Banks smiled. “So nothing.” Thinking he wouldn’t mind sharing a bottle with her as they talked right now, in the summer garden by the riverside with Beethoven’s calm after the storm playing. But he pushed such thoughts out of his mind. The garden had cast its own special spell made of bee drone, blackbird song, the scent of roses and the music of the fast-running river. The warm and hazy air could do things to your mind, too, distract you, slow thought down, alter its direction. He was here to help this woman get justice for a terrible thing that had happened to her years ago, not to entertain fantasies about chatting with her about poetry and music and life in general over a glass of wine. He needed to break the spell.

She cocked her head. “Do you ask all your victims questions like this?”

“Everyone’s different. I don’t have a set list. I do have a few things I want to know, then I let the conversation flow from the answers. That’s often when I find out the most interesting stuff. Besides, it’s not usual that both suspect and victim are celebrities.”

“I wasn’t a celebrity. I was a fourteen-year-old girl with a head full of dreams of a glamorous life, like being a rock star or an actress. And if you think being a poet is a celebrity leading a glamorous life, then you know something I don’t. And I don’t want to be thought of as a victim, either. If you’re wondering if what happened inhibited me, blighted my life, then the answer’s no, it didn’t. That’s why I feel like a phony. In small ways maybe it did. For a few months, maybe even a year, certainly, I was a mess, like I said, no doubt about that. But it was a long time ago. Sex, for a while, you know, that was out of the question. It was difficult to relax. I was afraid of the dark. I’d flash on his face, on top of me, his smell. Their faces. I didn’t . . .” She broke the mood with laughter and turned to Winsome. “I always thought the sexual revolution was invented by men to get their own way.”

“You might not be far wrong about that,” Banks said. “Winsome here wasn’t even born then.”

“Winsome? That’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you,” said Winsome.