It was a turning point for Chandler. From wanting to leave the outback and abandon the search, he found himself drawn closer to father and son, living through the pain with them, the weight continuing to fall off Arthur every day as if he were giving part of himself to the outback as a ritual sacrifice to get his missing son back. Day by day his barrel chest and booming voice became cowed, hardly heard over the chattering of the insects in the brush, searching for kindness in people, searching for hope in others. He talked about back home, the family accountancy firm that he’d intended to pass on to Martin, but Martin had shown neither aptitude nor desire to follow his father into the business. He talked of his wife, Sylvia, afraid that she would never recover sufficiently to be a good mother for their remaining son, essentially giving up on him because she had failed the first. She spent her days locked in the hotel surrounded by photos of her lost boy. Donated by friends and colleagues, it had become a bittersweet treasure trove of pictures they had never seen of him; Martin with friends and girlfriends, passed out drunk or dancing at a random house party. These were flashes of their son at play, happy and content, out walking, rambling and climbing in the great outdoors. It was these pictures of their son outdoors that hit home the hardest. They had spent many nights crying themselves to sleep, lost in their spiralling grief.

As such, Chandler found himself grasping on to anything to keep the old man distracted. Today the topic was exercise, Arthur stating that he had never done as much walking in his life and wishing that he had kept in some sort of shape, so he could cover the ground quicker.

‘It’s not about covering the ground quickly, it’s about covering it well,’ said Chandler, walking behind him, within the footstep of the old man’s shadow and the old man in the footstep of his son’s. ‘You said that he loved the outdoors.’

‘He did – he does. It’s something I never understood. Maybe I can’t appreciate it. Just how massive it is. How it would feel to live here.’

‘It wouldn’t be very pleasant,’ Chandler told him. ‘Your only neighbours are a thousand snakes and a million spiders.’

To this the boy turned, eyes wide with intrigue. ‘Really? Coooool,’ he said, dragging out the ‘O’ for a good five seconds before his dad warned him to keep his eyes in front when walking.