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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Also by John Boyne
Copyright
For Con
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For all their suggestions and comments during the writing of this book, many thanks to my agent Simon Trewin and my editor Beverly Cousins. Thanks also to Claire Gill and Zoe Pagnamenta at PFD, and all the team at Penguin.
ONE
1
MANY YEARS EARLIER, WHEN he was a lieutenant in the army stationed just outside Paris, Charles Richards had come across a young recruit, a boy of about eighteen years of age, sitting alone on his bunk in the mess with his head held in his hands, weeping silently. After a brief interrogation it turned out that the boy missed his family and home and had never wanted to join the army in the first place but had been forced into it by his ex-serviceman father. The thought of another early morning call, followed by a twenty-mile march over rough terrain, all the time ducking enemy fire, had reduced him to an emotional wreck.
‘Stand up,’ said Richards, gesturing the boy to his feet with his finger as he took off the heavy leather gloves he was wearing. The boy stood. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he asked.
‘William Lacey, sir,’ he replied, wiping his eyes and unable to look the officer directly in the face. ‘Bill.’
Richards had then gripped his glove tightly by the fingers and slapped the boy about the face with it twice, once on the left cheek and once on the right, leaving a sudden explosion of red bursting out on his otherwise pale skin. ‘Soldiers,’ he said to the stunned conscript, ‘do not cry. Ever.’
It was a matter of some astonishment to him then that sitting here in the eighth row of a private chapel in Westminster Abbey on a bright June morning in 1936, he discovered a spring of tears itching to break forth from behind his own eyes as Owen Montignac reached the conclusion of the eulogy for his late uncle, Peter, a man who Richards had never particularly liked, a fellow he in fact considered to be little more than a rogue and a charlatan. He had attended many funerals in his life and now, at his advanced age, he was depressed to note how the intervals between them were becoming shorter and shorter. Still, he had never heard a son express his feelings for a departed pater, let alone listened to a nephew convey his sorrow for a lost uncle, in quite so eloquent and moving terms as Owen Montignac just had.
‘Damn fine,’ he muttered under his breath as Montignac returned to the front pew where Richards could still make out the shock of his extraordinary white hair in the distance. He casually pressed the tip of an index finger to the corner of his eye to stem any approaching tide. ‘Damn fine speech.’
Later, with the scent of freshly turned soil assaulting his senses, he stood only a few feet away from the open grave as the pallbearers walked slowly towards its hungry mouth and found his eyes searching the crowd of gathered mourners for Montignac’s face, an unexpected urge overcoming him that he would like to attract the younger man’s attention and offer silent support.
It was only as the coffin was lowered down into the ground that he realized that his quarry was acting as a pallbearer himself. The sight of the handsome young man easing his uncle’s body into the damp earth was almost too much for him and he had to swallow hard and cough to maintain his composure. He reached out to his right and took his wife’s hand in his own. The surprise of her husband’s rare touch, coupled with the shock of the gentle, deliberately affectionate squeeze, was almost too much for Katherine Richards, who steadied herself before turning to smile at him.
Fifteen feet away and always prone to emotional displays, Margaret Richmond held a handkerchief to her face and allowed the contents of her streaming eyes to pour into it, her body shaking with grief as her employer of twenty-eight years was laid to rest. Beside her, Peter’s daughter Stella stood erect and tranquil, her pale face unstreaked by tears. She seemed pinched, however, as if the effort that she was making not to cry was almost enough to make her faint instead.
It was to the side of these two women, his former nanny and his cousin, that Owen Montignac automatically stepped while the priest delivered the final benediction, and it was Stella’s arm that he took when it was over and that moment arrived when the mourners began to shuffle awkwardly away, wondering whether they should return to their cars or stand in the graveyard until the immediate family had left, staring at the names and dates on the gravestones and looking out for those who died tragically young or ruthlessly old.
The rain which had held off from the moment they had entered the church appeared suddenly and thunderously now and within a few minutes the graveyard was empty, save for the two groundskeepers who appeared as if by magic from behind some nearby trees and began to fill in the grave while they chatted to each other about the weekend’s football results and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes.
* * *
THE AIR IN THE drawing room had begun to grow thick with cigar smoke.
About sixty people had been invited back to Leyville, the main Montignac residence where Owen, Stella and Andrew had grown up together, and they were steadily working their way around the ground floor of the formal east wing, which was the designated area for the wake. Although the family had not been so crass as to place a velvet rope across the staircase, or to lock the door which opened on to the corridor towards the more convivial west wing where the dining room and the china were kept and where Peter Montignac had sat in his ancient armchair night after night straining to listen to the wireless, it was understood by all that there were only a few rooms into which it was appropriate to wander.
Almost all the guests had homes like this and almost all had buried parents or spouses and were able to recognize the etiquette of the moment.
A group of five dark-suited men, three of whom wore extravagant and competitive moustaches, stood underneath the portrait of a dead Montignac who had lived two hundred and fifty years earlier, the same one who had begun the purchase of land around London which had led to his family’s almost incomparable wealth. By coincidence their five wives were gathered on a small settee and two armchairs on the other side of the room, beside the portrait of the dead Montignac’s wife, of whom little was known and even less was cared. The family, after all, traced their lineage through the male line, the Williams, the Henrys and the Edmunds, and concerned themselves little with that helpful breed of mothers who assisted their regeneration.
The servants glided through the room, their presence felt but their persons ignored; young girls bringing tea to the ladies, their male counterparts refreshing whiskies for the men. Wine was introduced.
‘I’m not saying it wasn’t moving,’ muttered one guest to another as they stood by the fireplace. ‘I just don’t care for it as a new fad, that’s all.’
‘Well I’m not so sure it is a fad,’ replied his companion. ‘It’s been happening for thousands of years. Think of Mark Antony extolling the virtues of Caesar on the steps of the Capitol.’
‘Yes, but hadn’t he just murdered him?’
‘No, Mark Antony wasn’t one of the conspirators. He came to collect the body on the steps of the Senate after the deed was done. You recall, Mark Antony who, though he had no hand in his death, shall
receive the benefit of his dying. Somewhat appropriate under the circumstances, don’t you think?’
A third joined them, a Mrs Peters who always enjoyed creating controversy by strolling up to groups of men and insisting on taking part in their conversation. (Her husband had died some years earlier and her brother lived in India so there was no one to control her; besides, she had money.) ‘What are you men gossiping about?’ she asked, liberating a glass of whisky from a tray as a young servant glided past her.
‘Alfie says it’s a fad,’ said the second man. ‘I say not.’
‘What’s a fad?’
‘This new business. At funerals.’
‘Well what do you mean?’ asked Mrs Peters. ‘I’m not following you.’
‘You know,’ said the man. ‘Eulogies and the like. Pretty speeches. Children lamenting their parents and what not.’
‘Or uncles,’ said Mrs Peters. ‘If it’s Owen’s speech you’re referring to.’
‘Or uncles,’ admitted Alfie. ‘The whole emotional mess of it. I’m against it, that’s all.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ said Mrs Peters, frustrated at the idiocy of men, how they had no problem fighting wars but baulked at the idea of fighting back a few tears. ‘It’s a funeral after all. If a boy can’t show a little emotion at his father’s funeral, well when can he?’
‘Yes, but Peter wasn’t Owen’s father, was he?’ pointed out Alfie.
‘No, but he was the closest thing he had to one.’
‘Perfectly understandable, if you ask me,’ said the second man.
‘I’m not criticizing him,’ said Alfie quickly, anxious not to be seen to be immune to the grief of a wealthy young man such as Owen Montignac who, after all, had just inherited one of the largest estates in England and was therefore not a man to alienate oneself from. ‘I feel for the fellow, I really do. I just don’t see why he needs to put on such a show for the whole world to see, that’s all. Keep it inside, that’s for the best. Nobody likes to see such a naked parade of emotions on display.’
‘What a miserable childhood you must have had,’ said Mrs Peters with a smile.
‘Well I fail to see what relevance that has to anything,’ said Alfie, standing to his full height, suspecting an insult.
‘Isn’t it outrageous the way the servants automatically hand tea to the ladies and whisky to the men?’ asked Mrs Peters, already bored by the conversation and desiring a change of subject to something a little more risqué. ‘I intend to leave strict instructions in my will that everyone must get merry at my funeral and do embarrassing things, boys and girls alike. If they don’t then I’ll come back to haunt them and see how they like that.’
2
THE JOURNEY FROM TAVISTOCK Square to the Old Bailey normally took no more than an hour on foot and throughout his career Mr Justice Roderick Bentley KC had always preferred to leave his Rolls Royce at home if it was a pleasant morning. The walk offered him a chance to think about the case he was working on at the time, to deliberate privately without the interference of barristers, solicitors, bailiffs or defendants; the exercise was good for him too, he reasoned, as a man of fifty-two could take no chances with his health. His own father had died of a heart attack at that exact age and with that in mind Roderick had approached his most recent birthday with fatalistic dread.
Today there was a distinct chill in the air and there had been rain a little earlier in the morning but even if the sun had been splitting the trees and the sky had been a perfect blue there was no question in his mind that he would have asked Leonard to bring the car around. Those damned newspaper men had been camped on his doorstep since Thursday evening after he had brought proceedings to a close and he had felt like a prisoner in his own home throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
He had woken up early that morning, around half past four, and had lain in bed for another half-hour or so, willing sleep to return and allow him a little more respite before the trials of the day began but as daylight started to break through the curtains he knew it was pointless. Quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping wife, Jane, he slipped out of bed and padded downstairs to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. It was too early for the post to be delivered yet but he noticed that yesterday’s edition of The Sunday Times was still sitting on the table. He reached for it eagerly but Jane had already completed the crosswords—both simple and cryptic—so he set it aside again with a sigh.
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 h
is 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.