“I dunno,” Alf said. “Eileen, where do we go?”

“Binnie, come back here and take over,” Eileen said. Binnie scrambled over the seat and took Eileen’s place, and Eileen squeezed past her into the driver’s seat, but in the darkness she couldn’t tell which door she should pull the ambulance up to either. There were a dozen doors, none of them marked and none of them lit.

“I’ll go see,” Alf said, and was out of the ambulance and out of sight before she could stop him.

Hurry, Eileen thought, her hands gripping the steering wheel, ready to move the car the instant he returned.

“Why don’t he come?” Binnie asked, sounding panicked. “The blood’s comin’ through again.”

There was no sign of Alf. Eileen honked the horn, but no one came.

“I think the driver lady’s stopped breathin’,” Binnie said.

They’re both going to die right here outside St. Bart’s, Eileen thought desperately.

She put on the emergency brake, said, “I’m going to go find it,” and flung herself out of the ambulance and across the drive to the nearest door.

It was locked. She banged on it for what seemed like an eternity and then ran to the next one, and the next. The last one opened onto a narrow, dimly lit corridor, and at one side a counter and sign: Dispensary.

Eileen ran up to the counter, praying there was someone behind it.

There was—a plump, sweet-faced woman in a gray dress with white cuffs and collar and a cameo at her throat. She looked out of place, as if she should be presiding over a tea party.

She won’t be of any help at all, Eileen thought, but there was no one else.

“I have two patients outside, and I can’t find where to go, the doors are all locked, and the ambulance driver’s unconscious and the other one’s bleeding badly,” she said, thinking, I’m babbling, she’ll never be able to understand, but amazingly, the woman did.

“Where’s the ambulance?” she said, snatching up a telephone. “Outside this door?”

“Yes, I mean, no. It’s—I kept trying doors and they were all locked. I—”

“Bring the ambulance round to this door,” the woman ordered, and said into the telephone, “I have an emergency here in the dispensary. I need a stretcher crew immediately, and tell them we’ll need a transfusion.”

“Thank you,” Eileen breathed, and ran back out to the ambulance, scrambled in, said to Binnie, “I’ve found help,” and started the ambulance. By the time she’d backed it up to the dispensary door, a group of attendants was already there, opening the back doors, loading the driver and the officer efficiently onto wheeled carts, and draping them with white sheets.

“He’s bleedin’,” Binnie said, scrambling out of the ambulance after them. “You got to apply direct pressure.”

The attendant nodded. “Go with her and make your report,” he said to Eileen, pointing to the nurse standing next to the stretchers.

“I’m not—” Eileen began.

The nurse herded her and Binnie through the door. “Where are you injured?” she asked as soon as they were inside.