With No One As Witness

CHAPTER TEN

IN VERY SHORT ORDER, LYNLEY AND HAVERS DISCOVERED that not only was the director of Colossus also in the dark about Kimmo Thorne’s death but additionally, for some reason, Jack Veness had not put her in the picture with regard to the matter when he went to find her. Evidently, he had told her only that two cops from New Scotland Yard wanted to see her. It was an intriguing omission.

Ulrike Ellis turned out to be a pleasant-looking young woman in the vicinity of thirty, with sandy cornrow plaits gathered back from her face and enough brass bangles on her wrists to qualify her as the prisoner of Zenda. She wore a heavy black turtleneck, blue jeans, and boots, and she came to reception herself to fetch Lynley and Havers to her office. As Jack Veness resumed his place behind the reception desk, Ulrike led the way down a corridor on the walls of which bulletin boards held neighbourhood announcements, photographs of young people, classes on offer, and schedules of Colossus events. Once in her office, she scooped a small stack of the Big Issue off a chair in front of her desk and shoved the magazines onto a space on a bookshelf crowded with volumes and with files needing replacement in a cabinet. This, standing near her desk, already overflowed with other files.

She said, “I keep buying these,” in reference to copies of the Big Issue, “and then I never get a chance to read them. Take a few if you like. Or do you buy them yourselves?” She glanced over her shoulder and added, “Ah. Well, everyone ought, you know. Oh, I know what people think: If I buy one, this unwashed sod’ll go off and spend the profit on drugs or booze, won’t he, and how will that be of help to him? But what I say is that people might want to stop assuming the worst and start pitching in to make a difference in this country.” She looked round the office as if seeking other employment and said, “Well, that didn’t much help, did it. One of you still has to stand. Or shall we all stand? Is that better? Tell me this: Is TO31 finally going to take notice of us?”

Actually, Lynley told her as Barbara Havers wandered to the bookshelf to have a look at Ulrike Ellis’s many volumes, he and DC Havers were not there representing Community Affairs. Rather, they’d come to talk to the director of Colossus about Kimmo Thorne. Did Ms. Ellis know the boy?

Ulrike sat behind her desk. Lynley took the chair. Havers remained at the volumes, reaching for one of several framed photographs that stood among them. Ulrike said, “Has Kimmo done something? See here, we’re not responsible for the kids’ staying out of trouble. We don’t even claim to be able to do that. Colossus is about showing them alternatives, but sometimes they still choose the wrong ones.”

“Kimmo’s dead,” Lynley said. “You may have read about the body that was found in St. George’s Gardens, up in St. Pancras. He’s been identified in the press by now.”

Ulrike said nothing in reply at first. She merely stared at Lynley for a good five seconds before her glance went to Havers, still in possession of one of her photographs. She said, “Put that down, please,” in the calmest possible voice. She loosed her plaits from their binding and refastened them tightly before she said more. Then it was merely, “I phoned…I did phone the moment I was told.”

“So you knew he was dead?” Havers put the photograph back in place but facing outward so Lynley could see it: a very young Ulrike, an older man in minister’s garb who might have been her father, and between them the brightly clad figure of Nelson Mandela.

Ulrike said, “No. No. I didn’t mean…When Kimmo failed to come to day five of his assessment course, Griff Strong reported him, as he was meant to do. I phoned Kimmo’s probation officer straightaway. That’s how we do it if one of our kids is ordered here by the magistrate or by Social Services.”

“Griff Strong is…?”

“A social worker. Trained as a social worker, I mean. We’re not social workers per se at Colossus. Griff leads one of our assessment courses. He does extremely well with the kids. Very few of them drop out once they’ve had Griff.”

Lynley saw Havers take down this information. He said, “Is Griff Strong here as well today? If he knew Kimmo, we’re going to want to speak to him.”

“To Griff?” Ulrike looked at her phone for some reason, as if this would give her the answer. “No. No, he’s not in. He’s bringing in a delivery…” She seemed to feel the need to toss her plaits into a more comfortable position. “He said he’d be late today, so we’re not expecting him until…You see, he does our T-shirts and sweatshirts. A sideline of his. You may have seen them outside reception. In the glass case. He’s an excellent social worker. We’re very lucky to have him.”

Lynley felt Havers looking his way. He knew what she was thinking: more depths to plumb here.

He said, “We’ve another dead boy as well. Jared Salvatore. Was he also one of yours?”

“Another…”

“There are five deaths we’re investigating in all, Ms. Ellis.”

Havers added, “Do you read the newspapers, by any chance? Does anyone round here, if it comes to that?”

Ulrike looked at her. “I hardly think that question’s fair.”

“Which one?” Havers said, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “This is a serial killer we’re talking about. He’s going after boys round the age of those you’ve got standing in your carpark smoking fags. One of them could be next, so pardon my manners, but I don’t care what you think is fair.”

In other circumstances, Lynley would have reined the constable in at this point. But he could see that Havers’ demonstration of impatience had had a positive effect. Ulrike got to her feet and went over to the filing cabinet. She squatted and jerked out one of the crammed drawers, which she fingered through rapidly. She said, “Of course I read…I look at the Guardian. Every day. Or as often as I can.”

“But not recently, right?” Havers said. “Why is that?”

Ulrike didn’t reply. She continued going through her files. She finally slammed the drawer closed and rose, empty handed. She said, “There is no Salvatore among our kids. I hope that satisfies you. And now let me ask you something in turn: Who sent you to Colossus in the first place?”

“Who?” Lynley asked. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on. We have enemies. Any organisation like this…trying to make the slightest degree of change in this bloody backward country…Do you honestly think there aren’t people out there who want us to fail? Who put you on to Colossus?”

“Police work put us on to Colossus,” Lynley said.

“The Borough High Street station, to be specific,” Havers added.

“You actually want me to believe…You’ve come here because you think Kimmo’s death has something to do with Colossus, haven’t you? Well, you wouldn’t even be thinking that if it hadn’t been suggested by someone outside these walls, be that someone from Borough High Street station or someone from Kimmo’s life.”

Like Blinker, Lynley thought. Except Kimmo’s stud-faced mate hadn’t once mentioned Colossus, if he even had known about it. He said, “Tell us what happens in the assessment course.”

Ulrike went back to her desk. For a moment, she stood there looking down at her phone, as if waiting for a prearranged deliverance. Beyond her, Havers had moved to a wall of degrees, certificates, and commendations, where she’d been jotting down salient details from the objects on display. Ulrike watched her. She said quietly, “We care about these kids. We want to make a difference for them. We believe that the only way to do that is through connection: one life to one life.”

“Is that the assessment, then?” Lynley asked. “The attempt to connect with the young people who come here?”

It was that and far more than that, she told them. It was the young people’s first experience with Colossus: a fortnight in which they met daily in a group of ten other young people with an assessment leader: Griffin Strong, in Kimmo’s case. The object was to engage their interest, to prove to them that they could achieve success in one area or another, to establish in them a sense of trust, and to encourage them to commit to taking part in the Colossus programme. They began with developing a personal code of conduct for the group, and each day they assessed what had gone on-and been learned-the day before.

“Ice-breaking games at first,” Ulrike said. “Then trust activities. Then a personal challenge, like climbing the rock wall out the back. Then a trip which they plan and take together. Somewhere into the countryside or to the sea. Hiking in the Pennines. Something like that. At the end, we invite them back for classes. Computers. Cookery. Single living. Health. From learning to earning.”

“Jobs, you mean?” Havers asked.

“They aren’t ready for jobs. Not when they first get here. Most of them are monosyllabic if not completely nonverbal. They’re beaten down. What we try to do is show them there’s another way from what they’ve been doing in the streets. There’s returning to school, learning to read, completing college, walking away from drugs. There’s having a belief in their future. There’s managing their feelings. There’s having feelings in the first place. There’s developing a sense of self-esteem.” She looked sharply at them both, as if trying to read them. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Such touchy-feely crap. The ultimate in psychobabble. But the truth is that if behaviour is going to change, it’s going to do it from the inside out. No one chooses a different path till he feels differently about himself.”

“That was the plan for Kimmo?” Lynley asked. “From what we’ve learned, he seemed to feel fairly good about himself already, despite the choices he made.”

“No one making Kimmo’s choices feels good about himself at heart, Superintendent.”

“So you expected him to change through time and exposure to Colossus?”

“We have,” she said, “a high level of success. Despite what you’re obviously thinking about us. Despite our not knowing Kimmo was murdered. We did what we were meant to do when he failed to show up.”

“As you said,” Lynley agreed. “And what do you do about the others?”

“The others?”

“Does everyone come to you via Youth Offenders?”

“Not at all. Most of them come because they’ve heard about us in another way entirely. Through church or school, through someone already involved in the programme. If they stay, it’s because they begin to trust us and they start to believe in themselves.”

“What happens with those who don’t?” Havers asked.

“Don’t what?”

“Start to believe in themselves?”

“Obviously, this programme doesn’t work for them all. How can it? We’re up against everything in their backgrounds, from abuse to xenophobia. Sometimes, a kid can’t cope here any better than he can cope anywhere else. So he dips in and then out and that’s how it is. We don’t force anyone to stay who isn’t required to by a court order. As for the rest, as long as they obey the rules, we don’t force them to leave either. They can be here for years, if they like.”

“And are they?”

“Occasionally, yes.”

“Like who?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

“Ulrike?” It was Jack Veness. He’d come to the doorway of Ulrike’s office, quiet as the fog. “Phone. I tried to tell him you were busy, but he wasn’t having it. Sorry. What d’you want me…?” He raised his shoulders as a way of completing the question.

“Who is it, then?”

“Reverend Savidge. He’s in a state. Says Sean Lavery’s gone missing. Says he didn’t turn up at home last night when he was due back from the computer course. Should I-”

“No!” Ulrike said. “Put him through, Jack.”

Jack left her office. She closed her fingers into a fist. She didn’t look up as she waited for the phone to ring.

“There was another body this morning, Ms. Ellis,” Lynley said.

“Then I’ll put him on the speakerphone,” she replied. “Please God this has nothing to do with us.” While she waited for the phone call to ring through, she told them that the caller was the foster parent of one of the boys in their programme: He was called Sean Lavery, and he was black. She looked at Lynley, the question hanging unasked between them. He merely nodded, confirming her unspoken fears about the body found that morning in the Shand Street tunnel.

When the phone rang, Ulrike punched the button for the speaker. Reverend Savidge’s voice came through, deep and anxious. Where was Sean? he wanted to know. Why hadn’t Sean returned from Colossus last night?

Ulrike told him what little she knew. As far as she understood, Reverend Savidge’s foster son Sean Lavery had been at Colossus as usual on the previous day and had left as usual on his regular bus. She’d heard nothing contrary to that from his computer instructor, and his instructor hadn’t reported him as absent, which he definitely would have done because Sean had come to them via a social worker, and Colossus always kept in touch.

Where the hell was he, then? Reverend Savidge demanded. There were boys going missing all over London. Was Ulrike Ellis aware of that? Or did it not count to her if the boy in question happened to be black?

Ulrike assured him that she’d speak with the computer instructor the first chance she had but in the meantime…Had Reverend Savidge phoned round to see if Sean had perhaps gone home with a friend? Or gone to his dad’s? Or gone to see his mum? She was still in Holloway, wasn’t she, which wasn’t a particularly difficult trip for a boy Sean’s age to make. Sometimes boys do just go off for a bit, she’d said to Savidge.

He said, “Not this boy, madam,” and he rang off abruptly.

Ulrike said, “Oh Lord,” and Lynley knew it was a prayer.

He said one himself. Reverend Savidge’s next call, Lynley reckoned, was going to be to his local police.

ONLY ONE OF THE two detectives left the building after the phone call from Reverend Savidge. The other-the unattractive woman with the chipped front teeth and the ridiculous red high-top trainers-remained behind. The man, Detective Superintendent Lynley, was going to head up to South Hampstead to talk to Sean Lavery’s foster father. His subordinate, Detective Constable Barbara Havers, was going to hang round as long as it was necessary to have a word with Griffin Strong. Ulrike Ellis processed all this in a matter of seconds once the cops had finished with her: Lynley asked for Bram Savidge’s address; Havers asked could she have a wander round the premises, the better to manage a word here and there.

Ulrike knew she could hardly say no. Things were bad enough without her being anything less than cooperative. So she agreed to the constable’s request. For no matter what had happened beyond the walls of this place, Colossus and what Colossus represented were larger than the life of one boy or a dozen boys.

But even as she reassured herself that Colossus would emerge unscathed from this setback, Ulrike worried about Griff. He should have shown up at least two hours ago, no matter what she’d told the cops about the putative delivery of T-shirts and sweatshirts. The fact that he hadn’t…

There was nothing to do but phone him on his mobile and warn him what to expect when he arrived. She wouldn’t be blatant about it, however. She didn’t trust the security of mobile phones. Instead she would tell him to meet her at the Charlie Chaplin pub. Or in the shopping centre up on the corner. Or at one of the market stalls just outside. Or even in the subway that led to the underground station because what did it matter when what was important was simply that they meet so she could warn him…Of what? she asked herself. And why?

Her chest was hurting. It had been hurting for days, but it had suddenly become worse. Did one have heart attacks at thirty years old? When she’d squatted in front of the filing drawer, she’d experienced a combination of light-headedness and increased chest pain that nearly overcame her. She’d thought she would swoon. God. Swoon. Where had that word come from?

Ulrike told herself to stop it. She picked up the phone and dialed for an outside line. When she had it, she tapped in the number of Griff Strong’s mobile. She’d interrupt him doing whatever he was doing, but that couldn’t be helped.

Griff said, “Yes?,” on the other end. He sounded impatient, and what was that about? He worked at Colossus. She was his boss. Deal with it, Griff.

She said, “Where are you?”

He said, “Ulrike…” in a voice whose tone was a message in itself.

But the fact he’d used her name told her he was in a place of safety. She said, “The police have been. I can’t say more. We need to meet before you get here.”

“Police?” His previous impatience was gone. Ulrike could hear the fear that replaced it. She herself felt a corresponding frisson.

She said, “Two detectives. One of them is still in the building. She’s waiting for you.”

“For me? Shall I-”

“No. You must come in. If you don’t…Look, let’s not have this conversation on a mobile. How soon can you meet at…say, at Charlie Chaplin?” And then because it was more than reasonable, “Where are you?,” so she could determine how long it would take him to get there.

Even the thought of the police at Colossus didn’t put Griffin off his stride, however. He said, “Fifteen minutes.”

Not at home, then. But she’d deduced that much when he’d said her name. She knew she wouldn’t get anything more from him.

“Charlie Chaplin, then,” she said. “Fifteen minutes.” She rang off.

What remained was the waiting. That and wondering what the constable was doing as she had her ostensible look round the premises. Ulrike had determined in a flash that it benefitted Colossus for the DC to have this look unattended. Allowing her to wander freely sent a message about Colossus having nothing to hide.

But Lord, Lord, her chest was pounding. Her cornrow plaits were far too tight. She knew if she pulled on one of them, the whole lot would detach from her scalp, rendering her bald. What did they call it? Stress causing one’s hair to fall out? Alopecia, that was it. Was there something called spontaneous alopecia? Probably. She’d be afflicted with that next.

She got up from her desk. From a rack next to the door, she plucked her coat, her scarf, and her hat. She slung these over her arm and left her office. She ducked down the corridor and slid into the loo.

There she prepared. She wore no makeup, so there was nothing to check save the condition of her skin, which she blotted with toilet tissue. Her cheeks bore the faint pockmarks of an adolescence given over to outbreaks of acne, but she felt it was an overt mark of self-absorption to use some sort of foundation to cover them. That smacked of a lack of self-acceptance and sent the wrong message to the board of trustees who’d hired her for the strength of her character.

Which was what she was going to need if Colossus was to get through this bad period. Strength. Plans had long been laid for the organisation’s expansion to a second location-this one in North London-and the last thing the development committee needed over at the administration and fund-raising offices was the news that Colossus was being mentioned in the same sentence as a murder investigation. That would bring expansion to a screeching halt, and they needed to expand. The urgency was everywhere. Kids in care. Kids on the street. Kids selling their bodies. Kids dying from drugs. Colossus had the answer for them, so Colossus had to be able to grow. The entire situation they were in at the moment had to be dealt with expeditiously.

She had no lipstick, but she did carry gloss. She rooted this out of her bag and smoothed it across her lips. She adjusted the neck of her sweater a bit higher and shrugged on her coat. She put on the hat and the scarf and decided she looked enough like a supervisor to get through the meeting with Griffin Strong without being accused of personifying carpe diem in the worst possible way. This was about Colossus, she reminded herself and would remind Griff when she finally saw him. Everything else was secondary.

BARBARA HAVERS WASN’T about to cool her heels in her wait for Griffin Strong. Instead, after she told Ulrike Ellis that she’d “poke round a bit, if no one minds,” she left the director’s office to do so before Ulrike could assign her a watchdog. She then had a proper wander round the building, which was filling up with Colossus participants newly returned from late lunch, from cigarettes in the carpark, or from whatever dubious else they’d been doing. She watched them drift off to various activities: Some went to a computer room, some to a large educational kitchen, some to small classrooms, some to a conference room where they sat in a circle and talked earnestly, overseen by an adult who documented their ideas or concerns on a flip chart. The adults in question Barbara took close note of. She would need to get the name of each one. Each one’s past-not to mention his present-would have to be checked out. Just because. Grunt work, all of it, but it had to be done.

She got aggro from no one as she had her wander. Most everyone simply and in some cases studiously ignored her. Eventually, she made her way into the computer room, where a mixed bag of adolescents appeared to be working on Web designs and a tubby male instructor round Barbara’s own age was guiding an Asian youth through the use of a scanner. When he said, “You try it this time,” and stepped away, he saw Barbara and came over to her.

“Help you?” he said quietly. He kept it friendly enough, but there was no disguising the fact that he knew who she was and what she was there for. The news was apparently traveling at a jackrabbit pace.

“Grass doesn’t grow here, does it?” Barbara said. “Who’s spreading the word? That bloke Jack in reception?”

“It would be part of his job,” the man replied. He introduced himself as Neil Greenham, and he offered his hand to shake. It was soft, feminine, and a little too warm. He went on to say that Jack’s information had been largely unnecessary. “I would have known you were a cop anyway.”

“Personal experience? Clairvoyance? My fashion sense?”

“You’re famous. Well, relatively. As these things go.” Greenham went to a teacher’s desk in one corner of the room. From there, he took a folded newspaper. He returned to her and handed it over. “I picked up the latest Evening Standard on my way back from lunch. Like I said, you’re famous.”

Curiously, Barbara unfolded it. There on the front page, the headline shrieked the news of the early morning discovery in the Shand Street tunnel. Beneath it, were two photographs: One was a grainy picture of the tunnel’s interior, in which several figures round a sports car were silhouetted by the stark portable lights brought in by the SOCO team; the other was a fine, clear shot of Barbara herself, along with Lynley, Hamish Robson, and the local DI, as they spoke outside the tunnel and in view of the press. Only Lynley was identified by name. There was, Barbara thought, little blessing in that.

She handed the paper back to Greenham. “DC Havers,” she said. “New Scotland Yard.”

He nodded at the paper. “Don’t you want that for your scrapbook?”

“I’ll buy three dozen on my way home tonight. Could we have a word?”

He gestured to the classroom and the young people at work. “I’m in the middle of something. Can it wait?”

“They look like they’re coping without you.”

Greenham ran his gaze over them as if checking for the truth of this statement. He gave a nod then and indicated they could speak in the corridor.

“One of yours is gone missing,” Barbara told him. “Have you heard that yet? Has Ulrike told you?”

Greenham’s eyes shifted from Barbara to the corridor; he looked in the direction of Ulrike Ellis’s office. Here, Barbara thought, was a piece of news that apparently hadn’t traveled on the jackrabbit express. And that was curious, considering Ulrike’s telephone promise to Reverend Savidge to talk to the computer instructor about the newly missing boy.

Greenham said, “Sean Lavery?”

“Bingo.”

“He just hasn’t come in yet today.”

“Aren’t you meant to report him?”

“At the end of the day, yes. He could merely be late.”

“As the Evening Standard’s pointing out, a dead boy was found in the London Bridge area round half past five this morning.”

“Sean?”

“We don’t know yet. But if it is, that’s two.”

“Kimmo Thorne as well. The same killer, you mean. Serial…”

“Ah. Someone does read the newspapers round here. I was getting a little curious about that, why no one seemed to know Kimmo’s dead. You knew, but you didn’t talk about it with any of the others?”

Greenham shifted weight from one leg onto the other. He said, sounding not too comfortable about the admission, “There’s a bit of a divide. Ulrike and the assessment people on one side; the rest of us on the other.”

“And Kimmo was still at the assessment level.”

“Right.”

“Yet you knew him.”

Greenham wasn’t about to be caught by the undercurrent of accusation in the remark. He said, “I knew who he was. But who wouldn’t have known who Kimmo was? Cross-dresser? Eye shadow, lipstick? He was hard to miss and harder to forget, if you know what I mean. So it wasn’t only me. Everyone knew Kimmo five minutes after he walked through the door.”

“And this other kid? Sean?”

“Loner. A bit hostile. Didn’t want to be here, but he was willing to give computers a try. In time, I think we could’ve got through.”

“Past tense,” Barbara said.

Greenham’s upper lip looked damp. “That body…”

“We don’t know who it is.”

“I suppose I assumed…with you here and all…”

“Not a good idea, assuming.” Barbara took out her notebook. She saw the look of alarm pass across Greenham’s pudgy face. She said, “Tell me about yourself, Mr. Greenham.”

He recovered quickly. “Address? Education? Background? Hobbies? Do I kill adolescent boys in my spare time?”

“Start with how you fit in the hierarchy round here.”

“There is no hierarchy.”

“You said there was a divide. Ulrike and assessment on one side. Everyone else on the other. How did that come about?”

He said, “You misunderstand. The divide has to do with information and how it’s shared. That’s all. Otherwise, we’re all on the same page at Colossus. We’re about saving kids. That’s what we do.”

Barbara nodded thoughtfully. “Tell that to Kimmo Thorne. How long have you been here?”

“Four years,” he replied.

“And before?”

“I’m a teacher. I worked in North London.” He gave the name of a primary school in Kilburn. Before she could ask, he told her he’d left that employment because he’d come to realise he preferred to work with older children. He added that he’d also had issues with the head teacher. When Barbara asked what sort of issues, he told her forthrightly that they were about discipline.

“Which side of the fence did you happen to reside on?” Barbara asked. “Sparing and spoiling or as the twig is bent?”

“You’re rather full of clichés, aren’t you?”

“I’m a walking encyclopaedia of them. So…?”

“It wasn’t corporal punishment,” he told her. “It was classroom discipline: the removal of privileges, a thorough talking to, a brief spate of social ostracism. That sort of thing.”

“Public ridicule? A day in the stocks?”

He coloured. “I’m trying to be frank with you. You’ll phone them up, I know. They’re going to tell you we had our differences. But that’s only natural. People are always of different opinions.”

“Right,” Barbara said. “Well, we all have those, don’t we, our different opinions? You have them here as well? Difference of opinions leading to conflicts leading to…Who knows what? Perhaps the divide you mentioned?”

“I’ll repeat the point I tried to make before. We’re all on the same page. Colossus is about the kids. The more people you talk to, the more you’re going to understand that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see that Yusuf needs my help.” He left her then, returning to his classroom where the Asian boy was bent over the scanner looking as if he wished to hammer it. Barbara knew the feeling.

She left Greenham to his students. Her further exploration of the premises-still unimpeded-took her to the very back of the building. There she found the kit room where a group of kids were being set up with appropriate dress and equipment for winter kayaking on the Thames. Robbie Kilfoyle-he of the earlier cardplaying and the Euro-Disney baseball cap-had them lined up, and he was measuring them for wetsuits, a row of which hung along one wall. He’d pulled life jackets from a shelf as well, and those who were done being measured were sorting through these, finding one that fitted. Conversation among them was muted. It appeared they’d all finally got the word: either about Kimmo Thorne or about the cops asking questions.

Kilfoyle dismissed them to the game room when they had their wet suits and their life jackets. Wait there for Griffin Strong, he told them. He would be assisting their assessment leader on the river trip, and he was going to grouse about it if he didn’t find them all ready when he showed up. Then, as they filed out, Kilfoyle went on to sort through a mound of Wellingtons piled on the floor. He began to pair them and slide them onto shelves that were marked with sizes. He gave Barbara a nod of recognition. “Still here?” he said.

“As ever. Seems we’re all waiting for Griffin Strong.”

“Truth to that, all right.” There was an airiness to his voice suggesting double meanings. Barbara took note.

“Volunteer here long?” she asked him.

Kilfoyle thought about that one. “Two years?” he said. “Bit more. Something like twenty-nine months.”

“What about before that?”

He gave her a look, one that said he knew this was no simple chat on her part. “This’s my first spate of volunteering anywhere.”

“Why?”

“Which? The first-time part or the volunteering-at-all part?”

“Volunteering at all.”

He stopped his work, a set of Wellingtons in his hand. “I do their sandwich deliveries, like I said in reception. That’s how I met them. I could see they needed help because-between you and me-they pay their actual employees shit, so they can never find enough help or keep them long when they do find them. I started hanging about after my lunch deliveries were done for the day. Doing this, doing that, and hey, presto, I was a volunteer.”

“Nice of you.”

He shrugged. “Good cause. Besides, I’d like to be taken on eventually.”

“Even though they pay their employees shit?”

“I like the kids. And anyway, Colossus pays more than I’m currently making, believe me.”

“So how do you make them?”

“What?”

“Your deliveries.”

“Bicycle,” he replied. “There’s a cart that gets attached to the back.”

“Going where?”

“The cart? The deliveries?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Round South London, mostly. A bit in the City. Why? What’re you looking for?”

A van, Barbara thought. Deliveries by van. She noted that Kilfoyle had started to flush, but she didn’t want to put that down as any more significant than Greenham’s damp upper lip or his too soft hands. This bloke was ruddy skinned anyway, in the way of many Englishmen, and he had the doughy face, narrow nose, and knobby chin that would mark him out as British no matter where he went.

Barbara realised then how badly she wanted to read one of these blokes as a serial killer behind their ordinary exteriors. But the truth was, she’d so far wanted to read just about everyone she’d come across exactly the same and, no doubt when he finally showed his mug, Griff Strong was going to look bloody good to her as a serial killer, as well. She needed to keep things slow and easy at this point, she thought. Piece details together, she told herself, don’t cram them into position simply because you want them to be there.

“So how do they keep body and soul together?” Barbara asked. “Not to mention roofs over their heads?”

“Who?”

“You said wages were bad here…?”

“Oh. That. Mostly they’ve got second jobs.”

“Such as?”

He considered. “Don’t know them all. But Jack’s got a weekend job in a pub, and Griff and his wife have a silk-screen business. Fact is, I think only Ulrike’s making enough not to have something else going on at the weekends or at night. It’s the only way anyone can actually do this and still eat.” He looked past Barbara to the doorway and added, “Hey, mate. I was just about to set the hounds on you.”

Barbara turned and saw the same boy who’d been playing cards with Kilfoyle earlier in reception. He was slouching in the doorway, baggy blue jeans crotched at the knees and boxer shorts bulging at the waist. He shuffled into the kit room, where Kilfoyle set him up sorting through a tangle of climbing ropes. He began pulling them out of a plastic barrel and coiling them neatly round his arm.

“Do you happen to know Sean Lavery?” Barbara asked Kilfoyle.

He thought about this. “Been through assessment?”

“He’s on a computer course with Neil Greenham.”

“Then I probably know him. By sight if not by name. Back here”-He used his chin to indicate the kit room-“I only see the kids close up when there’s an activity scheduled and they come in for supplies. Otherwise, they’re just faces to me. I don’t always put a name to them or keep a name on them once they’ve moved beyond the assessment level.”

“Because only assessment-level kids use this stuff?” Barbara asked him, referring to the supplies in the kit room.

“Generally speaking, yes,” he said.

“Neil Greenham tells me there’s a divide between the assessment people and everyone else round here, with Ulrike on the assessment side. He indicated that’s a trouble spot.”

“That’s just Neil,” Kilfoyle said. He shot a look towards his helper and lowered his voice. “He hates being out of the loop. He takes offence easy. He’s keen to have more responsibility and-”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why’s he keen to have more responsibility?”

Kilfoyle moved from the Wellingtons to the remaining life jackets that had not been chosen for wear by the team going out on the Thames. “Most people want that in their jobs, don’t they? It’s a power thing.”

“Neil likes power?”

“I don’t know him well, but I get the feeling he’d like to have more say about how things are run round here.”

“And what about you? You’ve got to have bigger plans for yourself than volunteering in this kit room.”

“You mean here at Colossus?” He thought about this, then gave a shrug. “Okay, I’ll play. I wouldn’t mind being hired to do outreach when they open the Colossus branch north of the river. But Griff Strong’s angling for that. And if Griff wants it, it’s going to be his.”

“Why?”

Kilfoyle hesitated, weighing a life jacket between one hand and another as if he were also weighing his words. He finally replied, “Let’s just say Neil was right about one thing: Everyone knows everyone else at Colossus. But Ulrike’s going to make the decision on the outreach job, and she knows some people better than others.”

FROM THE BENTLEY, Lynley phoned the police station in South Hampstead and brought them into the picture: the body found that morning south of the river, which was possibly one of a series of killings…if the station would allow him a conversation with a certain Reverend Savidge who might soon be phoning them about a missing boy…Arrangements were made as he crossed the river, heading diagonally through the city.

He found Bram Savidge at his ministry, which turned out to be a former shop for electrical goods whose whimsical name Plugged Inn had been economically used as part of the church’s moniker, Plugged Inn to the Lord. In the Swiss Cottage area of Finchley Road, it appeared to be part church and part soup kitchen. At the moment, it was operating as the latter.

When Lynley walked in, he felt like an overweight nudist in a crowd wearing overcoats: He was the only white face in the establishment, and the black faces looking him over were doing so without much welcome. He asked for Reverend Savidge, please, and a woman who’d been dishing out a savoury stew to a line of the hungry went to fetch him. When Savidge turned up, Lynley found himself face-to-face with six feet, five inches of solid Africa, which was hardly what he’d expected from the public school sound of the man’s voice on the speakerphone in Ulrike Ellis’s office.

Reverend Savidge appeared in a caftan of red, orange, and black, while on his feet were roughly made sandals, which he wore without socks despite the winter weather. An intricately carved wooden necklace lay on his chest, and a single earring of shell, bone, or something very like dangled just below the height of Lynley’s eyes. Savidge might have just stepped off the plane from Nairobi, except his clipped beard framed a face not as dark as one would have expected. Aside from Lynley, he was actually the lightest-skinned person in the room.

“You’re the police?” That accent again, speaking not only of public schools and a university degree, but also of an upbringing in an area that was a far cry from his present community. His eyes-they were hazel, Lynley noted-took in Lynley’s suit, shirt, tie, and shoes. He made his evaluation in an instant, and it wasn’t good. So be it, Lynley thought. He showed his identification and asked if there was somewhere private for them to speak.

Savidge led the way to an office at the back of the building. They wound there through long tables set up for use in eating the meal being dished out by women wearing garb not unlike Savidge’s own. At these, perhaps two dozen men and half as many women wolfed down the stew, drank from small cartons of milk, and slathered bread with butter. Music played low to entertain them, a chant of some sort in an African tongue.

Savidge closed the door on all this when they got to his office. He said, “Scotland Yard. Why? I phoned the local station. They said someone would come. I assumed…What’s happening? What’s this all about?”

“I was in Ms. Ellis’s office when you phoned Colossus.”

“What’s happened to Sean?” Savidge demanded. “He didn’t come home. You must know something. Tell me.”

Lynley could see the reverend was used to being instantly obeyed. There was little doubt why this was the case: He dominated by simple virtue of being alive. Lynley couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a man who so effortlessly exuded such authority.

He said, “I understand Sean Lavery lives with you?”

“I’d like to know-”

“Reverend Savidge, I’m going to need some information. One way or the other.”

They engaged in a brief battle of eyes and wills before Savidge said, “With me and my wife. Yes. Sean lives with us. In care.”

“His own parents?”

“His mum’s in prison. Attempted murder of a cop.” Savidge paused, as if registering Lynley’s reaction to this. Lynley took care not to give him one. “Dad’s a mechanic over in North Kensington. They were never married, and he had no interest in the boy, before or after Mum’s arrest. When she went inside, Sean went into the system.”

“And how did you end up with him?”

“I’ve had boys in my home for nearly two decades.”

“Boys? Are there others, then?”

“Not now. Just Sean.”

“Why?”

Reverend Savidge went to a Thermos, out of which he poured himself a cup of something fragrant and steaming. He offered this to Lynley, who demurred. He took it to his desk and sat, nodding Lynley into a chair. On the desk, a legal pad held jottings, things listed and crossed out, circled and underlined. “Sermon,” Savidge said, apparently noticing the direction of Lynley’s gaze. “It doesn’t come easy.”

“The other boys, Reverend Savidge?”

“I have a wife now. Oni’s English isn’t good. She felt overwhelmed and a bit overrun, so I had three of the boys placed elsewhere. Temporarily. Till Oni settles in.”

“But not Sean Lavery. He’s not been placed elsewhere. Why?”

“He’s younger than the others. It didn’t feel right to move him.”

Lynley wondered what else hadn’t felt right. He couldn’t help concluding it might have been the new Mrs. Savidge, inadequate in English and home alone with a household of adolescent boys.

“How did Sean come to be involved in Colossus?” he asked. “It’s quite a distance for him to go there from here.”

“Colossus do-gooders came to the church. They called it outreach, but what it amounted to was talking up their programme. An alternative to what they obviously believe every child of colour would get up to, given half the chance and absent their intervention.”

“You don’t approve of them, then.”

“This community’s going to help itself from within, Superintendent. It’s not going to improve by having help imposed upon it by a group of liberal, guilt-ridden social activists. They need to toddle back to whichever of the Home Counties they came from, hockey sticks and cricket bats well in hand.”

“Yet somehow Sean Lavery ended up there, despite your feelings.”

“I had no choice in the matter. Neither did Sean. It was all down to his social worker.”

“But surely, as his guardian, you have a strong say in how he spends his free time.”

“Under other circumstances. But there was an incident with a bicycle as well.” Savidge went on to explain: It was a complete misunderstanding, he said. Sean had taken an expensive mountain bike from a boy in the neighbourhood. He’d thought he’d been given permission to use it; the boy had thought otherwise. He reported it stolen and the cops found it in Sean’s possession. The situation was considered a first offence, and Sean’s social worker suggested nipping any potential for illegal behaviour in the bud. So Colossus came into the picture. Savidge had initially, if reluctantly, approved the idea: Of all his boys, Sean had been the first to come to the notice of the police. He was also the first who wouldn’t attend school. Colossus was supposed to remedy all this.

“He’s been there how long?” Lynley asked.

“Closing in on a year.”

“Attending regularly?”

“He has to. It’s part of his probation.” Savidge lifted his mug and drank. He wiped his mouth carefully. He went on with, “Sean’s said from the first that he didn’t steal that bike, and I believe him. At the same time, I want to keep him out of trouble, which you and I know he’s going to get into if he doesn’t go to school and doesn’t get involved with something. He hasn’t exactly looked forward to Colossus every day-from what I can tell-but he goes. He managed the assessment course, and he’s actually had some good words to say about the computer course he’s doing now.”

“Who was his assessment leader?”

“Griffin Strong. Social worker. Sean liked him well enough. Or at least well enough not to complain about him.”

“Has he ever failed to come home before, Reverend Savidge?”

“Never. He’s been late a few times, but he’s phoned to let us know. That’s it.”

“Is there any reason he might have decided to run off?”

Savidge thought about this. He circled his hands round his mug and rolled it between his palms. He finally said, “Once he managed to track down his dad without telling me-”

“In North Kensington?”

“Yes. Munro Mews, a car-repair shop. Sean tracked him down a few months ago. I don’t know exactly what happened. He’s never said. But I don’t expect it was anything positive. His dad’s moved on in his life. He has a wife and kids, which is all I know from Sean’s social worker. So if Sean went hoping to get Dad’s attention…That would have been a real nonstarter. But not enough to cause Sean to run off.”

“The dad’s name?”

Savidge gave it to him: one Sol Oliver. But then he ran out of the willingness to cooperate and self-subordinate. He was clearly not used to doing either. He said, “Now, Superintendent Lynley. I’ve told you what I know. I want you to tell me what you’re going to do. And not what you’re going to do in forty-eight hours or however long you expect me to wait because Sean might have run off. He doesn’t run off. He phones if he’s going to be late. He leaves Colossus and he checks in here on his way to the gym. He pounds the punch bag and then he goes home.”

The gym? Lynley took note of this. What gym? Where? How often did he go? And how did Sean get from Plugged Inn to the Lord to the gym and from there to home? On foot? By bus? Did he ever hitchhike? Did someone drive him?

Savidge regarded him curiously but answered willingly enough. Sean walked, he told Lynley. It wasn’t far. Either from here or from home. It was called Square Four Gym.

Did the boy have a mentor there? Lynley asked. Someone he admired? Someone he spoke of?

Savidge shook his head. He said that Sean went to the gym as part of coping with his anger and upon his social worker’s recommendation. He had no ambition to be a body builder, a boxer, a wrestler, or anything else along those lines, as far as Savidge knew.

What about friends? Lynley asked. Who were they?

Savidge thought about this for a moment before he admitted that Sean Lavery didn’t seem to have friends. But he was a good boy and he was responsible, Savidge insisted. And the one thing he could vouch for was that Sean wouldn’t fail to come home without phoning and explaining why.

And then because somehow Savidge knew that New Scotland Yard would not have come in place of the local police without more of a reason than having been in Ulrike Ellis’s office when he phoned, he said, “Perhaps it’s time you told me why you’re really here, Superintendent.”

In reply, Lynley asked Reverend Savidge if he had a photo of the boy.

Not there in his office, Savidge told him. For that, they would need to go to his home.