IN THE MINUTES IMMEDIATELY AFTER SHE SHOT CURTIS Wigney, Anita had limited awareness of the flurry of police activity around her. She was told the details sometime afterwards.

In those first minutes, she was so deafened by the gunshot, ears ringing, dizzy, she had to lean against the wall to maintain balance. She almost slipped over in a slick of blood on the floor, so she dropped to her hands and knees to crawl across the room to reach her friend. She was careful to avoid looking at Wigney’s dead eyes. His body had slumped to one side, which meant his weight wasn’t pressing on Paula’s ribcage, thank Christ.

‘Paula.’

Anita called her name over and over. Paula was unresponsive, her skin blue-grey, eyes closed, her mouth slightly open and slack, but when Anita grabbed her wrist, she was sure she detected a pulse. When she reached out to touch Paula’s chest, she was convinced she felt the rise and fall of air going into her lungs.

She had no idea if Paula was conscious enough to hear anything, but still she leaned in close and said, ‘I’m here. It’s Anita. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’

The next thing Anita was aware of was a police officer tapping her shoulder, asking if she was okay. She was still too deafened to hear any of the emergency vehicles outside.

The police sergeant took her elbow to help her off the floor and steer her out of the room. He did this gently but firmly so the paramedics could move past quickly to check on Paula and Wigney.

The grandparents had picked up Ruby’s call from the consulting room and, even though the girl had dropped the receiver, they heard enough down the phone line to call 000. At the same time, Ruby and Jye had climbed over the medical centre’s back fence and sprinted to a nearby house to bang on the door for help.

In the car park outside, Anita couldn’t properly hear or process anything the cops were saying to her, so she said straight out, ‘He was strangling her. He was killing her. So I shot him.’

When she saw the paramedics loading Paula on a gurney into the back of an ambulance, Anita called out to them, ‘How is she? How is she? Is she alright?’

But with the overlapping sirens from approaching police cars and the clutter of vehicles and people and swirling lights, the paramedics didn’t hear her. They whacked on their own siren and lights and accelerated out onto the highway.