Читать книгу The Darkest Hour - Barbara Erskine - Страница 19

‘I can’t find her card.’ Mike Marston was rummaging through the pile of post and papers on the kitchen table at Rosebank Cottage.

‘Whose?’ Charlotte was arranging some flowers in a blue pottery vase.

‘The woman who wants to write about Evie. She gave me her card. God, what was her name? Why do I keep forgetting it?’ He lifted a pile of magazines off a chair and looked under it. ‘I hope Dolly hasn’t thrown it out.’

‘Dolly never throws anything out,’ Charlotte commented tartly. ‘If she did we might have a bit more room.’ She rammed a vivid blue stem of delphinium into the vase.

Mike stood up and watched her for a moment, amused. ‘You don’t have to attack the poor flowers. You’ll find they surrender quite easily if you push them in gently.’

She swore under her breath. ‘They might surrender to you. They are out to get me! I am not the domesticated type, or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘I’d noticed.’ He laughed.

She glanced up at him suspiciously. ‘You sounded as though you meant that.’

‘I did.’

There was a split second’s silence. He reached over and touched her hand. ‘I don’t go out with you for your domestic skills, Charley, and you know it!’ He caught her fingers as she reached for a rose and swore. ‘You can snip off the thorns, you know. Then you won’t get pricked.’

She sighed. ‘So, who taught you that? I know. Don’t tell me. Evie. Right?’

He gave a rueful nod. ‘She loved flowers.’

She found the card on the dresser propped against a jar of peppercorns and for a moment she held it in her hand, staring down at it, studying the small sketch of the shop front, the elegant italic script, the name The Standish Gallery, and on the back the name, hand-scrawled in ballpoint. Lucy Standish. Her brow was furrowed in thought. He was looking the other way. She could drop it down the back of the line of old cookery books and it would be gone forever. She pictured the woman’s shadowed, melancholy face and straight dark hair and gave a small satisfied smile. Was there any danger? None at all.

‘Mike.’

He looked up and she held out her hand. He grinned and took the card. ‘Glad one of us is organised.’ He reached for the phone. She watched as he waited for the call to connect and registered by the slight slump of his shoulders that it had gone to voicemail.

‘Hello Mrs –’ He paused and looked at the card. Then he turned it over to where she had written her name on the back. ‘Mrs Standish, this is Mike Marston. I’ve been thinking about our discussion the other day and I was wondering if you would like to come over here again so we can work out some modus operandi. I’m sorry for the delay in contacting you. I’ve been rather busy.’ He looked at Charlotte and winked. ‘Give me a call. You have my number here.’ He hung up.

‘Have you given her your mobile number as well?’ Charlotte queried.

‘No. She rang the house when she first got in touch. Better that way, then she can speak to Dolly.’ He stood for a moment looking round the kitchen. ‘Your idea of putting Evie’s stuff in the studio will take an awful long time. Hadn’t we better make a start?’

He walked through into the sitting room and surveyed it rather hopelessly. ‘There is such a lot. I don’t know where to begin.’

‘Why not leave it to Dolly and me?’ Charlotte brought in her vase of flowers and put them down on a side table. She stood back to admire the effect. ‘We could go to the supermarket now and collect some cardboard boxes. In fact, after this weekend, why don’t we leave the whole thing to Dolly, then as you suggested Mrs Standish can come over during the week when we’re not here? We don’t want to waste our precious weekends.’ She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and carefully blotted a drop of water which had fallen onto the table from the rose petals. ‘You have told Dolly what you plan to do?’

‘Well,’ he hesitated.

‘Oh, Mike!’

‘I did hint at it, just to test out her reaction.’

‘And what did she say?’

Mike gave a rueful smile. ‘Quite a lot, actually.’