I merged briefly with the cars on the Strand before cutting across the oncoming traffic and into Savoy Street, a narrow lane that runs straight down to the river just west of Waterloo Bridge. Parking spaces are hard to find in Central London and people tend to pack their cars onto streets with no thought that a vehicle of some width and heft might be driven past by someone with less-than-full confidence in his control. All told, the actual total damages came in a tad less than twenty thousand pounds, mostly scraped paint, wing mirrors, side panels, and a pair of racing bikes that should never have been left secured to a roof rack in the first place. That’s not counting the damage to the ambulance, which I’m sure was entirely superficial.

I bounced off the bottom of the street and out into the Embankment, swerved right, and ran the ambulance up onto the pavement in front of the Savoy Pier. I scrambled out of the driver’s seat and into the back of the ambulance, where the paramedic stared at me with stunned hatred.

Ash was barely breathing and the dressing on his chest was completely soaked through with blood. When I asked the paramedic to open the door I thought for a moment she was going to hit me, but she released the latches and threw them open. She wouldn’t help me take Ash out and I didn’t have time to figure out how to work the lift at the back, so I pulled him over my shoulder and staggered out into the drizzle.

I’d actually chosen the Savoy Pier for two reasons. It wasn’t in use, so I wouldn’t have to clamber over a boat to get to the river, and it had a nice gentle access ramp that would have been perfect to roll the gurney down had I managed to get the damn thing out of the ambulance. Instead I had to first lumber up the ramp to the gate with Ash in a fireman’s lift. He was a big healthy guy and I suspected I was going to be an inch shorter by the time I reached the Thames. There’s a thing like an open telephone booth at the top end of the ramp, designed to stop tourists, drunks, and the merely criminal from running out onto the pier.

I paused for breath and realized that over the yodel of the ambulance’s own siren I could hear other sirens approaching. I looked up and down the Embankment and saw flashing blue lights coming from both directions. A glance over the parapet revealed that the tide was out and jumping down there would be a ten-foot drop onto stones and mud. I looked at the booth. It had the metal lock I remembered. I had been planning something subtle, but since I didn’t have time I blew the whole thing off its hinges.