The Lost Man(61)

‘Why would he wait so long to call her? He’d known for a few weeks she was thinking about contacting him.’

‘Maybe it took her that long to actually reach him,’ Ilse said. ‘He might have got an email or something. I don’t know. I don’t have his password.’ She stopped. ‘Or maybe she didn’t get in touch at all and the waiting was driving him crazy. Looking back now, he’d been worried since he heard she’d rung the police station, but it had been getting worse. And he made some other calls in his last week as well.’

‘To who?’

‘To St Helens. The medical centre up there, for one.’

‘Was he sick?’

‘Not that he said. And he wasn’t a patient there, as far as they would tell me. But then Cameron didn’t like to go and see Steve at the clinic either, so who knows? He called one of the hotels in St Helens too.’

‘Which one?’ There were exactly three accommodation options in St Helens.

‘The cheap one.’

‘Did he make a booking?’

‘If he did, it wasn’t under his own name.’ There was something hard in Ilse’s face now. ‘They had nothing under Jenna’s name either. Neither did the other places.’

Nathan felt an unpleasant sensation creep through him and he had the sudden urge to check over his shoulder. There was nothing there but cattle and stubby grass and the horizon. All was quiet. Ilse was watching him closely.

‘You really don’t think Cameron had anything to worry about with that woman?’ she said.

Nathan hesitated. For real, this time. A long and disloyal silence that stretched on and spoke volumes.

Ilse nodded. ‘Because Cameron was acting like he did.’





Chapter 22



They barely spoke on the way back. Nathan drove while Ilse stared out of the window, chewing her nails and occasionally turning Cameron’s card over in her fingers.

‘You need to tell Glenn,’ Nathan said. ‘About Cameron trying to call Jenna.’

‘I already tried.’ Ilse didn’t look over. ‘He wasn’t at the police station when I called last night.’

‘Did you leave a message?’

‘No. I got diverted to the Brisbane switchboard. I didn’t want to –’ Ilse sighed, still staring out at the passing landscape. ‘I’ll try him again.’

She didn’t say anything else until the homestead came into sight up ahead.

‘I’ll get out here,’ she said, as they passed the stables. ‘I put away the horse quickly earlier. I want to check on her.’

Nathan pulled to a stop. ‘Ilse –’ he said as she climbed out. She waited. He wanted to tell her it would all be okay. Instead, he shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

She slammed the door and Nathan watched her walk away. When he pulled up outside the house he could see the girls riding in the far exercise yard. Liz was looking on while Xander sat nearby in the shade, flipping through a sketchbook in his lap.

Nathan walked over and leaned on the railing next to his mum. He waited for her to tell Lo to keep her heels down, but she didn’t. Her eyes were dull.

‘Everything all right?’ he said.

‘Steve called from the clinic. The –’ Liz stumbled over the word, ‘– autopsy has been completed. We’re right to go ahead with the funeral.’

Nathan thought about Cameron’s call to the medical centre in St Helens. ‘They didn’t find any other health problems?’

Liz shook her head vaguely and didn’t ask why. Xander looked up, though.

‘Do you want to have a rest?’ Nathan said. ‘I’ll help the girls with the horses.’

He waited for Liz to argue, but she just nodded. With visible effort, she pushed herself away from the railing and trudged towards the house.

‘She’s been bad all morning,’ Xander said. His voice was a little cool. ‘Lo nearly fell off earlier and she didn’t even notice.’

‘Right,’ Nathan said. ‘Mate, listen, I’m sorry about going without you just now –’

‘It’s fine.’

It wasn’t, Nathan suspected, but Xander seemed distracted as he looked up from the sketchbook. ‘Did you show Ilse the card from Uncle Cam?’

‘Yeah.’ Nathan told him what Ilse had said. He hesitated, then told him what else she’d said, about the phone calls to St Helens.

Xander frowned. ‘Did Cam think Jenna might be in St Helens?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he did.’

Xander’s eyes fell again at the sketchbook in his lap. It was full of Lo’s paintings.

‘What’re you looking at?’ Nathan said.

Xander handed him the book, open to the page he’d been examining. Nathan flicked his eyes across the painting. It showed two girls, one smaller than the other and both with dirty-blonde hair. It was hard to tell how old they were, but the bigger one had her arm encased in a colourful sling.

The two girls stood in the foreground of the picture, with bright orange earth under their feet. Behind them, looming large, was a big dark shape that blocked the line of the horizon. It had been drawn by someone young but skilled, and was entirely recognisable.

‘The stockman’s grave, isn’t it?’ Nathan said. Beside the headstone, Lo had painted another shape. It was shadowy and unfinished, but had a strangely human quality. A woman, Nathan thought, for reasons he couldn’t quite qualify. While the girls were clearly identifiable, the woman’s features were formless and elusive. Nathan looked up from the picture. Cameron’s daughters were riding now over by the far fence.