I couldn’t bring myself to speak, so just shook my head slowly, side to side. I wasn’t hurt, but I sure as hell wasn’t okay. The shaking in my hands had started the moment I fired that second shot, and it hadn’t abated. In fact, I felt chilled – chilled in so many ways.

‘Jesus, if this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,’ he said, shaking his head. He reached out and ran his hand across Cassie’s spine. ‘First a burning bloody circus and now this. Are you sure you’re okay? The guy over there said the elephant was running straight for you, said it was mad. You’re lucky you killed the thing.’

Yeah, real lucky.

‘Come on, let’s get you up from here and out of the spotlight.’

Spotlight? I looked around me for the first time and realised I’d attracted a bit of a crowd. Well, not me, I supposed. Then there was the stage lighting from above. The noise of an overhead helicopter registered to my addled senses. Police, I assumed. I accepted the proffered hand and got to my feet, swaying a bit with the resultant head rush. For the first time, I got to fully take in the scene around me. Cassie’s life had ended in the middle of an intersection. This creature, which to my mind should have been living out her days in the lush jungles and wetlands of India, had instead ended them on a sea of asphalt, in the heart of the commercial sector. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me. The continuing cycle of glowing green, orange and red of the traffic lights seemed incongruous with the sight of this enormous mammal strewn across the carriageway. The effort required for me to hold it all together was immense.

‘Here, you’re shaking.’ Smithy pulled off his jacket and draped it across my shoulders. My eyes were drawn back to Cassie and were trapped.

There was so little blood. Surely there should be more blood? Instead, Cassie looked deceptively peaceful, as though she hadn’t spent the last moments of her life in blind panic and rage. I had done that. I’d done that to her.

Smithy’s arm went across my shoulder and gently moved me in the direction of a squad car. My eyes stayed on Cassie as long as they physically could before pain forced them to the front. In the far distance, beyond the police car, I could see an ambulance.

Terry Bennett.

He would have heard the shots. He would have understood their cruel message. He had lost everything tonight.