The Darkest Hour. Barbara Erskine

He followed her gaze.

      ‘I borrowed it. Brilliant little runabout. 1927 Morris Cowley. Chap at the base wants six quid for her. If I buy her I’ll take you for a ride. If you’re good.’ He sighed. ‘So, I’d best be going. The last couple of mornings they’ve been calling us at four a.m. Thanks, Evie.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. Before she could turn away he had bent to kiss her lightly on the lips, then he was sprinting towards the car. She saw him pack the drawing away carefully then he made his way to the front and bent to the starting handle. The engine caught almost at once and he vaulted into the driving seat.

      The blacked out headlights barely gave him any light to see by at all as he reversed and turned before heading down the lane.

      She put her fingers to her mouth, staring after him. The touch of his lips had sent a shockwave through her system which had for a moment left her incapable of coherent thought.

       6

      

      Friday 12th July

      ‘I thought you weren’t coming down this weekend.’ Dolly had opened the door to Mike with a duster still in her hand. It was four o’clock on Friday afternoon.

      ‘Charlotte had to cancel our trip abroad. She was summoned to some sort of conference she couldn’t get out of. It’s a shame but we’re rescheduling our break.’ Mike dropped his briefcase and holdall and looked round. ‘Is Lucy Standish here? I didn’t see her car in the lane. I thought this would be a good chance to talk to her and see how she is getting on.’

      Dolly frowned. ‘She couldn’t come today. There was some auction she had to go to, apparently.’

      ‘Ah.’ Mike couldn’t hide his disappointment. ‘So, what do you think of her so far?’

      ‘She seemed nice enough.’ Dolly was guarded. ‘All she did was rearrange the boxes and poke around in some of them.’

      ‘I don’t suppose she had time to do much.’

      Dolly sucked her teeth. ‘Maybe she saw enough to realise there is not much of value here.’

      Mike looked at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Just that you mustn’t forget that she is a dealer.’

      ‘You don’t believe she is writing a book? You think she had an ulterior motive?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ Dolly gave an expressive sigh. ‘She didn’t bring anything to write on, as far as I could see.’

      Mike studied her face for a moment. ‘Maybe I should ring her.’

      He waited until Dolly had gone home then pulled Lucy’s card out of his wallet and reached for his mobile as he wandered out into the garden.

      ‘I was sorry to miss seeing you,’ he said when she answered at last. ‘My housekeeper said you had to go to an auction today.’

      ‘Yes. Such a nuisance. There was nothing I could do.’ Lucy sounded flustered. She was in fact juggling her phone as she tried to unlock her car door, three carefully wrapped paintings one of which was quite large, under her arm. With relief she got the door open and slid the pictures behind the seat, dropping her bag into the footwell. ‘Sorry. That’s better. I hadn’t realised I would only be able to come on Tuesdays and Fridays. That is going to slow up my research quite a bit.’

      ‘I don’t suppose you would have time to come over tomorrow?’ Mike was grinning to himself. So Dolly planned to keep an eye on everything personally. He had never said that Lucy couldn’t come on any other days. He grimaced. Was that naïve of him? Perhaps Dolly was right and he shouldn’t be so trusting. Before tomorrow he would do what he should have done in the first place when she first got in touch. He would do some research of his own on line and find out some more about Mrs Lucy Standish. He brought his attention back to what she was saying.

      ‘I’ll come early, if that’s all right.’

      It was only when he had switched off the phone that he wondered how early early was.

      She was there just before nine. She was still wearing jeans but this time she had on a pretty deep red blouse and her hair was loose on her shoulders. She followed him into the kitchen and sat down obediently at the table while he made coffee.

      ‘I must apologise for not being here on Tuesday,’ he said. ‘As I told you, I work most of the time in London. I left it to Dolly to make you welcome. I hope she wasn’t too ferocious?’ He pushed a mug towards her and sat down on the other side of the small table. His eyes, she noticed, were shrewd and steady as they focused on her face. This time he was dressed informally in jeans and a black T-shirt. The clothes suited him much better, she decided. He looked less intimidating and more approachable.

      ‘I don’t think she entirely trusts me,’ she said ruefully. ‘She kept popping back to check what I was up to. And fair enough. She cares a great deal about Evelyn.’

      ‘She felt that as a writer you should have brought writing materials. It caused some suspicion that you were not laden with notebooks and a quill pen.’ Her gallery was well respected, he had discovered. She had a degree in art history and her husband had been killed in an horrendous car crash nearly four months before.

      She gave a snort of laughter. ‘That never occurred to me. True, but not quite accurate. In there,’ she indicated the tote she had dropped beside her on the floor, ‘I have a laptop. I didn’t get round to taking it out on Tuesday. I had just about sorted out how I was going to start categorising stuff when she said I had to go.’

      ‘She chased you out?’

      ‘Only because she was leaving herself.’ Lucy laughed again. ‘I suspect she thought I was after the family silver. Is that why she sent for you?’

      He shook his head. He liked the way she laughed. Her face mobile, humorous, not classically beautiful like Charlotte, but elegant, her cheekbones emphasised by the way she tucked her hair back behind her ears as though she wasn’t used to wearing it loose. She didn’t look so exhausted and sad today; her eyes were brighter.

      ‘You were at an auction yesterday, I gather.’

      She nodded. ‘Guilty as charged, but I promise I wasn’t fencing stolen goods. I was buying for my gallery.’

      ‘Did you find anything?’

      She nodded. ‘It was hard enough to find time to hunt for stock when Larry was alive. Larry was my husband.’ Her eyes dimmed as he saw the sadness cross her face. ‘Robin doesn’t know enough to be a buyer,’ she went on. ‘Robin Cassell, he is my assistant. He’s looking after the place today so I can come here. Opening on Saturdays is another problem for us but it is often our best day so we have to manage somehow.’

      ‘Ah.’

      ‘No.’ The gurgle of laughter again. ‘Whatever Mrs Davis thinks, I am not here to beg, borrow, buy or steal any of Evelyn’s work. Far from it. The gallery was Larry’s. I am not even sure I want to keep it going.’ She stopped as though surprised by what she had said.

      Mike was still watching her steadily and she was beginning to find it a bit disconcerting. She was talking too much but somehow she couldn’t stop. ‘My dream was to be a writer; a biographer and we both had this interest in Evelyn as a Sussex painter. I abandoned the idea after he died but then the grant came through and I felt I had to honour our dream.’ Her voice faded and she sat staring down into the coffee mug. ‘Maybe I can’t do both. I don’t know.’ She looked up and saw he was still watching her. ‘Sorry. Not your problem.’

      ‘Unless you give