But despite his care there could still be unexpected notes or photographs in chimney nooks or crannies – or old letters folded up to wedge rattling windows, or newspaper cuttings lining kitchen drawers…So early on Friday morning he dictated several lengthy reports to his secretary to keep her busy for the rest of the day (you could not trust these girls not to sneak off to the hairdresser or spend hours gossiping on the phone to friends), and drove out to the house to make one final check before probate was granted and the keys irretrievably handed to CHARTH.
As he went methodically through the rooms, paying careful attention to the backs of drawers and little tucked-away cubbyholes, he wondered if Michael Sallis’s charity would sell the house and invest the proceeds, or whether they would let their yobs actually live in it. Well, it was nothing to do with Edmund what they did with the place, and he would not want to live here himself – there were too many memories. But even though it was a bit remote for some people’s tastes – right at the end of that bumpy unmade lane – it was a good big house with good big gardens and when Edmund thought about the price it might have realized, he could not find it in his heart to regret putting Deborah Fane out of the way.
He ended up in the main bedroom at the front of the house. It was very quiet everywhere and the soft autumn sunshine came gently in through the deep bay window, lying across the slightly worn carpet. There were fade marks on the old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe where the sun had touched it every day for goodness-knew how many years. Deborah Fane’s clothes were folded in boxes and a couple of suitcases, ready for a local charity to collect, but Edmund went through the boxes, feeling inside coat pockets and linings and examining the zipped compartments of the handbags. Nothing. He straightened up and crossed to the deep bay window for one last check of the tallboy and the dressing-table. And there, lying flat on the bottom of a small shallow drawer at the dressing-table’s centre – the filigree key so flimsy it could be snapped off with a fingernail – was the long brown envelope.
It was so faded that it was almost indistinguishable from its background, and it was not really surprising that Edmund had not noticed it earlier. It was probably nothing of much importance, but…
But as he lifted the envelope out, he was aware of his skin starting to prickle with nervous tension. It’ll be nothing, he thought. It’s an old envelope, but it’ll contain an ancient seed catalogue or a forgotten bank statement or something of the kind. But his hands were shaking and he suddenly knew that whatever was inside the envelope was very important indeed. He took several deep breaths and then, moving with extreme care, he slid the contents out.
The quiet bedroom began to disintegrate into splinters of whirling, too-bright sunlight like a fragmented looking-glass, and Edmund reached out blindly to the dressing-table’s edge to stop himself from falling headlong into the tumbling maelstrom of light and dancing dust-motes. He had no idea how long he sat like that, clutching on to the solid wood, waiting for the room to stop spinning – it was as if time had slipped its moorings or as if Edmund himself had stepped completely outside of time – but when finally he was able to release his grip he was trembling and out of breath as if he had been running too fast, and he had to wipe sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief.
He stared down at the single sheet of paper in his hand and felt cold and sick at how he had so nearly missed this.
The surface of the paper was faintly yellow and the edges were splitting, and it was sad, it was so infinitely sad to be looking at this tiny, fragile shred of the past…Edmund ran his fingers lightly over the brittle surface of the paper, which was brown-spotted with age, the ink so faded that the writing was almost indecipherable.
But it was not so faded that he could not read almost all of it. The headings were in German, but it was easy enough to translate.
Certificate of Birth, said the heading in black ornate lettering. And underneath: Date of birth: 10th December, 1940. Place of Birth, Poland. Mother, Lucretia von Wolff. Father, unknown.
Beneath that again were the words: Child’s name: Alraune.