“I . . . No. I . . . No . . .”

Jazza was fumbling. The way this guy was saying it, it was like she had failed a test.

“Both of you,” he said. “Don’t speak to anyone from the press. If they approach you, walk away. Don’t give your name. Do not repeat anything you told the detective this morning. If you need assistance, phone this number.”

He handed me a small piece of paper with a phone number written on it.

“Phone it any time you need assistance, day or night,” he said. “And if you ever see that man again, even if you just think you see him, you call that number.”

He turned and walked away. Jazza and I wasted no time in running into the building, right up the stairs, and into our room. I slammed the door behind us.

“What happened?” I asked.

“They just took me and . . . they asked me about what we did . . . and I told them about how we went out and went to the roof . . . and they didn’t care about that, really . . . They wanted to know about the man . . . but I didn’t see the man . . . I don’t know how I didn’t see him, but I didn’t, and that’s all they wanted to know about, and I couldn’t tell them anything so . . . oh, God.”

She dropped onto her bed. I sat next to her.

“It’s fine,” I said. “You did fine. They promised we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“I don’t care about that! I don’t understand how I didn’t see him. And who was that? That policeman? He didn’t look like a policeman. He looked our age. Can you be our age and be a policeman? I suppose you can, but . . . he doesn’t look like one, does he? Though, I suppose . . . I suppose policemen don’t look like any particular kind of person, but still. He doesn’t look like one, does he?”

No. He didn’t look like a policeman. Policemen were supposed to look . . . not like him. He did look young. More than that, he looked a little too well kept, with fancy designer glasses and smooth, pale skin.

Jazza took the card from my hand and examined it.

“This is a mobile number,” she said. “Shouldn’t a police card have the number of a main switchboard or something? Shouldn’t you just dial 999 if there’s a problem? I’ll bet you he’s a reporter. He has to be a reporter. It’s illegal to masquerade as a policeman.”

None of this was helping my queasy feeling. I began to pace.

“I think you should go back to the library and report what just happened,” she said.

“I don’t really want to go back out there right now.”

We had a few moments of independent fretting, then Jazza got up with a determined look on her face.