by John Boyne
Montignac laughed and shook his head. ‘Gareth, we broke the law when we did that. You do understand that, don’t you? You can’t turn around and tell them that you were a part of that little misadventure; it would only make things worse for you. And I can hardly say, “Oh yes, Your Honour, he’s a good fellow; when we stole all those paintings he kept his mouth shut and never let on to anyone. He had a real future in crime, please don’t send him away now. What a promising career you’d be ruining.”’
‘Of course not, that’s not what I mean,’ said Gareth angrily. ‘But we could work together again maybe if I could just get out of here. I was useful to you, wasn’t I? Please, Owen, somehow I feel you’re the only one who can help me. My God, you don’t want to see me rotting away in here do you? Or … or being hanged for this?’
‘You leave me in a very difficult position,’ said Montignac after a long silence. ‘You have to understand that I love my cousin very much. We grew up together. We’re like … well, she considers me to be like a brother to her. My first loyalty has to be to her. We’re cousins, after all; how can I turn my back on my own cousin? What kind of man would that make me? If she even knew I’d accepted your invitation here today—’
‘Owen, I’m begging you,’ pleaded Gareth, starting to cry now. ‘Please do something. I know you can help me. I don’t know who else to turn to.’
‘Surely your own father can do more for you now than I can,’ he suggested. ‘After all, if anyone has influence—’
‘He’s trying. He’s hired a top barrister to defend me. But everything they do will be by the book. I need more than that.’
Montignac shook his head. The tears were flowing across the table now and he wanted nothing more than to make a run for it. ‘Gareth, please stop. You’ll make yourself ill.’
‘Who cares if I’m ill?’ he snapped, lunging forwards and trying to grab Montignac’s hand again. ‘Please, Owen, how many times can I say it? You have to help me. You have to find a way.’
Montignac breathed heavily through his nose and considered it. This was not what he had been expecting at all; he had never seen such devastation or such fear before. And he found that, despite everything, he rather liked Gareth. He failed to understand why he looked up to him so much, that misplaced devotion of his, but it was a rare and not entirely unwelcome form of self-approbation.
‘I just don’t know what I can do,’ he said finally. ‘If I could think of something…’ he added, his words trailing off into quietness.
‘You know what the strangest thing is?’ asked Gareth finally.
‘What?’
‘The thousand pounds you gave me. Earlier that evening, my payment for the job we’d done—’
‘Yes?’
‘Well it wasn’t on me when the police arrested me. And they never found it when they searched the flat.’
‘That’s strange,’ said Montignac, remembering how, after stepping towards a terrified Raymond in the living room and bashing his brains in with the candlestick, his eyes had caught sight of the envelope on the ground and he’d taken it with him as he left. ‘But for your sake, it’s probably for the best. It would have been difficult for you to explain to the police what you were doing with so much money and at the scene of a crime too. They might have thought you’d stolen it from Raymond. It could only have hurt you, I think.’
‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But that’s gone now too. I must have left it in the taxicab. Or dropped it on the street. Can you imagine? After all that work, and it’s just disappeared into thin air. It was all for nothing. Can you imagine if I’d never met you, Owen? How much different my life would have been?’ Finally the prospect of being a pupil for Sir Quentin Lawrence KC did not seem so appalling.
Montignac stood up and pushed his chair back under the table.
‘I’ll do what I can for you, Gareth,’ he said. ‘Truly I will. I’m not sure what it is I can do but give me a chance. I know that you didn’t mean to do it and I’ll try to help you.’
‘You will?’ he asked, looking up hopefully. He reached forwards with both hands to take one of Montignac’s in his, but Montignac pulled away, unwilling to be infected by his guilt.
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, try to keep your spirits up.’
‘Thank you, Owen,’ said Gareth, his voice betraying breathless relief. ‘I just know that if anyone can help me out of this it’s you. You’re the most ingenious person I’ve ever come across.’ He gave a gentle laugh as if the entire thing was ridiculous. ‘You’re my best friend,’ he said quietly.
Montignac felt his stomach sink a little and turned on his heels to leave. Once out in the corridor again he walked as fast as he could down the corridor, anxious to get out of the prison. The closer he got to the exit the more he found himself breaking into a stride, the more he found himself choking in its claustrophobic atmosphere. He hated it there. He could only imagine how it felt for Gareth being caged up between four walls for twenty-four hours a day. If it was him he would welcome the blessed relief of the hangman’s noose.
Released back out on to the street he breathed in the fresh air deeply and stood quietly for a few minutes, recovering his equanimity, before walking away. Gareth was exactly where he needed him to be and, more importantly, so was Raymond. But one thing that he himself had said in there came back into his mind now. Surely your own father can do more for you now than I can. It was always a possibility. But his partner, Lord Keaton, had that matter in hand already, he knew. Still, it would be a good idea for them to talk, he decided, and to make sure that nothing could go wrong.
4
SIR QUENTIN LAWRENCE WAS a gruff but likeable barrister in his early sixties who had devoted his life to the law, had never married or fathered children during that time in case they came between him and his work, and had taken silk when he was only thirty-three years old. What had been a prodigious early career, however, had—for some inexplicable reason—failed to score many triumphs during its second half and he had maintained a stewardship of decent criminal trials, all the time waiting for one to come along which might connect his name to glory.
He had never quite forgiven Roderick Bentley for beating him to the position of head of chambers fifteen years earlier. The crucial partners’ vote, which had seen him run against a rival and Roderick elected as a compromise candidate, had left a bitter taste in his mouth for a long time and he had considered it a long-overdue olive branch some months earlier when he had been asked to take Roderick’s son Gareth in as a pupil, a position he was never destined to fill. As he sat in the living room at Tavistock Square it was hard for him not to dwell on how different things might have been had Gareth followed his father’s advice and come with him to Newcastle for the fraud trial earlier in the year.
‘Thank you,’ said Quentin as Jane poured him a cup of tea and took a seat on the sofa opposite with her husband Roderick by her side.
‘It’s us who want to thank you,’ said Jane anxiously. ‘When Roderick said that you had agreed to represent Gareth, well it came as a tremendous relief to us both.’
‘Did it?’ asked Quentin, fishing for a compliment. ‘How flattering.’
‘Well Roderick has always said what a brilliant advocate you are. And of course you’ve been linked to so many high-profile cases.’
‘Which is one of the unfortunate things we have to deal with here,’ he said, resting the cup on the table as he removed a pad of paper from his briefcase to take a note. ‘The newspapers are making quite a story out of this, aren’t they?’
‘Those bastards,’ said Roderick bitterly, who rarely used language like this but was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his temper in the face of the latest media onslaught. ‘You know I thought we were through with all that nonsense after the Domson case ended. Reporters camping out on the doorstep, shouting at one as one leaves for work. The neighbours are up in arms of course. Again.’
‘Really?’ asked Quentin, who rather envied Rod
erick the celebrity his cases had brought him. ‘I didn’t notice any journalists or photographers outside as I arrived.’
‘They seem to have given us a day off today,’ said Jane in a relieved tone. ‘There’ll be a few around later, I daresay. Or if I was to leave the house for any reason they’d just appear out of the bushes and start firing questions at me. They seem to know my habits better than I do myself.’
‘Well you mustn’t tell them anything,’ said Quentin sternly. ‘They won’t report what you say anyway so it’s best to stay silent.’
‘I’ve told her that already,’ said Roderick.
‘And it goes for you too,’ said Quentin, pointing a finger at his colleague. ‘However much you feel like getting angry with them and telling them where to place their pads and pencils you must keep entirely silent.’
Roderick nodded. He knew full well what the appropriate way was to behave but found it difficult to maintain his composure with them screaming remarks at him about his son every time he set foot outside.
‘Now,’ said Quentin, poising his pen over his paper like a reporter himself. ‘How about we begin by you telling me a little bit about Gareth.’
‘The only thing you need to know,’ said Jane, attempting to sound as determined and unflappable as possible, ‘is that he didn’t do it.’
‘Well yes,’ said Quentin with a slight laugh. ‘But I don’t think we can convince the trial judge with that. I might need a little bit more.’
‘Who is it going to be anyway?’ asked Roderick. ‘Not Carter, I hope. We’ve never got along.’
‘I believe it will be Patrick Sharpwell,’ said Quentin, consulting his file. ‘Do you know him?’
‘A little,’ said Roderick, who had spoken before him as a barrister on a few occasions and had never liked him; he had always struck him as being biased from the start. Neither a defence judge nor a prosecutor’s darling, Roderick believed him to be one who simply picked a side at the start and stuck with it, regardless of the evidence. ‘I don’t know him very well but he’s never been top of my list.’
‘Oh he’s perfectly reasonable,’ said Quentin, dismissing this remark. ‘I’ve argued before him myself on many occasions. He’ll give us a fair crack of the whip, you can count on that. Of course one of the main problems facing us is the statement that your son gave to the police on the day of his arrest.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen that,’ said Roderick. ‘It’s not very helpful, is it?’
‘Why?’ asked Jane quickly, who had thus far been kept away from some of the more explicit evidence. ‘What did he say?’
Quentin sighed and looked across at her. ‘He was either terribly foolish or terribly honest,’ he explained. ‘Throughout the whole thing, while they were quizzing him about what had taken place after he arrived at the Bedford Place flat he never once denied having killed Mr Davis.’
‘Well of course he didn’t kill him,’ said Jane, as if the entire thing was beyond absurd. ‘What possible reason would he have for harming the man anyway? He didn’t even know him.’
‘Yes, he’s said that himself subsequently. But on that first morning and afternoon, while he was being questioned, it never seemed to occur to him to deny it. Instead he seems to have staked his initial defence on the fact that he couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. Now that’s not a very solid start for us because it implies that he was at least open to the possibility that he might have been involved in the…’ He searched for the right word, not wanting to play it out too graphically in front of the boy’s mother. ‘In the incident,’ he settled on eventually.
‘I think he must have thought that no one would have suspected he had any involvement,’ suggested Roderick. ‘And therefore it didn’t occur to him to focus on that aspect of it. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? I mean who would even think that a young man such as Gareth—’
‘Well you could argue that, I imagine,’ said Quentin doubtfully. ‘But under the same circumstances I daresay I would be protesting my innocence from the start.’
‘It was the drink,’ protested Jane. ‘Gareth has always had difficulties with alcohol. It runs in the family. Roderick’s father and grandfather were just as bad. How it skipped a generation with Roderick, I don’t know.’
‘Jane, I don’t think we need to bring that up,’ interrupted Roderick quickly, who hated to acknowledge this flaw in his lineage.
‘And then the other problem we’re facing,’ said Quentin, ‘is Gareth’s general lack of stability in the world.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jane, anxious to defend her cub. ‘Gareth is a wonderful boy. You don’t even—’
‘He hasn’t held down a job since graduating. It seems he had been doing very little before taking a position at this … what was it called?’ He consulted his notes. ‘The Threadbare Gallery.’
‘Yes, but that will count for something, won’t it? That he had found suitable employment?’
‘It’s hard to say. He was only there for a very short while after all and seems to have had no specific responsibilities. The fact that he’d thrown in the career he’d studied for doesn’t help. The idea that he would reject the law at all looks suspicious. Why on earth didn’t he come and join us in chambers when you arranged it, Roderick?’ he asked, as if he failed to understand why anyone would not choose such a path for themselves.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I think he was exhausted with the law by the time he finished his studies. Originally he just wanted to take a break and we said that was all right, there was no harm in him having a little time to himself, but then the weeks drifted into months, I was snowed under with the Domson case, there was just no easy way to take the matter in hand. But we were delighted when he went to work for Mr Montignac because—’
‘Yes, Montignac,’ said Quentin, consulting his notes again. ‘That’s something of a mixed blessing. If we could get him to give a character witness that would be a good thing. He’s a very respectable fellow—I met with him myself a couple of days ago—and of course his name is one that will impress the judge and the jury. But on the other hand this Davis fellow was engaged to marry his cousin.’
‘Yes I’d heard that,’ said Roderick sadly. ‘And I imagine he’ll put the interests of his cousin first.’
‘Well one would think that any decent human being with a sense of loyalty or a conscience would,’ said Quentin. ‘But when I spoke to him he did express the fact that he thought Gareth a very good sort. He found it hard to imagine that he would have done such a thing. But it’s all very difficult for him. Not only is there the family connection but he had sent Gareth back to his flat that night, which is where the crime took place. All in all, I’m not sure that Montignac is going to be someone we can call on.’
‘But if he would only say a word in his favour,’ begged Jane, close to tears now. Quentin stared across at her; he had been able to tell immediately when he walked into the room just how difficult the last few weeks had been on her. She was quite clearly a beautiful woman but she was losing some of her sheen having to go through such a public trauma. There were dark bags forming under her eyes and he suspected she hadn’t slept very well over the previous week.
‘Well we’ll have to wait and see,’ said Quentin. ‘But there is one other matter. Something I hesitate to bring up with you both but I daresay the prosecution will get a hold of it too so…’
‘Go on,’ said Roderick, knowing exactly what was coming.
‘It’s this business back at Harrow,’ he said, sounding almost apologetic for the intrusion.
‘Oh not that again,’ shouted Jane in frustration. ‘That was all so long ago, I don’t see what possible connection that can have—’
‘It has a connection in that it can show a pattern of behaviour,’ explained Quentin patiently. ‘Particularly since it correlates directly with the events of the night of the murder. And if the prosecution get a hold of it—which they undoubtedly will—they’re sure to make hay. O
n the plus side, he wasn’t expelled for his actions.’
‘That was only through a lot of careful negotiation on my part,’ admitted Roderick. ‘It was extremely difficult in fact. One of the hardest cases I’ve ever fought. But to be fair to Gareth, the whole thing was an aberration. He never behaved like that either before or since.’
‘Until now,’ said Quentin.
‘But he didn’t do it now,’ protested Jane.
Quentin nodded; he was accustomed to parents refusing to recognize that their young prodigies were capable of any wrongdoing but it was his job to find out the truth and employ it artfully before a jury. ‘Can you tell me what happened there?’ he asked finally, directing his question towards the boy’s father.
‘Well it’s all such a long time ago,’ said Roderick apologetically. ‘It’s difficult to remember exactly.’
‘Try. You know that they will only ask about it at some point.’
Roderick sighed. ‘The boys had been drinking,’ he said. ‘Not very much, I don’t think, but perhaps Gareth had more than the others, I don’t know. Either way it went directly to his head. He can’t handle it, you see. My father had the same problem. Then there was some sort of altercation and a fight broke out.’
‘From what I’ve been told he broke a boy’s arm and dislocated his shoulder.’
‘No,’ said Roderick firmly. ‘That was the crux of the matter. In the course of the ensuing fracas,’ he said in a legalistic voice, ‘one of the boy’s arms became broken and his shoulder became displaced from its socket. But Gareth himself did not break it. Or rather, no one could prove he did.’
‘He denied it, of course?’
‘He couldn’t remember. He’d had so much to drink that he blacked the whole incident out of his mind. It was late at night and when he woke to face the consequences the next day he couldn’t remember anything about it. Of course the head wanted to send him down but I wasn’t having that and fought his case staunchly. And then I made a hefty contribution to the school benevolent fund and the matter was finally dropped. He received a suspension but I promise you, Quentin, he never put a foot wrong again between then and now.’