Roots of Evil

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘I’m very good indeed,’ said Liam, grinning. ‘But I’d have to say that until last weekend, I really did think I was acting for a lady called Alice Wilson.’

  ‘You’re Ashwood’s owner?’ said Lucy to Alice. ‘No, you can’t be, though – Michael said—’ She stopped. How acceptable was it to refer to Alraune in this house?

  ‘Over fifty years ago,’ said Alice composedly, ‘I bought the entire Ashwood site. Land, buildings, cottages, fields – everything. I did so under my real name of Alice Vera Wilson—’ She broke off as Lucy looked at her in surprise, and then said, ‘My dear, no smouldering silent-film star with any self-respect would have got far with a name like Alice Wilson. And you wouldn’t believe how useful it is to have two identities. It meant that when I bought Ashwood no one suspected that the wicked baroness was still alive, and buying up parcels of valuable building land. Explain that part, would you, Mr Devlin.’

  ‘She did own Ashwood,’ said Liam. ‘But three years ago we transferred the ownership of Ashwood Studios to her son, Alan Salisbury. To comply with HM Land Registry laws I had to formally register the land at the time. So if Edmund Fane really did apply for a search for the title—?’

  ‘He did. We know that.’

  ‘Ah. Well, then, he’d receive a brief report showing that the land had passed from the ownership of A. V. Wilson to Alan Salisbury. Relatively ordinary names,’ said Liam, looking at Michael questioningly.

  ‘Yes. But,’ said Michael, ‘both of those names were listed on my mobile phone – which Fane had taken. We know now that he had spent most of his adult life watching for anything that might reveal the truth about his father and when he received the Land Registry information he already knew I was Alraune’s son. Seeing those names – the names of Ashwood’s buyer and seller – on my phone must have panicked him. He didn’t know who Alan Salisbury was, and he didn’t know who A. V. Wilson was, but he saw that I was in some way linked to them, because I had their phone numbers. I should think that was enough to send him hotfoot after one or both of them.’

  ‘Michael’s told you that his father was a violent man,’ said Alice. ‘I won’t go into what happened to Alraune inside Auschwitz or the things he saw – at any rate, I won’t do so now. For now I’ll just say that what he saw and what he experienced scarred him very deeply indeed.’ She paused, and Lucy saw that she was thinking back over all the years, to the child born in Auschwitz.

  ‘He was an oddly attractive child,’ said Alice. ‘Dark and enigmatic – people found that intriguing. Women especially. But after he married, he behaved violently towards Michael’s mother, and in the end he killed her.’ She paused to take a sip of champagne.

  ‘That was the night I ran away,’ said Michael, taking up the story. ‘I was eight years old, and I had spent all of my life in Alraune’s shadow. I was terrified of practically everything in the world. On the night he killed my mother I thought he was going to kill me as well. So I ran away to Alice.’

  ‘How did you know about her, though?’

  ‘I didn’t know then that Alice and Lucretia and my grandmother were one and the same person,’ said Michael. ‘But my mother knew the stories about a young parlourmaid and her dashing lover.’

  ‘I told Alraune those stories,’ said Alice. ‘I made them into fairy-tales for him. The serving girl and the rich man. But I never knew whether he would remember them.’

  ‘He did remember them,’ said Michael. ‘He told them to my mother, and she told them to me. She had Alice’s gift for recounting stories, so I grew up knowing about the fairy-tale romance between the rich man and the serving girl. And on the night I ran away, it seemed entirely natural that I should run to the lady in the stories.’

  ‘Michael’s mother gave him something to run to,’ said Francesca thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes. I’ve always been so grateful to her for that.’

  ‘But she didn’t know who “Alice” really was?’ put in Lucy.

  ‘No. It was the early years she knew about,’ said Alice. ‘That seems to have been all Alraune ever told her. I was a parlourmaid in those years. It was a very wealthy family, and they were very prominent in Viennese society. It was all very gay – in the days when “gay” had a different meaning – and everyone was very self-indulgent and even rather decadent, although I only saw things from below-stairs, of course. But then one night I ran away with the young man who was about to become betrothed to the daughter of the house.’ Her eyes took on a luminous look. ‘His name was Conrad Kline, and he was gifted and charming, and he was your grandfather, Lucy.’

  Lucy leaned forward. ‘Will you tell me about him later on? I mean – tell me properly about him?’

  ‘Of course. You’re very like him, you know. The same colouring, the same eyes,’ said Alice, and Lucy stared at her, and thought: now I really know I’m touching the past. How extraordinary. After a moment she managed to say, ‘Thank you. Uh – I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on about Alraune.’ And was glad to hear that she had managed to say the name without flinching this time.

  ‘Alraune should have died on the night Michael ran away,’ said Alice. ‘He was badly injured. But he lived.’

  ‘A survivor,’ murmured Lucy, remembering what Michael had said earlier.

  ‘Yes. But not sufficient of a survivor to escape justice for murder. He was convicted, and given a life sentence, but three years ago he was diagnosed with cancer. Last year the doctors said they could do no more for him, and the prison authorities released him on compassionate grounds. It seemed to me that the best help I could give him was to make sure he had sufficient money to die in whatever comfort could be provided. So I transferred Ashwood to him.’ She glanced round the table. ‘Ashwood isn’t only the overgrown fields and the tumbledown buildings,’ said Alice. ‘There are several houses on the outskirts, which are quite profitably rented, and some of the land is leased to farmers. And if the existing income from that hadn’t been enough, Mr Devlin could have arranged to sell the land fairly quickly.’

  Liam said, ‘Any property developer would snap it up at once. It’s a prime site, and I’ve obtained outline planning permission for building, so it would be a good package for a builder.’

  ‘But,’ said Francesca, ‘until we saw the film that afternoon, you never knew who “A. V. Wilson” or “Alan Salisbury” really were?’

  ‘No. Only that I was dealing with a widow who had an invalid son.’

  ‘Edmund knew who Alan Salisbury was when he saw him, though,’ said Lucy. ‘He knew it was Alraune – and he knew Alraune was a real person. How did he know that?’

  ‘Deborah had Alraune’s birth certificate,’ said Alice thoughtfully. ‘Edmund could have found it after she died.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘And my father was – is – very like Alice,’ said Michael. ‘And I’m very like both of them. Even with the disfigurement to the eyes, Edmund must have recognized Alraune.’

  There was silence for a moment, and Lucy felt a stir of apprehension, because she sensed they were coming to the real heart of this. In another moment they would know exactly what had happened that day at Ashwood. The silence stretched out, and just as Lucy was thinking she could not bear it any longer, Alice said, ‘And of course, the past has always influenced the present.’ She stopped, as if waiting for a cue.

  It’s up to me, thought Lucy, and taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Alice, what really happened at Ashwood?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ‘I didn’t get out of Auschwitz until the war ended,’ said Alice. ‘Nineteen-forty-five. We were all exhausted and sick – you can’t imagine how sick we all were, my dears. Mind and body and soul – every way you can imagine. But we were free and somehow we had survived, and our lives were soldiers march into the camp and when we understood what it meant…That was so intense an emotion that I don’t think you could experience it more than once in a lifetime. I think you might die of it a second time.’

  They had moved back
to the comfortable sitting-room with its faint scents of woodsmoke. Michael had switched on a coffee percolator, and Francesca had helped him to hand round the cups.

  ‘I can’t imagine how you survived Auschwitz,’ said Francesca thoughtfully. ‘I can’t imagine how anyone could.’ our own again. The feeling when we saw the Russian ‘There was nothing else to do but survive,’ said Alice. ‘To keep hoping it would finally come to an end. And although it was never said, I think most of us had a private image in our minds, something we held on to, something that would happen when we got out. Simple things – lying in a hot bath perhaps, or reading a favourite book. Ilena, my dear good friend, used to talk about the two of us walking out through the gate arm in arm, and her brother waiting there for us. And it happened,’ she said. ‘We did walk out arm in arm, and Ilena’s brother was there.’

  Lucy said, ‘Some dreams do come true.’

  ‘Yes.’ Alice smiled. ‘My dream was that I would one day dance again with Conrad – a waltz, to one of his own compositions.’

  For Lucy the words instantly conjured up the image of a well-lit ballroom: men in the sharp black and white formality of evening dress, ladies wearing silks and velvets, the air laden with expensive perfumes…

  ‘By the time the camps were liberated,’ said Alice, ‘Alraune had long since left. A year earlier he had been taken away by a man who was – who had reason to believe himself the father.’ She paused to drink her coffee. Lucy had no idea if she was playing for time, or if she was deliberately creating an effect, or if she was simply taking a drink before going on with the story.

  ‘You do not need to know the circumstances surrounding Alraune’s conception and birth,’ said Alice. ‘They were macabre and violent and deeply disturbing, and something no female should ever have to endure. But I will say that there was a young German officer who could have been Alraune’s father, and I found that he had constantly tried to see the child. His wife and baby had died in the air-raids on Dresden, and although he had no heart to remarry he liked the idea of having a son. So one day he came to Auschwitz and he took Alraune away with him.’

  Lucy said, ‘You gave him up?’

  ‘If I had resisted I would have been overruled and Alraune would have been taken anyway. But I didn’t resist,’ said Alice. ‘He was a German and a Nazi, that young man, and he was on the enemy’s side. But at that time we had no idea how long the war would last – it could have gone on for many more years. There were stories that Britain was losing – that might have been propaganda or it might have been the truth. Again, we had no way of telling. We were afraid that if Germany won we would never leave Auschwitz, and that meant Alraune might not know any other life. I would have done anything to get him out. The officer was young, and I had seen shame and pity in his eyes at some of the atrocities. I thought he could be trusted. And when you are half-starved,’ said Alice with a sudden hardness in her voice, ‘and when you shiver through every winter’s night, and have only the sparsest of clothes and barely enough water to survive, your values change. What did it matter which country Alraune lived in if he had food to eat and warmth, and the promise of a reasonably normal childhood and some happiness?’

  ‘Yes, I see that,’ said Lucy softly.

  ‘The officer promised that Alraune would be known as his nephew,’ she said. ‘And that the circumstances of his early childhood would never be told. He said Alraune would have everything of the best – everything within reason that money could buy. And so I let him go. But after the war ended – after I got out of Germany, Ilena and I searched for him. Ilena was the finest, truest friend I ever had. Elsa, whom you met earlier, is her daughter.’

  ‘And in the end, you found him,’ said Lucy.

  ‘I did. But it took a long time,’ said Alice. ‘I had very little money, and I had no idea then where Alraune was, or where Conrad was. So I searched for them both, and at the same time I made attempts to re-enter the film world. That was harder than I had expected. There were rumours that I had spied for the Nazis, which meant I was looked on with suspicion and often with derision. They said I had slept with von Ribbentrop and consorted with Göering – all nonsense, of course, but the stories stuck. And as well as that, the competition was much fiercer: there were a great many talented actors and directors who had survived the war in their various ways, and who wanted to resume their careers. But we had to learn new techniques – there were no longer any silent films, for instance. Garbo had talked, and the rest of us had to follow suit. But I was determined to regain what I had lost, so I donned the mantle of the vamp again…’

  ‘The black hair and the kohl-enhanced eyes,’ said Francesca.

  ‘Illusion,’ said Alice, smiling. ‘Smoke and mirrors. I did it all on a shoestring, but I was used to that. And quite soon I did find Conrad again which was the greatest joy of all. Or perhaps Conrad found me. He had been in Dachau. Another terrible place, but there was music there – a few small orchestras that the commandants had set up, and Conrad had been part of one of them.’

  ‘I don’t understand that,’ said Liam, leaning forward.

  ‘The orchestras?’

  ‘Yes. It doesn’t square with what the Nazis were doing to you all. The brutality and the mass-killings. Oh wait, though, it would be a kind of egotistic culture-trip for them, wouldn’t it? “See how civilized we are”?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘The concerts were rather makeshift, but many of the musicians were classically trained and very gifted. And the idea that they were promoting serious music made the Nazis feel very good about themselves. Also it conferred a great prestige on them. Conrad once told me that the music saved him,’ she said. ‘At the time, he meant it saved his life – there was no death sentence for the camp musicians – but I think it saved him in other ways.’

  ‘It helped him to endure the…the hardships?’ said Lucy.

  ‘Yes. Music was his one real passion,’ said Alice. Her eyes suddenly had a faraway look, and Lucy saw that despite the sharp mind, she really was very old. Ninety? Ninety-three? Yes, she must be at least that.

  But then Alice said briskly, ‘Too many memories,’ and made an impatient gesture as if to brush them away. ‘I am recounting a history to you,’ she said. ‘And we do not need romantic memories getting in the way.’

  ‘Personally I’m in favour of all the romance I can get,’ said Liam.

  ‘Well, there was plenty of that. Your mamma was born in those years, Lucy. Mariana. Conrad was going through a gothic period at the time; a dark period. Perhaps none of us had quite shaken off the darkness of the camps – probably most of us never did shake it off. But Conrad had written Deborah’s Song for Deborah, and now he wanted to write a piece of music called “Mariana in the Moated Grange”.’

  ‘Tennyson,’ said Liam after a moment.

  ‘What a pleasure to meet an educated man,’ said Alice, regarding him with approval. ‘Yes, Tennyson. I planned that I would bring Mariana and Deborah up together, of course. That when there was a little more money, we would all live in England. Because I did get back into films, of course. You all know that. I became again the adventuress with a past – and now I really did have a past. And Conrad began to give concerts again, and I made a couple of films that replenished the coffers very nicely indeed, and that were quite well thought of—’

  ‘Erich von Stroheim?’ said Lucy. ‘The Passion Master?’

  A smile lit Alice’s face. ‘Oh yes, dear Erich,’ she said, and for a moment the smile deepened into mischief. ‘Such a volatile man. But so immensely talented that I forgave him the tantrums and the temperaments. Yes, we made a film together, and it was fairly successful, but—’ She paused, and then said, ‘But somehow, you know, none of it was quite the same as it had been in the old days. And all the time I was trying to find Alraune. Eventually I found him because of an item in a German newspaper.’ She glanced at Michael, who spread his hands as if saying what the hell, tell them everything.

  ‘The article was a
report of the death of a former German officer at Auschwitz,’ said Alice. ‘It had some news value because there was a suspicion that the man’s young nephew had killed him. I didn’t know, not for sure, that it was Alraune – the surname given was an ordinary enough German name. Stultz. But that had been the name of the young officer, and the facts seemed to me to fit and the place was right – a small town in Northern Germany, quite near to the Czech border. And the details of the man’s death…’ She paused, and then said, again, ‘I thought it might be Alraune and Ilena thought so as well. And so, since Conrad was away touring, and since Alraune was my concern anyway, Ilena’s brother managed to get us tickets for the journey and we travelled to the town named in the newspaper.’

  ‘It’s a smaller place than I was expecting,’ Ilena said, as the train drew into the little German railway station and they got out. ‘But that should make the search easier. What now, Lu? Do we try to hire a car, or what?’

  ‘Certainly we get a car,’ said Alice with decision. ‘We can’t just walk the streets looking for an unknown address.’

  ‘What a good thing there’s money in the bank,’ said Ilena drily. ‘And what a good thing that we’ve at least got a name to go on.’

  ‘Reinard Stultz,’ said Alice. And although she had been trying to shut her mind to the night of Alraune’s conception, the young officer’s gesture in reaching out to touch her face had stayed with her. She could not remember the colour of his hair or the shape of his features, but she could remember that brief moment of comfort he had given her in the midst of the pain and fear. If he was indeed Alraune’s father, then Alraune might not have such a bad heritage after all.

  They found the house by the simple method of driving to the offices of the local newspaper, and openly asking for the address. Alice was keeping the baroness’s name quiet, but she was not keeping the baroness’s arrogance quiet. Within minutes the clerk, awed by this imperious female’s manner, supplied the address in full, and became voluble as to the details of the attack. No one had believed that such a small child could have been so violent, he said. And so no official action had been taken. The boy was still in the house, in the care of the house-maid, and no one quite knew what to do about him.