Inflatable orange dinghies bobbed over the waters of the lake, police divers occasionally surfacing. Above was the chopper in the blue sky, darting in and out of view. At least two-thirds of the search party had already relocated to this area, here on the shores of Lake Mackenzie but also all around it. If the motorbike wasn’t so loud, she knew she’d hear their cooees and shouts of ‘Jasmine! Bree! Cierra!’

She’d instructed Darren to ignore the turnoff for the wallaby trail that led to the hut and instead continue further on the four-wheel-drive track. He explained that because Jasmine and Cierra’s packs had been taken, they knew they’d made it out of the bush they were now riding into, back up the mountain, but she had insisted.

They came to a stop and Darren switched off the motor. ‘Well? This is the place, right?’ He untied their hiking packs from the bike, handing Eliza’s hers.

They were on a rise in the trail, beside a small grove of twisted white gums, their roots wrapped around large blocks of pale grey dolomite. Aside from this grove, the landscape was largely open: plains of low shrub with rocky points and small lakes. In the distance was the moody-blue haze of Ironstone Mountain. Insects buzzed, crickets chirped.

‘You know where we are?’ said Darren. He watched her with a stranger’s intensity now.

‘I think so,’ said Eliza.

‘I know what happened with Jack last night was . . . difficult. But what’s really changed from the last time we tried this?’ said Darren. His tone was polite and curious, but his sharp eyes gave away his suspicion.

I shot someone last night. I thought he was a bear-man. I felt that same terror.

‘It brought back a lot of feelings,’ said Eliza. ‘And with that came some patchy memories.’ She pointed towards Ironstone Mountain, then drew her fingers back towards a nearby ridge. ‘But I’m sure that Georgia thought she saw someone up there.’

Perhaps 500 metres distant, a stark sandstone ridge jutted out of the land like the fin of a sailfish. On top of it was a single large white gum, its leaves reaching to the sky. It was so large and out-of-place that Eliza was sure it was the same one.

Darren surveyed the ridge. ‘You remember the ridge where Georgia saw the figure?’

‘I remember the tree. I remember the fin of rock.’

‘There are a lot of trees and ridges around here,’ said Darren.

‘I remember Ironstone Mountain in the distance. I remember we’d not long passed the trail to Penny Royal Hut. I remember Lake Nameless being somewhere to our east. And I remember that large white gum on a fin of rock, because Georgia claimed whatever she saw was hiding behind it.’

‘Then we should’ve brought more searchers,’ said Darren, pulling his satellite phone from his pocket.