The uniform was starting to look frayed around the edges, too. I said, “We need a word with Ms. Rafferty. Why don’t you get onto your station, have them send someone out to take her to the hospital when we’re done?” He nodded and backed away. I heard the sigh of relief.

Richie went down on one knee beside the car. “Ms. Rafferty?” he said gently. The kid had bedside manner. Maybe a little too much: his knee was smack in a muddy rut and he was going to be spending the rest of the day looking like he had fallen over his own feet, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Fiona Rafferty’s head came up, slowly and wavering. She looked blind.

“I’m very sorry for your trouble.”

After a moment her chin tilted down, a tiny nod.

“Can we get you anything? Water?”

“I need to ring my mam. How do I— Oh, God, the babies, I can’t tell her—”

I said, “We’re getting someone to accompany you to the hospital. They’ll let your mother know to meet you there, and they’ll help you talk to her.”

She didn’t hear me; her mind had already flinched off that and ricocheted somewhere else. “Is Jenny OK? She’s going to be OK, right?”

“We’re hoping so. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”

“The ambulance, they wouldn’t let me go with her—I need to be with her, what if she, I need to—”

Richie said, “I know. The doctors are looking after her, though. They know what they’re at, those lads. You’d only get in their way. You don’t want that, no?”

Her head rocked from side to side: no.

“No. And anyway, we need you to help us out here. We’ll need to ask you some questions. Would you be able for that now, do you think?”

Her mouth fell open and she gasped for air. “No. Questions, Jesus, I can’t— I want to go home. I want my mam. Oh, God, I want—”

She was on the verge of breaking down again. I saw Richie start to draw back, hands going up reassuringly. I said smoothly, before he threw her away, “Ms. Rafferty, if you need to go home for a little while and come back to us later on, we won’t stop you. It’s your choice. But for every minute we lose, our chances of finding the person who did this go down another notch. Evidence gets destroyed, witnesses’ memories get blurry, maybe the killer gets farther away. I think you should know that, before you make your decision.”

Fiona’s eyes were starting to focus. “If I … You could lose him? If I come back to you later, he could be gone?”

I moved Richie out of her eye line with a hard grip on his shoulder and leaned against the car door. “That’s right. Like I said, it’s your choice, but personally I wouldn’t want to live with that.”

Her face contorted and for a moment I thought she was gone, but she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and pulled it together. “OK. OK. I can … OK. I just … Can I just take two minutes and have a cigarette? Then I’ll answer whatever you want.”