And four months later I sat in a room and told a police detective, with complete conviction, that my niece had been whimpering in my sister’s arms at the door.

Part Three: The First Three Hours

You do not walk into a pediatric emergency department and get triaged and seen.

You get taken straight back, and that is how you know it is bad.

I said, at the desk, “Six-month-old, left leg isn’t moving, there’s swelling and a mark on the thigh, she’s been screaming for an hour,” and a woman came round the counter before I finished the sentence.

The attending was a man named Prosper Adeyemi and he was, I would guess, about forty.