Next of Kin

by John Boyne

  ‘Then and now. The two bookends of when he has put a foot wrong, though,’ said Quentin sadly. ‘It’s a terrible shame he didn’t come to chambers, isn’t it?’ he asked brightly. ‘He might have been my pupil now, rather than my client.’

  ‘You will save him, won’t you?’ asked Jane anxiously, and for a moment he feared she was going to reach across and take his hand.

  ‘I’ll certainly do my best,’ said Quentin. ‘But it’s a very difficult case.’

  ‘Just so long as you know, I couldn’t live without him,’ she said fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t want to live without him.’

  Roderick stared across at his wife and narrowed his eyes. It was almost as if he wasn’t in the room, he felt. All her questions were now directed towards Quentin; all her faith was placed in him.

  5

  MONTIGNAC DIDN’T OFTEN COME to White’s Club and he felt slightly self-conscious sitting there today. As much as he enjoyed the atmosphere of wealth and privilege that pervaded those luxurious rooms he felt like an outsider with his lowly salary, diminishing savings and enormous debts. White’s, he felt, was a place one needed to earn the right to sit in, although he wondered how many others were there for having a reputation for wealth rather than actually being rich themselves; the place was like a dosshouse for the aristocratic homeless. Rather than roaming the streets, buying infinite cups of tea, or spending endless hours asleep in libraries pretending to read newspapers, they were granted access to a place where they could spend their afternoons perfectly comfortably with cigars, brandies and card games. Quite a few had been friends of Peter Montignac and when he had arrived a few minutes earlier some had glanced in his direction but looked away quickly rather than have to speak to him. Too many months had passed for it to be appropriate to offer any further condolences and it may have seemed somewhat ludicrous to them that suddenly there was another tragic death attached to the Montignac name, albeit at something of a distance.

  ‘Owen,’ said a voice from behind and he looked up as a man stood before him. ‘It’s Charles Richards. I hope you remember me.’

  Montignac opened his mouth and tried to place him. He was an older gentleman, quite brutal looking, and so could have been no one other than a friend of his late uncle’s. But there was more to it than that, a memory of their most recent encounter that he was trying to recall. It came to him then. He had been at the funeral earlier in the year and had cornered Montignac in the hallway as he was leaving, mumbling some claptrap about the eulogy he’d made, saying it was ‘damn fine’ or some such rubbish, that he didn’t normally hold with the expression of emotion but that he’d been moved by what he’d said about his uncle and benefactor. It had been all Montignac could do to keep his temper.

  ‘Of course I remember you,’ he said, standing up to shake the older man’s hand. ‘We talked at my uncle’s funeral.’

  ‘That’s right. Haven’t seen you in here before, though. Are you a member?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m afraid I’m kept so busy with work that I don’t often get a chance to come here.’

  ‘Oh I know what that’s like. Retired now, of course. On your own, are you?’

  ‘Actually I’m meeting a friend,’ he replied, checking his watch. ‘But he seems to be late.’

  ‘Well I’ll just join you for a minute then,’ said Richards, sitting down as if he’d been invited. ‘How are you holding up?’ he asked after a moment, a look of genuine concern in his eyes.

  ‘Perfectly well, thank you,’ said Montignac.

  ‘I read about this new business in the paper. Shocking stuff, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very shocking.’

  ‘How’s Stella coping with it all?’

  ‘Well she’s bearing up, which is all we can hope for.’

  ‘And so soon after losing her father too. The poor girl must be grief-stricken.’

  A thought came into his head; it was always worthwhile planting seeds when such an opportunity could be found. ‘She is,’ he said. ‘She’s finding the whole thing very difficult but the doctor has prescribed something for her and—’

  ‘Oh you don’t want to get her into all that rot,’ roared Richards. ‘Exercise, that’s what she needs. Brisk walks every morning and evening. That’ll clear the cobwebs out and make her face up to the world again. Cold baths too. They work wonders for the soul.’

  Montignac smiled and tried to stifle a laugh. ‘Well I’ll pass that on,’ he said. ‘Thanks for your concern.’

  ‘Oh not at all, old boy. Not at all. Your uncle was a very dear friend of mine, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Montignac glanced to the side and saw Alexander Keys arriving, scanning the room carefully.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘There’s my friend now.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Richards, spinning around as Alexander arrived. ‘Ah yes. Right you are. Well I’ll leave you two young chaps alone then. Do pass on my best wishes to Stella, though, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ said Montignac. ‘And thank you.’

  Alexander greeted Richards quickly as he left them and then sat down in the seat opposite Montignac and let out a deep sigh. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Got a bit of a telling-off in work and it went on longer than was strictly necessary.’

  ‘Oh yes? What have you done now?’

  ‘Nothing important. I only wrote a highly negative review of a novel by a debutante author and it turns out she’s the niece of the editor.’

  ‘Ah. That can’t be good.’

  ‘Well the novel was rubbish. So bad I only made it as far as chapter two and I make it a point of honour always to read as far as chapter three. Regardless of how awful it is.’

  ‘You need to learn a little discipline,’ said Montignac. ‘If a job needs doing, just devote yourself to it. That’s what I do. Anyway, thanks for meeting me. I know it was short notice.’

  ‘Oh, no problem at all. Glad of the break if I’m honest.’

  ‘I’m sure you can imagine what it’s about.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Alexander. ‘Gareth Bentley.’

  ‘The very one.’

  Alexander shook his head and looked extremely contrite. ‘I don’t know what to say to you about that, Owen. I feel terribly guilty about the whole thing.’

  ‘You do?’ asked Montignac, surprised. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was the one who introduced him to you. That night at the Unicorn. It was his birthday, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t introduced you both, then he wouldn’t have followed you outside, he wouldn’t have struck up a relationship with you, you wouldn’t have given him a job and then young Mr Davis would still be alive, tending to the rhododendrons at Kew Gardens.’

  ‘I don’t believe he worked at Kew Gardens,’ said Montignac, correcting him. ‘It was the Royal Horticultural Society. And I think that roses were more his passion. But yes, I take your point. Although really, Alexander, you have no need to feel guilty about it. No one could have guessed what was going to happen.’

  ‘He’s always been an odd one, though,’ he said with the benefit of hindsight, shaking his head sadly. ‘I can spot them a mile off, you know.’

  ‘How did you come to know him anyway?’

  Alexander breathed heavily through his nose and tried to cast his mind back. ‘He was at university with my younger brother,’ he said. ‘And he often used to be around the house when they were between terms. Then Daniel went off to Burma, of course, and about two years ago I ran into Gareth on Chiswick High Street and we got talking about old times and I suppose a sort of friendship just built up between us. We’d meet every so often for dinner. We were similar souls, I thought. Neither of us doing very much with our lives. Trying to live the life of a dandy without really having the means or resources to cover it. We talked about Daniel a lot. I suppose we both missed him.’

  ‘And did he ever show any signs of this kind of thing before?’

  Alexander shook his head. ‘Not this bad,’ he said. ‘I mean
I knew that he had something of a drink problem. It stretches right back to his schooldays apparently. I think there was some sort of incident back then that was all covered up—’

  ‘Yes, he mentioned something about that to me.’

  ‘I don’t remember the ins and outs of it to be honest but I believe one of the boys in his class was quite badly hurt. But Gareth’s father made sure it never got out. But other than that … well he had changed a little in recent years. In the old days, whenever we went out, he would knock back three or four drinks for every one that I got through. And he insisted on my buying rounds despite that. And then he started not to drink at all, claiming that he’d turned over a new leaf.’

  ‘Yes, I knew about the drink problem,’ said Montignac. ‘It became clear to me early on.’

  ‘The night we met you at the Unicorn, the night of his birthday, that was the first time I’d seen him drinking in quite some time and I must admit I thought he’d got a handle on it because he only had a few and then stopped. And he left quite early. He met you outside, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. He followed me out.’

  ‘How’s Stella handling the whole thing anyway?’ asked Alexander, his voice adopting that level of concern which is appropriate with such questions.

  ‘Not very well,’ said Montignac, who had barely seen her since Raymond’s death.

  ‘The poor creature. Were they very close?’

  Montignac stared at him in amazement. ‘Well they were engaged to be married,’ he said. ‘So yes, I would assume so.’

  ‘Quite, quite. Well I just hope we’re not going to be dragged into the whole thing,’ he added cautiously.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The trial, of course,’ said Alexander, leaning forwards. ‘I mean obviously they’re going to want to call you as a witness. You were there on the night in question, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was there at the start of the evening. I left him quite early.’

  ‘And it happened at your flat?’

  ‘Yes, I made the mistake of giving him a key.’

  ‘So you will no doubt be called as a witness. Do you suppose they’ll ask you how you met Gareth in the first place?’

  Montignac shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I suppose they might. I can’t see how important it would be.’

  ‘Well try to keep my name out of it anyway if you can, will you? The last thing I need is any more trouble from my editor and I don’t think he’d appreciate finding his least favourite reviewer linked to the Unicorn Ballrooms, which you won’t be surprised to hear do not have a tremendous reputation, let alone to a murder. I’m hoping to start writing profiles soon of dead writers who I never met and essays about books that I’ve never read and I don’t want to jeopardize that.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Montignac. ‘I saw him, you know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gareth.’

  ‘You saw him?’ asked Alexander, sitting forwards in surprise. ‘You mean recently?’

  ‘Yes. Quite recently. Yesterday afternoon, in fact.’

  ‘Good Lord. Where?’

  ‘Where do you think?’ asked Montignac with a smile. ‘Walking down Carnaby Street in a top hat and tails? In prison, of course.’

  ‘Why on earth did you go there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘He asked for me to visit and something … a sort of morbid curiosity took me over.’

  ‘Well I’m not sure I would have been quite so forgiving in your shoes,’ said Alexander. ‘I think I would have left him to rot. Does Stella know?’

  ‘Oh God, no.’

  ‘Well I’d keep it that way if I was you. How is the old fellow anyway? How’s he looking?’

  ‘Absolutely dreadful. A shadow of his former self.’

  ‘Well I daresay he doesn’t look half as bad as Raymond Davis,’ said Alexander.

  ‘No. I imagine not.’

  ‘And was he repentant?’

  ‘Very. He doesn’t remember any of it, of course, but he seems to think that he might have been capable of such an act even if he never meant to do it.’

  ‘They do say that it’s always the quiet ones.’

  ‘He was hardly quiet, Alexander. He was a raving alcoholic. He’ll be no loss to anyone.’

  ‘Loss?’ he said in reply, raising an eyebrow at the word. ‘You think he’ll swing for it then?’

  ‘I think it’s a possibility,’ said Montignac. ‘They’ll certainly push for it.’

  Alexander shuddered; the whole thing was proving far too real for him. ‘Well anything you can do to keep me out of it, Owen, would be much appreciated,’ he said. ‘I don’t even want to think about it.’

  ‘What a good friend you are, Alexander. Deserting our young Gareth in his hour of need.’

  ‘He’s not my young Gareth,’ said Alexander, glancing around at the company to make sure that no one could overhear them. ‘And you shouldn’t think of him as your young Gareth either, if you’ve any sense. Anyway, enough of this. I don’t want to talk about him any more. The whole thing is too horrible and he’s old news now. Let’s just leave him to his own repentance and punishment. Shall we have some tea?’

  Montignac nodded; he was feeling hungry. It struck him how cruel people could be to their former friends. How once they had outlived their usefulness they were dropped, almost as if they had never existed in the first place. When Gareth was gone, Montignac knew that his entire history among them would be rewritten by these so-called friends, all the good things he’d ever done for them forgotten, all his kindnesses ignored. Scandals would be invented, non-existent conversations recounted until he had become more of a cartoon figure, a Dickensian villain, than a person with blood and feelings, a man who had once meant something to them and who had cared for each one in return. It seemed odd to him that the only member of Gareth’s circle who probably cared at all whether he lived or died was he himself and he, after all, was the one who had put him in that position in the first place.

  Still, there was nothing he could do to fix that now. This was what Lord Keaton had needed him to do and that was what he had done. It would earn him forty thousand pounds. And if someone had to die, Montignac reasoned, better him than me.

  6

  STELLA WASN’T IN HER room when Margaret brought her breakfast up but it was such a beautiful day outside that she had an idea where she might find her and carried the tray up the stairs to the roof garden, where she discovered her walking around the parapet, using the hose that was kept up there to water the dozens of pot plants which were dotted around the area.

  ‘I thought I’d find you up here,’ said Margaret, resting the tray on the table. ‘I brought you some breakfast.’

  ‘I’m not very hungry,’ said Stella, eyeing the plate of bacon and eggs warily.

  ‘You don’t have to look at it like that, it’s not poisoned,’ said Margaret with a smile. ‘And you should untangle that hose,’ she added, looking at the coils of tubing gathered like a nest of snakes around her feet. ‘You’ll trip over it one of these days.’

  Stella gave a brief smile, her first in days.

  ‘I’m sorry, Margaret. I don’t think I can manage food.’

  ‘You have to eat. I’m not having you wasting away.’

  For a moment they had reverted to their old roles, with Margaret as nanny and Stella as truculent child and after a moment Stella relented, switched the hose off and came to the table. She picked up her fork, mostly in order to evade further discussion on the subject.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ she said, ‘of how much Raymond could have done with the grounds here had we married. He spoke to me of it once, you know. Of how he would re-landscape them and all the different trees that he’d like to plant. He wanted to build some greenhouses too so that we could grow our own tomatoes, and talked about a herb garden under our bedroom window. It would have been beautiful, I think.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it the way it is,’ said Marga
ret, a little irritated by Raymond’s presumption. ‘Your grandmother designed the gardens and to my way of thinking she did a lovely job.’

  ‘Yes, but it would have made a nice change. It’s all very staid as it is. Anyway, it would have been an interesting project to have worked on, don’t you think?’

  ‘Well, perhaps you could still do it yourself,’ suggested Margaret. ‘It would take your mind off things.’

  Stella shook her head. ‘I couldn’t face it now,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Raymond had all the plans in his head. And besides, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to stay here anyway.’

  Margaret stared at her in surprise. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ said Stella, shrugging her shoulders. ‘What’s the point in maintaining such a big house just for me? I’m thinking of closing it down and moving away.’

  Margaret’s mouth dropped open, horrified by the prospect.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And what would you do? Move to London?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Stella quickly. ‘No, I couldn’t face London. Too many people. I thought perhaps I could travel. There’s so few places that I’ve seen, other than England and Switzerland. Obviously I’m not allowed to sell Leyville but I could donate it to a trust perhaps. It could be turned into a museum.’

  ‘Stella, you’re not thinking straight,’ said Margaret, who had visions of being turned out of her home on the whim of a grieving girl. ‘You can’t do something like that. You’d regret it forever.’

  ‘I’ve always loved it here,’ she said dreamily. ‘But there’s been a lot of unhappiness in this house and I’d be glad to say goodbye to that. When you think back to what Grandfather did, cutting off Owen’s father like that, well that must have been a horrible time to have lived through. And then when Father took the place over and Owen had to come to live here and he was so frightened at first, do you remember?’

  ‘I remember,’ said Margaret quietly, recalling the look of terror on the child’s face that had taken months to drift away.