‘You’re not. I can see you’re not.’
‘I am. I was just thinking –’
‘This is bullshit.’ Xander opened his door.
‘Come on. Please –’
‘Forget it.’ Xander turned the keys and cut the engine dead. The headlights flickered and disappeared, plunging them both into darkness. ‘I don’t care. Do whatever you want. I’m going to bed.’
He tossed the car keys at Nathan and slammed the door. Cameron’s keys landed on the vinyl seat. Nathan reached down and felt the warm jagged metal and the coil of the lanyard wrapped tight around his fingers. He was sitting there alone in the dark with his mind freewheeling when he caught it. The thought he had been chasing. It slid up against him, cold and disturbing and fully formed.
‘Hey –’ he called out into the dark, but it was too late. No-one was there to hear him. Xander was gone.
Chapter 24
Nathan’s passenger seat was empty and, for once, that felt strange. He had got used to Xander filling it out the last week or so. Duffy jumped up from the footwell and wagged her tail as she looked out of the window, but it wasn’t the same.
As Nathan approached the rocky outcrop, the road was completely deserted and the morning sun was climbing in the sky. He glanced again at the empty seat and couldn’t help thinking about the way Xander had looked at him in the pre-dawn light when Nathan had woken him to explain his plan.
‘Do you want to come?’
Xander had just stared at him, then slowly shaken his head. ‘No.’
That was fine, Nathan thought, as he slowed and pulled off the road at the hidden track. He didn’t need anyone else. It wasn’t a two-man job anyway. He’d found the right gap in the rocks straight away, this time, and drove through. At the top of the gentle slope was an empty space where Cameron’s car had stood fourdays earlier.
Nathan had managed to catch the contractor on the phone before the sun was up. Dave hadn’t sounded happy about either the hour or the call.
‘Mate, it’s my day off. Look, I’m sorry about the coolroom, all right, but I was there like we arranged –’
‘Dave, it’s not about that. Listen, you said you drove out to Atherton on Thursday. So you went along the north road, right? Past my boundary?’
‘Yeah –’
‘What time?’
‘I dunno, I set off usual time so would have been about eight, I suppose. Just after.’
‘So it was light then. Light enough to see?’
‘Of course. I’m not driving that bloody road in the dark.’
‘You see anything from around my place?’
‘Like what?’
‘Anything. Up on the rocks?’
A frustrated laugh. ‘Not that I remember, but I’m not sure what you’re asking, mate.’
‘No, it’s all right. Me neither. Just trying to get a few things straight.’
‘That invoice is coming your way, I’m afraid.’
‘Yep. Looking forward to it.’
Nathan had hung up and immediately dialled Glenn’s number at the cop shop. He had heard the blip in the ringtone, the telltale sign he was being diverted. Glenn McKenna had been called out to the north of his patch, the officer who answered informed him. A road train had hit a tour bus. Multiple casualties, the voice said. He was not expected back to Balamara for a couple of days.
‘What about the other one? The St Helens cop. Sergeant Ludlow.’
