Inside the van, the phone in her hand felt different. It was lighter. Heath was outside by the open door. ‘I’m not coming in,’ he said. ‘I’m not touching it.’

Sarah struck the phone against the side of the bench, and struck it again.

Heath leaned in. ‘Are you serious?’

Sarah shone the torch on the bench edge and hit the side of her phone against it repeatedly until the device cracked apart.

‘For God’s sake, Sarah . . .’

The phone had not broken fully open. She got out a butter knife and prised the phone into two halves.

There was the sound of Heath muttering and walking over to the table by the fire. It sounded like he moved a chair and sat down.

‘I think we need to take a breath and think about what really matters,’ he said when she came out. He lounged the top half of his body on the table, pushing the plates aside, chest pressed to the tabletop, hands open and imploring, expression pleading in the lamplight.

Was this pose a lie too? Did he do it to confuse her, one minute closed off and the next open and approachable?

‘We’re here and we have to stay safe. That’s our main priority. If your gun was moved, that’s a problem, but it’s no reason to spin off out of control.’

Sarah laid the two halves of the phone on the table and shone the torch on them. ‘You took the battery out,’ she said without emotion. ‘It’s gone.’

He lifted his head and looked.

‘Don’t say you didn’t take it.’

‘I didn’t take it.’

‘It’s missing.’ Sarah pointed the torchlight closer. ‘Where is it?’

‘I didn’t open your phone.’

‘Would you stop lying for one second?’

‘Did it drop out when you were hitting it?’

‘No,’ she said with as much mildness as she could manage.

‘Well . . .’ he sat back, ‘it must have dropped out.’

‘So here is how I’m seeing it.’ Sat down opposite him. ‘You either didn’t want to risk the phone starting to work, or you saw that the phone had started working, and you took the battery and put the phone back together so I wouldn’t know any different.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Sarah, listen, I didn’t bring up my brother to patronise you. I felt like I could talk about it with you. And I think I might have hurt your feelings when you looked at me and I wouldn’t look back at you before.’ His adult gaze, he levelled it at Sarah, and his pick-up skills weren’t dusty, they were expertly polished, sharpened to a point, designed to enter the body, pierce the mind, excite the heart, electrify the blood and warm the skin. ‘I wanted to,’ he said, his voice smoothly dropping an octave, ‘but I didn’t because I’d realised how much you were hurting and I knew it wouldn’t be right.’

Sarah was stunned, not by his appeal, but by his methods.

‘Was it to save the battery?’ she said after a pause.

‘I didn’t touch your phone.’

Sarah breathed slowly to calm herself. She was gripping the torch against her breast; she placed it down with deliberation.

‘If you really believed I’m the kind of person who would do something like that, you wouldn’t be like this,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have looked at me like that before. You wouldn’t have come down into the shower while I was there, or slept in the same bed as me last night. You know I’m okay.’

‘How am I meant to feel?’ Her voice betrayed her, unsteady and high, affected by her emotions. ‘My gun has been taken, my battery has been taken, no one is coming for us, and you won’t tell me who you are. What am I meant to do?’

‘You’re meant to wait to be rescued.’

‘My phone was the last chance we had of telling anyone we’re here. That doesn’t bother you?’

‘It bothers me, especially now you’ve smashed it to pieces.’

‘What about my gun? It’s gone.’

‘I’m hoping there’s an explanation.’

‘Any thoughts on what that explanation might be?’

‘I told you what I thought.’ He said carefully, ‘You’ve put the gun somewhere, and you are choosing not to remember where.’

‘Did I do that to the battery too?’

‘The battery dropped out when you were hitting the phone.’

Sarah pushed up from the table. ‘Okay then, let’s look.’

As Heath reluctantly stood he knocked over the bottle of whiskey beneath the table. He leaned down and eyed the depleted drink. Less than a quarter of the bottle was left. It was clear what he was thinking.

‘I didn’t drink all that,’ Sarah said.

‘Well I didn’t.’

‘I didn’t,’ she repeated firmly. ‘I put it under there so I . . . wouldn’t . . . drink any more . . .’ That sentence hadn’t really helped her argument.

To reach the bottle, to save bending his knee, Heath perched on the seat and reached under the table. He had to pull himself up awkwardly. He put the bottle on the tabletop and leaned forward, recovering for a moment, hands on lap.

Sarah quickly ducked her head and looked under the table, suspicious of the way he was sitting with his hands out of view. Heath unfurled his fingers showing her his empty palms. His face, when she looked up, was filled with disbelief.

‘I think you need to calm down.’

He followed her, limping up into the van, and slid onto the kitchen seat. Sarah began shining the torch around the van floor. The beam illuminated the van interior enough for the cans of food and assorted items on the bench to be dimly visible.

Heath wasn’t looking down at the floor. He was looking across at the hipflasks of alcohol that were beside the cans, the spirits that Sarah had included in her Christmas picnic. ‘How long have you been drinking for?’ he asked her.

She ignored him.

‘Must be a while, because you hold it pretty well. I can’t tell you’re drunk.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Are those hipflasks empty?’

‘I haven’t touched them.’

Staying seated he reached across. He shook each flask. The sound was the hollow rattle of dregs.

A cold kernel of fear lodged in Sarah’s upper chest; it released a fresh wave of concern and sickness through her. Was he so skilful as to set it up this thoroughly? She was sure she hadn’t drunk from the hipflasks . . .

Sarah kept her head down. ‘The battery’s not here.’

‘What’s that?’

He pointed to a dark lump in the shadows by the foot of the bed. Sarah shone the torch. It was just dirt that had been traipsed in.

She began a methodical slow sweep with the torch beam. She was systematic for Heath’s benefit: she knew the battery wasn’t there. Then her beam cast across a flat, small black block of something under the kitchen table. Sarah’s torchlight steadied, stayed shining on it. She shook her head.

Heath leaned to see underneath the table. ‘That looks like it.’

Sarah stood back, leaving the offending item for him to retrieve. He held it out for her to take, but she didn’t want it. He put it down at the far end of the table, beside the rolled-up building specs.

‘It didn’t fall out . . .’

‘Who hit you in the face, Sarah?’

‘Tansy.’

‘Tansy?’

‘You cut the chain on the gate into Hangman’s Track.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Why?’

‘I had to get up the track quickly. To get something.’

‘To get what?’

‘Not what you’d imagine.’

‘Illegal?’

‘No.’

‘So you did lie about that. I bet your name isn’t even “Heath”. You took my gun. Why?’

‘I didn’t take your gun.’

‘You know what I see in your eyes? I see that you think this is a game.’

Heath went out and sat at the table while Sarah gathered her things, as she passed by him, he said, ‘You don’t have to do this.’

As she left the shed, with Tansy in tow, he called, ‘This is crazy.’

It did feel crazy, leading Tansy down towards the hut, the torchlight slicing through the dark. Sarah’s bedroll was beneath her arm, a pillow and blankets rolled up inside of it.

Heath came in through the back door of the hut with an armful of kindling and firewood. He brushed aside the dried animal droppings, set and lit the fire for her. Sarah tethered Tansy to the memorial post beside Sid’s grave. She left the front door of the hut open. Night air flowed in and through the hut. In the subdued light of the new fire the room was hostile. The materials they’d shifted and left behind were in their different piles. The order they’d achieved earlier was fine if the room was for storage, not welcoming when it was to be a place for sleep and retreat.

Heath began cleaning away a space for her bed.

‘I can do that.’

‘I shouldn’t have spoken as bluntly as I did,’ he offered. ‘I’m not qualified to talk about depression or anything like that, so I should have kept my mouth shut. I don’t want to leave you down here alone – and not because I think you’re going to harm yourself, Sarah, I know you’re not – but because from the start I’ve made it harder for you, and it’s the last thing I want. Please . . .’ he extended his hand, as though she might take it and they’d head off hand in hand to the van, ‘you don’t have to stay down here.’

‘I’d like it if you left now.’