Back at Elephant and Castle, she went straight to her office. She riffled through the contents of the top drawer in her desk for the card that the Scotland Yard detective had given to her. She punched in the numbers but was told that he was in a meeting and could not be interrupted. Was there a message or could someone else help her…?

Yes, she told the DC on the line. She identified herself. She mentioned Colossus. She wanted the dates when each of the bodies had been found. It was a matter of connecting the dead boys with activities at Colossus and the individuals who led those activities. She wanted to provide Superintendent Lynley with a fuller report than she’d previously given him, and those dates were the keys to meeting that self-imposed obligation.

The DC put her on hold for several minutes, no doubt seeking a superior officer to approve this request. When he came back, it was with the dates. She wrote them down, double-checked them against the names of the victims, and then rang off. Then she looked at them thoughtfully, and she considered them in the light of someone’s desire to discredit and ruin Colossus.

If there was a connection between Colossus and the dead boys, aside from the obvious one, she thought, it would have to be about reducing the organisation to rubble. So perhaps someone inside this place hated these types of kids in their every manifestation. Or perhaps someone inside had been thwarted in his desire to advance, to make a change in the workings of the programme, to succeed at a high level with a previously unheard of number of clients, to…anything. Or perhaps someone wanted to take her place and this was the route to get there. Or perhaps someone was mad as a hatter and only posing as a normal human being. Or perhaps-

“Ulrike?”

She looked up from the list of dates. She’d taken a calendar out of her drawer in order to compare those dates with scheduled activities and the location of those activities. Neil Greenham was standing there, his odd round head poked just inside her door, looking deferential.

Ulrike said, “Yes, Neil? May I help you?”

He blushed for some reason, his pudgy face going an unattractive shade that climbed all the way to his scalp and highlighted the scarcity of his hair. What was that all about? “Wanted you to know I’ll need to leave early tomorrow. Mum’s got to see the doctor about her hip, and I’m the only one who can drive her.”

Ulrike frowned. “She can’t go by cab?”

Neil looked markedly less deferential at this. “As it happens, she can’t. It’s too expensive. And I won’t have her taking the bus. I’ve already told the kids to come two hours earlier.” And then he added, “If that’s okay with you,” although he didn’t sound like someone who was going to alter his plans if they weren’t okay with his superior.

Ulrike thought about this. Neil had been manoeuvring for an administrative position since he’d come to work for them. He had to prove himself first, but he didn’t want to. His sort never did. He needed putting in his place. She said, “It’s fine, Neil. But in future, please check with me before you alter your schedule, will you?” She looked back down at her list, dismissing him.

He didn’t get the message, or he chose to ignore it. He said, “Ulrike.”

She looked up again. “What else?” She knew she sounded impatient because she was impatient. She tried to temper that with a smile and a gesture to her paperwork.

He observed this solemnly, then raised his gaze to her. “Sorry. I thought you might want to know about Dennis Butcher.”

“Who?”

“Dennis Butcher. He was doing Learn to Earn when he dis…”-Neil made an obvious correction in course-“when he stopped coming. Jack Veness told me the cops called while you were at the board meeting. That body found over in Quaker Street…? It was Dennis.”

Ulrike breathed only one word in reply. “God.”

“And now there’s another today. So I was wondering…”

“What? What were you wondering?”

“If you’ve considered…”

His significant pauses were maddening. “What?” she said. “What? What? I’ve got a load of work to do, so if you’ve something you need to say, Neil, then say it.”

“Yes. Of course. I was just thinking it’s time we called in all the kids and warned them, isn’t it? If victims are being chosen from Colossus, it seems that our only recourse-”

“Nothing indicates that victims are being chosen from Colossus,” Ulrike said, despite what she herself had been thinking a moment before Neil Greenham interrupted her. “These kids live their lives on the edge. They take and sell drugs, they’re involved with street muggings, burglaries, robberies, prostitution. They meet and mingle with the wrong sort of people every single day, so if they end up dead, it’s because of that and not because they’ve spent time with us.”

He was looking at her curiously. He let a silence hang between them, during which Ulrike heard Griff’s voice coming from the shared office of the assessment leaders. She wanted to be rid of Neil. She wanted to look at her lists and make some decisions.

Neil finally said, “If that’s what you think…”

“It’s what I think,” she lied. “So if there’s nothing else…?”

Again that silence and that look. Speculative. Suggestive. Wondering how best to use her obduracy to his own advantage. “Well,” he said, “I suppose that’s all. I’ll be off, then.” Still he looked at her. She wanted to slap him.

“Safe trip to the doctor tomorrow,” she told him evenly.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll make sure it is, won’t I.”

That said, he left her. When he was gone, she rested her forehead in her fingers. God. God. Dennis Butcher, she thought. Five of them now. And until Kimmo Thorne, she hadn’t even been aware of what was happening under her very nose. Because the only thing her nose could even begin to smell was the scent of Griff Strong’s aftershave.

And then he was there too. Not hesitating at the door as Neil had done, but barging right in.

He said, “Ulrike, you’ve heard about Dennis Butcher?”

Ulrike knotted her eyebrows. Did he actually sound pleased? “Neil told me just now.”

“Did he?” Griff sat on the only chair in the room besides her own. He wore that ivory fisherman’s sweater that set off his dark hair and the blue jeans that emphasised the Michelangelo shape of his thighs. How typical. “I’m glad you know,” he added. “It can’t be what we thought, then, can it?”

We? she thought. What we thought? She said, “About what?”

“What?”

“What did we think? About what?”

“That it’s to do with me. With someone wanting to set me up by killing these boys. Dennis Butcher didn’t go through assessment with me, Ulrike. He belonged to one of the other leaders.” Griff offered a smile. “It’s a relief. With the cops breathing down my neck…Well, I didn’t want that and I can’t think you did either.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“The police? Breathing down someone’s neck? Are you suggesting I’ve been involved in the deaths of these kids? Or that the police will think I’ve been involved?”

“Jesus, no. I just meant…You and I…” He made that gesture of his that was meant to seem boyish, the hand through the hair. It tousled nicely. He no doubt had it cut to do so. “I can’t think you want it getting about that you and I…Some things are best left private. So…” He flashed her that smile again. He looked over the top of her desk to the dates and the calendar. “What’re you up to? How’d the board meeting go, by the way?”

“You’d better leave,” she told him.

He looked confused. “Why?”

“Because I’ve work to do. Your day may have ended, but mine has not.”

“What’s wrong?” The boyish hand-to-hair again. She’d once thought it charming. She’d once seen it as an invitation to touch his hair herself. She’d reached to do so and she’d actually grown wet at the contact: her humble fingers, his glorious locks, prelude to both the kiss and the hungry pressure of his body against hers.