Tully listened hard.

There was no response.

63

HEATHER

The hospital was buzzing. Two uniformed police stood at the end of the hallway, waiting to take them all to the station to give statements. Heather sat on the floor with her back against the wall, the hem of her wedding dress grey with dust and grime and blood. Her wedding shoes lay beside her. Three people had offered Heather a seat, but she’d shaken her head without even looking up. She couldn’t move – it was taking all of her energy to merely exist. Was this what shock was like? In theory, she should have been in shock before – when her mother died or when her father was convicted of her murder – but neither of those experiences felt anything like this. That was a thin, reedy feeling, an empty quiet that preceded a storm. This was all-consuming pain – a loud, raging inferno that threatened to burn her to the ground.

She, Tully, Rachel and Pam had followed the ambulance to the hospital, with Sonny driving. Sonny had planned to drop Pam back to the nursing home on the way, but one of Stephen’s colleagues had called Rachel and told them to come to the hospital right away. Now they were in the hallway in their wedding clothes, waiting. For what? Heather wondered. She’d seen Stephen. She knew the news wasn’t going to be good. The question was . . . did she even want it to be?

It was a strange feeling, finally having her answer. All those months she’d doubted herself. All that counselling. The visit to her father! All to convince herself, and everyone else, that she was crazy. How had she fallen for it? The moment she saw Stephen holding Pam, she knew. They all knew. And yet, if Rachel hadn’t brought the candlestick down on his head, she felt certain Stephen would have talked her out of what she knew. For that reason, she wouldn’t let anything happen to Rachel. It could have been her who did this to Stephen. Perhaps it should have been.

‘Heather,’ Tully said.

Heather managed to lift her head. Rachel and Tully had been joined by two doctors. One of them, she noticed, had blood on the paper booties that covered his shoes.

‘Can you stand up?’ Tully asked.

Heather shook her head.

‘Let me help you,’ Sonny said, and he pulled her to her feet.

‘You’re Stephen’s wife?’ one of the doctors asked.

‘Yes,’ Heather said, wondering if that was true. They’d exchanged their vows and signed the papers, so she supposed it was.

‘I’m sorry to tell you,’ he started.

Even before he finished the sentence, everyone was crying. Everyone except Pam, who tugged on the doctor’s arm and asked: ‘Can we go back to the picnic now?’

It was meant to be their wedding night, Heather thought, as she stepped out of her dirty wedding dress and laid it over a chair some hours later. Stephen had booked a hotel room in the city for them tonight. They’d sent their overnight bags there this morning. Heather imagined the bags sitting in the unoccupied room. Stephen’s toiletries, his clean underpants and folded T-shirts and jeans. They’d been planning to stay in the city for two nights. Stephen hadn’t been able to take any time off work, so they were going to have their honeymoon later in the year. On a yacht in the Whitsundays, if you don’t mind.