Jem nodded, gritting her teeth as her muscles burned. The rope shifted in fits and starts, grinding around the concrete lamppost. She waited for it to snap, for the scream as Sean plunged to his doom, for her own inevitable capitulation. What she saw instead was Sean’s hand flailing, trying to find purchase. She gave a yelp of encouragement, and she and Rosie tugged harder, invigorated. Caught up in their heads-down, heels-dug-in rhythm, they launched him over the railing, and he landed in a heap on the tarmac, his arse quivering and his limbs tangled.

“Holy shit,” Rosie gasped. “It worked.”

Jem’s hands were shaking. She dropped the rope and bent double, struggling to draw in a full breath. “Didn’t…didn’t you think…it would?”

Rosie laughed, a joyous, raucous sound. “Fuck no, did I hell. I have bollock-all luck with this kind of thing. Hey, maybe you’re like a, a—what do you call ’em?” She clicked her fingers, searching for the word. “A talisman?”

Jem coughed and gave in, sucking on her inhaler, no longer bothered about keeping up appearances. “I really doubt that,” she said once she could speak without the accompanying bagpipes. “I’ll get him a blanket.”

On her own in the ambulance, she leaned against the oxygen cupboard and closed her eyes. Her knees were knocking.

“Come on, you’re being a berk,” she whispered. She found a blanket and clasped it to her chest for a moment before reopening the back door. The door stuck, the step catching as it dropped, so she pushed harder, throwing her weight behind it when it met unexpected resistance. She heard a cry and a scuffle, followed by the sound of screeching brakes, and she peered around the door in time to see Sean bouncing off a car’s windscreen. He landed with a thud, rolled back onto the hard shoulder, and came to a stop in front of Rosie’s boots.

“Jesus wept!” Rosie said.

Dumbstruck, Jem froze on the top step as Trevor ran across to them.

“Have you killed him?” he shouted. “I bloody knew it! I knew something like this would happen.”

She shook her head convulsively, unable to move. One thought was rolling through her mind on a loop: please no, please no.

“He’s not dead, you pillock,” Rosie snapped, and Sean gave a groan, attesting to the fact. “The car was only doing five miles an hour. Stop gobbing off and help him.” She went over to Jem and touched her arm gently. “Hey. You okay there?”

“I’m fine,” Jem managed through a renewed bout of wheezing. “I need to—” She gestured toward Sean.

“You need to sit down,” Rosie said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jem’s laugh bordered on hysterical. “Not this time,” she said as Rosie stared at her. “Not this time.”

Chapter Two