“Hey, shut up,” Tim said. “It was an animal. Okay? We’re fine.”

“No, but shit,” Robert said, and he opened his door. And went out into the night.

Edmund was roused by the sound. They couldn’t see it—her—not before him, anyway. He needed that, to see her. Edmund took a shaky hand and fumbled with the car door handle. Tim reached out to put a hand on his shoulder but Edmund was out of the car before he made contact.

The night whipped around him, the wind icy cold. He knew he was crying because two tracks down his face felt freezing. On legs far more uncertain than before he had got in the car, he ran after Robert. Somewhere, he still hoped that he had mistaken an animal for a person, but as soon as he found his phone in his pocket, pulled it out and turned the torch on, that thought was dashed.

Robert saw her, and started to gag.

Edmund beat him to it, rushing over to the grass verge and throwing up the contents of his stomach, which at this point were mostly liquid. He forced himself to look at her. A woman lay there in the wake of his car. She was in a dark blue raincoat, her head to the side, bleeding onto the road. Her limbs were all strangely placed as though she were a marionette puppet someone had put down carelessly. Her left leg was jutting out at an angle that couldn’t be possible.

“We’re screwed,” Robert said, his eyes clapped on her. “We’re shitting screwed. Look at it. I mean. Look at her. It’s over. We’re screwed.”

Edmund suddenly felt white-hot anger, and launched himself at Robert. Robert was taken unawares and went sprawling on the road. Edmund scrambled after him and knelt over him. He got Robert by the scruff of the neck and pulled his face to his. “You’re thinking about us? You slimy little shit. We just ran someone over and you’re thinking about us?”

“From where I was sitting,” Robert spit, “I think it was you who ran her over.”

Edmund saw red, and raised a fist to him, fully intending to bring it down with as much force as he could. But then Tim was grasping him by the shoulders and pulling him up off Robert.

“Oh my God.” Rachel.

“What have we done?” Pru.

Edmund looked around. They were all there, standing far enough from the woman to accept it might be a mirage, but close enough to really know that it wasn’t. Edmund couldn’t think. It was as if his mind had seized up and thoughts actively hurt.

“Is she dead?” Someone. Pru, he thought. He couldn’t look away from the woman.

“She has a suitcase,” Rachel said, gesturing with an uncertain hand past the body. A suitcase was lying, slightly exploded, leaking clothes onto the ground.