Storm and Stone

by Joss Stirling

  Kieran’s answer was to walk in. Both of them had returned energized by their weekend away. Isaac had spent a lot of time with them talking over their findings, helped them fine-tune their goals for the next few days. Kieran couldn’t wait to get started, but first there was something he had to do.

  ‘I’m just going to check on someone.’

  ‘Raven, by any chance?’ Joe was smirking.

  Kieran gave him a stony look. ‘Just returning the jewellery box.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Keep hiding the truth from yourself, bro, but you are so lost. You need to be very careful you don’t break mission rules. I’ll take your bag to our room.’ Joe spied the bullwhip. ‘Really? This for driving the enemy off or lassoing Raven nearer?’

  Now there was a picture to savour.

  ‘Just take my bags, Jeeves.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah—tugging my forelock right now, sir.’ Joe opted for another, less respectful hand gesture. Kieran grinned and took out the jewellery box.

  When Kieran reached the infirmary wing, he was surprised to find the door of her room standing wide open.

  ‘Raven?’ Kieran ventured inside, but she wasn’t there. He stood in the corridor and listened, wondering if she had nipped out to the bathroom or kitchenette, but it was silent. Instinct tugged him back inside. His gaze swept the scene. This was not right. The bedding was dragged off the mattress and on to the floor, a rubbish bin kicked over. He counted the pairs of shoes: he knew how many she had—four—and they were all here, including her slippers, just how they’d been when he’d called round to say goodbye. She had left the room unwillingly and barefoot.

  Possibilities tumbled through his mind. Her grandfather. He was most likely to know where she was. Kieran pushed past the students on the stairs and dashed outside, long strides eating up the path. He hoped Mr Bates was at home.

  Fortunately, when he tapped on the front door of the caretaker’s cottage, Raven’s granddad answered immediately. The television burbled in the background and Kieran could smell shepherd’s pie in the oven.

  ‘Yes? Oh, hello. Kieran, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Bates. I just called by to ask if you’ve seen Raven?’

  ‘No. I actually thought she was with you when I didn’t see her about this weekend.’

  ‘With me?’

  Mr Bates looked down. ‘Well, she did tell me she was spending a lot of time with you and I thought that maybe … ’

  ‘I’ve been away. She isn’t in her room.’

  ‘Ah, I see. She won’t have left the grounds as she has to have my permission to do that, but I haven’t seen her since yesterday dinnertime.’

  ‘OK, thanks. I’ll search for her around the school then.’

  The fact that Kieran thought something might be wrong reached Mr Bates. ‘Let me know the instant you find her or I’ll have to go looking myself.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll track her down—don’t worry, sir.’

  Kieran sprinted back to his room. His partner was lying on his bed, head buried in Forbes, reading up on the quartet of rich men who were the school trustees. ‘Joe, we’ve a problem.’

  Joe threw his magazine aside, all business. ‘What kind?’

  ‘Raven’s missing. There are signs of a struggle in her room. No shoes taken so she went unwillingly—I’m discounting sleepwalking as she would’ve turned up by now. Spread of the bedding and disturbance on the carpet suggest she was carried by at least four people. That kind of scene doesn’t go unnoticed in daylight so I’m guessing it was likely to be at night.’

  ‘Last sighting?’

  Kieran paced, running his hands through his hair. ‘Her grandfather mentioned he saw her Saturday supper. He assumed she was spending the day with me so didn’t think it odd when she missed lunch.’

  ‘Dammit.’ Joe shoved his feet into his trainers. ‘We should’ve guessed something might happen; things were getting so ugly last week.’

  ‘And she mentioned threatening notes too—I should’ve listened harder.’

  Joe checked his set of lock picks as Kieran retrieved a pencil flashlight from his bag. ‘Where should we search first?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Outbuildings. Not within earshot of the school and you are less likely to meet staff there, especially at the weekend.’

  Joe grabbed a blanket off the bed. Kieran took some thick socks from his drawer.

  ‘I’ve a really bad feeling about this,’ Kieran admitted. ‘Let’s go.’

  So cold. Raven huddled in the leaves, unable to believe that she had been left for so long. Her mind had stopped functioning properly, stuck on bewilderment. Why was no one coming for her? Had they not noticed she was missing? She had managed to get out of the knots on the wet bandages, sacrificing the skin of her wrists to do so, but that hadn’t got her much further. Her shouts and thumps on the door had not been heard—or if they had, had been ignored. She had dropped to sleep a few times but was worried that she would slip into hypothermia. She guessed she only avoided this fate thanks to the warm spring day taking the chill from the changing block. She dreaded what would happen overnight if she was still here. She had made a flag of the bandages and stuffed it out of the barred window, hoping the flutter would attract someone to rescue her, but so far her hook had caught no fish.

  ‘Raven?’

  She heard scraping at the door. It took a moment to realize it was her name being called. She tried to speak but nothing came out. Don’t go away—please, don’t give up!

  ‘The door’s padlocked. Can you pick the lock, Joe?’ Kieran.

  ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘Raven, if you’re in there, we’re coming. We’ve seen your sign. You saved us hours of searching.’

  Never had she been more grateful to hear Kieran’s voice. She began to shake. Perfect—she was cracking up after having held it together for so long.

  Light poured into the room.

  ‘Is she still in there?’

  A torch beam swept the corners of the room, passed her then reversed. ‘Yes.’ Kieran crossed the floor, expression thunderous. ‘Blanket!’

  Raven held out her hands. Kieran took them and rubbed them vigorously in his. ‘She’s freezing. Bastards.’

  Joe wrapped a blanket round her shoulders. Kieran picked her up. ‘I’m sorry, Raven.’

  It felt so wonderful to be warming up again, but painful too as blood began to move about her extremities. He sat, cradling her on his lap.

  ‘Sorry?’ She sneezed. ‘Why you sorry?’

  ‘Sorry this happened to you. We’ll make them pay.’

  She let her head drop on his chest. ‘I don’t even know who “they” were.’

  ‘First task, get you warmed up. Second, report this.’ Joe, equally terse, tucked the blanket more tightly around her. Both boys were wearing very formidable expressions. Her avenging angels.

  ‘What’s the best treatment for suspected hypothermia? Do we need to take her to hospital?’ Joe asked Kieran.

  ‘I’m OK.’

  But they weren’t listening. ‘We’ll put her in bed in dry clothes and use body heat—that’s the quickest way.’ Kieran rapped his words out like a commanding officer. ‘Find a hot water bottle from somewhere. I’ve not noticed one in the stores but Mr Bates is likely to have one—right age demographic.’

  ‘Still here you know.’

  Kieran rubbed her arm. ‘I know—and thank God you are.’

  The two were unstoppable. Joe ran off to get a hot water bottle. Kieran carried Raven to his room, past the whispering groups of students enjoying their Sunday evening. If looks could kill, there would have been mass murder as Kieran glared at them. He helped her out of her damp night clothes (Kieran’s eyes kept shut throughout that particular manoeuvre). The T-shirt he lent her (slogan Sure it works in practice, but does it work in theory?) hung to her knees. Hurrying her into the bed, Raven was a little shocked when he then got under the duvet with her and hugged her to his chest. She hadn’t anticipated that.

 
; ‘Sorry—no choice.’ Like her, he clearly felt awkward at the sudden ramping up of the contact between them. ‘You need to warm up quickly.’

  ‘You could get expelled for doing this,’ she said through chattering teeth, hands pressed flat against the furnace of his rib cage. She could feel the steady thump of his heart.

  ‘Don’t care. This is the most reliable way of restoring your core temperature.’

  ‘My feet are the worst.’

  Dipping out of the covers, he whipped a pair of socks out of his pocket and pulled them over her frozen toes, rubbing her soles briskly as he did so. He then went back to full body contact, his warm chest and long legs pressed against her.

  ‘Why me?’ she asked quietly.

  He knew what she meant. ‘Because they’re sick and twisted. For some insane reason they’ve decided to pick on you and feel they can get away with it.’

  ‘I’m not going to let them get away with it.’

  Kieran smiled. ‘That’s my girl: don’t get angry, get even.’

  ‘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 circumstance
s. ‘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.