‘I’m a tutor, Mister Srinivas. My work is cajoling the God-damned Cooper children into reciting their times tables. I’m not in the business of retrieving stray boats.’ As an afterthought I added, ‘And nor is my father.’

An eyebrow at my language, but his dark eyes remained calm. ‘I am sure you’re aware by now, miss, that the boat is only a part of this and not the entirety.’ He pushed the package across the table to the corner nearest to me. I remained standing, poking at the kindling in its little pile.

‘What’s this?’

‘The passenger manifest. Please…’ He gestured for me to open it, and to my eternal regret I did.

Papers: a list, surname then given name. They descended alphabetically to Molliner, where the surname column became ditto and the given names read Albert, Florence, Catherine, Jane, Sarah, Violet and Frederick.

‘It may help you with your—’

‘Good Lord. An entire family.’

‘Yes.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘Fine people. They had bought passage to Hobart. Albert had taken up land beyond Richmond, out in the midlands. Their possessions were to follow them—they remain in crates in a shed on my wharf.’ He sighed. ‘One feels a certain…obligation when a man entrusts his family to one’s vessel and it founders.’

I read on down the list. Patient cursive, compiled out of bureaucratic routine, the writer having no way of knowing the weight of the words when these names became a list of the missing. Thirty souls, nearly half of them women.

I tossed the sheaf of documents onto the table.

‘There is the…human tragedy of what has happened,’ Srinivas continued. ‘But the matter has also caused considerable difficulties for the extended Molliner family. The chief justice has refused to formally confirm the deaths, so there is estate money that cannot be released. He has said that he requires further information to be obtained from the islands before he will attest.’

Options closing off. Voices inside me clamouring in one direction only. This man had a gift for subtle pressure.

‘I am not asking you to endanger yourself, or your father. I am asking you to go and find out what happened. There will be other ways to apply force, if that becomes necessary.’

‘I see it now. You believe that my father’s presence in the islands will flush out the evildoer, and you are certain the evildoer is this Mister Figge, whoever he is. That is why it matters not that my father is blind. You are preying upon his deluded need for vengeance, with no heed at all for his safety. You have taken account of all these things.’

I do not know if I expected him to rush to a denial, but there was none. ‘Look at what this man has done,’ he said simply.

I followed his pointing finger to the manifest. ‘There was a shipwreck,’ I hissed. ‘It was the work of nature.’