“That’s it?”
“That’s it. A naked male adult, a naked male adolescent. A rare bit of sunshine. End of story.”
Not quite, of course, Nkata thought. There was the reason, as well, but he reckoned he knew what it was. Savidge was black enough for a white society to label him a minority, but he was far from black enough to be enthusiastically embraced by his brothers. The reverend was hoping that the summer sun could give him briefly what nature and genetics had denied him, and the rest of the year in a tanning bed could do much the same. Nkata thought about the irony of it and about how mankind’s behaviour was so often dictated by the sheer and lunatic misperception that went by the name Not Good Enough. Not white enough here, not black enough there, too ethnic for one group, too English for another. At the end of the day, he believed Savidge’s story of naked suntans in the garden. It was just on the right side of madness to be true.
He said, “I had a word with Sol Oliver over in North Kensington. He says Sean came asking to live with him.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Life wasn’t easy for Sean. He’d lost his mother to prison, and he’d been shuffled round the system for two years by the time I got him. I was his fifth placement, and he was tired of it all. If he could talk his dad into taking him in, at least he’d be somewhere permanently. That’s what he wanted. It’s hardly an unreasonable hope.”
“How’d he find out about Oliver?”
“From Cleopatra, I suppose. His mum. She’s in Holloway. He visited her every chance he got. When it could be arranged.”
“Anyplace else he went? Aside from Colossus?”
“Bodybuilding. There’s a gym up Finchley Road just a bit. Square Four Gym. I told your superintendent about it. After Colossus, Sean would stop here to check in with me-say hello and whatever-and then he’d head either home or to that gym.” Savidge seemed to reflect on this piece of information for a moment. Then he went on, reflectively, “I expect it was the men that drew him there, although I didn’t think about that at the time.”
“What did you think about?”
“Just that it was good he had an outlet. He was angry. He felt he’d been dealt a rotten hand in life and he wanted to change it. But now I see…the gym…It could have been how he was trying to make that change. Through the men who go there.”
Nkata sharpened to this. “In what way?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Savidge said.
“Then how?”
“How? In the way of all boys. Sean had a hunger and a thirst for men that he could admire. That’s normal enough. I just pray to God that wasn’t what killed him.”
HOPETOWN ROAD glided east off Brick Lane, deep within a crowded area of London that had been through at least three incarnations within Barbara Havers’ lifetime. The neighbourhood still held a multitude of grimy-looking wholesale garment shops and at least one brewery belching the scent of yeast into the air, but over the years its inhabitants had altered from Jewish to Caribbean to Bengali.
Brick Lane was attempting to make the most of its current ethnicity. Foreign restaurants abounded and along the pavement, and the streetlamps-heralded at the bottom of the street by a fanciful archway wrought of iron with a vaguely mosquelike shape-bore ornate fixtures suspended among filigree-iron decoration. Not what you’d see in Chalk Farm, Barbara thought.
She found Griffin Strong’s home directly across from a little green where hillocks offered children an area in which to play and a wooden bench offered their minders a place to sit. The Strong residence was one of a line of redbrick, plain terraced houses, their individuality expressed in their choice of front doors and front fences and in what they’d decided to do with their patch of front gardens. The Strongs had opted for a draughts-board pattern of large tiles on the ground, and they’d covered them with an array of pot plants that someone had been tending with devotion. Their fence was brick like the house and their door was oak with an oval of stained glass in the middle. All very nice, Barbara noted.
When she rang the bell, a woman answered. She had a crying baby on her shoulder and magenta workout attire on her body. She said, “Yes?,” over the sound of an exercise programme coming from within the house. Barbara showed her identification. She said she’d appreciate a word with Mr. Strong, if he was about. “Are you Mrs. Strong?” she added.
“I’m Arabella Strong,” the woman said. “Come in, please. Just let me get Tatiana settled,” and she carried the squalling infant into the reaches of the house, leaving Barbara to mouth Tatiana? and to follow in her wake.
In the sitting room, Arabella laid the baby on a leather sofa, where a small pink blanket was topped by a smaller pink hot-water bottle. She put the baby on her back, wedged her in place with pillows, and set the hot-water bottle on her abdomen. “Colic,” she said to Barbara over the noise, “the warm seems to help.”
That proved to be true. In a few moments, Tatiana’s screaming subsided to whimpering so that the remaining din in the room came only from the telly. There, via video and to the accompanying ka-boom-diddy-boom of music, an impossibly sculpted woman was panting “lower abs, come on, lower abs, come on,” as she rhythmically thrust her legs and hips into the air from a supine position. As Barbara watched, the woman suddenly leaped to her feet and gave the camera a sideways view of her stomach. It was as flat as a Dutch horizon gone vertical. She was obviously someone who ignored the better things in life. Like Pop-Tarts, Kettle Crisps, battered cod, and chips soaked in vinegar. Miserable cow.
Arabella used the remote to switch off the television and the video recorder. She said, “I expect she’s at that at least sixteen hours a day. What do you think?”
“Rubens is rolling in his grave, you ask me. And she needs to be put out of my misery.”
Arabella chuckled. She sank onto the sofa next to her baby and motioned to a chair for Barbara. She reached for a towel and pressed it against her forehead. She said, “Griff isn’t here. He’s at the factory. We’ve a silk-screen business.”
“Where is it, exactly?” Barbara sat and dug her notebook from her shoulder bag. She flipped it open to take down the address.
Arabella gave it to her-it was in Quaker Street-and watched as Barbara wrote this down. She said, “This is about that boy, isn’t it? The one who was murdered? Griff told me about him. Kimmo Thorne, he was called. And about the other boy who’s gone missing. Sean.”
“Sean’s dead as well. His foster dad’s identified him.”
Arabella glanced at her baby, as if in reaction to this. “I’m sorry. Griff’s devastated about Kimmo. He’ll feel the same when he hears about Sean.”
“Not the first time someone died on his watch, I understand.”
Arabella smoothed Tatiana’s hairless head, her expression soft, before she replied. “As I said, he’s devastated. And he had nothing to do with either boy’s death. With any death. At Colossus or otherwise.”
“It makes him look a bit careless, though, if you know what I mean.”
“As it happens, I don’t.”
“Careless with other people’s lives. Or bloody unlucky. Which do you reckon it is?”
Arabella stood. She went to a metal bookshelf at one side of the room and took up a packet of cigarettes. She lit one jerkily and just as jerkily inhaled. Virginia Slims, Barbara saw. That figured. Mental imaging, or something. And Arabella needed it: She had her work cut out for her, getting back into shape. She was pretty enough-good skin, nice eyes, dark, silky hair-but she looked as if she’d gained a few stone too many during her pregnancy. Eating for two, she’d probably told herself.