“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.