As he crossed to the drink machine, he remembered how he’d had to make excuses to get out the door on time at the end of his shift on the first Tuesday of every month, to race over the border for the only counselling service for hundreds of kilometres.

The fellas were full of ideas about him meeting some sheila on these little missions, and he’d let them have their fantasies. His counsellor was actually alright looking, he’d even asked her out because she’d looked a bit like Beck’s cousin from Neutral Bay. But she’d said it wasn’t appropriate.

Someone said ‘Kippen’ on the airwaves so Daniel slung himself around the counter and ramped up the volume.

‘Kippen here. Go ahead,’ he said, cleaning the muck out of the grooves of the speaker with his thumbnail as he waited.

‘Queensland here. No reports of missing teenage male north of the border. Office closing. Switching to national. Go ahead.’

Lazy shits. He made them wait a bit longer than usual to sign off. ‘Copy that. Over and out,’ he said.

‘Over and out,’ replied the voice he didn’t recognise, lighting up the needles for a moment before they fell dead.

He inhaled, but that only caught at the half-swallowed mouthful of cold chips at the side of his throat, which made him cough enough for water to force its way out of the corners of his eyes.

If only Beck had remembered whether Jamie was wearing some kind of outer layer, Daniel would be able to find some way of making a positive out of this. This whole thing could be character building for the little dickhead, if he was somewhere on the ranges, and if he was able to stay warm.

Daniel looked at the clock. Almost seven. A quick calculation told him that was about two hours to the twelve-hour mark; that would be halfway to really terrible statistics for finding his son.

Beck waited a good ten minutes in the darkened kitchen to make sure Doris wasn’t going to get up when she opened the fridge.

She’d pretended to be asleep at nine, then waited for all the lights to go out.

Hunger had come to her in a wave, and now that she was sure of being left alone, she pulled at the leftovers under the tightly-pinched foil, took the whole plate to the sink so the light from the fridge didn’t spill towards the end of the hallway, and started devouring sliced chicken.

A sound, far away. Beck froze, expecting to see Doris and being forced to endure one of her chats. In the silence she realised how thirsty she was. She already knew what noise the taps above a farmhouse sink would make with the rush of the water through the pipes, so she returned to the fridge, opened it a crack, and pulled at the closest bottle.