Cover

About the Book

At the bottom of the world, there is an island. It is a land of rugged wilderness, of ice and snow and blistering heat, of the oldest trees on earth . . . They say tigers still roam there. They say other things roam, too.

When a school group of teenage girls goes missing in the remote wilderness of Tasmania’s Great Western Tiers, the people of Limestone Creek are immediately on alert. Three decades ago, five young girls disappeared in the area of those dangerous bluffs, and the legend of ‘the Hungry Man’ still haunts locals to this day.

Now, authorities can determine that the teacher, Eliza Ellis, was knocked unconscious, so someone on the mountain was up to foul play. Jordan Murphy, the local dealer and father of missing student Jasmine, instantly becomes the prime suspect. But Detective Con Badenhorst knows that in a town this size – with corrupt cops, small-town politics, and a teenage YouTube sensation – everyone is hiding something, and bluffing is second nature.

When a body is found, mauled, at the bottom of a cliff, suspicion turns to a wild animal – but that can’t explain why she was discovered barefoot, her shoes at the top of the cliff, laces neatly tied.

What happened up there on the bluffs?
Somebody knows . . . Unless the local legends are true . . .

Dedication

Firstly, to my family

I pay my respects to the Traditional Custodians of country, the Pallitore of the North tribe, who are the custodians of the Meander region. I pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, to whom Kooparoona Niara – Mountain of Spirits – is of cultural significance.

I acknowledge today’s Aboriginal community on all Lutruwita, who are the custodians of this island, and I recognise their continuing connection to land, waters, and culture.

Today I thought I saw him. He was at the tree line, watching the school. I think he saw me, and then he was gone. Rose said I’m not the only one who’s seen him. I’m never leaving the house again.

From the diary of Victoria Compton, sixteen years old, one of the five girls taken during the 1985 abductions in the Great Western Tiers.

Up in the hills, he hides and kills.

Down in the caves, he hides and waits.

The Hungry Man, who likes little girls,

with their pretty faces and pretty curls.

Don’t believe what the grown-ups say,

the Hungry Man will find a way.

So I won’t walk alone by the mountain trees,

or the Hungry Man will come for me.

Schoolyard rhyme, found written on the wall of a girls bathroom, Limestone Creek District School, 1985.

PROLOGUE

ELIZA

Present day, the Great Western Tiers, Tasmania

The rain woke her.

She needs you.

Eliza opened her eyes. She was facedown in the gravel of the hiking track, the smell of wet earth in her nose.

You have to get up.