Page 174 of Good Girl, Bad Blood

She collapsed back in the grass and watched his pale face, glowing orange from the fire.

Another siren. The fire engine pulled up to the side of the farmhouse and people peeled out of it. Was any of this real any more?

‘Is there anyone else inside?’ someone was shouting down at her.

‘No.’ But her own voice felt detached from her.

The paramedics swapped over.

Pip glanced behind her and a small crowd was there. When had that happened? People standing in coats and dressing gowns, watching the scene. Other uniformed constables had arrived, helping Daniel da Silva to push the onlookers back, cordon off the area.

And how long was it after that that she heard his voice? She didn’t know.

‘Pip!’ Ravi’s voice fought over the flames to reach her. ‘Pip!’

She pushed up to her feet and turned, saw the horror on Ravi’s face as he looked across at her. She followed his eyes down. Her white top was fully soaked through with Stanley’s blood. Her hands red. Smudges up her neck and across her face.

He sprinted towards her, but Daniel caught him, pushed him back.

‘Let me through! I need to see her!’ Ravi yelled in Daniel’s face, struggling against him.

‘You can’t, this is an active crime scene!’ Daniel shoved him back, into the growing crowd. Held his arms out to keep Ravi there.

Pip’s eyes returned to Stanley. One of the paramedics had withdrawn, speaking into her radio. Pip could only catch a few words over the noise of the fire and all of that fog inside her head. ‘Medical control . . . twenty minutes . . . no change . . . call it . . .’

It took a moment for those words to work their way into her head and make any kind of sense.

‘Wait,’ Pip said, the world moving too slowly around her.

The paramedic nodded to the other. She sighed quietly and pulled her hands away from Stanley’s chest.

‘What are you doing? Don’t stop!’ Pip charged forward. ‘He’s not dead, don’t stop!’

She crashed towards Stanley, lying there, still and bloodied on the grass but Soraya caught her hand.

‘No!’ Pip screamed at her, but Soraya was stronger, pulling Pip into her arms and wrapping her up inside them. ‘Let me go! I need to –’

‘He’s gone,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s nothing we can do, Pip. He’s gone.’

And then things really came undone time skipping other words half-heard and half-understood:coronerandhello can you hear me?

Daniel is trying to talk to her and all she can do is scream at him.

‘I told you! I told you someone was going to end up dead.

Why didn’t you listen to me?’

Someone else’s arms on her. Stopping her.

Detective Hawkins is here now and where did he come from? His face doesn’t move much and is he dead too, like Stanley? Now he’s in the front of the car driving and Pip, she’s in the back watching the firerecedeawayas they drive. Her thoughts are no longer in straight lines, they

cascade

away from her

like ash.

The police station is cold, that must be why she is shivering. A back room she hasn’t seen before. And Eliza is here: ‘I need to take your clothes, darling.’