The Blue Hour

Chapter 2

2

Sometimes when he looks at his wife, Becker’s heart feels too full for his chest, so brimming with blood that it aches. He has everything his heart desires and that terrifies him, because it means (it must mean, surely?) that he has everything to lose. This is why he’s so anxious these days, so high-strung. He’s been too lucky, he knows. He doesn’t deserve all this.

Helena has just about bypassed the bronze when she comes to an abrupt halt, turning her head to the left, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Something has caught her attention. Into this tableau sprints a pair of liver-and-white pointers, heralding the arrival of Lady Emmeline Lennox, brisk and determined, her carapace of silver hair turned platinum by the sun. Helena turns her body so that she is facing the older woman, and from Becker’s standpoint the silhouette of his wife’s belly is echoed by Emmeline’s pronounced dowager’s hump.

He cannot hear what they are saying, of course, nor can he see clearly the expressions on their faces, but there is no mistaking the viciousness with which Emmeline takes hold of Helena’s wrist, wrenching her unnaturally close. Becker raps sharply on the window: both women turn their heads in his direction. Hesitantly, Helena raises her free hand. Emmeline drops her other wrist and turns away.

‘Evil hag,’ Becker mutters. He glances over his shoulder to ensure no one has heard. That there is no love lost between himself and Sebastian’s mother is no secret, but it wouldn’t do to be caught badmouthing her. He considers running after Helena, to ask what’s been said, to make sure she’s all right, but he knows she won’t thank him for it. She can’t bear to be fussed over. And in any case, his phone is ringing again.

While he listens to a delivery man confirm details of a consignment of two acquisitions Sebastian has made for the foundation without so much as consulting him, Becker searches the internet, not for the first time, for articles about Vanessa Chapman’s husband, Julian Chapman.

No one’s had much to say about him for quite some time. The most recent substantial piece Becker can find was published in Tatler way back in 2009, a profile of Chapman’s younger sister, Isobel, the interview ostensibly granted with the aim of ‘putting Julian back in the public eye’, although Becker can’t help but notice that quite a bit of the article is taken up with the launch of Isobel’s interior design business. Still, there’s plenty of Julian in the first few paragraphs.

Talk to people about Julian Chapman and you’ll find the word devil crops up a lot. He was a handsome devil, he had a devil-may-care approach to life, he was in thrall to the devil on his shoulder. When I put this to Isobel Birch, she laughs. ‘Oh, that sounds about right,’ she says. ‘He could certainly be wicked.’ She pauses a moment. ‘But he was a devil who was loved. Everyone adored him.’

The grand piano in Birch’s immaculately restored Cotswolds pile is crowded with framed photographs, many of which feature Birch’s beloved big brother: there he is, kayaking off the coast of Cornwall, here he’s sharp-suited and Hollywood-handsome at Royal Ascot; in another he’s deeply tanned and laughing on horseback against a glorious savannah sunset.

Kenya, Isobel tells me. ‘Julian loved Africa. It appealed to his wild side. He and Celia [Gray, his lover] were making plans to move there, they’d found a plot where they wanted to build a house, they were so excited.’ Birch blinks away tears. ‘And then, in the space of less than a year, they were both gone.’

Gray was killed in a car accident in France on New Year’s Eve in 2001. Six months later, Chapman drove to the Scottish island of Eris to visit his estranged wife, the artist Vanessa Chapman. He never returned from the trip. Neither he nor his red Duetto Spider 1600 were ever found.

Seven years have passed since that fateful trip, sufficient time for Julian to be ‘presumed dead’. But Isobel has not lost hope. ‘I still get messages from people who say they’ve seen him; I’ve travelled all over the world – to France and Bulgaria and South Africa and Argentina – to follow up on leads.’ She shakes her head sadly. ‘I know it’s not likely. He loved us, and though he could be wicked, he wasn’t cruel. But I can’t give up hope. Until I have a body to bury, I won’t give up hope.’

When I ask about what she believes might have happened to Julian, Birch’s expression darkens. ‘We have no clear picture of his last movements. Vanessa claimed not to know anything – she supposedly wasn’t on the island when Julian left.’ Supposedly? Isobel shakes her head. ‘I can’t say anything more. What I do know is this: Vanessa never once called or wrote to find out how we – Julian’s family – were feeling in the weeks after he went missing. She didn’t seem to care about where he was.’ When I suggest that perhaps Vanessa was in shock, or grieving herself, she gives me a rueful smile. ‘Vanessa was never emotionally expressive. I don’t know what she felt, but I’d be surprised if it was grief. If anything, I think she was relieved to be rid of him.’

In the paragraphs that follow, the journalist speaks to various friends of Julian’s about him, and about Vanessa. These unnamed sources talk about Julian’s devilish sense of humour, his magnetism, his joie de vivre . They offer up anecdotes about running the bulls, climbing Ben Nevis, jumping off Magdalen Bridge on May morning. Vanessa is background noise: the beautiful wife. Talented, serious-minded, ambitious.

When the journalist raises Julian’s financial difficulties and (frequent) infidelities, his sister is dismissive.

‘I said he could be wicked, didn’t I? He wasn’t perfect. But he was the ultimate free spirit – he was funny and outrageous and never, ever boring. Everyone loved Julian. Everyone wanted to be around him.’ She pauses for a moment and then smiles, tears shining in her huge brown eyes. ‘Sorry, that’s not quite right – not everyone. Everyone except her.’