Lindsay frowned, bewildered. What was he talking about? She put her hand up to the side of her neck that seemed to be causing her most pain. There was something warm and wet all over her jawline. Along the bone, it didn’t feel like skin. It felt like raw meat. And it hurt. As she took her hand away and saw it was covered in blood, she started to shake. It began as a slight quiver, but by the time the cabbie had virtually carried her into the back of his taxi, she was shaking from top to toe like someone on the edge of hypothermia, her teeth chattering and her hands twitching.

All the way to the Royal Free’s casualty department, the cabbie talked reassuringly to her. He talked about his wife and his two teenage daughters, about their forthcoming holiday in Turkey, about his hobby, angling, and how it wasn’t a hardship to work nights on account of the rubbish they put on the telly. And all Lindsay could think about was how near she’d come to something far worse than whatever it was that had happened to her.

By the time they reached the hospital, the worst of the shakes were behind her and she could just about manage to climb out of the taxi unaided. The cabbie took a clean, soft handkerchief out of a satchel on the floor by the driver’s seat and folded it into a long pad. “You just hold that against it,” he said, sounding nervous as he demonstrated what he meant. “It’ll stop the flow of blood.” Numb now, she did as she was told. He helped her out and led her into the reception area, where a man who looked less healthy than she felt started to take her details. When she turned to thank her rescuer, he was gone.

“I didn’t even pay the fare,” she said vaguely to the receptionist, who looked blankly at her and said, “GP?”

Unable to bear the complication of explaining that she lived in America, Lindsay gave the name of the woman who had been her doctor seven years before, when she’d lived with Cordelia in Highbury. It seemed to satisfy the receptionist. It clearly wasn’t his job to care why she was giving an address in west London and a GP in north London. Telling her to take a seat, the receptionist turned back to stare at his computer screen.