Taking the knife from his belt Chandler drew it across his forearm, deep enough to remove everything from his mind other than pain. Angry, bitter pain. He re-sheathed the knife as the blood trickled off his fingers to the soil. It was early but he was going to head out. No point waiting around.

Packing what he needed with as little noise as possible, he prepared to leave.

A whisper floated across the camp. Mitch.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I can’t . . . I have to go.’ Chandler turned to see his former friend peering up from his own bag, his hair cast this way and that. He looked like a timid teenager again, on one of their outdoor camp-overs.

‘You’ll get lost if you go alone.’

Chandler continued to pack. Mitch might have been right but Chandler didn’t care.

‘What happened to your arm?’

Chandler glanced at the blood dripping from the cut and threw the backpack over his shoulders. ‘Focus,’ he said and got ready to leave.

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Mitch, sliding with ease out of his bag. Like a snake, thought Chandler.

‘This isn’t about getting your name in the papers, Mitch.’

He recognized that his pain was finding voice and trying to hurt those seeking to help. Like the family had done to them all those years ago.

‘I know that. I want to find them too,’ said Mitch.

Chandler stared hard at him.

‘I’m leaving,’ he said.

‘Two minutes.’

Chandler didn’t wait but started off slowly. He wanted to see if Mitch would let him go. If he was still full of bullshit.

With nearly an hour before dawn was scheduled to break it was hard to navigate in the darkness but the early hours’ silence let Chandler hear the footsteps approach from behind, the long, even strides coming up directly behind him, then beside him. Chandler looked over at Mitch. Against all his instincts, he was comforted by his presence.

Traversing a slight incline, their headlamps piercing the indigo of the night soil. Mitch spoke up.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘For shooting Gabriel – Davie – whoever he thought he was now. For coming here and taking over. For not telling you about Teri. For losing contact. For Teri wanting the—’

Chandler interrupted the apology, Mitch’s contrite tone sounding alien. ‘I don’t care about any of that, Mitch. That’s the past.’

They continued in silence, walking until daylight reared up slowly between the trees. Then an unusual sight interrupted the characteristic landscape of trees, rock and dirt, a colour unnatural to the outback. The rusted grey of a group of old shacks gradually emerged from the rising light. They were . . . they could be . . .