“She says here that you would lead Elise into touching games by bringing her treats.” Frankie pointed at the page before me. “Clinkers chocolates, which you knew were her favorite.”

“How would I know that?” I asked.

“Try not to ask questions,” Sean warned me. “Just answer the accusation, firm and straight. Just like in your trial. No unnecessary speculation.”

“I did not lead Elise or Melanie into any ‘touching games,’” I said. “I did not bring Elise any treats. I did not act sexually toward her in any way, or encourage her to act sexually toward me.”

“Did you ever touch Elise affectionately?” Frankie asked. “Like, with Melanie, you said you went so far as to put an arm around her shoulders. Did you ever hug her sister? Wrestle with her or grab—”

Frankie’s phone blipped on the table beside us. She looked at the lit screen, frozen, her hand in the air above it. I watched her pick up the phone, open the message and read it. She gave the proper statement officially pausing the interview, reading the exact time off her watch and repeating the date. She clicked off the tape. I glanced at Sean, disbelieving.

Frankie made her apologies and left, closing the door quickly behind her. I put my head in my hands.

“What now?” I groaned.

“I don’t know, mate.” Sean thumped my shoulder. “But whatever it is, I’m right here, and we’ll handle it together.”

We sat in silence. Fifteen minutes passed. I read Melanie Springfield’s statement over and over, trying to understand how she could possibly have said the things about me that were printed there. I had very few memories of Melanie’s house. It had been bigger than mine, I knew that. Melanie’s parents had been what my dad called “posh.” They’d had a pool table and an old pinball machine in the basement that Mel and I liked to play with. A saltwater pool that was so deep at the end it made my ears hurt to plunge all the way to the bottom. Elise had hung around us as much as she could until her sister got annoyed and banished her. I remembered the little girl at the top of the stairs to the basement pool room, sulking, trying to eavesdrop. The girls in Melanie’s year had carried around big binders with all their exercise books in them, covered in special glittery stickers. I remembered telling her, very maturely I thought, how lame sticker collecting was. Melanie being hurt by the comment. Me going out the next day to get her some from the newsagent.

I knew how sexual abuse interrogations went. I’d suffered through them after Claire’s assault, but I’d also been trained in them in the academy. I’d sat and watched a couple of them during my early years. Frankie would come back into the room and continue on at a helicopter level, circling around and around my and Melanie’s and Elise’s relationship from above, coming down slowly, level by level. Soon, I knew, she’d begin discussing what my particular sexual interests were. What turned me on now. What had turned me on as a teenager about Melanie. What I’d liked about Elise. Her personality. Whether I’d ever thought anything sexual about Elise, even if I’d never acted on it, even if only in my mind.