“ANTON WHAT?” ULRIKE ELLIS SAID INTO THE TELEPHONE. “Could you spell the surname, please?”

On the other end of the line the detective, whose name Ulrike had already schooled herself to forget, spelled out R-e-i-d. He added that the parents of Anton Reid, who’d gone missing from Furzedown and had finally been identified as the first victim of the serial killer who’d so far murdered five boys in London, had listed Colossus as one of the places that their son had frequented in the months leading up to his death. Could the director confirm that, please? And a list of all Anton Reid’s contacts within Colossus would be necessary, madam.

Ulrike did not indulge in a misinterpretation of the courtesy behind the request. But she temporised, nonetheless. “Furzedown is south of the river, and as we’re well known here, Constable…?” She waited for a name.

“Eyre,” he said.

“Constable Eyre,” she repeated. “What I’m saying is that it’s a possibility that this boy-Anton Reid-merely told his parents he was involved with Colossus while using the time to do something else. It happens, you know.”

“He came to you through Youth Offenders, according to the parents. You should have the records.”

“Youth Offenders, is it? Then I’ll have to check. If you could give me your number, I’ll go through the files.”

“We do know he’s one of yours, madam.”

“You may know that, Constable…?”

“Eyre,” he said.

“Yes. Of course. You may know that, Constable Eyre. But at this moment, I do not. Now I shall have to go through our files, so if you give me your number, I’ll get back to you.”

He had no choice. He could get a search warrant, but that would take time. And she was cooperating. No one could claim otherwise. She was merely cooperating within the structure of her schedule, not within the structure of his.

The detective constable recited his phone number and Ulrike took it down. She had no intention of using it-reporting to him like a schoolgirl hauled onto the headmistress’s carpet-but she wanted to have it to wave in front of whomever turned up to gather information on Anton Reid. Because someone would definitely turn up at Colossus. Her job was to develop a plan to handle things when the moment arrived.

Off the phone, she went to the filing cabinet. She rued the system she had developed: the hard-copy backup to computer files. Pressed to it, she could have done something about material left upon hard drives, even if she’d had to reformat every miserable computer in the building. But the cops who’d come to Colossus had already seen her fingering through files in an ostensible search for Jared Salvatore’s paperwork, so they’d be highly unlikely to believe that some boys had electronic documents while others did not. Still, Anton’s folder could go the way of Jared’s. The rest was easy enough to accomplish.

She had Anton’s file halfway out of the drawer when she heard Jack Veness just outside her door. He said, “Ulrike? Could I have a word…?,” and he opened the door without further ado.

She said, “Do not do that, Jack. I’ve told you before.”

“I knocked,” he protested.

“Step one, yes. You knocked. Very nice. Now let’s work on step two, which is all about waiting for me to tell you to come in.”

His nostrils moved, white round the edges. He said, “Whatever you say, Ulrike,” and he turned to go, always the manipulative, petulant adolescent despite his age, which was what? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?

Damn the man. She didn’t need this now. She said, “What do you want, Jack?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just something I thought you might like to know.”

Games, games, games. “Yes? Well, if I might like to know, why don’t you tell me?”

He turned back. “It’s gone. That’s all.”

“What’s gone?”

“The signing-in book from reception. I thought I must’ve misplaced it when I packed up last night. But I’ve looked everywhere. It’s definitely gone.”

“Gone.”

“Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Abracadabra. Into thin air.”

Ulrike rested back on her heels. Her mind wheeled through the possibilities, and she disliked every one of them.

Jack said helpfully, “Robbie might have taken it for some reason. Or maybe Griff has it. He’s got a key to be in here after hours, doesn’t he?”

This was too much. She said, “What would Robbie, Griff, or anyone else want with a signing-in book?”

Jack shrugged elaborately and drove his fists into the pockets of his jeans.

“When did you notice it was missing?”

“Not till the first kids got here today. I went for the book but it wasn’t there. Like I said, I figured I misplaced it last night when I was packing up. So I just started another one till I could find the one that’s missing. Which I couldn’t. So I reckon someone nicked it off my desk.”

Ulrike thought about the previous day. “The police,” she said. “When you came to fetch me. You left them alone in reception.”

“Yeah. That’s what I reckoned ’s well. Only here’s the thing. I can’t suss out what they want with our signing-in book, can you?”

Ulrike turned from his smug and comprehending face. She said, “Thank you for letting me know, Jack.”

“Do you want me to-”

“Thank you,” she repeated firmly. “Is there anything else? No? Then you can get back to work.”

When Jack left her, after a little mock salute and a click of the heels that she was meant to take as amusing and did not, Ulrike shoved Anton Reid’s paperwork back into place. She slammed the filing drawer home and went for the phone. She punched in Griffin Strong’s mobile number. He was meeting with a new assessment group, their first day together, ice-breaking activities. He didn’t like to be interrupted whenever the kids were “in circle” as they called it. But this interruption couldn’t be helped and he would know that when he heard what she had to say.

He said, “Yeah?” impatiently.

“What did you do with the file?” she asked him.

“As…ordered.”

She could tell he chose the word deliberately, as mocking as was Jack’s sarcastic salute. He hadn’t yet twigged who stood in jeopardy here. But he would presently.

He said, “That all?”

Dead silence in the background told her every member of his assessment group was listening to his end of the exchange. She found a bitter satisfaction in that. Fine, Griffin, she thought. Let’s see how well you can carry on now.

“No,” she told him. “The police know, Griff.”

“Know what exactly?”

“That Jared Salvatore was one of ours. They took the reception book yesterday. They’ll have seen his name.”

Silence. Then, “Shit,” on a breath. Then a whisper, “God damn it. Why didn’t you think of that?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Anton Reid,” she said.

Silence again.

“Griffin,” she told him, “you need to understand something. You’ve been an exceptional fuck, but I won’t let anyone destroy Colossus.”

She replaced the phone, carefully and quietly. Let him hang there, she thought.

She turned to her computer. On it, she accessed the electronic information they had on Jared Salvatore. It wasn’t as extensive as had been the documents in his file, but it would do. She chose the print option. Then she picked up the number that Detective Constable Eyre had given her only minutes ago.

He answered immediately, saying, “Eyre.”

She said, “Constable, I’ve come up with some information. You’ll probably want to pass this along.”

NKATA LET THE computer do the work for him on the postal codes amassed by the owner of Crystal Moon. While Gigi-the shop’s owner-would use them to prove the need for a branch of her business in a second location somewhere in London, Nkata intended to use them to make a match between the customers of Crystal Moon and the body sites. After reflecting on what Barb Havers had said on the subject of body sites, however, he decided to expand his search to include a comparison between the postal codes gathered by Crystal Moon and the postal codes of all Colossus employees. This took him more time than he’d expected. At the Colossus end of things, giving out postal codes to the cops was not an idea that anyone immediately embraced.