Roots of Evil(41)

‘But if your friend’s been missing since Monday, perhaps you shouldn’t delay matters. Give me ten minutes to lock everything up, and I’ll be with you.’ The smile that made him look unexpectedly mischievous showed again. ‘Chalk it up half to chivalry and half to curiosity. If nothing else, it’ll be nice to have some company on the journey.’



The second thing you absolutely never did in life was to get into an unknown man’s car and embark on an unfamiliar journey with him.

But for the moment Francesca was more concerned with wondering how to tactfully reimburse Michael Sallis for the extra miles he would have to cover, than with speculating whether he was planning to carry her off to a serial-killer’s lair or a bordello in some steamy Eastern port. She supposed if she offered to pay for petrol he would refuse. Perhaps she could suggest a meal or a snack on the road somewhere, and pay for that. Or would it look like a come-on? When you had been married for five years you got out of training for this kind of thing. Would it be better to send a note of thanks to him c/o CHARTH’s offices, enclosing a book token or a Thresher’s voucher, or something of that kind? Oh, for goodness’ sake! said her mind crossly. Surely he’s not going to interpret a cup of coffee and a sandwich at a Little Chef as an invitation to unbridled passion!

These doubts having been put firmly in their place, she opened a road map to find Ashwood, and scribbled down directions on the back of her cheque-book. It would not hurt to appear efficient and organized, even if you were neither of these things. Fran made careful notes, and then, hoping she had got all the roads and traffic islands properly identified, said, ‘Tell me a bit about CHARTH. It sounds quite an unusual charity. Shall you actually use that house for your homeless teenagers?’

He took his eyes off the road for just long enough to look at her, as if he might be trying to decide if this was a genuine request, or if she was just being polite. Francesca had the feeling that he probably found small-talk boring. He had nice eyes, though: very clear grey and fringed with black lashes.

‘A lot depends on the surveyor’s report and builders’ estimates,’ he said. ‘We’d need to add extra bathrooms and probably a second kitchen. The attics are quite large, though, so we might make use of them. I’d like to think we could actually use the house rather than sell it and invest the money – I think that’s what Mrs Fane really wanted us to do.’

He paused, as if weighing up whether to say any more, but Francesca, who was interested, said, ‘Go on. How would you use the house?’


‘Most of the teenagers we deal with come from the real bottom of the heap – they’re often homeless through no fault of their own. Some of them were born into squats and doss-houses, or abandoned by a mother who went off with the newest man and left them to fend for themselves. Some ran away from abusive parents at incredibly young ages – seven, eight years old – and lived rough.’

‘How about reading and writing?’

‘Trust a teacher to go for the literacy side,’ said Michael. ‘But you’re quite right: a good many of them can’t read, or even count to ten, or tell the time. We try to get them on training programmes or into adult literacy classes so that they’re at least semi-equipped for life. We aren’t a particularly aggressive set-up – we don’t force anything on anyone, but a surprising number of youngsters do get referred to us by probation officers and child-care specialists and organizations like Centrepoint or the Samaritans.’

‘Do you actually deal with the training?’ He looked as if he would be more at home in an Oxford common-room than trying to teach under-privileged teenagers how to cope with today’s world.

‘My side of it’s a bit more basic. I arrange for them to learn the real nuts and bolts of life: the things that you and I don’t think about twice, but that they don’t understand because they’ve never had them.’

‘What kinds of things? I’m not just being polite – I’m liking hearing about this.’

‘Well, for instance, if you’ve always lived in a derelict house with no gas or electricity or running water you won’t know much about cooking a meal and eating it at a table with knives and forks. You’ve probably had take-away food all the time, or eaten straight out of tins of baked beans and soup. So you don’t know how to use a cooker or how to shop for food.’ When he talked about his work the reserve melted a bit, and his whole face looked different. ‘Or even simpler things than that,’ he said. ‘Like how to switch on an immersion heater to heat water for a bath, or change a light bulb. So we have halfway houses where we put a group of them for two or three months, and try to teach them. It’s better to use fairly remote places for that – some of them can be a bit undisciplined. But if that goes all right, we promote them to a bedsit if we can find one, and from there to acquiring employment skills. I do think Deborah Fane’s house would make a good halfway house.’

‘It’s an unusual line of work,’ said Fran thoughtfully. ‘Do you deal with any of the asylum seekers? Some of them are quite young, aren’t they?’

‘We’ll probably have to in time. At the moment we’re leaving them to the government organizations, though.’ He gave her another of the sideways glances. ‘When it’s successful, it’s rewarding work,’ he said, and Francesca had the feeling that he had considered first whether or not to say this, in case it gave away too much of his inner self.