Con and Murphy were running back down the track instantly, but Con stopped in his tracks. He couldn’t leave Madison behind, but with Eliza about, nowhere was safe for her, not even the car.

‘Come with us: you can’t stay here alone!’

Madison had gone pale – she didn’t look well – but she nodded, racing up beside him, and the two of them ran into the bush after Murphy.

Immediately they were enveloped by cider gums, their sap filling the air with a scent like honey, their leaves casting mottled shadows on the undergrowth of ferns and fallen branches.

Deeper in the trees, a scream of pain.

Con ran beyond Murphy, dodging branches and massive dolomite rocks. They were now in a grove of gnarled, ancient pencil pines. The buzzing of flies filled the air. The Great Western Tiers, an impenetrable maze of trees, scrub and stone.

Con’s partner was in there somewhere, with a murderer.

‘Gabby!’ shouted Con. He set off into the bush in the direction he thought the cry had come from, Madison and Murphy following close behind.

‘Gabby!’

‘Con!’ Gabriella sounded distant. He beat his way towards the sound of her voice, his shirt getting caught and tearing on branches.

Gabriella burst out of the trees ahead. Her face was covered in scrapes, her hair a mess of cobwebs and pine needles. ‘I think I hit Eliza in the shoulder,’ she said, panting, eyes bright. ‘I winged her, but then she lost me. She’s somewhere that way.’ Gabriella pointed in the direction she had come from. ‘I need your help, before she disappears for good.’

‘We can’t take Madison into a firefight,’ said Con.

‘Okay, you stay with her, then,’ said Murphy, sprinting off in the direction Gabriella had pointed.

‘You don’t even have a gun, idiot!’ said Gabriella, chasing after him.

Within seconds Con lost sight of the two of them in the trees, before he could even say a word.

He looked across at Madison, frustrated to be the one burdened with her. ‘Let’s head back to the trail and wait for the squad cars.’

Madison looked up at him, a glimmer of boldness back in her eyes. ‘And which way is that, detective?’

Con looked around him – an instant thrill of panic. He had no idea. He didn’t even have Murphy’s phone.

There were no markers anywhere, just endless ancient pencil pines, keeping watch.

CHAPTER 54

MURPHY

Murphy and Gabriella crashed through scrub and over fallen logs, startling wallabies into the undergrowth, each thump from their jumps bringing terror: was it Eliza’s rifle? Something else?

‘Stay close to me,’ said Gabriella, her forehead bleeding from a long scrape. ‘She’s desperate now.’

‘You sound like you’re enjoying this,’ said Murphy.