The skin on the woman’s arms chronicled her advanced years and poor state of health. The surface was rippled into dehydrated ridges, and it was covered in old bruising and white scars marking previous falls or careless nudges against sharp-edged furniture. She mumbled something nonsensical as Jem tightened a tourniquet around her arm, but she made no attempt to pull away or otherwise acknowledge what Jem was doing. Jem shrugged out of her fleece and used a paper towel to wipe the sweat from her own forehead; the small bedroom was stifling, its air thick with the smell of incontinence and poor personal hygiene.
“Sharp scratch here, Dorothy.” She gave the warning more out of habit than any expectation of a reply. The vein blew the instant the cannula pierced it, and she swore beneath her breath, pressing gauze over the rapidly spreading bruise. “It’s always the ones who bloody need it,” she said, ripping tape with her teeth whilst contemplating her next target.
Two courses of antibiotics hadn’t touched Dorothy’s urinary tract infection, and the carers at her residential home had taken a few hours to realise that her violent shivers were due to a high temperature and that the extra blankets they’d piled on her weren’t actually helping. She was septic, her blood pressure low, her pulse and respiratory rate sky-high. She needed time-critical transfer to A&E for IV antibiotics, blood cultures, and fluid resuscitation. Instead, with ambulances queuing in hospital corridors and a stack of 999 calls still waiting for vehicles, Jem was managing alone with a single tank of oxygen and IV saline that she couldn’t find a vein for.
For the most part, Jem didn’t mind shifts on the rapid response vehicle. The single-manned cars had been introduced to hit government targets designed to get the sickest patients an ambulance within seven minutes. They stopped the clock and ensured essential aid could be rendered, but they couldn’t transport a critically ill patient to the hospital. Jem usually enjoyed the challenge of solo working, and with no regular mate on her line, the RRV could be a welcome break from an ever-changing parade of newbies and numpties. On nights like this, however, when the service was operating at DEFCON 6, the RRV became a nightmare, trapping her on scene for hours without backup, no matter how unstable the patient. At least there were no relatives breathing down her neck this time, just three well-meaning but harried staff members who had a full house of demented residents demanding their attention and who had been only too happy to entrust one of them to her care.
“Sorry about this, love.” She swabbed a fresh patch of Dorothy’s arm and downgraded the size of her cannula, guided by the logic that any access was better than no access. It was a sound theory, and relief made her feel giddy as she flushed the line and taped it into place. “There we go. All done.”
Using the door and a coat hanger as a drip stand, she set the saline running wide open and hit the voice button on her radio for the third time.
“Do I have an ETA on a crew?”
“That’s a negative, Jem.” Ryan, her usual dispatcher, sounded as despondent as she felt. “We still have thirty-four calls in the stack.”
“Not your fault, pal. Just do your best, eh?”
A tentative knock interrupted his reply. She hurried to the door, grabbing the IV to prevent it pulling loose.
“We contacted her son, but he’s at an office party so he’s not coming over,” the carer said. “He’ll call in the morning to see how she is.” The grim look Jem gave her must have been answer enough, because she sighed and ran a hand through Dorothy’s patchy hair. “She has a ‘Do Not Attempt Resuscitation’ form. I’ll get it out of her file for you.”
“That’d be really helpful, thanks,” Jem said. Under no illusions as to the outcome of the job, she had positioned the defib in readiness at Dorothy’s side, but the DNAR removed the prospect of having to manage a cardiac arrest on her own if Dorothy finally succumbed.
“Can I get you a brew, love?” the carer asked.
“Maybe something cold?” Jem said. “Water or juice? If it’s no bother.”
“None at all. I’ll see if I can find you a few biccies.”
Jem’s mouth watered at the prospect of food. It seemed as if days had passed since the cake she’d shared with Ferg in the Abbey Vale cafe. She rechecked Dorothy’s observations, patted each of her pockets until she found her reading glasses, and made a start on her paperwork.
Eighty-three minutes, two custard creams, and a glass of apple juice later, the roar of a Merc’s engine and the sound of boots on the gravel drive stopped her worrying about her depleted oxygen supply and the saline she was about to run out of.
“Hey, Spence,” she said as the paramedic poked his head around the door. “It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise. Been here a while?” he asked, taking stock of the empty IV bags and raising an eyebrow at the blood pressure reading on the defib.
“Couple of hours. That BP’s the best I’ve had.”
“Crikey. We’d better get a wriggle on, for what it’s worth. The hospitals are slammed. We’ve just done three hours on the corridor at West Penn.”
“Joyful.” She helped him and his mate slide Dorothy onto the stretcher. “Let’s hope my next one’s a bag of shite I can flirt off to a doctor, or I’ll be stuck with them till the end of my shift.”
She walked down to the ambulance with the crew, handing Dorothy’s details over as they steered the stretcher through the maze of corridors, and swapping oxygen cylinders and saline at the vehicle. Spence smiled at her as she stowed the tail lift for him.
“I’d wish you good luck, but I’d be wasting my breath,” he said, and laughed when she punched his arm. He’d spent six months working on a temporary line with her before he’d transferred to the Hazardous Area Response Team, which was five months more than anyone else had managed. “Take it easy, Jem.”
“Yeah, you too.”
The EMT hit the blues at the gate, the strobes illuminating sporadic spots of rain that had become a fully-fledged downpour by the time Jem reached the RRV. She stopped in the middle of the driveway and turned her face skyward, relishing the coolness against her heated cheeks and letting the droplets rinse the smell of Dorothy’s room from her hair. Feeling less desperate to go back to station for a shower, she stowed her kit and settled into the driver’s seat. Ryan reacted to her “clear on scene” message within seconds, simultaneously sending her a job and voicing her on the radio.
“We’ve got nothing else for this one,” he told her, as she scrolled through the inputted information. “Are you okay to assess or would you rather wait for backup?”
“I’m okay to assess,” she replied, pulling out of the car park and accelerating on the main road. “Are the police running?”
“Notified, but nothing available. Update us from scene.”
“Wilco.” She released the radio’s lever, glancing again at the job’s description. Male. Approx 17 yoa. Unconscious with multiple injuries. Caller to meet crew on Ellery Lane.
“Shit,” she said, her sweaty palms slippery against the steering wheel. The address had been given as Abbey Vale Nature Reserve, with an almost apologetic addendum, River near the lake, which didn’t really narrow it down. There were three lakes, interconnected by numerous rivers and streams, and Ellery Lane tapered out well short of them. For all she knew, the caller was the patient’s assailant, and she had just agreed to follow him into the middle of nowhere.
Slowing for a red light, she hit the sirens and then crept through the junction, checking each lane was clear of traffic. She would be off the main roads in less than a mile, weaving through the back streets until she finally joined Ellery, a rutted, unlit track that few visitors used for access. She dried her left hand on her trousers and hovered over the talk request button, getting as far as putting her thumb on it but without exerting any pressure. What the hell would she say? “I’ve had a bit of a think and I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather sit on my arse at a rendezvous point and leave the lad to freeze or bleed to death”? She was no martyr, eager to rush headlong into danger for glory’s sake, but she had an emergency button on her radio, a hefty torch, a waterproof jacket, and—thanks to an almost magnetic attraction for this kind of job—ample experience.
“Once more unto the breach,” she said, and took a left onto Ellery Lane.
Any hopes of the call being a hoax disintegrated the instant she saw the man waving at her, a frantic two-armed windmill impersonation that had “bad job” written all over it. As she threw on her high-vis jacket, he ran to her car.
“Where’s the ambulance?” he said, peering beyond her into the darkness.
“I’m it.” She passed him her torch and yanked the boot open, collecting as much equipment as they could carry between them. “Grab this. And this. Sling that on your shoulder, it’s easier.” She studied him as she spoke. He looked familiar, although she couldn’t place his face.
“You’re the little dog lady,” he said, neatly solving the head-scratcher as she slammed the boot shut. He dropped one of the bags she’d given him and snatched it up again before it could topple into a puddle. “From earlier in the Vale. I was with my mate.”
“Ah, that’s right,” she said, realising he was one of the homeless lads and feeling marginally safer. He’d seemed harmless that afternoon and still seemed harmless now, his expression tight with fear and worry. A smell of damp earth and stale beer rolled off him, but his clumsiness was probably due to nerves rather than intoxication.
They set off together, skirting potholes and puddles as they left the lane and entered the wood, the torchlight bouncing around to pick out tall pines and deciduous trees still barren after winter.
“How far?” she asked, already out of puff beneath her burden and struggling to match his pace.
“Dunno, miss. A mile or so? It’s hard to say.”
“Okay.” She tried to distinguish landmarks, anything she could use to describe the route and guide people in, but all she saw was the forest looming above her and the quagmire coating the ground. If there was a path, it had long ago been hidden by leaf litter. Twenty minutes later, with no sign of them closing in on their destination, she voiced Ryan and requested he mobilise Mountain Rescue, though she had no idea where to send them.
“Get them to Ellery, at least,” she said, attempting to keep the strain from her voice. “I’ll send someone back for them.” Her feet slid sideways, and she lost her grip on her radio, Ryan’s affirmative muffled by the mud.
The man stooped and retrieved it for her. “Not far now,” he told her.
“Cheers. What’s your name? I’m Jem.”
“Brian, but I go by Bear.” He touched the bristles of his thick beard and used the same two fingers to give a high-pitched whistle. At the answering yell, he altered his course slightly, and she heard the swift rush of water seconds before her torch picked out his companion crouching at the side of the river. Finding a burst of energy from somewhere, she sprinted toward the second man, and dropped her bags by the young lad he was attempting to shield from the worst of the rain. He’d used one of their sleeping bags to rig a shelter in some low branches and the other to cover the lad, but the wind was whipping across the nearby lake, driving rain in from all angles, and the river was swollen enough to have edged beyond the confines of its banks, saturating the ground she knelt on.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s he doing?”
“He stopped moaning,” the man whispered, the words choked and distraught. “He were moaning at first, but he couldn’t say owt.”
She lifted the sleeping bag and trained her torch on the lad’s face. He was younger than she’d expected, fifteen at most, scrawny and deathly pale, the visible parts of his body marred by bruises and lacerations. Twigs and strands of vegetation were tangled in his hair, and the rich smell of copper mingled with that of churned-up muck.
“Was he in the water?” She unzipped her response bag, her mind a whirl as she tried to order and prioritise her actions.
“Yeah, caught up on that tree.” Bear pointed at a stooped trunk, its branches skimming the river’s surface. “We couldn’t leave him in there.”
“You did fine.” She fastened a hard collar around the lad’s neck and secured an oxygen mask. On the monitor, his heart rate was sluggish and irregular at forty, and a flick of her pen-torch showed a blown left pupil. When she pulled her gloved hands from the back of his head, they were covered in fresh blood and small lumps of spongy tissue.
“Shit,” she said, her heart sinking. She took off her high-vis and spread it on less sodden ground. “Help me lift him onto this. Gently, good, that’s great.”
The men handled the lad as if he were made of bone china, hovering close by once they’d repositioned him but evidently floundering without direct instruction.
“Can one of you go back to Ellery?” she asked, using her fleece to dry the lad’s chest so she could attach the defib pads. “Wait for Mountain Rescue or whoever gets there first, and show them where we are.”
“I’ll go,” Bear’s mate said. He looked green around the gills, and when she nodded at him he scarpered as if afraid she might change her mind.
The crash of his footsteps was still audible when the lad’s respiration rate abruptly dropped and his pulse took a similar nosedive. Jem positioned the ventilation bag and used it to support his faltering breaths.
“I need help out here,” she shouted into her radio, too stressed to go through the proper channels. “This lad’s about to arrest and I can’t move him on my own.”
“Police are en route,” Ryan said. “No ETA.”
“Thank fuck for that,” she muttered. Then, louder, “Cheers. Better than nothing.” She let the radio go, reaching for the suction as the lad gagged and coughed, the bag and mask falling aside to allow a thick spray of blood and vomit to splatter across her shirt. His hands flew up without warning, ragged nails clawing at her arms and clothing.
“Shh, it’s all right,” she said, fighting to keep him still. “You’re all right. I’m a paramedic. No one’s going to hurt you.”
A thin wail sent goose pimples rippling across her skin, and for an irrational moment she thought he might wake, until the noise cut off as if a switch had been hit, his hands falling limp, his body tensing and then relaxing. She watched, horrified, as eight breaths became five, then two, then stopped altogether.
“Shit.” She looked at the monitor, its screen now showing an irregular mess of rapid spikes. “Bear, move! Get clear.”
She hit charge on the defib as Bear stared, open-mouthed. The shock she administered made the lad’s limbs jerk in unison and turned the spikes into an ominous flat line. She immediately started CPR, counting out the rate as she pushed on his bony chest, and wincing at the flex and crack of a rib beneath the heel of her hand. Thirty compressions to two breaths: she repeated the cycle without pause, willing the monitor to show even the slightest sign of recovery, but there was nothing except the beat she created, the line falling flat every time she stopped to give a breath. Time passed by in a blur of pumping first his chest and then the bag, as the rain continued to pour and further bursts of river water washed toward them. The exertion stopped her from feeling the cold, but she could feel the muscles in her arms beginning to shake, and she knew she had to rest.
“Bear, can you help me? Here, like this.” She positioned his hands and started the metronome on the monitor. “This’ll keep you to a rhythm. Don’t push too hard. That’s perfect.”
Holding the torch in her mouth, she dragged her bag closer and found the IV pouch. Hypothermia ruled out a peripheral line, so she tried for the external jugular, letting out a short gasp of surprise when she hit it first time.
“Adrenaline’s in,” she said, marking the time on her glove.
Bear nodded as if he understood and then cocked his head to one side, his compressions faltering. “I can hear someone shouting,” he said. “Should I go and fetch them?”
“Yes, go. I’ve got this.” She readied her hands again, swapping roles smoothly as he scrambled to his feet.
“Won’t be long, miss.”
He quickly vanished from sight, swallowed up by the fog swirling off the lake. The metronome continued to tick, its measured beat a stark contrast to the frantic pounding of her pulse. Thirty to two, thirty to two, over and over, even though she knew it was hopeless, that it had already been too long and nothing she could do for the lad would fix him. Thirty to two. Thirty to two. Biting down on her lip, she bowed her head and persevered.
* * *
The snap and crunch of twigs sounded like firecrackers, sharp little explosions approaching at speed. Already twitchy after her half-mile trek through the woods with Grizzly Adams’s less kempt brother for an escort, Rosie stopped dead and saw Kash reach for his Taser.
“The fuck?” he whispered. “Can you hear that?”
“Of course I can. You watch too many bloody horror films,” she said, but then put her hand on her own Taser as she saw a large bearded man sprinting toward them. He stopped a couple of metres in front of them, his feet skidding in the wet leaves.
“This way,” he said. “Come on, come on. Mickey, you go back to the road and wait for the rest of ’em.”
Spurred by his urgency, they followed their new guide without question, hurdling fallen trees and splashing through boggy patches of grass. Mist rose and fell as they ran, and from a distance Rosie spotted a small, huddled figure, arms outstretched and tight as bowstrings as they pressed down repeatedly on a body.
“Shit. We’ll need Major Crimes and SOCO here ASAP,” she said. They hadn’t been told much about the job, just that it was an injured male in the woods, with a medic requesting assistance. There had been no further updates en route, so no one had warned them about blundering into a possible crime scene.
Kash keyed his radio mike, leaving her to go ahead of him as he relayed the information and made the necessary requests. She closed the remaining distance with more care, panning her torch across the ground to ensure she didn’t stomp on potential evidence. Engrossed in the resuscitation effort, the paramedic didn’t react to Rosie’s approach until the torch beam hit her. Then she looked up, shielding her eyes with one hand as she searched for the light’s source.
Rosie swore quietly, almost flinging her torch into the river in her haste to avert its glare.
“Jesus. Jem?”
“Hey.” Jem scarcely shaped the word. She was soaked to the skin and visibly exhausted, her hair plastered to her face, her movements stiff and automatic and accompanied by fitful coughing.
“Where’s your inhaler?” Rosie snapped. She’d seen Jem use it on the bridge, and Jem obviously needed it now.
“In my fleece,” Jem said. “It’s on his legs.”
Frigid water splashed up as Rosie knelt and began to search. She shivered, feeling the chill seep into her boots and clothing. Jem was wearing only a short-sleeved shirt, having wrapped both her coats around the lad, but she seemed oblivious to the cold, or simply past caring.
“Here you go,” Rosie said, softening her tone. “Take a break for a few minutes. I can do this.”
Jem nodded, coughing around the mouthpiece but still poised to work the ventilation bag.
“How long have you been here?” Rosie asked. An IV line was sticking out of the lad’s neck, and glass syringes littered the ground. The job had already been thirty minutes old when it was passed through to her and Kash.
“I’m not sure,” Jem answered in a hoarse whisper. “An hour? More, probably. Feels like forever.”
“I’ll bet. What the hell happened to him?”
“I don’t know. Those blokes pulled him from the river. He was alive when I got here, but the back of his head’s caved in…” She trailed off as Kash crouched beside them.
“Mountain Rescue and two Emergency Response docs are about ten minutes from Ellery,” he said. “What can I do to help?” He directed this last to Jem, who gave him the ventilation bag.
“Two breaths when the defib tells you. I’m going to try to intubate him, but I need to get my stuff sorted first.”
“Allah,” he murmured, and Rosie saw him swallow nervously. She’d been with him on his first dead-in-bed call; he’d thrown up in the old chap’s wastepaper basket. “Okay. Okay, right.”
“Kash, this is Jem,” she said to distract him. “Jem’s the para from Barton last night. We only seem to meet in puddles.”
Jem gave a small smile and a wave, and Kash spluttered a little before disguising his reaction beneath a theatrical throat clearing.
“You two are on a hell of a streak,” he said.
“Tell me about it.” Jem finished laying out her kit and took the bag back. “Tube first, the long, pale blue one. Then the syringe and this holder thingy.” Almost lying on the ground, she cranked the lad’s mouth open with a metal blade and peered along the blade’s length. “Tube,” she said. “Rosie, just stop compressions for a tick. Perfect, go again. Syringe.”
Rosie watched as Jem secured the tube, her brow furrowed in concentration until she seemed satisfied that everything had gone to plan. Her quiet assurance was a far cry from the timid uncertainty she’d shown the previous night.
“That’s better,” she said, mostly to herself. “Thanks, Kash.”
“No problem.” He abandoned his attempts to stay dry and sat on the grass. “Major Crimes and SOCO are also en route,” he told Rosie. “I’ll have a scout around and see what I can see. Where exactly was he found?”
Jem aimed her torch toward the river, circling its beam on a tree with spindly branches. “He was stuck in there.”
Kash walked carefully in the direction she’d indicated, examining the ground for signs of a struggle or evidence the lad had been anywhere but the water. As he followed the path of the river, his dark outline merged into the shadows and the driving rain, the occasional bob of his torch beam the only proof he was still out there.
“Do you want to swap?” Jem asked Rosie. “It’s tiring after a while.”
Rosie shook her head, despite the ache across her back. “I’m all right.”
“We’ll never get him out of here. Not like this.” Jem stroked a muddy strand of hair from the lad’s forehead as if in apology. “Helimed don’t fly at night, and we won’t be able to do CPR properly while we carry him. The docs will probably call it on scene.”
“He’s just a kid,” Rosie said. She pressed down harder, doing her best textbook CPR, as if that alone might somehow change the outcome.
Jem’s shoulders were slumped in defeat. She used her free hand to rub her face. “It’s been too long, and his skull’s in bits. Even in a hospital, I doubt he’d have come back from this. Stuck here, he’s had no chance.”
“Shit,” Rosie whispered.
Jem nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
* * *
Jem couldn’t feel her hands. A small heating pad sat in each of her palms, but she couldn’t detect their warmth or grip them properly. Through sheets of rain, she watched the two Emergency Response doctors confer with the detectives beyond the perimeter established by the Scene of Crime Officers. A white forensic tent was rapidly being erected, but she could still see the lad’s body, its face angled toward her by the weight of the ventilation bag she had only just relinquished. Even in death he didn’t look peaceful. His half-lidded eyes glared when the torchlight caught them, and the tube curled his lips into a snarl, as if in defiance of the team’s decision. She shuddered and turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, grateful for any distraction but even more so when Rosie crouched by her side.
“Will these help?” Rosie held out a large pair of gloves. “I pinched them off Kash. His hands are bigger than mine.” Without waiting for an answer, she tugged one onto Jem’s left hand and slid the pad beneath the leather. It was a snug fit, pressing the heat close, and Jem whimpered in relief, encouraging Rosie to repeat the process on her other hand. “Better?”
“Much, thanks.” Jem made a tentative attempt to curl her fingers. “Puddles and sore hands: there’s a definite theme developing for us.”
They exchanged weary smiles, and Jem shuffled over on the plastic kit box, making space for Rosie to sit, and attempting to share the foil blanket one of the Mountain Rescue blokes had wrapped around her. They huddled closer, the foil crinkling and curling in the wind.
“What’s going on over there?” Jem asked.
“Usual rigmarole,” Rosie said. “The body will stay in situ while SOCO do their thing. He didn’t have any ID on him, so we need to find out who he is. Given his age, it’s likely someone will report him missing, and then it’ll be a case of tracking his movements, speaking to his family and friends, and trying to establish whether this is murder, manslaughter, or simple misadventure.” She shifted slightly so she could meet Jem’s eyes. “One of the docs wanted a word with you, and DS Merritt has asked me to take you to Clayton for forensics and a statement.”
“Forensics?” Jem said, struggling to connect the dots. She didn’t know if it was stress or hypothermia or an adrenaline crash, but she felt as if someone had replaced her brain with putty, obliterating her ability to concentrate or follow simple logic.
“SOCO will need your uniform and your boots,” Rosie said slowly, as though sensing there was a problem. “And swabs from the scratches on your arms.”
“Oh.” Jem had forgotten about the gouges the lad had inflicted. They’d still been oozing blood when an officer covered them in film to preserve trace evidence.
“Is he from your patch?” Rosie jerked her head toward the only other paramedic who had made it to the scene. Jem vaguely recognised him as local to Manchester, though he didn’t work in her group. The pips on his epaulettes marked him as an Advanced Paramedic, and he hadn’t yet bothered to introduce himself.
“Sort of,” she said. “I think he’s based in the city centre, but don’t hold me to that. Rumour has it he’s a bit of a knob.”
“The rumours are right on the money. He took the docs to task for calling it.”
“Really?” Jem’s eyebrows almost hit her hairline. “How did that go down?”
Rosie chuckled. “Like a mug of cold sick. The lady doctor told him to wind his neck in and to get here sooner next time if he wanted to be involved in the decision-making.”
Jem wished she’d been privy to that discussion. She might not know the AP, but she was very well acquainted with the “lady doctor” in question, and Harriet Lacey did not suffer fools.
“Speak of the devil,” Rosie said, and Jem looked up to see the AP stalking across the small clearing. He was younger than her, and his ill-advised moustache and goatee combo spoke of a thwarted desire to mask his baby face. She knew his type well: excellent in paramedic theory but craptastic in practice.
“Jemima Pardon?” he said.
“Yes.” Jem stayed seated, despite the authority he was trying to project. “Well, Jem. I go by Jem.”
“I need to speak to you about all this.” He gestured offhand toward the body. “Are you in tomorrow?”
“No, I’m back on a day shift on Wednesday.”
He entered a note on his mobile. “Darnton, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I work the six-six line.”
“I know. I’ve heard all about you.” There was no humour or kindness in the comment, just a snide undertone that made her bristle.
“I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for asking,” she said, and he stared at her as if she’d slapped him. She didn’t care. If his role here wasn’t to support her and act as her advocate, then he was surplus to requirements. He scratched his beard, seeming simultaneously ill at ease and irritated by her insubordination.
“Wednesday morning, then. I’ll arrange for you to be taken off the road.”
“Fill your boots,” she said, but he was already striding away, his radio bleeping for attention. “Tosser,” she muttered.
Rosie leaned into her in a subtle show of support. “Ignore him,” she said, and gave her an Uncle Joe’s Mint Ball.
They sat in silence, sucking their sweets and waiting for permission to start the long walk back to Ellery. The scene grew brighter as a generator rumbled to life and then quieter as people dispersed to fingertip-search the immediate area. Jem was half-dozing, mechanically crunching the last of her mint, when a touch on her shoulder startled her. Harriet Lacey was standing in front of her with her arms folded, radiating authority in a manner the AP could only have dreamed of. If the mud allowed, she’d probably have been tapping her foot.
“Do I need to take a look at you?” she asked, and clipped a probe on Jem’s finger regardless.
Jem squinted at the numbers. Pulse at one hundred and two, and oxygen saturations of ninety-five percent. Not brilliant, but acceptable by her standards.
“Apparently not,” she said, and stuck out her tongue as Harriet narrowed her eyes.
“Warm shower, dry clothes, hot drink, and something to eat,” Harriet told her, and then switched her attention to Rosie, who appeared to be on the verge of saluting. “Officer Jones, could you please call me on this number if Jem decides not to follow my advice?”
Rosie opened her mouth and snapped it shut again, taking the card Harriet held out. “Uh, okay, Doc. Yep, will do.”
Jem didn’t blame her for acquiescing. Harriet had an enviable knack of getting her own way. They hadn’t seen each other for a while, but the circumstances and the adverse conditions hadn’t diminished her take-no-prisoners countenance.
“Excellent,” Harriet said. “Detective Sergeant Merritt said you’re clear to go to Clayton, and you’re to let her know when you’ve finished with everything there. Jem, I’ve spoken to your resource manager and told him you’re indisposed for the rest of the shift. He’s arranging for someone to collect the RRV.”
“Thank you,” Jem said, wondering how improper it would be to kiss her. Quite, she decided, and squeezed her hand instead.
“You’re welcome.” Harriet pocketed the probe. “Go on, get going.”
Rosie waited until Harriet was well out of earshot before she spoke. “Bleedin’ hell. There’s no way I’m pissing her off. It’s a hot shower and sustenance for you, young lady.”
Jem gathered up the foil blanket. “No arguments from me. That sounds lovely.”
They stood together, Jem wavering slightly as a head rush hit her. She had no idea how long was left on her shift. The hours she’d spent with Dorothy in the residential home seemed like several lifetimes ago.
Rosie flicked on her torch. “Ready?”
“Yep.” Turning to leave, Jem glimpsed the raised flap of the forensic tent, a shock of white against the surrounding blackness. Someone lowered it almost at once, concealing the tent’s contents, and Jem concentrated on picking her route over the irregular ground. She didn’t look back.
* * *
Ellery Lane had never seen so much activity. Police vehicles—marked and unmarked—and two Mountain Rescue four-by-fours were parked at haphazard intervals, their drivers having attempted to avoid the divots and waterlogged ruts. SOCO and uniformed officers were hurrying between the vehicles, toting equipment or chattering into their radios. Glad to be heading in the opposite direction, Rosie steered Jem through the melee, aiming for her own patrol car, as an officer on sentry duty noted their departure.
“I’ll ruin the seat,” Jem said, her hand poised to open the passenger door. They were the first words she’d spoken since leaving the scene, barring the odd murmur to acknowledge hazards that Rosie pointed out. Slogging through the woods in torrential rain and a strengthening wind hadn’t been conducive to a casual chat.
Rosie fished a large plastic sheet from her pocket. “Not to worry. SOCO gave me this for evidence preservation. Sadly, their generosity only stretched to one, so whoever drives this car next will be getting a wet arse.”
Settling onto the plastic, Jem leaned her head back and closed her eyes, a blissful expression spreading across her face as Rosie started the car and banged the heating on full. Cool air blasted from the vents, but even that seemed preferable to being outside.
“It shouldn’t take long to get warm,” Rosie told her. “Have a nap if you want. I don’t mind.”
“I’m awake.” Jem yawned and failed to open her eyes.
“Fibber. You sound like my dad. Fast asleep in front of the telly, but woe betide anyone who changes the channel.”
“‘Hey! I were watching that!’” Jem mimicked, her baritone grumble sounding so much like Rosie’s dad that Rosie slapped the steering wheel and drove them into a pothole.
“Yours too?” she asked, bouncing them out the other side.
“All the bloody time. And it was always something crap like Escape to Victory or The Dam Busters.”
Rosie slowed at the junction, giving a quick wave to the patrol unit waiting to turn. “Footy or Songs of Praise for mine. He loves booming along to the classics.”
“Until he nods off mid-chorus.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you from around here?” Jem sat up straighter, curiosity seeming to banish her weariness. “Only, your accent’s a bit hodgepodge. Sort of Manc, but then I don’t know…Oldham? Rochdale?”
“Good ear,” Rosie said, impressed. “I was born in Hathershaw, Oldham, but my parents split when I was seven, and me and my mam moved to Newton Heath. Eight years later, she remarried, and I ended up with two sisters and a brother.”
“That must have been a shock to the system.”
“I hated it, and I hated my stepdad.” Rosie slowed the car, surprised by her admission. At the time, she’d taken to smoking dope, drinking cheap booze on the streets, and shagging around, but she’d never been brave enough to tell her mam why. Later she’d been too ashamed, and that shame had followed her into adulthood. She shook her head, still mortified. “For so long I’d had my mam to myself, and then I had to share her with this complete stranger who looked funny and talked funny and ate weird shit. He’s from Ghana, and fuck me, I thought it was the end of the world.”
“You were a teenager, Rosie. Everything’s the end of the world at that age. And I’m guessing you got over yourself.”
There was no condemnation in Jem’s reply, and Rosie loosened her death grip on the steering wheel.
“I got over it, slowly but surely,” she said. “Janelle—the first of the kids—was a godsend. She was such a sweetheart, I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. She’s a right little bugger now, but back then, cute as a button.”
The bright pink of a takeaway sign lit Jem’s smile. She’d relaxed during the journey, regaining a hint of colour to her cheeks and looking less like she might warrant a diversion to the nearest A&E.
“I can’t count all my brothers and sisters,” she said at length, as if she’d held a mental debate before broaching the topic. “I was fostered for years, and I saw kids come and go all the time.”
“Oh.” Rosie didn’t quite know what to say, so she defaulted to candour. “That must’ve been shit.”
“It certainly had its moments,” Jem said with wry understatement. “I was lucky, eventually. I got adopted. Not many kids in care find a family as late as I did.”
“How old were you?”
“Almost ten, but my mum and dad had been fostering me for two years by then.” Jem tugged on her earlobe. She’d turned toward the window again, casting her face into shadow. “I don’t know what they saw in a seven-year-old with knackered lungs who could barely write her own name, but I know I’d have been lost without them.” She cleared her throat uneasily. “Sorry, I don’t—I think I’m just tired.”
Rosie concentrated on driving, not wanting to make things awkward. “We’ll be there soon. And rest assured, what’s divulged within the confines of this manky and very damp patrol car stays within its confines.”
Jem faced forward, no longer tormenting her ear. “Okay, then. Let’s talk about cheerier things.”
“Like what?”
“Good question,” Jem said as if momentarily flummoxed by the concept of joviality. “Uh, footy team? Pets? To dunk or not to dunk?”
Rosie began to tick her answers off on her fingers. “Man City. Fluffy the bearded dragon.” She paused, digits still outstretched, to address Jem’s muffled laugh. “Is something amusing you?”
Jem shook her head. “Nope, not at all. Carry on. It’s a fine name.”
Rosie did her best to look askance but gave up when she almost clipped the kerb. “Bugger, apologies.” She overcorrected and clobbered a couple of cat’s eyes instead. “I inherited Fluffy from the family of a dead smack rat, and he sort of answers to it, so we’re stuck with it. Now, where were we? No to dunking, because I’m rubbish at it and I don’t like crumbs floating in my tea. How about you?”
“Bolton, for my sins,” Jem said. “No pets of my own, but I walk other people’s dogs, and ditto on the dunking. I have on occasion sucked my tea up through a Twix, though.”
“Well, that’s disgusting,” Rosie said. “You must teach me how to do it.” The taxi in front of them dawdled up to a traffic light and sped through at the last second, leaving her to slam her brakes on for the red. “Arse,” she muttered, tempering her road rage in deference to Jem.
“I’d have blasted the stupid sod,” Jem said, apparently not as mild-mannered as Rosie had assumed. Her stomach rumbled, and she clapped a hand atop it. “God, sorry. I get proper nowty when I’m hungry.”
Rosie thought of the leftovers her mam had packed and the promise she’d made to the doctor. The light changed, and she accelerated smoothly through it.
“If you can hang on for another ten minutes,” she said, “I’ve got just the thing.”