“It’s not a very good picture,” I said.

“I know.” Carter took it back. “Lenny was a very shy person. He didn’t even sign his letters. That’s how shy he was. He told me that he didn’t like going out very much. You see, there’s something else you need to know about him. He was sick. He had this illness . . . some kind of allergy.”

“Was Algy his doctor?” Tim asked.

“No, no. An allergy. It meant he reacted to things. Peanuts, for example. They made him swell up. And he hated publicity. There have been a couple of stories about him in the newspapers, but he wouldn’t give interviews and there were never any photographs. The Queen wanted to knight him, apparently, but sadly he was also allergic to queens. All that mattered to him was his work . . . Dream Time . . . helping kids. Anyway, meeting him was going to be the biggest moment of my life . . . I was as excited as a schoolboy.”

As excited as a schoolboy? Obviously Carter had never visited my school.

“Only when I got to Heathrow, Lenny wasn’t there. He wasn’t in London either. I never got to meet him. And you know why?”

I knew why. But I waited for Lenny to tell us.

“Lenny was buried the day before I arrived,” Carter said.

“Buried?” Tim exclaimed. “Why?”

“Because it was his funeral, Mr. Diamond!” Carter lit another cigarette. “He was dead. And that’s why I’m here. I want you to find out what happened.”

“What did happen?” I asked.

“Well, like I told you, I arrived here at Heathrow last Tuesday. All I could think about was meeting Lenny Smile, shaking that man’s hand and telling him just how much he meant to me. When he didn’t show up, I didn’t even check into my hotel. I went straight to the offices of Dream Time. And that was when they told me . . .”

“Who told you?” I asked.

“A man called Hoover. Rodney Hoover . . .”

“That name sucks,” Tim said.

Carter ignored him. “He worked for Lenny, helping him run Dream Time. There’s another assistant there, too, called Fiona Lee. She’s very posh. Upper-class, you know? They have an office just the other side of Battersea Bridge. It’s right over the café you saw in that photo. Anyway, it seems that just a few days after I e-mailed Lenny to tell him I was coming, he got killed in a horrible accident, crossing the road.”

“He fell down a manhole?” Tim asked.

“No, Mr. Diamond. He got run over. Hoover and Lee actually saw it happen. If they hadn’t been there, the police wouldn’t even have known it was Lenny.”

“Why is that?”