We followed her down a corridor lined with more smiling kids. At the end was a door that led to an office on a corner, with views of Battersea Park one way and the Thames the other. Rodney Hoover was sitting behind a desk cluttered with papers and half-dead potted plants, talking on the telephone. An ugly desk for a very ugly man. Both of them looked like they were made of wood. He was getting fat and might have been a little less fat if he’d taken up running. He had drooping shoulders and jet-black hair that oozed oil. He was wearing an old-fashioned suit that was too small for him and glasses that were too big. As he finished his call, I noticed that he had horrible teeth. In fact the last time I’d seen teeth like that, they’d been in a dog. Mrs. Lee signaled and we sat down. Hoover hung up. He had been speaking with a strong accent that could have been Russian or German. He had bad breath. No wonder the potted plants on his desk were wilting.

“Good morning,” he said.

“This is Tim Diamond, Mr. Hoover,” Mrs. Lee said. She pronounced his name Teem Day-mond. “He telephoned this morning.”

“Oh yes. Yes!” Hoover turned to Tim. “I am being sorry that I cannot help you, Mr. Diamond.” His English was terrible, although his breath was worse. “Right now, you see, Mrs. Lee and I are closing down Dream Time, so if you have come about your little brother . . .”

“I don’t need charity,” I said.

“We helped a boy like you just a month ago,” Fiona Lee said. She blinked, and her eyelashes seemed to wave goodbye. “He had always wanted to climb mountains, but he was afraid of heights.”

“So did you buy him a small mountain?” Tim asked.

“No. We got him help from a psychiatrist. Then we paid for him to fly to Mount Everest. That little boy went all the way to the top! And although he unfortunately fell off, he was happy. That is the point of our work, Mr. Diamond. We use the money that we raise to make children happy.”

“And take the case of Billy!” Hoover added. He pointed at yet another photograph on the wall. If Dream Time had helped many more kids, they’d have run out of wall. “Billy was a boy who wanted to be a dancer. He was being bullied at school. So we hired some bullies to bully the bullies for Billy and now, you see, Billy is in the ballet!”

“Bully for Billy,” I muttered.

“So how can we be of helping to you, Mr. Diamond?” Hoover asked.

“I have some questions,” Tim said, “about a friend of yours called Lenny Smile.”