Cain is back out of the shower now. I watch him get dressed, his body mapped with pale scars up his left side, concentrating between his knee and hip, with those slashes reaching up to his shoulder. Surgeons cut out most of the shrapnel and his body has since squeezed more of it out, but there are still scraps encased in knots of scar tissue that’ll be in there until he dies.

Now he picks up the iron and slides it over his shirt then pulls it on. I adjust his collar, find it still warm. A smile now. And those dimples bracketing his mouth, almost too charming for his weathered, rugged face. Three and a half decades of life are carved in faint lines about his eyes. He’s still handsome, shopworn and creased but a strong jaw, eyes that catch the light. I feel both love and guilt, heat in my chest and ice in my gut.

‘You set for work later?’ he asks.

‘Yep, I’ve got my uniform in the car.’

Axel and Claire’s house is about twenty-five minutes south-east of the CBD, a big two-storey place with neighbours who all work in the city and labradors in most the yards. Then there is Axel and Claire, who fit in like black nail polish on a beauty queen. Cain reaches for my car keys and I volunteer them. It’s a small kindness from him to drive when he can. I spend half my day driving – people think an ambulance officer’s job is performing CPR and administering epi-pens when really we spend much more time navigating through traffic and waiting in car parks for call outs.

Cain steers us through the streets to the motorway south, soon we are pulling off again, and rolling through the tree-lined streets.

‘Knock, knock,’ I call through the screen door when we have arrived. ‘Hello.’

‘Come in,’ Axel’s deep voice calls. ‘It’s unlocked.’ We walk through to the living room, white walls, pale timber floorboards. The sort of place that looks barely lived in at all. I suppose they have a cleaner, it was probably one of those decisions that are easy for people with money. Should we get a cleaner? Do you know anyone good? Why don’t we find out who the Smiths use?

‘Hello lovelies,’ Claire says, striding to Cain first for a hug. ‘Jesus you need to chill out on the bench press.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I say.

Taj, the twelve-year-old beagle, comes over at her heels.

Claire hugs me, kisses the air beside my cheek. She calls herself the yogoth – bottle-black hair, beetle shell nails and tattoos – she also has her own Yoga studio in the city. I’ve gone along once or twice, always a mixed bag when it comes to customers.

‘I love your hair,’ she says.

‘I’ve gone short.’