Storm and Stone (15 page)

‘I’m spitting mad too.’

‘’Course you are. But tomorrow—you can go after them then. Just now you need to rest.’

Her shivering subsided and she burrowed closer to his warmth. She hadn’t felt this cared for in ages. With Kieran there, gently stroking her back, she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Kieran slid out of the bed when Joe returned with a hot water bottle already prepared. He tucked it in a jumper so it wouldn’t be too hot for her, and then put it in the space he had occupied.

‘Is she OK?’ Joe asked in a low voice.

‘Physically she’s fine now. But she’s upset.’

‘Who wouldn’t be?’

‘What did you tell her grandfather?’

‘That it was some prank that went wrong. I said we’d report it. He was all set to come over here but I suggested he wait until the morning when she had had a chance to sleep. He took some persuading but he eventually agreed for her sake.’

Kieran twitched the duvet making sure her feet were tucked in. ‘Raven might want to see him.’

‘Yes, but he was
really
angry—not his usual mild self at all.’

‘Now we know where she gets her temper from.’ Kieran sat down on the desk chair. Seeing that his bedside table was covered in plants, he got up and swept them off to make space for a glass of water for her. Sod the data collection: he didn’t want her inconvenienced by his experiment.

Joe looked at the ceiling with a perceptive smile but made no comment. ‘I thought it would be doing them both no favours if he said things to the school that he might then regret. From what I understand from Raven, he needs the job.’

‘So what do we do with her now? I don’t think we can put her back in that room—I don’t trust anyone under this roof but you and her.’

‘I told Mr Bates to wait until tomorrow but I didn’t say we would. I think we should go to Mrs Bain now.’

‘Won’t we be drawing attention to ourselves?’

‘Maybe, but I was thinking her reaction would tell us more about what’s really going on here.’

Was that a twinge of conscience he was feeling? ‘You see using what happened to Raven as a way of advancing our mission?’

Joe’s expression was steely. ‘Key, she is part of the mission, someone we will only be with for as long as it lasts. You are remembering that, aren’t you?’

Kieran looked over at the wildly curling hair scattered over his pillow. ‘Yes, of course, I know that.’

‘You know we can’t do serious relationships. The rule’s been inflexible since Kate Pearl and that disaster in Indonesia. It’s a red line for Isaac. Kate did blow the entire mission.’

‘Yeah I know.’ He did, but it was different facing it himself. He now felt acute sympathy for Kate Pearl.

‘We’ll lock the door; leave her to sleep,’ suggested Joe. ‘I doubt anyone will try get to her in here.’

‘And we’ll know if they do.’ One of the first things Kieran had done was set alarms around the windows and entrance to their room to guard the privacy of their computers and other personal items.

‘OK then. Let’s go find Mrs Bain.’

The head teacher was not difficult to track down as she was holding a meeting in her study.

‘Meeting on a Sunday? Dedicated to her work, isn’t she?’ whispered Joe as he lurked with Kieran in the shrubbery outside her window. She sat at the head of a mahogany table, a pair of black-framed glasses perched on her nose. Four men they had only seen in pictures before sat two on each side. They formed the board of trustees for the Union of International Schools.

‘Key, what can you tell me about them?’ asked Joe.

Facing the window was an older man with white swept-back hair wearing a double-breasted jacket.

‘Old guy who looks like a polar bear in a suit? That’s Anatol Kolnikov, chair of the trustees, former Russian Minister of Education. From the dagger and star insignia on the tie, he’s also former Russian KGB, though that didn’t get into his wiki entry. He’s one of the rehabilitated politicians of the post-Soviet era. Drinking habit. Smoker—cigars not cigarettes. Cheats on his wife.’

‘An all-round nice guy then.’

‘On his left, the guy who looks like he’s been dug up from his ancestral vault? That’s Tony Burnham, British industrialist. Normally wears frameless specs, five eleven, suit hand-stitched, Savile Row. No telltale tie as he’s wearing a bow but I’ll take that as evidence of bad taste, or maybe he’s colour blind.’

‘Yeah, he should be locked up for that as the least of his sins.’

‘The other two with their backs to the window—that stout man with dyed black hair and tanned skin—that’s Ramon Velazquez, Mexican telecommunications king. Has got through three marriages. Latest wife is related to a major player in a drugs cartel but he’s trying to keep that quiet. Can’t see much from the back but I’m thinking he has a heart condition—there are signs which suggest mild pain, what with the clubbed fingers and chest rubbing.’

‘Remind me to put the ambulance on speed dial for him.’

‘Last man, that’s John Paul Garret, American oil and gas man. Remarkable for being unremarkable; he slips past everyone’s notice so easily, which I think it part of his mode of operation—ghosting, being places but leaving no trace. I think you know more about him as you were reading up on him in
Forbes
.’

‘Yeah, billionaire with no flair. He didn’t make much of a story but maybe we’re about to find out that boring hides something much more interesting. Why are they here, do you think?’

Kieran quickly read the dynamics in the room. Though Mrs Bain was chairing the meeting, she was deferential to the men, giving that overly eager-to-please smile of someone reporting to their boss.

‘My guess is that this is a report back meeting. She’s their link between the parents and their kids. If we could hear what was being said I bet quite a few of our questions would be answered.’

‘So, do we wait or interrupt?’

‘Let’s give it a minute.’

Mrs Bain was presenting something to the men—they couldn’t hear what but she was going through a pile of files one by one, reading the covering page then making comments.

‘Interesting that she doesn’t have her secretary in attendance,’ mused Joe as they watched Mrs Bain get up to refill the coffee cups.

‘Perhaps she doesn’t want her to eavesdrop on what’s really going on, so holds the meetings on a Sunday. Ready to go in and see if we can overhear what they’re saying?’

‘Let’s do it.’

The boys re-entered the building and headed for the head teacher’s suite of rooms. This had been the gun room of the old castle, now converted into a luxurious set of offices. The outer room was dark, but as they entered Mrs Bain walked into her secretary’s office to refill the coffee pot. Rumbled.

‘What are you boys doing here?’ she asked sharply.

Joe was quick to adapt to the new circumstances. ‘Mrs Bain, we apologize for disturbing you.’

‘As you can see, I’m in a meeting.’ She gestured to the men in the room beyond.

‘I’m sorry, but we wanted to report a grave breakdown in school discipline.’ Kieran loved the way Joe said that: so respectful but with a hint of disdain only he could hear.

Mrs Bain put the coffee pot down. Kieran guessed Joe’s formal mode of expression, taken from the school’s rules and procedures, had flummoxed her and it took her a moment to sort through what he was really saying. Then she smiled and cocked her head winningly to one side, making light of it for the benefit of her guests.

‘Grave breakdown? Forgive me, Mr Masters, but I can’t hear the sound of rioting students so I’m at a loss to what you’re referring.’

The Russian stood up. ‘I think we’ve concluded our business here. We’ll leave you to sort this matter out.’

Embarrassed, Mrs Bain fluttered around them, handing over coats and briefing papers. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Absolutely, Mrs Bain. Tight ship you run here, we know that.’ The skeletal one gave her a shark smile. Kieran added Harley Street cosmetic dentist to his list of facts about the man. ‘We’ve more to discuss. We’ll take it over to the other place.’

Mrs Bain gave the location of that away by an instinctive glance out of the window. The ‘other place’ had to be the manor. ‘Yes, of course. I wish you a very pleasant stay.’

‘Until the autumn, then.’ Burnham shook hands with her and led the party out of the room.

Mrs Bain could not hide her irritation at the interruption. Kieran deduced that these private meetings with the trustees were her pat on the back for good work and he and Joe had just denied her a treat. Excellent. ‘So, Mr Masters, what crisis drives you to my door on a Sunday night?’

Kieran left the talking to Joe and occupied himself examining the room’s contents. They’d already been through it once, at night, but he was looking to see if anything had changed. Mrs Bain leant on the table, fingers resting on a pile of folders that he hadn’t seen in any of the cabinets or the safe behind the painting over the mantelpiece. Reading upside down he saw that the top file had Gina Carr’s name on it, bracketed with her father’s.

‘I’m talking about Raven Stone,’ said Joe.

‘Oh?’ Mrs Bain’s expression darkened. ‘What has she done now?’

‘Not what she’s done but what’s been done to her. She was the victim of a serious bullying incident. She was taken from her room in the early hours of the morning by masked students, tied up, put under the showers in the old cricket pavilion, soaked to the skin for a prolonged period of time, then left all day to freeze.’

‘Hardly to freeze. It has been exceptionally warm this weekend.’ Mrs Bain picked up the files, moved to her desk and looked down at her computer screen. ‘Twenty-four degrees on average.’

‘Mrs Bain, we are reporting the water torture of a fellow pupil and you only comment on the weather?’

Putting the folders away in her top drawer, Mrs Bain walked out from behind her desk and gestured to the two boys to take a seat on the sofa at the far side of the room. Remaining standing, she was exercising basic psychology, taking the dominant position; both Joe and Kieran had been trained to recognize it.

‘Mr Masters, you are from the States, yes?’

Joe nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You may think I sound harsh but you probably aren’t familiar with the traditions of public schools in this country. There is a certain—how do you say?—allowance for rough justice, regrettable though that is. Miss Stone was caught stealing from the pupil body but my respect for her grandfather meant I did not expel her as I would any other student. This may have struck her victims as unfair and they meted out their own punishment. On the plus side, I think this will have lanced the boil. Miss Stone will have learnt a hard lesson but it should mean that the school returns to business as usual tomorrow, with accounts being settled.’

The woman had the compassion of a Lucretia Borgia.

‘You describe the people who tormented her as victims; surely the truth is Raven was theirs?’ Joe said reasonably. ‘You’ve proved nothing against Raven, but this attack is a flagrant breach of your own rules. Are you not going to punish them for what they did?’

‘But you said they were masked. I will, of course, talk to Miss Stone about it and see if she can identify them. I will also have a word with the whole school making clear that such behaviour is not condoned by me. What more can I do?’

Launch an inquiry. Question the most likely suspects who had been vocal in their dislike of Raven. Stand up for the one who had been hurt, not make feeble excuses for the bullies. With difficulty, Kieran held his tongue. Joe was right: it was what she was not doing or saying that was interesting. This school was one twisted institution.

‘Aren’t you curious to hear how Raven is?’ Joe asked, keeping his tone even, though Kieran could see he was riled by her answers.

‘I assume she’s fine or you would’ve said so.’ Mrs Bain moved towards the door.

‘We took her to our room and warmed her up, thank you for asking. If we hadn’t found her when we did, we would’ve been taking her to ER.’

Mrs Bain stopped trying to usher them out and folded her arms. ‘Is she still there?’

‘Yes. May seem weird to you but once she was OK, we didn’t immediately kick her out to go back to a room where she was terrorized last night.’

‘Well, we can’t have that. Girls are not allowed in the boys’ dormitories.’ Mrs Bain pressed a button on her desk phone. ‘Gillian, can you go to the medical room please. We’ve a case for you.’

‘She’s staying where she is.’ Kieran spoke up for the first time.

‘She most certainly is not, Mr Storm. She’ll be looked after in the medical room. Mrs Jones will see to her. Please ensure that Miss Stone gets there—or do I have to send someone to fetch her?’

‘But … !’ Kieran stopped his protest when Joe tapped his foot against his.

‘OK, will do.’ Joe’s wide smile held no warmth. ‘Thanks. This has been most illuminating.’

‘And thank you for coming to report it.’ Her tone was equally icy; both of them were saying the opposite of the surface message. ‘My door is always open to students.’

Except to Raven, thought Kieran. It was bizarre. The head teacher was complicit in the attempt to make Raven the school pariah.

Joe motioned to him to say nothing as they walked away but Kieran was ready to explode.

‘Vile woman!’

‘Kieran,’ Joe warned.

He tugged Joe in to an empty classroom, unable to wait to vent his feelings. ‘She knew.’

‘That’s what the smart money is on.’

‘She’s not only allowing it; she’s probably behind it!’

‘I agree, but that makes no sense, does it? If she really wanted to hurt Raven, she would’ve expelled her when she had the chance.’

‘Whatever made her decide to keep her here, it won’t be out of the kindness of her heart. She doesn’t have one.’ He pictured a shrivelled up lump of jerky in the place of what had once been a living organ.

‘Do you think she really believes Raven stole those things?’

‘Not really relevant, is it? The head teacher is supposed to protect her pupils, even the ones she doesn’t like, not throw them to the wolves.’

‘But do you? We know Raven’s innocent; does she?’