The Angel (20 page)

Chapter Forty-One

I
sabella spent the next few hours in her room. She wanted to start to feel the atmosphere of the place, the sounds and noises of the buildings and the girls in the rooms on either side of her own. It was quiet, with just the occasional burst of chatter. She idled over to the window and looked down onto the courtyard below. Students passed between the accommodation blocks and the school buildings, their feet crunching on the gravel.

She put her suitcase on the bed and unpacked it, hanging up the expensive new clothes they had bought in Geneva and then
slotting
the empty case into the wardrobe beneath them.

She spent an hour going through the notes that she had made on Khalil al-Khawari. Pope had not provided very much information on the boy and had complained that it had been difficult to find anything particularly useful. She had researched him herself and found a little additional material. Between Pope’s skimpy
dossier
and her own, she felt that she had enough to form a preliminary idea of what he might be like.

She had found several pictures of him on his social media profiles. He was a handsome boy who wore a perpetually haughty expression. He had thick black hair that he wore long enough to drape over the bottom edge of his collar, and a wispy attempt at a goatee beard. His eyes looked sleepy, and when he smiled, there was a lasciviousness there that hinted that he was used to getting what he wanted. There were pictures of him shooting grouse, riding horses, skydiving over the Burj al Arab, racing jet skis and bodyboarding. The pictures were advertisements for excess. Isabella
preferred
a spartan life and found his distasteful.

She had trawled his social media accounts. His Facebook profile listed three thousand friends, and he had twice that number of Twitter followers. Both profiles were repositories for links to his favourite musicians and films. Neither suggested much in the way of taste. He supported Manchester United, and several of the first team were followers of his Twitter account.

He had been a student at Collège Saint Marc before attending Le Rosey. He suggested in one post that he planned to go to
Sandhurst
once he had finished school.

He was a playboy.

She had nothing in common with him at all.

She waited until seven-thirty, but Claudette didn’t return to take her to dinner. She put on her jacket and followed the sound of conversation to the refectory. It was a large conservatory that had been equipped with twenty round tables. There was an excited atmosphere in the room as friends who hadn’t seen each other for the summer were reunited.

Isabella could see the cliques forming as the students filed inside. Two tables, adjacent to one another, were reserved for a group of glossy girls, with Claudette’s voice ringing out the loudest of all. The remaining tables accommodated other groups of friends, everyone talking loudly and enthusiastically.

It didn’t take her long to find Khalil al-Khawari.

He was at a table on the far side of the refectory. She recognised him from the photographs that Pope had shown her. His clothes were understated and obviously expensive, and as he raised his hand to wave at a newcomer who had just entered the room, the light glinted on the face of a chunky wristwatch.

Isabella realised that she had nowhere to sit. She didn’t know anyone. She crossed the room self-consciously, made her way to the table where Claudette and her friends were sitting, and smiled down at them.

‘Hello,’ she said.

Claudette turned to look up at her. ‘Yes?’

‘I thought you were going to come and get me.’

‘Sorry. Forgot.’

‘Can I sit here?’

The girl glanced back at her friends, her eyebrow cocked and the corner of her mouth twitching up in a cruel smile. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘There’s a spare seat,’ Isabella pressed, although she was feeling more and more uncomfortable.

‘That’s reserved,’ Claudette said. ‘For a friend.’ She shone an insincere smile. ‘Sorry. You’ll have to go somewhere else.’

There was no point in protesting. Isabella was aware that the girls at the adjacent table were watching Claudette’s little display, and she had no desire to make a sideshow of herself on her first day. She returned the smile and left for a table in the middle of the room that had two spare seats. She could see that the three outcasts
at th
e table were in the same position as she was: not connected with
the po
pular girls and left to themselves.

She knew she was being watched as she left Claudette’s table. She heard laughter behind her as soon as she turned her head, and others looked at her with amusement that they made no attempt to disguise. She was surprised by her reaction. She had spent so much time alone, she had thought that she would be inured to childish callousness. She knew it shouldn’t bother her, but it did. She felt acutely exposed.

She was halfway to the ‘outcast’ table when she looked up and glanced over at Khalil’s table. The other boys were deep in conversation, but he had turned his head to look at her. He saw that she had seen him and his handsome face broke into a wide, welcoming smile. She returned the smile, and as she pulled back the chair to sit down, his grin became even more intense, and he delivered a theatrical wink.

‘Hello,’ said one of the girls at the table. ‘Who are you?’

‘Daisy McKee,’ she said.

‘I’m Eve. First day?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Don’t worry about Claudette. She’s a bitch – everyone knows it. Don’t waste time on her.’

Isabella relaxed into the small talk. She gave enough effort so as not to appear rude, but her attention was elsewhere.

The waiting staff circulated and took their orders. Isabella allowed herself a moment to turn and look across the tables to where Khalil was sitting. All she could see was his glossy head of black hair. He had turned away and was lost in conversation with the other students at his table. She thought of the task that Michael Pope had set for her. Getting to know Khalil was the first, and most important, part of her assignment, and she felt that she had taken a small step toward it today.

Chapter Forty-Two

I
sabella awoke at six the next morning, dressed in her running gear and went out for a run. The grounds were
expansive
. She saw more accommodation blocks, a large canteen, a
gymnasium
and generous playing fields. She kept running, and after ten minutes she was out in the countryside, with the lake to her right. Her mother had said that running had always been the best way for her to clear her mind, and after Isabella had taken it up herself, she had come to agree. She kept running, cutting a route through the verdant hills and woods, and allowed her thoughts to flit over the task at hand. What did she need to do? She would have to appear natural and at home, comfortable with the atmosphere of the school and the circumstances of the other pupils. She had read in the handbook that had been left in her room that the staff cleaned up the students’ rooms. Isabella had taught herself to be entirely self-sufficient, and she found the prospect of being attended to like that to be distasteful. But she would have to pretend that it was not.

She thought about how she would ingratiate herself with the others and, in particular, Khalil al-Khawari. She knew that would be a challenge. The last year had been spent almost entirely alone, apart from the grandmaster at her dojo, and her childhood had been a procession of homes and foster parents, never staying
long enoug
h to form connections with anyone. She was self-aware enough to know that she could be seen as distant, even truculent, and she knew that a friendly and open attitude was something that she would have to work hard to project.

She reached a kink in the lake and decided to turn back. By the time she returned to her room it was seven, the sun was up, and she was breathing heavily and lightly bathed in sweat. She undressed and showered, closing her eyes and again running through the cover story that Pope, Snow and Kelleher had concocted for her. She wanted it to be second nature. She had studied it for hours and was confident that she could carry it off.

She wrapped a towel around herself and went to stand in front of the mirror. She knew that she was pretty. She had her mother’s icy complexion, her blue eyes and her long blonde hair. She had never had a boyfriend before. There had been boys in some of the homes, and she had fooled around with a few of them, but she would not have described herself as experienced or even particularly confident. She didn’t know how hard she would have to work to attract Khalil’s attention. In spite of her research, she really knew very little about him, and his behaviour was unpredictable. She would handle that on the fly.

She made an effort to look involved with the day’s lessons,
but she
was distracted and they passed her by. The sessions bore
little
resemblance
to the hours she had endured in cold and leaking classrooms in a succession of sink estate schools, but there were similarities enough for her to remember the boredom and the unpleasantness of being someone apart, with no friends to help ease the monotony. Her experience of formal education had been rudimentary. There had been schools as she was growing up, but her peripatetic existence meant that she was never in one for long enough to feel as if there was any point in taking it seriously. A long line of teachers dismissed her as a lost cause, the kind of girl who would never amount to anything. She helped to reinforce that conclusion; her hair-trigger temper inevitably led her into the fights that had seen her suspended and then expelled.

They had given up completely in the end. A family was
chosen
who had promised to homeschool her, but that effort lasted a month before the impatient mother threw up her hands. Isabella taught herself to read, and when she finally persuaded the teachers that there was no profit in them trying to force her to cleave to their list of recommended reading, she won herself the opportunity to read whatever she liked. Books became her escape from the grim reality of her daily existence. She devoured Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, then Dickens and Hardy. Mark Twain transported her from the drabness of the English commuter towns through which she was
shuttled
. She tore through Austen. Asimov and Banks broadened her
horizons
. Dante and Joyce tested her.

Her mother had continued her education during the year that they spent together, and now that she was gone, Isabella had
undertaken
to complete it herself. There were the practical lessons in the use and maintenance of weapons, the physical improvement, the language classes that meant that she was fluent in Arabic and French, and passable in Italian, Spanish and several others.

She sat at the back of the classroom and thought about what she was going to do.

Chapter Forty-Three

I
sabella enjoyed her dinner that night. The food was excellent. Her diet was basic in Marrakech – a succession of tagines and vegetable dishes – so the succulent fish she ordered was a pleasant change. Her table was joined by a boy who had issues with
crippling
shyness. The other girls made an effort to include him in the conversation, but the atmosphere was stilted. None of them were particularly comfortable in talking to the others, Isabella included, and although she knew that she should make more of an effort to fit in, she found it difficult to motivate herself. She had no intention of staying in the school any longer than she had to. As soon as she had met Pope’s objectives, she intended to return to her riad and the peace and quiet that she had come to realise was of great importance to her. In the end, the others came to the conclusion that she was disinterested, the conversation faltered even more and then continued round her.

She finished her meal, wished them a good night and went back to her room.

She spent half an hour in meditation, preparing herself for class tomorrow, until she was disturbed by loud music from the common area outside. She took a moment to tamp down her irritation, put herself back into character, opened the door and went outside.

Claudette, her friends and the other girls from the corridor were seated around the coffee table. One of the girls was playing music from her phone through a portable Bluetooth speaker. There were bottles of gin and vodka, a two-litre bottle of Diet Coke and a stack of plastic cups that had been taken from the water dispenser at the end of the corridor. The girls were dressed in party clothes and all made up.

Isabella was dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, and felt plain in comparison. She forced a smile onto her face and aimed for a casual impression as she leaned against the wall. ‘What’s
happening
?’

No one answered.

‘Where are you going?’

Claudette made a show of rolling her eyes. ‘First week of term?’ she said, phrasing it inquisitorially.

‘So?’

‘So there’s a party in the boys’ common room.’

‘Can I—’

‘Can you what?’

‘Come with you?’

The girls laughed.

‘Not with us,’ Claudette said archly.

‘You know any of the boys?’ one of the other girls asked.

‘No,’ Isabella said. ‘Only got here yesterday. I don’t know
anyone
.’

‘I wouldn’t go if I didn’t know anyone,’ the girl said to the
others
. ‘You’ll just look like you’re desperate.’

Isabella felt the tension in her hands as she clenched her fists, her nails pressing into the soft flesh of her palms. She looked at Claudette, at her glossy face and lacquered hair, as pretty and fake as the hair on a child’s doll, and felt the heat of her testiness begin to rise. A hair-trigger temper was a trait that she had shared with her mother, and it had gotten worse after Beatrix’s death. Regular meditation had been helpful in keeping it under control, but there were limits. Her imagination played out how simple it would be to embarrass this girl in front of her friends, to flip her off the sofa and onto her back, to choke her out or mess up that pretty face, but she knew she couldn’t possibly do that. She would be expelled, and then how would she do what she had agreed to do?

No.

Isabella smiled at Claudette, said good night to the others, and went back to her room.

She opened the wardrobe and ran her finger across the clothes that had been purchased for her. Some of them were still wrapped in their plastic sheaths, the names of the brands emblazoned across them. She took a dress from the hanger and tore the plastic away from it. It was black, simple and stylish, and she had liked the way that she had looked in it when she had tried it on. Kelleher had said that it made her look good, too. It was more revealing than she was used to, a little
too
short and a little
too
low cut, but that would serve her purpose. She needed to make an impression.

She went into the bathroom, ran the shower and undressed.

She waited for two hours, until eleven, before she locked her room and went outside. It was cold as she walked across the courtyard that separated the boys’ accommodation block from the girls’ and she drew the woollen wrap around her shoulders, scant consolation against the chill breeze that was blowing in off the lake. She had a tight little nub of anxiety in her stomach, the sense that
she was
about to give a performance without having had the chance to rehearse. It was a good opportunity, too good to pass up, but she would have preferred to have had a chance to prepare herself.

Her feet crunched over the gravel. A night bird hooted high overhead. She could hear the muffled thud of bass, and it was louder as she opened the door. The sound was coming from above. The configuration of the block looked to be identical to her own,
so sh
e climbed the stairs and turned in the direction of the communal space.

The party had spread out from the communal space into the corridors that fed into it. All of the rooms were open, the doors flung wide. Little clutches of students were gathered in the corridor as she approached. Others were in the rooms. There was the strong, sweet smell of dope in the air, and plenty of the kids were drunk. One girl was laid out on the floor, a plastic cup tipped over and a sticky puddle spreading out from it. She stepped over and around them all, looking for Khalil. She guessed that he would be here. His reputation was as something of a playboy, and she would have been surprised if he had missed a chance to party.

She reached the communal space. A sound system had been set up and one of the boys was DJ-ing. The lights had been extinguished and blankets hung over the windows. Lava lamps had been set up, and they cast pools of warm light around the room.

She paused in the doorway and looked. She saw Claudette immediately. She was sitting with her back to the wall, a bottle of expensive vodka stood between her and the boy who was talking to her. She saw Isabella, her face crumpling into an angry frown. She said something to the boy, pushed herself onto unsteady legs and walked across the room to meet her.

‘What are you doing here?’ Claudette demanded.

‘I fancied a drink.’

‘I told you, you don’t know anyone.’ The words came haltingly, through the haze of drink, but the antipathy could not be mistaken. ‘You have to know someone. You’re not welcome.’

She put her hand on Isabella’s elbow and started to pull her towards the corridor. Isabella didn’t struggle. She didn’t want to make a scene. As they passed one of the open doorways, she glanced inside and saw that the bedroom beyond was empty. She planted her left foot, reached out with her left hand and clasped her fingers around Claudette’s wrist. She pressed her thumb and forefinger, penetrating between the bone and tendon, and was rewarded with a little gasp of pain. She used the moment to guide Claudette into the room, advancing with her and flicking the inner door shut with a flick of her leg.

She bent the girl’s arm around behind her back and squeezed again.

‘You’re not very friendly,’ she said.

‘It . . . hurts . . .’

‘I don’t really care whether you like me or not. But if you ever try to tell me what I can and can’t do, we’re going to have a
problem
.’

‘Get . . . off . . .’

‘You know why I’m here? At this school?’

The girl grimaced as she shook her head.

‘Because I was expelled from my last one. Got in trouble with a bitch like you. We ended up fighting. It didn’t go too well for her. Hospital. I messed up her face. Do you understand me?’

‘Hurts . . .’

‘Do you
understand
me?’

‘Yes.’

She released her grip. Claudette drew her arm in, rubbing the back of her wrist with her spare hand.

‘Stay away from me,’ she said.