The Lost Man(60)

‘Ilse?’ he called.

‘Yeah?’ She was back by the hind legs.

‘I tried to ring Jenna Moore. In England.’

He couldn’t see her, but sensed her stiffen.

‘And?’

Nathan shook his head as best he could. ‘She wasn’t around.’

‘Where is she?’ He could hear the tension in her voice. Beneath that, a soft snipping sound.

‘Bali, according to her colleague.’ The calf strained, its eyes rolling in its head. He checked to see the mother was still keeping her distance, and leaned in. ‘Wherever she is, she’s out of phone range apparently.’

Neither said anything for a minute. Snip. Snip.

‘Why did you call her?’ He still couldn’t see Ilse but she sounded closer. He tried to lift his head to look and the calf sensed its opportunity. He gripped it harder.

‘I don’t know,’ he grunted.

‘Are you having second thoughts? About what she said about Cam?’

‘No,’ he said, too quickly. ‘It wasn’t that.’

She didn’t reply. Finally, he felt her stand up.

‘I’ve finished,’ she said.

Nathan rolled off the calf, which immediately righted itself and bounded away to its cross-looking mother. She threw Nathan an ungrateful sneer and the pair ran off together without as much as a backwards glance, happy to be at liberty once more.

He sat on the ground, breathing heavily. His muscles ached from the effort of holding the calf down. Above him, Ilse was clutching the strands of cut wire in her hands. She had tears in her eyes.

‘Shit. Ilse –’ He stood up. ‘I don’t know why I called. I just wondered what she had to say.’

Ilse fiddled with the wires. ‘Bali.’

‘Apparently.’

She said nothing for a long minute, then lifted her eyes to look at the horizon. ‘Lots of flights between Bali and Brisbane.’

Nathan didn’t reply. He walked over to his Land Cruiser to get a length of wire to repair the fence.

‘You think you’d always see someone out here,’ Ilse said when he got back. Her eyes were dry now. ‘But you can’t always, can you? If someone is standing still, or parked a long way away. It’s only when they start moving you even know they were there.’

Nathan thought about Lehmann’s Hill. ‘Bub was saying pretty much the same thing the other day.’

Ilse nodded. ‘I’ve heard Bub talk about that. Being able to tell when someone else is around.’

‘Yeah.’ Nathan crouched and used pliers to twist the snapped ends together with the new wire. ‘I reckon he’s right.’

‘Do you?’ Ilse sounded surprised. ‘Cameron always said that was ridiculous.’

‘Oh.’

‘You can feel it, though?’

‘I dunno,’ Nathan said. ‘Sometimes. Maybe. It’s like –’

He couldn’t quite explain it. Like a pulse over the empty land. The strange heaviness that indicated you were sharing the air with someone else. He knew realistically there would be some sort of explanation. Subconscious recognition of something amiss on the landscape. It was nothing more than that, and it wasn’t even accurate. He’d been getting false positives out at his own property lately. And there could have been hundreds of times over the years that there had been someone unknown over the horizon.

‘Cam was probably right,’ he said finally.

Ilse stood very still, only her eyes moving as she looked out. ‘What about now?’

‘Do I think there’s someone else here now?’

‘Yes.’ Her face was serious.

‘Ilse, it’s not a science. It’s not even a thing.’

‘I know, but can you feel anyone?’

Her looked up at her. He could hear her breathing and see the wind catch the ends of her hair. He could not hear her heartbeat, but he could feel his own.

‘Only us,’ he said truthfully. He turned back to the wire. He could feel Ilse watching him but he didn’t look back. He focused on his work for a while before opening his mouth again.

‘Look, there’s no way that Jenna is out here,’ he said. ‘We’d have heard something if she’d come through town.’

‘Unless she didn’t go through town.’

‘She’d have had to. You know that. She couldn’t stay entirely under the radar. You’d have to have all your supplies, keep completely off-road.’

‘It can be done, though. You do it. Bub’s done it. And Cameron.’

‘And how many tourists have died in their cars trying to take a short cut?’ Nathan twisted the last piece of wire and checked the tension. Satisfied, he stood up and stopped when he saw the look on Ilse’s face. ‘What is it? Why are you so fixed on this?’

‘Cameron tried to call Jenna as well,’ Ilse said. ‘Three times.’

Nathan stared. ‘When?’

‘Once two weeks ago, then twice more in the week before he died. He used the office line, not the main house one. I can see the number on the bill online. She’s a florist in England, isn’t she? I looked her up.’

Nathan nodded.

‘I don’t think he spoke to her,’ Ilse said. ‘The calls are very short, all less than thirty seconds.’