Chapter FifteenPatrick’s face fell, and Matilda’s brightened. It was madness. We’d all be arrested the second we set foot in Melbourne. Apart from anything else, it was Officer Dry’s base of operations. We’d met there, when I was still a convict.
I opened my mouth to say so when I caught sight of Mr O’Connell’s face. He gazed at his wife with such rapt concentration that his face was transformed. I knew his back gave him trouble, and his legs, and his feet. His whole body was a tangle of wrinkles and scars, but when Mrs O’Connell smiled he turned into a silver-haired cherub radiating a heavenly joy.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘We’ve all spent time in Melbourne so we’ll have no trouble finding Mr and Mrs Dugdale.’
‘There is no Mr Dugdale,’ said Mrs O’Connell. ‘That is, he and Henrietta are div
