What’s that?
Cameron smiled in a way that made Liz’s stomach clench.Buried treasure.
‘I knew what it was.’ Liz rubbed a hand over her arm and Nathan could see both the recent skin cancer wound, and the other, older, scar that they never talked about. One of many. They all had those kinds of marks: Liz, Nathan, Bub. Cameron, as well. Marks they kept hidden and never acknowledged.
‘I knew straight away what Cameron had found,’ Liz said. ‘I used to have something just like that myself.’
Liz’s version had been an old biscuit tin and she’d hidden it in the middle of a bucket of horse feed. Or at least she had until Carl had found it. The blow had burst her left eardrum and her hearing had never recovered. But she’d learned her lesson, and she’d never tried that again. The boys had still been small and she had been too scared of the consequences.
But as Liz had stood by the stockman’s grave, watching her middle son, she wondered how much worse the consequences were for her not having tried.
You should leave that alone. She had surprised herself by speaking.
Cameron was surprised too, and his eyes hardened.You don’t even know what this is.
I do, Cameron. I know.
Then you’ll know it has nothing to do with you.
He straightened then, up to his full height. The shovel was hanging by his side, and his hands were gently gripping the handle. It hung loose. He hadn’t lifted it, not even a little. He wasn’t threatening her, he wasn’t, but as Cameron stood there, with the metal blade catching the light as it swayed gently, Liz knew exactly who he reminded her of. He wasn’t her little boy anymore. Or at least, he wasn’t just her boy. He was his father’s son as well.
And she knew, as she had always known in some part of her, what Ilse had tried to tell her. And what Harry had been so worried about. And why Lo’s pictures were so sad. And why Sophie’s arm was in a sling. And why it would be again. Or worse.
Liz flinched involuntarily as Cameron stepped past her towards his car. He tossed the shovel into the rear and slammed the door before dropping the envelope through the passenger’s side window and onto the car seat. Liz’s horse bristled, tugging at the reins hooked over the mirror, and she whispered something to calm it.
I’ve got to get going.Cameron didn’t look at her.Things to do.
Are you driving to the repeater tower?Liz’s voice sounded odd to her own ears.
Cameron walked back to the grave and started kicking dirt back into the hole.
I was going to but –His anger shimmered like the heat.I might go home first. Have a word with Ilse.
Cameron. Please.The trickle of fear was now a fast-running flood. The girls are at home.
He said nothing, then at last, he looked up.So? Maybe they need to hear this too.
And with the tone of his voice and the sun in her eyes, it was suddenly thirty years ago and Liz knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what happened when men like that came home.
She felt her hand reach out before she was quite aware what she was reaching for. She had done the calculation in her mind without realising it. Calculations that had become an ingrained instinct years ago. Fight or flight. He was five metres away, six maybe. And he was looking down, distracted, kicking the sand to paper over the damage he had done.
Liz was behind the driver’s seat in the time it took her to draw a first breath, and she had turned the key by the time she drew the second.
Cameron had looked up, but by then her foot was already on the accelerator. She wound down the window and unhooked the reins from the wing mirror. The horse followed obediently as she pulled away. Not too fast. There was no need; a cantering horse can outrun a man.
‘Cameron tried, though.’ Liz’s voice was hollow with horror. ‘He really tried.’
And he had, screaming as he chased her. He had known what was happening and he knew what it meant. It had taken every shred of self-control for Liz not to put her foot down and tear away from that terrible sound. But she kept a steady pace, with her ears shut tight and her eyes straight ahead. And eventually, much later, when at last she slowed and looked in the mirror, there was no-one else around. She was all alone.
Chapter 39
Nathan stared down at the graves for a long time before he finally spoke.
‘Cameron’s car wasn’t at the rocks on Thursday morning.’
Liz looked surprised. ‘You knew that?’
‘I thought someone had moved it. Or that I was going crazy. I wasn’t sure which.’
