Roots of Evil

When school teacher Trixie Smith turns up asking questions about legendary film actress Lucretia von Wolff, Lucy Trent is not unduly alarmed. She rather enjoys the notoriety surrounding her glamorous but infamous grandmother, whose lovers were legion, whose scandals were numerous, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood film studios in 1952.
Trixie Smith has uncovered information which she believes throws new light on the Ashwood case. In particular, she wants to know more about Alraune, the illegitimate child Lucretia was alleged to have borne at the outbreak of WWII. The child whose existence is surrounded in mystery. The child who may never have existed at all.
But Trixie Smith's enquiries are brought to an untimely end. Some days later, her mutilated corpse is discovered at the derelict site of the old Ashwood studios.
In the ensuing murder investigation, Lucy is to discover disturbing facts about her family's poignant and often tragic history - a history which stretches from the glittering concert halls of 1920s Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz - and at the heart of it all lies the shocking truth about the mysterious child called Alraune.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

FINALE

The film and story of
Alraune
referred to in
Roots of Evil
come from a book written between 1911 and 1913 by a German author called Hanns Heinz Ewers.

Several versions of
Alraune
have been filmed over the years, most recently by Erich von Stroheim in 1952, but a number of silent versions were made between 1918 and 1930, mostly in Germany, Austria and Hungary. The eroticism of the earlier films was decried and deplored by many people at the time, and this, of course, served to ensure their commercial success.

For the purpose of this story, a late-1920s version has been created – a silent film starring an infamous film-actress called Lucretia von Wolff

It is not every day that your family’s ghosts come boiling out of the past to disrupt your ordinary working day. Lucy Trent had not been expecting ghosts to appear today, and there had been no warning of their imminence. It had, in fact, been years since she had even thought about the ghosts.

She had reached her office early and had spent most of the morning engrossed in a presentation for silent horror films from the 1920s: Quondam Films, who specialized in the restoring and marketing of old films, were putting together a marketing package aimed at the satellite TV networks, and Lucy had been given the task of setting up the presentation. She had only worked for Quondam for about six months, so it was quite a coup to be trusted with this project.

She had been immersed in writing a summary of a fourteen-minute film from 1911 called
The Devil’s Sonata
.
Quondam had had this in their archives for several years and had been trotting it out unsuccessfully at regular intervals, so it would be particularly good if Lucy could flog it this time round. She was just describing how the charismatic violinist lured the kohl-eyed heroine into the deserted theatre, when reception phoned through to say there was someone to see her. A lady called Trixie Smith. No, she had not said what she wanted, but whatever it was, it seemed that only Lucy would do.

The rather dumpy female in the small interview room shook hands with Lucy in a brusque, businesslike way, inspecting her from bright brown eyes. She was wearing a plain mackintosh and sensible shoes, and her hair, which was turning grey in pepper-and-salt fashion, was cut in a pudding-basin style. Lucy thought she might be a games mistress of the old style, or an organizer of therapy-type workshops for people to make raffia baskets. Intelligent, but possibly a bit tediously over-emphatic when it came to her own field, whatever her own field might be. She had probably brought in an ancient reel of ciné film that would turn out to be smudgy footage of great-uncle-somebody’s boating holiday from 1930, and Lucy would have to find a tactful way of telling her that Quondam did not want it.

But Quondam’s policy was never to ignore a possible acquisition, so Lucy sat down and asked how she could help.

Trixie Smith said, ‘Can I make sure I’ve got the right person before we go any further? You are Lucretia von Wolff’s granddaughter, aren’t you?’

Lucy thought, oh, blast, it’s something to do with
grandmamma. Another weirdo wanting to write an article or even a book. But she said, guardedly, that yes, she was Lucretia’s granddaughter.

‘Ha!’ said Ms Smith. ‘Thought I’d found the right Lucy Trent. Can’t always trust reference books, though.
Who’s Who
and all the rest of them – they often get things wrong. The thing is, Miss Trent, I’m doing a postgraduate course.’ She named a smallish university in North London. ‘Useful to have a doctorate in teaching, you see. More money.’

‘You’re a teacher.’ It explained the brisk authority.

‘Modern languages,’ agreed Trixie. ‘But the subject of my thesis is, “The Psychology of Crime in the Nineteen-fifties”.’

‘And,’ said Lucy, ‘you’re going to use the Ashwood murders as the cornerstone.’

‘Yes, I am.’ A touch of truculence. ‘I don’t suppose you mind, do you?’

‘Not in the least. Half the rainforests in South America must have been cut down to provide paper for books about Lucretia. She was a celebrity almost before the word was invented, and the Ashwood case was one of the biggest
causes célèbres
of its day.’ Lucy paused, and then said, ‘Listen, though, Ms Smith—’

‘Call me Trixie, for goodness’ sake. Life’s too short for formalities.’

‘Uh – Trixie, if you’ve got any wild ideas of solving a mystery, you should know there truly isn’t one to solve. In the late twenties and thirties my grandmother was the original sultry temptress of the silent screen. The men adored her and the women disapproved of her. Her
lovers were legion and her scandals were numerous. She got somehow tangled up in the Second World War – not very creditably by some accounts – and then afterwards she tried to make a comeback.’

‘Ashwood Studios,’ said Trixie Smith, nodding. ‘She was making a film at Ashwood, wasn’t she, and two men – both of them supposed to be her lovers – got into a jealous argument. Upon which Lucretia flew into a tantrum, killed both of them, and then killed herself – either from remorse at their deaths, or from panic at the thought of the hangman’s noose.’

‘Two murders, one suicide,’ said Lucy rather shortly. ‘And clearly you’ve found out most of the facts already. I don’t think there’s likely to be anything I can add to any of that.’

‘Don’t you care that your grandmother was branded as a double murderess?’

Bother the woman, she was like a steamroller. But Lucy said, ‘I don’t know that I do care very much. I wouldn’t have chosen to have a grandmother who was a murderess, and I’m not very happy about the alleged spying activities either – but it all happened a long time ago and it was years before I was born. I don’t think any of the family is particularly bothered about it these days. I’m not; I never even knew Lucretia – oh, and I’m not named for her in case you wondered. But I hope your thesis works out well, and I hope you get your doctorate out of it.’ She stood up, hoping this would end the interview.

It did not. ‘What I really want,’ said Trixie, ‘is to talk to any members of your family who might actually remember Lucretia. She had two daughters, didn’t she?’

‘Yes. They changed their surname after Lucretia died – or their guardians or trustees changed it on their behalf or something like that. My mother was the younger daughter—’ Lucy hesitated briefly, and then said, ‘She died when I was eight. The other daughter is my aunt – Deborah Fane.’

‘The books all mention her, but I hadn’t got a surname.’ Trixie Smith wrote it down industriously and Lucy thought, Damn, I didn’t mean to give that away. ‘And she’s still alive, is she?’ said Ms Smith hopefully. ‘Deborah Fane? How old is she? Would she agree to see me, d’you think?’

‘She’s certainly over seventy and her heart’s a bit tottery – a touch of angina – but she’s pretty lively. She might talk to you.’ This was quite possible; it had been Aunt Deb who had told Lucy most of the stories about Lucretia, and she had always seemed to rather enjoy Lucretia’s smouldering legend. Lucy rather enjoyed it as well, although she was not going to admit this to a stranger. The rest of the family had always found Lucretia slightly shameful, of course; and as for Edmund…Lucy repressed a mischievous grin at the thought of her cousin Edmund’s probable apoplexy if he discovered that Lucretia was being dragged into the spotlight again.

She said carefully, ‘I could ask Aunt Deb if she’d talk to you. I can’t promise anything, but give me your phone number and I’ll call you later this evening. It’s just background stuff you want, is it?’

‘Mostly background. Although there is one other thing—’

‘Yes?’ There was no particular reason why Lucy
should feel a sudden butterfly-flutter of apprehension, but she did feel it.

‘I want to find out about Alraune,’ said Trixie Smith.

Alraune.

The name dropped into the small room like a heavy black stone falling down a well. There were several possible responses to it; one of which was for Lucy to say, with extreme flippancy, ‘Yes, wouldn’t we all like to find out about Alraune, dear,’ and then escort Ms Smith out of the building faster than a bat escaping hell. After which Lucy could forget this entire discussion, leave Lucretia with the brand of Cain on her sultry white forehead, and shut Alraune firmly back into the stored-away memories along with the rest of the ghosts.

The second option was to look faintly bored and slightly disdainful, and to act as if a rather embarrassing gaffe had been committed. (‘Oh, we don’t talk about
that
, Ms Smith, not in
public
…’)

The worst thing of all would be to say, in the kind of aggressive voice that positively invites an argument and a discussion, that Alraune had never existed, and add that the whole thing had been a publicity stunt dreamed up by journalists.

Lucy said, ‘But you must surely realize that Alraune never existed. It was all a publicity stunt dreamed up by journalists,’ and Trixie Smith, with the air of one who has finally heard what she has been waiting for, said,

‘Are you sure about that?’

As Lucy made her way home that night, she hardly
noticed the stuffy, crowded tube and the rush-hour jostle of people.

She reached her flat, threw her coat into the wardrobe, and went through to the kitchen. She lived in the upstairs, left-hand quarter of a rather ugly mid-Victorian house on the edge of Belsize Park; the house was not quite large enough to warrant the term ‘mansion’ but it was not really an ordinary family house either, and the inside was very nearly palatial. It meant that Lucy had a huge sitting-room, which had originally been the house’s master bedroom, and a tiny bedroom opening off it, converted from a dressing-room. The original landing, which was vast, had been partitioned so that she had a kitchen and bathroom at the front half, and the flat on the other side of the house had the back half. This worked reasonably well, although the dividing wall between the two bathrooms was a bit thinner than it should have been.

Aunt Deb had always thought it rather a ramshackle set-up and Edmund had never understood how Lucy could live here, but Lucy liked it, partly because she had the feeling that it had once been a very happy house. She liked the feeling that over the years entire families had printed their cheerful memories on the old timbers, or that contented ghosts had pasted their shadows on to the walls.

Memories and ghosts…

She liberated a bottle of sharp dry wine from the fridge, and took it to the uncurtained window to drink. It was dark outside: the rooftops beyond the windows were shiny with rain, and there was a long, snaking bead
necklace of car headlights from the Finchley Road, which always seemed to be in the grip of its own rush-hour, no matter the day or the time.

Alraune. It was years since Lucy had even heard the name. Her mother had always maintained that Alraune had genuinely been nothing more than a publicity stunt. A ghost-child created by the gossip-columnists, the conception and birth deliberately surrounded by mystery. It had just been something that would sell newspapers, and bring people flocking to see the films, she had said; Lucretia had always had an eye for a good story, and she had never had much regard for truth. But there had never been any such person as Alraune – why, the name alone went to prove that it was only fantasy.
Mandragora officinarum
. Mandrake root. For pity’s sake, said Lucy’s mother, who had lived a bright mayfly existence with her husband and small daughter, would even Lucretia name a child after a mandrake root!

‘But it was a
film
!’ Lucy had said to Aunt Deb years later. ‘
Alraune
was the title of the first film Lucretia ever made! Didn’t mother ever understand that?’

Aunt Deb had said yes, of course, the name had come from the film – and a very outstanding film it had been in its day, by all accounts. But other than that, she would never talk about Alraune, although she once said that if even a tenth of the stories had been true, it must have been a childhood so bizarre and so bitterly tragic that it was best not to re-tell any of it. Alraune, either living or dead – and most probably dead – was better left in peace.

Lucy frowned, and picked up the phone to ring Aunt
Deb to explain about Trixie Smith. Aunt Deb would probably talk to Edmund about it all – she talked to Edmund about most things – and Edmund would be strongly disapproving of the whole thing, but Lucy could not help that.

After she had done that, she would cook herself some supper and have another glass of wine, in fact she might even finish the bottle. Why not? Hearing Alraune’s name again after all these years surely warranted it.

Edmund Fane did not have to cope with rush hours or crowded tubes. He lived within two miles of his office, and he drove himself there and back each day.

He liked his life. He was due to turn forty in a couple of months’ time, which a great many people would have found vaguely alarming, talking about landmarks and watersheds, planning slightly hysterical celebrations or starting rigid exercise regimes that they would not keep up. Edmund had no intention of adopting such extreme behaviour; he viewed his fortieth birthday with quiet confidence and thought it was not being vain to look at his life with satisfaction.

On the material side there were a number of pleasing credits. There was his house, which, although small, was two hundred years old, and not only carefully maintained but very tastefully furnished. No one realized what a kick Edmund got when guests complimented him on his possessions.

There was his small solicitor’s practice, which he had built up almost single-handed in the prosperous little market town, and there was another kick to be got there.
‘Mr Fane,’ people said. ‘One of the town’s leading solicitors.’

People liked him, Edmund knew that. When he was still in his teens, they had said, Oh, what a nice boy! So responsible, so clever. And such beautiful manners. When he got a first at Bristol University people told Aunt Deborah how proud she must be of him. A brilliant future ahead, they said, and expressed surprise when he chose to come home and set up his own law practice, because wouldn’t you have expected Edmund Fane – Edmund Fane with that first-class honours degree in law – to have aimed for something more high-flying? Rather odd that someone with such a brilliant mind should bury himself in a small country firm – why, it was barely five miles from the place where he had been born. Ah, but perhaps he wanted to remain near to Deb Fane who had been so very good to him, almost a mother to him, in fact. Yes, that would be the reason. Dear, thoughtful Edmund.

On the strictly emotional side, the score was not quite so healthy, in fact Edmund admitted that if you were going to pick nits, you might say that the one shortfall in his life was the lack of a wife. But he had fostered a small legend about having carried a torch for some unspecified lady all these years, and it had worked very well indeed. (Poor Mr Fane, so romantically good-looking, and is it true that he never recovered from losing the love of his life…?)