Over the next hour, Paula described, step by step, how she killed Ian Ferguson and then John Santino. Along the way, Anita managed to chuck in a few clarifying questions.

‘You decided then—on the spot?’

‘You signed the death certificate?’

‘Did anyone see you go into the building?’

‘Am I having a stupid and horrible dream right now?’

But mostly Anita listened, her brain scrabbling to process what she was hearing, her chest too tight to suck in enough air to speak many words at all.

Paula looked like a different person as she told the story. The weird blonde hair was part of it. But her friend was different in a more fundamental way, at a cellular level. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she’d always been a woman capable of murdering people in certain circumstances and Anita had been too self-absorbed or too innocent to notice.

In the course of telling the story, Paula outlined her moments of doubt, the moments she had come close to abandoning her plans. She described the day she had resolved to admit everything to Anita and hand herself in to the police. She closed her eyes for a moment as she recalled seeing Rochelle and Brody so happy, explaining how that had changed her mind about confessing.

Paula moved on from the narrative straight into the justifications for what she’d done before Anita had a chance to catch her breath and respond.

‘I did what I thought was necessary. I couldn’t see any other realistic way to protect those women from serious harm,’ said Paula.

‘What? Sorry? What? Murder was the only answer?’

‘No, no, no. But I looked at other options, other solutions. I checked the facts—that’s why I went to see Brooke in the hospital, so I could be sure that—’

‘For fuck’s sake, you stalked that woman!’

Paula tipped her head, acknowledging that, but then kept going. ‘I needed to establish, as surely as possible, if she was or wasn’t in danger from John Santino. I mean, look at all the trials you’ve covered, all the case histories you’ve been reading. You know the system doesn’t always protect women, not a hundred per cent.’

‘Well, okay, everyone knows things are … So we should—what? We should all think, “Fuck it, let’s murder the bastards”? You were so sure killing people was the only way.’