The Lost Man

by Jane Harper

  “Yeah. I know.” Xander looked down.

  “He was shocked when he heard what she was saying.”

  It was true. Cameron had sat on the veranda steps and cried, his shoulders shaking as Liz sat next to him. She’d rubbed his back with one hand and pinched the bridge of her nose with the other, her eyes squeezed shut.

  “And he was always really clear about what happened.” Nathan looked at his son. “He was asked about it loads of times over those few days—by our dad, by your grandma, the town cop at the time—and he always said the same thing.”

  Cam had met Jenna at the party. They had talked, they had been drinking, they had gone behind the sand dunes, and they had had sex. Yes, they had both wanted to. No, she hadn’t told him she had a boyfriend. Yes, of course she had gone with him willingly. No, she hadn’t said anything that made him worried. Nothing at all. Not during, not afterward.

  Nathan started packing up around the mast.

  “How does anyone know what actually happened, though?” Xander said in a way that made Nathan look up. Bub had abandoned loading the car and was watching, his arms folded across his chest. Xander blinked, suddenly looking a little nervous.

  “Just, the way you’re telling it, it sounds like it’s impossible for anyone to say for sure what really went on.”

  “Then I’ve told it wrong.”

  “It’s not that—” Xander stopped. “But two people can remember different versions of something and both think it’s the truth.”

  “Can they?”

  “Yeah. Of course. You and mum do it all the time.”

  “Hardly the same thing, mate.”

  “I know. I’m just saying it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks they saw, or what Jenna should’ve done. Only two people were actually there and—”

  Xander stopped. He didn’t finish his thought out loud, but he didn’t have to. Nathan knew what he was thinking. Only two people were there that night, and now one of them was dead.

  16

  They blew a tire an hour into the journey back.

  “Yep,” Bub said, surveying the landscape with his hands on his hips as Nathan sweated over the jack with the afternoon sun searing his back. “It was near here that I got stuck too. I remember those big rocks.”

  “Great. Would’ve been good if you’d seen them earlier,” Nathan grunted as Xander hovered, trying to help but mostly getting in the way.

  “Yeah. Would’ve been. Didn’t, though.”

  “Nope.”

  In the heat, it took Nathan forty-five minutes and two liters of water to get them back on the road. They didn’t talk, and the rest of the drive seemed longer for the silence. Whenever Nathan checked the rearview mirror, Xander was staring out of the window, deep in thought.

  The daylight was bleeding into evening by the time they pulled up outside the house. Dinner wasn’t far off, and Nathan could hear the backpackers in the kitchen as he scrubbed the oil and grit from under his nails in the small bathroom off the hall. His hands as clean as he could get them, he wandered out, pausing when he saw a light under the door on his left. The office. Ilse’s office, now.

  He heard a high voice and pushed the door open. Sophie and Lo were sprawled on the floor, with toys and books scattered around them. Lo was lying on her front, her sandy-blond hair hiding her face as she made firm marks in a sketchbook. Sophie was cross-legged, struggling to play a handheld video game with one arm in her sling. They reminded Nathan suddenly of him and Cameron. They’d been best friends at that age, perhaps only through lack of choice, but nevertheless, the outcome was the same. Both girls jumped when they saw Nathan.

  “You scared me,” Sophie said. She hesitated. “I thought you were Mummy.”

  “No. Why? Are you not supposed to be in here?”

  Nathan came into the office. It was well organized, with neat files and stacked paperwork on the desk. The year’s employment record lay on top, with Simon’s and Katy’s names the most recent additions. A large full-year wall calendar for the twelve months ahead was already carefully marked with dates for deliveries and crucial invoices and everything essential to a smooth-running operation. He ran his eyes over it.

  “Sophie’s supposed to be reading, not playing her game,” Lo said, without looking up. “That’s why she was worried.”

  “I see.” Something had been marked on the wall planner in red on a number of different dates. The words were written tentatively, and all had later been crossed off, with a black line scored through them.

  “Anyway, we have Mummy’s permission, so we are allowed in here,” Sophie said, with authority. “Are you allowed?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” Nathan said, still looking at the planner. In fact, the room did feel a bit off-limits. Nathan and his brothers had never set foot in here when it had been their dad running the show.

  “He’s allowed.” Ilse’s voice came from the doorway. She gave him a tired smile. “Dinner’s nearly ready. Start tidying up, girls.”

  His hands might be clean, but as Ilse came into the room, Nathan felt suddenly very aware of his shirt, dried stiff with sweat, and the dust in his hair. He didn’t react, other than to move a subtle half-step away as she stopped next to him in front of the wall planner. Over the years, he’d found it was easier on himself if he maintained some physical space between them.

  From time to time, Nathan had wondered if Cameron knew what had happened that once between him and Ilse. If so, he hadn’t heard about it from Nathan. Although Nathan had been tempted to tell him once or twice when Cam was being a dickhead. Cam might well have asked Ilse—he’d known Nathan had been interested back then—but the fact that Nathan had never heard a word about it made him pretty sure his and Ilse’s shared secret had stayed a secret.

  Nathan had done his part, keeping his mouth shut and keeping his distance ever since that first time he’d run into her in the kitchen of this house. It had been the first Christmas after his public banishment. There was no sign the festive season had put anyone in a forgiving mood, and Jacqui had dug her heels in and refused to send Xander for even a few days. Nathan would have been happy enough to lie in a darkened room with a sheet over his head, but Liz had insisted he come to stay. In the end, she had worn him down until it was easier to give in than to argue. Weary from the effort and dusty from the drive over, he had gone into the kitchen in search of a beer and instead found Ilse.

  When she had turned, water jug in hand, Nathan had honestly thought for one crazy and exhilarating moment that she was there to see him. The sight of Cameron walking through the kitchen door and right up to her had been like a gut punch that had taken Nathan’s breath away.

  “You two have introduced yourselves?” Cameron had said, and Nathan thought his brother had actually winked at him. Head reeling, Nathan had barely been able to nod. He had sat mute during dinner as the rest of the family chatted to Cameron’s new girlfriend. Attempts to draw Nathan into the conversation had been met with grunts. He hadn’t trusted himself to speak.

  Afterward, he had been hovering in the hall and debating whether he could simply leave, when Ilse had found him. They were alone, standing close, but not too close. An appropriate gap between them.

  “It’s good to see you again,” she’d said.

  “You, too.” He’d both truly meant it and truly hadn’t at the same time.

  “You never came back to the pub.”

  “No.” He’d rubbed a hand over his chin and had the sudden overwhelming urge to sit down and tell her everything. All the things that were weighing so heavy on his mind. How hard the last few months had been, how deeply he regretted what he’d done to Keith, how scared he felt about the future. How he’d missed seeing her. Then from somewhere outside, very faint, Cameron’s voice had floated into the hall. Nathan had taken a shallow breath. “I had a few things going on.”

  “So I heard.” Ilse had waited. Then, when he didn’t say any more: “You look like you’ve been having a difficult time.”
/>   “I’m fine.” His voice had cracked, and he’d swallowed. “It’ll be fine.” He’d looked down at her and known what he should say. The apology was already forming on his tongue when a door slammed somewhere along the hall, and they’d both jumped. Ilse had taken a small step away, then another. The appropriate distance was now a little too far to speak easily.

  “I actually didn’t expect to see you here.” She looked uncomfortable now.

  “Yeah, well, Cameron’s my brother.”

  “I know, but he said—” She stopped. “Nathan, I didn’t know that when I met him.” She held his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

  He made himself look her straight in the eye, and shrugged. “Really doesn’t bother me.”

  Her face had hardened a little, and her smile was a fraction late. “Good.”

  Maybe Ilse hadn’t known they were brothers, Nathan thought, but Cameron obviously had. And fine, Ilse was a grown woman, and it wasn’t like Nathan owned her after one roll around in the back of his car. And maybe he was dead wrong, but Cameron hadn’t even seemed that interested until Nathan had called up begging.

  “Please, Cam. There’s a girl. A nice one. Working behind the bar.”

  “Oh yeah. She’s all right.”

  Sophie had been born ten months later, and Cameron and Ilse had gotten married four months after that. Nathan hadn’t gone. Instead, he’d driven eighteen hours to Brisbane. He’d turned up on Jacqui’s doorstep with his custody agreement in hand, and they’d screamed at each other until someone called the cops.

  Now, he watched as Ilse directed the girls to pick up their toys. She seemed distracted, and he got the sense that she wanted to talk about something—Jenna Moore, he guessed—but couldn’t with her daughters in the room. Instead, he pointed at the wall planner and the crossed-out markings.

  “What’s all this? Was Cam going to change the mustering times next year?”

  “Oh.” Ilse stood up and joined him in front of the calendar. “No. I mean, it was a thought.”

  Nathan frowned as he deciphered the notes. “What would it involve? Move them here, and here?”

  “Yes, and same thing again, later.”

  She took a thick diary from her desk and opened it so he could see.

  “Move the dates like this—” She pointed, and her hand brushed his arm. “Avoid the bottlenecks, and that contractor clash with Atherton that happens every year. I also thought if we coordinated with you—if you were interested, obviously—but then we’d get the scale benefits.”

  Nathan frowned, flipping through the pages of her neat writing. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “You think it could work?”

  “I’d have to go through it properly. But it could be worth a try.”

  “It was Bub’s idea, actually. I just worked out the dates and the logistics.”

  “Bub thought of this?” Nathan said, surprised.

  “I think he was getting fed up with the same issues year after year and wanted to try something else. He’s quite good at things like that. Cameron said it was because he was lazy, but if it makes things more efficient, who cares?”

  Nathan could hear footsteps in the hall. The girls had gathered up the last toys. Lo appeared to be counting them carefully, checking each one, and Ilse frowned a little at the sight. The office door opened, and they all looked up as Bub put his head in.

  “Mum says come for dinner.”

  He saw Nathan and Ilse examining the planner, and a shadow crossed his face as the girls clattered past him into the hall.

  “What are you talking about?” Bub came into the office. “Something about this place?” Without me? went unsaid.

  “I was telling Nathan about your mustering idea,” Ilse said, and Bub looked mollified.

  “Oh. Yeah. Not bad, hey?”

  Nathan nodded at the wall planner. “Why is it all crossed off?”

  “There were some kinks in the plan,” Ilse said. “Cam wanted to work them out before making any big changes. He thought maybe leave it a year, make sure everything would work.”

  “Yeah, right.” Bub made a noise and shrugged when they looked at him. “Look, Cam’s not here now, so I’m not going to bag the bloke, but we all know if Cam had thought of it first, we’d be doing it. Sorry, but that’s how it was. The only thing wrong with the idea is that it wasn’t Cam’s bloody idea.”

  Bub stepped closer to the planner, reading what Ilse had written. The office was quiet for a moment.

  “We could do it now, though.” Bub’s tone was too casual. “Us three.”

  Bub had been thinking about this, Nathan realized, as he turned to face them. There was something in the air as they stood there. Something almost complicit, Nathan thought, and not entirely comfortable. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he didn’t say anything, and finally Bub shrugged.

  “Whatever. Think about it.” He walked to the door. “But there’s nothing to stop us.”

  They watched him go, and Ilse shook her head, a strange expression on her face.

  “Listen, what Bub said about it not being Cameron’s idea. That wasn’t the only reason. Bub knows that. Anyway—” She tossed the diary back on her desk. “I don’t know. I can’t think about this now. The details are all in there, if you want a better look.”

  She headed out, and Nathan followed her, turning off the light and plunging the office into darkness behind them. The kitchen was far too hot, and Nathan immediately felt frazzled.

  “How’d you get on at Lehmann’s?” Harry said as he sat down.

  “Yeah, fixed it,” Nathan said. “Nothing too serious.”

  “You have to be careful at Lehmann’s Hill.” The tiny voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and it took Nathan a moment to realize it was Lo speaking. She was ignoring her dinner as she scrawled furiously on a piece of paper.

  “What’s that?” Ilse reached out and stroked her hair.

  “Daddy was supposed to go to Lehmann’s Hill, and he never came back.”

  Ilse’s hand stilled on her daughter’s head. “Daddy didn’t go to the hill, Lo. That has nothing to do with why he didn’t come back.”

  “I know that. I know why Daddy didn’t come back.”

  No one said anything for a long moment.

  “Why is that, Lo?” Harry’s voice cut through the silence.

  The girl raised her eyes and, realizing everyone was watching her, looked straight down again.

  “Lois? I asked you a question.”

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” Lo’s voice was barely audible.

  Ilse put an arm around her. “That’s okay, sweetheart.”

  “Let her talk, Ilse,” Harry said.

  “She doesn’t want to.”

  “She did a second ago.”

  “She’s a child, Harry.”

  “I want to know what she meant—”

  “Ilse’s right.” It was the first time Liz had spoken since they’d sat down. She had been crying again, Nathan could tell. She had lost weight in the past few days, and the skin on her face looked slack. “You’re scaring her, Harry.”

  Lo sat very still, her eyes on the table, then finally picked up her pencil and continued drawing.

  “Daddy didn’t come back because he was sad,” Lo said to the paper. “About all those things going missing.”

  There was an audible collective sigh of relief around the table.

  “Oh God, this again. It’s okay, Lo.” Ilse took her daughter’s free hand and held it between her own. She saw Nathan and Xander’s confusion. “Lo was a bit scared for a while that there was a burglar—”

  “There is!” Lo snatched her hand away. Her scribbling became more furious.

  “Sweetheart, there’s not—”

  “Or a ghost, then.”

  “No ghost either,” Ilse said. She gave a tiny shake of her head and looked at Nathan. “She thought a few things had got lost. Some of your toys and bits and pieces went walkabout, didn’t they, Lo?”

  “They didn’t go w
alkabout! Someone was here and took them.”

  At the other end of the table, Simon gave an awkward laugh. “Maybe it was Santa,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

  Lo gave him a look that could kill a cow. “Not Santa.” She left the dickhead implied. “Someone else. Someone bad.”

  She was getting upset now, and Ilse took the pencil from her hand.

  “Lo, if someone was on the property, we would know. No one has been here.” But as Ilse glanced at the night sky darkening in the window, Nathan caught a hesitation in her voice. “We thought a few things had gone missing, but we found them again, didn’t we?”

  “What kinds of things?” Xander shifted in his seat.

  “My toys and clothes,” Lo said.

  “But we found them,” Ilse replied firmly.

  “Not all of them, and not straight away. Anyway,” Lo pushed her mother’s hand away, “Daddy never found his things.”

  “What do you mean?” Harry said.

  Lo didn’t answer. She looked nervous. Her hand inched toward her confiscated pencil, and she hid her face behind her hair.

  “No,” Harry said, his voice unusually sharp. “Answer please, Lo.”

  “Sweetheart.” Ilse leaned in. “What things?”

  “Money, I think,” Lo whispered. Nathan was struggling to hear her. “And other things. I don’t know what. Daddy was searching, but he couldn’t find them.”

  “How much money are we talking?” Harry said, and Ilse glared at him.

  “For God’s sake, she struggles to count to a hundred, she’s not going to know that. Anyway, Cam wasn’t missing money. Or anything else. Don’t make things worse.”

  Lo’s eyebrows shot up. “He was! He was, Mummy. He was looking everywhere. Someone has been here—”

  “Jenna.”

  The name floated out under someone’s breath. Nathan wasn’t sure who had spoken until Liz pointed sharply across the table.

  “Shut it, Bub. I mean it.”

  “—And Daddy had lost things.” Lo’s voice was rising. “I know, I saw him. He was looking in the sheds and the stables and everywhere. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, Mummy.”