‘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 their 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.’