He knows me. He knows me. How? The boy sat in a trance. Does he know what Captain Edmund did to me? Fear seized the boy; he trembled wildly against the bricks, pushing his body at them, harder and harder, feeling the building trembling with him. He saw the shadow of the building shaking, he saw the roof shaking. He ran to the grass and vomited. He was helpless in the grip of the clenching fist encircling his stomach, squeezing him again and again, like his father’s fist on a cow teat.

TWENTY-FOUR

Day 6

St Georges Terrace

1.54 p.m. Friday, 30th October 1965

Cardilini hitched a lift with a patrol car to an office at Council House, St Georges Terrace. He’d skipped lunch. He’d learnt that suicides in the state were monitored at the coroner’s office and was now knocking on a door on the sixth floor identical to the fifteen doors he’d just passed.

A plastic tag slipped into a purpose-built slide on the door read, ‘Dr Loretta Young’. Cardilini considered the temporary nature of these name tags compared to the gold-embossed names of the police hierarchy.

‘Come in.’

He opened the door. Dr Young sat with her back to a view of Langley Park and the Swan River. She stood from behind her desk and walked forward, her black hair gently curling to her shoulders, eyes dark and skin fair. Her handshake was soft and warm. She had a trim figure and dressed smartly. Cardilini guessed she was in her early forties. He automatically checked his fly and poked some straying shirt back into his trousers as she returned to her desk.

‘What can I do for you, Detective Cardilini?’

‘Suicide.’

‘Yes?’

‘Deaths by suicide at St Nicholas College in the last six years.’

‘Are you serious?’ She asked aghast.

Funny response he thought and answered with a firm, ‘Yes.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Dr Young vacillated. ‘For a death to be classified as suicide there has to be a coroner’s finding stating such.’

‘Okay. You’re the person to see, though?’

‘I suppose. It’s only a temporary position. I’m a lecturer at the University of Western Australia.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘We do have a record of all coroner’s findings here.’ She gestured to a series of filing cabinets lining the wall on her right.

‘How many?’

Still staring at the filing cabinets, ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Can I go through them?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Dr Young hadn’t moved.

‘You have a reason?’ Cardilini asked, trying to appear patient.

‘I don’t think it’s for public release.’ She walked to a cabinet and pulled at a drawer, it was locked.

‘I’m not public.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You do have a key?’ Cardilini asked. Dr Young looked lost.

‘Who filed them?’

‘I’ve just shifted in here.’

‘Who filed them?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps Mrs Pass.’

‘Where’s she?’

‘She’s . . .’ she waved her index finger towards her right.

‘That way?’

‘Yes. I’d better show you. You’re a detective?’