The Lost Man

by Jane Harper

  “That’s why we should go and check,” Nathan said. “See how visible it would have been from the road.”

  “And what if it was visible?” Xander sounded worried. “If it was too obvious for the contractor to miss when he drove by, but he reckons he didn’t see it, then what are you saying? That the car wasn’t there on Thursday morning?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I suppose so.”

  “But Steve said Uncle Cam was already dead by then, or nearly. So if his car wasn’t where we found it, then what? Someone moved it?”

  Nathan didn’t say anything.

  “Who would do that? Jenna?”

  Nathan still didn’t reply.

  “Someone else?” Xander said. “One of us here on the property? Someone in this family?”

  “Come on, mate.”

  “Then what?” Xander’s voice was rising.

  “Look, I don’t know,” Nathan heard himself snap. “That’s why I want to check it out before jumping to conclusions.”

  “Don’t, Dad. It sounds—” Xander looked at him. “Crazy.”

  Nathan blinked now, seeing the track in front of him properly for the first time, and put his foot on the brake.

  “Shit.”

  He was going the wrong way. He had started driving blindly toward the stockman’s grave rather than back to the road. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it, and a tiny part of him wondered if he should be worried about that. He listened to the engine tick over and tried to gather his thoughts. They felt loose and disconnected, as though floating through his fingers.

  Duffy scratched the seat impatiently, and Nathan put his foot on the accelerator. He was approaching a gentle crest where the land rose enough to hide the track ahead. He gunned the Land Cruiser up the mild slope, turning the wheel for a wide U-turn. From the peak, the grave would be visible somewhere below.

  Instead, he saw a dust cloud.

  Nathan stopped, the tip of the Land Cruiser at the peak of the crest. The small haze billowed along in the distance for half a minute before he caught the first glint of metal. He sat with his foot on the brake, watching the movement. It was coming along the dirt track and, from the direction of travel, there was only one place it could be headed.

  Nathan turned off his engine and heard the hum of the distant vehicle. He reached out and scrabbled in the glove box for his battered binoculars. Next to him, Duffy whined. Without the air-conditioning, the car was getting warm.

  He looked through the binoculars until he found the moving vehicle. He recognized it immediately. He had seen it parked around Cameron’s property for years. It was a general-use four-wheel drive, used mostly by casual workers and, most recently, by Simon.

  The car slowed a few meters from the stockman’s grave, its windscreen reflecting nothing but sky. Nathan steadied the binoculars. The vehicle came to a stop, its angle now turning the windscreen dark rather than opaque.

  Nathan watched, unblinking. There was a movement inside, as the driver reached for something in the passenger seat. From a distance, through the glass, Nathan could see a wrist and a sweep of long hair falling over a shoulder. It definitely wasn’t Simon behind the wheel. It was a woman.

  25

  The driver’s door opened and a jeans-clad leg stepped out. The woman was hidden by the open door, and Nathan’s binoculars slipped a little, sending the scene out of focus. He steadied himself in time to see the door slam, and in the red dirt beside the stockman’s grave stood a wholly familiar figure.

  Ilse.

  Nathan realized he was holding his breath and blew it out, long and heavy. The window of opportunity to announce himself came and went almost immediately. He didn’t beep the horn, or wind down the window and shout out. By the time he wondered whether he should, it was already too late.

  Ilse stood with her back to him, looking small and isolated. A black shape lay at her feet. Some sort of bag, Nathan thought, hoping she wouldn’t suddenly turn around. He was a fair distance away, and his car was filthy, almost the same color as the ground. He was parked nose-forward on the edge of the rise, and the sun was working mostly in his favor. It would be at least partly in her eyes if she turned his way. If she looked directly at him, she would probably see the car, though. If not, the ground and the distance and the stillness might be enough of a cover.

  Nathan lowered the binoculars, feeling uncomfortable. Below, he could just about make out the sight of Ilse kneeling and reaching for the bag. Duffy whined, and he poured some water into a cup and pushed it toward her. A bead of sweat ran down his temple and into his eye. The interior of the car was heating up fast without the air con. Nathan shifted again, his back damp against the seat. His hand hovered over the car keys. He couldn’t start the engine now. There was no way Ilse wouldn’t hear it. Nathan picked up the binoculars again.

  Ilse took something from her bag, but at that angle, Nathan couldn’t tell what. She was bending forward, close to the earth where her husband had been found, and was partly hidden by the headstone. Nathan breathed out a lungful of hot air, and tipped the last of his water bottle into Duffy’s cup. The rest of his water was packed out of reach in the back. The interior of the car was stifling now. He let himself open the window a crack. It made no difference.

  Glenn had told him a story a few years earlier, about James Buchanan from town, who’d gotten into an argument with his wife. Worse than an argument, really, and as things escalated James had found himself locked out of the house. He’d knocked on the door, and when his wife wouldn’t answer, gone around the outside of the family home and smashed the air conditioner with a cricket bat. Then he’d sat down and waited, bat in hand. His wife had been too scared to open the doors and windows, Glenn had said. Eventually, she passed out from heat exhaustion. She had nearly died, right there on her own kitchen floor. Nathan thought Glenn had been trying to make him feel better. See? Other people do shitty things too. It had not made him feel better at the time—at all—and now, as his skin stuck to the seat, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He glanced at Duffy and wound down the window some more.

  He wondered how long Ilse was planning to stay. She must be feeling the temperature herself, down there. When he looked again, he thought he could see her shoulders moving. Was she crying? he wondered.

  She knelt for another minute, while he sweated, and then finally, at long last, she stood up. Nathan breathed out. She ran her hand over the headstone, before picking up her bag from the ground. With a last look at the grave, she opened the car door.

  Nathan wiped a hand over his face, freezing mid-motion as Ilse suddenly stopped. She was scanning the land, her head turning slowly. As her gaze reached Nathan’s direction, it seemed to settle. He held his breath. Down the binocular lenses, it was as though they were looking straight at each other.

  Can you feel anyone now?

  Only us.

  Nathan didn’t dare move. He held the binoculars in place, staring back as his heartbeat thumped in his ears. Had she seen him? He wasn’t sure, but there was something unfocused in her face that made him think perhaps not. At last Ilse dropped her eyes. She climbed into the car, and he heard it start.

  Nathan sat watching the dust trail as she drove away, back in the direction she’d come from. He made himself wait until she’d fully disappeared from sight before finally turning on his own engine.

  The air came through lukewarm at first, but he gasped with relief, gulping in huge lungfuls. He got out and grabbed water bottles from the back, and while both he and Duffy drank deeply, Nathan checked his watch. Ilse had been at the gravesite less than fifteen minutes, from start to finish. It felt longer, but it hadn’t been. He frowned. All that way for fifteen minutes. Sophie’s voice popped into his head. We didn’t do anything at the grave. We got out of the car, then we went home again.

  Nathan drank another mouthful of water, watched the horizon, and listened. No dust, no noise. She was gone. He put the car into gear and slowly made his way down, over the crest and to
ward the grave. He parked a short distance away and got out. The dust circle around the headstone was long gone, but had been replaced with Ilse’s footprints. He could see the soft dents in the ground where she had knelt. Could she have been praying? he wondered. She had never seemed the type, but death did funny things to people. Nathan touched the headstone, warm in the sun. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t tell what. Finally, he knelt down himself and, all of a sudden, he could see it.

  The hole they’d exposed beneath Cameron’s body was disturbed. It had nearly refilled itself the last time he’d been there with Bub and Harry, but now it looked different again. Nathan reached out and touched the ground. The earth was freshly turned. He ran a hand through it, looking to see if Ilse had left anything here, but all he could feel was sandy soil. There were a few small things that could possibly be seeds, and Nathan thought of his own dad’s grave. He and his brothers hadn’t even liked the bloke, and they’d still planted a tree for him. Had Ilse been doing something like that for Cameron?

  The sun was beating down on him, and he shifted on his knees until he was in the shadow of the headstone. His movement left a mark in the dust that was familiar in a way that made Nathan feel slightly ill. He stood up so fast he was dizzy.

  Back in the safety of his car, Nathan turned up the air conditioner. It was a physical relief to be back in the cool, and he sat back, feeling the fibers in his body respond as his temperature crept back down toward normal.

  Cameron would have fought for his life to stay with his car.

  The thought came out of nowhere. Nathan reached for his water bottle and took a long sip. Cameron knew what it was like to be out there with no shelter and no supplies. It was a death sentence. If Cam had been forcibly separated from his car, he would have fought. Nathan stared at the grave. He pictured his brother’s body as the tarp slipped away. There had been no injuries to his hands or face.

  Nathan took another slow sip of water and thought about that. An hour later, he was still not sure what to think. He knew he should go home. It was Cameron’s funeral tomorrow. Another one for the land. Nathan should drive back and speak to his son. Speak to Ilse. Instead, Nathan sat in his car beside the grave until the sun moved the shadow almost all the way around the base of the headstone.

  No one else came by.

  26

  Nathan left it almost too late to make it home before nightfall, and as he pulled up, the windows of the house were glowing. He slammed his car door and stopped as his eyes fell on the large gum tree across the yard. Beneath it, hard to see in the growing dark but impossible to miss, was a gaping black hole.

  Nathan walked over and stood at the edge. Cameron’s grave lay deep and empty, ready for tomorrow. There were no howls from the dingoes that night, and the air felt hot and thick as Nathan turned his back and trudged to the house. The voices coming from the kitchen were muffled but urgent as he closed the screen door behind him.

  “You said—no, don’t give me that bullshit—you said we could try it—”

  “For God’s sake, I know, Bub, but I have a thousand other things to—”

  Three faces looked up as Nathan walked in.

  “Great. Here comes your reinforcements,” Bub snapped at Ilse, who was sitting at the kitchen table. She was wearing the same clothes Nathan had seen her in earlier at the stockman’s grave, and was staring firmly into a glass of wine. Bub looked to have been pacing, his face set, while Liz hovered in the no-man’s-land between them.

  “Bub, just calm down. Please.” Liz shot a glance at Nathan. “You’ve been gone a very long time.”

  “I was checking something at the fence line. What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Ilse said.

  “It’s not bloody nothing.” Bub sounded like he’d been drinking. “I’m not bloody taking orders—”

  “No one’s asking you to, Bub!”

  Bub looked at Nathan. “You tell her. You thought my mustering plan was a good idea, didn’t you?”

  “Wait—” Nathan felt lost. “That’s what this is about?”

  “Tell her.” Bub’s voice was rising. “Tell her that I’m right about this.”

  Nathan frowned. “I haven’t even had a chance—”

  “No. Of course not. Jesus, I bloody knew it would be like this.” Bub closed his eyes. “This is bullshit.”

  “Why are you doing this now, mate?” Nathan said. “Let’s talk about it later. We’re burying him tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” Bub opened his eyes and looked at Ilse. “Still, silver lining for some, isn’t it?”

  “Bub!” Liz said. “Enough!”

  Ilse sat completely still as Bub walked out, slamming the kitchen door. They all stared after him as the sound reverberated in his wake.

  “What’s his—?” Nathan barely started before Liz turned on him.

  “You’re no better. Have you spoken to your son yet? He’s been worrying all day about you. He wanted Harry to take him out to search.”

  Nathan opened his mouth. “I told him where I was going.”

  “You’ve been gone for hours.”

  “Well—”

  “Your radio was off. Again.”

  “Shit. Yeah, okay. Sorry—”

  “It’s not me you should apologize to.” Before Nathan could answer, Liz looked at Ilse. “Are you all right, at least?”

  Ilse, still sitting at the table, didn’t move and didn’t look up. “Yes.”

  “Good.” Liz sounded defeated. “Then I’m going to see to Bub.”

  The door swung shut behind her. Ilse was still staring at the glass in front of her. Nathan opened the fridge and got a beer, leaning against the counter as he opened it and took a sip. He could see traces of the red dust in the creases of Ilse’s shirt and jeans. He had the same on his own. Just ask her. Instead he nodded at the door.

  “I didn’t realize Bub was so serious about the mustering thing.”

  “I think it’s less about the mustering and more about who makes the decisions around here now.”

  Nathan didn’t reply.

  “He called Cameron’s lawyer,” Ilse said.

  “Bub did?”

  “Asking about the property split and what happens now.”

  “What did the lawyer say?”

  “That Cam’s share goes to the girls.”

  “Not you?”

  “Not technically. I’m just the guardian until they’re old enough. But the point is, it doesn’t go to Bub. Or you.” Ilse looked at him properly now. “Please tell me you already knew that?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay.”

  She looked relieved. She lifted her foot under the table, and kicked a chair out a little way. Nathan wavered, then pulled it out and sat down.

  “I’m surprised Bub even knew who Cam’s lawyer was,” he said. “Let alone thought to call him.”

  “Your mum said that too. I told you, though. Bub’s more switched on than you all give him credit for. Especially about property work. Either way—” She sighed. “I guess he was really keen to know.”

  “Had Cameron promised him something different?”

  “I don’t know. But with the way it’s split now between you and me and him, I think Bub feels—” She hesitated and took a sip from her glass. “Left out, or something.”

  “Maybe he’s worried about what you’re planning to do with the place.”

  “God, I haven’t even thought about it. I mean, it’s not like I asked for this. I’d probably sell it to him, if he’d let me get a word in edgeways.”

  “I doubt he could afford it,” Nathan said.

  “Or to you, then.”

  “I definitely couldn’t afford it.”

  “Not even at mates’ rates?”

  “We’d have to be bloody good mates.”

  The silence was laced with something at the edges. They were both too old to be embarrassed, and Nathan thought he saw the very corner of her mouth twitch. Ilse looked at the empty beer in Nathan’s hand, then loo
ked at him.

  “Will you have another one?”

  He hesitated. He tried to avoid drinking too much around her, preferring to keep a clear head. Still. She sat opposite, looking over at him. He could.

  He would pay for it later though, he knew, in a few days’ time when he was back in his empty, silent house. Over the years, Nathan had discovered that his isolation was strangely easier to cope with when he was on his own for long stretches. Then the loneliness became routine, sometimes fading to barely more than a dull background ache. His early desperation for human contact had changed too. Other people’s company should have been a relief, but now just stirred up complicated emotions that he later had to deal with all on his own, long after they were gone. It was getting harder for him to recover each time and taking far longer to get back to normal, if he could even call it that. But if spending time with other people was bad enough, spending time with Ilse was worse. As much as he wanted to, and the biggest and deepest part of Nathan really wanted to, he simply couldn’t do it to himself.

  He looked at her now as the kitchen clock ticked loudly, and took a breath. “No. Thanks, though.”

  Her eyes followed him as he stood up, and all of a sudden, she looked very alone. He pushed in his chair.

  “I’d better go and talk to Xander.” That was true, actually.

  Ilse looked down at the table for a moment, then nodded. “It sounds like he was worried.”

  “Did he say something to you?”

  “No. But I wasn’t here most of the day. I’ve barely seen him.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Nathan tried to keep his voice light. “What were you doing?”

  Ilse shrugged, and the red dust settled deeper into the fabric creases. “I needed to get out of here, so I took the workers’ vehicle and went for a drive.”

  He frowned. “What’s wrong with yours?”

  Strangely, Ilse looked almost amused. “It’s very unreliable. I’ve got stuck a couple of times.”

  “Cam and Harry couldn’t get it going?”

  “Sometimes, but then there’d be something else.”

  “You want me to take a look? Although if they couldn’t fix it, I can’t make any promises.”