She was only wearing a camisole tucked into her red-and-blue-patterned skirt. The shirt she had been wearing was now stuffed into a clear plastic evidence bag sitting on the bench. Through the plastic, Anita could see large bloodstains on the sleeves of the white shirt. The brightness of fresh blood had already dulled to a darker red.

Anita rushed forward to hug her, and it was reassuring to feel the warmth of Paula’s skin, the underlying sturdiness of her body. The two women held the embrace for a long moment but they didn’t look directly at each other. It might be too much. There was a risk this reality could hit with a force that would obliterate them.

Detective Mehta waited until they broke the embrace, then he stood up and offered Anita his hand to shake. ‘Hello, Ms Delgado. We met on the—’

‘Yeah, on the Richardson trial. Please call me Anita. Gotta say I’m glad you’re the one here for—I mean, I’m relieved you’re the detective handling …’

He nodded, so she didn’t have to struggle to finish the sentence. He made eye contact with such direct, pure sympathy that Anita had to drop her head and fuss with her bag. One more second of that sympathetic gaze and she would lose it.

‘I understand you were also a close friend of Stacey Durack,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes.’ But Anita’s throat clamped tight and no more words would come out.

‘I’d like to get a statement from you, but it doesn’t have to be right away,’ Mehta explained. ‘Might be best now if you concentrate on looking after your friend. Dr Kaczmarek thought she could probably stay tonight at your—’

‘Oh yes, of course,’ Anita jumped in, too abruptly and loudly. All her reflexes and gauges were off-kilter. ‘Come to my place.’

The house was an active crime scene, so Paula wouldn’t be allowed to stay there, even if she’d wanted to. Mehta suggested Paula fetch a few items of clothing from her bedroom before she left.

‘Oh … No. I’ll just take my handbag for now.’

Anita understood the impulse to walk out with nothing—every single thing in the house now felt contaminated with ugliness and sorrow.

Mehta nodded his understanding, but he asked Paula, ‘Are you sure you don’t need something warmer to wear now, though?’ It was late April and the night was chilly.

Paula ran her hands over her bare arms, as if she’d forgotten she was only wearing a cami. ‘Oh …’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Anita. ‘I’ve got a sweater in my car.’

As Anita drove away from the Earlwood house towards her own apartment, she glanced at Paula in the passenger seat. She looked even flimsier now, shrunken inside the folds of the loose green jumper Anita had found on the back seat.

‘Did they say when you can go back to the house?’