Next of Kin (2 page)

Typically, he had avoided the newspapers throughout the weekend. From his earliest days as a pupil at the chambers of Sir Max Rice KC, through to his years as a junior barrister scrapping for cases around the various law courts of London and the outer circuit, when he was permitted only to sit in the second row of the courtroom, whispering advice into the ear of his learned leader, and subsequently with his famous work as an advocate before he had taken silk, Roderick had avoided reading newspaper articles which referred to cases he was working on at the time. Since his appointment as a high court judge, presiding over some of the most infamous crimes of the day, this policy had become a matter of honour to him.

And considering the extraordinary amount of attention his current trial had received, he didn't dare turn from the crossword to the front page for he knew how the headline would read; he declined to scan the editorials for he could not allow his decision to be influenced by public opinion or editors' points of view or, worse still, readers' letters. Instead, he threw the paper in the bin and made for his bath.

An hour or so later, shortly before six thirty in the morning, he sat in his study rereading the opinion he had written over the weekend, the cause of this morning's sleeplessness, which he would be delivering at eleven o'clock precisely to an assembled court and representatives of the fourth estate. He read it thoroughly, checked and double-checked a few points of law against his impressive legal library for fear of error, and then sat back with a sigh, contemplating the fact that he was forced to make this decision at all.

To be a judge, he decided, was an odd profession. To have it within one's gift to grant liberty or to deny it was a curious authority; to allow a man to continue his life or pronounce that it should be ended, a humbling power.

There were sounds of stirring in the house now and he guessed that Sophie, the downstairs maid, and Nell, the cook, would be up soon. His wife, Jane, never rose before nine o'clock and generally preferred to take breakfast in bed and he had an urge to deliver it to her himself that morning. She had been particularly thoughtful over the course of this difficult weekend, suggesting a quick overnight break to a hotel in the Lake District for Saturday night in order to take his mind off his worries. It would offer him a peaceful environment in which to write his opinion, she reasoned, but he'd declined the offer, imagining how it would look to the newspapers if he was holidaying in Wordsworth country while a man's life was at stake.

‘Who cares what they say?' she'd asked him, noticing how much greyer her husband had grown over recent months since this terrible trial had begun. ‘Who cares what they write about you anyway?'

‘I care,' Roderick had replied with a sad smile and a shrug. ‘If they criticize me, they criticize the judiciary as a whole and I can't allow myself to be responsible for that. Perhaps we'll go away next weekend, when this dreadful business is behind us. Anyway, they'd only follow us down there and we'd have no fun at all.'

There were footsteps on the stairs now and he could hear the voices of Sophie and Nell as they descended together from the small flat they shared in the attic of the house. They were keeping their conversation low as they assumed that both the master and mistress were still asleep upstairs and he felt an uncommon urge to follow them into the kitchen and join in whatever trivial conversation they might be having, but of course it was out of the question. They would think he'd lost his reason entirely and if that got into the hands of the reporters, well it was anyone's guess how the whole business would resolve itself then. There were spies everywhere and no one except his wife could be trusted; he'd learned that over recent months.

Two framed photographs sat on either side of his desk and he looked at them tenderly. The first was of Jane, taken two years earlier on the occasion of her fortieth birthday party. She had barely changed in all the years he'd known her and even in that picture she could have passed for a woman ten or twelve years her junior. She was as strikingly beautiful—and difficult—as she had been when they had first met, when he was a barrister in his late twenties and she a debutante ten years his junior, the daughter of an ageing colleague on the lookout for a potential husband and a comfortable lifestyle.

The second was of their son, Gareth, a picture taken the summer before when he'd gone sailing with a friend of his from Cambridge, a boy who'd been the cox in the boat race if Roderick remembered correctly, when they'd won by about four lengths. He was grinning madly in the photograph, Gareth's arm wrapped around the other man's shoulders, his hair too long for a boy, his attitude too carefree for someone who had yet to settle down and find suitable employment. He'd been considerate over the previous few months, however, knowing the pressure that his father had been under. He'd made the odd supportive comment whenever he'd been around but that was a rare enough thing these days. Roderick found that he could go almost a full week at a time now without laying eyes on his son, who kept unusual and antisocial hours with his set, a group that seemed bent on achieving nothing else from their twenties other than the pursuit of hedonism and gaiety. Roderick knew that the boy kept out of his way so they wouldn't have to finally engage in the conversation which would lead to his finding work; he had been neglectful as a father in this respect in recent times. That too would have to change after today.

It was all so different from when he had been that age. He'd always wanted to study the law but hadn't come from a particularly wealthy family so it was a struggle to see his studies through to their conclusion. Certainly, once he began to practise he had quickly made a name for himself as one of the brightest of the new men at the Bar, but then every day of his twenties had been put into building his reputation, achieving success in a variety of trials and impressing Sir Max, who hinted that he might head chambers himself one day in the distant future, long after Sir Max was dead of course, if he kept up his volume of cases and didn't allow distractions to enter his life. And publish of course. Publish or perish.

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.