“He didn’t need emergency surgery?” Caitlin asked, her eyes narrowing as she tried to catch Jem in a lie.

“He needed his shoulder popping back in and a couple of plasters.” Jem finished chewing her crust. “Would either of you like a piece? I’m going to do another, so it’s no bother.”

“No, thank you,” Amira said. “I’m gluten intolerant.”

You’re generally intolerant, Jem thought, and hid her relief behind her mug as their radios went off.

“Why can’t they all just stay in fucking bed?” Caitlin said, grabbing the vehicle keys and stomping to the door. She’d only been a paramedic for a year, and her university diploma course had somehow failed to prepare her for the nonstop barrage of water infections, falls, overdoses, snotty kids, and the worried well. She was already talking about finishing her degree and getting a better paid job in a Minor Injuries unit, an ambition that Bob had been actively encouraging.

Jem listened for the start of the engine, the creak of the garage doors, and the sirens that were blaring before the ambulance had even left the yard. The din faded with distance, the whoop and wail replaced by the occasional rumble of a passing HGV and chirps from the dawn chorus’s more zealous members. Jem set an alarm on her phone and sank into the closest armchair, too worn out to care that its headrest was greasy from years of use and that it smelled like an unwashed old man. Her eyes burned when she closed them, and even curled up she couldn’t get warm enough. She needed a hat like Officer Rosie’s, she decided: something woolly enough to withstand the winds at the highest point of Barton and stop her hair from blinding her. And if it happened to be as flattering as Rosie’s, that would be fine too. Shaking her head at the memory, she tugged her jacket tighter and dozed off, smiling.

Chapter Three

Watery sunlight peeking beneath the blackout blinds, along with a weird smell that might have been offal and orange, woke Jem before her alarm got its chance. She slapped a hand on the button to deactivate it and buried her face in her quilt.

“Fergus!” Her summons was muffled by her fifteen-tog winter warmer, so she held her nose, ducked out her head, and tried again. “Ferg! Get your arse in here.”

He appeared five minutes later, a contrite six-foot-three, flame-haired Scot wearing a stained apron and a liberal dusting of flour. Stopping short of the threshold, he proffered a mug of tea and a bacon barm like a flag of truce.

“Get over here, you big idiot,” she said, ruffling his curls as he shoved onto the bed with her and helped himself to a bite of her butty. “What bloody concoction have you got on the boil down there? Slaughterhouse and potpourri?”