“No,” Pip panted. “It’s not.”

The women held the bullet wound together, their hands becoming soaked, rising and falling with Pip’s rapid breaths.

“I guess this is—” Pip’s voice caught over blood in her throat. “My … my penance.”

“Yeah.” Amanda nodded. “I guess so, huh? You didn’t get to choose yours, either.”

Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a siren was beginning to grow. Amanda couldn’t tell how far away help was. One ear was blocked with blood. Sweeney must have called for backup before she burst in. Amanda was aware that an older cop, a harder cop, would have waited until her colleagues arrived before trying to tackle the situation herself, even if she heard her friend’s anguished cries from inside the house. But not Sweeney. It was because of Amanda that Pip was dying. For once, there were no words.

“I should have…” Pip said. Unconsciousness was already pulling at her. She refocused on Amanda, squeezed the other woman’s fingers. “I should have acted, but I didn’t.”

“Oh Jesus,” Amanda sighed. She grabbed Pip’s face and bent her lips to the dying officer’s. The kiss was hard. Hot, filled with pain. All the pain Amanda had seen in Sweeney’s face as the cop stood beside her that night behind the Barking Frog, obviously fighting with her own heart. It seemed to last a lifetime, but it ended, Amanda pulling away fast.

“Happy now?” she asked.

Amanda thought she saw a flicker of a smile cross Sweeney’s lips before her head fell back against the grass.

It was raining. A light misting rain, the same that had been falling on that day as I stood before her at the roadside, the little girl whose life was about to be ruined, along with mine. Of course. I drove Kevin Driscoll’s car through the streets, hardly able to follow the directions my phone whispered to me through my clattering thoughts. I took wrong turns, sped to the end of blocks, my teeth gritted, cursing myself. The horizon was pink, then red, then black, and soon enough it became speared with the aerials and chimneys of ancient factories and warehouses. I slowed down, rolled over gravel and glass, between wire fences pushed open into the dust. There was a light on, finally, gold glimmers around a slice of corrugated iron. I turned and stopped at the sight of my own car. The car I had left at my house in Cairns.

There was only one man who could have taken it and driven it here.

My email, open on my other laptop, the one in my kitchen where I had left the vengeful father. He would have contacted Khalid through my account. Together, the two of them colluding, knowing I was coming here. Knowing I would lead them right to their victim.