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open it?’
    ‘That’s a question you’d have to ask her,’ Morris said.
    Ella said, ‘If only we could.’

Five
    T he nameless male patient hadn’t regained consciousness by the time the backup ambulance arrived but the midazolam had stopped him having any more fits. Carly and Tessa helped the crew load, and were given quiet hugs at the back door over Alicia’s death. As the occupied ambulance drove off, Carly thanked Susie for helping out, then got back behind the wheel of Thirty-nine. She felt like an age had passed since they’d been at Alicia’s house.
    They were soon part of a line of vehicles queuing to turn from City Road onto Broadway. Carly was waiting for Tessa to speak. Waiting for her apology, if she was being blunt.
    Tessa sat in the passenger seat, arms folded, jaw set.
    The light turned green and Carly drove forward. The silence grew.
    ‘So,’ Carly said finally.
    ‘So,’ Tessa replied with a testy tone.
    Ahead, a bus was parked at a stop and Carly saw her own face on the back, three metres high. She felt an instant burning blush.
    ‘Is that –’ Tessa turned to look as they drove past. ‘What the hell was that?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Carly said.
    ‘You’re in an ad for the service?’
    ‘It’s just about building goodwill since that –’
    ‘I can’t believe it,’ Tessa said. ‘They’re spending money on advertising when they claim they have none for more staff?’
    ‘It’s a government bus, they probably got the spot for nothing.’
    ‘Shit, there’s another one.’
    Carly wanted to shrink in her seat. She’d thought she’d have told people by the time the ads came out. She’d managed to let Alicia know – she was easy to talk to like that, and was always asking what Carly was doing, if she had any acting jobs coming up – but there never seemed to be a good time to bring it up with anyone else. For one thing, how did you say it? Every possible wording she’d run through had sounded wanky: ‘By the way, I’m going to be in some ads’; ‘Hey, did I tell you that I got some acting work recently?’ She felt embarrassed now that she’d been proud when the photos and filming were being done; she’d even put it on her acting CV – face of the ambulance service – much to the delight of her agent. ‘This’ll do wonders for your exposure,’ he’d said. The memory of her pride made her cringe.
    ‘And another one!’ Tessa pointed across Carly out the window. ‘There’s no way all that was free. What a load of bullshit. What a complete and total waste of money. If people need us, they call. It doesn’t matter if they like us. They just call!’
    Carly touched the tender skin inside her wrist and tried not to listen. She didn’t want to think about what Tessa would say when she saw the ads on TV.
    *
    Dave Hibbins’s new home was a fifth-floor apartment in a building on a narrow street in Camperdown. They took the lift up, Ella readying her phone on the way, then Murray knocked on the apartment door.
    The door opened and a man looked out. Barefoot and tanned, the skin peeling off his nose, he was in his mid-twenties, with brown hair tied back in a short ponytail. He wore jeans and a red Chewbacca T-shirt.
    Ella showed her badge. ‘Dave Hibbins?’
    ‘No,’ the man said. ‘He’s in the shower.’
    ‘We need to speak to him,’ Murray said. ‘Can we come in?’
    ‘Sure.’ He opened the door wide.
    A promising start. Inside, Ella looked around the living room, saw wide windows with views of Sydney Tower glinting gold in the sun, art prints on the walls, beige lounges, a big TV. She heard a shower running.
    ‘I’m Detective Murray Shakespeare, and this is Detective Ella Marconi,’ Murray was saying.
    ‘Sam Clarence,’ the man said. ‘Has something happened?’
    ‘Dave’s name came up in our investigation and we just have to check a couple of details with him,’ Ella said.
    ‘He leaves for work in twenty minutes, so he shouldn’t be long,’ Clarence