Anita uttered those words out loud as she walked across the newspaper office. She often berated herself aloud in order to wrangle useless ruminations into mature thoughts. Hearing her own voice come out strict and sensible was sometimes enough to shut down foolish thinking. And this adolescent fussing about Rohan Mehta was certainly foolish, as well as being horribly inappropriate, given the far more important matters of the last twenty-four hours.

She was hanging out to talk to Paula. They still hadn’t talked properly about the video on Matt’s phone. Anita needed to know how her friend was handling the news. They needed to share this moment in some way, carry the dark weight of it together.

Once Paula recovered from the bout of vomiting, she cleaned her teeth at the sink in the consulting room then took a few minutes to steady herself before packing away the defibrillator and tidying up the paraphernalia that had been knocked onto the floor when Ian Ferguson thrashed and when Paula, Li-Kim and the paramedics worked on him. She kept the small window open and turned on the ceiling fan so the vomit smell could disperse a bit, before spraying a eucalyptus-scented disinfectant around the room.

There was a temptation to ring the hospital and ask about Ferguson. Would she be glad to confirm he’d died? Or would it be a relief to discover he’d survived, so she wouldn’t have to confront the consequences of what she’d done? She didn’t know what to feel. This seemed so unreal, there was no way to align it with the regular structures of her mind.

Eight more patients were on her appointment list and Paula made it clear to Jemma that she would see everyone, with apologies for running late.

Through the afternoon, Paula listened, smiled, nodded, pulled perky faces at a baby, examined a skin lesion, offered advice about hormone replacement therapy, did a pap smear, vaccinated a toddler, filled out a workers compensation form, prescribed hypertension medication and referred patients to various specialists.

During the months Remy was sick and then during the bleak stretch of time after he died, she had been determined not to impose her grief on patients or on people she encountered in a casual way. In the process, she had developed strong muscles for faking regular behaviour, functioning as a doctor, functioning as a human being, in a way that would appear entirely normal from the outside. It was the same in the weeks after Stacey and the children were killed. By now, Paula was match-fit for faking normal.

Even when her last patient had gone, she remained in that ‘I’m a normal doctor’ mode, sitting at the computer in the consulting room to catch up with test results and emails.

When Jemma buzzed from the front desk, Paula stepped out of her room into the corridor. From there, she could see a police officer standing at the counter.