Jem rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. If someone had given her a quid every time she’d been asked that, she’d have her own house by now. No one wanted an honest answer, though. They didn’t want to hear about the heroin addict who’d fallen asleep on her newborn and smothered him, or the lad who’d just been told the bursitis in his hip was actually a metastatic tumour that would kill him within weeks, or the kids torn apart by a suicide vest full of metal shards. They wanted gore without the horror behind it, consequence-free splatter they could widen their eyes at and tell their mates about.

Pushing away the memory of Kyle Parker’s battered corpse, she fell back on her tried and tested response. “We see all sorts. I had this lad once who’d been knocked off his bike, snapped his femur right here”—she patted the middle of her thigh—“and his leg was so twisted he could’ve turned his head and nibbled his own toenails.”

As usual, it did the trick. Sylvie pulled the requisite face of awed disgust and rocked against the steering wheel. “Holy shit! What did you do?”

“Filled him full of morphine and straightened the bugger. We couldn’t take him in with it wrapped around his ear hole.”

Indicating right, Sylvie slowed to wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic. She revved the engine, nudging the car back and forth. Even when stationary, she was moving. “You should write a book.”

Jem had heard that one before as well. “It’s tempting, but people would think I was making it up.” She delivered the standard line by rote, her attention fixed on a sign at the junction that read Manchester Climbing Centre. “Bollocks,” she mouthed, hoping she was wrong but sure she was right.

Sylvie had also spotted the sign. “Damn, busted. I didn’t know that was there. I usually come in the other way. Are you surprised? I was hoping you’d be surprised.”

“I am. Very.” Jem couldn’t have been more surprised had Sylvie announced they were going cage diving with great whites.

Apparently fed up of waiting, Sylvie sped across the junction, earning a blare of horn from an oncoming petrol tanker. Jem saw the whites of the driver’s eyes, but Sylvie didn’t even blink, chattering on without pause. “Have you been here before? I bet you have. Ferg told Mandy you loved climbing in the mountains.”