Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission (19 page)

At
HBS
the next day, actual work was the last thing that Kris had on her mind. Instead, she furtively searched for any piece of information she could find on Daniel Stone and Stone Enterprises. With a careful culling and experimenting with search terms, she was able to uncover additional snippets, but she had to admit that she was surprised. In her mind, rich people must automatically be celebrities, so it was something of a shock for her to discover just how little information there was on this man. Using the databases for her company, she was able to find out more about his company: indeed, a couple of times in the past HBS had done work for Stone Enterprises, mainly through some of its subsidiaries, one of whom she had discovered was currently engaged in active business with them.

She felt a shadow pass over her and, looking up, saw Mark standing above her. Glancing left and right, she saw that most of the other staff had gone to lunch: she, meanwhile, had been so engrossed in tracking down information on Daniel that she had not even noticed the time.

He was smiling at her, a fact that she found disturbing and amusing in equal measure.

“How’s it going?” he asked. His smile was as authentic as his tan which, she noted, he must have been topping up while she was away. London had been warm
—
but not that warm.

“Good,” she nodded. “I’ve just been checking up some old accounts that could cross tally with new claims.”

“Excellent,” he remarked, barely listening to a word that she had said. “I was, ah, I was wondering if you wanted to go for that drink tonight. You know
—
catch up.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, returning a sweet smile that was as inauthentic as his, though for entirely different reasons. “I can’t tonight. I have another engagement.”

“An... engagement?” Mark’s eyes flickered from side to side. “You mean, a date?”

“Well, I think so, maybe.” Kris was enjoying this. “I’m not sure yet. It’s been set up through a third party.”

“Anyone I know?” Now his eyes had narrowed. Wait for it, Kris told herself. In a minute will come the spite. At least now she was prepared for it.

“No, no-one you know.”

Mark’s face was becoming visibly redder, his temper rising. She half expected him to blaze up in one of his pitiful fits of temper, but instead he lifted one of the sheets of paper from her desk. “Stone Enterprises. I think some work they’ve done with that Portuguese shipping company needs our attention. Pretty urgent. Why don’t you get the details for me first thing tomorrow morning?”

Her response was almost perfect: why, it was almost as though she
had
been doing the relevant work that morning, and her words gave her a sensation of real triumph. “Jenny’s pretty much up to date on this, and actually the deadline is for Friday which will give me plenty of time to fill in the details, most of which can be filled out via the ISO forms. That said, I’d actually be really keen to get cracking on this tomorrow if you want me to: if I rush through stuff before then, Jenny might get really pissed at me treading on her toes, and you know how awkward she can be.” Kris made an enjoyable show of rolling her eyes.

Mark was floored. If he had been building up to a scene with her, her reaction had completely des
troyed his chances
and for a few seconds he opened and closed his mouth in silence. Making an equally pantomime show of looking all around her and staring at her watch, Kris then stood up. “Oh, wow!” she exclaimed. “Is that the time? I really better go and get some lunch.” Grabbing her jacket, she casually pushed past Mark but, before leaving the office, turned to face him.

“Seriously, though,” she told him. “I’d be
extremely
happy to work on this one. That is if you weren’t just trying to dick me around again, Mark. You might actually be happy with my professional performance one day.”

Before he could respond, she had walked away. When she returned from lunch (not too long, as she actually wanted to leave early that day), he was nowhere to be seen and she was glad not to be disturbed by him again.

By the time she got home, however, she was slightly flustered for another reason. She only had an hour to get herself ready and as the deadline for her assignation had been drawing closer throughout the day her nerves had been becoming ever more tense. Taking a shower rather than a bath, at least she had had the good sense to prepare the dress she wanted to wear the evening before, a simple, black number that was revealing enough at the front and back without being too voyeuristic, the hem of which fell to just above the knee (this was a school, after all). With her makeup applied carefully, and her hair brushed and arranged just so (though, with more warning, she would have preferred to have had it cut), she rolled on a pair of black tights and slid into the dress before putting on her shoes, for her relatively high heels that increased her height from five two to five six.

She realised that in the near two weeks that she had known Daniel Logan, she had been dressed somewhat down at heel, not having been prepared for any elegance in the Scottish Highlands. The same had applied to Daniel, of course, even more so until that final day when he had donned his suit like armour, demarcating a clear distinction between the hermit-like Daniel Logan and the more urbane Daniel Stone. She hoped that her own preparations would make her look suitably classy, even if the end result of this evening was only to tell him to go to hell.

Part of her knew that this was probably folly
—
she was simply too intrigued by Daniel, whether Stone or Logan. Nonetheless, there was a very good chance that instead of turning out to be some fascinatingly deep figure, he was nothing more than a shallow, narcissistic asshole. Either way, she had to find out: Kris knew that she would have no rest until that question was answered either way.

At 6.30 almost precisely, her front doorbell rang and, descending the single flight of steps to the front door, Kris answered it to find a burly driver dressed in a dark suit and wearing matching dark glasses. Aside from the fact that this was a rather unusual sight to see on the road where she lived, in other circumstances she would have not looked at him
—
or the black sedan, tasteful rather than ostentatious
—
twice. There were always cars like this roving around London, most of them with drivers just like him at the wheel. It was just that they never carried girls like her in them.

Elaine Christiansen had been slightly pessimistic about the traffic between her home and Lincoln Hall, and they arrived there fifteen minutes early. Lincoln Hall Academy itself was set on a side street in the north of Islington, not exceptionally large but with its own grounds behind a wrought iron and dark brick wall fence that surrounded the entire Victorian building, not too intimidating in itself although, Kris suspected, it had gone through more darkly Dickensian periods throughout its history.

As the driver led her up the steps, she saw a woman in her late fifties, or even sixties
—
it was somewhat difficult to tell
—
standing by the front door. The woman was dressed rather formally in a tweed dress suit with a pearl necklace, and her fading blonde-grey hair was arranged in a very old-fashioned bouffant style. Kris guessed immediately that this was Misses Christiansen.

“Thank you, Jarvis,” she said to the driver. “That will be all.” She extended a hand to Kris somewhat stiffly. “Miss Avelar, I am...”

“Elaine Christiansen,” Kris finished. “Pleased to meet you.”

The older woman raised one eyebrow at this before turning to guide her latest charge in through the large oak door. “I must say,” she commented somewhat archly. “You’re not like his usual type.”

“His usual type?” Kris was somewhat thrown. “And what would that type be?”

“Thinner, for a start.” Elaine looked back at her. “And taller, too.”

Kris blushed at this, her skin prickling as it so often did when she was humiliated in some small, trivial way. She tried to think of a witticism to retort with but simply asked, as Elaine opened another wooden door with her name on it: “Is Daniel here yet?”

“Mister Stone will be arriving shortly,” Elaine replied, leading Kris into the room, the walls of which were adorned with books stuffed on shelves. “Jarvis has to go and pick him up now.”

“Couldn’t he have sent someone else
—
for me, I mean? Actually, couldn’t he have just come here with another driver?”

“Mister Stone is very particular about who drives him around. He... trusts Jarvis. Won’t you sit down, Miss Avelar? Unusual name? Spanish?”

“Portuguese,” Kris explained as she sat down. “On my father’s side.”

Elaine’s expression had changed as she was sitting, becoming slightly softer, Kris thought. “I can see why he likes you, though,” she said softly at last.

“What?” Kris asked, not sure what she had just heard.

“No matter. I won’t insult you by asking you if this is your first time to Lincoln Hall. I’ve been working here for nearly four decades now
—
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s twice your age
—
and I know you’ve never crossed our threshold.”

Kris looked around her. “It’s... impressive.”

“No it’s not,” Elaine said sharply. “Oppressive is the word you’re looking for. I’ve tried to change the ambience, really I have, but I struggle all the time. Mister Stone has been a great help, of course.”

Maybe the whole place would improve immediately if you’d just lighten up, thought Kris, but instead she inquired politely. “And what is the connection between Da- Mister Stone and Lincoln Hall?”

“Why, he’s one of our greatest benefactors. In fact, to tell the truth, he’s pretty much our only benefactor. If you had seen this place even only a decade ago
—
dismal, truly dismal. But Stone Enterprises has taken us under its wing
—
or, more accurately, Mister Stone has taken it upon himself to provide for us, and so we slowly flourish.”

“But why should he take a particular interest in this place?”

Kris was sure for a moment that Elaine’s eyes twinkled as she observed the younger woman. “And why not? Stone Enterprises engages in a number of philanthropic projects. We are merely one of his recipients.”

“And what is this reception tonight?” she asked at last.

“We have just recently completed the construction of a new sports hall
—
next generation of young Olympians and all that. We received a little funding from the government, no mean feat in itself, but of course none of that would have been possible without Mister Stone’s kind support.” After they had been speaking some more, Elaine looked down at her watch. “My, how time flies when you’re having fun. It’s nearly eight o’clock and our guests will already have started to arrive. Well, well, shall we join them, Miss Avelar?”

Her conversation with Elaine Christiansen had left Kris even more confused than before. Why on earth she should have been invited here was completely beyond her comprehension: if Daniel had indeed wanted to speak with her, then why not simply give her his own number? Too little of this made sense and, because of that, she felt her aura hardening protectively about her. At the same time, she was too intrigued to discover what was going on to leave.

Elaine led Kris through a series of corridors and crossed a yard to a plush new building into which a number of people were making their way, a mixture of older boys who she guessed were pupils of Lincoln Hall, and various men and women dressed more formally. Kris was glad that she had selected something more dressy than usual, but also realised that there was nothing particularly special about the outfit she was wearing, a fact that made her feel surprisingly despondent.

As they entered the hall, which was now filling up as more and more people entered, Kris was left with a young man who had instructions to ensure she was fed and provided with drinks for the evening. Then Elaine left her and mingled with other people, evidently making her way to the dais that had been constructed there.

“Hello,”
she
said to the lad she had been left with, who looked sixteen or seventeen. “I’m Kris.”

He blushed slightly as she offered his hand. In her heels, she was about on a par in terms of height, and she was so used to being more or less ignored that she had forgotten the effect she could have on a gauche youth. After hesitating slightly, he shook her hands. “I’m Jack.”

“And have you been at Lincoln Hall long, Jack?”

He nodded. “About six or seven years. I was in a care home before that.”

“Oh.” Kris was slightly taken aback by this information. She had not quite made the connection between deprivation in the abstract and what that would actually mean. “And do you like it here?”

“It’s okay,” he said with a small smile. His response was, she realised, standard issue, and that his fairly relaxed demeanour was probably more indicative of how he really felt about Lincoln Hall, which was clearly a safe haven in the world. After a few minutes of chatting, or rather Kris asking Jack questions to which he gave a series of noncommittal grunts, he went to collect a glass of wine
for her
and some food.