‘Jake admitted he broke into your house.’ Shaun paused for a moment, gauging my reaction. When I blinked, he continued, ‘I was getting him prepped for a forced march back to the jetty, but he wanted to go on a raft. “Okay, okay, I dumped the fucking prawns!”’ Shaun’s imitation of Jake sounded more like a snivelling three-year-old. ‘And I know he wasn’t feeding me something I wanted to hear. None of the other kids saw those prawns.’

I thought about this. The Steamroller had worked—on Jake, at least. I was surprised. Impressed. It made me wonder if I should be putting more faith in Shaun’s rather brutal methods.

‘I didn’t ask him why,’ Shane went on. ‘I’ll do that later.’ He pointed at the nearest nail. ‘We’ll get this bastard, Robyn.’

What could I say? I liked Shaun. And Rhys. And Warren and Joe. I didn’t want to ruin their business.

‘You’ll have to keep an eye on the kids,’ I said at last. ‘All of them.’

‘We will,’ Shaun promised. ‘From now on we’ll stick to the schedule. Changing it this morning caused too much chaos.’

‘And don’t give them nails.’

‘We can use ropes.’

‘And stop calling me your commander-in-chief. Whoever did this might think I’ll send you home if I get mad enough.’

Shaun nodded. ‘You’re right. Good point.’ On his way to the door, he asked if he could bring Jake around to apologise. ‘It’ll be good for him. He needs to take responsibility.’

I said yes, though I wasn’t keen. I’d had my fill of Jake.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to look as if I was scared of him.

Shaun gave the boys a real bollocking that afternoon. He lined them up on the parade ground and shouted at them for ten minutes. After the thrill of the raft race, which had left them tired but exultant, Shaun cut them down to size again. ‘Sneaky…stupid…betrayal…police…’ From under my house I heard most of what he said; he emphasised that no one was going home. That the person responsible for trying to hurt me would be found and punished. That only someone without self-respect would do such a thing—and only honest, loyal team players would ultimately graduate from the program. Scumbags would keep returning until they ‘woke up to themselves’.

Chastened, the boys were sent to the dining hall for Joe’s meditation class. The other three veterans had a quick meeting on the parade ground. As soon as I joined them, they told me the kid who’d booby-trapped my floor was either Darren, Marcus, Tyler, Nathan or Zac. Flynn and Sam had been making too much noise. Dean had been having a minor meltdown.

I nodded. ‘There are footprints. Under the house. You should come and see.’