After that night and for the first few months he drove up to Port Hedland to meet her when he wasn’t on shift. By February she had turned eighteen. By April she was pregnant, and by June he didn’t have to drive all the way up to the coast any longer. She had moved down to Wilbrook to live with him and his parents. June and July passed by in the excitement of a new place to live and a new life, but by September the leaves were falling off the roses, her arguments with his overbearing parents wilting what remained of the flowers.

Now at the start of December the frostiness encompassed everything. She was eight months pregnant, irritable and in the middle of a scorching summer out here in the arse-end-of-nowhere, as she had come to call it. He wanted to get back and support her. But he had a job to do. Out here in the wilderness. Looking for a boy who had got himself lost.

14

‘State want to talk to you,’ Nick shouted from the front desk.

The constable patched them through.

‘Chandler?’

‘Steve.’

No formalities here. Steve Yaxley was an old-school captain based out of Newman, hard-working but approachable, willing to help out where he could. His voice thundered across the electronics between them.

‘I heard about the situation you have there. Our boys are in place, on the highway and on Ninety-five. No way in or out.’

Mitch had worked quickly, pulling strings to put everything in place without fuss and without Chandler’s help. Flexing his muscles.

‘Thanks, Steve.’

‘Had Inspector Andrews on the phone too,’ said Steve. ‘Just to warn you, he’s headed your way. Dunno what’s worse. Him or a runaway murderer.’

‘At least Mitch has to play by some rules.’

‘I guess . . .’ said Steve.

‘Anything else you need from me?’

‘Nothing more you can do. The main routes in and out of town are blocked. If you have any spare officers you might want to put them on the dirt roads we can’t cover. You’ll know those better than we do.’

‘Thanks, Steve,’ said Chandler, feeling somewhat bypassed, like he was part of the problem rather than the solution.

Hanging up, he checked in with his three. All had nothing suspicious to report, a few locals asking questions, but none carrying a passenger matching Gabriel’s description. After that it was back to waiting, the rising heat only exacerbating the fear that something was going to happen, and the frustration that he couldn’t do anything about it. It was all about time now. And they didn’t know how much of it they had until Gabriel reappeared or another body showed up.

‘Sarge?’

Chandler looked at Nick who seemed too restless to do paperwork.

‘Yep?’

‘You ever had a serial killer in the cells before?’