I studied the boy. He was perhaps fifteen, with a downy moustache on his upper lip. His hair was raven-black. He stood slender but resolute. I wondered what my father would make of him if he could see him there. I suspected he would see the echo of Srinivas himself, long ago.

‘I sent these people, Mister Grayling and his daughter, on the Moonbird with the express aim of finding out what became of my trading vessel, the Howrah. It was under my instruction that they came among you, along with Doctor Gideon. I see he is not here.’

A murmur passed through the men. As nobody seemed willing to explain his absence, I spoke up.

‘Sir, the doctor has absconded. He remains on the island, we assume. We have been searching for him.’

I saw alarm on the merchant’s face, but not surprise. ‘Why?’

‘We believe he has killed a man. Your deckhand, Declan Connolly. We found him hanged. There had been…antagonism between them.’

‘He killed young Angus Connolly also,’ came my father’s voice, weak with pain. ‘Drowned him. He fired upon a man in the water at Rodondo. Struck his head, killed him. And he engaged in other conduct…’ His voice dropped. ‘Deceptions of a personal nature.’ My father’s face wandered to the adamant surface of the boulder beside him, yet he addressed Srinivas in a way that was intensely personal. ‘It seems the doctor is in fact the man we sought all along. Why did you inflict him upon us?’

‘I did not know. I had no idea. It was never my intention,’ said the merchant. The shock seemed to emanate from him in waves, and I believed him. For the first time I saw that he was deeply distressed.

I looked at us, at all of us, and realised we had arranged ourselves as though the merchant was on trial. He and his son and the two miserable lags, seated before a panel of the sealers, Smith at their head, grim and unyielding. My father and me, arrayed to one side, listening, commenting: witnesses and scribes.

‘You knew this would happen. You knew who he was.’ My father’s voice was bitter and unconvinced.

‘I’m not sure that any of us know who he is, Mister Grayling. He will be this, he will be that. People encounter him in differing ways.’

I was tiring of this nonsense. ‘Why did you not tell us the boat was carrying silver?’

Again he looked surprised. Then he regained his composure. ‘I did not tell you anything about the cargo. And you did not ask.’

‘Why did you not tell us,’ said my father softly, ‘that the boat was carrying Figge? Do you still believe I wronged you all those years ago? Is that why you endangered me and, worse still, my daughter, who is blameless? Why…’ His voice broke and I feared he would weep. ‘Why did you do this to us?’