The Darkest Hour. Barbara Erskine

think it is me he wants to talk to. It’s to do with the picture, isn’t it? Even if he’s not in it.’

      ‘Did you tell the guy at Rosebank what you had seen?’

      She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t the right moment.’

      ‘Why not? Presumably Ralph was his uncle.’

      ‘Great-uncle.’ Lucy nodded.

      ‘For all you know he haunts him as well.’

      ‘No. I asked him that.’

      The two men looked at each other again. ‘Ah, so it is just you he haunts?’ Phil said.

      ‘Looks like it.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘Great, isn’t it?’

      ‘He’s not trying to scare you, though. He definitely wants to tell you something.’

      ‘That’s if you assume “he”,’ Robin hooked his two forefingers in the air to convey the inverted commas, ‘is anything at all.’

      Phil and Lucy turned towards him. He bent over the cooker and flipped a rasher of bacon over in the pan. ‘Lucy was the one who said she was hallucinating,’ Robin protested. ‘This does all seem a bit far-fetched, you must admit.’

      ‘Lucy thinks he’s real,’ Phil said.

      ‘No I don’t,’ Lucy wailed. ‘Or at least, yes I do. What does real mean, anyway?’

      ‘OK. Stop the conversation right there.’ Robin put down the spoon and clapped his hands. ‘Food is ready. This, Lucy, is our once a month treat, a reward for all that healthy porridge we have for breakfast the rest of the time, so I want no arguments. You eat what is put in front of you, right, my darling? Sit down guys and girls and let us eat. Our brains will work much better on full tummies!’

      Lucy laughed. ‘We are sitting down. Hadn’t you noticed?’

      ‘Good.’ Robin hefted the pan onto the table. ‘Help yourselves. Bacon, egg, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast is on its way. Coffee, more Pimm’s.’ He sat down opposite them. ‘Three cheers for the cook?’

      ‘Definitely.’ Phil loaded a plate from the pan and put it down in front of Lucy. ‘I bet you didn’t have any supper last night.’

      ‘No, as a matter of fact.’ She had said he wasn’t frightening, and he wasn’t. But something was. She thought back for a moment to the cold terror which had gripped her as she closed the door on the studio. She had gone through into the living room and huddled on the sofa hugging a cushion until she had fallen into an uneasy sleep.

      ‘There is one thing, though,’ she picked up her knife and fork, ‘he never moves. He doesn’t smile. He is just – there. I feel he can see me, but thinking about it, I wonder if he can. I think I am just someone in front of him. I tried to convince myself last night that, even if he is not in it, he is a part of the portrait. Like the smell of oil and turpentine would be if it was new. Did he attach himself to it in some way when it was being painted? Is he no more than a shadow stuck on the paint before it dried?’

      There was a long moment of silence. ‘That sounds desperately sad,’ Robin said at last. ‘I think I would rather he was a proper ghost.’

      ‘But you don’t have to live with him,’ she retorted tartly.

      ‘True.’ Robin climbed to his feet as the toaster on the worktop regurgitated four slices of toast, evenly browned. He juggled one onto each of their plates and tossed the spare piece into the pan.

      ‘I still think you need to see someone about this,’ Phil said. He reached for the marmalade and spread a large spoonful on his toast.

      The other two stared aghast. ‘You can’t have marmalade with bacon,’ Robin said after another second’s pause.

      ‘Why not? The Americans do. It’s fantastic. Try it.’ Phil dug the spoon into the jar and homed in on Robin’s plate.

      ‘No way!’ Robin pulled it out of the way. ‘That is grounds for divorce.’

      Phil laughed. ‘Fair enough.’ He dropped the spoon back in the jar and glanced at Lucy. ‘Honestly. I think you need to talk this through with someone who knows about this sort of thing. For all sorts of reasons.’

      She reached for the coffee pot. ‘Because of Larry, you mean? But it isn’t Larry, is it? I wish so much it was.’ She poured herself a cup of coffee and sipped it slowly, her face suddenly once more a picture of misery.

      Robin leaned forward and touched the back of her hand lightly. ‘He’s at peace now, Luce. Let it be. This other guy isn’t. Presumably. If he is a ghost.’ He leaned over and turned on the radio. ‘Right, change of subject. I want to see that food eaten after all my hard work. I don’t want to see you languishing away into nothing.’ He gave Phil a wink. ‘And that goes for you, too.’

      It was after four when Lucy finally returned to the gallery. It had been hard leaving the warmth and friendship of the little house in Lion Street. She felt secure there and cosseted, but she had to get back. She walked upstairs and went straight to the studio door, pushing it open. The room was full of sunlight, the painting as she had left it, Evie and the young man behind her untouched. There was no sign of Ralph. She stood for a moment, waiting, before turning her back and walking through into the living room leaving the door open behind her.

      The sheaf of papers she had smuggled out of Rosebank Cottage lay on the table by the window. Drawing up a chair she sat down and began to read through Evie’s notes again, slowly and carefully this time, scrutinising every word.

      Almost every page seemed to be the core of a separate letter. Lucy suspected Evie found letter writing difficult. She was anxious to get the wording right, often feeling she had committed herself to something she had not intended and reworking the letter until it became bland and characterless. The only one that spread to more than a page was the first she had looked at, which she found, once she had sorted them, extended over nearly three pages of foolscap. It was infuriating not to know who Evie was writing to. She sat back and sighed. Perhaps there were more letters like this one back at the studio waiting to be unearthed.

      It took an hour to scan all the pages into the computer downstairs, before placing them in a brown envelope ready to return them to Rosebank. She wondered how she was going to categorise everything she found. It had been stupid to worry about taking the papers away. How else was she going to sort them and write a book? Dolly Davis might not trust her but obviously Mike did.

      Switching off the scanner she stood up, the envelope in her hand, deep in thought. Liaising with Mike wasn’t quite that easy, though, was it? However friendly he had been yesterday at the studio and over lunch, which he had paid for, not allowing her to contribute anything, she had the feeling he was holding her at arm’s length. He was charming and attractive, no doubt about that, but there was something reserved about him. Her instincts were usually fairly good about people and she kept coming back to the unease she had felt when they had said goodbye. He had said he would be back in time for supper and asked her to stay but she had the feeling he didn’t mean it. He had expressed worry about her driving through the storm, but she was sure he didn’t actually want her to stay too long. Was it that he was afraid of what his girlfriend would say when she heard he had been spending time with another woman? Hardly. Surely it was obvious to everyone she was not, never would be, in the market for a relationship. Not after losing Larry. So it had to be to do with the research into Evie. But if he didn’t want her to do it all he had to do was say so. Again the words of his caveat came into her head:

       If we had anything to hide … I wouldn’t let you within a mile.

      Did what she had just read hint at some kind of secret or was it merely a spat with a local tradesman?

      But then again, Mike had invited her to use the cottage. He had given her a key. She could go there whenever she wanted. Not the actions of a man with