Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“What’s happening this evening?” Greg asked.

“I’m throwing a small dinner party-some close friends and associates, one or two glams, plus Julia’s house guests. There’s a couple of people I want you to screen for me. I’ve invited Dr Ranasfari. He’s leading one of Event Horizon’s research teams, a genuine genius. I’ve got him working on a project I consider absolutely crucial to my plans for the company’s future. So you handle with care.” Evans stopped, looking as uncomfortable as Greg had yet seen him. For a moment he thought it was the illness. But the old man’s mind was flush with an emotion verging on guilt. Walshaw had turned away, Uninterested. Diplomatic.

“The second…” Philip Evans nodded vaguely at the window. “That lad out there… Adrian, I think his name is. Julia seems quite taken with him. Leastways, she doesn’t talk of hardly anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to him, not if he makes her happy. Nothing I want more than to see her smiling, she’s my world. It’s just that I don’t want her hurt. Now, I know you can’t expect eternal commitment, not at that age, and he seems pleasant enough. But make sure she’s not just another tick in his stud diary. Life’s going to be tough enough for her, being my heir, she surely doesn’t deserve bad-news boyfriends as well.”

There was a dinner jacket waiting for Greg in the guest suite after he’d finished bathing. It fitted perfectly. He put it on, feeling foolish, then went out to find his host. At least he had remembered how to do up his bow tie.

The lights throughout the majority of Wilholm’s rooms were old-fashioned electric bulbs, drawing their power from solar panels clipped over the splendid Collyweston slates. He had to admit that biolums’ pink-white glow wouldn’t have done the classical decor justice. Evans had obviously gone to a lot of trouble recreating the old building’s original glory.

The ageing billionaire chortled at the sight of Greg as he waited for his powerchair on the east wing’s landing, flushed and fingering his starched collar. “Almost respectable looking, boy.” The powerchair stopped in front of him. Evans cocked his head, taking stock. “I hope you know which knives to use. I can hardly pass you off as my aide if you start savaging your avocado with a soup spoon, now can I?”

Greg wasn’t sure if the old man was mocking him or the marvellously doltish niceties of table etiquette, so religiously adhered to by England’s upper-middle classes-what was left of them. Probably both.

“I was an officer,” Greg countered. Not that he’d graduated from Sandhurst, nothing so formal. It was what the Army had called a necessity promotion, all the Mindstar candidates were captains-some obscure intelligence division commission. A week of learning how to accept salutes, and three months’ solid slog of data interpretation and correlation exercises.

“Course you were, m’boy; and a gentleman too, no doubt.”

“Well, I always took my socks off before, if that’s what you mean,” Greg said.

Evans laughed approvingly. “Wish I had you on my permanent staff. So many bloody woofter yes-men-”

The chair took off towards the main stairs at a fast walking pace. The old man looked much improved since the afternoon. Greg wondered how he’d pay for that later.

The three teenagers were heading for the stairs from the manor’s west wing. Evans waited at the top for them. The taller girl bent over and gave his cheek a soft kiss, studying his face carefully. There was genuine concern written on her features.

“Now, you’re not going to stay up late,” she said primly. It wasn’t a question.

“No.” Evans was trying hard to make it come out grumpy, but fell miserably short. Her presence resembled a fission reaction, kindling a fierce glow of pride in his mind. “Greg, this is Julia, that wayward grandchild I’ve been telling you about.”

Julia Evans nodded politely, but didn’t offer her hand. Apparently her grandfather’s employees didn’t rate anything more than fleeting acknowledgement. In silent retaliation Greg tagged her as a standard-issue spoilt brat.

Actually, he acknowledged she was quite a nice-looking girl. Tall and slender, with a modest bust, and her fine, unfashionably long hair arranged in an attractive wavy style that complemented a pleasant oval face. She wore a slim plain silver tiara on her brow, and a small gold St Christopher dangling from a chain round her neck. He thought her choice of a strapless royal purple silk dress was sagacious; she had the kind of confident poise necessary to carry it well, and not many her age could claim the same.

The boys would look twice, sure enough. Because she was sparky in that way that all teenage girls were sparky. It was just that she hadn’t developed any striking characteristics to lift her out of the ordinary. And right now that was her major problem. She was a satellite deep into an eclipse. Her primary, the girl she stood beside, was an absolutely dazzling seraph.

Her name was Katerina Cawthorp, introduced as Julia’s friend from their Swiss boarding school. A true golden girl, with richly tanned satin-smooth skin, and a thick mane of honey-blonde hair which cascaded over wide, strong shoulders. Her figure was an ensemble of superbly moulded curves, accentuated by a dress of some glittering bronze fabric which hugged tight. A deliciously low-cut front displayed a great deal of firm shapely cleavage, while a high tight hem did the same for long elegant legs. Her face was foxy; bee-stung lips, pert nose, and clear Nordic-blue eyes which regarded Greg with faint condescension. He’d been staring.

Katerina must have been used to it. That sly almost-smile let the whole world know that butter would most definitely melt in her mouth.

Julia wheeled her grandfather’s chair on to a small platform which ran down a set of rails at the side of the stairs.

“That father of yours, is he coming down?” Evans asked her sourly.

“Now don’t you two start quarrelling tonight.”

“Probably skulking in his room getting stoned.”

She slapped his wrist, quite sharply. “Behave. This is a party.”

Evans grunted irritably, and the platform began to slide down. Julia kept up with it, skipping lightly.

Naturally, Katerina’s descent was far more dignified. She glided effortlessly, an old-style film-star making her grand entrance at a blockbuster premiere.

It left Greg free to talk to the boy, Adrian Marler; he didn’t have to ask anything, Adrian turned out to be one of nature’s gushers. He launched into conversation by telling Greg how he’d just begun to study medicine at Cambridge, hoped to make the rugby team as a winger, complained about the New Conservative government’s pitifully inadequate student grant, confided that his family was comfortably off but nowhere near as rich as the Evans dynasty.

Adrian was six foot tall with surf-king muscles, short curly blond hair, chiselled cheekbones, and a roguish grin that would send young-and not so young-female hearts racing; he was also intelligent, humorous, and respectful. Greg felt a flash of envious dislike for a kind of adolescence he’d never had, dismissing it quickly.

“So how did you meet Julia?” he enquired.

“Katey introduced us,” Adrian said. “Hey listen, no way was I going to turn down the chance to crash out at this palace for a few days, meet the great Philip Evans. Then there’s gourmet food, as much booze as you want, clean sheets every day, valet service.” He leaned over and gave Greg a significant between us-men look, before murmuring, “And our rooms are fortuitously close together.”

“She seems a nice girl,” Greg ventured.