‘If Matt’s on his tracks, your night driver seems to be heading straight through,’ Connor commented. ‘From memory of Sophie’s map, this road will get him onto the wet-weather track that crosses the river.’

‘Will it? I’ve never been that far,’ Tilly said. She stared at the passing scenery. ‘I think we’re getting close to the turnoff to the springs. When Luke and I came, I remember it was all graded along here and the escarpment looks about right too.’

‘Yep, coming up. We turn at the bloodwood there – hang about.’ He slowed and braked, and Tilly saw that while Matt’s vehicle tracks continued straight ahead, the set beneath his had plainly turned right onto the ungraded road to Sandstone Springs, where they themselves were headed. ‘You said he was going to follow them.’

‘It’s what he told me.’ Tilly pulled her shades off as if disbelieving what they showed her. ‘The tracks are as plain as print! Even I can see he’s turned off, but Matt’s just driven on. I wonder why?’

‘Well, let’s find out. They went in but they haven’t come out again. Either Matt’s lost them – and I don’t see how anyone with eyes could miss that – or he knows something we don’t about the country and is trying to cut them off by going straight for the river?’

Tilly shrugged helplessly. ‘I can’t tell. I don’t know enough about the roads.’ She wished she had paid more attention to the map.

Connor’s shades flashed as he turned his head towards her. ‘Let’s see where they go then.’ The back wheel crashed into a hole and he winced. ‘Sorry. Pity the grader didn’t make it this far.’

The vehicle lurched and bumped its way along, with Connor skirting around the first fallen tree as Luke had also done, and Tilly pointing out where the second one had been deliberately felled. ‘You can see we wouldn’t have got past without the winch to tow it away.’

‘Looks like somebody was trying to discourage travellers,’ he agreed. ‘So that green patch way over against the cliff – that’s Sandstone Springs?’

‘Yes. I thought you’d been here before. There were certainly tracks under ours when we came – we thought they were yours.’

‘No. Something came up and I didn’t make it out after all.’

His voice had changed – he almost sounded guilty, Tilly thought – and a sudden memory made her ask. ‘That wouldn’t be the day you turned those people back from the shed, would it? The ones with the dog?’

He shot her a quick glance. ‘Could be.’

‘Only they didn’t have a dog, or at least not according to Matt, when he gave them a hand with a flat tyre. So, which of you is telling porkies?’ she demanded.