Lissa collapsed onto the pavement as it started to rain and burst into tears, deep racking sobs. She was a professional, had been doing this for four years, had seen road accidents, murders, every kind of horrible thing it was possible to see.

But it was a boy she knew whose name was Kai who broke her, at 6:38 P.M., on a totally normal Tuesday night.

Chapter 4

Ashkan tried to move her.

“Mate,” he hissed under his breath. “Mate, you have to move. They’re going to haul you into the nutter room.”

There were no gentle words among the London Ambulance Service when it came to Occupational Health and the therapy unit. As far as they were concerned, ambulance paramedics were a gang of outlaws, pirates, screaming through the streets on a mission to save. Once you started wobbling the lip about it, like every other bugger would, well then. What was the point of you? Someone had to scrape people off the ground; someone had to hold the line. If you started crying and needing therapy and basket weaving, well, then you were no use. Nobody denied that it was a tough gig. That was the point of it. If you couldn’t hack it, you weren’t much use. A&E teams relied on each other like little else.

Lissa was finding it impossible even to get up, even as the rain crept down the collar of her heavy green jacket.

“Everything okay?” said Dev, the station controller, coming over, his kind face concerned, his glasses as usual up around his bald head—they were always wherever he wouldn’t be able to find them as soon as he needed them, including dangling around his neck or in his pocket.

“Fine!” said Ashkan breezily.

Lissa was aware they were there, that they were around, but somehow she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t really focus on what they were asking of her or why she was sitting on wet pavement. It was like her body didn’t belong to her at all, like she was somewhere else and everything was going on without her and the person sitting on the wet pavement was somebody else.

Dev looked concerned. “Lissa? Were you on the hit-and-run?”

“She knew the lad,” said Ashkan. “Bad bloody luck. Bit of a shock.”

Lissa couldn’t even nod her head to respond. The police took her to the station to pick out the perpetrator from a lineup, and for a statement, which she gave blindly. Ashkan waited for her, even though his shift had ended.

“Come on,” said Ashkan gently. “Let’s fill you up with tea.”

He frog-marched her back to the hospital, and Lissa let him, as if her legs were moving without any input from her at all, as if they belonged to someone else.