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Back Man at the Window Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Thirty-Four
  36. Thirty-Five
  37. Thirty-Six
  38. Thirty-Seven
  39. Thirty-Eight
  40. Thirty-Nine
  41. Forty
  42. Forty-One
  43. Forty-Two
  44. Forty-Three
  45. Forty-Four
  46. Forty-Five
  47. Forty-Six
  48. Forty-Seven
  49. Forty-Eight
  50. Forty-Nine
  51. Fifty
  52. Fifty-One
  53. Fifty-Two
  54. Fifty-Three
  55. Fifty-Four
  56. Fifty-Five
  57. Fifty-Six
  58. Fifty-Seven
  59. Fifty-Eight
  60. Acknowledgements
  61. About the author

Cardilini had been waiting for the question, he smiled at the tremors in Salt’s voice and wondered how far his answer would be reported that night.

‘Not anymore. See you, Salt.’

Thirty-Four

THIRTY-FOUR

Day 6

St Nicholas College

12.35 p.m. Friday, 30th October 1965

The boy stood in line at the servery window. He’d been given the duty of supplying his table with their meals.

Voices, crockery, cutlery, and chairs scraping on the timber floor filled the space. Mossop pushed in behind the boy. This action usually caused raucous complaints from the second formers behind but Mossop had reached the status of an untouchable. The school population knew what he claimed about the policeman. They knew he was taken from class for special meetings. The boy and Mossop shared an accounting class, the class the boy had returned to after speaking to Carmody.

‘Why were you speaking to Carmody?’ Mossop demanded and grabbed the boy’s shoulder. The boy looked to others around him to push Mossop to the back of the line, but they just looked back. The boy looked to one of the ‘good kids’ of second form, a boy not averse to telling the other boys when they were wrong, a boy willing to accept abuse from some of the ‘tough kids’. He showed no emotion; his eyes were glacial as he looked back at the boy.

‘What’s it to you, Mossop?’ The boy said, avoiding the eyes of the boys in front who had stopped their own conversations and turned to watch and listen.

‘We have a right to know,’ Mossop said, some of the boys around them nodding.

‘Go and ask Carmody, you’re his little pet,’ the boy said and this brought a range of derisive noises and grins.

‘Shut your faces,’ Mossop snapped.

‘Get to the back of the line, Mossop,’ came a voice from the rear.

‘Shut your gob.’

‘Yeah, get to the back of the line,’ another voice.

‘Shut up.’

‘Run crying to Carmody,’ yet another voice.

‘I’ll smash the next one to say anything. He should tell us!’ Mossop said, pushing the boy who fell into another boy in front of him. That boy turned and pushed back. Soon all the boys were pushing and laughing. A voice bellowed. It was a sixth former at a table close to the servery. The boys’ noise stopped but they kept pushing each other until they neared the servery window where they became consumed with balancing their plates on steel trays before rushing back to their tables where two students from each form sat waiting for their meals.

‘What was that about?’ a fifth former at their table asked the boy.

‘Someone pushed in.’

‘Who?’

‘I couldn’t see.’

‘Rubbish.’

Someone at the table whispered, ‘Creep.’

‘That’s enough of that,’ the sixth former said without looking up.