‘Ready?’ asked Roderick, as his wife checked her appearance one final time in the hallway mirror. It was a quarter past ten already and he was anxious to leave.
‘Ready,’ she said, nodding her head.
‘And remember—not a word to any of them,’ he reminded her as he opened the door and they stepped out on to the street to be greeted by more than a dozen newspapermen, pencils poised in anticipation above their notebooks as they peppered him with questions.
‘Will you be passing sentence today, Your Honour?’
‘Have you spoken to the palace, sir?’
‘Will it be life or death, Judge? Life or death? Will he be treated the same as everyone else?’
Roderick kept his head down and marched determinedly towards the car, whose back door Leonard had opened and was standing beside protectively. Jane, as requested, kept her mouth shut but her head held high and she smiled at the gathered throng, disappointed that there were no photographers present. There were sure to be some at the Old Bailey, though, she knew that much. She was wearing a new hat for the occasion.
‘Drive on, Leonard,’ said Roderick once they were safely inside with the doors closed again. ‘And quick as you like.’
‘Yes, sir,’ came the reply from the front seat as the car shifted into gear and they turned out of the square en route to the Palace of Justice.
‘I don’t think I can take much more of these damn busybodies,’ said Roderick, feeling a little more relaxed now that they were on the move. ‘What kind of a job is that anyway?’
‘People are interested, Roderick,’ said Jane, shrugging her shoulders as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘You can’t blame them for that. It’s human nature. It’s also their job.’
Bentley grunted and watched out the window. Summer had started to make its arrival felt. The trees along Southampton Row had sprung into life and he noticed one or two brave souls who had changed their winter jackets for lighter ones. It was an uncommonly warm June morning.
‘Roderick?’ said Jane after a moment. ‘Have you heard from them at all?’
A question from one of the reporters had stuck in her head, something she’d never thought of herself over the previous few months, and it made her wonder.
‘Heard from who?’ he asked, turning back to look at his wife.
‘From the palace,’ she said. ‘The king. He hasn’t been in touch, has he?’
Roderick laughed. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘You don’t seriously think that the king would try to influence a court case out of personal interest, do you?’
‘Well I wouldn’t like to think so,’ admitted Jane. ‘But I wouldn’t be too sure either. He’s hardly the man his father was, now is he?’
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ said Roderick.
‘Do you realize that since the succession we haven’t been invited to Buckingham Palace once?’
‘My dear, it’s hardly as if we were regular visitors in the past!’
‘Not regular, no,’ admitted Jane, ‘but we were invited to the garden party in thirty-two, don’t you remember? When Queen Mary said such nice things to me about my hat.’
‘Yes,’ said Roderick, who remembered the event but not the compliments and certainly not the pulchritudinous hat.
‘And then there was the dinner party after you received your knighthood. And Ramsay MacDonald was there too, you remember,’ she added.
‘Twice,’ said Bentley. ‘Twice in all these years does not make us intimates of the royal family.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Jane. ‘But I do think it would be nice to be invited to more functions, don’t you? After all, the new king is of the same generation as us. He might enjoy our company.’
‘The same generation as you, perhaps,’ said Roderick with a laugh. ‘I’m a good ten years older than him.’
‘Well a few years here or there hardly makes a difference. We should try to get an invitation to the next state dinner perhaps. How would one go about such a thing anyway?’
‘I have no idea,’ he replied, not caring much either way, for social events like that didn’t interest him enormously.
‘At the very least we should be regulars at the garden party,’ she added. ‘If we got friendly with him there’s always a chance we could be invited to the coronation too next summer. Perhaps if I invited the Simpson woman to tea some afternoon. Would that be all right, do you think, or are we supposed to snub her until told otherwise?’
The car came to a sudden halt and the Bentleys, husband and wife, fell forwards abruptly.
‘Sorry, Your Honour,’ said Leonard, turning around and shaking his head. ‘Boy selling papers,’ he added as a small child with a sandwich board and an armful of newspapers disappeared out of sight before Leonard could jump out after him. The sandwich board bore the legend: Royal Cousin Sentence Imminent.
‘I can’t get away from them,’ said Roderick irritably.
‘Of course,’ said Jane, settling back into her seat and removing her compact from her bag to check her hat was still in place after the incident. ‘We could be off the guest list at the moment because of the trial. The king mightn’t want to be seen to be influencing you in any way.’
‘I should think that’s a very reasonable assumption,’ said Roderick.
‘But he doesn’t know you, does he? He doesn’t know how incorruptible you are. How disgustingly honest,’ she added with only a touch of sarcasm. ‘Your famous integrity and ethics. The incorruptibility of the judicial system. He doesn’t know about any of that, does he?’
‘Well I would like to think that my reputation precedes me,’ he replied, trying to maintain his humility. ‘I have been a high court judge for fifteen years now after all, and I think I’ve achieved a certain level of respect.’
‘What do you think he thinks about it all anyway?’
‘The king?’
‘Yes.’
‘About what?’
‘About the case, Roderick,’ she said irritably. ‘Don’t be obtuse. About Henry Domson. His cousin.’
‘His third cousin,’ he replied, correcting her. ‘Henry Domson has been convicted by a jury of his peers of killing a policeman in cold blood. A policeman whose ultimate responsibility is to the monarch. I imagine he thinks that the sentence should fit the crime.’
‘But his own cousin,’ said Jane.
‘His third cousin,’ insisted Roderick.
They remained silent for a few moments. It was clear to both of them that there was something Jane was anxious to say but was unsure how to express it. Only once in their married lives had she actively tried to influence her husband on a decision regarding a case and he had taken it very badly at the time and they had had one of their very rare fights, which had resulted in her promising that she would never interfere in one of his trials again. But still, there was too much at stake here. Social position, invitations to garden parties at Buckingham Palace, a seat at the coronation … it was all there for the taking. The kinetic energy of the moment sat between them as they passed along Holborn.
‘Roderick,’ she burst out finally.