He was treating her like a child, an invalid or something, his voice a higher pitch than normal, his face lined with concern. She pulled on the first things she could find: black pants crumpled on the floor and a thin red cable-knit jumper draped over the chair.

‘Are you ready to go, Mr and Mrs Wright?’ the young officer asked.

She was never going to be ready for this. She was doing this because she owed it to Wren.

Rather than letting either of them drive, the officers gave them a lift to the hospital, morgue. No one said anything. Maybe they were trained not to say anything, maybe they didn’t know what to say. She looked out the window past the dark night, then she saw her reflection and started gently banging her head on the glass. Suddenly she banged harder and Billy reached across, grabbing her by the shoulders and all but pinning her down.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ she hissed. She had wounded him. Well, so what? She had been dealt a fatal blow tonight too.

The officers took them through a back entrance, down a short hallway and into the morgue itself.

‘Are you sure you want to go in?’ Billy asked, giving her one last opportunity to have him do it, but Vanessa had to see Wren, had to know it was him and that all hope had been lost.

‘I’m sure.’

‘Are you ready, Vanessa?’ Asked the female officer.

‘Yes.’

She waved her hand and a gurney was rolled over. The sheet was pulled up over the body and Vanessa needed to both see and not see what was under the sheet. The attendant didn’t just remove the sheet, yanking it down with a flourish as she’d seen them do in the movies. He took his time, peered under the sheet first, then lifted it up high and back, smoothing it just under Wren’s neck. Vanessa saw why. The right side of his face was still her beautiful Wren, but the other side was covered with carefully placed bandages.

‘Wren!’ she screamed, her heart beating wildly in her chest, a bird desperate to be set free. She stared at his face, surrounded by hard stainless steel when he should have been at home, surrounded by family and friends. Vanessa collapsed. No one managed to catch her before she went down, her world destroyed.

Vanessa woke up, aware that there was something firm yet soft underneath her. She struggled to sit up. She saw Billy sitting in a chair beside her in what looked like a hospital room.

‘Shh, Ness,’ Billy said, gently helping her swing her legs over the side of the bed.

‘What happened?’ she asked, her mind giving her a few more blissfully unaware moments.

‘You fainted while you were… identifying Wren’s body.’ He cleared his throat and Vanessa could hear the emotion thickening his voice.