Next of Kin (42 page)

Are we only here to avenge the crimes against our fathers?
wondered Montignac.

‘And Roderick Bentley?' he asked. ‘You're sure you'll be able to get what you want out of him now?' asked Montignac.

‘Oh yes, certainly I am. We'll have him over a barrel. See his own son hanged when he has the power with a simple word to stop it? You obviously don't have children, Mr Montignac, or you wouldn't even ask.'

Montignac turned to look out the window.

‘No,' he said. ‘Perhaps if I did I'd understand.'

Raymond Davis jolted into life suddenly, his eyes opening wide, incredibly alert, before slumping back in the seat, half asleep. His head turned to his right and he tried to focus on the man sitting beside him. ‘Owen…' he groaned.

‘It's all right, Raymond,' said Montignac, patting his arm. ‘You had a little accident, that's all. We're taking you to a doctor. Just try and relax. Go back to sleep if you like.'

Raymond groaned again, deeply, and his hand moved to the back of his head, but a moment later he seemed to be immersed in sleep again although his eyes remained slightly open.

They arrived at Bedford Place a few minutes later. It was entirely deserted and the two men pulled Raymond from the car as quietly as possible. He was more alert now and his feet moved as they brought him up the stairs but he said little, just emitted deep sounds from somewhere within his chest. They went up the stairs and into Montignac's flat, which he opened with the spare key he kept over the door. Montignac went in first to check on Gareth and, sure enough, the young man was asleep in the bedroom, still in his clothes, wrapped up in the sheets. Montignac smiled and closed the door on him for a moment.

‘Sleeping like a baby,' he said to Keaton as they closed the door of the flat behind them and settled Raymond on a sofa.

‘All right,' he said. ‘Let's throw a few things around. Make it look like there was a struggle.'

He unsettled a bookcase and broke a vase, then upended the coffee table, resting them on the carpet quietly so as not to disturb the rest of the building, and cleared a space on the floor.

‘Now for the hard part,' said Montignac, taking the candlestick from beside the fireplace.

‘Rather you than me,' said Keaton, turning away as Montignac moved towards his prey and shook him roughly.

‘Raymond,' he said. ‘Raymond, can you hear me? Wake up!'

He opened his eyes blearily and tried to focus. ‘Stella…?' he muttered.

‘You have to stand up, Raymond,' said Montignac, enunciating each word clearly. ‘Stand up. The doctor is here to see you.'

‘Can't you just do it there?' asked Keaton but Montignac shook his head.

‘He needs to fall the right way. You don't attack intruders who are sleeping on your sofa. He needs to be standing up. It needs to look like there was a struggle.'

He took Raymond's hands and pulled him to his feet, no easy task as he wanted nothing more than to remain prostrate on the sofa.

‘Oh here, let me help,' said Keaton, taking one side and between them they pulled him upwards and dragged him to the floor.

‘Raymond, turn around and look at the door,' said Montignac, and now the words seemed to have more meaning to him because his eyes opened wider and he licked his lips as he wondered where he was.

‘Owen?' he asked clearly. ‘What…? Where am…?'

‘Raymond, over there,' said Montignac, pointing towards the door. ‘Turn away from me. Look over there.'

‘What's over there?' he mumbled, turning as Montignac had asked him.

‘Stella's over there,' said Montignac quietly and as he said that Raymond turned around again, his mouth open, his eyes questioning, and at that moment Montignac brought the candlestick crashing down on his head. He fell to the floor immediately, heavily, his hands going to his temples for a moment before falling at his side. Standing over him, Montignac lifted the candlestick again and brought it down on his forehead with as much force as he could muster. There was a sickening sound of broken bone and Keaton turned away in disgust. Montignac looked down, aware that his hands were trembling now and his stomach churning but the blood did not seem to be pouring quite as much as he would have wished so he hit him again, at which point he was certainly dead. Reaching down with a towel he wiped up much of the blood and carried this into the bedroom, smearing Gareth's clothes and hands with it. The young man lying in his bed barely stirred.

‘Are we done?' asked Keaton when he reappeared, and Montignac nodded.

‘I think so,' he said, looking around. ‘You'll drive me back to the gallery?'

‘Yes, of course,' he said. They stepped outside and made sure to leave the door ajar so that the first person to leave the building for work in the morning would see the body and alert the authorities.

They drove back in relative silence. Montignac felt a sensation of sadness at all that had happened but his resolution was firm. He had had no choice, he reasoned. It was kill or be killed. And he was saving Stella from a life with that fool.

‘And the forty thousand pounds?' asked Montignac as they pulled up in the back lane.

‘Will be yours when the plan has worked,' he replied. ‘You've got what you want, Mr Montignac, now it's time for me to get what I want. And it will be money extremely well spent too.'

‘I need it by Christmas,' said Montignac. ‘Or my life will be on the line.'

‘By Christmas, I guarantee it.'

‘You'll be ready by then?'

‘Oh yes. Certainly if Roderick Bentley plays along. Your Mr Bentley will be saved from the noose and I will have saved the country.'

‘Then everyone wins.'

‘Except young Mr Davis, yes.'

Montignac nodded and went back into the gallery as the Rolls Royce drove away into the night.

9

‘THE WHOLE THING IS
just such a terrible tragedy,' said Jane Bentley. ‘Were you expecting Mr Davis to call around to see you that night?'

‘Not at all,' said Montignac. ‘He'd never said anything about it to me at any rate.'

‘But you were friends, the two of you? It wouldn't have been unusual for him to call around that late at night? He'd done it before?'

‘I wouldn't go so far as to say that we were friends,' he said, not wishing to imply something that she could easily discover to be false. ‘As you know, he was engaged to be married to my cousin. I wasn't entirely in favour of the match if I'm honest.'

‘Can I ask why not?'

‘No special reason,' he replied. ‘I suppose I just didn't know him very well and I wasn't happy that he proposed so soon after my uncle died. He left rather a lot of money to Stella, you see.'

‘Yes, I heard that.'

‘I was only looking out for her best interests. I'm sure you can understand that. But I think that in time Raymond and I would have got along fine.'

Jane nodded and her body seemed to slump in the chair for a moment. ‘And your cousin?' she asked finally. ‘How is she holding up?'

‘It's been very hard on her.'

‘I wish I could tell her how sorry I am.'

Montignac shook his head quickly. ‘I don't think that's a very good idea,' he said. ‘She's down at Leyville at the moment, our family home. I think she just wants to be left alone to come to terms with things.'

‘Of course,' said Jane. ‘I wouldn't know what to say to her even if we did talk.'

‘It's best if you leave her alone for now.'

‘That's what my husband said. I wanted to write to her, to tell her that we were sorry for her loss, but he wouldn't allow it. He said it might prejudice the case.'

‘I suppose it might.'

‘Roderick's a judge,' she said. ‘But I expect you know that.'

‘Yes.'

‘Gareth trained for the law too. As a barrister. He should have stuck with it.'

‘That's something I never quite understood,' said Montignac. ‘Why did he study for so many years and then not take it up as a profession?'

‘Children are strange, Mr Montignac,' she said, offering him a bittersweet smile. ‘At a certain age they want you to be proud of them and so they follow in your footsteps. And then a few years later they want nothing to do with you and reject it all. Even if it causes injury to them.'

Montignac nodded. He reached across and started tapping a pencil against his desk nervously, wondering how much longer she would be staying.

‘I'm keeping you from your work,' she said, slowly snapping back to the moment and noticing his discomfort.

‘Not at all,' he said and then immediately contradicted himself by saying, ‘I do have rather a lot to do today, though.'

‘One last question,' she said. ‘Will you be testifying at the trial?'

‘I believe I'll be called as a witness, yes.'

‘A prosecution witness?'

He hesitated before giving her a gentle nod. ‘It doesn't really matter who calls me,' he said then. ‘I don't really have an awful lot to say about it. I simply wasn't with him long enough.'

‘No, but you could testify to the fact that he was so inebriated, yes? Perhaps they will take that into account when it comes to sentencing.'

Montignac noticed that she had already decided the verdict would be guilty. If even the poor boy's mother didn't believe him, what chance did he have? He felt almost sorry for him.

‘I'll testify as to what I saw,' he said. ‘And what the judge does with that information … well you must know only too well from your own husband.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘But if they ask you about his character, Mr Montignac? You'll be able to say good things about him, won't you?'

‘I'm afraid that will be rather difficult for me. For one thing, we didn't really know each other long enough for me to form an opinion about him. And for another, I can hardly stand there and have my cousin hear me say nice things about the man accused of murdering her fiancé.'

‘But you did know Gareth,' she insisted. ‘You liked him. You employed him.'

‘Of course, but—'

Jane leaned forwards, her eyes searching his face for some connection with her. ‘You're a successful young man, Mr Montignac. And your name is a well-respected one. If the court heard you say that you didn't believe Gareth was capable of such a crime—'

‘Mrs Bentley—'

‘If you told them that you had heard that Raymond Davis had enemies, for example, then maybe—'

‘But he didn't have any enemies,' insisted Montignac.

‘How do you know that?' she pleaded and then, aware that she was starting to shout, she lowered her voice and spoke in a more confidential tone. ‘You have to help him, Mr Montignac,' she said, reaching forwards and taking his hand in both of hers. Her skin was terribly soft to the touch but he could feel the tension in her grip, her unrelenting horror at what was happening to her life. ‘You
have
to help him. If you do, if you could do something to stop all this … you understand there's nothing I wouldn't do to help my son, don't you? There's nothing you could ask of me—'

Montignac pulled his hand away and stood up, turning his back on her and looking out the window. He bit his lip, wishing he could just disappear into another life, another world, anywhere that didn't involve any of this. He'd never seen someone as desperate for help and yet there was nothing he could do.

‘So you won't testify on his behalf?' asked Jane Bentley finally, her voice adopting a more robotic tone of resignation now.

‘I will say what I witnessed and I'll answer any questions that are put to me,' he insisted. ‘But other than that I can't help you.'

Jane nodded and stood up. He turned around and watched as she walked away and then, to his annoyance, she stopped for a moment and turned back to look at him.

‘I was looking at your paintings earlier,' she said. ‘The paintings in the gallery, I mean. While I was waiting for you.'

‘Yes?' said Montignac. ‘Did one of them interest you?'

‘None of them did,' she said, shaking her head. ‘I don't mean to be rude but I don't think I've ever seen worse in my life. Is it supposed to be some sort of joke?'

She stared at him for a moment but then, aware that he couldn't find an answer, she turned and walked away slowly.

He sat there musing over her visit for some time. Remorse was not an emotion that Montignac was familiar with, and he examined his conscience to find out whether it would visit him now. He decided not. He'd been dealt a difficult hand twenty years before when his parents had been killed. He, like his father, had had his entire fortune and inheritance stolen away from him by his cousin's family. But he had taken control of his life and worked to win it back. He was responsible for Raymond's death, that was true, but Stella was no innocent either. She had killed someone close to him, even if she'd never acknowledged it as such. Gareth Bentley was responsible for his own actions; as Lord Keaton had pointed out about Raymond, he was little more than a casualty of war.

He felt nervous doing so but picked up the phone and dialled the Westminster number, waiting for a long time before it was finally answered.

‘Hello?' said a voice on the other end in a rushed tone, as if he was just about to run out the door.

‘It's Montignac.'

A slight hesitation. ‘Hello, Montignac,' said Lord Keaton, not entirely pleased to hear from him. ‘We don't have any further business to conduct yet, do we?'

‘I've just had a visit from Jane Bentley.'

‘Roderick's wife.'

‘Yes. Naturally she's very concerned about what's going to happen to her son.'

‘Well I would imagine she would be,' said Keaton with a gentle laugh. ‘Get all weepy on your shoulder, did she?'