Strong said he shared an office with two other assessment leaders. They were off with their kids today, though, and if she’d follow him there, they’d have some privacy. He himself didn’t have a lot of time, though, because he was due to help take some kids out on the river. He gave Ulrike a quick glance and motioned Barbara to follow him.
For her part, Barbara tried to interpret that glance and the nervous smile that quivered on Ulrike’s lips as she received it. You and me, babe. Our secret, darling. We’ll talk later. I want you naked. Rescue me in five minutes, please. The possibilities seemed endless.
Barbara followed Griffin Strong-“It’s Griff,” he said-to an office just the other side of reception. It displayed the same decorating sense as Ulrike’s: heavy on clutter and light on available space. Bookshelves, filing cabinets, one shared desk. The walls held posters intended to influence young people in a positive direction: illiterate football stars with curious hairdos, pretending to read Charles Dickens, and pop singers doing thirty seconds of public service in soup kitchens. Colossus posters joined these. On them, the familiar logo appeared, that giant allowing himself to be used by the smaller and the less fortunate.
Strong went to one of the filing cabinets and fingered through a packed drawer to pull out two files. He consulted them and told her that Kimmo Thorne had come to Colossus via the magistrate’s court, Youth Offenders, and his predilection for selling stolen goods. Sean had come via Social Services and something about a hijacked mountain bike.
Again, that demonstration of helpfulness. Strong returned the files and went to the desk, where he sat and rubbed his forehead.
“You look tired,” Barbara noted.
“I’ve a baby with colic,” he said, “and a wife with postnatal blues. I’m coping. But only just.”
That at least partially explained whatever might be going on with Ulrike, Barbara decided. It fell into the poor-misunderstood-and-neglected-husband class of extramarital whatevers. “Tough times,” she said in acknowledgement.
He flashed her a smile of-what else would it be?-perfect, white teeth. “It’s worth it. I’ll get through them.”
Bet you will, Barbara thought. She asked him about Kimmo Thorne. What did Strong know about his time at Colossus? About his associates here? His friends, mentors, acquaintances, teachers, and the like. Having had him in the assessment course-which she was given to understand would provide the most intimate of the interactions that the kids would engage in at Colossus-he probably knew Kimmo better than anyone else did.
Good kid, Strong told her. Oh, he’d been in trouble, but he wasn’t cut out for criminality. He just did it as a means to an end, not for kicks and not as an unconscious social statement. And he’d rejected that sort of life, anyway… Well, at least that was how it had seemed so far. It had been too soon to tell which way Kimmo would actually go, which was generally the case during a young person’s first weeks at Colossus.
What sort of boy was he? Barbara then asked.
Well liked, Griff told her. Pleasant, affable. He was just the sort of boy who stood a good chance of actually making something of himself. He had real potential and real talent. It was a bloody shame some bastard out there had targeted him.
Barbara took down all of this information, despite knowing most of it already, despite feeling it was all somehow rehearsed. Doing this gave her the opportunity not to look at the man who was passing the details along to her. She evaluated his voice while not distracted by his GQ looks. He sounded sincere enough. Very forthcoming and all that. But there was nothing in what he was telling her that indicated he knew Kimmo better than anyone else, and that didn’t make sense. He was supposed to know him well, or at least to be getting to know him well. Yet there was nothing here to indicate that, and she had to wonder why.
“Any special friends here?” she asked.
He said, “What?” And then, “Do you actually think someone from Colossus may have killed him?”
“It’s a possibility,” Barbara said.
“Ulrike’ll tell you everyone’s thoroughly vetted before they come to work here. The idea that somehow a serial killer-”
“Had a good chat with Ulrike before you and I met, then?” Barbara looked up from her notes. He had a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face.
“Of course she told me you were here when she told me about Kimmo and Sean. But she said there were several other deaths you’re investigating, so it can’t have anything to do with Colossus. And no one knows if Sean’s just bunked off for the day anyway.”
“True,” Barbara said. “Any special friends?”
“Mine?”
“We were talking about Kimmo.”
“Kimmo. Right. Everyone liked him. And you’d think the opposite would be the case, considering how he got himself up and how most kids feel about their sexuality in adolescence.”
“How’s that, then?”
“You know, a bit ill at ease, unsure at first about their own proclivities and consequently unwilling to have anything to do with someone who might cast a questionable light upon them in the eyes of their peers. But no one seemed to shun Kimmo. He didn’t allow it. As to special friends, there was no one he singled out and no one who singled out him more than anyone else. But that’s not something that would happen in assessment anyway. The kids are supposed to bond as a group.”
“What about Sean?” she asked him.
“What about Sean?”
“Friends?”
Strong hesitated. Then, “He had a rougher time than Kimmo, as I recall,” he said reflectively. “He didn’t get close to the group he went through assessment with. But he seemed more standoffish in general. An introvert. Things on his mind.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. Except he was angry, and he didn’t try to hide it.”
“About what?”
“Being here, I expect. In my experience, most kids are angry when they come to us through Social Services. They generally break down sometime during their assessment weeks, but Sean never did.”
How long had Griffin Strong been an assessment leader at Colossus? Barbara asked.
Unlike Kilfoyle and Greenham, who’d had to think about how long they’d been associated with the organisation, Griff said, “Fourteen months,” at once.
“And before?” Barbara asked.
“Social work. I’d started out in medicine-thought I’d be a pathologist till I found I couldn’t abide the sight of a dead body-then I switched over to psychology. And sociology. I’ve a first in each.”
That was impressive enough, as well as easily checked out. “Where’d you work?” Barbara asked him.
He didn’t respond at once, so again Barbara lifted her head from her notebook. She found him staring at her, and she knew that he’d intended her to raise her head and that he enjoyed the sensation of having forced her into doing so. Flatly, she repeated her question.
He finally said, “Stockwell, for a time.”
“Before that?”
“Lewisham. Is this important?”
“Just now, everything’s important.” Barbara took her time writing “Stockwell” and “Lewisham” into her notebook. She said, “What sort, anyway?” when she’d put a little flourish on the final letter.
“What sort of what?”
“Social work. Kids in care? Lags on the loose? Single mums? What?”
He didn’t answer a second time. Barbara thought he might be playing the power game again, but she raised her head anyway. This time, though, he wasn’t looking at her but rather at the football player on the poster, ostensibly enraptured by his leather-bound copy of Bleak House. Barbara was about to repeat her question when Griff appeared to come to a decision about something.
He said, “You might as well know. You’ll find out anyway. I was sacked from both jobs.”
“For?”
“I don’t always get on with supervisors, especially if they’re female. Sometimes…” He gave his attention fully back to her, two dark deep eyes compelling her to keep her gaze locked upon him. “There are always disagreements in this sort of work. There have to be. We’re dealing with human lives and each life is different from the last, isn’t it.”