I nodded. Scanning the faces around me, I wondered who had stolen those nails. Not Jake; the veterans hadn’t taken their eyes off him. Even now he was standing next to Rhys, winding up loose hanks of rope.

The other boys were straining and squabbling over their rafts. But the food was a major distraction. Activity slowed. Heads turned. When Shaun blew a whistle, the whole platoon scrambled across the beach and lined up in front of him. Then Joe started handing out lunch.

I moved closer, wanting the kids to look me straight in the eye. I was anxious to see how they’d react. Would they smirk? Glower? Turn away?

‘Rob?’ said Warren. ‘You all right?’

‘No.’ I didn’t suspect Ali or Matt or Dean. Marcus kept his focus on the food; was that greed or guilt? Nathan’s wet, lingering gaze crept over me like a snail—creepy, but then Nathan was always creepy. Nothing new there.

‘Why? What’s up?’ Warren asked.

Aaron was flicking glances in my direction. We had a shared past, though, and it was complicated. He hadn’t necessarily stuck nails through my floor.

‘Rob?’

Connor ignored me. So did Flynn, who was busy peeling the ham out of his sandwich. Tyler assessed me coolly, the way he assessed the whole world. Sam pulled a face at me—again, nothing new there.

‘Rob.’ Warren sounded anxious.

‘Tell Shaun to come to my office.’ I gave the wheelbarrow a gentle kick. ‘You can put all the rubbish in there and bring it back when you’re done.’

‘Wait. What happened?’

‘The usual.’ I didn’t want to talk about it—not in front of the boys. As Warren opened his mouth again, I turned and left.

I went straight home and locked all the doors, then inspected the floors in every room. No more nails. I sat at my desk and started to think.

The mischief must have happened earlier, when everyone was rushing around. There had been two boxes of nails in the poultry shed; I’d handed the first to Matt and the second to Ali. Then Matt had dropped his box, probably because someone had shoved him. I remembered seeing a knot of kids picking up the scattered nails: Matt, Flynn, Tyler, Nathan…

My only hope was that the veterans had been keeping tabs on people. One of the boys had slipped under my house and spent a couple of minutes pushing nails through the cracks between the floorboards. Had Shaun or Warren stopped to think, ‘Where’s so-and-so?’ Had they wondered why somebody was taking so long?

A knock at the front door made my heart skip a beat. I looked around for something heavy. Picked up a desk stapler. Moved into the hallway. But it was Shaun who stood outside, peering through the glass.

He frowned when he heard me unlock the deadbolt.

‘Hi.’ He was all sweaty and breathless. ‘What’s wrong?’