She’d been to ugly crime scenes—police rounds was her first job as a journalist—and covering the courts over the last six years, she’d seen plenty of photos of wounded bodies, blood-smeared kitchen knives, yellow markers numbering dismal objects strewn across a floor. She had a technique for looking at those images, blinking crisply so they couldn’t burrow inside her eyeballs in a permanent way. But she wasn’t sure she could manage this. She’d spent so many hours of her life in Paula’s house, so many long dinners, TV binge festivals, boozy dancing nights, backyard afternoons yabbering over many pots of tea, weeping sessions after some misfortune for Paula or Anita or Stacey. And now she knew Stace was lying on the floor in that house. Beautiful Stacey and her beautiful kids.

Her phone dinged with a text: Okay to come in.

Anita tipped her head in greeting to the cops outside as she threaded her way around their gear and through the front door, her shoes crunching on the plastic runners temporarily laid over the rugs and floorboards. She was ushered away from the living room towards the kitchen, but on the way past she glanced into the room to see the crime scene officers working in their blue coveralls and white booties. Their faces were held almost rigid, as if they could only get through this with a tight professional mask. Anita had seen those solemn expressions before, whenever cops were required to deal with dead children.

As she moved one step further down the hallway, she caught a glimpse of Stacey’s body and the bloody blur of Matt’s scalp but she couldn’t see Cameron or Poppy. Maybe that was just as well.

An officer carrying a tripod and an armload of camera equipment walked briskly towards Anita, so she ducked into a corner out of the way. From there, she could see through to the kitchen table where Paula was sitting, talking to a detective. Anita recognised him from a long murder trial she’d covered the year before. Detective Mehta. Rohan Mehta. She remembered thinking he was a good guy when they’d chatted in the courthouse corridors. And now she observed the gently respectful way he was treating Paula, leaning slightly across the table towards her, with a manner that managed to be tender without being intrusive.

‘Paula. Hi,’ said Anita softly, in keeping with the muted air in the room.

On her way to the house, Anita had told herself that Paula could handle this better than most people. She was a doctor, robust, not easily flustered, and a woman who’d already experienced the wallop of grief in her life, so she was someone who could be a strong centre for everyone else. But when Paula stood up, her movements were tentative, fragile. A papery version of herself.