Mitch raised an eyebrow. ‘You know this isn’t an accident. No one could wander this far by accident.’ He pointed to either side of the vague path they were cutting through the rough terrain, each searcher forging their own slice of Australia. ‘He could be anywhere. Lying not two metres from us and we’d never know. And even if by some miracle he is still alive, the longer we go without finding anything, the more likely it is that we never find him at all. Maybe he’s already headed home and is waiting for us.’

To this Chandler had a comeback.

‘But if he did surely he would get in touch with someone?’

‘Or maybe he’s enjoying the attention, even deriving some sort of sick pleasure from it. His fifteen minutes of fame. For all we know he can’t stand his family. Maybe this is his revenge, hurting them like they hurt him.’

‘Your theories are growing as crazy as theirs,’ said Chandler, nodding to the Murray River teenager who was tucking his cash into his socks for security.

‘The mercenaries will know to quit though when the well has run dry. Maybe it’s time you tell the family the same.’

Breaking off from the conversation, Mitch barked out the order for everyone to get moving, leaving Chandler to stew over the options. Chandler knew that Arthur would listen to him if he made it clear that his son was gone from this earth. But could he do it? Could he extinguish their last vestiges of hope? And what would they do once the search was called off? How would the family piece their life back together?

In the end Linda Keeler and a lack of money did it. On the twenty-seventh day of Martin’s disappearance, Linda made the headlines, a young housewife who walked out her front door and into the Blue Mountains in nothing more than her wedding dress and a pair of trainers. Her husband had left her for a co-worker, and Linda’s mind decided it was time to depart as well. The hunt for the pretty housewife immediately went into full swing and with her distraught family owning the second largest trucking business in New South Wales, the remaining mercenaries left the search for Martin to venture to greener pastures. No apology, no goodbye, just gone. All apart from the Murray River teenager, who ducked out with almost a sheepish goodbye to Chandler. But Chandler wasn’t that sorry to see him go either. Over the course of the search the teenager had become more swindler than bushman.

So despite temperatures that topped forty every day and their shattered minds and bodies, the group went out again, now reduced to four: Chandler, Mitch, Arthur and his son.