Next of Kin

by John Boyne

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Well there you are. You can only imagine what it’s like to hear someone you love so defamed.’

  Keaton nodded; in a small corner of his heart he felt bad for Roderick, a decent man who had had the misfortune simply to be picked for the wrong advisory committee. Gareth Bentley’s imprisonment, he realized, could be directly related back to the choices that Lord Hailsham made and to Owen Montignac’s gambling debts.

  ‘And Jane?’ asked Keaton. ‘How is she coping?’

  ‘She’s not,’ he said with a shrug. ‘She goes through the day like a zombie. She hasn’t cried very much but it’s like she’s visibly ageing before my eyes. She’s in a state of blind panic and I want to help her, I want to be there for her, but I simply don’t know what to do. It’s all I can do to keep my own head above water. If this ends badly—’

  ‘It’s something you have to prepare yourself for,’ said Keaton. ‘If the evidence mounts up.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he snapped. ‘I’m sitting there, listening as they present their case and wondering how I would feel if I was presiding over it and by this stage I would be thinking to myself that it’s open and shut. I’d be starting to think about the sentence.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Keaton. ‘Well there’s the crux of the thing.’

  ‘Don’t, please,’ said Roderick, raising a hand. ‘I can’t even bear to think about it. Even the idea of—’ He found himself unable to complete his sentence. Tears were welling up in his eyes and he blinked them back in shame and embarrassment as he looked across at Lord Keaton with an attempt at a smile on his face. ‘You know, all I can think about is the families of those three boys I sentenced to death during my career. Their parents. I used to look at them in the courtroom and their faces were filled with devastation and horror but it never affected me. And the ridiculous thing is that I always congratulated myself on the fact that I could be so unmoved. That it made me a better judge, when all it really did was make me ignore the effect these sentences can have on the actual families. That it’s their sentence as well. I’m so sorry,’ he said, aware that he was growing more and more distressed with each sentence. ‘I must seem like a dreadful ass behaving like this.’

  ‘You’re behaving like any father would.’

  ‘Yes, well…’ he said, clapping his hands together to indicate that portion of the conversation was over as he coughed and tried to move on. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you? I’m sure you didn’t come all the way over here just to hear my troubles.’

  ‘Actually, to an extent I did,’ said Keaton. ‘But I also wanted to discuss the other matter.’

  ‘The king?’

  ‘The king.’

  ‘That’s not for another few days yet, though, is it? Our next meeting?’ He flicked through his diary, looking for the appointed date.

  ‘No, that’s right,’ acknowledged Keaton. ‘But I thought it might be worthwhile for us to have a little chat in advance. You know we both seem to be the standard-bearers for the armies of the left and right.’

  ‘I suppose we are,’ said Roderick. ‘One of us behind the king, one of us behind York.’

  ‘Just so. And Monckton is obviously on the king’s side, the two are inseparable. While Altringham is much closer to mine. Hailsham will only make the casting vote if it’s a tie, which will inevitably be for the status quo if we can’t reach an agreement. Which really means that you have the casting vote. The most important vote of all, you might say.’

  ‘I don’t quite see that,’ said Roderick with a frown. ‘To be honest, as I’ve considered it recently I find that I am as adamant in my support for the king as you are opposed. I’m not sure that I can be convinced otherwise.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. You made a strong argument last week, conjuring up images of the two armies meeting on the battlefield as in days of old, but somehow I just can’t believe that would happen. The world isn’t the same as it was in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. Parliament and the law would decide who was the legal heir and that would be the end of the matter. Civil war wouldn’t be tolerated. And besides, look around the country. Can you really see the people answering a call to arms to fight against each other like that? People don’t have that level of selflessness any more.’

  Keaton smiled. ‘Actually, I can,’ he said. ‘But as you pointed out, it wouldn’t be in our lifetime anyway. The question remains who best serves the British people now. A layabout wastrel who thinks only of his own pleasures and puts the entire future of the empire in jeopardy—’

  ‘Steady on, Keaton!’

  ‘Or a quiet, decent family man, with two heirs already provided, who will always put duty before … personal pleasures.’

  ‘The king is the king,’ said Roderick in frustration, beginning to grow irritated at having to discuss this while his son was on trial for his life. ‘We don’t have the right to unseat him. And as you say, if my vote is the crucial one, then you’re asking me to be entirely responsible for removing him from the throne. I might just as well say that your vote is the crucial one if I could persuade you to my side.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s impossible,’ said Keaton with a laugh.

  ‘And it’s impossible for me to change my mind too,’ said Roderick with finality. ‘I will stand behind him. I don’t pretend that I much like the idea of the marriage because I don’t. I’ve never met the woman but I can’t say I care for her. But nevertheless I have an overriding feeling that it’s simply none of my business. Who am I to say who a man can and can’t fall in love with? So I’m going to vote in favour of it. I’m sorry, Keaton, but my mind is made up.’

  Keaton nodded; he had hoped that he might be able to persuade him to change his vote but it was clear now that Roderick was as staunch in his opinions as Keaton was in his. There was nothing left to do now but to lay his cards on the table.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Of course I have to admit I am a little surprised by your support for him. After all, it’s not so many months ago that you were sentencing his cousin to the gallows.’

  ‘Henry Domson was the king’s third cousin,’ said Roderick defiantly. ‘He was hardly what you would call a close relation.’

  ‘I know, I know. But nevertheless I was rather impressed by your decision at the time.’

  ‘You were?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Keaton with an honest shrug. ‘I followed the case quite closely actually and thought you handled it extremely well. I could see that the fellow was guilty as hell and showed no remorse. And I knew that if any other fellow was standing in the dock there was no question that he would swing for it. But I really didn’t think you’d sentence him to death.’

  ‘Like you say, if it was any other fellow—’

  ‘Yes, but with the mass of public opinion to contend with. All the people who thought it was somehow going against God’s will to execute a member of the royal family, albeit such a distant one.’

  ‘Hardly a member of the royal family,’ said Roderick with a laugh.

  ‘And then all the people who said he should be treated the same way as the common folk. As themselves. You had the weight of the aristocracy on one side and the voice of the mob on the other and you chose the mob.’

  ‘I chose my own sense of judicial righteousness.’

  ‘It was a brave thing to do.’

  ‘I didn’t see it like that,’ said Roderick.

  ‘And now here you are,’ said Lord Keaton. ‘The father of a son in the exact same position as Henry Domson. Fighting to prove his innocence. Knowing that if he is found guilty, he will be executed for the crime.’

  Roderick gasped; to hear it put in such stark language shocked him.

  ‘When he is found guilty,’ Keaton said, correcting himself. ‘Because you know that he will be. He hasn’t got a prayer.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t…’ Roderick found himself stumbling over his words. ‘Please don’t…’

  ‘There’s an iron
ic inevitability about it, though, isn’t there?’ asked Keaton, settling back and starting to enjoy himself now. ‘That you should lose a son to the same fate. Mr and Mrs Domson must be loving every moment of it.’

  ‘Keaton, I don’t wish to discuss this any further,’ said Roderick, appalled by how cold-hearted the man was being; he was aware that they were fighting different sides in a debate but to speak so callously to him was unacceptable.

  ‘Well you’re going to have to face up to it sooner or later, Roderick. Unless someone comes along who can change things for you, they’re going to have a noose around your boy’s neck in a matter of weeks.’

  Roderick frowned. ‘Unless someone comes along…?’ he began.

  ‘What would you say,’ asked Keaton so quietly that both men had to lean forwards, closer to each other, ‘if I was to tell you that I could see to it that a conviction in this case would definitely lead to a less severe sentence?’

  Roderick didn’t know what to say; he was unsure what his colleague was trying to tell him.

  ‘What if I was to tell you that I have the means to ensure that your boy gets a much lighter sentence, say a number of years in prison with time off for good behaviour. Mitigating circumstances and all that. What if I could give your son back to you and spare him his life?’

  ‘You could do that?’ asked Roderick, sitting back slowly, his face covered in confusion at what was being suggested.

  ‘I can do that,’ acknowledged Keaton. ‘I have the power and authority to influence the sentencing in this case. And all I would need is for you to do one simple thing for me.’

  Roderick’s mouth opened slowly. It hit him immediately and he could scarcely believe that this was being asked of him.

  ‘You want me to change my vote,’ he said in an awed voice. ‘You want me to vote against the king.’

  Keaton sat back and smiled, raising an eyebrow to acknowledge that yes, this was exactly what he wanted him to do.

  4

  THE TRAIN WAS SURPRISINGLY busy and Montignac was irritated that he could not locate a compartment of his own; instead he found one that was less crowded than the others and opened the door to it, revealing a young couple sitting very closely together and laughing at a shared joke.

  ‘This seat is empty?’ he asked, poking his head through the doorway, and they looked up at him with a look of disappointment on their faces to be intruded upon, but nodded. He had almost missed the train and as it had pulled out, they probably thought they were going to have the place to themselves.

  Montignac settled down opposite them, watching as Liverpool Street Station disappeared in the distance, and took the newspaper from his bag. Two headlines caught his eye. The first was above the fold and said in stark black letters:

  Judge’s Son Has Violent Past

  He read on:

  It emerged in court today that Gareth Bentley, son of the eminent High Court Judge Mr Justice Roderick Bentley KC, has a history of violent behaviour brought on by overconsumption of alcohol. Bentley, who is standing trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of Raymond Davis of the Royal Horticultural Society in August of this year, sat expressionless in the dock yesterday while Mr Justice Harkman questioned Aidan Higgins, a former schoolboy friend of Bentley’s, who had been seriously injured in an assault some years ago. Higgins testified that he was part of a group of Harrow boys who, at the age of fifteen, had indulged in an evening of drinking and that a fight had ensued later that evening which resulted in Bentley fracturing his friend’s arm in a number of places and dislocating his shoulder. Prosecution counsel questioned why Bentley had not been sent down for the offence but Higgins was unable to provide an answer. Another school friend, Paul O’Neill, also stated that Bentley had claimed to remember nothing of the attack the following day and that he had blamed the violent outburst on his excessive alcohol intake during the evening in question. Mr Justice Harkman pointed out to the court that on the night of Mr Davis’s murder, Bentley had been observed drinking approximately twelve pints of beer and half a dozen shots of spirits at the Bullirag public house on Air Street.

  The article went on with some further details of the afternoon’s business but Montignac tired of it; it was clear that no one was in any doubt regarding Gareth’s guilt. It occurred to him for the first time that his defending barrister should have persuaded him to plead that way, as the sentence may well have been lighter.

  Below the fold, there was another short article, bearing the headline:

  Further Talks In Simpson Matter

  More gossip, thought Montignac as he scanned the article.

  London society is abuzz with rumours that an announcement is expected before Christmas regarding the possibility of a marriage between His Majesty, King EdwardVIII, and Mrs Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée. Although there is some public support for the union between the two it is believed that the Prime Minister, Mr Stanley Baldwin, is firmly opposed and that he has empowered a committee of leading legal minds to discuss the proposals and rule on their legitimacy.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a voice from across the compartment and he looked up and saw the young woman, who couldn’t have been more than about twenty years of age, speaking to him. ‘There’s nothing in there about the king, is there?’ she asked.

  ‘Actually I was just reading about it,’ said Montignac.

  ‘Oh tell us what it says,’ she said eagerly. ‘It’s so hard to get any information on it and I’m fascinated. They never talk about it on the wireless at all.’

  Montignac nodded and read the article aloud. The young couple listened intently, shaking their heads.

  ‘Well it’s not right, is it?’ she said when he reached the end. ‘Imagine him going after a harlot like that. It don’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘We just got married yesterday,’ explained the young man, reaching for his wife’s hand and holding it up to display her wedding ring as if to confirm their legitimacy. Montignac wasn’t sure if he had ever seen such a tiny diamond before, if diamond it was. ‘So why Jenny’s so opposed to him doing as he pleases is beyond me. Why not, if he can have a bit of happiness, that’s what I say.’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t hold with that,’ said Jenny. ‘Surely there’s plenty of European princesses out there who would do anything to land the king. I think he’s just doing it to be clever, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Montignac, who had an hour’s journey ahead of him and wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved in a long discussion about the rights and wrongs of regal matrimony. He closed the newspaper and handed it across. ‘Here,’ he said, hoping to distract their attention. ‘Please. Be my guest.’

  They took the paper gratefully and started to read it between them as Montignac looked out the window at the countryside rolling by. It was extraordinary, he thought, how time could change a person’s emotions. Ten years ago when he was fifteen he had loved the train rides back and forth to Leyville during term breaks or the long vacation. He could never sleep on the nights leading up to it, the idea of getting home, getting back to the freedom of Leyville, returning to Stella.

  Their relationship had changed after a fight he had with Andrew when he was fourteen and his cousin was seventeen. It had been over something trivial and whether the older boy was in a particularly bad mood or had just built up a resentment against his young cousin, Montignac did not know, but he had had the better of him in the fight and he went home with blood pouring from his nose and from a gash above his eye.

  ‘Good God,’ said Stella when she saw him slink unhappily through the front door. ‘What on earth happened to you?’

  Montignac shrugged; he didn’t want to admit that Andrew had been able to overpower him. She could see that he was embarrassed and so didn’t push him further.

  ‘There’s no one else at home,’ she said. ‘We better get you cleaned up before Mother and Father get back. Come upstairs with me.’

  He followed her up to the bathroom where she washed out hi
s cuts and dabbed a little iodine above his eye, where some grit had stuck in the wound, before covering it with a plaster. ‘There,’ she said. ‘You don’t look so bad now.’

  The whole process had taken no more than ten minutes but in those ten minutes, their lives were to change. They had never sat so close together, nor touched in this intimate way before. Stella had found that the more she reached across and wiped at her cousin’s skin the more she wanted to touch it. The more she looked at that shock of white hair on his head, the fringe of which held flecks of red from the blood, the more fascinated she became by it.

  When she was finished they sat there for a few moments, staring at each other and then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, they leaned forwards and kissed.

  ‘We’re going on our honeymoon,’ said Jenny and Montignac snapped out of his daydream and glanced across at her.

  ‘What was that?’ he said.

  ‘We’re going on our honeymoon,’ repeated her husband, Jack. ‘Off down to Cornwall. I have family down there, you see, so like as not they’ll have a spread laid on for us when we get there.’

  Montignac smiled and tried to resist a laugh; they obviously wanted to share their good news with someone and he was the only available person.

  ‘We’re both in service at a house in London,’ said Jack. ‘That’s where we met. We got twenty pounds as a wedding present from the master and mistress. Can you believe it? Twenty pounds,’ he repeated as if the fact of his good fortune was still a matter of amazement to him and he should have considered marriage years before.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Montignac. ‘But you’re very young, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m nineteen,’ said Jack.

  ‘And I’m twenty-one,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m his older woman.’

  Montignac smiled. The older woman. They had spent eighteen months making jokes about that, he and Stella. She was less than a year his senior but it didn’t matter, it amused them to think of it in those terms; it made their relationship even more exciting.