Conner wasn’t listening. His attention was focused on the child. ‘Come on, baby girl,’ he murmured softly, ‘breathe for me.’ His eyes were on her chest and Flora watched him, wondering. Had he seen something? Had he felt a change in her condition?

‘Do you think she—?’

And at that moment Lily gave a choking cough and vomited weakly.

‘Oh, thank God,’ Flora breathed, and Conner turned the child’s head gently and cleared her airway.

‘There’s a good girl. You’re going to be all right now, sweetheart.’

He spoke so softly that Flora doubted that anyone else had heard his words of comfort and she felt a lump block her throat as she watched him with the child.

So he was capable of kindness, then. It was there, deep inside him, just as she’d always suspected.

But then he lifted his head and his eyes were hard as ever. ‘Get some blankets, dry towels, coats—something to warm her up,’ he ordered, and then looked at the paramedics. ‘Give her some oxygen. I want to get a line in and give her a bolus of fluid and then we’re out of here.’

‘How much fluid do you want?’

Conner wiped his forearm across his brow, but he kept one hand on the child’s arm. Offering reassurance. ‘What’s her weight? How old is she? We can estimate—’

‘I know her weight exactly,’ Flora said. ‘I saw her in clinic last week. She’s 16 kilograms. Do you want a calculator so that you can work out the fluid?’

‘Start with 160 mils of colloid and then I’ll reassess. I don’t want to hang around here.’ Conner released Lily’s hand and started looking for a vein, while one of the paramedics sorted out the fluid and the other gave Lily some oxygen.

The child was breathing steadily now, her chest rising and falling as Conner worked. Occasionally her eyes fluttered open and then drifted closed again.

‘She’s got no veins,’ Conner muttered, carefully examining Lily’s arms. ‘Get me an intraosseous needle. I’m not wasting time looking for non-existent veins. We need to get her to hospital. We’ve messed around here long enough.’

The paramedic dropped to his knees beside Conner, all the necessary equipment to hand. ‘You want an intraosseous needle?’

‘Actually, just give me a blue cannula. She might just have a vein I can use here.’ Conner stroked the skin on the child’s arm, focused. ‘One go—if it fails, we’ll get her in the air and I’ll insert an intraosseous needle on the way.’

Flora leaned forward and closed her fingers around the child’s arm, squeezing gently and murmuring words of reassurance. Lily was drifting in and out of consciousness and didn’t seem aware of what was going on.