“Charlie,” I said. “You think your daddy died because you were not Batman?”

Charlie looked up. Through the dark eye holes of his bat mask, I could see the tears in his eyes.

“I was at mine nursery,” he said. “That’s when the baddies got mine Daddy.”

His lip trembled. I pulled him toward me and I held him while he cried. I stared over his shoulder at the cold black drainage tunnels that disappeared into the tall stone wall of the river embankment. I stared into the black mouth of one of them, as wide as my shoulders across, but all I could see was Andrew spinning slowly round on the electrical cord with his eyes watching me each time he revolved. The look in his eyes was the look of those black tunnels: there was no end to them.

“Listen Charlie,” I said. “Your daddy did not die because you were not there. It is not your fault. Do you understand? You are a good boy, Charlie. It is not your fault at all.”

Charlie pulled himself out of my arms and looked at me.

“Why did mine Daddy die?”

I thought about it.

“The baddies got him, Charlie. But they are not the sort of baddies Batman can fight. They are the sort of baddies that your daddy had to fight in his heart and I have to fight in my heart. They are baddies from inside.”

Charlie nodded. “Is there lots?”

“Of what?”

“Of baddies from inside?”

I looked at the dark tunnels, and I shivered.

“Everyone has them,” I said.

“Will we beat them?”

I nodded. “Of course we will.”

“And they won’t get me, will they?”

I smiled. “No, Charlie, I don’t think those baddies will ever get you.”

“And they won’t get you either, will they?”

I sighed.

“Charlie, there are no baddies here by the river. We are on an adventure, okay? Maybe you can take one day off from being Batman.”

Charlie frowned, as if this was another trick of his enemies.

“Batman is always Batman,” he said.

I laughed, and we went back to building the city out of sand. I put a big handful on top of a pile that Charlie said was a multistory Batmobile park.

“Sometimes I wish I could take one day off from being Little Bee,” I said.

Charlie looked up at me. A drop of sweat fell from inside his bat mask. “Why?”

“Well, you see, it was hard to become Little Bee. I had to go through a lot of things. They kept me in prison and I had to train myself to think in a certain way, and to be strong, and to speak your language the way you people speak it. It is even an effort now just to keep it going. Because inside, you know, I am only a village girl. I would like to be a village girl again and do the things that village girls do. I would like to laugh and smile at the boys. I would like to do foolish things when the moon is full. And most of all, you know, I would like to use my real name.”

Charlie paused with his spade in the air.

“But Little Bee is yours real name,” he said.

I shook my head. “Mmm-mmm. Little Bee is only my superhero name. I have a real name too, like you have Charlie.”

Charlie stared.

“What is yours real name?” he said.

“I will tell you my real name if you will take off your Batman costume.”

Charlie frowned. “Actually I have to keep mine Batman costume on forever,” he said.

I smiled. “Okay, Batman. Maybe another time.”

Charlie started to build a sand wall between the wilderness and the suburbs of his city.

“Mmm,” he said.

After a while Lawrence came down the green steps and walked up to us.

“I’ll take over here,” he said. “Go up and see if you can talk some sense into Sarah, will you?”

“Why, what is wrong? Why didn’t she come down here with you?”

Lawrence held his hands out with the palms upward, and he sent air upward out of his mouth so that his hair blew. “Just go and see her, will you?” he said.

I walked up the steps. Sarah was still standing by the railings.

“That bloody man,” she said when she saw me.

“Lawrence?”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure I wouldn’t be better off without him. Oh, I don’t mean that, of course I don’t. But honestly. Don’t I have the right to talk about Andrew?”

“You were arguing?”

Sarah sighed.

“Lawrence still isn’t happy about you being around. It’s putting him on edge.”

“What did you say, about Andrew?”

Sarah looked out across the river.

“I told him I was sorting out Andrew’s office last night. You know, looking through his files. I just wanted to see what bills I’m meant to pay now, check we don’t owe money on any of our cards, that sort of thing.”

She looked at me. “The thing is, it turns out Andrew didn’t stop thinking about what happened on the beach. I thought he’d put it out of his mind, but he hadn’t. He was researching it. There must have been two dozen folders in his office. Stuff about Nigeria. About the oil wars, and the atrocities. And…well, I had no idea how many of you ended up in the UK after what happened to your villages. Andrew had a whole binder full of documents about asylum and detention.”

“Did you read it?”

Sarah chewed her lip. “Not all of it. He had enough in there to read for a month. And he had his own notes attached to each document. It was very meticulous. Very Andrew. There was so much detail in there. I only read a couple of papers, but it was enough to see where he was going with it all. I read an inspectors’ report about the immigration detention centers. How long did you say they kept you in that place, Bee?”

“Two years.”

“Oh Bee. I had no idea how hellish they are. I was imagining, I don’t know, a sort of high-security hotel, I suppose. Is it true they keep it deliberately cold in there? Is it true you have to apply in writing if you just need a paracetamol?”

I smiled. “If you are planning to have a headache, you need to apply twenty-four hours in advance.”

Sarah sighed. “So it is true, then. Andrew highlighted this one passage that said, We find the humiliating procedures excessive. We do not see how anyone could abuse an excess of sanitary towels. Did you really have to apply for them too?”

I nodded. “They would only give them to us one at a time. You had to fill in a form.”

Sarah twisted her hands together on the top bar of the iron railings. “The thing is,” she said, “I think I know why Andrew highlighted that passage. I mean, people would skim-read the barred windows and the perimeter fence. But if you really wanted to bring it home, you’d show how a girl has to apply in writing for Kotex Ultra. Right?”

She stopped, and she looked down to where Lawrence and Charlie were laughing and kicking sand at each other. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “I think Andrew was planning a book,” she said. “That’s what I told Lawrence.”

I looked up at Sarah.

“That is why he was angry?”

Sarah nodded. “I said I thought maybe I should carry on Andrew’s work. You know, read through his notes. Find out a bit more about the detention centers. Maybe even, I don’t know, write the book myself.”

“You said all that to Lawrence?”

“That’s when he went ballistic.” Sarah sighed. “I think he’s jealous of Andrew.”

We stood and looked out over the river for a long time. A breeze had started to blow. It was not much, but enough to darken the smooth surface of the river. Now, I thought. I gripped my hands onto the railings and tried to make the courage of the city flow into my bones again.

“Sarah,” I said. “I want to tell you my feelings about Lawrence.”

She looked at me sharply.

“I know what you’re going to tell me. You’ll tell me he cares more about himself than he cares about me. You’ll tell me to watch out for him. And I’ll tell you that’s just what men are like, but you’re too young to know it yet, and so you and I will argue too, and then I really will be utterly miserable. So don’t say it, okay?”