“Hey.” Jem scarcely shaped the word. She was soaked to the skin and visibly exhausted, her hair plastered to her face, her movements stiff and automatic and accompanied by fitful coughing.

“Where’s your inhaler?” Rosie snapped. She’d seen Jem use it on the bridge, and Jem obviously needed it now.

“In my fleece,” Jem said. “It’s on his legs.”

Frigid water splashed up as Rosie knelt and began to search. She shivered, feeling the chill seep into her boots and clothing. Jem was wearing only a short-sleeved shirt, having wrapped both her coats around the lad, but she seemed oblivious to the cold, or simply past caring.

“Here you go,” Rosie said, softening her tone. “Take a break for a few minutes. I can do this.”

Jem nodded, coughing around the mouthpiece but still poised to work the ventilation bag.

“How long have you been here?” Rosie asked. An IV line was sticking out of the lad’s neck, and glass syringes littered the ground. The job had already been thirty minutes old when it was passed through to her and Kash.

“I’m not sure,” Jem answered in a hoarse whisper. “An hour? More, probably. Feels like forever.”

“I’ll bet. What the hell happened to him?”

“I don’t know. Those blokes pulled him from the river. He was alive when I got here, but the back of his head’s caved in…” She trailed off as Kash crouched beside them.

“Mountain Rescue and two Emergency Response docs are about ten minutes from Ellery,” he said. “What can I do to help?” He directed this last to Jem, who gave him the ventilation bag.

“Two breaths when the defib tells you. I’m going to try to intubate him, but I need to get my stuff sorted first.”

“Allah,” he murmured, and Rosie saw him swallow nervously. She’d been with him on his first dead-in-bed call; he’d thrown up in the old chap’s wastepaper basket. “Okay. Okay, right.”

“Kash, this is Jem,” she said to distract him. “Jem’s the para from Barton last night. We only seem to meet in puddles.”

Jem gave a small smile and a wave, and Kash spluttered a little before disguising his reaction beneath a theatrical throat clearing.

“You two are on a hell of a streak,” he said.

“Tell me about it.” Jem finished laying out her kit and took the bag back. “Tube first, the long, pale blue one. Then the syringe and this holder thingy.” Almost lying on the ground, she cranked the lad’s mouth open with a metal blade and peered along the blade’s length. “Tube,” she said. “Rosie, just stop compressions for a tick. Perfect, go again. Syringe.”

Rosie watched as Jem secured the tube, her brow furrowed in concentration until she seemed satisfied that everything had gone to plan. Her quiet assurance was a far cry from the timid uncertainty she’d shown the previous night.