The Darkest Hour (64 page)

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.

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.

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.’

Christopher felt himself go cold. His stomach had turned over with fear. He stood up abruptly. ‘Are you accusing me of something, Inspector? Should I be calling my solicitor?’

‘I am not accusing you of anything, Mr Marston. Not yet.’ Bill Pulman smiled. ‘Ponting is not what you might call a reliable witness at the best of times, but his accusations regarding yourself are, shall we say, interesting and very specific. He claims that Mr Standish was on his way to visit Professor Solomon with a valuable painting in the back of his car. He claims that you paid him, through an intermediary, to make sure that the painting never reached the professor. He hasn’t gone so far as to say that you paid him to murder Laurence Standish; he says that the crash was a mistake and a genuine accident. He claims he was trying to force the car to stop so that he could remove the painting and get rid of it. The painting was by your grandmother, Evelyn Lucas.’

There was a long silence. Christopher was about to speak when the inspector went on. ‘You assumed I had come about your father, Mr Marston. Uninitiated as we might be in artistic matters in the force, it did occur to us that it might be more than a coincidence that your father recently died violently, that another of your grandmother’s paintings was damaged and that it had been removed from the house in London by you.’

He waited, his head cocked to one side. Christopher steadied his breathing. ‘You are barking up the wrong tree, Inspector. That is all nonsense! Complete nonsense. I don’t understand –’ He swallowed hard. ‘For one thing, my father didn’t die violently. He had a heart attack –’ He stopped abruptly as the inspector shook his head slowly.

‘The post mortem has revealed certain anomalies, Mr Marston. I am afraid your father’s death is now being treated as suspicious.’

Christopher shook his head violently. ‘No. No, it can’t be. No one would hurt my father. No one. Unless –’ He stopped again. ‘Have you questioned Lucy Standish? She had just seen my father that day. She had every reason to be angry with our family.’

‘Oh? Why exactly?’ The sergeant held his gaze. ‘Because she thought you had killed her husband, you mean?’

‘No! No, I do not mean that!’ Christopher stared icily from one man to the other. ‘This is all complete nonsense. How dare you suggest I had anything to do with any of this?’

Pulman stood up slowly and his colleague followed suit. ‘We are not suggesting anything beyond telling you what the driver of the car which killed Standish told us, sir,’ Pulman said slowly. ‘I am sure you have an alibi for the evening your father died, and I am sure we would find it very hard to prove that you were acquainted with Ponting, but we will be looking into both matters. We’ll leave you now, but I should warn you we will probably be talking to you again. Sir.’ The final Sir was emphasised just enough to make it chilling.

Christopher stood in the doorway watching as the two men climbed back into their car and turned it on the gravel before disappearing down the drive. It was several minutes before he went back into the silent house, closed the front door and, with a nervous glance up the staircase towards the rest of the empty house, proceeded to pour himself a large whisky.

Stashing the incriminating attaché case in a dark corner of the passageway just inside the front door, Mike quietly pushed open the door into his sitting room. The lamp on the table was lit and Charlotte was standing with her back to the fireplace, arms folded as she waited for him. He stared at her, shocked at the sight of her. Her hair was tangled, her face devoid of make-up, her jeans and shirt unironed.

‘You’ve been a long time,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to be waiting for me.’ He kept his voice calm.

‘Where were you?’

‘I don’t think that is any of your business.’ He walked over to the bookcase and turned on another light. ‘Please, Charlotte. It’s late and I am tired. I don’t think there is any point in us going over things again, do you?’ He could see her hands shaking.

‘You love me, Michael,’ she said.

He sighed. ‘No, Charlotte, I don’t. You and I had a lovely time together but it didn’t work out. I am sorry. These things happen.’

‘You told me we were going to marry.’

‘No!’ His voice sharpened. ‘No, I never said that. I never gave marriage a thought, Charlotte. I am sorry. I am not ready to marry anyone.’

‘Except Lucy Standish.’

He shook his head in despair. ‘I don’t know where you have got this idea from. I have no intention of marrying Lucy. Or of having an affair with her. Or anything, as you would know if you paused to give it half a second’s thought. Charlotte, give this up, please, for both our sakes. You’re a lovely woman. You will find the right man. I am not marriage material, truly.’

‘But you are.’ There were tears running down her cheeks.

‘No. I’m not. And I don’t want to be. Now please. Go home.’

‘I bought some things for your house. I was going to make it nice for you.’

‘Charlotte, for God’s sake. You tried to burn the place down!’ Finally he was losing patience. ‘Go. Now.’

She gave a miserable little smile. ‘I could burn this down.’

‘Yes, and I could call the police. I want the key. Now please. I thought you had given it to me.’

She sat down abruptly on the arm of one of the chairs. ‘I had copies made. Lots of copies.’

‘Very well. I will have to have the locks changed. Please leave, Charlotte.’

‘You’ve got my key.’

He felt a twinge of guilt. ‘Yes, true, and I was going to post it back to you.’ He had the presence of mind not to pull it out of his pocket. ‘I’ll find it for you and then I want you to go.’ He walked over to the desk and pulled out one of the drawers.

‘It’s not in there. I looked.’ She shivered.

He scanned the desk hurriedly. ‘So, have you taken anything?’

‘Why would I?’

Because you are a manipulative, devious bitch. He managed to stop himself from saying it. ‘Why indeed?’

She staggered to her feet. ‘I could call the police. Tell them you have molested me, kept me here against my will.’

He laughed. ‘They would find that hard to believe, I suspect, when I beg them on my knees to take you away.’