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climbing frame?”
    “You had your answer, Sergeant,” said Daniel, his voice sounding loud in the small interview room.
    “ I didn’t push him off , but Ben said he was going to jump. He wanted to impress me, you see. I was going home and he wanted me to stay and watch him jump.”
    “Ben was a little boy, not a big boy like you. You were really high up. You sure he decided to jump?”
    “Where are we going with this, Sergeant?” said Daniel.
    The sergeant cleared his throat and put down his pen.
    “Is that what really happened, Sebastian?”
    “Yes, it is.” He was petulant now, slumped in the chair.
    “Are you sure you didn’t push him off? Did you push him off and then maybe start fighting with him?”
    “No!” Again rage seemed to flash in the boy’s lips and cheeks.
    “Are you getting angry, Seb?”
    Sebastian folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.
    “Are you angry at me because I figured it out? Did you push Ben down?”
    “I never.”
    “Sometimes, when people get angry, it’s because they’re trying to cover something up. Do you understand?”
    Sebastian slid off his chair and dropped to the ground suddenly. He lay on his back on the interview room floor and started to scream. It made Daniel jump. Sebastian cried and wailed and when he turned his face toward Daniel, it was contorted and streaked with tears.
    “I didn’t push him. I didn’t push him.”
    “How do you think he got down there then?”
    “I don’t know, I didn’t hurt him. I . . . I never . . .” Sebastian’s screams were so sharp that Turner put a hand to his ear.
    It was a few moments before Daniel realized that his mouth was open, staring at the boy. He felt suddenly very cold in the airless room—out of his depth, despite his experience.
    Turner paused the interview so that Sebastian could compose himself. Charlotte approached her son gingerly, her elbows sticking out. The boy’s face was red with rage and streaked with tears.
    “Darling, please ,” said Charlotte, her nails hovering above her son. Her hands were red, the capillaries showing, and her fingers trembled. “Darling, what on earth ? Please can you calm down? Mummy doesn’t like to see you so upset. Please don’t let yourself get so upset.”
    Daniel wanted to run, to lengthen his muscles and dispel the taut screams of the boy and the cramped solemnity of the interrogation room. He went to the men’s room again and splashed cold water onto his face and studied himself in the small mirror, leaning on the sink.
    He wanted to give the case up, not because of what it was, but because of what it promised to be. He guessed from the way the police were hounding Sebastian that they had some positive results from the lab. If the boy was charged, the media would be all over it. Daniel didn’t feel ready. Just over a year ago he had taken on a juvenile case—a boy accused of shooting another gang member. It had gone to the Old Bailey and the boy had been sent down. He had been a vulnerable client, softly spoken, with bitten-down nails. Even now Daniel hated to think of him being inside. And now here was another child about to enter the system, only he was even younger.
    Daniel was standing at the front desk when the detective superintendent came up and took him by the elbow. He was a tall man, heavyset, with gray cropped hair and despairing hazel eyes.
    “It’s all right,” he said, slapping Daniel on the shoulder. “We all feel it.”
    “M’all right,” he said. His breaths were there in his throat, like butterflies. He coughed as they escaped him.
    “Are you from Newcastle?”
    Daniel nodded. “You?”
    “Hull. You can’t tell with you sometimes, yer accent’s got London through it, hasn’t it?”
    “Been here awhile.”
    Sergeant Turner said that the superintendent wanted to see Daniel. He was shown into the office, which was cramped and dark, the light of the day splashing down from a small window above.
    “Bit tense in there,” said the