Leon and Shane had tried brainstorming where Max might have gone, but Shane hadn’t taken his son up to the forest often, so there were no favourite or familiar places to which the boy might gravitate. If Max didn’t want to be found, it would be easy for him to hide; roads were everywhere, and he could have taken any one of them. All they could do was comb the edges of the wilderness, with Leon leaning out of the window, head in the rain, calling the boy’s name.

Driving back to town was slow going, the headlights bouncing off the swirling mist. Shane was quiet; Leon assumed he was thinking about arriving home empty-handed, and how devastated Wendy would be. The longer Max was missing, the lower his chances of survival, especially in conditions like this.

As they approached the outskirts of town, Leon saw the sign to the tip. ‘Maybe we should have a quick look,’ he suggested, not holding out much hope.

‘Max hates the smell of that place,’ Shane said, but he took the turn-off anyway, and drove into the yard.

The fog was even thicker down here. Leon strode between piles of rubbish, probing with his torch. He almost tripped over a dead Tasmanian devil—it had to be Miki’s poor male. Using the side of his boot, he pushed it over and saw the ulcerated mass on its face. He found a rag and dragged the corpse to the nearest garbage heap, then covered it with a sheet of tin and a few cardboard boxes. It was a burial of sorts. At least Miki wouldn’t see it when she came here with Kurt.

It didn’t take long for Leon to do a circuit of the tip, and there was no sign of Max. No kid in his right mind would come here anyway—Shane was right: the trash stank. Leon was about to return to the car when he spotted the rusty old excavator down the back, with its bucket resting on the ground. He paused. Kids liked machines; he had climbed all over them when he was a boy. He should take a quick look, just to be sure.

Close up, he flashed his torch through the window, but the glass was cloudy.

Then he pulled up short, hope shooting through him like electricity. Cloudy glass could be condensation. Maybe someone was in there. He climbed the ladder and peered in. Through the misty glass, he could just make out someone curled up on the seat.

He tried the door, but it was locked, so he yelled and knocked on the window, banging frantically with the flat of his hand. He could break the glass—but maybe he shouldn’t, machines like this were expensive.

He climbed down and sprinted to the ute, shouting, ‘Shane, come quick!’