The Darkest Hour (38 page)

The fire was out when they got there. The fire engine was still parked in the road outside the small warehouse as Huw drew up behind it. Lucy threw herself out of the car before it had come to a halt.

‘Robin? What happened? Has the painting gone?’

Robin and Phil were standing on the pavement with two fire officers and a policeman.

‘It’s OK.’ Robin put his arms round her. ‘Calm down. The painting is safe.’

Maggie and Juliette had climbed out of the car and followed Huw, stopping to look at the warehouse in horror. From the outside there was no sign of damage save some smoke stains above a window at the side. A hose disappeared into the wide open doors at the front of the building but the firemen were standing, arms folded, chatting with the policeman. All three appeared calm.

‘It looks as though it was an electrical short circuit of some sort,’ Phil said. ‘Luckily someone saw the smoke before anything too awful happened. There was nothing much stored in there and the picture’s completely safe. It’s in Robin’s car.’

Two hours later they were all gathered in the sitting room of St Margaret’s Rectory at Chilverly. The picture, still in its wooden crate, was leaning against the wall in the hall.

‘Are you sure it will be OK to leave it here?’ Lucy asked for the fourth time.

Maggie nodded. ‘I‘m sure.’ She glanced at Huw. ‘We agree. Whatever is going on Huw and I will deal with it.’

‘Aren’t you the least bit scared?’

Huw sighed. ‘Maggie is my rock in these matters. Diocesan deliverance team or Maggie Redwood, give me Maggie any time. But I have a feeling nothing will happen while it is here. I don’t believe the fire was anything to do with it. The investigation guys from the fire brigade know what they are doing. They catch on very quickly if it is arson.’

‘Do ghosts count as arson?’ Lucy asked.

‘They don’t believe in spontaneous spiritual combustion, put it that way.’ Robin smiled.

‘But you didn’t tell them –’

‘No, of course I didn’t tell them.’ He shook his head.

‘So,’ Maggie had seated them all in the sitting room at the vicarage. ‘What we have is a conundrum. Ralph it is generally accepted was a nice guy, agreed?’ She looked round the room. ‘But now,’ she focused on Lucy, ‘we have this other presence making itself felt in the gallery and this one appears to be far from nice. Either Ralph has undergone an extreme character change, or it is someone completely different and he was sufficiently strong for something of his energy to remain with Lucy when she came here. He appears to have been determined to smash the picture, and maybe, although this is doubtful, he was behind the fire today. We already knew someone was determined to interfere with the painting. In what, for the sake of argument, I shall call real life, person or persons unknown have in the past tried to paint out the unknown figure standing behind Evelyn Lucas in the picture.’

The door behind her was nudged open a crack. Roger the Dodger walked in and stood surveying the scene.

‘He’s not unknown,’ Lucy interrupted, her voice husky. ‘His name was Tony Anderson. He was another pilot, like Ralph.’

The cat walked slowly through the room towards Maggie and majestically jumped onto her knee. She put her hand on its head as it settled down, paws folded neatly beneath its chest. It fixed its unwinking gaze on Lucy.

‘I can’t be sure, of course,’ Lucy added, ‘I am guessing. I think he and Evie fell in love with each other after they met In the summer of 1940.’

‘So, what happened to him?’ Juliette asked.

‘I don’t know. I am, as you know, going through what letters and notebooks I can find of Evie’s. Sadly most of them, if they exist at all, must have been collected up by Christopher, but from one or two diaries I have been able to read Tony and Evie were very much in love.’

‘But, for whatever reason, they split up?’ Juliette went on. ‘Do you think he was killed?’

Lucy nodded slowly. ‘I suppose that is a strong possibility.’

‘And so maybe it was Evie herself who painted out his figure in the picture. She couldn’t bear to look at him after he died.’ Juliette looked at them all in turn.

Lucy nodded. ‘I had wondered that too.’

‘It’s strange,’ Juliette said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I ever remember Johnny mentioning anyone called Tony. You would think if he was such an important part of his mother’s life she would have said something, even if only much later when time had healed the hurt a little. After all, she married and had children, so she wasn’t inconsolable forever.’

‘She may have kept it to herself just because it was such a painful memory,’ Phil put in slowly. He was sitting next to Robin on the sofa near the empty fireplace. With six of them in the room it seemed very crowded.

Maggie nodded. ‘My instinct tells me that could be the most likely reason for not mentioning him. For now we will have to put that down as an unknown.’

‘You don’t think it is the ghost of Tony who is doing this?’ Robin put in suddenly. ‘He might be thoroughly pissed off at being painted out.’

There was a moment’s silence. One by one they fastened their eyes on Maggie.

She smiled. ‘Don’t know. Huw?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know either. I have had no sense as to the identity of anyone in this story. I have assumed Ralph because we know what happened to him, and because Lucy recognised him from a photo, but he is the only personality in this story we have tried to contact.’

‘Do you think the painting is going to be safe here?’ Robin put in at last. ‘Do you think you are going to be safe with the painting?’ he added. He sounded subdued and Lucy found herself shivering.

Huw nodded. He glanced across at his wife. ‘If Maggie says so, then I am content with that. I feel that surrounded by prayers, and safely in its box, it will at least remain quiescent for the time being.’

Phil looked from husband to wife and his face broke into a quizzical smile. ‘Would it be very indiscreet to ask how you two manage to combine your different belief systems without coming to blows?’

They both laughed. ‘Easily,’ Maggie said. ‘Our beliefs are actually very similar though we differ slightly as to how things work. As long as we come to the same conclusions, we are able to back each other up admirably.’ She glanced at her husband with a fond smile. ‘And if we cannot agree, then Roger has the casting vote.’ She rested her hand on the cat’s head again. ‘For instance, if there was the slightest danger from that painting now, Roger would not be sitting here on my knee. He would be in the next county. Cats know about these things.’

Huw stood up. ‘My friends, I feel we need to move on. May I suggest that Maggie and I return with Lucy to her flat and just check that all is well there, and that Phil and Robin return to check out your warehouse. Knowing about these things as I do, I fear the police and fire officers may still be there. Juliette, I am sure Maggie will be in touch soon.’ He reached across to kiss her on the cheek.

‘We have been dismissed, guys.’ Juliette stood up, her bangles jangling.

‘Only temporarily.’ Huw beamed at her.

As they all moved into the hall Roger stalked past the picture, pausing to give it a cursory examination. Lucy found herself holding her breath as she watched, but he gave no sign of being upset, trotting happily past them all into the garden.

Tony telephoned Box Wood Farm twice the next morning and both times the phone was answered by Rachel. On each occasion she said that Evie was out in the fields. Her tone was clipped and unfriendly. He walked away wondering what had transpired when Dudley had told them about their meeting the night before. With A flight on standby he had no further chance to get near the telephone in the Mess that day, flying three sorties one after the other without a chance to get his breath back, never mind leave the dispersal area.

When at last the pilots returned to the Mess that night his friend Bill West was not there. Nothing was said but when at last Tony turned in, the other bed in their room was still empty. Heavy-hearted he threw himself down and tried to force himself to relax. His flight was on early duty the next day so their batman would call him at six with a cup of tea; he would be ready to go over to the dispersal hut with the others at six thirty. Even if Bill was still missing there was always the chance that he had landed somewhere safely. Best to hope. And pray.

When he woke there was a note with his tea. ‘Young lady delivered it, I gather, late last night,’ his batman said with a wink. Neither of them looked towards the empty bed. ‘Your hot water for shaving is ready, sir.’ And he had gone.

Tony sat down on the bed and ripped open the envelope.

Tony, I gather Daddy has found out that you’ve been coming up here. Please don’t come again till I tell you it’s safe. Love, E xxx

That was all. So, Dudley hadn’t told Evie any details of their meeting. He frowned. So far he had not had time to think about Dudley’s night-time sortie, and what if anything he should do about it. Tony drank his tea and tucked the envelope into the back of his log book. There was only just time to shave before grabbing a piece of toast and going out into the cold, dew-sodden dawn.

Lucy read the note twice and pushed it back gently into its envelope. Reading these personal letters still made her feel intrusive and a little guilty. She must be the first person to see them since Tony. Obviously it had reached him, so presumably he had read it. But of course she couldn’t even be sure of that. Once more at home she was sitting at the table in the front room, nibbling a piece of toast. Behind her the kitchen door was closed. In the background the
Today
programme was on the radio. She glanced at her watch. In thirty-five minutes she would have to open up shop. That gave her time to read some more of the log book, trying to put together a sequence from the entries she found in it. Some entries were no more than the single word ‘sortie’ or ‘patrol’, some were far more detailed, but each made up a certain portion of Tony Anderson’s day and, day by day, took him through the last weeks of the Battle of Britain. Twice he noted almost sheepishly that he had shot down an enemy plane, his earlier excited reports now toned down and world-weary. She found another note, confirming that his friend Bill West had been shot down over the English Channel and the plane had not been recovered. His belongings had been quietly cleared away and Tony’s room in the Mess was now being shared by a chap called Peter Warrender, who seemed to be a good egg. Lucy smiled at the description. Was this the page from a letter Tony had been going to send to someone, and had forgotten to post? He often seemed to slot things into his log book. She wondered what his CO, Don Irving, had thought when every month the log book had been submitted for inspection. She examined the stamp, signed and dated. Perhaps it had been hard to get time alone to write letters. She could imagine Tony sitting on his bed in the small bedroom in the Mess when the call had come to hurry off and go back on duty; or perhaps he had just caved in to total exhaustion, pushing whatever letter he was writing inside the nearest safe place before collapsing back onto the pillow.

The trouble with the log book was that it contained nothing at all of his personal life except for these few scraps tucked so tightly in that they had become almost bound in with the other pages.

She turned to Evie’s diary for the corresponding month. Two more commissions had been received from the WAAC. Far from being overjoyed Evie seemed almost bitter in her scribbled entry.
No doubt Eddie has prevailed on them to give me this. Let them wait!
Lucy grimaced. Something was obviously wrong.

On the next page she had written:
. More bribes. Sketchbook. Paints. At least he hasn’t brought me any silk knickers this time.

Lucy laughed out loud. Presumably she was talking about Eddie and his heavy-handed efforts to encourage her to paint.

Then came another entry.

I was asked to go to Southampton last week to visit a factory and make sketches. While I was there the air raid warning sounded. I was in a shelter with dozens of women and children. It was hot and dusty and claustrophobic but we could feel the ground shaking round us as the bombs fell. It was horrible. When we came out the damage in the roads only two streets away was total. Houses flat. I could hear a woman screaming and screaming and screaming. It was awful. It made my stomach go all cold. I didn’t want to draw anything, it didn’t seem fair when so many people were suffering, too intrusive, too insensitive, but something made me do it. This is all I can do to help, after all. It’s silly to refuse to paint because it’s Eddie who wants me to. There are an awful lot of people at the WAAC who know more than him. If painting can help bring this war to an end in any way at all, I must do it. It is all I am fit for. I started on a big canvas today. It will be called, The End of the Street.

Lucy sat back thoughtfully. That was one of the paintings listed in the Imperial War Museum’s catalogue so presumably it still existed. She turned to her pile of books and references then shook her head. She could check it on line and probably download a copy of the picture later when she went to the gallery.

She reached for the log book again and then paused, looking up. Was that a sound from the kitchen? She turned in her chair and stared towards the door, holding her breath. All was silent.

‘Ralph?’ Her voice sounded husky as she called his name. ‘Is that you?’

Silence.

Outside a car drove down the street, its engine noisy, echoing between the walls of the houses. It emphasised the silence of the room. Lucy stood up. She took a deep breath, then she walked steadily into the kitchen. Crossing it she went to the studio door and pulled it open. The room was empty, tidy. Still.

‘Your father is not well, Evie.’ Rachel was skimming the top off the cream in the dairy. The milk was thin these days; she didn’t know how long it would be worth carrying on with the remaining cows. ‘I know you don’t mean to, but you worry him, darling. You must try and be a bit more considerate.’