“Has he told you that?” (Unfair question, unfair and cruel. He saw her flinch and felt as if he could bite through his own tongue. He mustn’t treat her like the enemy.)

“And I care about him too.” A single traitor tear quivering on her cheek.

“He’s made you think that’s true but it’s not. It’s part of how they operate.”

“How who operate?”

“Paedophiles.”

“You what?” A witchy cackle of laughter. “Do I look like a child to you?” She looked ten inches taller, vengeful and triumphant. She looked as if she could strike him dead with her gaze. She didn’t look like his daughter at all. “Are you out of your mind?”

“I know you’re upset. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you for any of this.”

“I blame you,” she said.

“Alicia.”

“You read my journal.” She was trying to hold onto the rage but the tears were looming. “How could you read my journal?” He tried to hold her. She threw his arms off. “Are you trying to make me hug you? Now that’s funny.”

“I’m your dad.”

“It’s eleven o’clock. You have to go and open up.”

“The hell with the pub. We need to finish talking.”

“I’m never talking to you about this again. Never, do you hear? Never, ever.”

“Okay, we’re both getting angry. We need a few minutes.” (Sometimes the art of interrogation was knowing when to back away.) “I’ll come back up later and we can talk some more.” (But then, all the interrogations he’d done before were with people who couldn’t leave the room.) “Do you promise to stay here?”

“Don’t climb out the bathroom window, you mean?”

(Oh, he’d been so stupidly pleased with himself for that… and now he worried that they would never be that close again.)

“Promise you’ll stay here until we’ve talked some more. Will you promise that?”

Silence.

“Okay, I’m sorry but I have to do this.” He went to the bathroom, turned the long key that locked the sash and put it in his pocket.

“Is that have to like you had to read my journal?” Alicia stood behind him on the landing. “That kind of have-to? Are you going to lock me in my room?”

“There’s stuff for lunch in the fridge. Can I make you something?”

“You need to open up.”

“I’ll make you a sandwich first.”

“I’d rather starve to death.”

“I love you,” he tried. “Please remember that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure I love you, Dad. Not any more.”

“Look, I’m going downstairs, but only because you’re angry and you need some space, okay? You’re the most important thing to me and we’ll get through this. I promise.”

He closed the door, then the game was over and his strength was gone and he crumpled on the stairs, hunched over his own knees. Oh please no not that, anything but that, any price but that. She looked as if she meant it, but teenagers said these things.