‘What now?’ I whisper.

He points to the river and walks on. At the river’s edge he stops again. I follow his gaze; he’s staring at the children who are playing in the water about thirty feet upstream. There are five of them, all long-haired, in various degrees of nudity. They’re chattering happily, passing sticks and large leaves from one to the other, scuttling across the rocks and piling up their finds. They are so focused on their task they don’t notice us. One of the boys has similar hair to the baby in the photograph. ‘Could be,’ Dad mutters.

‘There are too many kids, Dad. We need to wait for some of them to go away.’

‘And why would they do that? Seems like they’re having a good time. Smile.’

We make our way up the river, walking on the thin muddy edge or across the rocks that offer a path through the water. A girl in a brown t-shirt sees us first.

‘Men,’ she shouts. She pushes her long fringe out of her eyes and regards us with suspicion. The children stand tall, alert as a mob of kangaroos.

‘Hey there,’ I call out. ‘What are you building?’

‘I’m getting Finn,’ the girl in brown says, and breaks from the group.

‘Hold on,’ Dad says. ‘Can I show you something?’

She stops mid-stride. ‘What?’

Dad balances on a large mossy rock. He takes out his wallet. ‘It’s a picture,’ he says. He speaks directly to the boy we think might be Beau. ‘Is your name Beau?’

The children are surprised.

‘How do you know that?’ the girl in brown asks. She reminds me of Abby.

Dad keeps his eyes on Beau. ‘I have a picture of you when you were little. Your mother gave it to me. I’m her best friend and she’s sent me here because she’d like to see you.’

‘Is she coming here?’ the boy asks. ‘Maria said she was coming when I was sick but she didn’t.’

‘What’s going on?’ A short-haired woman in denim dungarees marches through the grassy field above us and stops at the top of the riverbank. She flicks her chin towards the children. ‘Up here. Now.’

They bound over the rocks then skit up the slippery slope to her.

She gathers them around her like chicks, folding an arm across the shoulders of those closest to her.

‘What do you want?’ she asks us.

‘He has a photo of Beau,’ the girl in brown says.

The woman stares at Dad. ‘How did you come by that?’

‘Skye gave it to me.’

She softens her face for an instant before it hardens again like fast-drying concrete. She turns her head and shouts, ‘Jackson.’

‘I’ll get him,’ the girl says, and starts to run off.

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘It’s all good. No need for alarm.’

‘Jackson!’ The woman looks behind her to see if the men are coming. And regrettably, they are. Two muscled, stern-faced men walk to her side. They could be brothers: both black-haired and bearded, wearing worn jeans, except one has a tattoo across his chest, a green-and-blue dragon in flight.