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being a boy Sebastian’s age and being denied his mother—the desperation he’d felt at the forced distance between them. He imagined that Sebastian too felt this.
    “If you can, point out to me where you were climbing,” said the sergeant.
    “I don’t know,” Sebastian whimpered. “I want my mum . . .”
    Daniel exhaled and placed the palm of his hand gently on the table. “It’s clear my client wants his mother to be asked back.”
    “She agreed to step out to let us talk to him without her.”
    “He’s entitled to have his mum here if he wants her to be. Unless she comes back in, he won’t be answering any more questions.”
    The interview was paused while an officer went to fetch Sebastian’s mother. Daniel stepped out to use the bathroom, and the sergeant joined him in the corridor. “Look, son, I know you have a job to do, but we both know what the score is here. I won’t tell you your job. I know you want to show him in the best light—get the best angle on whatever he did—but the kid wants to tell the truth. He’s a little boy and he wants to tell the truth about what he did—you have to let him. He did it; he just has to say he did it. You didn’t see that little battered body in the flesh, I did. You didn’t have to console the—”
    “Can I stop you right there? Bring his mum in and then we can continue questioning. If it means all this takes longer, then it’s just going to have to take longer.”
    “The super has just agreed to another twelve hours.”
    Daniel nodded and put his hands into his pockets.
    “That’ll take us to four A.M. on Tuesday, but we’re also applying to the magistrate’s court for more time. We have all the time in the world, you mark my words on that.”
    D aniel entered the interview room and turned another leaf in his pad. The eye of the camera stared at them from the corner of the room.
    “They’re sending your mum in.”
    “Did you tell them off? You’re a good lawyer, I think.”
    “You’ve got a right to see your mum if you want to. My job is to make sure you know your rights.”
    Charlotte’s perfume assumed the room before she did. She sat on the other side of Sergeant Turner. Daniel felt sure she had been asked to sit apart from her son and to keep quiet.
    As the sergeant continued to question Sebastian she said nothing, seldom even looking at Sebastian. She fixed her attention on her bracelet and then her skirt and then her cuticles and then Daniel. He felt her watching as he noted down the sergeant’s questions and Sebastian’s taciturn replies.
    Sergeant Turner crossed out something on his own notepad and underlined something else. “Right. Let’s get back to where we were. Let’s go back to the adventure playground. Tell me again about the argument you were having with Ben.”
    “I told you already,” said Sebastian, his lower teeth showing again. “It wasn’t an argument; it was a discussion . I said I wanted to go home, but he didn’t want me to.”
    “Tell me again about your discussion .”
    Daniel nodded at Sebastian, to urge him to answer the questions. He wanted the boy to calm down. Losing his temper made him seem guilty, and Daniel didn’t want the boy to incriminate himself. Like the police, he too wondered about the boy’s sudden temper, yet he wanted the boy to remain consistent in his story. Daniel made a decision to ask for a break if the boy became more upset.
    “We climbed up the tires right to the very top of the wooden climbing frame,” Sebastian continued. “It’s really high up there. I was getting tired and I was thinking about my mum and her headache. I said I wanted to go home, but Ben didn’t want me to. He tried to make me stay out. Then he got annoyed and he was shoving me and I told him to stop it.”
    “ He was shoving you?”
    “Yes, he wanted me to stay out and play.”
    “Did that annoy you when he pushed you? Did you push him back?”
    “No.”
    “Did you maybe push him off the