The Lost Man

After dinner at the family’s ranch, Nathan remembers that a contractor was due to visit his house to fix the refrigerated pantry known as the “coolroom.” Living where they do, it is necessary to have months’ worth of food in case they are cut off due to weather. The coolroom is essential. He calls the contractor and, while he waits, flips through Cam’s wallet, which is sitting on the table. After he leaves a message, he goes into the living room, where Liz made up the couch for him. He studies a painting Cam made of the stockman’s grave that hangs over the fireplace—although he’s never liked it, he sees why people respond to it.

Through the window, he sees Ilse taking sheets off the clothesline and goes outside. She asks him to tell her about the crime scene, and he does. He thinks about when they met, 10 years earlier, just after his divorce from Jacqui. Ilse was a Dutch backpacker who picked up a job tending bar in Balamara. They chatted, and Nathan went back to the bar a few times. But then he was banned from town and still is. (The reader does not yet know the reason for this.