by Jane Harper
“Neither. I’d do what’s best for the property.” Nathan saw his son’s expression. “I would.”
“All right. Does Bub know that, though? Or Ilse?”
“Yeah, of course.” Nathan frowned. Of course they knew, because it was the truth.
“Well, that’s okay, then.” Xander opened another cupboard.
Nathan pulled a new box off a shelf. It seemed to hold nothing more than old electrical wiring. He stifled a yawn. He was getting tired now, but didn’t want to be the one to pull the pin. He sifted through it half-heartedly, looking at the black square of night outside the door. There was nothing to see, but Nathan knew he was facing south. Somewhere in the distance lay the stockman’s grave and, beyond that, his own property.
His house would be empty, over the invisible horizon, but he could almost feel it sucking him in. It was actually a pretty decent house, with nice enough furniture. Jacqui hadn’t bothered taking a single thing other than Xander when she’d left. It was the land around the house that was the problem. It was a constant headache, but it was Nathan’s livelihood, and he simply could not afford to let it slide, not even a bit. But sometimes, all the time, really, he wished he had somewhere else to go. He hated that house. The place felt like a black hole that extinguished all the light in his life.
He had seriously considered abandoning the property, several times. Simply leaving the door swinging open and driving away. Maybe try to get some work in the mines out west, but he worried he was getting a bit old for that now. And while Nathan could abandon the land, he couldn’t abandon the debts on it. They stayed on the bank’s balance sheets and would still need to be paid off somehow. Thank God that Liz and Harry had convinced him to keep his sixth of Burley Downs. After expenses, the income from that wasn’t enough to keep him afloat, but at least it was something.
“Sell your place to Cam,” Harry had said two Christmases ago, after a particularly bad year had left Nathan white-faced with stress. “You’re always going to struggle on your own. Let him buy you out, mate. Get the scale.”
Nathan had said he’d think about it. By that point, he had already privately asked his brother three times. Cam would dutifully pore over the spreadsheet Nathan had prepared, asking questions and stroking his chin as Nathan tried to find positive answers where none existed. Cam always responded in the same way, whether Nathan was asking him to look at a spreadsheet or begging him, years earlier, to put in a good word in town.
Cam would pause, for a fraction of a beat. Just as Nathan had done, once, under their dad’s hard stare when the tables were turned and it was a teenage Cameron who needed the help. It still surprised Nathan how much could be conveyed in such a thin slice of silence.
Cameron’s answer was always no.
Now, though, as Nathan looked out to the south, a new thought edged to the surface. Xander was right. And Bub, for that matter. Without Cam, things were different. Without Cam, Nathan realized, he could probably push the sale through, if he could get Ilse or Bub to agree. He let himself imagine for a moment what that might mean, and suddenly, for the first time since he had driven over the crest and seen Cameron’s body under the tarp, Nathan could breathe a little more easily.
“Dad.”
He dragged his attention back to the garage. Xander was holding something square and heavy-looking and partially covered by Bubble Wrap. A large paper bag lay discarded by his feet.
“What’s that?” Nathan dusted off his hands and walked over. He could see that Cameron had written Ilse’s name on the bag in neat capital letters.
Xander moved into the light so Nathan could see what he was holding. It was one of Lo’s paintings, and it had been professionally framed. It showed a family of four, with Cameron fully recognizable alongside his wife and two daughters. Everyone in Lo’s picture was smiling, for once.
“There’s a card as well.” Xander held it out.
It was a small square with a picture of lilies on the front. Nathan could tell from Xander’s face that he’d already read what was inside. Nathan opened it and read the words in Cameron’s distinctive handwriting.
Forgive me.
20
In the morning, Ilse was already gone.
Nathan had woken far later than usual, opening his eyes to find daylight creeping through the curtains in the living room. He and Xander had stayed up too long, the hurricane lamp burning in the garage as they sat and stared at Cameron’s words.
Forgive me.
Eventually, Nathan had taken the card and put it in his pocket.
“You going to show it to Ilse?” Xander had said.
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
But the house was quiet as Nathan dressed. From the window, he could make out the small shapes of Sophie and Lo playing some sort of game in the garden, while Liz watched. Even from that distance, Nathan could see the slump to her shoulders, and the exhausted curve of her spine. There was no sign of Ilse with them.
Neither was she in the kitchen, where Katy was cleaning up alone, or in her office. Nathan walked back down the hall and checked on Xander, who was still sleeping. Relaxed against the pillow, his face looked younger than it had the night before. Nathan closed the door. Across the hallway was the girls’ bedroom. It had been Cameron’s room when they were kids. Nathan stood, remembering all those bleary-eyed pre-dawn mornings when he had opened his door and come face to face with his brother. Since taking over the property, Cameron had slept in the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Cameron and Ilse, anyway. Liz had moved to the smaller bedroom across from the girls, where she’d said she was happier.
The door of the master bedroom was open, and Nathan wandered up and peered inside. The big items of furniture didn’t look like they had been replaced since the room had belonged to his mum and dad, but the space was unfamiliar beyond that. Someone, Ilse presumably, had painted the walls and added photos of the girls and a few other personal touches.
The room looked cared for but now felt—Nathan tried to put his finger on it—disturbed. The bed was made, but badly, and the deep dents in the pillows hinted at a poor night’s sleep. Old coffee cups left clusters of rings on the bedside table, on Ilse’s side, he guessed. A bottle of painkillers stood among them with its cap off. A few pills were scattered loose beside the cups.
Nathan glanced back at the girls’ room, then at the bottle on the table. He hesitated, then walked in, the floorboards creaking loudly under his boots. He gathered up the loose pills, tipped them into the bottle, and clicked the safety cap on. He checked the label. It was only over-the-counter paracetamol, but there were a lot of tablets in the bottle. He stood there for a while, then returned the bottle to where he’d found it.
He stepped out into the hall and grunted as he collided heavily with someone in the shadows. They both stumbled. It took Nathan a beat to place the man in front of him in the dim light.
Simon.
Simon’s gaze flicked past Nathan to the bedroom behind him, then settled with an expression that was hard to read.
“I’ve been trying to find you,” he said.
“I was looking for Ilse.” Nathan could hear the defensive note in his tone and cleared his throat. He didn’t have to explain.
“She went riding along the drive about an hour ago.”
“Oh. Thanks. And what did you want?”
“Phone call for you.”
“For me?” Nathan couldn’t think of a single person who would want to speak to him. “Who is it?”
Simon shrugged. “Someone you’ve been trying to reach, apparently.”
* * *
It was the electrical contractor.
“Dave,” Nathan said, as he heard the man’s voice. “How’s my coolroom?”
“I couldn’t tell you, mate. I was out at your place on Friday like we arranged, but I couldn’t get in.”
“To the coolroom?”
“To your house. It was locked.”
“But—” Nathan squeezed his eyes shut. “Sh
it.”
The only time he ever bothered to lock his doors was when Xander was staying. The chance of the kid’s laptop getting stolen was zero, but it seemed to make Xander feel better. Dave’s voice was crystal clear down the line. That didn’t bode well. He must be somewhere well populated. “Please tell me you’re still in the area,” Nathan said anyway.
“Nup, sorry. Had to head home. Christmas with the kids.”
“Christ.” Nathan had been waiting three weeks for the contractor to get enough jobs to make the trip from St. Helens worth his while. “You couldn’t have broken in?”
“Well, I could have.” Dave sounded mildly offended. “But I didn’t know how you’d feel about that.”
“I would have felt fine about it. I need the bloody thing working.”
Dave allowed a brief silence to convey his displeasure with Nathan’s tone. Nathan took a breath.
“Sorry, mate. Not your fault. When are you coming back?”
“Not ’til the first week of Feb.”
“February!”
“And only if another couple of jobs come in.”
“I can’t wait until then. I need it fixed now. Harry reckons the water might be coming.”
“If it floods, I’ll be even longer.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Look, I can talk you through a few ideas,” Dave said. “Got a pen?”
Nathan scrabbled about and found one under the phone. The battered family logbook lay open on the side table, and he flipped to a fresh page near the back. He started making notes.
“I’ve already tried that,” he said a few minutes in.
“All right, well, in that case…” Dave started talking again. Nathan stopped writing after a few words. He’d tried that, too. He was pretty sure the coolroom needed a part. He started to close the logbook, then stopped. As Dave continued speaking in his ear, Nathan flicked back a few pages.
Anyone going farther than the homestead fence was supposed to make a note of where they were going and when they expected to return. In theory, the logbook was filled in every time. In practice, it was clearly done only as often as anyone remembered.
Only half listening now, Nathan read over the most recent entries. Harry was presently out inspecting a water bore, apparently, while Ilse—Nathan traced his finger over her writing—was indeed riding in the paddock bordering the driveway. As Simon had said. It was the same place she’d been the morning Cameron disappeared, Nathan remembered. When her husband had stopped to talk to her for the final time before he drove away.
“I’m sorry, mate,” Dave was saying, and Nathan tuned into the phone conversation again. The man was clearly waiting for a response.
“Thanks anyway, I’ll have another crack at fixing it myself,” Nathan said.
“I wasn’t talking about the coolroom.” Dave’s frown was almost audible down the line. “I said I was sorry to hear what happened to Cameron.”
“Oh. Right. Thanks.”
“I liked him a lot. He was a good bloke.”
“Yeah.”
“What a bloody shock it must have been.”
“It was.”
“Any idea what, you know, made him do it?”
Nathan flicked the logbook back to the date that Cam had gone missing. He saw his brother’s firm capital letters: LEHMANN’s HILL. Nathan felt something hard in his chest. Cameron had expected to return the following day by dinnertime, if not before, according to the book. Nathan pulled Cameron’s card out of his back pocket. Two words in the same handwriting. Forgive me.
“No,” Nathan said. “No idea.”
The line above Cameron’s entry was filled with Liz’s cursive letters, noting that she’d taken Sophie’s horse for a hack, due back that afternoon. On the line above that, Harry had written that he and Simon would be out checking the bores, with an expected return by dinner. Bub’s misspelled scrawl the previous day noted that he would be staying out in the north paddock before driving to Lehmann’s Hill to meet his brother. Nathan ran a finger down the surrounding lines. There were no other entries for the day Cameron had gone missing. He flipped back and forward a few pages, then closed the book.
“Anyway, mate,” Dave was saying. There was an awkward note in his voice. “I realize this isn’t a great time for you, but I’m still going to have to invoice you.”
“Right.” It came out more bitter than he intended.
“No choice, I’m afraid. It costs me a hundred in fuel to come up that north road.”
“I know.” Nathan’s heart sank, as it always did these days when money was involved.
“Look, seeing as it’s Christmas, I’ll knock a bit off the call-out fee.”
“Yeah? Thank you.”
“No worries. I had to be at Atherton anyway on Thursday, so it wasn’t a totally wasted trip.”
“You were out at Atherton?” Something snagged in Nathan’s mind. He reached out, but the thought dissolved before he could grasp it.
“Yeah, generator problems. And sorry again to hear about Cam. Bloody shame no one saw him in time to help.”
That tug again. Sharper this time, but gone as quickly.
“Thanks, Dave.”
“Good luck with the coolroom.”
Nathan would need it. He hung up and stared at the phone for a long minute. Finally, he turned to head outside and jumped as he saw someone leaning against the door to Ilse’s office, watching him. Simon, again. Nathan wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“Did you want something else?” Nathan started to walk past him, but Simon took a dithery half-step at the same time, and they came to an awkward halt.
“Have the police said any more about what they think happened to Cameron?”
“No. Why?”
“Just interested. I liked him a lot. But the police are taking it seriously?”
“I suppose. But it’s pretty much only the one cop around here anyway.”
“I know. That’s so weird.” Simon gave a half-laugh. “Is he coming out here to talk to us all?”
“To the house?” The guy hummed with a nervous energy that made Nathan itch. “Is it a problem if he does?”
“No. Of course not.” Simon opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. They stared at each other.
“How did you say you met Cam again?”
“In the pub. When we arrived in town.”
“From out West.”
“That’s right.”
“Quite hard to get here from out West this time of year,” Nathan said. “Desert routes are mostly closed.”
“Tell me about it. We had to take the scenic route. Looped south.”
“Right.” There were always more jobs than backpackers willing to do them in the outback, but Nathan wondered why Cam had picked this pair. There wasn’t even much to do that time of year. He thought about his phone call the night before. Thank you for thinking of Northern Blooms! “Where did you say you guys were from again?”
“In England? Hampshire.”
“Is that in the north?”
“No. South. Why?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Is it something to do with that woman you’re all talking about? Jenna?” Simon’s voice was low and made Nathan turn his head.
“Do you know something about that? Or about her?”
Simon caught his tone. “No. Of course not. Why would I?”
“You’re the one who brought her up.”
“Look—” Simon glanced at the kitchen where they could hear Katy clattering dishes. “I’ve approached this all wrong. You don’t know us, I get that. But whatever’s happened with your brother—” Simon lowered his voice another notch. “It’s not me or Katy you need to be worrying about.”
Nathan frowned. The guy was so skittish he was hard to read. “What do you mean? Should I be worried about someone else?”
“Maybe not worried, exactly—”
“That’s what you said.”<
br />
“—I know, I meant, if you were—”
“For God’s sake, say it or don’t, mate.”
Simon swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I heard Cameron having an argument. With Harry. The week before he died.”
“So?” Nathan said, because he couldn’t think how else to respond.
From outside, he heard the faint sound of someone calling his name. “Nathan?”
Ilse. He turned toward her voice, then made himself look back and focus on Simon.
“I thought you’d want to know,” Simon was saying. “One night when Harry was going to turn the generator off. I heard them from the caravan. Not the specifics, I wasn’t trying to listen in, but there were definitely words exchanged.”
“Nathan?” Outside, Ilse’s boots clattered up the wooden steps of the veranda.
Simon took a half-step closer. “Listen, Cameron sounded pissed off. More than I’d heard him before. And Harry was getting angry, saying that he’d lived here for more than forty years, been around longer than Cameron had. Something like: ‘I know more about what’s going on here than you think.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.” Simon shrugged. “And that was pretty much it. I think Harry walked away then. And I might not have thought too much of it, but—”
He stopped as the screen door opened at the end of the hall. Ilse appeared in the light of the doorway.
“Oh, good. There you are,” she said. She sounded a little breathless. “Harry’s not around. Are you free? I need your help.”
“Yep. Give me a sec.” Nathan turned back to Simon. “But what? Quick.”
“But then, Harry has never mentioned it.”
21
They had left the track three kilometers earlier, and the wheels of Nathan’s car bumped over the uneven ground.
“Hopefully, it’s still stuck,” Ilse said as the holding pen came into sight in the distance.
“Yeah.” Nathan hoped so too. A calf tangled in the fence wire was one thing; trying to catch a calf running free with wire wrapped around it was an absolute pain in the arse.