phoned. This was her own conclusion. But the detective inspector to whom she'd spoken had said, "Very well, madam," in a way that suggested he was crossing something important off his list, and that could only mean a cloud had been lifted, that cloud being the suspicion of an entire murder squad at New Scotland Yard.
She'd phoned there earlier and requested the name of the boy whose body had been found in Queen's Wood. She'd phoned once again with the delighted-although she'd tried very hard not to show it-information that they had no record of a Davey Benton registered as a client at Colossus. In between the two calls, she'd trolled the records. She'd looked through the hard copies of files, and she'd scrolled through everything Colossus kept stored on its computers. She'd gone through the index cards they kept, filled out by kids expressing an interest in Colossus at outreach programmes the organisation had offered throughout London in the last year. And she'd phoned Social Services with the boy's name, to be told they had no record of him and had never recommended him for Colossus's intervention.
At the end of all this, she felt relief. The horror of the serial killings was not about Colossus after all. Not that she'd ever thought for a moment that it actually was...
A phone call from that unattractive female constable with the broken teeth and bad hair provided a blip on the screen of Ulrike's liberation from anxiety, however. The police were now working on some other connection. Had Colossus ever provided entertainment for clients? the detective constable wanted to know. For a special occasion, perhaps?
When Ulrike asked the woman-Havers, she was called-what sort of entertainment, she said, "Like a magic show, f'r instance. You lot ever do something like that?"
Ulrike said, as helpfully as she could manage, that she would have to research this detail. For the kids did indeed go on outings-that was part of the assessment course-although the outings were of the physically adventurous kind like boating, hiking, biking, or camping. Still, there was always a chance, and Ulrike wished to leave no stone of possibility unturned. So if she could get back to Constable Havers...?
She set about finding out. Another troll through the records was called for. She also queried Jack Veness because if anyone knew what was going on in every nook and cranny at Colossus, it would be Jack, who'd been there before Ulrike's arrival on the scene.
Jack said, "Magic?," and raised one of his scraggly ginger eyebrows. "Like pulling rabbits out of hats or something? What're the cops on to now?" He went on to tell her that he'd never heard of magic shows being performed at Colossus or any of the assessment groups going out to see such a show either. He said, "This lot," with a jerk of his head towards the inner reaches of the building where the kids were busy with their assessment courses or other classes, "they're not the sort to go for magic in a big way, are they, Ulrike?"
Of course they weren't and she didn't need telling that by Jack Veness. She also didn't need to see Jack smirk, either at the thought of their kids sitting in a breathlessly spellbound semicircle to watch a magician perform or at the thought of her-Ulrike Ellis, the supposed head of the organisation-even considering that their hard-core clients might enjoy such entertainment. He needed putting in his place every few days, did Jack. She did the honours.
She said, "Do you find the search for a killer amusing, Jack? And if you do, why might that be?"
That wiped the smirk from his face. It was replaced with hostility. He said, "Why don't you chill, Ulrike?"
She said, "Watch yourself," and went on her way.
Her way was to dig for further information to offer the cops. But when she phoned with the message that no one at Colossus had brought in a magician or taken a group to see a magician, they seemed unimpressed. The constable who took her call merely echoed his miserable colleague, like someone reading from a script. He said, "Very well, madam," and told her he'd pass the information along.
She said, "You do see this has to mean-" but he'd already rung off, and she knew what that signified: It was going to take even more to get the cops off the metaphorical back of Colossus, and she was going to have to dig for it.