The Darkest Hour (55 page)

‘Still no sketchbooks?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But Mr Christopher rang me last night at home. He wanted to know where Lucy was.’

‘What did you say?’ Mike felt an undercurrent of worry wash through him.

‘I told him I hadn’t seen her for a while and had no reason to think there was anything left here for her to interest herself in.’

‘Good for you.’ Mike gave her a conspiratorial grin. ‘And is there?’ He indicated the piles of things on the table.

‘There is quite a lot of personal stuff there, Mr Mike. I’m just not sure how much she wants to know about the family.’

‘Everything. I thought we had agreed on that.’

Dolly frowned. ‘You might not want her to see everything here.’

‘Really?’ Mike reached forward and pulled a shoebox towards him. ‘What sort of things?’ He took the lid off and looked inside. The box was full of bits of lace and feathers.

Dolly laughed. ‘Trimmings for hats. I reckon Evie must have made her own. After the war when she started having exhibitions in London she would have worn hats.’

Mike picked out a cockade of black feathers. ‘These are lovely.’

‘Funereal.’ Dolly’s mouth turned down.

She pushed back the stool and stood up with a groan. ‘Last time I saw Lucy she gave me a copy of what she calls her time line, with the family tree. Did she give you one?’

Mike sighed, hiding another twinge of hurt that yet again she had shown how little she trusted him. ‘She probably thought I knew it all.’

‘Maybe. Well, take a look and see if you can improve on it. That’s what she told me to do. She said I was to write on it and cross it out, anything I wanted, as we made our way towards the truth.’ She held his gaze. ‘That’s what she wants. The truth.’

Mike frowned. ‘And don’t we want the same?’

‘Perhaps.’ She pushed a transparent folder towards him. He opened it and scrutinised the photocopy with its small neat writing, some appearing to have been inked, some pencilled. He recognised Dolly’s carefully inscribed rounded hand in some of the amendments and Lucy’s own scribbles where she had changed her mind.

‘My goodness. She’s made a list of Evie’s exhibitions as well.’

Dolly nodded.

‘It’s really coming together, isn’t it?’ He gave Dolly another cautious glance. ‘So what is bothering you?’

‘She’s getting too close.’

‘To what?’

Dolly walked across to the window and stared out into the garden. ‘I don’t know. That is what Mr Christopher said. She is getting too close and she has to be stopped.’

Evie awoke, lying in a haze of pain and fear. How long she had been like that she didn’t know. As she drifted back to consciousness she realised that Johnny was lying with her, wrapped in her arms. The little boy was crying quietly.

‘Johnny,’ she whispered.

He snuggled closer.

‘Johnny, darling, I want you to go downstairs and fetch Granny. Can you do that for me?’

She felt him shake his head.

‘Please, Johnny.’ She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘I need to see Granny. Will you be a very big grown-up boy and see if she is in the kitchen?’ She prayed quietly that her mother had come home. Moving slightly she became aware of a wet stickiness beneath her and realised she was lying in a pool of blood. She closed her eyes with a sob. She didn’t need to be told she was losing the baby.

Carefully she pushed Johnny away from her. ‘Stand up, darling. Be a good boy. Is Granny downstairs?’

He nodded.

‘Did you hear her come in? Can you call her for me? Tell her Mummy isn’t very well.’ She was trying to speak calmly.

He still clung to her for a few more moments and then he seemed to understand finally what she wanted. He ran towards the door and pulled at the handle. For one terrible moment she thought Eddie had locked her in, but the door opened and Johnny disappeared. She heard him talking to himself as he went downstairs. ‘Call Granny. Call Granny. Come see Mummy.’

For a long time she heard nothing then at last she heard her mother’s anxious steps on the stairs. ‘Evie? What’s happened?’

After that there was a blur of activity. Somehow Rachel managed to help Evie onto the bed; Johnny was dispatched downstairs to Dudley’s care, the doctor was called, then Eddie.

Evie said nothing. She had fallen, she said, that was all.

Ollie did not like his sister coming into his bedroom but she had arrived before he could lock the door. She looked round with an expression of disgust.

‘Don’t you ever get this room cleaned?’ She didn’t wait for his reply. ‘What is going on with Dad?’

He took off his headphones with reluctance and laid them on the desk. ‘Him and Mum, you mean?’

She shook her head. ’That’s nothing new. Mum has to learn to stick up for herself. She’s a complete nerd when it comes to understanding men.’

Ollie snorted. ‘And you’re the expert, I suppose.’

She nodded without a trace of humour. ‘I’ve got him here, like this.’ She waggled her little finger.

Ollie sneered. ‘So, what do you mean, then?’

‘When you went to London with him to Grandfather’s house. Something happened there.’

‘Well, duh, yes.’ He loaded the words with sarcasm. ‘We brought all the loot back.’

‘And stashed it in the attic?’

He nodded, getting bored.

‘Well, it’s gone.’

Ollie’s eyes flew open. ‘Gone?’

She nodded. ‘I went up there just now. The place is as empty as it was before. Just junk. There are no pictures there now.’

Ollie gave a silent whistle. ‘I wonder where he’s put them. Dad saw something up there. He was freaked by it.’ Ollie frowned. ‘There is something really weird going on. Not just Dad being a dickhead as usual, something sinister. Do you reckon Evie’s pictures are worth millions?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I think they must be. You know what he’s like about money. I heard him talking to Mum about Mike at Rosebank Cottage. He thinks there is more stuff there which he missed when he went there to collect everything. You would think he’s got enough, but he obviously wants to get his hands on it.’ Hannah sat down on the floor and drew her legs up under her. ‘I don’t think our father is an awfully nice man,’ she said thoughtfully.

Ollie was startled. ‘I thought you worshipped him.’

Hannah gave an angelic smile. ‘His wallet, maybe.’

Ollie laughed. ‘I’m surprised you’ve even seen it.’ He sat down and leaned towards her. ‘Mum is really frightened of him. I think she ought to leave him.’

Hannah looked thoughtful, then she nodded. ‘Where would she go?’

‘Back to Granny and Grandpa in Scotland. She would be safe there. Grandpa wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He adores her. Men always adore their daughters.’ He looked resigned. ‘That’s why you can get away with being such a cow sometimes.’

Hannah giggled. ‘He didn’t let me see the pictures though. He wouldn’t go back up there and by the time I got the chance they had gone. He came in to see me when he had just come down the stairs. He was white and kind of shaky. He asked me if I believe in ghosts.’

‘What did you say?’ Ollie was curious in spite of himself.

‘I’m not sure I answered. I’m not sure if I do. He said it was a young man in RAF uniform and we thought it was Uncle Ralph. But why would he be frightened of Uncle Ralph?’

‘I would have thought that was obvious. Because he was a ghost!’

‘And why is he haunting us suddenly?’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Not us. We haven’t seen him. He’s haunting Father.’

‘So, has Father stolen those pictures?’ Hannah was picking her nails. She asked the question casually without looking up at him.

Slowly Ollie nodded. ‘I think he has. I think Grandfather left them to the National Gallery or somewhere. Dad said if they wanted them then they could pay for them.’

‘Money as always.’ She sounded disgusted.

He nodded again. They both sat in silence for a while, gazing gloomily into space.

‘Pity we have to go away to school,’ Ollie said suddenly. ‘I vote we insist we stay for Grandfather’s funeral. After all, they must give compassionate leave or something after a family member has been murdered.’

‘Murdered?’ Hannah looked at him in horror.

‘Maybe.’

‘So, what do we do?’ Hannah said after a while.

‘Nothing.’ he said after another silence. ‘Just wait. Maybe have a word with Mum. Something will happen. It always does.’

Lavinia had been a scout for Eddie for years, working for him even before the war, and continuing after it started, looking for paintings and pieces of furniture which he acquired at discount prices from people desperate for cash in war-strapped England and stashed away in a warehouse where they could wait until the prices began to rise again. It was too early yet, but soon the war would end and he was quietly confident that not long after it happened the markets would begin to rise. When they did he would be sitting on a fortune.

Lavinia was standing at the window waiting for him when he drew up outside the Arundel house. She watched as he climbed out of the car, chewing her lips with nerves. He looked remarkably pleased with himself, his hat just that little bit to one side as he always wore it, his greatcoat hanging open just enough to give him a swagger. He glanced round as he opened the gate and walked up her drive and only then seemed to notice that she was standing in the window. He raised a hand.

She met him in the doorway and raised her face for a kiss. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said, forgetting her resolution not to nag him.

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Busy, busy,’ he said airily. ‘You know how it is. So, darling girl, what have you got for me?’ He bounded ahead of her into her front room. On the ground floor, it looked out onto the rose garden at the back, blighted now by the stormy weather, and if one stood to one side of the chair carefully placed in a small bay to make the most of the view, one could see the castle, magnificent in the evening sunlight.

Lavinia looked at him, trying to judge the right moment to spring her surprise and for the first time noticed how tired he appeared. ‘What’s up, love?’ She went over to the tray on the sideboard and reached for the gin bottle. ‘Do you want one?’

He shook his head and sat down on the chair.

She put the bottle down nervously. Perching on another chair opposite him she waited, aware that something bad must have happened.

‘It’s Evie,’ he said at last.

Lavinia scowled. She had no desire to hear about his wife. ‘What’s up with her?’ she asked coldly.

‘She was expecting a baby. Mine. She lost it.’

Lavinia went white. ‘What happened?’

He shook his head. ‘Some sort of woman’s problem. Who knows? The doc thought she might die.’ His bravado had suddenly gone. ‘My son.’ He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

‘Oh, Eddie I am so sorry.’ Lavinia was struck dumb for a moment before she pulled herself together and asked, ‘But she can have more, right?’

She fixed her eyes on his face.

He shook his head slowly. ‘Unlikely. She’s been very ill.’

‘I’m so sorry, love. But at least you’ve got little Johnny.’

Eddie’s face hardened. ‘At least I’ve got little Johnny,’ he repeated bitterly.

In the end she thought it better not to tell him her secret. It could wait.

‘We wanted to talk about the ghosts,’ Maggie announced as she and Huw sat down in the living room at Rosebank and, at Mike’s invitation, took the role of mother, and poured coffee into Evie’s old porcelain cups. They were freckled with hairline cracks and chips, but still extraordinarily pretty. Mike had only just managed to rescue them from Charlotte’s desire to bin them.

‘Ghosts?’ Mike stared at his guests in astonishment.

‘Ah.’ Maggie glanced at her husband. ‘Lucy hasn’t mentioned them to you?’

She pictured herself and Huw as viewed through his eyes. Elderly couple, bit scatty, clergyman with wild hair. Not a good image!

Mike was waiting for them to go on.

‘The ghost of your great-uncle, Ralph Lucas,’ Huw put in.

‘Ah. Yes. I do know about that. My dad always claimed Ralph was trying to contact him. When he was a little boy at Box Wood Farm where my grandparents lived when they were first married – with Evie’s mother and father, and then I think all through his life. It was a bit spooky. I was scared by his stories and I think my mother told him to stop talking about it.’

‘Lucy has seen him too, Mike.’ Maggie leaned forward and put her hand on his arm. ‘He has been seen several times at her gallery in Chichester.’

‘I see.’ Mike looked cautiously from one to the other. ‘So, we believe in ghosts, do we? I know she is finding out lots of stuff from all the papers she has found here. She hasn’t necessarily had time to keep me updated on everything.’

‘I suspect she is finding the research rather overwhelming,’ Maggie said gently. ‘She has certainly been very busy writing.’

‘You mentioned ghosts in the plural,’ Mike said. ‘Assuming there are such things, do we know who the other ghosts are?’