‘Good lad,’ Cardilini said.

‘I’m thinking of being a policeman. Why don’t you wear a uniform?’ Mossop asked Cardilini.

‘I’m a detective.’

‘I’d wear a uniform, like Salt.’

‘You should talk to the constable then. Did the rifle shot startle you?’

‘No. I was asleep. We’re on the other side of the boarding house, but plenty heard it. They had to be sent back to bed.’

‘So, no ideas about what you drew? What if you were a policeman, what would you say?’ Cardilini asked.

‘I think it’s something to do with Lockheed. He was expelled,’ Mossop said a little sheepishly.

‘When was Lockheed expelled?’

‘Last year. Carmody stuck up for him.’

‘Was Lockheed a cadet?’ Cardilini asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

*

Cardilini had sent Mossop back to class and was still seated when Salt approached him.

‘You got the keys?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, handing the keys to Cardilini.

‘Where were they?’

‘In a recess near the armoury door.’

‘That seems very lax.’

‘“Loyalty is stronger than locks.” Captain Edmund’s saying, sir.’

‘Where’s Carmody?’

‘Gone back to class.’

‘Did he speak to you?’

‘He’s quite serious about our presence causing speculation that’s unsettling to the school.’

‘Right. You didn’t go into the armoury, did you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You go to the car. I’m going to stop by Edmund’s room.’

When Cardilini returned to the car he had an armful of files, ‘Off we go. I’ve some “prep” to do.’

Salt gave him a sideways glance, ‘Where to, sir?’

‘Home for me. You’d better go back to East Perth.’

SEVENTEEN

Day 2

St Nicholas College

12.55 a.m. Monday, 26th October 1965

The boy heard voices coming from the boarding house. He withdrew behind the administration block. He wanted to run for the hockey field, but he stayed still and shrunk into the shadows. The voices stopped, his breathing stopped. He ran to the other end of the building and near the fire-escape steps he looked out into the quadrangle. He saw two figures, one creeping, the other walking slowly along the path near the gum trees. He recognised the walking figure. Both soon disappeared into the dark beneath the gums. He watched, breathless, with the shape sharp in his palm. He searched the shadows, and saw movement again, both figures walking briskly towards the canteen. One carried something long, narrow at one end and fat at the other: a rifle. He felt the bullet firm in his hand. If he ran behind the dining block that made the fourth side of the quadrangle he could watch them come down. He dashed into the shadow of the hockey field to avoid the light from the cloister. His feet felt like they weren’t touching the ground. He sprinted along the rear of the dining block to the far side of the science building which had the canteen, the woodwork department and the cadets’ armoury in its basement. Captain Edmund’s armoury.

Perched near the canteen 30 yards from the armoury, he felt the cold cement flattening the soles of his feet as if trying to push him from the earth. The sky, the endless night, calling him to fly like a skyrocket, to burst into a million sparks of light then drop black, invisible as ash. He waited, eyes straining. Nothing. Silence. Until his eyes found a thin sliver of light below the armoury door, a scalpel cut of yellow in the darkness. He sat still, hugging his knees and staring, a fist thumping in his chest telling him he had hope.