The chunk of time after that felt unreal, impossible to measure or digest, even though there were familiar objects in front of Anita’s eyeballs and people were saying words she understood, following procedures she would have expected. She was still pretty deaf from the noise of the gun, and presumably in shock too, which must have contributed to her disembodied sensation in the police station.

She wouldn’t have described herself as being afraid during that time, except afraid for Paula. She recalled asking the officers several times if there was any word on her friend’s condition and being told there was no information yet. The cops did confirm that Curtis Wigney had been declared dead at the scene.

Then at some point, maybe after two hours had passed, the sergeant came in to tell her, ‘Thought you’d want to know—your friend, Paula Kaczmarek, she’s in hospital in Sydney, conscious and stable.’

Knowing that, Anita felt her stomach muscles finally unknot and she knew she could handle whatever was going on around her.

The police were methodical, unhurried, polite. Later, when her head was clearer, she would recall that the cops were really very kind to her. And for her part, Anita was being as cooperative as she could manage, answering their questions, sitting compliantly in a room as officers came and went.

When she outlined the events of the day, she listened to her voice coming out of her body in coherent sentences, but she felt oddly disconnected from the lucid words. One moment managed to cut through the blur and lodge in Anita’s mind with defined edges. When she followed one of the officers to the main desk to fill out another form, she saw a family group on a bench in the waiting area. A man and woman in their early sixties, both worn out, anxious lines gouged into their faces, sat side by side, whispering to each other. A little boy was asleep on the bench beside the woman, his head on her lap, the side of his face pocked with a dozen small scabs and stained yellow with antiseptic. At the other end of the boy, a teenage girl sat with her hand resting protectively on his ankles. A skinny, spiky tough-nut of a girl.

Later, Anita would understand that these people were Ruby, her half-brother Jye and their maternal grandparents. And later, she would realise that she had killed that little boy’s father.

As she waited by the counter, Anita saw the grandfather lace his fingers through his wife’s hand, giving her strength or maybe drawing strength from her. Either way, the two of them appeared to be sharing the load of this trauma together.