The Darkest Hour (65 page)

For a moment he thought she was going to hit him. If she was she changed her mind. ‘I’m going, but don’t forget I know where Lucy lives. You will never be with her, Michael, I will see to that.’ She stood quite still for several seconds, her eyes locked on his face as though memorising every detail, then she walked out of the room.

For several seconds he was incapable of moving, chilled by her expression as much as her words, then he followed her. To his relief she had walked past the case without seeing it. She opened the door and went outside, staring up and down the street.

‘Shall I come with you and make sure you get a taxi?’ he said.

She glared at him. ‘I’ll walk.’

‘It’s late, Charlotte. You need to be careful.’

‘Why?’ She spun round. ‘If I was murdered it would get me out of your hair, wouldn’t it? But life is not that easy, Michael. I will never be out of your hair. Never.’ She walked away without looking back. He stood on the step watching her until she had turned the corner, then he stepped back inside and closed the door on the night. Even after drawing the bolts he didn’t feel safe.

Christopher was packing the smallest and most portable paintings into his car, carefully wedging them with blankets. He had had them secreted in a cupboard in one of the back bedrooms, a cupboard which his nosy daughter had not discovered. Frances had rung him from Scotland to say they had arrived safely and that she would be staying up there for the time being. He didn’t argue. To hell with school. If they never went back it wouldn’t matter. Let their grandparents organise something in Scotland. It suited him fine to have the house to himself. Or it had until the wretched police had turned up with their news about Lee Ponting. He had never heard of the man. For a while he had been completely confused until they had mentioned Laurence Standish and the car crash. The stupid, insane car crash. His hands shook at the thought of what had happened. A man had been killed, for God’s sake, and the stupid picture had escaped. Of all the incompetent, bungling idiots his contacts had had to pick this one. He pushed another picture into the car and saw a flake of soft blue oil paint scrape off and fall on the gravel. Stupid! Careful. He paused and tried to steady himself before carefully pushing the door shut.

There was room for a couple more on the passenger seat. He took the stairs two at a time and headed back down the passage. There were still several large paintings in the room. He would have to hire a van to move them, but at least he would have got the majority out of the house. For the time being he had hired a secure storage unit in Southampton. No one would find them there.

Behind him the door closed quietly in the draught from the hall downstairs. He swung round, his nerves on edge. A shadowy figure was standing near the bed looking down at the picture leaning against the wall.

Christopher froze, the hairs on the back of his neck and along his forearms standing on end. For a moment he was speechless, taking in the man’s shape, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He was paralysed with terror. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he gasped at last. His voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Get out!’

The figure didn’t move. It was intent on looking at the painting. It was an oil entitled Christ Church, Church Row, Hampstead, dated 1956. The painting had never been finished; there was a small patch in the corner where the charcoal sketch beneath showed through, and the sky had not been filled in.

For several seconds nothing happened, then as the figure faded it turned towards him, the blank eyes appearing to look right through him, and he recognised the gaunt features of his grandfather, Eddie Marston.

Rosebank Cottage was shut tight when Lucy arrived. She took out her key and put it in the door. It didn’t turn, and now that she was looking properly she could see the lock had been changed. Her heart sank. She headed along the path in front of the window and round the corner to the lawn and the studio. That lock too was new. She stood for several seconds undecided what to do then slowly she turned back towards the road. Had he done this to keep her out? Had he changed his mind again about helping her? She had reached the gate when she saw a small figure hobbling down the lane towards her. It was Dolly.

‘Come in!’ Dolly was puffing by the time she reached the top of the steps. She opened the door and led the way indoors.

Lucy followed without a word.

Dolly stared round in disapproval. ‘Look what happens if I’m not here to keep an eye on things. Still, it won’t take me two ticks. Let me put the coffee on for you first. Have you been in the studio yet?’

Lucy looked at her in confusion. ‘Dolly, the locks have all been changed.’

‘Yes and a fine to-do I had getting that done …’ Dolly broke off suddenly. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

Lucy shook her head.

Dolly let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Silly man. I can’t believe it. Charlotte Thingy, the stupid woman, broke into his place in London. She threatened to set fire to it, and to this cottage. She told him she had made copies of all his keys so he rang me and told me I had to get back here and arrange to have all the locks changed. Can you believe it? What is it? Why are you smiling?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I thought he had changed them to keep me out.’

Dolly was stunned into silence for a moment. ‘Why should he do that?’

‘Because at one point not that long ago he said he didn’t want me to come here any more.’

Dolly turned to the sink to fill the kettle. For several seconds she didn’t say anything, then at last she turned to face Lucy. ‘It’s my opinion,’ she said slowly, ‘that Mr Michael is quite fond of you. He would never shut you out.’ She reached for coffee and mugs. ‘You know he is coming down this morning,’ she said after a moment.

‘No.’ Lucy felt a flutter of unease.

‘He said he had found Evie’s attaché case and he wanted you there when it was opened. He found it in Thingy’s flat.’

Lucy’s unease turned to suppressed excitement. ‘Of course. He told me about it.’

‘He stole it back from her.’ Dolly beamed approvingly. ‘Anyway, here you are. He will be here soon. You drink your coffee while I run round the cottage with a duster. He would be horrified if he saw the state it’s in. The lock man with his drills and things made dust everywhere.’ She left Lucy sitting in the kitchen.

In less than ten minutes the door opened and Mike looked in. ‘I tried to ring you at the vicarage but there was no reply and your mobile was off.’ He walked over to her, hesitated and then to her surprise reached out to kiss her cheek. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. Dolly told me you thought I had changed the locks to keep you out. I am sorry. ‘

She suppressed a grin. ‘Easy mistake to make.’

‘Indeed.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘But I told you I had got the case. Come on through and we’ll open it. I don’t think there is a key so we may have to lever the locks back. I’ll just check with Dolly. If there is a key she would know.’

There wasn’t. Mike produced a screwdriver and they put the small case on the table. The two women watched while he inserted the blade under the catches. It only took a matter of seconds before the lid was open.

The case was full of papers and sealed envelopes.

The solicitor looked at Evie with genuine sympathy as he showed her into his Chichester office and pulled out a chair for her. Outside the traffic in South Street was very busy.

‘I was so sorry to hear of your mother’s death. I knew your father and mother for many years, of course, and our firm has dealt with your father’s family for many generations.’ He smiled.

Evie nodded, fighting her tears. Her mother had been found lying on Ralph’s bed. She had looked, so she had been told, completely peaceful with a small smile on her lips. The doctor said it was a heart attack and that he had warned her that her heart was weak, but Evie wondered if that was true. Perhaps Rachel had just chosen to go to Ralph at last. It was what she would have wanted.

‘Of course, my job is to read you the will.’ The solicitor paused. ‘But I am sure you already know it. Your father left the farm to you and your brother.’ He glanced up at her. ‘Your late brother. Which means that on the death of your mother everything comes to you.’ He paused. ‘You are a married woman, I believe?’

Evie nodded.

‘Your husband is not with you?’

Evie shook her head. ‘I don’t want him to know about this. I want the farm sold and I want the money.’ She sat forward on the edge of her chair. ‘There must be a way to keep it from him. He won’t give me a divorce. I need that money to leave him. You must help me. I have to buy somewhere to live where he can’t find me. Ever.’

George arrived only four months after she and Johnny had settled in to Rosebank. ‘You can’t leave me with him, Mummy, you can’t.’ The boy, for all his fifteen years, had tears in his eyes. He was still in school uniform and had only a haversack with him. ‘Why did you go without me? I don’t understand.’

George had been away at school when Evie had finally plucked up courage to go. She doubted if Eddie would ever rest if his son went too. She took nothing from the house in Hampstead. She had all she needed from her parents’ home. The farm had sold quickly and only months later she had moved into Rosebank Cottage, using some of the extra money to build her studio, putting the rest into the bank. For the first time in what seemed a lifetime she was secure and happy, or she would have been, were it not for George. She missed him dreadfully. She felt guilty at leaving him. She wrote to him at school and he wrote back begging her to let him come to her. His father, he said, was so angry he didn’t want to go home. Ever.

She should have known that if George came, Eddie would follow.

His fury and his spite were a shock after several months without seeing him.

He pushed the front door open so hard it slammed against the wall and looked into the sitting room. his face twisted with disdain. George stared at his father in terror and fled into the garden.

Evie straightened her shoulders. ‘How did you find us?’

‘I won’t even dignify that remark with an answer,’ he retorted. ‘I’m taking George back with me.’

Evie folded her arms. To her surprise after the initial shock she found she wasn’t afraid of him any more. ‘That is up to George,’ she said. ‘If he wishes to stay I am prepared to look after him. If you insist he goes with you I will have to tell him that I can’t fight for him through the courts because I am not his real mother. You never told him that, did you.’

Eddie froze. He held her gaze for several seconds before sitting on the sofa and slumping back against the cushions, visibly deflated. ‘That would destroy the boy.’

‘Yes, it would.’ She tightened her lips.

‘And Johnny?’ Eddie managed a sneer.

‘He is away at university.’

Eddie’s gaze sharpened. ‘And who is paying for that?’

‘My father paid for that,’ she said quietly, ‘in his will. Don’t worry. Johnny will never be a call on your purse again and neither will I. And now I would like you to leave.’

To her astonishment he went. Without another word he turned and walked out of the door, leaving it open behind him. She had no doubt he would be back or that at the very least she would hear from his solicitors but to her surprise there was no further word from him. George fitted seamlessly into the cottage and to her further surprise Johnny didn’t object when he found he was sharing his small bedroom. The boys would never be close, she realised, but at least for the time being they seemed to get on well, perhaps cemented in their relationship by their dislike of their father. She sent George to Lancing College and to her joy found she could paint again now she was embedded once more in her beloved Sussex countryside.

‘So, that is how she came here.’ Mike looked up at Lucy. They had been poring over Evie’s diary for 1960. Lucy was overjoyed to find three more diaries in the case as well as several envelopes and packets. The next notebook was a form of diary but not so detailed, and spanned a dozen or so years. Johnny graduated with a law degree from Oxford and joined her parents’ former solicitors in Chichester as a trainee. At university he had met another undergraduate, Juliette Phelps, and shortly after he took the position in Chichester they were married, to Evie’s delight. George took his A levels and then went to study art, first in Florence then in Rome. The cottage which for a few years was bursting at the seams with the two young men as well as Evie was now a lonely place, or would have been had it not been for Dolly. Evie’s affection for her housekeeper was obvious on every page as it was for her daughters-in-law. George and Marjorie were married in Italy in 1967. Christopher was born in 1972 and back in Chichester Johnny and Juliette’s son, Michael, was born four years later.

‘So, now we are into the present,’ Mike said as they reached the end of the book. ‘Christopher and me.’

‘But nothing about Evie painting again,’ Lucy commented. ‘She mentioned it that once. She had her lovely studio and enough time and she was happy here. So why no further mention of her pictures?’