Next of Kin (20 page)

A small bell chimed from below; Stella had tapped on it and he made his way to the balcony and looked down on her. They both spoke at the same moment.

‘Shop,' she said.

‘Stella,' he called out. ‘I'm up here.'

She turned her head upwards and grinned. ‘Hiding away, are you?'

He smiled and shook his head. He noticed that she was carrying three bags of shopping and wondered how much of his stolen money she had already spent that morning and how much more would be delivered into the cash registers of Oxford Street, Regent Street and Covent Garden before the day was over.

‘I'll be down in a few minutes,' he called out. ‘Make yourself comfortable.'

‘Thanks. I will.'

He watched as she deposited her bags behind his desk and took her coat off, laying it across his chair, and felt momentarily flattered and irritated by how much she could make herself at home in his place of business. He felt that this was one of her specialities; believing that the world existed purely for her comfort.

For a moment he cast his mind back to the first time he had laid eyes on his cousin. He was five years old at the time and had recently been delivered off a boat from Calais to Dover where his uncle, Peter Montignac, had collected him and driven him back to Leyville.

‘This is to be your home from now on,' Peter explained to him as they drove along. ‘You're to live with my wife and me and our two children. Are you happy about that?' He spoke with enormous pride, as if he was God himself who, in an act of charity, was welcoming an unrepentant sinner through the gates of Paradise.

Montignac stared at the stranger, afraid to answer.

‘What's the matter?' Peter asked. ‘Cat got your tongue?'

He replied in faltering English and said he was glad to be there. He had never spoken anything but French during those first five years with his parents and was nervous of it now. His father, Henry, had taught him English but they had rarely employed it in day-to-day conversation; he found that he was uneasy about using the language now, scared that he might appear foolish or ignorant among his newly discovered relatives.

‘We'll have to do something about that accent of yours,' Peter said irritably. ‘Can't have you talking like that around here. You'll frighten the locals.'

Andrew was eight and Stella had just turned six when Montignac arrived to live with them. Their mother, Ann, explained to them that he was their cousin, that he'd lost both his parents and had no one else to look after him but them and they must treat him like a brother.

‘Why have we never heard of him before?' Andrew asked suspiciously. ‘Why hasn't he been here to play or come to any of my birthday parties?'

‘Well, because he's been living in France,' she explained. ‘It's much too far away for someone to come just for a party.'

‘You've never even spoken of him before,' Andrew said, nervous at the prospect of having another boy in the house and his own carefully carved-out position being usurped.

‘Of course I have. We've often told you about your cousin, Owen.'

‘You've never mentioned his name once,' insisted Andrew quite correctly because the truth was that she never had. ‘What happened to his parents anyway?'

Ann sat her two children down in the library and tried to explain it to them in a way that she hoped wouldn't scare them.

‘Well,' she began. ‘You understand that there's a war going on at the moment?'

The children nodded. Everyone knew about the war; it was all anyone ever talked about. Some of their friends' fathers were even fighting in it but their father didn't have to because he had important business to take care of in London.

‘Well your uncle, Owen's father, was killed in a battle. And his wife—'

‘Our aunt,' said Andrew.

‘His wife,' repeated Ann. ‘Well she died in an explosion at a factory. But she was French, of course,' she added, as if that meant she had probably brought it on herself. ‘She lived here for a time some years ago but that was before any of this.'

‘She lived here?' asked Andrew, wide-eyed.

‘Long before you were born,' said Ann. ‘I never met her myself. She was a maid when your grandfather was still alive.'

Andrew considered it and couldn't quite understand how that could possibly be. ‘You're saying that our uncle married one of our maids?' he asked, unable to believe it for a moment.

‘It was all a very long time ago,' repeated Ann, sorry that she'd begun this at all. ‘And it's neither here nor there any more. The important thing is that we welcome their little boy into our home because he has nowhere else to go and if you can't rely on family at times like this, well then who can you rely on?'

‘I'll make him welcome,' said Stella quietly, who had remained silent throughout all of this.

A little later that afternoon the children stood nervously at the door while their father's motor car made its way up the driveway towards them.

‘Well?' asked Peter of his young charge. ‘What do you think of it then? This is where your father grew up, you know. Magnificent, isn't it? Perhaps he spoke about it from time to time?'

Montignac could hardly believe it. The house they had lived in in Clermont-Ferrand was perfectly pleasant but it was small, cosy enough to fit just the three of them. This house, on the other hand, was a mansion. It was like one of the castles that he had seen when his parents had taken him on a holiday to Versailles. He thought such places were just there for visiting or for housing museums; they could hardly have been places in which people actually lived. His mouth dropped open in amazement and he found it hard to accept that he was actually going to be staying there.

‘And standing at the door over there are your aunt and your cousins,' he said, bringing the car to a halt. ‘They'll make you feel at home.'

Although he had been a little scared of his uncle ever since arriving in England, he clung close to him now as the introductions were made. He was accustomed to being around other children in France but these two who called themselves Andrew and Stella seemed like an entirely different breed altogether. For one thing they were extremely clean and well dressed, unlike his old friends who were generally scruffy and bathed only once or twice a week. They both extended their hands politely for him to shake and said, ‘How do you do?' and when he nodded politely and said, ‘
Bonjour
,' they twisted their faces up in surprise and looked at their father for reassurance.

‘Now, now, Owen,' said Peter. ‘Remember what I told you on the way here. We speak English in this country. There's no need for any more of that.'

‘
Oui, mais j'ai oublié le mot pour—
'

‘Owen, you're doing it again.'

‘Sorry,' he said.

When he looked up again he saw Stella staring at him, not quite at his face but a little higher, and he knew that she was looking at his hair, surprised by how white it was.

‘It's quite extraordinary, isn't it?' said Peter, following his daughter's gaze. ‘At least we know we won't lose him in the dark, eh? He's like a torch. Well come on, old fellow,' he said cheerfully then, putting his arm around the boy's shoulders. ‘Let's get you inside. You must be tired after your trip.'

And in they had gone, closing the large oak doors firmly behind them to begin his new life as the poor relation.

Montignac finished inserting a new tube bulb into the overhead fitting and switched it on. It worked perfectly. It was lighting up a large canvas, perhaps six feet by four, which contained a series of increasingly dark stripes, each one with a red circle drawn in the centre. The significance of the circles and the lines was beyond him but if he had been forced to choose the least reprehensible work in the gallery, this might have been it. It wasn't as hideously awful as some of the other pieces on display, which perhaps explained why it had languished there for almost three months without even a hint of a buyer.

‘Owen.'

A voice from behind made him jump; he had been lost in his thoughts and memories and hadn't heard her come up the stairs.

‘Stella,' he said, breaking into an embarrassed smile. ‘Sorry for jumping. You startled me.'

‘When you're quite ready…' she said, smiling back at him and he noticed how even now, even after all these years, she could barely bring herself to look him in the eye. Instead her gaze was directed just a little north of his forehead as if it didn't matter how many years she spent looking at him, it was still impossible for her to believe that such a shade of white could exist on a human being.

He didn't know whether it was his hair that continued to fascinate her or whether she just couldn't hold his gaze; in truth he found it hard to look directly at her either after everything they had been through. If he could go back twenty years, he wondered, would he have jumped overboard as the ship passed through the English Channel or would he have come anyway and faced what was to come?

‘I think we need to talk, Owen,' said Stella quietly and he nodded.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes, I think we probably do.'

6

IT WAS WELL PAST
noon by the time that Gareth Bentley was washed and dressed and ready to present himself to the outside world. His hangover was pulsating slightly behind his eyes but had not developed as painfully as he had imagined it might earlier. Still, his whole body felt like it was in denial, skin pale and wan, hair lank, limbs uneager for movement. But he liked the house at this time of day. His father would be at work, his mother would be out having lunch with her friends or shopping, and Sophie and Nell, if they were around at all, would be hiding out in the basement or taking their early afternoon hours off.

He padded downstairs in his socks and made a pot of tea, leafing through the morning newspaper which was laid out on the breakfast table as usual, although there was nothing much of interest to be found there. He stretched out, yawning extravagantly, and was considering retiring to the living-room sofa for another snooze when the telephone rang and he drifted out to the hallway to answer it.

‘Hello?' he said in a distracted tone but there was silence on the other end so he repeated himself. ‘Hello?' he asked again.

‘Hello, yes,' said a gruff voice immediately in reply. ‘Who's this?'

‘Who's this?' asked Gareth, half amused, half irritated. ‘Who's
this
? You phoned me!'

‘Yes, who is it?' said the voice.

‘It's Gareth Bentley,' he said, not eager to continue with this line of questioning. ‘Who are you looking for?'

‘Ah yes, Gareth, you're the one I'm after. It's Quentin Lawrence here. I'm sure your father told you I'd be in touch.'

‘Quentin Lawrence,' said Gareth to himself, trying to recall where he knew the name from. It rang a distant bell.

‘Now I just needed to talk to you about Monday,' said Sir Quentin. ‘I have a long fraud trial beginning in Newcastle so we'll be going up on the Sunday evening train. I'll need you to take a note for me during the proceedings, of course, but also to organize the luggage and the tickets. Can you come round here Sunday afternoon, say around four? I realize it's a bit in at the deep end but there's no harm in that.'

Gareth listened, unsure what the man was talking about. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I think you must have the wrong person.'

‘Nonsense,' said Lawrence. ‘You're Roderick's boy, aren't you?'

‘Well yes, but—'

‘You don't have a brother, do you?'

‘No.'

‘Then you're the one. You're my new pupil. Now come along, let's not waste time on all of this, I need to make sure that you—'

While Sir Quentin Lawrence twittered on about train timetables and four-star hotels, Gareth remembered where he had heard the name before. His mother had mentioned it earlier in the day when she'd been trying to rouse him from his bed. This was the fellow who was to be his mentor in chambers. For a moment or two he developed a new-found respect for his father for managing to put his plan into action without so much as consulting him. It was a good job, Gareth realized, that he had gone to the Unicorn Ballrooms the night before or he might well have had no choice but to accept.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Lawrence,' began Gareth but he was quickly interrupted.

‘It's Sir Quentin,' said the man on the other end of the phone proudly.

‘I'm sorry, Sir Quentin,' he said, correcting himself. ‘I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding.'

‘Misunderstanding?' Sir Quentin asked irritably. ‘I don't see how. Your father asked me as a particular favour to—'

‘Yes, I'm aware of that, only my father didn't know that I've found another position in the meantime.'

There was an offended silence on the other end. ‘You're going to another chambers?' Sir Quentin asked in appalled disbelief, as if he'd just announced his intention to vote Labour at the next general election.

‘No, not to another chambers. To an entirely different career altogether.'

‘A career outside the law?' he asked, even more dumbfounded.

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘Well don't be ridiculous, boy. You studied at Cambridge, didn't you? I did so myself and look at me now. Why on earth would you move to a different career? Nonsense. You stick with what you're good at, that's what I say, and you won't come undone. Now if you can just manage to get round here by four on Sunday then I can—'

‘I'm sorry, Sir Quentin,' said Gareth quite affably. ‘I do appreciate the opportunity you're giving me but there's simply no way I can accept it. I've already given my word to my new employer.'

‘To your new—?'

‘But thank you anyway, I do appreciate the offer. And thanks for calling. Goodbye then,' he said, replacing the receiver on the cradle gently, and grimacing. He stood there tensely, waiting to see whether anything would happen, and sure enough it rang again within the minute and this time it sounded, if such a thing were possible, even angrier than before. He chose not to answer it, however, and simply stared at the device, willing it to stop and leave him in peace. Finally it did and it didn't ring again. He breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the kitchen.