‘Come in,’ he says, after pressing it open.

‘Thanks.’ I go to stride past him, towards the lockers and kitchen.

‘This way please, Lina.’

‘Sorry?’

‘My name is James O’Brien, we emailed you last night. I wasn’t expecting you until nine.’

‘Nine?’ I say. ‘My shift starts at seven.’

He looks unperturbed, rolling his tongue beneath his bottom lip. ‘You didn’t read the email we sent you? We also tried to phone you a number of times over the last week but we couldn’t get through.’ That’s because I’ve been ignoring calls from unknown numbers.

‘I’ve been getting loads of calls and emails every day. What is this about?’ I say.

‘Why don’t you come on through to the meeting room?’

I hesitate.

‘I’ll explain in a moment,’ he says, ‘come on now.’

I follow him into the training room, there’s a laptop on the table and a second man there.

‘Rob,’ he says. ‘I’ll need you to phone Jessica from HR into the meeting.’

Jessica from HR. This isn’t good.

‘I’m sorry, will this take long? I’ve got to start in fifteen minutes.’

Something unspoken passes between them. James has his phone to his ear then he speaks. ‘Hi Jess, so sorry to bother you this early in the morning, I’ve not woken you, have I?… Good. Well we have Lina Phillips here at the station now. She didn’t see our emails or listen to the voice messages evidently, and so she has arrived for her shift. Are you okay to do this remotely?’

Do what? What the hell is happening? He nods. ‘Okay, I’m putting you on speaker.’

Rob speaks quietly to me. ‘I’m your union rep, Lina. I emailed you but when I didn’t hear back I had a feeling you might turn up for your shift. We’re going to get you through this, just follow my lead and don’t answer any questions you don’t want to.’

I open the mail app on my phone, see dozens of messages in my inbox. I find the one from the ambulance service. Disciplinary meeting. I don’t open it because they’re speaking again.

‘Alright, Jessica is with us now.’

‘You didn’t check the roster?’ James asks.

‘I printed it out. I didn’t realise it would change.’

‘Hi, Lina,’ the woman on the phone says. ‘I’m the representative from human resources for this meeting and can answer any questions you might have.’

‘Sure,’ I say, more blunt than I’d like. ‘First I want to know what exactly is this about?’

‘Well,’ James begins. ‘Recently we received a complaint from a fellow ambulance officer.’

‘A complaint?’

‘Concerning your behaviour on the job, notably a suggestion that you might have been under the influence of pain medication or some other mind-altering substance.’

‘Me?’ I say, my skin suddenly hot. ‘Wait, was this from Scotty?’