It’s another standard call. A suspected broken wrist and possible concussion. A woman tripped and fell while carrying two bags of groceries from the car. Her son called it in.

Scotty should be the lead, but we swapped so he could drive and I could finish my salad on the way.

‘Any plans for the weekend?’ he says, as he speeds through traffic. The sirens wail above us, and cars part, or shift to the road’s edge.

‘Nothing really, might head down to Tarawera if the weather is nice.’

A car ahead won’t get out of our way, Scotty leans on the horn. ‘Move!’ The grey-haired woman behind the wheel looks stricken.

‘You heading there to check on your WeStay?’ he continues to me, the red fading from his cheeks.

‘No,’ I say, wondering when I had actually told him about it. We’re driving through a wealthy inner-eastern suburb of Auckland.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Good, just waiting for the bookings to come flooding in. It’s been two weeks without much traction.’

The conversation abruptly ends as we pull up in front of the house.

‘Look at the state of this place. Rich bastards,’ he says.

It’s palatial. Even for this part of town, a few kilometres from the CBD where properties are big enough to have their own postcodes. The garage is open, and I see hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of vehicles parked side by side. A sports car with a rearing stallion and an SUV with the distinct boxy font of Porsche.

Scotty turns his head to smirk as he pulls into the driveway.

I climb out and knock hard on the door, twice. A man, with impossibly white teeth, a tan he’s picked up somewhere tropical and silver-fox slicked-back hair. ‘Hi, thanks for coming out,’ he says. ‘But I think we’ve got it covered now.’

‘I’ll just have to see her to complete paperwork.’

His smile falters. ‘Sure. Come on through.’

She’s a small thing, sharp clavicle and birdlike bones showing through the back of her hands. When she meets my eyes, she tries to smile but there’s pain in it.

I kneel down to speak to her at eye level, check her pupils, her heart, her ears.

‘Do you still have a headache?’

‘Umm, no it’s okay now.’ The husband is there, right over my shoulder when Scotty comes in.

‘Any dizziness?’

‘No,’ she says.

‘Scotty?’ The man’s voice is loud. I turn. Scotty’s eyes are open wide, but he’s smiling. ‘Rick?’ he says. ‘Rick Reynolds, is that you?’

They’re shaking hands now, clapping each other’s back.

‘You’re a paramedic these days.’

‘Twenty-four years now.’

His eyebrows rise. ‘Far out. Twenty-four years, straight out of high school. I had no idea. You’ve lost a lot of weight since high school too.’

Scotty gives an awkward cough. ‘I’ve seen your billboards,’ he says.