The Lost Man(96)

‘How am I supposed to get out of this shithole without the car?’ Simon was shouting now. His tone was bordering on screechy. Nathan heard Bub on the verandah, failing to suppress a laugh.

Harry caught Nathan’s eye. A flicker of a smile caused his craggy features to move a fraction.

‘I can tow you into town tomorrow, mate,’ Harry said, not unkindly.

‘And then bloody what?’ Simon snapped.

‘I dunno, mate. I reckon you’ll be able to work something out from there, though.’

Simon took one more look at them, one more look at the empty space, then turned and stomped back into the empty caravan where his girlfriend used to be and slammed the door, hard.

Nathan could still hear Bub laughing as he disappeared with Ilse and the girls back into the house. He and Harry exchanged an amused glance.

‘On that note.’ Harry started towards the house. ‘You coming back in?’

Nathan felt Cameron’s car keys weighing down his pocket.

‘Harry.’ He felt his smile dim. ‘There was nothing wrong with Ilse’s car.’

Harry turned at that. ‘No?’

‘She reckons Cam was messing around with it, so it was too unreliable to use.’ Nathan watched his face. ‘Is that what you’d thought?’

Harry said nothing for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah. I wondered. Eventually. There’s not a lot that stumps me on those vehicles, but that bloody car –’ He shook his head.

‘She reckons he was doing other things as well.’

‘Like what?’ Harry said.

‘Things like Dad,’ Nathan said. He waited. ‘You don’t look surprised.’

‘It’s not that.’ Harry glanced towards the house. ‘Look, Cameron was a smart bloke. A lot smarter than Carl, but you know that. Carl was a violent aggressive bastard and didn’t care who knew it. But Cam was never like that. He wanted people to like him and respect him. And they did, didn’t they? Underneath, though –’ Harry said nothing for so long that Nathan thought he might not continue. ‘I’d started to wonder if Cam was more like your dad than he let on. Maybe worse even, because he was clever. He could hide it better.’

‘You never saw him do anything?’

‘No, but I felt like I’d seen some of the signs before. Lo’s bloody sad drawings. Sophie’s arm sounded like bullshit to me as well, but she swore that was what happened.’

‘Jesus, Harry, you should have done something.’

‘Hey.’ Harry pointed a callused finger at Nathan. ‘You haven’t shown your face here in a year, mate. Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t have been doing. I kept that key to the rifle cabinet close, in case he started getting any ideas. I sent Cam away from here on any job I could think of. I tried to talk to him. When that didn’t work, I argued with him, like your bloody backpacker mate overheard.’

‘You could have called the police.’

‘So could you,’ Harry said suddenly. He stared at Nathan with a clear gaze. ‘All those times with your dad, and you and your brothers and your mum. You were all old enough to pick up the phone and call someone. Why didn’t you?’

Nathan opened his mouth, then shut it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally.

He did though, he realised. He hadn’t called anyone for help because it simply hadn’t occurred to him that he could. He knew the unspoken rules: don’t tell anyone, not even each other. And even if he’d thought to ask for help, there had seemed no point asking for something that simply wasn’t there. Nathan may not know much, but in his heart he had always held on to a single ingrained truth. Out there, he was on his own.

‘I did call the police once,’ Harry said, his features again inscrutable. ‘When things got bad between your mum and dad. You and Cam were away at boarding school. But ask Bub, I guarantee you he’ll remember it. Afterwards, your mum made me promise never to do it again. It caused a lot of problems that a visit from the sergeant didn’t stop, and it didn’t turn out well.’

‘For Mum?’

‘For Bub.’

They both stared out across the yard at the graves for a long while.

‘I know Bub can be hard work when he wants to be,’ Harry said. ‘But he did it even worse than you and Cam growing up. Just bear that in mind, all right? You and Cam weren’t the only ones who had a bad time.’

Nathan was quiet for a minute. ‘Yeah. I know.’

Harry was looking back at the house now and Nathan followed his gaze, catching a glimpse of Liz in the kitchen window. She was smiling and looking down, probably talking to one of the girls. As Harry looked on, his features relaxed and for once his eyes were as open and unguarded as Nathan had ever seen them. Nathan looked at Harry looking at his mother and suddenly wondered, for the first time, if there was something other than the land and lifestyle that had made Harry want to stay on the property for so many years. Then Liz moved away from the window and the shutters behind Harry’s eyes snapped closed so fast Nathan thought he might have imagined it.

The gum tree bristled in the hot air and they both turned back towards the graves.

‘I spoke to Steve at the funeral,’ Nathan said. ‘He thinks Cameron did attack Jenna that night.’

Harry just nodded.