The Angel

by Mark Dawson

  Isabella was wealthy, by the normal standards of a fifteen-year-old girl, but she knew that she would be a pauper in comparison to these girls.

  She felt another twitch of unease before she chided herself for her stupidity. What was real and what was false was irrelevant. It was what appeared to be true that mattered, and credibility was all about confidence.

  ‘Daisy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m ready.’

  Chapter Forty

  They had a welcome interview with the admissions tutor. His office was enormous, with a similarly spacious waiting area outside. His door opened at three on the dot, and he came out into the waiting area to greet them. His name was Pires, and he was full of so much false bonhomie that Isabella took an immediate dislike to him.

  ‘Mr McKee, a pleasure to meet you at last.’

  He offered his hand. Snow put out his and shook it.

  ‘And Mrs McKee, good to put a face to a voice. I hope the admissions procedure was painless enough?’

  ‘It was,’ she said. ‘You were very helpful. Thank you.’

  He waved the compliment away and turned to Isabella. ‘And you must be Daisy?’

  ‘Hello,’ she said, forcing a bright smile onto her face.

  There came a knock at the door, and at Pires’s curt ‘Come in,’ a waiter entered with a tray bearing four bone-china cups, a large carafe of coffee and a plate of petit fours. Pires thanked and dismissed him and then set about pouring the coffee himself.

  ‘Our roll is limited to just four hundred boys and girls,’ he explained as he handed the cups around. ‘They are aged between eight and eighteen, and they come from sixty-one countries. Instruction is in English, with French as a subsidiary, or in French, with English as a subsidiary. I believe you prefer English, Daisy?’

  Isabella spoke good French from her time in Marrakech, but she remembered her cover story. Daisy was conversant, but not proficient. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘English.’

  ‘I think you’ll find the school offers a unique environment. The education here is peerless, and the extracurricular activities are varied. Waterskiing, sailing, scuba diving, flying, riding, shooting and, of course, skiing. You won’t be bored.’

  ‘I’m sure I won’t.’

  The man proceeded to recite what Isabella suspected was a memorised spiel about the benefits of an education at Le Rosey. She listened and answered his questions with a promptness that suggested that she was attentive, but her focus was on the room and the world beyond the broad window. Her thoughts switched back to the preparatory meetings that they had had in London. Michael Pope had explained in greater detail what it was that she was being asked to do. He had shown her the tiny device that they wanted her to fit to Salim al-Khawari’s computer, how it was used and the best ways to avoid being seen as she did it. A whole day had been invested in developing Daisy McKee’s persona and backstory until she could answer questions fluently and without thinking about them. Pope had left a file on the table of the hotel room that they had used for the training. It had been marked with one word: ‘Angel.’ When she had asked him what that meant, he had told her – with a smile – that ‘Angel’ was her codename.

  Isabella switched back into the present as Pires asked her a question about what she liked to do in her spare time. She told him that she liked horses and ballet. When he asked her what her favourite ballet was, she answered, with perfect conviction, that it was Swan Lake, that her favourite composer was Tchaikovsky and that the first time she had seen it was when her mother had taken her to the London Opera House in 2007. Zenaida Yanowsky had played Odette. It had been wonderful.

  ‘A very good choice,’ he said. ‘You know we have ballet classes at Le Rosey?’

  ‘I do,’ she said with a smile. ‘That’s one of the things I’m looking forward to the most.’

  He stood. ‘Well, then. Should we all go and see your room?’

  Isabella kept her eyes and ears wide open as Pires guided them from the administration building to the school’s accommodation.

  The room was simple and not as extravagant as she had expected. There was a bed, a wardrobe, a desk and a set of shelves. The floor was carpeted, the walls painted a neutral beige and a large window offered a view over the impressive campus all the way to the waterfront. Isabella wheeled her suitcase to the wardrobe.

  ‘What do you think?’ Pires asked.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Kelleher answered. ‘Daisy?’

  ‘Lovely,’ Isabella agreed.

  ‘Students rise at 7 a.m.,’ Pires said. ‘You have a shower, then you go downstairs and have breakfast. It’s a large buffet, the only informal meal of the day. Between 8 a.m. and midday, there are five periods of class, with a mid-morning “chocolate break.”’

  ‘Chocolate?’ Snow said.

  ‘This is Switzerland.’ He laughed. ‘What do you expect? Every Monday at midday there is a school assembly, which brings the whole school together for notices, reflection and sometimes for dialogue. On the other days of the week you are free until lunch. Classes begin again at 1.15 p.m. and finish three periods later at 3 p.m. From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. you have a choice of sports and arts. After you have showered, you’ll do homework and “prep” in the study hall from 6.20 p.m. to 7.20 p.m., or you might be involved in choir, orchestra or drama rehearsals.’

  Pires was interrupted by a knock at the open door. Isabella turned. There was a girl there, a little older than her, and very beautiful.

  ‘Ah,’ Pires said. ‘This is Claudette. She is going to be Daisy’s buddy until she’s settled in.’

  ‘How lovely,’ Kelleher said.

  ‘Hello, Daisy.’

  The girl extended her hand. Isabella took it and made the effort to smile. It was returned, although she noticed that her eyes remained cool. ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Claudette has been at Le Rosey for two years. She’s one of our prefects.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Kelleher said.

  ‘I was just going through the daily schedule,’ Pires said to the girl. ‘I got up to prep. Do you want to tell her about dinner?’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur Pires. Dinner is served at 7.30 p.m. Students are given a place at a table with other students and a teacher. The food is always excellent. It’s the best time of the day.’

  ‘It all sounds wonderful,’ Kelleher said.

  ‘Unless you have any other questions, there’s nothing else I need to say,’ Pires said.

  ‘No,’ Snow said. ‘I think we’re good.’

  ‘Very good. I think we can leave Daisy in Claudette’s capable hands.’

  Kelleher turned her back to Pires and placed a hand on each of Isabella’s shoulders. She looked into her eyes, gave the tiniest of nods and then, right back in character, hugged her and told her with brash confidence that she was sure that she was going to settle in here just fine. Snow was next, kissing her on the cheek and squeezing her hand.

  ‘Goodbye, darling,’ Kelleher said.

  ‘Bye, Mother.’

  ‘We’ll see you at the end of the term.’

  That was six weeks away. Isabella realised that she should probably be showing a little more emotion, but she wasn’t a good enough actress to summon tears on demand. Daisy would probably have cried, but it was not something that came easily to Isabella. Instead, she hurried back across the room and hugged Kelleher again, hiding her lack of emotion by pressing her face into Number Nine’s neck. She held her there for ten seconds, then allowed her arms to be unpeeled.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Kelleher said.

  Isabella nodded, found a brave smile and watched as they thanked Monsieur Pires and left the room. Pires followed. The girl, Claudette, stayed at the door. The friendliness was gone from her face now that she was not on show. Isabella thought she saw something unpleasant in her eyes: a knowingness, perhaps. Had she seen through her already?

  ‘What now?’ she said, keen to at le
ast try to make a friend.

  ‘Get your stuff unpacked. Dinner is at seven-thirty. I’ll come and get you.’

  She turned and walked away down the corridor, leaving the door wide open. Isabella realised that she didn’t know where the girl’s room was, what she was supposed to wear for dinner, how that would work out . . . anything.

  She went to the window as she heard the crunch of a car’s tyres on gravel. The BMW pulled away, rolling slowly across the courtyard and then onto the long drive through the trees. Number Nine and Number Twelve were gone. They were staying in a bed and breakfast in Perroy, ten minutes away, but that wasn’t much succour.

  Isabella realised for the first time just how far out of her comfort zone this really was.

  She felt vulnerable and alone.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Isabella 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 the table were in the same position as she was: not connected with the popular 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

  Isabella 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 al
one, apart from the grandmaster at her dojo, and her childhood had been a procession of homes and foster parents, never staying long enough 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.