dear boy! But as Edmund’s fingers closed around Lucy’s, she gave a start, and then pulled her hand free.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I could be wrong, but for a moment I thought you were trying to hold hands with me.’

  ‘I dare say there are worse ideas,’ said Edmund, offhandedly. He finished the last spoonful of the Greek pudding, and looked at his watch. ‘It’s nearly nine o’clock. Did you say we’d have coffee? I usually have a cup after my evening meal, but I don’t want to be too late getting home.’

  He followed her out to the kitchen, putting the dishes in the sink, and then standing behind her as she spooned coffee into the percolator. When she turned round, he put his arms round her and pulled her hard against him. Her body felt slender and supple, and there was a scent of clean hair and clean skin.

  This time there was no doubt about her reaction; she flinched from him as if his touch had burned her, and put up a hand as if to defend herself.

  ‘Edmund, what on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I’ve had an extremely upsetting day,’ said Edmund. ‘Police statements and that wretched Trixie Smith’s murder. Poor woman,’ he added conscientiously. ‘And so I just thought a little human warmth might—And you said you were footloose and fancy-free.’ This came out in a slightly injured-sounding voice.

  ‘Yes, but we’re cousins!’ said Lucy, backing away from him. ‘I can’t—I mean, not with you I can’t! It’s – it’s very nearly creepy!’

  Creepy. She would pay for that one day, the bitch. Edmund turned away as if he had lost interest, but he was having to beat down a strong desire to grab her and force her against him. And then? Back into the sitting-room, to that deep comfortable sofa before the fire? Or into her bedroom, which he had never seen…? An image of Lucy, her hair rippling against white sheets, rose up tauntingly, but he only said, in an offhand voice, ‘We’re quite distant cousins as a matter of fact. William Fane was my real uncle – he was my father’s brother – and Deborah only became my aunt when she and William were married. So you and I aren’t actually related at all, Lucy. But we’ll forget it. It was only an idea I had for a moment.’ Your loss, my dear, said his tone. ‘I hope there’s semi-skimmed milk to go with that coffee,’ said Edmund. ‘I only ever drink semi-skimmed milk these days.’

  After Edmund had gone, Lucy washed up the dishes, her mind churning.

  That had been a very odd encounter. But she must surely have jumped to a wrong conclusion. ‘Oh, Lucy, you’re such a romantic under that tough façade,’ Edmund had said, and his tone had been that of someone deliberately injecting a caress into his voice. A seductive caress. And then, in the kitchen, he had forced that embrace, and that had been the most un-Edmund thing of all, in fact Lucy had found it slightly sinister.

  But there was nothing sinister about Edmund, just as there was nothing come-hitherish about him. She must have misread the whole thing. And he had spent most of his afternoon tussling with the police about being at Ashwood with Trixie Smith – yes, he had said something about wanting some human warmth after an upsetting day. He had probably been agonizing about Lucretia being splashed all over the Sunday newspapers because of this murder, as well; Edmund, of all the family, had always hated anything to do with Lucretia. Poor old Edmund, thought Lucy determinedly.

  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…

  The sumptuous Grand Tours of the last century were no longer de rigueur for the sons of the wealthy, but enough of them still travelled around Europe as part of their education, and a great many came to Vienna. When one or two of them stopped their carriages and walked across to her to make their sly suggestions, Alice had at first shaken her head and backed away. But later, she had shrugged and had gone with them to their hotel rooms. It meant a certain amount of bravado; it meant braving the rich plush reception halls and the stony stares of the hotel staff – some of them disapproving, some smilingly knowing. But it also meant she could eat for several days, and after the first few times she acquired the trick of donning an air of disdain, and of walking arrogantly through the hotels. Accepting a few more offers of the same kind meant she could take a room in the poorest lodging-house.

  Most of the men were well-off travellers from other countries, but a few were the smart, sharp German army officers who were so often to be seen in Vienna nowadays. Alice discovered that almost all the men liked to talk about themselves – about their lives and their families and their work if they had any work – but that the German officers did not. They were courteous enough and most of them were fairly considerate, but there was a rigid silence about their army duties and their regiments. Almost as if they counted themselves as part of a secret service.

  But it did not matter who the men were or what they looked like, because Alice already knew that was something that would never matter again. Unless the man in bed with you had golden-brown eyes and a quick eager way of talking…Unless he could make music so beautiful it would melt your bones and make you want to cry when it stopped…

  ‘Somehow I survived,’ she said, staring into the fire, no longer fully aware of the comfortable English sitting-room or the listening child. ‘Somehow I lived through those bad days and I emerged from them stronger. Remember that – enduring bad times in your life, which is something everyone has to do – makes you stronger. What happened to you in Pedlar’s Yard will make you very strong indeed.’

  It was not quite possible to believe this yet, but there was a vague feeling that it might one day be possible. For the moment, the important thing was Alice’s story.

  ‘So you got through the bad times. And then—’

  The smile came again. ‘And then,’ she said in a much lighter voice so that it was almost as if a different person sat there, ‘and then, my dear, there came a day when I knew I must leave behind that poor beaten thing who had loved and lost and been hurt. I knew I must find a way of shaking off the darkness. I had a little money stored up by then: not very much, but a little.’ A pause.

  ‘There’s a bit there you aren’t telling, isn’t there? Is it about how you got the money?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a bit there I’m not telling, and yes, it is about how I got the money. But one day I will tell you. When you’re a bit older.’

  ‘OK. Don’t stop the story though.’

  ‘By that time,’ said Alice, ‘there was no one to know or care where I went or what I did. So I vowed that I would become an entirely different person.’ The slanting smile came again.

  ‘I also vowed,’ said Alice softly, ‘that if I could become another person, it would be someone who would make people sit up and take notice. A person who would make a stir in the world.’

  A stir in the world. The idea had been exciting and frightening – can I do it? How can I do it? What could I become?

  Her parents had been so pleased when Alice had gone into what they called good service, although they had been anxious when, later on, the family had asked Alice to go with them to that foreign place. They were nervous of Abroad, although Alice’s father had been in France during the Great War – Alice had only been a child at the time, of course – and once
they had gone on a day trip to Ostend, which they had not much cared for.

  But it would be all right for Alice to travel Abroad in this way because she would be with the family, and the family would look after her. Alice’s mother had been a parlourmaid in the house of a titled gentleman; her father had been his lordship’s valet. They had got married late in their lives, doing so timidly and unobtrusively, and Alice had been born a good many years afterwards, taking them by surprise since they had ceased to hope the good Lord would send them a child.

  But altogether they had been in service for forty years, they said proudly, and they knew that the upper classes looked after their servants. Why, only look at how his lordship had given them something called an annuity when they had reached the end of their working lives. They did not rightly understand how it worked, but what it meant was that they were given a sum of money every week for as long as they lived. Oh no, it was not a large amount, but the rent of this little house was very cheap, and if necessary, Alice’s mother could always do a little plain sewing for the ladies who lived on the Park; her father could take on a bit of carpentering. They were very grateful to his lordship for taking care of them.

  They were gentle and unworldly and unambitious and trusting, and Alice was torn between exasperation and love for them.

  Respectable service. Honourable work. What was so honourable about one human being waiting on another? What was respectable about fetching and carrying for the aristocracy who thought themselves too grand even to dress themselves? And at the end of it all, being grateful for a few miserable shillings every week in your old age, and even then having to take in sewing? All that when you had worked for more than forty years, every day from six in the morning until midnight! For goodness’ sake, hadn’t that kind of humility and gratitude been blown away by the war, by feminism, by women gaining the vote?