The deckhand shoved one end of the gangway onto the weathered boards of the jetty, then moved aside as the whooping, jostling boys spilled past her.

‘Take your time!’ Shaun blared. I was trying to count heads. Two. Three. Four. One of the boys started stomping towards the boathouse.

‘Dean! Get back here!’ Joe yelled. When the fleeing kid ignored him, he shot off in pursuit.

Six. Seven. Eight. Suddenly I saw those eyes—those familiar eyes—and my stomach clenched.

No. It couldn’t be.

‘Hi, Robyn.’ Shaun stopped to greet me, punctilious as always. He stood at ease, feet apart, hands clasped behind him. ‘You got a delivery?’

He was looking at my wheelbarrow. I nodded, my own gaze following the kid in the black Satanic Temple T-shirt. Aaron? No. Surely not.

‘Do you want some help?’ asked Shaun. ‘Rhys could spare a minute. Eh, Rhys?’

‘Roger that.’ Rhys was the youngest veteran, and the tallest. I stood eye to eye with Shaun, who was six foot in his socks, but Rhys towered over us both. A gentle giant with curly blond hair, Rhys was a quiet, laid-back kind of guy because he didn’t need to be anything else.

‘There isn’t much. Most of the stuff came yesterday.’ I’d finished counting heads: thirteen. That wasn’t right. There were supposed to be fourteen campers. Where was the last kid? He couldn’t be on board; the deckhand was already heaving my boxes onto the jetty.

‘Is that everyone?’ I asked.

‘Vijay did a runner on his way to Cleveland. Don’t know if his poor mum’s found him yet.’ Shaun pivoted on his heel and pointed at the boy in the towel. ‘Flynn tried to get away too. Jumped off the boat.’

I gasped.

‘He’s a bit of a drama queen.’ Shaun’s voice was dry and reassuring. ‘I said to him after we fished him out: it was gutsy, mate, but it was stupid. There’s a hell of a lot of sharks in Moreton Bay.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘Oh, yeah. Scared himself shitless. And then he got a huge dressing-down from the skipper.’ Shaun nodded at the ferry master, who was watching us from the wheelhouse window and didn’t nod back. ‘I hope this won’t put a spanner in the works,’ Shaun said. He didn’t sound worried because he never sounded worried. As a commanding officer he ticked every box: he was calm but not disengaged, leathery but not ancient, greying at the temples but still dark on the crown. ‘If we get banned from the ferry service, we’ll have to charter a boat,’ he continued thoughtfully, as the gangway was dragged back on board with a crash. ‘It’ll be pricey. Anyway, let’s hope Flynn’s got it out of his system. You right there, Rhys?’

‘Yep.’ Rhys had already dumped a box of iceberg lettuce into my wheelbarrow.