The Lost Man(45)

‘Yeah. I know.’ Xander looked down.

‘He was shocked when he heard what she was saying.’

It was true. Cameron had sat on the verandah 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 afterwards.

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.





Chapter 16



They blew a tyre 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 litres 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 rear-view 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-blonde 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 organised, with neat files and stacked paperwork on the desk. The year’s employment record lay on top, with Simon 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.