I headed for the old poultry shed where I stored my garden equipment. Shaun was telling his platoon to take off their outerwear and put on their new uniforms. ‘What, here?’ someone asked. When Shaun said yes, the kids erupted. He was called a perv. A fuckwit. A faggot. I heard the thud of footsteps and turned to see another kid making a break for the jetty—Flynn, the one who’d jumped out of the boat. He didn’t get far, though. Warren soon caught up with him.

After that, it was chaos. Somebody started humming stripper music. A big, chunky boy with red hair and terrible acne took off his left shoe and threw it straight at Shaun. Nathan Bosanko said, ‘I’m not wearing underpants. Is that a problem?’ His voice was soft and slow and weirdly glutinous, like a slug slithering into my ear.

I was relieved when my office door shut behind me at last, blocking out most of the noise.

After dumping the tech in my safe, I spun the combination lock. Then I sat down and looked at Shaun’s notes: his medical forms, permission slips, emergency contact numbers. Most of this stuff had arrived several weeks earlier. But I’d also received a few documents the previous day, when I’d sat down with Shaun for our final briefing.

‘You want to watch out for Tyler Metherill. He’s a thief,’ Shaun had warned me. ‘The police think he’s basically a good kid with a lot of potential. That’s why they referred him. But he’s constantly truanting—probably to look after his little sister. His home situation is a nightmare.’

Shaun always gave me a brief description of the more problematic campers. Then we would thrash out any billing problems and discuss his schedule. I had a lot of respect for Shaun. He was clear, concise and well organised, unlike most of my other clients. The teachers were a mixed bunch—either scarily efficient or depressingly hopeless—but the organisers of the religious camps were a constant headache. They kept changing their minds. Neglecting to pay up. Asking for impossible things like swimming pools or medics. Sometimes they would arrive with too many kids, having enrolled a few extra at the last minute. ‘Can’t you just buy more food?’ they would ask vaguely. I would try to explain that the ferry came three days a week, and that I couldn’t just nip over to Cleveland in my tinny for an extra sack of potatoes, because I couldn’t leave the island unstaffed. Not while there were visitors around.

Some of the religious camps were also a bit slapdash about medical details, but Shaun wasn’t. Though I harboured some doubts about his methods, I admired his thoroughness. His notes couldn’t be faulted.