The Darkest Hour

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Are you going to take notes?’

  Lucy stepped back, surprised by the sharpness of his tone. ‘I probably should,’ she said as gently as she could. ‘It is part of Evie’s story.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He put the picture down on the table and rubbed his hands on the seat of his trousers with a shiver. ‘He wasn’t a very child-friendly person, as I remember. I avoided him. We hardly saw him because of course he and Evie were divorced long before I was born, but he came to Rosebank once or twice when we were there. It must have been to family parties.’ He thought for a moment then shook his head. ‘That doesn’t sound likely, does it? I don’t know, although –’ He paused again. ‘Once, I remember there was a row going on. He and Evie were shouting at each other. He wanted to go into her studio and she wouldn’t let him.’ He looked up. ‘That was it. He wanted to go and look at her paintings and she said no. They were screaming at each other and Mummy dragged me away. I remember we walked down the lane and we didn’t go back until his car had gone. He drove a huge Mercedes, which rather impressed me. I hoped to have a ride in it, but that was, I think, the last time I saw him.’

  They stood looking down at the face in the portrait before them. It was Lucy’s turn to shiver. His eyes appeared to follow her even when she stepped away from the table. They were a hard brilliant slate colour as far as she could see, all seeing and all knowing.

  As they stood there Mike’s mobile rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, glanced at it and switched it off. ‘Charlotte,’ he said. He glanced at Lucy. ‘I think it would be a good thing if you avoided seeing her on your own at the moment.’

  ‘I don’t intend to see her at all if I can help it,’ Lucy retorted.

  ‘Good.’ With a sigh he turned away from the table and headed back towards the door. ‘So, what am I going to do about this writing case?’

  They went into the kitchen where Juliette made a jug of coffee. She produced a plate of flapjacks. ‘I never liked that woman,’ she said succinctly. ‘Of course I could never say anything to you, Mike, but really!’

  He gave a surprised laugh. ‘Not like you to hold back on your views.’

  ‘No. But with one’s son’s girlfriends one has to be tactful.’ She sat down at the small table in the window and leaned forward on her elbows, pushing her bracelets up her arms with a rattle. The other two sat down opposite each other. Outside the garden was misted with rain. ‘So, what do you make of the picture?’ Juliette changed the subject.

  Mike glanced at Lucy and shook his head. ‘Did Dad ever say anything about it?’

  ‘No. He didn’t get on with his father very well, as you know. I sometimes used to think Eddie actually hated him. It was so sad. That picture was never hung while Johnny was alive. I found it in a box when I moved in here with Bill. I could see it was a fine portrait and I guessed Evie did it.’

  ‘Do you remember the time at Rosebank Cottage when he came over and wanted Evie to let him into the studio?’ Mike said thoughtfully. He picked up a flapjack and took a bite.

  Juliette nodded. ‘I believe he used to ring her up from time to time and try and browbeat her into giving him any paintings she had done. He claimed he had a right to them. She wouldn’t, of course, and I don’t think she was frightened of him, I don’t think Evie was frightened of anyone, but he used to swear at her terribly, so Johnny told me. He only actually turned up in person once when I was there.’

  ‘I remember it vividly. I think that was the last time I saw him except –’ Mike broke off suddenly with an expression of horror on his face. ‘At his funeral. Oh my God! I saw him at his funeral. I remember now. We were at the front in the church in Hampstead. Evie had insisted he should be cremated but George and Chris wanted him to have a memorial service first. His coffin was there in front of the altar and it must have been the first funeral I’d been to?’ He glanced at his mother for confirmation. ‘It gave me the creeps to think of his body there, so near us, and then I looked up and I saw him standing there on the far side of the coffin and he was looking straight at me and Dad. I can remember it clearly now. He had this sort of sardonic smile on his face and he could obviously see us and I nearly freaked out. But I was too afraid of all the people behind us to make a fuss. There were a lot of people at the service, and you didn’t seem to see anything, Mum, and nor did Granny.

  ‘I remember thinking, he’s not dead. The coffin is empty, and then as I watched he sort of faded away.’ He exhaled loudly. ‘Oh my God, he was a ghost even then, wasn’t he? I don’t know if I twigged. I don’t think so. We went to the crematorium and I don’t think I saw him in there, I was too horrified by the coffin disappearing and imagining it going into the flames and then we went and had tea somewhere and I put it out of my mind.’ He shook his head. ‘To think, I didn’t believe in ghosts until all this happened! What rational person does?’ He shook his head and exhaled loudly. ‘And now –’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  July 1956

  Evie was staring round her studio. The picture on the easel was half-finished, a bright sketch using acrylic paints, with which she had begun to experiment, of Christ Church, the sun reflecting off its green spire, the women in Church Row wearing gaudy summer dresses, some of them with parasols. She walked over to it and then turned to survey the room. Two or three paintings which had been standing, face to the wall, had gone. She stared at the space where they had been and then looked again to be sure, then she went to find Eddie.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table with a copy of The Times spread out in front of him as he finished his breakfast coffee. He looked up as she came in and narrowed his eyes, folding the newspaper and pushing it away. ‘So? What is it now?’

  ‘My pictures. The two of Hampstead pond, the large one of the dog walkers. They’ve gone.’

  ‘They fetched good prices. You should be pleased.’

  She stared at him with such a wave of dislike and anger she was for a moment unable to speak. ‘They weren’t ready to go, Eddie. They hadn’t had time for the paint to harden.’

  ‘I told the buyer. He was quite happy to make sure they would be hung carefully.’

  ‘And it didn’t occur to you to ask me if I wanted them sold?’

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘We’ve been through this so often. They are my paintings to dispose of as I see fit, Evie. Your job is to produce them.’ Pushing back the chair he stood up, folding his glasses and slipping them into his breast pocket.

  She watched him dispassionately. ‘One day, Eddie, I will stop painting.’

  ‘And then I will throw out your son. I spend a lot of money on his school fees.’

  ‘My money.’

  He gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Would you care to debate that point in court? I have a contract which says that all you paint is to be handled by me. And anyway, you are my wife.’

  Walking silently back into her studio she closed the door behind her, then reaching for a tin of red poster paint, left on her table by George, who had been painting something for school, she hurled it across the room. The lid flew off as it hit the wall and the paint ran down the white surface like a streak of curdling blood.

  30

  Tuesday 17th September

  It was ten o’clock at night when Mike rang Charlotte’s doorbell. He waited several minutes before he rang it again then he reached into his pocket for her keys; she had obviously forgotten that she had given them to him or she would have demanded them back. He pushed open her front door and peered into the hall. The flat was quiet, the lights off. Of course she could have gone to bed early but the flat felt empty. ‘Charlotte?’ he called warily. ‘Are you there?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Charlotte?’ He walked in and closed the door quietly behind him, then he reached for the light switch.

  There was no sign of her anywhere; her bedroom felt unused. As he stood in the doorway looking round he noted the bare dressing table top, the faint layer of dust on the shelves, the cupboards slightly open.
He moved towards them and looked inside. There were some clothes there but the vast majority had gone. The bathroom was the same, no toothbrush, no cosmetics, only one towel, dry and faintly sweaty. So where was she? He moved into the living room and it was here he began to hunt in earnest for the writing case, going through every cupboard, scrutinising every corner, hunting every possible place it could be. He moved on to the kitchen area, again opening all the cupboards and it was there at last he discovered the small brown leather case in the back of a saucepan drawer draped with a tea towel. He paused for a moment and listened carefully, but the flat was still silent and empty. Lifting it out he put it on the worktop and tried to open it. It was locked. He could just make out the initials E.L. under the handle, between the locks. Evie Lucas. Presumably Charlotte hadn’t managed to open it either, and to his relief she had not forced it. Absent-mindedly he dusted it with the teacloth, then he lifted it and gently he shook it. He could feel whatever was inside shifting from side to side. It was quite heavy, so presumably it was full of papers. With a sigh of relief he looked round one last time, wondering where she was. It didn’t look as though she had been at home for a while. Perhaps she was staying with her father; his flat in Kensington had always been her bolthole when she was upset or worried or felt herself in need of a little TLC. Her widowed father’s uncritical worship of his daughter was, in Mike’s opinion, way over the top. She had only to ask for something and Daddy would provide it. Well, if that was where she was, good luck to the man. Mike turned off all the lights and went back to the front door. Locking it behind him he was about to put her keys through the letterbox but he hesitated. If he did that she would know he had been there and how he had got in. He needed to keep the option of prevarication ready for the outraged phone call he would receive as soon as she discovered that the case had gone. With a grim smile he ran down the stairs and let himself out onto the street. There he made his way quickly round the corner and out of sight. Only when he was several streets away did he hail a cab.

  He rang Lucy at once. ‘I’ve got it. She wasn’t there so I let myself in and found it.’

  ‘What’s in it?’ She sounded excited.

  ‘It’s locked.’

  ‘So, where are your Boy Scout skills? Surely you can pick a lock?’

  He laughed. ‘I’ll wait till I get home. In fact perhaps I’ll wait till the weekend and come down. We can do it together.’

  He heard the slight hesitation before she replied, ‘That would be great. I would like that.’ There was a note of caution in her voice. As far as he knew she hadn’t been back to Rosebank Cottage since he had seen her in Brighton the week before. She had said she had so much to get on with that she didn’t need to go there at the moment, but he couldn’t help wondering if, in spite of their new rapprochement, he had scared her away. He squinted out of the cab window. They were nearly back in Bloomsbury.

  As the taxi drew up he put the case under his arm, paid the driver and stepped out onto the pavement. It was only as he was walking up the steps to the front door that he realised there was a light on in his front room and someone was standing in the window looking out.

  June 1957

  Evie’s studio in Hampstead had been ransacked. She stood in the doorway and stared at the room in complete shock. The walls were bare, the easel, on which she had left an almost completed picture of the church, was leaning against the wall without a sign of the large canvas which had adorned it. Her sketchbooks and notepads were gone, the table on which they were spread out, empty but for several trays on which had been laid all her paints and chalks and inks.

  Behind her the house was silent. Eddie and the boys were out. Dazed, she walked slowly back downstairs. The rest of the house was as it always was, tidy, clean, thanks to the administrations of whoever the latest charwoman was. They never stayed long; Eddie paid the minimum and was not particularly appreciative of their hard work. One after another the women had gone, leaving Evie alone again in the huge house.

  She walked slowly round from room to room. Only the boys’ bedrooms looked normal, untidy, bright, full of their possessions. She sat down miserably on Johnny’s bed and wondered what on earth she could do. Her studio, the one room in the house which was indubitably hers, where she felt at home and safe, was safe no longer. He had not only taken the finished canvasses, he had taken her private notepads, her sketches, her very thoughts from the drawer of her desk. He had taken the last remnants of her private life, the contents of her head and her heart. For one thing she was glad. She had left behind the paintings she had done at Box Wood Farm. They were safe there in her old studio, out of Eddie’s reach.

  When he returned she was conscious of his hard gaze following her as she prepared the supper, aware that he was waiting for her to explode with anger. It wasn’t until the boys had gone up to their rooms that she spoke.

  ‘I am going to leave you, Eddie.’

  For a moment he looked astonished then he burst out laughing. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘I can stop you taking my sons.’

  ‘Johnny isn’t your son.’

  ‘And does he know that? Does anyone?’ He reached into his pocket for his tobacco pouch. ‘Face it, Evie, you will be going nowhere. I suggest that, instead of making these futile threats, you go upstairs and start painting. Your stock seems lamentably low.’

  In Box Wood Farm that same evening Rachel slowly climbed the stairs to Evie’s studio and stood looking round. This room, in the whole, empty farmhouse felt warm and loved. Evie had left several of her paintings behind, hanging in an uneven line on the attic beams. There were two of Johnny, growing ever taller now, and the image of his handsome father, another of the two boys together and several sketches of George. Rachel studied them carefully. She knew Evie had grown to love the boy and she could see the fact in every stroke of the brush and pencil. There was very little of his father in his face, she noted. He must have taken after his mother. She would of course have been good-looking, otherwise Eddie would never have looked at her.

  She wandered slowly round the studio, trailing her fingers over the table, staring out of the high window towards the Downs where the evening light was turning the fields to deep green velvet shadow. It was a long time before she walked slowly down the stairs and, as she did every night, went into Ralph’s bedroom. Evie had wanted it for Johnny when they all lived together but Rachel had refused. The room was as it had been the last time her son had walked out of its door, a curious mixture of schoolboy’s haven and young man’s retreat. She felt closer to him here than anywhere else in the house. She sat on the bed and stretched out her hand to touch the bedspread. ‘Are you there, Rafie?’ She flinched as the pain in her chest returned. Somehow she had managed to keep it from Evie. It didn’t matter. The doctor had told her it was her heart and if it meant she would one of these days drop dead just as Dudley had done, well and good. Then at last she would be with Ralph. She smiled up at him as he appeared before her. ‘I knew you would come,’ she whispered.

  He stood looking down at her, his face full of compassion.

  Where did you put the letters?

  He had asked her that before. She didn’t know what letters he was talking about. The letter for Evie. The ring.

  It was hard for him to talk but this time she understood him perfectly. ‘What ring?’

  Tony’s ring. For Evie. Where did you put it?

  She shook her head wearily. ‘I don’t know anything about a ring, Rafie.’

  But he had gone.

  She lay back on his pillow and sighed. Sleep would come soon and in the morning another day to be got through.

  Tuesday 17th September

  The doorbell rang a second time and with a sigh Christopher went to answer it. He pulled open the front door, coming face to face with two men he did not recognise. They pulled out ID cards.

  ‘Christopher Marston?’ the elder asked. There was a slightly sinister edge to his tone.
‘I am Detective Inspector Pulman and this is Detective Sergeant Wells. I wonder if we could have a word.’

  Christopher looked from one to the other coldly. ‘Is this about my father?’

  ‘No, sir. This is another matter.’ Inspector Pulman took a step forward and Christopher found himself moving backwards. With a loud sigh he turned and led the way into the sitting room. ‘How can I help, Inspector?’

  The two men stood gazing round the room for a moment, then Bill Pulman smiled. ‘I wonder if we could sit down, sir?’

  ‘Please do.’ Christopher tried to make the invitatation sound gracious, noticing that the two men had glanced at one another. He perched on the edge of a chair opposite them. ‘You haven’t told me yet what this is about.’

  ‘I understand you know Professor David Solomon, sir,’ the sergeant asked after another silence.

  Christopher frowned uneasily. ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘And he is one of the acknowledged experts on the paintings of your grandmother Evelyn Lucas?’

  ‘He is, yes. Look, you said this wasn’t about my father –’

  ‘All in good time, sir, if you don’t mind.’ Bill Pulman leaned forward slightly. ‘How well do you know Lee Ponting?’

  Christopher stared at him in confusion. ‘I don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.’

  Again the two men opposite him glanced at each other. ‘Are you sure, sir? Think carefully.’

  Christopher hesitated. ‘No, I don’t think I have ever met anyone of that name.’

  Pulman leaned back and folded his arms. ‘My colleague here and I have been investigating a hit-and-run accident which occurred back in March when a car was run off an unfenced Downland road between here and Chichester. Mr Laurence Standish was killed in the accident.’ He paused, his eyes fixed on Christopher’s face. ‘We have identified the car involved as one belonging to Lee Ponting. On his arrest he gave us a great deal of interesting information.’