She didn’t tell Paula about the dancing around the house or the moments when she forgot about Stacey and the kids for stretches of time. Not that Paula would judge harshly. It would be Anita judging herself and putting that on her friend (which was something she must stop doing). In fact, Paula was a generous-spirited person who would appreciate the value in finding joy again. In fact, fuck it—Anita should suggest they go on a trip to Chile together soon. Then again, Paula might be better off travelling with someone else if she wanted to have a fun, joyful time. Maybe their friendship would forever be in a special category, a precious but painful category, draped in black fabric.

She turned off the music as she neared Lidcombe.

Anita pulled into the car park of the coroner’s court complex, but she wasn’t there to cover a current inquest. In recent weeks, she’d made several visits, gathering material on past cases for an article she’d pitched to Caroline, the editor of the paper’s weekend magazine: a long feature about how the system failed to protect women and children killed by men.

Caroline was pushing her to go with the personal angle—‘my friend was murdered’—but Anita baulked at that approach. For one thing, that would feel self-absorbed and tasteless. But more importantly, she wanted to write a ferocious but surgical piece, bristling with statistics and meticulous research. She didn’t want anyone to diminish the power of the story by sympathising with her as a bereaved friend nor to explain it away as personal angst.

Paula kept expressing doubts about the project, not sure it was wise to wade into this stuff. Anita knew how Paula regarded her: as a person too unstable, too ‘emotionally labile’, to handle such material right now. And sure, Anita could be impulsive and reactive sometimes, but Paula didn’t understand the solid base of her journalistic skills. No point trying to explain or defend herself. And anyway, Paula was only worrying out of love for her.

‘I’ll manage,’ Anita reassured her. ‘It’s a way to funnel my rage. It’s therapeutic.’

‘Is it, though?’ Paula asked.

‘Look, doing this project helps me control the urge to punch random men in the face. So it’s therapeutic for those guys, isn’t it?’

Of course, scrolling through the newspaper files and coroner’s office archives made for hard reading. So many dead woman, so many dead children. So fucking many.