The Lost Man

by Jane Harper

  “I really liked Uncle Cam.”

  Nathan opened his eyes. Not even three minutes, he could see from the clock on the dashboard.

  “It’s strange without him.” Xander’s voice was quiet.

  “I know.” Nathan did understand. Sometimes he felt that everywhere he looked here, he was reminded of Cameron. The pair of them practicing cricket in the yard as kids, pushing themselves to outdo each other on horses as teenagers, trying to make a living from the land as men. Cameron had always been methodical in his approach to life. He had thought through what he needed to do to achieve his desired outcome, then he’d done exactly that. Nathan leaned more toward having a crack and hoping for the best. Cameron’s way proved better, time after time.

  “I came out to search a bit more.” Xander nodded at the nearest shed. “See if I could work out what Uncle Cam might have lost.”

  “If Lo was right.”

  “Well, yeah, exactly. Who knows?” Xander shook his head. “And it’s pointless anyway. You could search for something until you died out here and never find it. There’s too much bloody space.”

  “I suppose.”

  “It’s true.” Xander turned to Nathan, his voice more urgent. “I’ve been thinking. You should leave here.”

  Nathan blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Leave your property. Move away. Do something completely different.”

  “Like what? What are you talking about?”

  “Come to Brisbane.”

  “I can’t come to Brisbane. What would I do in Brisbane?” Nathan tried to imagine himself. Concrete under his boots. Walls everywhere. Cars all over the place.

  “Do anything,” Xander was saying. “There must be some other job you could do. Work in a park or something. It doesn’t have to be in an office.”

  “What about the property?”

  “Abandon it.”

  “I can’t, mate.” Nathan lowered his voice, even though they were the only ones around. “I can’t afford to. I owe the bank. I’d need to sell.”

  “Then sell!”

  “Jesus, Xander. Who to?”

  “I don’t know. Just get rid of it somehow. Please, Dad. You need to leave. It’s not good out here.”

  “What’s wrong, mate? Why are you suddenly saying this?” He knew exactly why.

  “Because.”

  Nathan waited. Less than thirty seconds this time.

  “Because I don’t want you to end up like Uncle Cameron.”

  “Xander—”

  “What?” Xander snapped. “It’s not going to happen? Is that what you’re going to say? Let me guess, you’re absolutely fine and there’s no way you would consider doing what Uncle Cam did.”

  Nathan didn’t reply.

  “Because everyone thought Cam was fine,” Xander went on. “Okay, maybe not completely fine, these past couple of weeks. But way better than you.”

  Nathan had never seen his son like this, and it scared him a little.

  “No one ever says you’re fine, Dad. When I come to visit, or talk to Grandma on the phone. No one ever says you’re doing well.”

  Nathan was quiet.

  “Harry said you got rid of your gun license.”

  “For Christ’s sake. Harry should mind his own business.”

  “Are you going to get it back?”

  “Yeah, I can do, seeing as it’s causing everyone so much concern.” Nathan tried to make his voice light. “I thought you’d be happy, anyway. You’re always off marching in those bloody rallies.”

  “You don’t trust yourself around them. Why would that make me happy?” Xander sounded suddenly exhausted.

  “That’s not the reason, mate.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No.” Nathan looked over. “No. I mean, there’s a whole rifle cabinet here, isn’t there? I don’t have any problem with that.”

  “You’re not all alone here.”

  Nathan made himself breathe in and out, deep and long, until he felt a little calmer. “Listen. I’m sorry. It’s not your job to worry—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Xander cut in. “Do something about it. Move away. Somewhere where there are other people. Make a fresh start. Maybe Mum could lend you some money. I know she left you but—”

  “The split was mutual, thanks, mate.”

  “—but she’s a lot happier since she’s been with Martin. I bet they’d help if I asked—”

  “Don’t ask. I mean it, Xander. Do not ask your mum.”

  “Jesus, Dad, then you have to do something. Are you listening?” Xander ran a hand through his hair. “I’m afraid, all right? That the property, and all this—” He gestured at the void outside the window. “—all this bloody outback—is going to get to you, like it did to Uncle Cam.”

  The silence between them was almost louder than the thrum of the engine. Nathan hadn’t realized it was possible to feel worse about his situation. “You don’t need to be scared. What can I do to make you feel better?”

  “You can turn your own radio on, for starters.”

  “Okay. Easy.”

  “And use it once in a while. Let people know you’re alive.”

  “I already do that. I have that system.” A year ago, after Nathan had been flooded and unreachable by phone for two weeks, Harry had driven over and presented him with a simple GPS satellite tracker.

  “I’ve been sent to give you this,” he said. “You press this button for okay; this button for not okay. It sends a signal to Burley Downs. Press it every night, Nathan, no excuses.” So Nathan did.

  “You should get another dog, as well,” Xander said.

  “I don’t want another one.”

  “I bet no one would mind if you took Cam’s dog. She seems to like you.”

  “I don’t want her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want someone to bait her like they did with Kelly.”

  Xander was quiet. “I thought Kelly wasn’t actually baited, in the end?”

  “She was.” Nathan shook his head. “You think I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “No, I do. I believe you. Just, I thought Glenn said there was no bait found, and she must have been sick or something.”

  “How do you know what Glenn said?”

  “He told me last time I was here.”

  “Right. Good.” Nathan stared straight ahead. There was a sharpness between them that he wasn’t used to.

  “Look, Dad, people are only worried because it doesn’t take much for things to go wrong out here. And everyone knows you have it harder than anybody. Harder than Uncle Cam, and—” Xander sighed. “I mean, even he couldn’t cope with it in the end.”

  “I know things haven’t been great lately. But honestly, the problem’s not the property, mate. Not just that, anyway.”

  “What, then?”

  Nathan didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know. Lots of things. I’ve made some bad choices. Done some stupid things. That thing with bloody Kei—with your granddad.”

  He didn’t go on, but it was such a well-worn path he could navigate it with his eyes closed. All those what-ifs. What if he hadn’t been in town that day? What if he had filled up with fuel the night before, and hadn’t run into his father-in-law? What if he’d driven home an hour earlier or later and never seen Keith stopped by the side of the road? What if he hadn’t driven past a man in need of help? What if he had been a better man?

  That brought Nathan’s thoughts to a halt, in the same place, every time. The answers swirled lazily in the air above the shining, shimmering road not taken.

  “It’s not just the property, Xander,” he said again. That was true, he thought, as he listened to the purr of his brother’s car beneath them. It was also a silent radio, and the fact that he couldn’t get decent workers, and a sea of red bank statements, and a broken coolroom, and now, he remembered with a flash of irritation at his son as he recalled his locked house, an invoice from an electrical contractor wh
o he had to pay for doing bloody nothing but drive in and drive out again. It was Ilse—

  Nathan’s mind caught on something again, and his train of thought screeched to a halt. He frowned. What had made him stop? Ilse. No, not her, for once. His property? Partly, but that wasn’t it. The contractor. Maybe. Yes. What about him? Nathan tried to cast his mind back to their phone conversation earlier that day.

  “So you won’t even think about leaving?” Xander’s voice was cold in a way Nathan didn’t recognize.

  “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it—” Nathan forced himself to focus. In the back of his mind, he could feel something lying just out of reach. What had the contractor said? He hadn’t been able to fix the room. He would have to charge Nathan anyway. But he would knock some off the bill because he’d had to drive to Atherton that day anyway—

  “What, then?” Xander was looking at him. “What’s keeping you here? Is it Ilse? Is that it?”

  “No, mate.”

  “Whatever it is,” Xander said. “Is it more important than me?”

  “Nothing is more important than you, Xander.”

  “Then will you at least think about it? Please, Dad? Whatever happened to Cam, to make him drive out there—”

  There it was again. That loose thought again. Nathan tried to grasp it and separate out the strand. It was lost in a murky tangle.

  “—I don’t want that to happen to you, Dad, okay?”

  A pause. “Okay.” The answer came too late.

  Xander stared at him. “You’re not even listening to me.”

  “I am. Xander, mate, I am. I promise.”

  “You’re not. I can see you’re not.”

  “I am. I was just thinking—”

  “This is bullshit.” Xander opened his door.

  “Come on. Please—”

  “Forget it.” Xander turned the keys and cut the engine dead. The headlights flickered and disappeared, plunging them both into darkness. “I don’t care. Do whatever you want. I’m going to bed.”

  He tossed the car keys at Nathan and slammed the door. Cameron’s keys landed on the vinyl seat. Nathan reached down and felt the warm jagged metal and the coil of the lanyard, wrapped tightly around his fingers. He was sitting there alone in the dark with his mind freewheeling when he caught it. The thought he had been chasing. It slid up against him, cold and disturbing and fully formed.

  “Hey—” he called out into the dark, but it was too late. No one was there to hear him. Xander was gone.

  24

  Nathan’s passenger seat was empty and, for once, that felt strange. He had gotten used to Xander filling it out the last week or so. Duffy jumped up from the footwell and wagged her tail as she looked out of the window, but it wasn’t the same.

  As Nathan approached the rocky outcrop, the road was completely deserted, and the morning sun was climbing in the sky. He glanced again at the empty seat and couldn’t help thinking about the way Xander had looked at him in the pre-dawn light when Nathan had woken him to explain his plan.

  “Do you want to come?”

  Xander had just stared at him, then slowly shaken his head. “No.”

  That was fine, Nathan thought, as he slowed and pulled off the road at the hidden track. He didn’t need anyone else. It wasn’t a two-man job anyway. He found the right gap in the rocks straightaway this time, and drove through. At the top of the gentle slope was an empty space where Cameron’s car had stood four days earlier.

  Nathan had managed to catch the contractor on the phone before the sun was up. Dave hadn’t sounded happy about either the hour or the call.

  “Mate, it’s my day off. Look, I’m sorry about the coolroom, all right, but I was there like we arranged—”

  “Dave, it’s not about that. Listen, you said you drove out to Atherton on Thursday. So you went along the north road, right? Past my boundary?”

  “Yeah—”

  “What time?”

  “I dunno, I set off usual time, so would have been about eight, I suppose. Just after.”

  “So it was light then. Light enough to see?”

  “Of course. I’m not driving that bloody road in the dark.”

  “You see anything from around my place?”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything. Up on the rocks?”

  A frustrated laugh. “Not that I remember, but I’m not sure what you’re asking, mate.”

  “No, it’s all right. Me neither. Just trying to get a few things straight.”

  “That invoice is coming your way, I’m afraid.”

  “Yep. Looking forward to it.”

  Nathan had hung up and immediately dialed Glenn’s number at the cop shop. He had heard the blip in the ringtone, the telltale sign he was being diverted. Glenn McKenna had been called out to the north of his patch, the officer who answered informed him. A road train had hit a tour bus. Multiple casualties, the voice said. He was not expected back to Balamara for a couple of days.

  “What about the other one? The St. Helens cop. Sergeant Ludlow.”

  A tap of a keyboard. Multiple casualties, the voice had repeated. Ludlow had been called out to the job as well. “Can I help?” the voice said.

  “Where are you based?” Nathan asked.

  “Brisbane.”

  “So you’re not exactly in a position to be much help.”

  “I’m in a position to take a message, mate.”

  Nathan had sensed movement in the hall behind him, but when he’d turned, no one was there.

  “Tell Sergeant McKenna that Jenna Moore isn’t in the UK. I don’t know if he can check where she is, but—” Nathan hesitated. “Just tell him I need to speak to him.”

  Nathan drove to the top of the slope this time and climbed out. He left the engine and air-con running for Duffy as he opened the back of his Land Cruiser, pulling out a shovel and the marker flags he used around his own property. He looked at the ground. There was no sign that Cameron’s car had ever been there, so Nathan made his best guess, driving the flagpoles in at the points where he thought the wheels had stood.

  Twenty minutes later, Nathan was sweating hard and still unable to get the fourth post securely into the ground. Frustrated, he finally propped it up against one of the others and hoped they would hold. He climbed into his driver’s seat, and was hit by a sudden sense of déjà vu as he remembered doing exactly the same in Cameron’s abandoned car on that very spot. Not exactly the same.

  Nathan’s hands stilled on his steering wheel. He and Cameron had almost the same car, and he was parked in almost the same place, but something was different this time. He tried to picture himself a few days earlier, out here with Bub and Harry and Xander. He’d offered to drive Cam’s car home, climbed into the worn driver’s seat, reached down and adjusted the distance from the pedals—

  Nathan stopped. He and Cameron were the same height. They had been since they were teenagers. Why had he had to adjust the seat? Had either of the cops moved it during their search? Nathan didn’t think so, but he wasn’t sure. By how much had he had to correct it? Backward first, or forward? He sat there for a long while, trying to think. He couldn’t remember.

  Finally, he started his engine and drove slowly down and out through the gap. He was back on the road in minutes, heading toward the boundary where his property bordered the gravel track. He drove along the deserted road until he was sure he had gone far enough, then did a U-turn and headed back the way he’d come. He kept the speed steady, not too fast, not too slow, trying to guess what pace a contractor with only a couple of jobs lying between him and his Christmas break would do.

  He kept his eyes facing front, deliberately not scouring the rock face out of the driver’s side window. Three minutes later, he saw them.

  The flags caught his eye immediately, the poles tall against the sky and completely visible. They stayed in sight for as long as it took Nathan to breathe in and out a couple of times, then the angle of the rocks shifted in the window, and the
flags disappeared from view.

  Nathan exchanged a look with Duffy, who appeared thrilled just to be there. He turned the car around and drove back. He tried again and nearly missed them this time, turning his head barely in time to see them slip out of sight. The third time, he knew he was on alert, but he saw them clearly once again. He counted as he passed. The flags were exposed for nearly four seconds. And these were only flags, he thought. Cam’s white Land Cruiser would have been clearer.

  Nathan slowed the car as he approached the hidden gap and drove back in. He parked on the slope, thinking again about the position of Cameron’s seat as he climbed out. The poles were far easier to pull out of the ground than they’d been to put in, and he was driving away in less than a minute.

  “I was right, mate,” he supposed he would be able to say to Xander when he got back to the house. Although he wasn’t sure he would say it. Xander hadn’t been too impressed by Nathan’s theory that morning as he’d sat in bed and listened.

  “Look,” Nathan had whispered, not wanting to wake the whole household. “If Dave drove to Atherton on Thursday morning, he should have spotted Cam’s car on the rocks.”

  Xander had rubbed some sleep from the corner of his eye and said nothing.

  “But Dave didn’t see the car,” Nathan continued.

  “He says he didn’t.”

  “Why would a contractor lie about that? He’s not even from around here. He only knew Cam to say hello to when he’s out on a job. If he’d seen the car when he was driving past, he’d say so.”

  “I suppose, but—” Xander had propped himself up on his pillow, his chest bare and his hair messy.

  “What, mate?”

  “Maybe he just missed it.”

  “Why would he miss it? Glenn saw the car from the road. He told us.”

  “Glenn’s a cop. He’s trained to look for stuff like that. And he was coming to meet us, so he knew Cam’s car was somewhere around here.”