by Sarah Rayne
‘I do not have time to speculate,’ said Ilena sharply. ‘But surely it is clear. The baroness killed a man who tortured her inside Auschwitz. I was in Auschwitz with her, and I know that for the truth. And then she tried to kill herself from remorse.’
‘We gave it out that I had died on the way to the hospital,’ said Alice to the listeners. ‘We walked an amazingly dangerous tightrope over the formalities, of course, but we had got over the first difficulty, which was to get away from Ashwood, and out of reach of the police.’
‘They would have insisted that the crime scene remained exactly as it was,’ said Liam.
‘Yes. And then the illusion would have been ruined, of course. As it was, we left Dreyer’s body in position for the police, and later Ilena issued a death certificate for me from her own hospital. She took appalling risks and she would have been struck off if any of it had ever come out, but it never did.’
‘But the police would need to see a body, wouldn’t they?’ asked Francesca.
‘Yes, but that was only another formality. They accepted Ilena’s death certificate unquestioningly. And Ilena simply gave me a hefty dose of veronal – that’s a sleeping drug that was fashionable in those days. Not a fatal amount, but enough to knock me out. The surgeon came in, took a cursory look, and bureaucracy was satisfied. Afterwards I got in a wheelchair and Ilena trundled it out of the hospital, and I drank several gallons of black coffee straight off to get rid of the veronal.’
‘What about a post-mortem? An inquest?’ said Lucy.
‘There never was a post-mortem. Ilena took over again – she could be astonishingly autocratic, and she staged a kind of Eastern European hysteria, and said after all I had been through in the camps, no one should touch my body except herself. She was a qualified doctor and quite well thought of, and the Ashwood police already had more than they could cope with. So they were more than happy to let her go ahead with that part of things. She provided a false report for the coroner – death from loss of blood was given as the cause of death. I forget the technical medical terms used.’
‘What about the funeral?’ asked Lucy.
‘Once the coroner released the body for burial, it was easy enough to say that the funeral was private – that it had “taken place at the baroness’s home”. No one knew where the baroness had come from – it might have been anywhere in the world. I spent those days in a small hotel just outside Ashwood. Without make-up and with a headscarf on if I went out, no one recognized me. “Alice Wilson” was coming back, you see. Quite soon, my hair dye grew out, and I was—’ A smile. ‘I was an insignificant grey-haired lady approaching middle age.’
Lucy had been listening intently to all this, but when Alice paused, she said, ‘Alice—’
‘Lucy?’
‘I know you’re probably absolutely exhausted by all this—’
‘Yes, but it’s a satisfying tiredness. Cleansing. I should think it’s how Catholics feel after confessing and being absolved. So if you’ve got any questions, ask away.’
‘Deborah knew the truth, didn’t she?’ said Lucy. ‘She knew you hadn’t died?’
Alice looked at Lucy thoughtfully. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Well, for one thing,’ said Lucy, hoping she was not stepping over any lines, ‘there were a number of occasions when Deb seemed to be on the brink of telling me something about the family. For another, I don’t believe you’d have let her go on thinking you were dead.’
‘You’re quite right, of course,’ said Alice. ‘Deborah did know. She was intelligent and she was independent – I had been in the concentration camps for six years, remember, and Deborah had had to develop self-reliance during those years. Ilena brought her out to where I was staying, and I told her everything.’ She smiled. ‘She was so good about it all. Dearest Deb.’
‘And – my mother?’
Alice hesitated for much longer this time. ‘Mariana was a different pair of shoes entirely,’ she said. ‘She was only three at the time of the murders, and she certainly wouldn’t have understood. So we made a plan, Deborah and Ilena and I, that Ilena would take all three children – Deb, Mariana and Alraune – to Poland to stay with her family for a time. Later, we were going to explain it all to Mariana – when we thought she was old enough.’
‘But you never did,’ said Lucy.
‘No. Mariana was never like Deborah. She grew up to be frivolous, a chatterbox. And,’ said Alice, ‘she couldn’t have understood, as Deb could, the – the things Alraune had known in Auschwitz. Deb made allowances for Alraune; Mariana could never have done. I was trying to protect all three of them, you see. And Deb insisted that what I had done at Ashwood – taking the rap for the two murders – mustn’t be wasted. At one time we had a plan that I would emerge as Lucretia’s elder sister. It was not so wild an idea as it might sound; people were still turning up after years inside the concentration camps. I thought I might be able to step back into the lives of the children.’
‘Why couldn’t you?’ said Lucy.
‘For one thing I had under-estimated the press interest. They were on to every scrap of information. They talked to neighbours, Deborah’s schoolfriends, people at Ilena’s hospital. They dug up every shred of information about Lucretia they could find. Today there’s the cult of the celebrity and a huge industry devoted to it, but believe me, for months on end my family had the most relentless press intrusion imaginable. For a time I was afraid they would discover the truth, but they didn’t.’ She looked at them all. ‘And so everyone believed I was a murderess,’ she said softly. ‘Perhaps also that I was mad. But certainly they all believed I had killed two men and then myself rather than face the consequences. That was the verdict.’
‘Two men?’ said Liam. ‘Conrad was the second victim, wasn’t he? It was Conrad you heard tapping on the wall?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and an infinite sadness showed in her eyes for a moment. ‘Later I knew that nothing I could have done would have saved him. He died from loss of blood and shock and Ilena promised me that it would have been very quick.’
‘And so,’ said Liam, ‘you got away with the illusion.’
‘Yes. We couldn’t have done it today, of course, with all the forensic investigations that go on, and the computer-linked emergency services and so on. But things were much less formal then, and Ashwood was a small village that hadn’t progressed much since the 1930s. The police had three bodies – all of them well-known people, all of them dead in bizarre circumstances, and they struggled to cope. The inquest decided that I had committed both murders, of course. It didn’t occur to anyone that there could have been two separate murderers inside Ashwood on the same day.’
‘But surely,’ said Francesca, ‘if Crispin had killed Conrad—? Didn’t you want to do something about that? To bring him to justice?’
‘Until Edmund told his story earlier today,’ said Alice, ‘and Michael told me about it, I didn’t know Crispin had killed Conrad. It simply didn’t occur to me that Crispin could have been capable of murder – he was just a rather charming, rather immature boy. Naïve. A bit petulant on that last day. Until today I always thought Leo Dreyer had killed Conrad.’
‘And Alraune?’ said Lucy.
‘Deb and Mariana came back to England when Mariana was five,’ said Alice. ‘So that Mariana could go to an English school. By that time Alraune was at school in Poland, and he seemed content and settled, so he stayed – he lived with Ilena’s family. That’s why Mariana hardly knew him, of course. She may have dimly remembered a boy called Alan being part of the family for a time, but probably nothing more than that. And in those years, as far as anyone could tell, Alraune was perfectly normal. When he was seventeen he was accepted at one of the smaller Austrian universities. I arranged for him to live with friends from my Vienna days – a little village just outside the city.’
She paused, and Francesca glanced at Michael, and saw that both of them were remembering the photograph in Trixie’s things, and t
heir idea that Trixie had found it while she was on holiday in the Vienna Woods.
‘He left the university after one term,’ said Alice, ‘and I lost sight of him for several years. But he came to England some time later, and we were in touch again. He would never come to visit me, but I used to send him money – that’s how Michael knew where I was. He found a letter with my address.’
‘Deb was always very cagey about Alraune,’ said Lucy thoughtfully. ‘She once said that there had been a great tragedy and it was better to let it all go.’
‘Details did get out, of course,’ said Alice. ‘The reporters never actually got the entire truth of Auschwitz, of what Alraune had been forced to witness in Mengele’s clinic, but they knew there was something – something macabre. I don’t know how much they knew about Reinard Stultz’s death. But what they didn’t know, they made up.’
‘And so,’ said Lucy thoughtfully, ‘a legend was created.’
‘Yes. And in a way, the more bizarre tales there were about Alraune – Alan as he was by then – the more it hid the truth. Everyone assumed he was a girl, of course, and that concealed his identity even more fully.’
‘And you?’ said Francesca. ‘What did you do?’
‘I became Alice Wilson once again. An ordinary lady from an ordinary background. There was money from the films, and also from Conrad’s estate – more from that than I had thought. Dear Conrad – he left it all to me. He had even had everything drawn up to cover “Alice” as well as “Lucretia”. He always loved the idea of the double identity,’ she said softly. ‘It was like a game to him. A masquerade. And so I was able to buy the house in Mowbray Fen and to make some careful investments so that the children would be provided for, and I became an unremarkable Englishwoman, active in village life, a pillar of the church, an indefatigable worker for a number of charities.’
‘Including CHARTH?’ asked Francesca.
‘Yes. I had known what it was to be homeless, and I never forgot it. I helped where I could.’
‘Deborah knew you, didn’t she?’ said Lucy, looking across at Michael. ‘That’s why she left the house to CHARTH.’
‘She didn’t know me very well,’ said Michael. ‘There was always a degree of reserve – she could never forget that I was Alraune’s son, and it created a barrier between us. But she came to this house sometimes, and we got on fairly well.’
‘All that was going on, and I never knew,’ said Lucy. ‘My mother never knew.’ She frowned, and then said, ‘I hate saying it, but I think you were right to leave her out of it. She could never have kept it to herself. But I do wish Deborah had told me about you.’
‘She always intended to,’ said Alice. ‘After you had finished growing up. But—’
‘But she never found the right moment? No,’ said Lucy, ‘that’s not quite it, is it? It’s something to do with Edmund.’
‘I don’t think she trusted Edmund,’ said Alice slowly. ‘And he was always around, wasn’t he? I think she had a gut feeling that it would be wrong to tell Edmund. Perhaps because of the Ashwood link to Crispin.’
‘Edmund always connected Crispin with Ashwood,’ said Lucy thoughtfully. ‘And Deb always maintained that Crispin’s illness affected him very deeply. When Crispin died, Edmund was on his own in the house. He – he had to stay there all night with the body until someone came, I think. He was only nineteen or so – it might have affected him, mightn’t it?’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice at once.
Lucy leaned forward and stretched out a hand to the thin figure in the chair, pleased when the white hand closed around hers at once. ‘I’m so sorry you lost all those people, Alice,’ she said. ‘Conrad, and Deborah and my mother.’
‘I have had great sadnesses in my life, Lucy dear,’ said Alice. ‘And I’ve lost a great deal. But I’ve also known some great happiness. Michael’s been one of those happinesses, of course.’ She smiled at him. ‘Since Michael turned up on my doorstep that day, there’s been a lot of happiness. And now I’ve got you, Lucy, dear.’ She looked at Francesca. ‘I’m rather hoping I’ll have you, as well,’ she said.
‘Tell us about Ashwood,’ said Fran, carefully not looking at Michael. ‘The site, I mean.’
‘Oh that.’ It came out carelessly, and Lucy thought only Lucretia von Wolff could sound so casual about the ownership of a large piece of land. ‘It was going for the proverbial song after the murders, which was how I managed to buy it,’ said Alice. ‘People were calling it haunted ground – such nonsense, because Leo Dreyer never had sufficient soul to haunt anything, and Conrad was always very dramatic but really he wouldn’t have hurt a living creature.’
‘Why did you buy it?’ asked Lucy.
‘To keep people out,’ said Alice. ‘To stop inquisitive journalists and sensation-seekers from delving around.’
‘And to protect Alraune.’
‘Yes.’
‘But – you agreed to let Trixie in to delve around?’ said Francesca.
‘Yes. By then I knew Alraune was dying,’ said Alice. ‘And I thought perhaps it was time to let the place be exorcized at last. I had already transferred Ashwood to him when they released him from prison – it seemed more straightforward to do that, rather than continually pay out the income to him. That’s when you and I met, wasn’t it?’ she said to Liam. ‘I rather enjoyed putting on the unworldly elderly lady act for you.’
‘You’re a disgraceful old ham,’ said Liam, and smiled at her.
‘Yes, I must have a dash of Irish blood from somewhere,’ she said, deadpan.
‘I don’t know about Irish blood, I don’t think you’ve ever stopped acting,’ said Michael.
Lucy said, very hesitantly, ‘You said Alraune was dying?’
‘Yes. I don’t think he’ll live for more than another week or two.’
Alice looked at Michael. ‘And then,’ she said softly, ‘perhaps there will be an end to the—’
‘Ghosts?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Ashwood itself?’ This was Liam.
‘When Alraune’s gone, Ashwood will be Michael’s,’ said Alice. ‘If he wants it.’
‘I don’t want it,’ said Michael at once. ‘I’d rather let CHARTH have it. They can bulldoze the whole lot and build something in its place to help those wretched teenagers.’
‘Get rid of the ghosts once and for all?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s rather a good idea,’ said Alice thoughtfully. ‘Liam, you and I will talk about that.’
‘I’m yours to command, Baroness.’
‘I suppose,’ said Michael after a pause, ‘after all this melodrama, you’d like another brandy, would you?’
‘Do you know, I believe I would. In fact,’ said Alice, ‘I suppose we’d all like one.’
As Lucy accepted the brandy, she said half to herself, ‘I wonder what’s happening to Edmund?’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Now that Edmund had got Crispin more or less under control again, he was rather enjoying talking to these two men who had appeared from somewhere or other, and who had driven him to a large and very quiet house.
He was not absolutely clear about that journey: he hoped he had not fallen asleep during it, because he had always thought it the height of discourtesy to fall asleep in a car. Nor was he entirely clear who the men were, because he was so extremely tired. An odd kind of tiredness it was as well: almost as if he was enclosed behind a glass panel, and as if he was hearing and seeing everything from a distance. Occasionally he had to give his attention to Crispin, who kept forcing his way to the surface and trying to speak through Edmund. It was very tiring to have to keep forcing Crispin down, and it was also rather sad; once upon a time Edmund would have been very glad to let Crispin take over – to sit back and smile to see Crispin handle these men with his customary panache and charm. But in view of what had happened earlier on, it was clear that Crispin could no longer be trusted. Edmund was afraid that Crispin might start to shout those sham
eful embarrassing details again – how he had made love to that bitch, Lucretia von Wolff, how he had killed Conrad Kline, butchering him like some maniac.
Still, he would try to find out where he was, and just who these two men were who were sitting with him so pleasantly. He realized that he did not even know their names. Had they told him who they were, and had he been too taken up with Crispin to hear? If so, he would have to find out their names in a roundabout way. The trouble was that every time he started to frame a suitably polite question, they seemed to jump in with a question of their own. Not pushy, not discourteous, just interested in Edmund and in Crispin.
Having listened to them for a while, Edmund had discarded his first idea that they were researching into melancholia and began to think they might be planning to write a book. There was no denying that the years of Crispin’s youth would make a very good story; Edmund had sometimes thought of writing it all down himself.
He said so to the man who seemed more senior, and the man was at once interested. An extremely good idea, he said. They would very much like to read that. Would Edmund really undertake it? It might be quite a long project, but they could probably fund it – perhaps set him up with a laptop and some research facilities. He might as well stay here to write it, as well – that would not be a problem, would it?
Edmund saw at once that this was one of their sly tricks. They thought they were going to find out about Crispin – about the real Crispin – from him. But he knew a trick worth two of that! He would agree to write the story though – he had always thought he had a book in him. Not one of your bonk-busters, not what they called a sex-and-shopping story – just a plain straightforward tale of a young man who had loved a black-haired seductive adventuress, and who had been deceived by her. Crispin’s life story. The more he thought about it, the more he thought it would be the best service he could render Crispin. The story as it ought to have been. Crispin’s life story as it would have been if that bitch had not lured him into her bed.
