“They’re fucking hurting me. I’ll do you for police brutality.”

“The more you struggle, the tighter they’ll get, but I’m assuming you know that already.” She dismounted, letting him flop around on the floor. He was old enough to be her dad, and he stank like a brewery. “Where were we? Oh yes: something you later rely on in court.”

He rolled until he could glare at her. “I’ll see you in court, when I have you done.”

“Mm-hm.” She pointed at the camera fixed to her stab vest, its circular lens illuminated by a bright red ring. “Got it all recorded, mate, including the bit where I stopped you from choking to death.”

“You never did. You lying sla—” His denial cut off as she toe-poked the chicken bone from its puddle of drool.

“Didn’t your mum ever tell you to chew your food?” Leaving him to seethe, she returned to the counter, where McTucky’s grateful owner was plying Kash with milkshakes and buckets of chicken. She frowned at the smear of red on Kash’s cheek, until she realised it was ketchup. “Van coming for these idiots?”

“Ten minutes,” he told her. “Chocolate or vanilla?”

“Chocolate, please.” She stuck a straw through the milkshake lid and sucked hard enough to give herself brain freeze.

He sat with her at the cleanest table and popped the top off a bucket. “That was a nifty Heimlich. Slightly unorthodox, but very effective.”

She laughed around her straw. “What can I say? Sometimes you just have to improvise. Been a bit of a night for it.”

“Yeah, I heard about Barton. First shift in months that they make us run solo, and I miss out on all the fun.”

“And a cute paramedic,” she said, blowing bubbles into her shake.

He paused, drumstick poised at his lips. “Your team or mine?”

She deliberated for a long moment. “Indeterminate. No specific vibes either way, but she was…she was…” Rosie exhaled slowly. “Anyway, I liked her.”

“Did you get her number?”

“No, no, nothing. Christ, Kash, we’d only just met, and we were a tad distracted. I think she works out of Darnton. I’ll probably never see her again.”

“On the other hand, maybe you’ll bump into her all the time, now they’ve mucked around with our shift pattern.”

She shrugged. “It’s a possibility, I suppose.”

“Their eyes met across a naked man,” he said in his best film trailer voice. “They found a rope…”

“Sod off.” She flicked shake at him.

“And against all the odds…”

“The van’s here,” she said. “Grab your bucket and stop being a twerp.”

* * *