‘And what are you doing way up here?’

‘Searching for work.’

‘As?’

‘As a labourer, a farmhand, anything. I thought I’d try some places out here.’

‘Any in particular?’

‘No. But I heard there were a few.’

Gabriel wasn’t wrong. There were plenty of cattle stations and homesteads nestled in the vast plains, gigantic in size, akin to small countries. He had the lean, wiry physique required to work them, one used to living on a diet of meat and little else, used to doing anything from checking boreholes for water to mustering and branding cattle.

‘And how did you meet this . . . Heath?’

At the mention of his name, their visitor shuddered, taking a moment to compose himself.

‘I was in Port Hedland. I’d come up from Exmouth the previous day with a trucker.’

‘Got a name?’

Gabriel shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. ‘Lee something. Chinese guy in his fifties. Fat. Smoked pre-rolled roll-ups that were wedged in the visor. Nothing much more to him.’

‘And he dropped you off in Port Hedland?’ asked Chandler.

‘Yeah, he was heading on to Darwin.’

‘What did you do in Port Hedland?’

‘I slept.’

‘Where?’

‘In the park.’

‘Name?’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘Dunno. I wasn’t sightseeing. There was grass . . . trees . . . a bench. You know, park stuff.’

Chandler made a note to probe further. ‘Carry on.’

The man’s strained voice had calmed somewhat, but still jittered at the edges like the bark of a nervous dog. ‘Next day I decided to head inland. Looking for work.’

‘Why not stay near the coast?’

‘A guy in Exmouth told me that inland was the best place to go. Said that most people stick to the coast for easy movement but competition for places means that the bosses pay fuck all. Also it seemed like an adventure.’

At this point Gabriel paused, as if he’d lost his train of thought. Chandler decided to let him vacillate, let the words and thoughts come naturally.

Gabriel blinked hard, returning. ‘I was . . . on the road out . . . the main one.’ He stopped and looked at Chandler. ‘I don’t have a name.’

Chandler did. Highway 1, the black vein that eventually turned off on to 95, which led to Wilbrook. A track he’d been up and down many times, especially when he was first seeing Teri, back when she was the bouncy party girl from the coast. He didn’t know then that the coast would always have a hold on her.

‘I was hiking along, the sun blinding me from what was coming. I heard an engine drone from behind and stuck my thumb out. Two had already passed that morning so I was expecting it to roll on . . . but it pulled up.’