Man at the Window

CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Eight

Acknowledgements

About the author

Readers First

Copyright

ONE

Day 1

St Nicholas College

10.30 p.m. Sunday, 25th October 1965

Before him sixteen ornate lampposts bordered the paths of the quadrangle. Their yellow light pooled on the grass and the paved walkways. During the day the quadrangle he now looked down on was filled with young boys. His boys. He drew in the warm night air, filling his lungs and expanding his chest, and dropped his shirt on the end of the bed. Proud of his bare chest with its curling tangle of coarse hair, he spread his arms wide on his second storey windowsill and turned to the windows of the boarding house on his right. In the lit dormitories he could see, in all states of dress and undress, figures of boys chatting and chasing one another. He knew that if he, Captain Edmund, was among them the noise would cease and they would hide their eyes in modesty from his gaze. A flash, a reflection of light, caught his eye. It was gone when he looked back to the quadrangle.

The quadrangle was bordered on three sides by double-storey red brick buildings fashioned in English public school tradition: austere, stately, with broad windows and wide limestone archways. He loved the tradition, the stability and the superiority. He filled his lungs again and slowly released the air into the night, his night. Shortly, when all lights were out, his door would open and close quietly. He smiled. The boy would arrive mute and trembling.

Directly ahead of Captain Edmund was the fourth side of the quadrangle, the riverside. An impenetrable blackness concealed a row of river gums and an embankment sloping down to a limestone wall – the school boundary. Beyond the wall reeds and paperbarks filled the hundred yards to the Swan River, now black and soundless as it slipped by. Across the river was farmland from which the rifle retorts of kangaroo shooters occasionally burst into the night.

The hum of voices emanating from the boarding house was fading. One by one windows blackened.

A sudden chatter broke the night and alerted Captain Edmund to four boys commencing a casual stroll across one of the quadrangle’s diagonal paths.

‘Is that you, Parkinson?’ Captain Edmund called down to the boys.

The boys ceased their chatter, stood still and looked towards the window. ‘Yes, sir, Captain Edmund.’

‘Why aren’t you in your dormitories?’

‘Another ten minutes, sir.’

‘It will take you more than ten minutes to get ready for bed.’