The Lost Man

by Jane Harper

  “What’s this painting of, Lo?” Nathan prompted.

  “It’s obviously the stockman’s grave,” Sophie snapped. The chatty girl from the previous evening was gone. Her expression was wary, and Nathan could see her good hand grip the reins even more tightly.

  “I didn’t know you’d been out there.”

  “Once. With Mummy.”

  Nathan pointed at the shadowy woman. “That’s your mum, there?”

  “Of course,” Sophie cut in before Lo could answer. “Who else would it be?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan said, truthfully. “Maybe a friend of hers?”

  “Mummy doesn’t have any friends. What?” Lo said as Sophie scowled at her. “None of us do.”

  “So you went out there with your mum?” Xander said. “When?”

  “Ages ago,” Lo said.

  “No, not ages ago. Just after I hurt my arm.” Sophie’s horse twisted again, and she was forced to whip her head around to look at Nathan.

  “What did you do there?”

  The sisters glanced at each other, but Nathan had the sense they were not being deliberately evasive.

  “Nothing. We got there, but then—” Sophie frowned. “We just drove home again. Mum said it was supposed to be a picnic.”

  “But we didn’t have any food,” Lo said.

  “We did. Later, remember? We had it by the stables instead.”

  Lo frowned, her tiny face creasing.

  “We only stayed at the grave for a few minutes,” Sophie said.

  “Yeah.” Lo nodded. “I didn’t like it.”

  “And nothing else happened? At all?” Nathan watched his nieces shake their heads. “All right. Thanks, girls.”

  Sophie’s horse was still straining, and Nathan could see the whites of its eyes as they rolled. She loosened the reins and shot off across the yard.

  Lo remained behind, her pony more docile. “Is Mummy going to be in trouble?”

  “No. Why would she be?”

  “Because you look sad.”

  Did he? “Sorry.” Nathan rearranged his face into what he hoped was a more neutral expression. He started to close the sketchbook, then stopped. “Why didn’t you finish drawing your mum in the picture?”

  Lo, suddenly unsure, looked for her sister, who was out of earshot across the yard. She faltered, then leaned in on her pony.

  “Daddy didn’t like it,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He saw my picture and was cross with Mummy. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

  * * *

  Ilse was no longer in the stables by the time Nathan had led the girls’ horses back. Lo had been distracted, losing concentration and control of her pony a couple of times. She didn’t know why Daddy was upset, she’d said, she just thought that he was. Nathan and Xander had exchanged a look as Lo grew increasingly worried, and hadn’t pushed it. After Lo nearly fell off for a second time, Nathan asked Xander to take the girls inside and find something safer to do. He’d walked the horses to the stables and taken his time settling them in as he thought about things.

  It was as he was walking the long way back that he heard the sound. He was under a window outside one of the cabins and stopped. The soft catch of breath. Someone was crying. He walked around the front and up the steps.

  The inside of the cabin was a surprise. It had been converted into a proper schoolroom, with a whiteboard and small desks, and alphabet posters covering the walls. A lot of it appeared homemade, and Nathan thought he recognized Ilse’s handiwork on much of it.

  Katy was sitting in a large beanbag in the reading corner. She wiped her eyes as Nathan came in.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I heard you outside.”

  “It’s okay.” Katy blew her nose on a shredded tissue. With a little difficulty, she pulled herself out of the beanbag and stood up. “I should be getting back anyway.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you want me to get Simon?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  Nathan found a roll of paper towel by the art station and handed her a sheet. “Just take a minute.”

  “Thanks.” Katy took it gratefully and wiped her eyes.

  Nathan wandered around while she gathered herself. The classroom was a lot nicer than anything he and Cam and Bub had had when they were kids. Their schoolwork was mostly done at the kitchen table or not at all. On the teacher’s desk was a laptop with some Post-it Notes written in what he presumed was Katy’s handwriting.

  A thick teaching folder supplied by School of the Air lay open, and Nathan remembered his conversation with Sophie on the veranda.

  I don’t think she’s a real teacher.

  He looked up. Katy was blowing her nose again. He flicked through a few pages in the folder. The lessons were all laid out for the home supervisor to follow.

  Introduce the unit, he read. Hold up the book and say to students: “Today we will be exploring picture books. We will be learning about characters in this story.” Show students the front cover. Ask them to read the title out loud.

  Nathan frowned. He read on. The instructions were all there. It didn’t seem too hard to supervise if you followed them. He thought he could have a crack at it himself, at a push. He closed the folder and saw Katy watching him.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Yes.” Her voice was a touch too bright, and her makeup had smudged slightly, making her eyes look strangely dramatic. “I’m just a bit homesick. I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you going back to the house?” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

  She opened the cabin door, and he followed her down the steps into the blinding daylight.

  “Are you in charge here now?” Katy said as they walked.

  “Me? No.”

  “Who is, then?”

  It was a good question. “Ilse, I suppose. It depends what you want.” Nathan looked over in time to see something flicker across the woman’s face.

  “Simon and I need to move on soon. Not because of what’s happened,” Katy added quickly. “I’d actually discussed it with Cameron but—” She stopped.

  “Right,” Nathan said. “When were you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure. Soon. Next week, maybe. I have to check with Simon.”

  “Just make sure you say goodbye to someone before you go. If a worker goes missing, we’re required to report it, in case they’re—” He stopped. Lying dead in the middle of nowhere. “For their own safety.”

  “It’s not that we’re not grateful for the work,” Katy said quickly.

  “It’s fine. No one stays forever. Will you go back to England?”

  “I want to but—” Katy shook her head. “Simon isn’t ready yet. He likes it out here.”

  “Right,” Nathan said again. He had the distinct sense he was missing something. “You two been together long?”

  “Three years.” Her voice was completely flat. “We’re engaged.”

  That may be so, but Bub was right for once, Nathan thought with some surprise. She wasn’t happy.

  “If you need to talk to someone,” he said eventually, “someone not on the property, I mean, there’s always Steve at the clinic.”

  “Why do you say that?” Katy said, a sudden sharpness in her face.

  “No reason. Sometimes workers have stuff they don’t want to discuss with their employers. That’s all.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Sorry. I’m not usually like this, I promise. I’m struggling a bit with everything that’s happened.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”

  “My head’s all over the place,” Katy said. “I know Cameron was your brother, and I’d only known him a few months, but I can’t stop thinking about what happened.”

  Across the yard, the windows of the house were dark against the daylight. There was no one else around, and it felt like they were all alone. Harry’s car was still absent from the driveway.

 
; Nathan hesitated, feeling a little treacherous. “Simon said he heard Cameron and Harry arguing one night.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” Katy said. “He mentioned that. It can’t have been too much of an argument, though. I slept through it.”

  “Do you think Simon might have got the wrong end of the stick?”

  “I don’t know. Simon liked Cameron a lot. He thought he was a good boss, and he liked working here. It’s possible he read more into it than there was. Having said that—”

  She slowed her pace, then stopped entirely.

  “What?” he said.

  “Listen, I just work here,” Katy said finally. She gazed out across the yard. “I didn’t take this job looking to make friends or get involved, definitely not in anything like this. I’m just trying to earn some money.” She turned to look at him. “And I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s something really messed up about what happened to Cameron.”

  Nathan waited, the silence pressing in on them.

  “When I saw Cam that last morning, he told me he’d be back the next day,” Katy said. “And I can’t explain, so don’t ask, but I’m sure that he meant it. I don’t know what happened in between, but that morning Cameron was planning on coming home. I wish someone else had been there to see him. Simon, or the girls, even. They’d tell you.”

  “Well, there was Ilse.” Nathan hesitated. “She saw him.”

  “Yeah. I suppose she did.” Katy started walking toward the house again.

  “And she reckons he said much the same as he said to you. That he’d be back the next day.”

  “Well.” A small shrug. “I was too far away to hear, so we’ll have to take Ilse’s word for it.”

  “And yours.”

  Katy looked up at his tone, then gave a hard half-smile. “That’s true. Although—”

  She broke off suddenly, looking at the house. Nathan followed her gaze and could see a shadow in one of the windows that had previously been empty. Simon. He was looking out at them, his eyes hidden by the reflection of the glass.

  Katy started walking faster, and Nathan jogged a couple of paces to catch up.

  “Although what?” he said. “What were you about to say?”

  “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.”

  “Honestly, I’m not looking to cause trouble. I’m trying to mind my own business.”

  “Come on, Katy.” Nathan stopped walking. “Please. He’s dead.”

  “I know that.” But she stopped. “All right. It’s just, if that’s the only thing Cameron and Ilse said to each other that morning, they took their time getting it out.” She seemed to debate for a moment. “Plus, Ilse didn’t wave him off as he drove away.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Maybe not.” Katy’s dark, smudged eyes gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. “But when you leave, she waves to you.”

  They stared at each other, then Katy shrugged.

  “I told you it was nothing.” She shoved the tissue into her jeans pocket. “Thanks for before, by the way. I feel better now.”

  He watched her walk away. When Nathan next looked back toward the house, Simon was gone, and every window was dark again.

  23

  Up close, Nathan thought, it was interesting how things could appear so different. He stood alone in the living room, his nose near to Cameron’s painting. The image of the stockman’s grave hung on the wall at eye level. Outside, the night was drawing in, and it was hard to see the detail properly under the artificial glow of the ceiling light. Still, it was mildly hypnotic, examining the lines of the brushwork and the way two colors bled together into something new. He was about to move away when his gaze snagged on the left edge of the painting. There was a dark smudge on the horizon that he’d never noticed before. It was a muted gray mark, and faint to the point of transparency.

  Nathan frowned and leaned in. What on earth was that supposed to be? A person? A shadow? Just a dirty mark? He reached out and lightly ran his thumb over it. No, definitely paint. Deliberate and permanent on Cam’s part, then.

  “Cameron would kill you for that.” Ilse’s voice came from the doorway, and he turned. “Don’t touch the picture. Golden Rule in this house.”

  Nathan put his hands up and took a step back.

  “That’s probably safer.” She gave him a weary smile. He could hear the sounds of dinner being cleared away in the kitchen. The meal had been mostly silent and entirely subdued.

  “Ilse—” he said as she turned to leave.

  She stopped, waiting.

  “I was talking to the girls earlier. They said you’d taken them out there.” Nathan nodded at the picture.

  “To the grave?” Ilse said. “How did that come up?”

  “Lo drew a picture of it.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Right. Of course.” She came into the room and joined him in front of the painting. “It was a stupid idea. I took them there for a picnic a few weeks ago, after Sophie hurt her arm. I was trying to come up with something to take her mind off it, and I thought seeing the grave in person might help Lo. Remove the mystery, I guess.”

  “Sophie said you didn’t stay long.”

  “No.” Ilse gave a half-laugh. “I knew it was a bad plan the minute we got there. It was too hot. Lo was scared. I pretty much bundled them back into the car and drove home. It was a long way to go for five minutes, but it was for the best. We ended up having a picnic by the stables instead. I should’ve done that in the first place.”

  Ilse was staring at Cameron’s painting, then, slowly, she took another step in, until she was as close to the canvas as Nathan had been.

  “Cameron wasn’t happy when he heard we’d been out there,” she said. Nathan couldn’t see her face now.

  “Why not?”

  “He didn’t like it that I took the girls so far. He said it was too isolated and exposed for this time of year.” Ilse leaned in, examining the solid dark paint of the grave. She raised a hand slowly and extended her index finger. “He said it was dangerous.”

  Her finger hovered, an inch from the canvas. “It’s kind of funny,” she said in a voice that suggested it wasn’t funny at all, “how it turned out he was right.”

  Half an inch.

  “No! Don’t touch the painting, Mummy!”

  The voice at the doorway sounded horrified. Nathan turned to see Sophie, open-mouthed. Ilse immediately curled her fingers into a fist and dropped her hand.

  “Daddy’s painting is off limits,” Sophie recited.

  “I know.” Ilse stepped away and relief and confusion crossed Sophie’s face. She caught sight of the beer in Nathan’s hand.

  “No food or drinks near the picture either.”

  “Yes, we both know, Soph,” Ilse said. “No one was touching it, we were just looking.”

  “It’s bad luck. The stockman will get upset.”

  Ilse appeared to be fighting not to roll her eyes. She succeeded, barely. “Sweetheart, the only person who got upset about fingerprints on the painting was Dad. Come on, it’s time for bed anyway.”

  Sophie threw a final warning look at Nathan, then reluctantly disappeared back into the hall. Ilse went to follow, pausing at the door.

  “She’s right, though,” she said. “Cam really hated anyone touching the painting.”

  “I’d better leave it alone, then.”

  She nodded as she left. By himself once more, Nathan collapsed onto the couch. As he took a mouthful of beer, his eye was drawn to the darkened window. He paused, bottle halfway to his mouth. Something was different. The night was somehow not as black as it had been.

  Nathan hauled himself to his feet and looked out through the glass. His reflection stared back at him, with an expression he didn’t quite recognize. He gazed beyond it, into the night. From the angle of the window, it took him a moment to process what he was seeing.

  A pair of headlights, their beams piercing through the dark. He co
uld hear a soft hum. In the otherwise empty driveway, Cameron’s car was running.

  * * *

  The white light was blinding. Nathan put his arm up to shield his eyes from the headlights, but it made no difference. His night vision was shot. He stood alone on the driveway. He couldn’t see into the car. He could see nothing, in fact, but the brilliant cones of light.

  He made himself walk straight to the driver’s side, and his hand was on the door when it clicked open. The interior light went on. It was no match for the headlights, and it still took Nathan’s eyes a minute to adjust.

  Xander sat behind the wheel.

  “Jesus.” Nathan dropped his hand. “You scared me.”

  Xander said nothing, just stared out through the windscreen. Nathan walked around the front of the car, his shadow slicing through the perfect beams of light. He tried to open the passenger-side door. It was locked. For a split second, Nathan realized he wasn’t sure what his son was going to do next. A beat passed. Then Xander leaned over, lifted the old manual door lock, and let him in.

  “You couldn’t have turned the lights down?” Nathan blinked. “I can’t see a thing.”

  No apology. That was new. His vision still a little dazzled, Nathan looked at his teenage son slumped in the seat, and possibly for the first time ever, found himself wondering what his ex-wife would advise.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Nothing.” That was probably partly true. Xander wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and the car was in neutral with the air conditioner running. It didn’t look like he’d been planning on going anywhere.

  “Okay.” Nathan sat back. In the ghostly glow of the headlights, he could see the smear of dead insects and baked-on dust on the glass. A large part of his reluctance around fatherhood, he had realized after Xander was born, had been fear. It had been deep and ingrained in a way that Nathan tried to keep buried. He had not told Jacqui. Instead, he had stumbled his way through by thinking about how his own father would react to any given situation, and then—with sustained effort at times—doing exactly the opposite. A lot of the time, that meant simply shutting his mouth, so that’s what he did now.

  He settled in, making himself comfortable against the worn car seat. Xander turned his head but didn’t say anything as Nathan closed his eyes. Nathan wasn’t worried; he could do silence better than anyone he knew. He could literally go weeks without speaking, and had done, several times. Xander, raised amid city bustle and constant noise, would talk first.