Next of Kin by John Boyne

Author:John Boyne
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

FIVE

1

THE ONLY THING THAT made it even slightly bearable was that they had finally moved him to his own cell. During those first three days when he had barely been able to remember his own name let alone piece together what had happened on the night in question, Gareth had been kept in a cell with two other prisoners, both of whom were considerably older than him, and he had crouched quietly in a lower bunk, terrified and filled with horror at what he had been accused of. The rough stone walls felt perpetually damp to his touch, despite the fact that no water appeared to be seeping through.

His two cell-mates had kept themselves to themselves for the most part but viewed him with suspicion as he spoke with a more upper-class accent than they did and yet was being held on a more serious charge. But their very presence had offended him; the dry, stale stink of them, the language they used, the casual threats of violence they threw at each other, the sound of their snores and breathing while he lay there, unable to sleep.

Taken with thirty other prisoners for an hour’s exercise in the courtyard the previous afternoon, word had quickly spread that he was the son of Mr Justice Bentley, a man who had been responsible for the incarceration of more than a few of them, and he had been set upon when the warders’ backs were turned. Boots had been kicked into his ribs, fists flung into his face. The afternoon was spent in the luxury of the hospital wing and from there he had been brought back downstairs in the evening time where his reward for suffering a beating had been to be given a cell of his own; nothing would have persuaded him to have taken that beating back.

The room wasn’t very big, no more than twelve feet by fifteen, and held a cot, a chair, a small table and an open toilet, but when the door was locked the sense of relief he felt at being left alone outweighed the feeling of panic at being locked up in there in the first place. The cell smelled of disinfectant and the sheets of cheap soap powder; he stank of dried-in perspiration and fear.

It had been almost a week since he’d woken up in a strange bed in a strange flat, that familiar thumping behind his eyes threatening to lay waste to his brain at any moment, and cursed himself for getting drunk yet again. So many times he had promised himself that he would not succumb to it and for long periods he managed to resist quite successfully but then there was always a slip. Something happened that made him feel like it could only be celebrated by alcohol, and the first always led to another and a third and then oblivion. He could remember almost nothing about the night before and tried to recall how he had got here. The last thing

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