“There’s something I do not understand, Prisoner Robson. Your record speaks of a ruffian, a wild, uncontrollable convict who would have to be a lower class, uneducated peasant. Yet I see here before me a man who speaks with evidence of education, even culture, in his voice. It says in your record that you have spent thirty years in the prisons of New South Wales, yet I do not see evidence of that. I do not know what I should be seeing, but what I do see is not consistent with the evidence presented to me in your record.”
Campbell did not speak. He wondered what Herrington was leading up to. The commandant leaned forward and picked up the sheet of paper in front of him and waved it at Campbell.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked quietly.
Campbell stared. “No,” he said shortly.
“It is a ticket to freedom,” Herrington said. “Or it could be, if someone named Campbell Robson was lucky enough.”
