Next of Kin Read online

  And distractions had been few and far between until the arrival of Jane, who had made him realize there was more to life than work; how it all meant nothing really, without love.

  Now, all these years later, he was indeed head of chambers and a wealthy and celebrated man; wealthy enough, it seemed to him, for his own son to assume that he was under no obligation to find a life or career of his own when his father’s bank account could support him forever. A twenty-three-year-old man needed a career, though, Roderick was sure of that. And weekly mentions in the social pages could not be considered as an alternative.

  But what right had he, he thought, to debate how a young man should live his life? For after all, at the same moment that he sat there in his elegant home surrounded by luxury and symbols of his own success, debating the merits of how his son frittered away his time, another twenty-three-year-old man was no doubt awake in his prison cell, nervous and frightened at what the morning might bring, for in a few hours’ time Mr Justice Roderick Bentley KC would be taking his seat in the courtroom and informing him whether he was to serve at his majesty’s pleasure in prison for the rest of his natural life or whether he would be taken away to another place until a time could be fixed for his execution, when he would hang from the neck until dead.

  Had Roderick broken his cardinal rule and read The Times that morning he would have found that both twenty-three-year-old men were indeed mentioned, one on the front page, and one in an indirect fashion on the seventh page where matters of society and parties and engagements and social events were gossiped over and dissected with languid humour and tedious puns. Fortunately for his blood pressure, however, he would never see either.

  The kettle began to whistle in the kitchen and Roderick snapped out of his thoughts and headed in that direction. He wanted tea, he wanted a very strong cup of tea.

  3

  ‘THE PROBLEM IS THAT one runs out of things to say. It seems so insincere to offer the same old condolences over and over.’ This now from Mrs Sharon Rice, a widow who lived three miles east of Leyville with her son, a successful banker whose wife had left him in a scandal.

  ‘But the alternative, my dear, is simply to ignore him and pretend that this is just another party,’ replied Mrs Marjorie Redmond, looking around at the gathered guests in their dark and sombre attire and wondering what was the significance of wearing black to a funeral. It only succeeded in making people feel even more depressed than they already were.

  ‘I very much doubt that Owen Montignac will be hosting any parties for a long time. I don’t expect to see the inside of Leyville again this side of Christmas.’

  ‘No, the young people never hold on to the old customs,’ said Mrs Rice with the offended sniff of one who knew that her most vicious days were behind her. ‘Of course he won’t remember the parties that used to be held here. Back in the day, I mean.’

  ‘But do we know that it is actually his?’ asked Mrs Redmond, looking around cautiously and lowering her voice. ‘After all, he was only the nephew. By rights everything should have gone to Andrew but it’s always possible that Stella will be the beneficiary.’

  ‘The Montignacs have always let their money inherit by the male line,’ replied Mrs Rice. ‘And Peter Montignac was a stickler for tradition. Stella will be taken care of, I have no doubt about that, but no, I imagine Owen will be a very wealthy man when the will has been read.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what accounts for the eulogy?’

  ‘My dear, I wanted to applaud him. There are far too many people who bottle their feelings up, if you ask me. And after all that Peter did for that boy, taking him in as he did despite what his father had done, of course he needed to say what he felt. I rather admire him, to tell you the truth.’

  * * *

  THE MEN AT THE billiard table debated a separate issue back and forth, trusting that they would not be disturbed by anyone as they competed against each other. One of their number, a young man named Alexander Keys who had been to Eton with Montignac, had wanted to ask permission of their host before playing as he felt it might be considered inappropriate during a day of mourning, but their host was nowhere to be found and so they had begun anyway and agreed on only a small wager, just to keep things interesting.

  ‘Keep that door closed,’ suggested one.

  ‘So we’re agreed then?’ asked Thomas Handel, lining up a shot. ‘The man should be allowed to do as he pleases?’

  Alexander snorted. ‘I don’t see that we are in agreement. You believe that it’s no one’s business but his own, I don’t. There’s such a thing as duty, you know.’

  ‘Glad to hear you say that,’ said an older man, leaning on his cue for support. ‘Too many of you young fellows don’t believe in it. Think you can do whatever you want and hang the consequences. Duty’s exactly what it’s all about. I’m with you, sir.’

  ‘Nothing will come of it anyway,’ said Thomas. ‘You mark my words. There was that other woman, a year or two ago. What was her name again?’

  ‘We believed in duty once,’ said the older man, drifting off into contemplation and blurred memories.

  ‘Seven-day wonder, she was. And yet the society gossips would have had us believe that an announcement was imminent.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ boomed the oldest man in the room, a retired Home Secretary whose voice carried more weight than anyone else’s present and for whom everyone remained silent; even the shot on the black was held up for his pearl of wisdom. ‘The whole thing is a lot of stuff and nonsense dreamed up by chaps like Beaverbrook for public titillation. He should simply do what his ancestors have been doing for years. Take a wife and keep a mistress, like any decent man would. An honest to goodness whore.’

  ‘She’s no oil painting, though, is she, sir?’ asked Alexander, the whisper of a smile breaking out around the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I am led to believe,’ said the old man in a perfectly serious tone of voice, ‘that love is blind.’ He arched an eyebrow for this was a statement that he considered to be humorous and one that might outlive him and be replayed at his own funeral one day. ‘And if that’s true, then one can only assume that the king is in need of eyeglasses.’

  ‘A seven-day wonder,’ repeated another young man, shaking his head and laughing. ‘I say, I rather like that.’

  ‘Well that’s what it will be, you mark my words. Next week it’ll be some other floozy. Another man’s wife, another man’s daughter, another divorcée.’

  ‘Where’s the damn girl with the damn brandies?’ asked the former Home Secretary, whose alcohol level was becoming dangerously low.

  ‘I’m here, sir,’ said the damn girl, all of nineteen years old, who had been standing right beside him, holding the damn tray all along.

  * * *

  SIR DENIS TANDY STOOD alone in the library and ran his fingers appreciatively across the spines of a leather-bound collection of the complete Dickens. The room was in astonishing order, mahogany bookcases lining the walls, each one a dozen shelves high with ladders positioned to run along a top rail to help the ambitious reader stretch ever higher in their pursuit of knowledge and entertainment. The books were separated around the room into categories, with histories of London occupying almost six shelves of their own on a left-hand wall. In the centre of the room stood a heavy oak reading table with a couple of lamps on either end. Bound folio editions of maps were gathered underneath, some of which contained references to the many plots of land, whole streets at a time in fact, that were owned by the Montignac estate, their value enormous, their annual income difficult to calculate with any accuracy.

  He had known Peter Montignac for almost forty years and had slowly moved from the position of lawyer to close friend and confidant in midlife, before returning to the role of functionary and employee during Peter’s final years as the old man grew grouchy and despondent. It was the death of his only son, Andrew, that had brought this on; anyone with even a slight acquaintance with the older Montignac knew that he
had never quite got over the tragedy. The boy’s death in a shooting accident at the age of eighteen had never been explained to the father’s satisfaction; Andrew had been an experienced marksman after all, Peter pointed out whenever the subject came up. And he knew how to clean a rifle. It was too ridiculous to suggest that he would have made such a fatal error.

  The relationship between lawyer and client had been fractious at times over the years but he knew that he would miss him nonetheless, his unpredictability and charm, the bursts of anger and venom he reserved for his enemies. Peter Montignac had been a man of extremes, capable of the fiercest loyalty to his friends but also willing to exact bitter revenge against those who had betrayed that friendship over the years. Sir Denis knew him well enough to feel pleased that he had managed, for the most part, to stay on the right side of him.

  He had spent a half-hour since returning to Leyville from the funeral trying to locate Owen Montignac in order to arrange a suitable time for the reading of the will, but Peter’s young nephew was nowhere to be found. He had certainly come back with the party—that unmistakable shock of white hair had been visible emerging from the first car to arrive back at the house—but he had failed to put in an appearance since then, which Sir Denis found to be in poor taste. Mourning was mourning, of course, but it should be kept to private time and not allowed to surface when there was a house full of guests. And as for that eulogy he’d delivered; well, he could just imagine Peter turning in his grave at the thought of such stark emotion.

  Sir Denis wanted to arrange the reading for as soon as possible and planned to fortify himself with several stiff brandies before it began as he could not imagine the interview having a happy conclusion. He glanced at his watch; if Montignac did not appear within the next half-hour, he decided he would speak to Stella instead; she had also kept a low profile throughout the day but was managing to contain her grief with a lot more dignity than her cousin had displayed. And this despite the fact that she was the man’s natural child.

  It was in this house that Peter and Sir Denis had drafted his original will many years before, leaving all his money and interests to his now late wife, Ann; it was here that it had been amended in favour of his son, Andrew, within hours of the boy’s birth. It was here that allowances for Stella and his nephew, Owen, had been added as a codicil and here that the entire thing had had to be changed again after Andrew’s death.

  He didn’t relish the idea of the reading, wondering how the relatives would react when they heard the news. Perhaps it wouldn’t be unexpected, despite the Montignacs’ sense of tradition; perhaps they might have predicted one final outburst of spontaneity from their late patriarch. It was difficult to know. Sir Denis couldn’t even guess at their reaction for they were a strange family, given to unpredictability and capriciousness.

  4

  RODERICK BENTLEY HELD THE breakfast tray gingerly in his hands as he opened the door to the bedroom, trying his best not to surrender the carefully balanced contents to the carpet beneath him as he stepped inside. Jane was already awake but dozing and sat up in bed with a sleepy smile when she saw her husband appear.

  ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘What a perfect servant you are.’

  He smiled and stood before her like a well-trained butler while she arranged the pillows behind her back, and then settled the tray on her lap carefully.

  ‘Breakfast, madam,’ he announced in an affected voice and she smiled and took the lid off the plate to reveal a selection of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages.

  ‘Scrambled,’ she said with a frown. ‘I’ll have to speak to Nell about that. They’re very twenties, don’t you think? But she refuses to poach, for some unfathomable reason.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not up to date with the current fashions in eggs,’ said Roderick, settling himself in an armchair by the window as his wife buttered a slice of toast.

  ‘You should have brought up another cup,’ said Jane, pouring herself some tea. ‘There’s enough in the pot for two.’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough tea,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve been up since five o’clock drinking the stuff and I better stop or I’ll have to keep excusing myself from the bench this morning.’

  ‘Five o’clock?’ she asked, turning to look at him in surprise. ‘Why on earth—?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right once today’s over.’

  ‘You do look tired,’ said Jane after a pause, a suitably sympathetic look crossing her face. ‘Poor Roderick. It’s really taken it out of you, hasn’t it?’

  A loud commotion muffled its way up to the window from the street below and Roderick stood up and parted the curtains slightly to see what was happening out there.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ he said in an exasperated tone.

  ‘What?’ asked Jane. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It looks like two reporters are getting into a fight over who has the better position on the pavement and the others are cheering them on,’ he said, closing the curtains again. ‘Probably taking bets on it too, the bloody parasites. Perhaps they’ll knock each other out.’

  ‘The neighbours won’t be sorry when this is all over,’ said Jane. ‘Catherine Jones called me yesterday to ask when you would be passing sentence.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘I said you never discuss your cases at home. That there’s such a thing as judicial integrity. Well, I didn’t put it in quite such stark terms but I think she got the idea.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Bentley, nodding his head in approval. ‘You did right.’

  ‘Roderick?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You will be passing sentence today, though, won’t you?’

  Roderick thought about it and bit his upper lip, breathing heavily through his nose as he did so. Jane had been right about one thing; he never did discuss his cases at home. But then he had been a judge for almost fifteen years and he had never presided over a case with quite so much notoriety and public interest as was attached to this one. Nor had he sat on the bench for one which had caused this level of difficulty and media intrusiveness for his family. Or his neighbours. He decided that on this occasion, and on this occasion alone, it would not damage his integrity too much if he bent one of his rules a little.

  ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Yes, it will all be over today. You can be sure of that.’

  ‘And what will it be?’ asked Jane in as casual a manner as possible, not looking in his direction now but scooping a little of the offending scrambled eggs on to a slice of toast in order to imply her lack of interest in the answer. ‘Life or death?’

  ‘Now, Jane,’ said Roderick, smiling slightly at the wiles which his wife employed to trick him into answering; he had grown familiar with her tricks over the years and rarely found himself trapped. ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Roderick,’ she said as if it was a trivial matter and hardly worthy of her time anyway. ‘You’ll be telling the whole world in a couple of hours. You can tell me now, can’t you? If I promise not to say anything to anyone in the meantime?’

  There was a polite tap on the bedroom door and Jane frowned and called for the visitor waiting outside to enter. It was Sophie, the maid-of-all-work, with the morning edition of The Times which had just been delivered.

  ‘Oh thank you, Sophie,’ said Jane. ‘Just lay it on the bed there, would you? And could you run my bath for me too please? I’ll be getting up in a few minutes.’

  ‘Already, ma’am?’ asked Sophie, surprised, for her mistress normally liked to luxuriate in bed for a little longer before rising to face an inferior world.

  ‘Yes, I’ll be accompanying the judge to the Old Bailey this morning so it’s rush-rush and all hands to the pumps.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Sophie, leaving the room quickly and heading in the direction of the bathroom.

  ‘You’re coming to court?’ asked Roderick when she had left. ‘You’re atten
ding the sentencing?’

  ‘I decided last night,’ said Jane. ‘You don’t think I’d miss it, do you? I want to show you some support. To let you know that you’re not alone in that chilly courtroom. And besides, everyone will be there.’

  ‘Everyone won’t get in,’ said Roderick irritably. ‘There’s not enough room for everyone.’

  ‘Well there’ll be room for the judge’s wife, I expect,’ she said, setting her tray aside, the food only half eaten. ‘What time is it now anyway?’

  ‘Ten past nine,’ he said, unsure whether he should be flattered or nervous about his wife’s presence in court. She always attracted the attention of the reporters and seemed to thrive on batting their questions aside like a skilled cricketer.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘Well then, I better hurry. What time are you leaving at, around ten?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well don’t,’ she said, stressing the word, ‘leave without me.’

  Roderick nodded and watched as his wife got out of bed and went to the wardrobe for her robe. Even now, even after all these years, he could barely take his eyes off her. It wasn’t just that he had been inexperienced with women when they had first met and it wasn’t just that she’d given him the kind of sensual life over two and a half decades that he had never previously imagined would be part of his destiny. It was also the fact that she was the type of woman who grew more and more attractive with age and every day brought fresh delights. To be by her side, to enter the Old Bailey with her on his arm, made him feel like a young man in the throes of his first romance again. Everything about her energized him; he loved her.