Page 161 of Slack Tide Kill

"Not yet. But I thought, if you wished, we could search them together?"

Sally looked at Liam.

"Of course, Mr. Pike," Liam said gently. "Thank you."

"Well," Pike lifted the box and held it out. "I suggest we each take a portion. Officer O'Connell."

Liam took the valise reverently, carefully lifted a tranche of papers from within, then passed it to Sally. Taking her share felt like joining some strange, sweet sacrament. She passed the remainder to Pike, and they began.

Sally's batch started with photographs. Classes in rows, black and white boys in caps and striped ties, all short trousers, sharp knees and unsmiling faces. Then there were prize-giving programs; lists of names under the heading 'Cricket Elevens'; chapel orders of service; a school magazine printed on thin cream paper, the ink faded to the color of old bruises.

Stanley Albright had kept a little bit of everything, it seemed. Not just the official things, either. There were theatre tickets pressed between term reports, handwritten seating plans for parents' evenings, lists of boys who had paid for school milk, lists of boys who had not, a folded sheet headed Minor Infractions, Lent Term, filled with offences so tiny they seemed almost holy now.

She scanned them until something stood out.

'Rook, R.: suspected theft of church collection money, unproven.'

Sally let out a little gasp. Here he was. Reginald Rook, across the generations. His criminal career just beginning.

"Stealing from God," Liam murmured, looking over her shoulder. "Charming from the start."

Pike gave a sad smile. "Reginald was considered spirited. Such a shame the way he turned out."

Sally turned the page. Albright's handwriting was everywhere: neat, sloped, dark blue ink. He had annotated margins, corrected spellings, added dates to photographs, cross-referenced boys with their fathers, trades, addresses. But there was no further mention of Rook.

"Not much in my batch so far," Liam said. "It's all punishment books and house lists. Points scored, points subtracted. The years are right, but there's no sign of Reg."

Edwin Pike sorted through his pile with aching slowness. He brought every small sepia photograph close to his face and scrutinized it closely, like a jeweler assessing facet and carat. Sally watched him for a moment, admiring his assiduousness, then returned to her own pile.

It became stranger the deeper she went. Less school memories, more post-school life: columns from the school newspaper on old boys who'd done well; transcripts of assembly speeches; letters from parents long after sons had left, appealing for references; requests for recommendations to firms, regiments, colleges; a note asking whether Stanley remembered a boy's stammer, because the army doctor had queried it; a Christmas card from 1979 with three children in matching jumpers.

She finished her stack and went back to the box, pulling out a small card index.

It was bound with perished elastic, each card typed at the top with a boy's name and dates, then filled beneath in Albright's exact blue script. She unraveled it carefully and flipped through names rapidly until:

'ROOK, REGINALD CYRIL

Entered: 1962. Left: 1967.

Father: Cyril Christopher Rook, haulage, Dungeness.

Mother: deceased.

Temperament: forceful, resentful, highly charismatic among weaker boys.

Future recommendation: not suitable for responsibility over others.'

"Liam," Sally said.

He leaned in and she flipped the card over. There was more writing. Later additions, by year. Not much. Just fragments in Albright's neat blue script. Then, the final entry:

'1965. Grave pastoral matter. See A/17. C.R. and Rev. Pritchard involved. No police. Girl removed to W. Hythe.'

For a moment the room went very quiet.

"Girl?" Liam asked.

"What's A-slash-seventeen?" Sally asked.