A silver thermal blanket was put over my shoulders, as if I had just run a marathon, and a light was shone in my eyes. I was asked questions. Bella hung nearby, talking into a rose-metal mobile phone, arms clutched in tightly. I thought about my own phone, and took it out of my pocket. Three missed calls. Text messages, too. From Eddie: Where are you? From Kay: GET HERE NOW.

One of the paramedics came at me with a pair of shears.

‘What are you doing?’ I said, shying away.

‘We’ve got to get those off,’ he said, gesturing at my trousers. ‘To treat your legs.’

‘You can’t do that,’ I said.

‘They’re ruined. This is easiest.’

‘No,’ I said, pushing away his hand and standing up. ‘I mean – I’ve got to get to work.’

‘Call your office then,’ he said, indicating my phone with the point of his shears.

‘I have to go, it’s important.’

He stared at me with an expression of weary tolerance. ‘Mate, a building just fell on you. Call in. We’ve got to get you checked over.’

A sensation surged within me, dark and sweet, rich and freeing. I knew it, I knew it by its chemical scent, a cocktail prepared by my own body that was more potent, more intoxicating, than anything I could drink. I had been microdosing on this amazing brew for years, I realised – every time a deadline was extended or I was let off the hook for something, I got a whiff of it. But this was more than a droplet, it was a bucket of it, a tidal wave that surpassed any alcoholic buzz or orgasm. I had only felt this way once, years earlier, in the Olympic summer. And when I remembered the circumstances, I realised it was all a mirage. It meant nothing. Worse, it was a trap. And the chemical tide rushed back out.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You don’t understand.’

The paramedic sighed, and beckoned to a colleague, who busied themselves with my legs, rolling up the trousers and cleaning and dressing my wounds. I sat back down to help them. ‘You really should look in a mirror before going in,’ the first paramedic said. He had started filling out a form.

I didn’t need a mirror. I could see my clothes, and I could see Bella – the dust in her hair, the dirt gathering in black lines on her face. She was off the phone and talking to a police officer, a wide-eyed, serious, short-sentence talk, the frugal conversation of emergency. A third figure approached them, in another shade of hi-vis, red this time, but my view of this newcomer was obstructed by their backs and the ambulance door.

‘I can go, then?’ I asked the paramedic.

‘You really shouldn’t, but I can’t stop you,’ he said, raising his eyebrows and scribbling on the form. It was held to a metal clipboard, and I thought of Polly, laying out the case against me while I was helplessly detained here by force majeure. ‘You’ll need to sign this. It says you’ve refused treatment.’