‘Let’s go with that.’

‘Just like my husband. Did your wife say anything to you?’

Cardilini turned his head to the side as if avoiding a glancing blow then asked, ‘Do you still believe John?’

‘What did Carmody say to you?’

‘That John was lying and you knew he was.’

‘Carmody stood by John at every stage of this tragedy. He was a better man than John’s father.’

Cardilini understood, and a better father than you, was implied.

‘Did you try to find out about the boys who died?’ She asked.

‘No.’

‘Of course not.’ Mrs Lockheed shook her head ever so slightly. ‘The establishment wouldn’t approve.’

‘It’s not always like that,’ Cardilini said but wondered when it wasn’t.

‘Not even the Masters’ boy?’ she asked.

‘Why do you ask that?’

‘That was suicide. His parents found him. He’d hanged himself from the back verandah,’ she said, nervously brushing her throat with her fingertips.

‘Do you think there’s a connection between Edmund, the cadets, and these deaths?’ Cardilini asked.

‘I pray there isn’t.’

‘John?’ Cardilini questioned gently.

She stood up and took a deep breath. ‘Suicide isn’t the “done thing”, didn’t you know?’ She looked back nervously. She held her face firm but her eyes seemed to shudder.

‘Carmody asked what I thought about the execution of multi-murderer, Eric Cooke,’ Cardilini said.

Mrs Lockheed steadily met his gaze.

‘Was Captain Edmund’s death an execution?’ Cardilini thought he saw Mrs Lockheed fight a smile. His eyes moved rapidly between her mouth and eyes. He sat back and ran a hand unconsciously through his thinning hair.

‘Now you’re being ridiculously fanciful,’ Mrs Lockheed finally said and started walking to the front door.

Cardilini followed.

TWENTY-THREE

Day 2

St Nicholas College

1.21 a.m. Monday, 26th October 1965

The boy crouched in his spot looking across to the armoury door when the sliver of light disappeared. He strained his eyes, willed himself to see in the darkness; a darker hole appeared, a doorway, blacker against the black. He stopped breathing, he imagined his heart thumping his ribs apart and throwing itself at the mercy of who he might see. Nothing. Then movement, the blacker black disappeared, a dark shape, a head, appeared at the corner of the armoury, then a body, then another; the light before them, tall dark shapes moving away. He ran across the space and crouched at the corner of the armoury looking out at the figures not ten yards away. They stopped, one turned and he saw the features. It was him. The boy lifted his head in the light as if to say, ‘See me’.

‘I see you. Go back to your dorm the way you came. After breakfast report to me in the sixth form common room. Tell no one.’ The figure turned and started walking away.

‘Who was that?’ his companion asked.

‘I’ll tell you later.’

‘What do you think he saw?’

‘Later.’

They stayed in the shadows of the gum trees as they walked to the dorms.