The boys nodded dumbly.

‘Alright. I’ll go down and ask him up. Don’t panic, now, lads. It’s all in hand.’

Pat Kilroy was gone for five minutes. During this time none of the three boys spoke or moved. They were conscious of requiring official approval, official observation, for their smallest action. They were conscious that if good behaviour started now, then whatever happened later on could be mitigated, softened.

Father Connelly embraced the boys when he arrived. Then he listened to what they had to say and agreed with Pat Kilroy that some sort of written statement was in order. It was proposed that each of the three boys write a short account of what had happened, and that they should confer with one another as they wrote to make sure that their versions concurred in every respect. Then Pat Kilroy and Father Connelly would sign the statements and keep them at the school.

The boys recognized in this plan the imprimatur of an authority greater than themselves. They submitted to it gratefully.

It took them half an hour to write the statements. As Richard handed his to Pat Kilroy he said, ‘And you’ll hang on to this, won’t you, sir? In case we need it.’

‘I’ll hang on to it,’ Pat Kilroy said. ‘I’ll keep it in the safe. It won’t fall into the wrong hands and it will always be here if you need it.’

Kilroy and Father Connelly read the statements – none of them longer than a single sheet of foolscap – and signed them. The boys had wanted to write on official school paper – they had wanted to see the Brookfield crest and its motto (Semper et Ubique Fidelis) in the upper right-hand corner. Pat Kilroy had been doubtful about this, but he had relented.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Richard said, when the statements had been witnessed.

During his years on the SCT Richard had always called Mr Kilroy ‘Pat’. Now ‘sir’ seemed to have been dragged out of him by the obsequiousness of guilt – or by his sudden awareness of his youth, his childishness, his lack of sophistication.

Richard, Barry and Stephen watched as Pat Kilroy sealed the statements in an envelope and deposited them in the safe concealed (the boys observed with fleeting wonder) behind a large photo of the Brookfield Senior Cup team from 1978.

Then Father Connelly knelt and led them all in prayer.

‘Our father, who art in heaven,’ he said. ‘Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ said Stephen O’Brien, Barry Fox and Richard Culhane.

‘Amen,’ said their old headmaster.

When the boys had left, Pat Kilroy locked the door of his office and sat at his desk for a long time. Then he finished his morning’s work – those troublesome timetables – and closed his briefcase. When he got to his car he stopped and looked back at the main building of the school. He turned a slow half-circle in valedictory appraisal. He took in the courtyard, the copper beech, the low outhouses that served as locker rooms.