Next of Kin

by John Boyne

  ‘Very nice, I suppose,’ he muttered and Montignac shook his head.

  ‘This is wasted on you,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how lucky you are to be seeing these so close-up. But I can see you’re entirely disinterested. All right,’ he said, giving in to commerce over art. ‘Do you have the measuring tape?’

  Gareth nodded and took the tape from his pocket as Montignac removed a pad and pencil from his own.

  ‘All right,’ said Gareth, measuring the first picture beside him. ‘Picture of a boy looking at a skull.’

  ‘That’s Jeune Homme à la Tête de Mort,’ said Montignac irritably.

  ‘Fifty-one and a quarter inches vertical by…’ He turned the tape lengthwise. ‘By thirty-eight and a quarter inches horizontal.’

  Montignac made a note of it as Gareth moved on to the next one.

  ‘A bunch of naked women,’ said Gareth distastefully and Montignac peered closer at it.

  ‘I think that’s Les Grandes Baigneuses,’ said Montignac. ‘Isn’t it?’ he asked, rhetorically.

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘It can be difficult to separate the bathers’ pictures.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I think it’s Les Grandes Baigneuses, though. We’ll say it is.’

  ‘Well whatever it is it’s ninety-eight inches horizontal by eighty-two inches vertical.’

  This carried on until all twelve paintings were measured and double-checked and Montignac put the pad back in his pocket and nodded, satisfied. ‘Arthur Hamilton keeps the place so clean,’ he said, impressed with the immaculate condition of the floor beneath them. ‘Perhaps I should start using our storerooms to better effect.’

  ‘Can you worry about that another time?’ asked Gareth, who was starting to grow anxious now that the initial adrenalin rush was wearing off.

  ‘Of course,’ said Montignac, helping him up into the gap above the ceiling again. ‘You’ll have to reach down to pull me up,’ he said. ‘And let’s hope the ceiling holds us both.’

  It did, creaking only slightly beneath their combined weights, and they replaced the panel and made their way back through the dark and dusty corridor and out to the Threadbare Gallery, where Montignac closed off the ceiling once again. Observing it from a distance and then close-up it looked as if it had never been touched at all.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said, turning to smile at his accomplice. ‘That’s the first part over with anyway. But we only have three days now so we have to get it right.’ He looked at his watch. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We better go home. We’ll start work tomorrow morning on the frames. I’ll copy the list of the measurements for you overnight.’ He hesitated before going on. ‘You’re sure you’re prepared for this, Gareth, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘Because once we begin there’s no going back.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Gareth, who thought the whole thing was a terrific hoot. ‘You can count on me, Owen.’

  Montignac smiled. Poor boy, he thought. Like a lamb to the slaughter.

  4

  JANE BENTLEY MADE HER way up the stairs of the Rice Chambers, uncomfortable in a pair of new shoes which were cutting into her heels. They were a recent purchase, styled on a pair that Elizabeth, the Duchess of York, had worn to the Cheltenham Gold Cup earlier in the year; she had ordered them from Harrods in her size and they were now receiving their first outing. (Everybody hated the Duchess, of course. She was the worst kind of snob and had no way with the people, but the shoes, well they were something else.) She’d made the mistake, however, of walking directly from Oxford Street to chambers when she should have taken a taxicab, and the ancient stone stairs did not help matters, every tread feeling like a knife grating against the back of her heel.

  She was greeted when she walked into the reception area by Alistair, the senior clerk, who stood up respectfully when she entered.

  ‘Good afternoon, Lady Bentley,’ he said, resisting the urge to offer a bow.

  ‘Good afternoon, Alistair. How are you today?’

  ‘Very well, ma’am. Very well indeed.’

  Alistair Shepherd was one of chambers’ longest-serving employees, having clerked for three consecutive heads since 1901. Approaching seventy years of age and less limber with his memory than previously, he had accepted the mandatory retirement which the partners had thrust upon him earlier in the month and was in his final week of service, living in dread of Friday afternoon and the enforced solitude that Saturday morning would bring.

  ‘Looking forward to your freedom then, Alistair?’ Jane asked cheerfully.

  ‘Very much so,’ he said, for he had been trained never to disagree with his betters.

  ‘I wish I was in your shoes,’ she replied, wishing in fact that she was in anyone else’s shoes at that moment other than her own, which she didn’t think could support her for another minute.

  ‘Do you indeed,’ muttered Alistair, who assumed that Lady Bentley’s life was one long holiday, broken up only by spontaneous shopping trips and weekends in the country.

  ‘Of course I do. I never seem to get a moment to myself. You’re a very lucky man.’ She glanced up at the clock on the office wall and frowned. ‘Oh my. Is it a quarter past already? He’s waiting for me, I expect, is he?’

  ‘Sir Roderick never mentioned it one way or the other,’ said Alistair. ‘But he’s alone in there if you want to go in.’

  Jane nodded and passed him by, walking down the narrow corridor towards her husband’s spacious office, grateful for the thick, luxurious carpet beneath her feet. (The more senior the counsel, the more luxurious was the carpet on the way to his rooms.) Turning around for a moment and seeing that no one was watching her, she reached down and slipped her shoes off in relief before continuing along, giving a polite knock on the door and stepping inside without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Jane,’ said Roderick, looking up from a file he was studying and breaking into a smile when he saw her. ‘There you are at last.’

  ‘I’m sorry for keeping you waiting,’ she said, collapsing on his sofa with a look of exhaustion on her face as she massaged her injured feet. ‘Don’t be angry with me,’ she added in the flirtatious tones of a debutante, a position she had relinquished many years before.

  ‘Of course I’m not angry with you,’ said Roderick. ‘Actually I lost track of time myself. But what’s happened? You look like you’re in agony.’

  ‘It’s these new shoes,’ she explained. ‘They’re a terrible fit. And I’m very angry about it. I shall get Sophie to take them back first thing in the morning. I thought I wasn’t even going to be able to make it here without a pair of crutches.’

  She looked down at her injured foot, where there was a deep red bruising starting to lift from the heel, and hissed in distaste.

  ‘Well I’m afraid there are no spare ladies’ shoes at chambers,’ said Roderick with a smile. ‘So you’re stuck with them until you get home.’

  Jane smiled briefly and accepted the small sherry that her husband had poured for her from the cabinet. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she said, sipping it as if it was her first drop of water after a month-long trek in the desert. ‘You’re a gem. So tell me all.’

  ‘Tell you all? All about what?’

  ‘Oh don’t tease me. You know perfectly well about what.’

  Roderick sighed. ‘Jane, you know I’m not supposed to discuss it.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ she said, leaning forwards. ‘I’m your wife. If you can’t discuss it with me then who can you discuss it with?’

  ‘Well no one apparently,’ he said. ‘I think that’s rather the point.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. They know perfectly well that you need someone to rely on at moments like this. They must know how discreet you are. Particularly after all that business this year with the Domson case. Look how well you carried yourself throughout that. Never spoke to the media. Never gave a hint about what you were thinking. And I never let anything slip about it either, did I?’

  ‘You never let anythi
ng slip because I never told you anything,’ he said, smiling at her, reaching across and squeezing her knee affectionately.

  ‘I know and I still haven’t quite forgiven you for that. But I understood it, Roderick. It was a murder trial. A man’s life was at stake. It was terribly serious. This isn’t the same at all.’

  ‘Heavens above, woman, this is just as serious. Perhaps more so.’

  ‘Yes, but no one’s going to die because of it, are they?’

  ‘Well, no,’ admitted Roderick. ‘But it’s not just a salacious piece of tittle-tattle either.’

  ‘Roderick Bentley,’ said Jane, becoming stern now. ‘If you don’t tell me this instant what happened at that meeting I shall go next door to Quentin Lawrence and ask him to represent me in my divorce case.’

  ‘Jane,’ he said pleadingly.

  ‘Oh go on. I promise I won’t tell anyone. A problem shared…’

  He sat back and she could see that he was relenting. ‘If I talk to you about this,’ he said sternly, pointing a finger at her as if he was chastising an unruly child. ‘You must promise me that it will go absolutely no further.’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘It’s strictly between us as husband and wife.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You can’t speak of it to any of your friends.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And not to Gareth either.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Especially not Gareth, in fact.’

  ‘Roderick, you have my word,’ said Jane in exasperation. ‘My word as your wife. Now will you please just tell me—’

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said, going over to the cabinet and pouring himself a drink now while offering her a refill. ‘Well I went to see him this—’

  ‘Wait!’ said Jane, interjecting already. ‘Start at the beginning.’

  Roderick stared at her in amazement. ‘I am starting at the beginning,’ he protested.

  ‘Who was there first of all?’

  ‘Are you going to let me tell this my way or not?’

  Jane sat back and put a finger on her lips to indicate that she would stay silent.

  ‘All right,’ he continued. ‘I went to see him this morning as arranged. There was just Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, and Alan Altringham. Do you know him?’

  ‘I know his wife,’ said Jane. ‘Awful old trout. Organized the Old Bailey Christmas party last year. Total drip.’

  ‘Well he was there too and Lord Keaton and also Walter Monckton.’

  ‘Monckton was there?’ she asked in surprise. ‘So just Hailsham and four senior KCs then?’

  ‘That’s right. And of course Monckton is extremely close friends with the king. So in a way he was there to represent his interests.’

  Jane nodded. ‘Did he say whether the rumours were true or not?’

  ‘The Lord Chancellor led the discussion of course. He said that acting under advice from Mr Baldwin he had been instructed to take opinions on the constitutionality of an event that may or may not take place at an indefinite time in the near or potentially distant future regarding a person who may or may not have a position of authority and prestige within the empire.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Jane in surprise. ‘He put it like that?’

  ‘That was the opening gambit, yes.’

  ‘It’s almost as difficult to understand as some of the opinions he writes.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Roderick with a small laugh. ‘But then Altringham leaned forwards and said, “Hang it all, Hailsham, just get on with it for the love of God.”’

  ‘Good for him,’ said Jane, nodding her head appreciatively.

  ‘Well, Hailsham didn’t much appreciate that to be honest. He said there had to be a certain amount of formality to the meeting but everyone said that we would keep it to ourselves and wouldn’t we all be better off if we just called a spade a spade.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Jane.

  ‘So then we just got down to it. Altringham asked what exactly was going on, that he’d heard the most extraordinary rumour that Stanley Baldwin had been at a dinner with the king and he was presented to Mrs Simpson and not only that but that the woman’s husband, Ernest Simpson, was there too.’

  ‘No!’ said Jane, shocked.

  ‘Well that’s what old Altringham heard and I must admit I’d heard the same thing.’

  ‘And you never told me?’

  ‘It never came up in conversation and I don’t like to trade in gossip,’ insisted Roderick. ‘Anyway, about the dinner, Monckton piped up and said yes, apparently, that this was indeed true but that another way to look at it was that the prime minister had attended a dinner hosted by the king, which is quite right and proper. Also in attendance that evening were an American couple, Mr and Mrs Ernest Simpson. Which does rather put a different spin on things. It’s all in the phrasing, you see.’

  ‘Oh really, Roderick. It makes the whole thing sound like a game of musical chairs.’

  ‘Naturally Hailsham piped up at this point and said that it should be pointed out that the PM didn’t know who Mrs Simpson was and that therefore there had been no relaxation of attitude towards her.’

  ‘Oh rot,’ said Jane. ‘Of course he knew who she was. How could he not? Everyone in society knows who she is by now. I heard that Baldwin said it’s not even as if she’s a decent, respectable whore. One wouldn’t mind so much then.’

  ‘Yes, well he may have known in a personal sense, but in an official capacity he didn’t know her.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  Roderick shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, Hailsham says there is anyway.’

  ‘That’s just semantics,’ she said. ‘So what’s she like anyway? Did he say?’

  ‘No. Altringham pushed Monckton on it but he wasn’t giving anything away.’

  ‘I thought that she had got rid of that husband of hers two years ago when the king asked her on that cruise around Spain and Portugal?’

  ‘He wasn’t there then, that’s true,’ said Roderick. ‘But apparently he was still in the picture. He has his own woman, you see, on the side. It’s all perfectly amicable they say. They’re just waiting for the nod so that they can divorce.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘Well that’s extraordinary,’ she said.

  ‘Americans, I suppose.’

  ‘Still. You have to admire the way they go about it. They know when to call a spade a spade while we just dance around the issue.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Roderick. ‘But it goes without saying that it’ll never come to pass.’

  ‘She won’t divorce him?’

  ‘She may do that, that’s neither here nor there, but there’s no possibility of a marriage. It’s inconceivable. A two-time divorcée for queen? It’s simply out of the question.’

  ‘Well yes,’ said Jane. ‘Yes I can see that. But it’s going to be awfully hard for him to give her up when it comes to it. They do say he’s terribly fond of her.’

  ‘He can be as fond of her as he likes but I can’t see it going any further,’ said Roderick, giving a brief thought to the question of whether he would sacrifice his own career for Jane and knowing that, in a heartbeat, he would. For Gareth or Jane. But the king was different surely. He was made of sterner stuff than a humble king’s counsel.

  ‘She needs to go back home,’ said Jane determinedly.

  ‘Yes, but then the strangest thing happened,’ said Roderick. ‘Keaton, who’d been silent throughout all of this—

  ‘Now hang on,’ interrupted Jane. ‘Lord Keaton. I don’t know him, do I?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve met him or not. He’s been around for years but has never really made it into the inner circle. Terribly bitter man, I’ve always thought. Belongs to a very old family of Lord Chancellors who had some sort of bitter falling out with the Hanoverians sometime in the early eighteen thirties. One of his ancestors had a dust-up with some toady of William IV’s and Charles Grey got him removed fr
om office. Anyway, the Keatons have been hoping for a chancellor in the family again ever since to avenge the family honour; I think they’d already had half a dozen until then. They seem to think they have some sort of God-given right to the office, but it’s quite preposterous. He’s quite friendly with the Yorks, I believe, and something of a confidant of Baldwin’s too. Terribly wealthy, so why he cares about ancient history like that is beyond me. I must admit that when I entered Hailsham’s office I had no idea what he was doing there. He didn’t seem like he had a reason to be invited but I daresay Hailsham knew what he was doing. He has an excellent legal mind, I suppose, and is a senior KC, although I would have thought Mellows or Hagan more suited to the matter at hand. Baldwin probably insisted on it.’

  ‘Well go on anyway. What did he say?’

  ‘He leaned forwards and of course everyone stared at him because he hadn’t said a word in all the time that we’d been there and he said, “Just for argument’s sake, gentlemen, should the king decide to marry this woman, what would happen then?”’

  ‘Well it’s a reasonable question, I suppose.’

  ‘I hardly think so. Hailsham quickly told him there was no point wasting time on unrealistic scenarios. The question we were there to discuss was how much longer we could put off telling the king that he had to set the woman aside and take a wife.’

  ‘I can’t imagine he liked that much.’

  ‘No, he didn’t. And he insisted on an answer. “Just for argument’s sake,” he repeated. “What would happen then?”’

  ‘And what would happen then?’ asked Jane out of curiosity.

  ‘Well none of us knew for sure,’ said Roderick with a shrug. ‘It felt like we were Oliver Cromwell’s cabinet after the trial of Charles I, trying to decide what to do with the poor old bugger. No one wanted to be the first one to suggest it. And finally, Monckton did.’

  ‘Monckton did?’

  ‘Yes, surprising isn’t it? He said in a very clear voice that the point of this committee was to discuss all possible scenarios and their constitutional implications and if the king insisted on having his way then our point of view would be put to the prime minister who would in turn consult his ministers but ultimately take our advice and pass that advice on to the king. And then Hailsham said that if that ever happened they would say absolutely not, sir. And then Monckton said he wasn’t sure what the king would do in a situation like that but he’d known him all his life and he wasn’t a man to be trifled with.’