The Darkest Hour

by Barbara Erskine

  Huw stepped forward and cleared his throat. ‘That is probably where I come in.’ He raised a hand and made the sign of the cross. ‘I still don’t know if you believed in God in your lifetime, Eddie, but now will be a good time to find out the truth of our Lord’s mercy. You seem determined to haunt everyone you ever wronged and to be regarded as evil personified. It is for God to judge that. May God bless you, Eddie, and take you to himself so that you can release your attachment to this world. May you be forgiven for the harm you have done to your family. Leave your grandson Christopher and his family alone; leave Mike and Lucy alone. Step back and allow Tony here the memories of his love. Allow Evie her freedom at last.’ He paused, summoning a strength to his voice which he didn’t know he possessed. ‘Leave now, in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!’

  For a long time nothing happened. Eddie seemed frozen. Immobile, he was staring now at Evie, devouring her with his eyes.

  ‘Go, Eddie,’ Huw said quietly. ‘She is not yours and never was. You know it. We all know it.’

  For a moment Eddie reached out towards Evie. She didn’t appear to see him. Her eyes were fixed on Tony. Eddie’s hands clawed at her, pleading, trying to catch at her, to hold her. She ignored him.

  He stood for a while gazing at her and then at last he turned away. He stared for a moment at the portrait and raised his hand as though to strike it but his hand brushed though it without touching the paint. The shadowy figure that was Eddie was wavering, growing less distinct. His face was dissolving as they watched.

  ‘He’s going.’ Maggie mouthed the words silently.

  Oblivious now of what was happening to Eddie, Tony’s eyes were only for Evie as she stepped towards him and held out her arms. Dropping his walking stick he gave a small cry, and reached out for her. For several seconds they hugged one another, desperately clinging to each other, then slowly she began to fade and Tony was left alone. He staggered forward and almost fell, tears pouring down his face.

  Huw and Mike reached him together.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m all right. She’ll wait for me. I’ll see her again. She knows I have to have time to get to know you, my boy.’ He clung to Mike for a moment then painfully slowly he straightened and looked round for his stick. Lucy stooped and retrieved it for him, gently folding his hands over the handle. No one spoke for a long time.

  As a rumble of thunder in the east signalled the departure of the storm, the lights came back on. Tony managed a grin. ‘Life with my new family is obviously never going to be dull,’ he said. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Back in the cottage Mike lit the fire. As the storm had tracked away across the Downs the sky had cleared and the sun appeared out of the bank of cloud, sending shafts of warm light over the countryside. Lucy brought in the attaché case and opened it for Tony, putting it on a low table beside him near the fire. He picked up his letter to Evie with shaking hands and turned the envelope over and over.

  ‘I can’t believe she never got it. It never occurred to me. I suppose I was so afraid she was going to turn me down that when I didn’t hear from her that was what I assumed.’ He stroked the envelope sadly.

  In the kitchen Huw and Maggie were making a pot of tea. Lucy heard the sounds of washing up in the background but she couldn’t drag her eyes away from Tony’s face as he reached into the case and brought out the ring. Mike too was watching him. No one said anything for a long time. At last Tony looked up.

  ‘You should have this, Michael. If it had been your grandmother’s it would have been what she wanted. When you find the right girl you can give it to her.’ He glanced at Lucy and winked. She froze, feeling her cheeks colour with embarrassment, remembering all too clearly how she had clung to Mike out there in the studio, how right it had felt as he put his arms round her. It was several seconds before she dared to look at him. She found he was watching her in amusement.

  Tony chuckled. He reached for one of the diaries then he pushed it back into the case. ‘I think I will save these for tonight on my own. Do you mind?’ He climbed to his feet. ‘I need to speak to those two good souls in the kitchen. Excuse me for a minute or two, will you?’

  He disappeared into the kitchen closing the door behind him. Mike laughed. ‘The crafty old devil is leaving us alone.’

  Lucy nodded. She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I suppose it makes sense for us to get together one day, perhaps go out and have a meal?’ he said.

  ‘I would like that.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘What about Charlotte?’

  ‘Charlotte is no longer in my life. She threatened all sorts of mayhem when I last saw her but my spies tell me she has a new man in her sights. Whatever she said, I don’t think we need to worry about her.’ He leaned forward and took her hand. ‘It felt right, out there, with my arms round you.’

  She nodded again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you tried on the ring?’ His eyes were teasing.

  She laughed. ‘Of course. What woman wouldn’t when she finds a sapphire lying around in an old suitcase?’

  ‘Did it fit?’

  ‘It did actually, but, Mike –’

  ‘No, wait.’ He held up his hand. ‘I know we mustn’t rush things. But we haven’t any need to delay either. Just leave it like that.’ He moved forward and, putting his hands on either side of her face, kissed her on the lips. He grinned. ‘Shall we let them come back in now?’

  She nodded.

  It was Maggie, carrying in the tea tray, who noticed the young man in RAF uniform standing by the window, watching them. He was smiling. As the others turned to see what she was looking at he raised his hand and gave a thumbs up.

  ‘Ralph?’ Lucy said.

  But he had gone.

  A few minutes later they heard the throaty roar of the Spitfire engine in the distance. Throwing open the French windows Mike led them out into the garden. They were in time to see the plane perform a victory roll overhead before disappearing into the sunset.

  Epilogue

  Two years later

  Press Release

  The launch party for Evie: The Story of a Legend was held in a hangar at Goodwood aerodrome last night. In its former incarnation as RAF Westhampnett during World War Two the airfield was the subject of many of Evelyn Lucas’s paintings and the setting for some of the most dramatic scenes in her biography. Lucy Standish, author of this outstanding biography, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, was present, together with Michael Marston, Evelyn Lucas’s grandson and various other members of her family and Evie’s former fiancé, Squadron Leader Tony Anderson, ninety-seven-year-old subject of many of her pictures, the only surviving member of 911 Squadron, which was stationed at Westhampnett for the duration of the Battle of Britain.

  Postscript

  The book made no mention of murder.

  Author’s Note

  The chronology for Tony’s story and the framework for his career in the Battle of Britain come from my father’s experiences. He (a.k.a. Squadron Leader Nigel Rose) joined a Scottish auxiliary Spitfire squadron as a pilot officer in mid-1940. Briefly stationed at Drem, near Edinburgh, his squadron, 602, (City of Glasgow) was then sent to Westhampnett in West Sussex as the Battle of Britain was getting under way.

  I have been privileged to have the use of his log books and letters to form the frame for Tony’s time line, but of course the story itself is pure fiction. My dad did meet my mother only a week or so after arriving in Sussex. He is rumoured to have performed victory rolls over her parents’ garden after returning from successful sorties (legend has it that the gardener would throw himself down on the grass when dive bombed by my mother’s suitor with the laconic words, ‘Mr Nigel has made it back then’).

  I have also managed to extricate many stories of the kind not usually heard by the aficionados of the Battle of Britain from him over the last few months – the stories of everyday life, of sadness and of hardship as well as the tales of derring-d
o.

  The squadron was posted back to Scotland on December 13th and Daddy had already decided he had found his future wife. Luckily for me (born a few years later) she said yes. Many of the background storylines are taken from events that he was involved in, including his voyage to Egypt as security officer on the Britannic and the discovery of explosive strapped to the exhaust of his Spitfire, an action which was attributed to the fifth column at work on Clydeside. It was thought that one or two planes which had disappeared without any obvious reason on sorties over the sea might have been similarly sabotaged. My dad was lucky.

  I have met many of his colleagues from the war in the course of my life, but one especially, the late Sandy Johnstone (Air Vice Marshall A.V.R. Johnstone) became a close friend. From my days at university when he was AOC Scotland and took pity on a student obviously in need of a few square meals by sending an official car to drive me in state back over the Forth Bridge to lunch at his HQ, to the days of his retirement near us in Suffolk, we saw quite a bit of Sandy and I listened spellbound to the stories with which he regaled us when he and my dad ‘opened the hangar doors’ as they called it, often, of course, accompanied by a wee dram (it was a Scots squadron).

  Apart from that, my father, like so many of the men and women who fought in the last war, was reticent for many years about his exploits, and it has only been relatively recently with the various anniversaries of the Battle of Britain that he and some of his surviving comrades have been persuaded to talk about their experiences. It was as I began to hear more about them, and accompany him on his visits to the memorial events, and grow to recognise that inimitable roar of the Merlin engine for myself, that I began to think what a wonderful backdrop all that would make to a novel, and how it would be almost a sin to waste such an opportunity to write about it.

  Thank you to everyone who helped me with advice and memories and generous encouragement. There are so many but I would particularly like to mention Ronnie Lamont, committee member of the 602 Squadron Museum in Glasgow, who invented Tony’s and Ralph’s squadrons and was the source of much extra information, and Group Captain Patrick Tootal, honorary secretary of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association and the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust, who first suggested I write a novel about the B. of B. and then asked several times if I had done it yet – always a good lever to inspiration!

  Any mistakes and adjustments to fact (especially weather) are mine – sometimes I found it hard to fit the actual time line of the battle into the complications of my plot without a little tweaking of the dates. I hope this can be forgiven in the context of a novel. To write about such a thoroughly documented period is a challenge but I hope I have recreated the atmosphere and feel of the 1940s with sufficient accuracy to convince.

  A special mention also goes to my son, Jon, for his sterling work in the office and on my website, and for his last minute all-night read-through of the manuscript, which showed him to be a proofreader born and bred.

  Thanks as well, as always, are due to my agent, Carole Blake, and to my editors Kim Young, Susan Opie and Lucy Ferguson, and to all the wonderful people at HarperCollins. Their enthusiasm and support never ceases to be a huge bonus.

  Also by Barbara Erskine

  Lady of Hay

  Kingdom of Shadows

  Encounters (Short Stories)

  Child of the Phoenix

  Midnight is a Lonely Place

  House of Echoes

  Distant Voices (Short Stories)

  On the Edge of Darkness

  Whispers in the Sand

  Hiding from the Light

  Sands of Time (Short Stories)

  Daughters of Fire

  The Warrior’s Princess

  Time’s Legacy

  River of Destiny

  If you enjoyed this Barbara Erskine novel, why not try some of her previous bestselling titles?

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  History seems bound to ruthlessly repeat itself in The Lady of Hay, when tenacious journalist Jo Clifford undertakes a session of hypnotic regression. What unfolds is an eight hundred year-old tale of secret passion and brutal betrayal.

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  Copyright

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

  Copyright © Barbara Erskine 2014

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

  Cover images © Hazel McAllister/Alamy (swallow); Shutterstock.com (all other images)

  Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007513123

  Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007513147

  Version: 2014-05-12

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