Firash offered her a devastating smile and a small bow, which almost made her blush.

‘I owe Nurse Jenny money for a taxi fare,’ McNab said. He indicated his empty pockets and looked to Firash to come up with the goods. ‘Twenty pounds, wasn’t it?’

Firash looked slightly abashed. ‘I’ll go and find a cashpoint. Can you direct me to one?’

Nurse Jenny smiled and gave a few concise instructions, after which Firash headed in that direction.

‘So,’ she said to McNab. ‘What exactly is it you do?’

McNab didn’t see any reason not to say. ‘In Scotland I’m known as the polis,’ he told her.

She nodded as though she’d expected as much. ‘It was either that,’ she said, ‘or the Mafia.’

‘Can you find out how my mate’s doing?’ McNab said. ‘He seemed pretty bad when we brought him in.’

‘If he went through there, then he’s in surgery. Someone will eventually come out and tell you how that went.’

Firash came hot-footing it back and handed her a twenty-pound note. When their eyes met, McNab imagined a spark between them, probably a result of the euphoria he felt at getting Jack here at least alive.

‘Firash is currently working with me at—’ He gave the name of the Afghan coffee shop. ‘I can recommend both the coffee and his company.’

At that moment a doctor appeared through the swing doors, as promised by Nurse Jenny.

‘Detective Sergeant McNab? If you could come this way, please.’

Nurse Jenny gave him an encouraging nod. Firash, on the other hand, was wearing his serious and concerned expression again as McNab followed the doctor back through the swing doors.

On the other side, the doctor stopped and turned. ‘Mr Winters survived surgery and is now in intensive care, if you would like to see him?’

When McNab nodded, the doctor added, ‘He’s not conscious yet and you can only stay a few minutes.’

The doctor led him down a corridor and into the IC unit. McNab had visited places like this before, in the process of doing his job, but it never got any easier.

The man who’d saved his life now lay in a bed in danger of losing his own. Pulling up a chair, he recalled Winters’s last words to him when he’d promised to get him out of there. ‘Good luck with that,’ he’d said before he’d closed his eyes.

McNab had wanted to question the doctor on the odds of him surviving, yet at the same time he didn’t want a definitive answer on that. Better to sit here for a few moments in hope than in despair.

They had called it in to the Met shortly before Nurse Jenny had turned up. McNab had got Firash to make that call and his own name hadn’t been mentioned.