‘Mr Ainsley was just telling us about their two boys,’ Mr Langridge said. He was a tall, angular man with, it seemed, only one stern expression ever available to his face. ‘George and Frank have joined up.’ He looked over at the door and motioned for the butler to begin serving.

‘Light horse,’ Mr Ainsley said.

‘Handsome lads,’ Mr Langridge said. ‘We’ll have them in the paper, Wednesday edition.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you could give it a few words, Gabriel.’

‘Of course, Mr Langridge.’

‘Good man.’

Mrs Ainsley began to sob.

‘Miriam!’ her husband said.

Evie went over to the woman, put an arm around her shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Ainsley,’ she said and rubbed her arm. ‘It’s all right.’

‘No need to fret, Miriam,’ Mrs Langridge said. ‘It will all turn out just fine.’

Mrs Ainsley smiled sadly, regained control. ‘I’m sorry.’ She wanted to say they were only boys, but she’d seen the hard look on her husband’s face. ‘Silly me!’

‘They’re a credit to you,’ Mr Langridge said, ‘and the pride of Tasmania.’ He raised his glass.

Everybody followed suit. Tait reached across for the glass that had been poured for him and knocked it over, spilling wine across the white tablecloth.

‘Bloody hell,’ Mr Langridge said.

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

Before Gabriel Tait left for the Tiers with the O’Farrells, the subeditor Lance Landstrom had said, ‘You might want to read some of the stuff in the records. Get a little background on the guy. He was a convict, you know.’

‘Sure.’

‘Take a few days,’ Landstrom said. ‘You’ll have to go down to Hobart.’

‘The paper’s paying, right?’

‘Ask your future father-in-law.’

Tait caught a morning train to Hobart. The capital was grey and overcast, just like the last time he’d seen it. Evie had wanted to come along but her parents wouldn’t hear of it. Tait was relieved, glad to get out of town for a while on his own.

The clerk at the Chief Secretary’s Department led Gabriel Tait down into a basement. It was somewhere under Franklin Square, completely dark, cold, smelled musty and damp. The clerk flicked a switch and something crackled; a single electric globe at the end of a thick black wire in the ceiling lit up, threw weak yellow light. There were open-backed timber shelves against the sandstone walls and dissecting the space in rows, stacked with boxes and huge ledgers, their leather bindings rotted and peeling from the boards. There were more documents piled up on the floor in lopsided towers, all along and at the ends of each row.

‘Convict records?’ Tait said.

‘No idea, mate,’ the clerk said. ‘In here somewhere.’ He pointed to a small table and chair. ‘You can use that. We close at four.’ The clerk headed back up the stairs.