She felt overwhelmed and a bit overrun, so I had three of the boys placed elsewhere. Temporarily. Till Oni settles in."
"But not Sean Lavery. He's not been placed elsewhere. Why?"
"He's younger than the others. It didn't feel right to move him."
Lynley wondered what else hadn't felt right. He couldn't help concluding it might have been the new Mrs. Savidge, inadequate in English and home alone with a household of adolescent boys.
"How did Sean come to be involved in Colossus?" he asked. "It's quite a distance for him to go there from here."
"Colossus do-gooders came to the church. They called it outreach, but what it amounted to was talking up their programme. An alternative to what they obviously believe every child of colour would get up to, given half the chance and absent their intervention."
"You don't approve of them, then."
"This community's going to help itself from within, Superintendent. It's not going to improve by having help imposed upon it by a group of liberal, guilt-ridden social activists. They need to toddle back to whichever of the Home Counties they came from, hockey sticks and cricket bats well in hand."
"Yet somehow Sean Lavery ended up there, despite your feelings."
"I had no choice in the matter. Neither did Sean. It was all down to his social worker."
"But surely, as his guardian, you have a strong say in how he spends his free time."
"Under other circumstances. But there was an incident with a bicycle as well." Savidge went on to explain: It was a complete misunderstanding, he said. Sean had taken an expensive mountain bike from a boy in the neighbourhood. He'd thought he'd been given permission to use it; the boy had thought otherwise. He reported it stolen and the cops found it in Sean's possession. The situation was considered a first offence, and Sean's social worker suggested nipping any potential for illegal behaviour in the bud. So Colossus came into the picture. Savidge had initially, if reluctantly, approved the idea: Of all his boys, Sean had been the first to come to the notice of the police. He was also the first who wouldn't attend school. Colossus was supposed to remedy all this.
"He's been there how long?" Lynley asked.
"Closing in on a year."
"Attending regularly?"
"He has to. It's part of his probation." Savidge lifted his mug and drank. He wiped his mouth carefully. He went on with, "Sean's said from the first that he didn't steal that bike, and I believe him. At the same time, I want to keep him out of trouble, which you and I know he's going to get into if he doesn't go to school and doesn't get involved with something. He hasn't exactly looked forward to Colossus every day-from what I can tell-but he goes. He managed the assessment course, and he's actually had some good words to say about the computer course he's doing now."
"Who was his assessment leader?"
"Griffin Strong. Social worker. Sean liked him well enough. Or at least well enough not to complain about him."
"Has he ever failed to come home before, Reverend Savidge?"
"Never. He's been late a few times, but he's phoned to let us know. That's it."
"Is there any reason he might have decided to run off?"
Savidge thought about this. He circled his hands round his mug and rolled it between his palms. He finally said, "Once he managed to track down his dad without telling me-"
"In North Kensington?"
"Yes. Munro Mews, a car-repair shop. Sean tracked him down a few months ago. I don't know exactly what happened. He's never said. But I don't expect it was anything positive. His dad's moved on in his life. He has a wife and kids, which is all I know from Sean's social worker. So if Sean went hoping to get Dad's attention...That would have been a real nonstarter. But not enough to cause Sean to run off."
"The dad's name?"
Savidge gave it to him: one Sol Oliver. But then he ran out of the willingness to cooperate and self-subordinate. He was clearly not used to doing either. He said, "Now, Superintendent Lynley. I've told you what I know. I want you to tell me what you're going to do. And not what you're going to do in forty-eight hours or however long you expect me to wait because Sean might have run off. He doesn't run off. He phones if he's going to be late. He leaves Colossus and he checks in here on his way to the gym. He pounds the punch bag and