“I happened to stumble across an article one day. It was just a little note in a newspaper back home where it said that a Dane had been convicted for child pornography and that he was in jail in Paris. A Nick Kaldan, it said, and that just resonated with me: Nick. I could remember the voices around me in the room in that warehouse building: Come on, Nick. Try her, Nick. Don’t be shy, Nick. I looked into the name and found an old author’s photo of him in a book and recognized him from back then.”

“And then—what? Then you came out here?”

“No, not until later. Not until after …” She held out her thumb and dragged it across her neck. “When I fled Denmark, I came here. To France. I remember your dad being …” She searched for the right word to describe it and then settled on, “Somewhat timid. He wasn’t like the others. The articles about his trial also gave me the impression that he was distraught over what had happened. So, I went to see him, and we made a deal. And now we’re sitting here …”

Heloise exhaled as she rubbed her temples. “All right. So, you can prove all of this?”

“No, I can’t prove what they did to me. As far as I know, there’s no documentation of that, no movies or photos, and even if I could document it, the statute of limitations has expired. There’s nothing I can do about that—not legally, anyway.” She paused as she took a manila folder out of her backpack. “But I can prove that they did the same thing to other children,” she said, sliding the folder over in front of Heloise. “You father gave me access—”

“—to their internal communications. I know.” Heloise nodded. “He told me.”

“Yes, I have it all here. Information on the nine men I remember and on three new people who have joined in the meantime.” She patted the cover of the folder. “But there was also a boy back then.”

“A boy?”