“Three. She got herself wrapped up in loo paper this morning. Then, ten minutes after a crew had untangled her, she called again to say they’d knocked her moisturiser beyond her reach.”

“The silly sod.” Jem had been to Mary more times than she could count. She knew the key-safe number by heart, how many sugars Mary took in her coffee, and the names of all her cats. Regular callers to 999 were a bit like weeds; when one died, another two sprang up in their place, though Mary was more hygienic and harmless than most. “What’s up with her now?”

“She’s stuck on her commode.”

“You know she won’t be. She’s like a whippet, transferring off that thing.”

Ryan’s sigh was the epitome of long-suffering. “I know that, you know that, the well-meaning but sadly ineffectual Frequent Caller Team know that, but when Mary calls…”

Jem finished the thought for him. “Mary deprives someone else of an ambulance for half an hour.”

“Exactly.”

“Never mind, she has loads of decent biccies.” Mary kept a stash especially for crews, and her mugs were clean enough to have a drink out of. She was lonely and mildly demented, although that didn’t excuse her for being a royal pain in the arse.

“Alpha Six One Three are going to her, if they can heroically limp there with their rattling suspension and wonky side door,” Ryan said.

Jem smothered a laugh. Bob and Dougie were notorious for wrecking buses and would be more than willing to sit with their feet up at Mary’s for an hour. “I’m sure they’ll manage. Am I heading to station, then?”

“Yes, please. Call clear when you’re done.”

Schools traffic and commuters slowed Jem’s progress to walking pace. She whacked the radio on full belt, singing along to the songs she recognised and flicking channels to avoid the ads. For once, the BBC weather forecast was spot on, and the predicted rain began to fall as she finished her banana at a pedestrian crossing. Ignoring the advice of the lollypop lady, the children in the road sprinted for cover, their bags held over their heads as they tussled with each other for pole position.

The downpour persisted, but the traffic petered out the farther Jem got from the town centre, and she pulled into the car park at Darnton before she could be diverted to another emergency. Having entered the station unnoticed, she dabbed her hair dry in front of the loo’s tiny mirror and then ran her fingers through its cropped strands, still inclined to do a double-take when her fringe fell just so without requiring a twenty-minute resuscitation effort and half a ton of clips.

“Right,” she said, not exactly brimming with confidence but not about to hide in the cubicle either. “Let’s get this over with.”