Next of Kin by John Boyne Page B

uncle’s bank account.
    Of course, that first night was the last time he had left as a winner.
    Montignac felt like a prisoner being led to the scaffold as they reached the end of the corridor. The man who had escorted him to the Unicorn Ballrooms moved him slightly out of the way, rapped on the door of the office and opened it, pushing his charge inside before closing the door again and taking up his position outside.
    â€˜Owen,’ said Nicholas Delfy, looking up from his paperwork. ‘I thought we’d have to send out the cavalry to track you down.’
    4
    STELLA MONTIGNAC AND RAYMOND Davis returned to her suite on the top floor of Claridge’s, having said little to each other along the way. During the walk from the table to the lobby, and again on the stairs and corridors that led to her room, Raymond had been expecting her to turn to him and give him the signal that it was time for him to depart for his own flat in Chelsea; he was unsure now whether she hadn’t suggested it because she desired him or simply because she was too exhausted by the events of the evening to even remember that he was there, trailing behind her like an attentive puppy dog.
    â€˜Pour me a drink, Raymond, would you?’ Stella asked as he closed the door of the suite behind them. He nodded and walked over to the bar while she collapsed on the sofa for a moment before standing up again and pacing the floor like an expectant father. She let out a sigh of frustration. ‘That bloody boy,’ she added after a moment.
    â€˜A glass of wine, darling?’ asked Raymond.
    â€˜Vodka and tonic,’ she said. ‘Plenty of vodka. Light on the tonic.’
    He nodded and poured the drink. He’d felt all along that it was a mistake for him to join the cousins for dinner that evening but Stella had insisted and any opportunity to spend time with her was something he was only too happy to go along with. The look on Montignac’s face when he had walked in and seen him sitting there, however, had told a different story.
    â€˜I don’t know what to do,’ said Stella as he handed her the glass. ‘I simply don’t know what to do for the best.’
    â€˜He is a tricky customer,’ replied Raymond, unwilling to criticize him outright for he had learned before that only Stella claimed the right to do that.
    â€˜He’s more than tricky, Raymond,’ said Stella irritably. ‘He’s downright difficult.’
    â€˜Well you must remember the whole thing has come as an enormous shock to him. I wouldn’t say he was looking forward to profiting from your father’s death exactly—’
    â€˜Raymond, don’t!’
    â€˜No, I don’t mean profit,’ he said, correcting himself quickly. ‘But he may have had certain plans laid out for his future. Things that he was hoping to do. I mean when the contents of the will were read, it had to have come as a most unexpected blow.’
    Stella gave a brief laugh. ‘You have no idea,’ she said. ‘You should have been in the room with us. His face went even whiter than his hair.’
    Raymond poured himself a drink and sat down opposite her. They had known each other for almost a year and a half now, having met through mutual friends on Ladies’ Day at Ascot. Raymond had fallen for her immediately; on any day she was a stunning girl but dressed to the nines with a hat that was the envy of most of the crowd, he had been unable to take his eyes off her. It had become something of a joke between them that he had missed most of the races that afternoon, and even the fact that he had had a 16/1 winner and filled a four-horse accumulator, because he was too busy staring at her.
    For her part Stella liked to play along and tell him that she had liked him immediately too but for the life of her, and she tried very hard, she couldn’t remember that first introduction. She recalled being at the races, of