“Officer, you need—”
Rosie shook off the paramedic’s hand. “I’m fine. See to the girls.”
“They’re fine,” he said, clearly exasperated. “You’re bleeding.”
“Where’s Jem?” She paced away from the ambulance, almost in tears. She’d been rational and efficient since she got off the lift, taking the time to arrange a police escort for Ava and Chloe and providing a very brief overview for her sarge. Her arm wasn’t bleeding that badly, and she no longer felt like coughing her spleen up, but she’d lost Jem in the melee and couldn’t see her anywhere.
The paramedic took one look at her face and relented. “I think she’s with Bob and Dougie.”
“Which vehicle?”
He pointed past the first two fire engines. “That one.”
“Thanks. I don’t mean to be an arse.”
He pulled off his gloves and balled them up. “Tell her Spence sends his love.”
She ran to the ambulance, dodging fire crews and hoses and the occasional belligerent rubbernecker, and banged on its back door.
“Give us a minute!” a man shouted.
“Is Jem in there?” She tried to sound imposing, but she could barely speak for crying.
The door opened, and a grey-haired man, sweating and obviously stressed to fuck, looked out. “I’m guessing you’re Rosie,” he said. “I’m Bob.”
She dried her eyes on the scrap of curtain binding her wrist. “Is she okay?”
He shook his head, and she followed him inside, shutting the door behind her and staying in the corner, out of the way. She heard Jem before she saw her: the rapid gasp of every snatched breath, and the drawn-out wheeze that marred each exhalation.
“Look who I found,” Bob said to Jem, cupping her chin and supporting her head so she could see Rosie. “Will you behave yourself now and keep that mask on?”
Jem sobbed once, and Rosie sat on the floor beside her stretcher, taking hold of the hand that wasn’t tangled in an IV line and monitoring leads.
Bob didn’t bother trying to get her into a seat. He grabbed his paperwork and slapped the bulkhead. “Stick your foot down, Dougie. Put them on standby. Her sats are only eighty-six, and she’s knackered.”
The vehicle moved off, its sirens blaring to clear a path through the chaos. Rosie squeezed Jem’s clammy fingers. “Hey,” she said. “I know you’re tired, but no slacking on the breathing, okay? I’m not doing all the bloody paperwork for this.”
Jem managed a weak smile and then set off coughing, until she retched and yanked her oxygen mask down.
“Help me…I can’t…” She slapped at Bob’s arm as he tried to resecure the mask. “I can’t breathe.”
“Jem, you need the medicine,” he said. The liquid-filled chamber beneath the mask created a thin mist as the oxygen hit it, but none of the mist was going anywhere near her. On the monitor, eighty-six percent dropped to eighty-five and then eighty-three.
Rosie knelt up properly, wrapping her arm around the head of the stretcher so she wouldn’t go flying. “Here, let me hold it for you.” She placed the mask close to Jem’s face, though not so close it made her claustrophobic. “How’s that? Any easier?”
“Yes,” Jem whispered.
“We’ll have you there in no time,” Bob said. “You know what Dougie’s driving is like.” His eyes were fixed on the sats reading, and he’d set a ventilation bag in readiness by his feet. He mopped his brow with a paper towel when the figure climbed to eighty-eight.
“That’s the best they’ve been,” he said to Rosie. “She’ll go straight into Resus at A&E, and they’ll be ready for her, so don’t worry.”
“Easier said than done,” Rosie said, watching Jem’s eyes roll as she fought to stay conscious.
Bob was watching her as well, missing nothing, his foot tapping an uneasy beat on the ventilation bag. “Yeah, isn’t it just?”
* * *
“On my count.” Bob’s curt instruction brought a semblance of order to the staff gathered in the Resus bay, most of whom obviously recognised Jem.
Rosie found a spot on the periphery, her attempts to feign authority undermined by the blood and soot covering her, and ignored by a team who had far greater concerns. Jem wasn’t ignoring her; her eyes had tracked Rosie’s position since their arrival in the bay, but as the team slid her onto the bed her gaze fell away, as if she was humiliated by her own weakness.
“Jem Pardon, thirty-two years old,” Bob said, once she’d been settled and a nurse was hooking up the monitors. “Mild indications of smoke inhalation after a house fire, but severe exacerbation of chronic asthma. Initial sats were eighty-one, now ninety after back-to-back nebulisers and hydrocortisone IV. Resps are up at twenty-four, tachy at one-thirty plus. I know she’s been vented at least twice, and she has a specialist care plan here.”
“We’ve fast-bleeped Respiratory,” a doctor said. “Cheers, Bob.”
Bob threw his paperwork onto his empty stretcher and put his hands on Rosie’s shoulders. “This is Rosie. She also needs checking over at some point, but she appears spry enough for now.” He ushered her into a chair and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “I’ll be back to see you both in a bit.”
Rosie nodded, overwhelmed by the cacophony of monitor alarms and the press of too many bodies in too close a space. She was out of her depth here, unfamiliar with the equipment, the terminology, and the staff, and she couldn’t simply show her warrant card and demand answers in an environment where her uniform held little sway. She had rarely been ill as a child—the usual bouts of chicken pox and snotty noses were the only things she remembered—and her good health had followed her into adulthood. She couldn’t imagine herself in Jem’s position, managing an illness that could put her in Resus at the drop of a hat, joking about chocolate at B&Q one minute and fighting for her life the next.
From where Rosie was sitting, she could only catch glimpses of Jem, but nothing she was hearing sounded good. She stood up and chanced a couple of steps to her right, keeping her back to the cubicle’s curtain. Everyone remained engrossed in their respective tasks, and no one scolded her or sent her back to the chair. No one even seemed to notice, aside from Jem, who waited until a doctor had drawn a blood sample from her wrist, and then beckoned Rosie over.
“Do you want me to phone your dad?” Rosie asked.
Jem shook her head. “He’ll worry.”
“Is this not worth worrying about?” Every number on the screen was red and flashing, and Jem’s sats were back to hovering in the high eighties.
“Been worse,” Jem said, with grim pragmatism. A rapid clack of heels sounded outside the curtain, and she looked past Rosie with obvious trepidation. The curtain was whipped aside without ceremony, and Rosie clamped her mouth shut, aware that she was staring.
“What the bloody hell have you two been up to this time?” Harriet Lacey said, scanning the notes on Jem’s chart. “Has she had the mag sulf yet?” she called over her shoulder.
“Just drawing it up,” a nurse replied.
“Good. Fast as you can, please. Her gases are crap, and she usually responds well to that.” Harriet’s expression gave nothing away as she listened to Jem’s chest and cast an eye over the monitors.
“Please don’t…” Jem kicked with her feet, trying to sit up properly. “Don’t—I’m okay.” She started to cough, collapsing back against the pillow as sweat beaded on her hairline.
“Last resort, Jem,” Harriet said. “And we’re not there yet. Let’s see how you are after the magnesium and an hour or two on CPAP. Does that sound all right?”
Although Rosie had no idea what bargain had just been struck, some of the tension eased from Jem’s posture. The nurse connected a small IV bag to one of the lines and adjusted its flow.
“Lovely, thank you,” Harriet said. She slung her steth around her neck. “Goodness, Jem, you’re making my eyes water. Shall we get you into a gown while we set the CPAP up? Officer Jones?”
Rosie all but snapped to attention, supporting Jem as the nurse dispensed with preliminaries and cut Jem’s uniform away. The gown went on before her boots and trousers came off. Rosie tucked a blanket over Jem’s bare legs, mortified on her behalf, though Jem seemed resigned, or perhaps accustomed, to the indignity. The mild effort of moving knocked her sats again, and Harriet wasted no time placing a large plastic mask over her face, securing it with two thick straps, and activating the machine its hose was attached to.
“I’ll check your gases again in an hour and we’ll go from there,” she said as the machine began to work in synch with Jem’s breathing. “I think CPAP warrants a call to your parents, don’t you?”
The mask precluded any debate on the subject, but Jem showed no sign of dissent. Harriet pulled her mobile from her pocket, checking the monitors again as she did so. “Your sats are already ninety-one. Why don’t you shut your eyes for a while so you don’t scare the pants off your dad when he gets here?” She wrote a note on Jem’s chart, waiting until Jem had slipped into a doze before she went over to Rosie. “Sit down before you fall down, and stick your tongue out for me,” she told her, attaching a probe to Rosie’s finger.
The adrenaline rush that had seen Rosie through the last couple of hours seemed to abandon her abruptly. Too bewildered to protest, she followed the instructions, her backside hitting the chair hard as her legs folded beneath her.
“Lower your head.” Harriet placed a hand between Rosie’s shoulder blades. “It’ll pass.”
“Will she be okay?” Rosie mumbled, studying her boots as they blurred and sharpened again. “And what’s CPAP?” She felt like an infant, full of questions but only capable of articulating them in the simplest terms.
Harriet squatted at Rosie’s side, no mean feat in the heels she was wearing. “I think she’ll be fine. She tends to bounce back quite quickly, even when she’s come in this poorly. Knowing her, she’ll probably get a HDU bed for the night and be well enough to go home in another day or so.”
“Really?” Rosie pushed upright, struggling to reconcile Harriet’s optimism with Jem’s current condition. “What does the mask do?”
“It stops her from getting exhausted, and it prevents her airways collapsing as she breathes.”
“In a nutshell?” Rosie said, suspecting there was a lot more to it than that.
Harriet smiled, graciously conceding the point. “Yes, in a nutshell. Now”—she pulled a small trolley closer and uncapped a nasty little needle—“I’m going to run your blood gases. Once I’m sure you don’t need to be in the cubicle next door, I’ll get someone to examine whatever you’re hiding beneath that rather grim scrag of carpet.”
“It’s curtain,” Rosie said, still eyeing the needle. “And it’s just a scratch.”
“Mm-hm. Am I correct in assuming you’d like to stay in here with Jem?”
“Yes.”
Harriet turned Rosie’s uninjured wrist, evidently preparing to draw the blood sample, but instead of jabbing it she held it in her hand. “Let us do what we need to do, then. She’ll probably be asleep for an hour or so. You can have a shower and get changed and still be here when she wakes up. How does that sound?”
“It sounds good,” Rosie admitted.
“Excellent.” Harriet shifted her fingers, feeling for the pulse at Rosie’s wrist and readying the needle. “Brace yourself, Officer Jones. I’ve been told this stings quite a bit.”
* * *
In Rosie’s experience, the best police partnerships were formed around the basic mandate of always having your mate’s back. When she’d messaged Kash to ask for clean clothes, he’d gone beyond the call and brought her fresh underwear and a flask of his mum’s curry as well.
“The foil has chapattis in it,” he said. “Take it home if you don’t feel like it now.”
“I will. Thanks, Kash.”
“How is she?” Never comfortable around the ill, injured, or dead, he had retreated to the foot of Jem’s bed.
Rosie stroked her thumb across the back of Jem’s hand. She didn’t think they were at the hand-holding stage yet—hell, they hadn’t even arranged their date—but the last time Jem had woken, she’d wrapped her fingers around Rosie’s and promptly fallen back to sleep. Rosie hadn’t dared to move since.
“Stable at the last count,” she said, refocusing on Kash’s question. “Her doc said her gases have improved, whatever that means, and they’ve started to wean her off that mask. Her dad’s got his hands full with a new pair of foster children, but he’s going to come as soon as he can.”
Kash plucked up the courage to sit in the cubicle’s spare chair. “What about you?” he said, giving her a pointed look.
“I think I’m okay.” She knew better than to tell him she was fine—he would skewer that lie in a heartbeat—but she couldn’t describe the terror of hearing the flames creep closer, of feeling the heat on her skin and the quaking of the building, and she had no words for the helplessness she’d felt as she’d watched Jem slowly suffocate. Aiming for nonchalance, she swallowed a mouthful of tepid coffee, but the cup clipped the edge of the overbed table as she put it down. Kash handed her a wad of paper towels and said nothing.
“Have you heard anything about the girls?” she asked. “The sarge popped his head in a while back, but he didn’t have much of an update.”
“Only that they’re on the children’s ward with their families, and they won’t be interviewed until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Smoke inhalation, dehydration, and a badly sprained ankle. The elder one—Ava?—reckoned they’d been down there for about four days, but she refused to give any other specifics, and no one’s going to push them until Psych have completed an assessment.”
Rosie rubbed her sore eyes. She was so tired that the room kept spinning, but she was scared of what she might see if she went to sleep. “Were they runaways?”
“Yes.” He paused to check a note he’d written. “Twenty-three days listed as missing and vulnerable. They’d fallen off the radar completely, not a sight nor sound of them reported to the Misper team. Detective Merritt has been informed because of the circumstantial similarities, but there’s nothing concrete to link them to the Kyle Parker case.”
Rosie nodded, mulling the information over. In the house there had been no time to connect the dots, but she could see a pattern taking shape now, and it kicked her lethargy into touch. “Someone’s tempting these kids off the street, aren’t they?” she said. “Promising them the world, until they step out of line and end up locked in a cellar.”
“It’s one possible theory,” he said, always the more circumspect member of their duo. “Has Detective Merritt been in touch?”
“Numerous times.” Rosie’s mobile vibrated whenever she moved it, reminding her she had yet another message from Steph. She’d spoken to her briefly and emphasised the lack of mobile reception in Resus.
Kash didn’t press the topic. “You’re a popular lass. Everyone’s been asking after you. I think Smiffy might’ve shed a couple of tears.”
“Fuck off. It was probably wind.” She wafted her free hand at him. “Get back home before Makeenah reports you as a misper.”
He stood and knuckled her cheek. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t. I’ll text you. Tell your mum thanks for the curry.”
He was almost to the edge of the bay when she called him back.
“What’s up?” he said.
“The fire—” She shook her head at her own stupidity. She was so addled, she hadn’t even thought to ask. “Do they know how it started?”
His expression hardened. She’d seen him punch a wall once, and he’d looked more placid then than he did now. “Early indications suggest petrol,” he said as if reading from a formal report. “Poured through the letterbox at the front and thrown through the window you’d smashed in the kitchen. Major Crimes are treating it as arson and attempted murder.”
“Jesus.” She’d known that, somewhere at the back of her battered brain, but it was appalling to have her suspicions confirmed. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t asked.
“We’ll get the fuckers,” he said. “Most of Major Crimes are working it, and loads of our lot volunteered for the overtime.”
“Is that why I’m so popular?” she said. It was easier to make a joke than stew over what she’d just been told. “Everyone’s getting double bubble because of me.”
He laughed. “You might be on to something there. Give Jem some of that curry when she wakes up. It’ll clear her sinuses right out.”
“I have no doubt of that.” Rosie had encountered his mum’s curries on numerous occasions, and none of them had stinted on the spice. “But I’m not sure her doc will approve. I’ll see you soon, mate.”
Jem stirred as he left, lifting her head and rubbing at a crick in her neck. It would have been such a normal gesture, had her hand not been trailing a couple of IV lines. She mimicked writing something, and Rosie gave her the pad and pen Harriet had provided.
You look worn out, Jem scrawled in a wavering script. You don’t have to stay.
“I know I don’t,” Rosie said. “But you’re no trouble, so I thought I’d keep an eye on you until your dad gets here.”
I’m sorry, Rosie. For all of this, Jem wrote slowly, her hand trembling.
“Hey,” Rosie said. “There’s nothing you need to apologise for.”
Jem tapped the pad with the pen as if about to disagree, but then touched the bandage covering Rosie’s forearm instead. How many stitches?
“Thirteen.” Rosie chuckled as Jem drew a shocked face. “Yeah, I think she added an extra one for irony’s sake.”
Jem took too deep a breath and started coughing, setting off a chain reaction of pressure sensors on the CPAP. Bloody thing, she wrote. How’re my sats?
The monitor was out of sight behind her. Rosie spent a couple of seconds pretending to analyse it so Jem wouldn’t guess how closely she’d been keeping tabs. By this stage, she could have provided a detailed graph broken down into half-minute increments and featuring all the occasions where Jem had got lazy, dipped below eighty-five percent, and given Rosie a bout of palpitations.
“Hovering around ninety-four, occasionally peaking at ninety-five,” she said. “You’re officially cooking on gas, Ms. Pardon.”
Jem made an okay sign. I could murder a brew.
“I bet you could. Shall I see if your doc—” Rosie broke off when she saw Harriet approaching the cubicle. “Holy shit. Did I summon her?” she whispered, and Jem spluttered a laugh.
OW, she scribbled, her hand splinting her overworked ribs.
“Sorry.” Rosie pulled at her scrubs top until its creases disappeared, and hid her filthy socks beneath a blanket. Harriet had extended her shift to oversee Jem’s treatment, but she didn’t have a hair out of place, and every time she walked in she brought with her the scent of fresh strawberries.
“You look perkier,” she said, setting her steth on Jem’s chest. “Try not to cough. I like having eardrums.” She sat on the bed when she’d finished and read through the latest obs. “You’re still tight on your left side, but I want to try you on nasal O2 and nebs and see if we can keep your sats where they are. Do you feel up to that?”
Jem wrote YES and underlined it.
“Good,” Harriet said. “Give me ten minutes to get everything written up.”
She was back in five, armed with a lidded beaker of tea and a packet of biscuits.
“You know it’ll feel weird, so don’t panic,” she said, uncoupling the straps and easing the mask from Jem’s face. She placed a thin plastic tube below Jem’s nose and adjusted its flow of oxygen, her eyes never leaving Jem as she did so. Rosie inched forward in her seat, waiting for something terrible to happen, for Jem to turn blue or start gasping or lose consciousness, but Jem took a few deliberate breaths and then held out her hand for the brew.
“It’s as if we’ve done this before,” Harriet said, tilting the beaker for Jem to take a sip.
“Uncanny, isn’t it?” Jem’s reply was rough and scratchy, as if someone had sandpapered her vocal cords. “Thanks, Harriet.”
“My pleasure. You’re doing really well. There’s no HDU bed for you at the moment, but at this rate we’ll be able to admit you onto Respiratory instead.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Harriet smiled. “I thought so. Keep up the good work, and I’ll see you in half an hour.”
Jem waited for Harriet to leave and then drank more of the tea unaided. She frowned at the layer of soot she was smearing on the plastic. “Do I look like a chimney sweep?” she asked.
“You are slightly smudged in places,” Rosie admitted. “Do you want me to cadge some soap and a flannel?”
“You’re not giving me a bloody bed-bath, Rosie Jones.”
Rosie laughed, a proper carefree laugh that rolled in her belly and made her feel seven feet tall. “Would you rather that agency nurse with the mad moustache and the twitch did it?”
“Good Lord, no.” Jem closed her eyes. “All right. Go and find the stuff before I change my mind.”
* * *
The staff on the respiratory ward greeted Jem like a family friend, assigning her to a side room and turning a blind eye to the hoodie-wearing, barefoot bobby who’d accompanied her from A&E. Katya, her named nurse, found tomato soup and picnic boxes from somewhere, and then returned halfway through their supper with Jem’s dad.
Jem dropped her sandwich as he entered the room. She thought she’d stuck a reasonably firm lid on the evening’s events, until she burst into tears and fell forward into his arms.
“Shush now, Jemima. Shush,” he murmured against her cheek, but his hold on her was fierce, and she knew he was crying as well. She wrapped her fists in his rain-damp jacket and listened as the thrum of his heartbeat became slower and more regular. He pulled away at length and dabbed her eyes with his hanky. “There you go. No more tears, love.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you, Dad. I’m really sorry. We found these girls, and someone set the house on fire…” She paused to let her lungs catch up. “And this is Rosie. She broke a window and got us all out.”
If her dad recognised Rosie’s name, he didn’t let on. He stood to shake her hand in both of his. “Pete Pardon. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Jem was lucky to have you there today.”
“I think we were all lucky,” Rosie said. She didn’t elaborate. Earlier she’d used Kash’s update to fill in the blanks for Jem, but with the trauma still so recent and raw, neither of them had wanted to dwell on the details.
Jem’s dad had never liked making anyone feel uncomfortable. He returned to his seat and pulled a tin from a plastic bag, flipping the lid and displaying the contents like a pirate with a chest full of treasure. Even with the stream of oxygen beneath her nose, Jem caught the scent of chocolate and butter.
“Your mum baked these for you,” he said.
“Aztec biscuits?” Jem’s guess was confirmed when she spied the pieces of cornflakes. She offered Rosie first pick. “I’ve not had these in ages. Mum would make them for me whenever I landed in the hospital.”
Her dad chuckled. “I should’ve bought shares in Kellogg’s. Jem was single-handedly keeping the buggers in business.”
“They’re really good,” Rosie said through a mouthful, her hand catching crumbs. “Can I leave my butty and have these instead? That’s okay, isn’t it? We’ve had a very stressful day.”
“Just this once,” Jem’s dad said. “Ferg was all for hopping on the next train when I spoke to him, but I persuaded him to stay put and give his presentation.”
“Thank you,” Jem said. Knowing how much preparation Ferg had put in for the event, she hadn’t wanted to tell him what had happened, but neither had she wanted him to read about it in the paper. “I’ll text him later and make sure he’s not on the sleeper express.”
Her dad put his half-eaten biscuit down. “Did the news get it right? They said the fire was started deliberately.”
“We think so,” Jem said. She could see he was furious, but she couldn’t be angry or vengeful or anything much at all when just staying awake was demanding everything from her.
“Bloody bastards,” he said. He rarely swore unless severely provoked. He sniffed in deference to Rosie; if he’d been wearing his cap, he would probably have tipped it. “Sorry, love.”
Rosie bit into another biscuit. “No need to apologise. I swear like a sailor.”
“It’s true,” Jem said. “She’s a terrible influence.”
Her dad was watching them both, his expression inscrutable, and she saw him relax in subtle increments. His jaw unclenched, and he stopped picking at the dry skin on his fingers. His mobile had chimed with her mum’s ringtone twice since he’d arrived, but he hadn’t looked at the messages. He’d always been the one to stay with Jem in the children’s ward, making dens out of the camp bed he was supposed to be sleeping on, and bringing in enough sweets to share around. The habit had died hard, although these days he tended to keep her company only if she was admitted to the HDU or the ITU.
“Get going if you need to,” she said. “I’m all right, really.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I’ve only just arrived.” He sighed as his phone rang again. “We got twins on an emergency placement this morning. The lad’s autistic and a real handful. He helped to make those biscuits, but ten minutes later he smashed the kitchen up.”
Jem turned over to face him properly. It left her winded, but she persevered. “Dad, please go home, or I’ll be worrying about Mum.”
“I don’t want you to be on your own, not after everything that’s happened today. I know you’re not a child anymore, but I’d rest easier if someone was with you. And don’t give me that look, Jemima Pardon.”
She was giving him a look, but not for the reason he assumed. She’d lived with him long enough to know how he operated, and she was a dab hand at spotting an ulterior motive.
“I’ll stay with her,” Rosie said, completely oblivious. “These chairs aren’t too bad once you get used to them.”
He beamed at her. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Don’t I get a say?” Jem asked, though it was hard to be indignant and wheezy at the same time.
“Apparently not,” Rosie said, and accepted the tin of biscuits from Jem’s dad.
He ruffled Jem’s hair. “I’m sure this would look terrific without the soot.”
“Kiss Mum from me,” she said.
He took his cap from his pocket and pulled it on. “Keep us updated, Rosie.”
“Of course I will.”
The door clicked behind him as he left. Rosie let his footsteps fade before she turned back to Jem, drumming her fingers on the lid of the tin. Jem knew what was coming, and she was already laughing.
“Did he just set us up?” Rosie asked.
Jem bit into another biscuit. “Yep.”
Rosie looked at the closed door and then back at Jem. “The crafty old sod,” she said.
* * *
When Jem had asked her nurse to leave the light on, Katya had swapped the overheads for the angle-poise lamp attached to the bed frame. It cast a soothing glow, ideal for lulling susceptible patients to sleep, but Jem was restless and uncomfortable after hours spent in the same position, and the last time she’d catnapped, she’d dreamt of the fire.
“Rosie? Are you awake?” she whispered.
“Yes, but you shouldn’t be.”
Jem was too preoccupied by fidgeting to react to Rosie’s schoolma’am impersonation. “Can you help me? I need to get up.”
“Not a problem.” Rosie readied the bed’s remote. “Say when.”
“No, not sit up. Stand up,” Jem said. The room felt too small: stuffy and airless despite her oxygen. She pulled at the neck of her gown, though it sat loose and nowhere near her throat.
“Hey, easy.” Rosie untangled Jem’s fingers, freeing the material and straightening the gown. “Shall I call Katya?”
“No.” Jem kicked at the sheets, twisting them around her legs. “Help me to the window. Please.”
“What? Jem, I can’t.”
“I’ll do it by myself,” Jem said, managing to get a foot out.
Rosie glowered, but whatever she saw in Jem’s eyes made her blink first. “Okay, okay, you stubborn bugger. Let me get a chair ready.”
She drew back the bedding, allowing Jem to manoeuvre herself to the edge of the mattress, a task of Herculean proportions, given that she was toting various attachments and still as weak as a kitten. Had Rosie called her bluff and left her to it, she would have ended up flat on her face.
“Is Katya going to kick my arse for this?” Rosie asked, wheeling a drip stand into position.
“No.” Jem clung to Rosie’s arm and lowered her feet to the tiles. “She was in your shoes last time.”
“I’m not wearing any bloody shoes.” Rosie wiggled her toes. “SOCO confiscated my boots, and Kash brought me a bra but no trainers.”
“Don’t…don’t make me laugh,” Jem said, already flagging with half the distance remaining.
Rosie tightened her hold. “We’re doing great. I can probably drag you from here if you peg out.”
“Sod off.” Jem dropped into the chair with an audible thud and leaned her head back, her chest heaving.
Alerted by the clang of a monitor, Katya rushed in seconds later, muting the alarm and standing with her hands on her hips. “Again?” she said, but her stance softened as Jem nodded. She opened the window a crack and wrapped a blanket around Jem’s shoulders. “Half an hour and then back to bed with a neb. Yes?”
“Absolutely,” Jem said. The air smelled of fresh rain and spices from the local kebab shops, and it felt wonderful, as if it was rushing to fill her lungs. It was a fallacy, she knew, but there was a reason so many of her respiratory patients were sitting on their doorsteps when she arrived in the RRV.
Rosie pushed her own chair alongside Jem’s. “Are you warm enough?” she asked.
“Mm-hm.” Jem nudged her foot against Rosie’s. “Stop fretting.”
“Your dad left me here to fret! He thought I was responsible and well behaved, and instead I’m marching you over to the window and parking you in a draught.” Rosie tucked her hair behind her ears and then curled one strand forward again, undecided. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this,” she muttered.
“At what?”
Rosie gestured around herself. “All this. Any of it. It’s like everyone’s talking in a foreign language, and I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s going on, and you’re in the middle of it, taking it all in and coping.”
“I don’t cope very well,” Jem said. She’d been hanging on by a thread for hours now, tolerating the needles and the side effects of the drugs, and telling herself they were a small price to pay for being alive. In truth she was sore and cranky, and she wanted to go home to her own bed and sleep for a week. “I hate being in the hospital, and I hate my fucking crappy lungs. They’re rubbish at the best of times, but when they’re bad they…It feels…” She faltered; she hadn’t tried to put this into words before. “It feels like there’s a brick wall sat in my chest, and I have to force every breath over that wall, and sometimes I get to the point where I can’t do it on my own.” She started to cough and took a gulp from the glass of water Rosie handed her, swallowing convulsively until the irritation subsided.
“I think you’re dead brave,” Rosie said.
“I’m just used to it.” It was a fact, not a play for pity. “And you saw me in Resus, Rosie. I’m anything but brave.”
“Bollocks,” Rosie said, and she sounded like she meant it, despite Jem’s scepticism and lingering embarrassment. “I was scared to death watching you. You, meanwhile, were busy cutting deals with Dr. Lacey. I bet there aren’t many people she does that for.”
It took Jem a minute to catch Rosie’s reference. She couldn’t remember the specifics of that conversation with Harriet, only the all-encompassing fear and the sheer relief brought about by the outcome. Given the circumstances, Harriet probably hadn’t decoded any of it for Rosie, and Jem thought she should at least try to.
“I didn’t want to be tubed,” she said. “When they put you to sleep and stick you on a ventilator. I’m terrified of it.” The admission cost her nothing; Rosie had already seen her at her worst.
“Right.” Rosie’s eyes widened. “Christ. Was that on the cards?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t far off. If the CPAP hadn’t worked, it would’ve been the next option.” Jem stretched her palm on the windowpane, letting it cool before placing it against her sticky forehead. “My dad’s always been there when they’ve done it, and his face is the last thing I see before the drugs hit me. He’ll smile at me and tell me he’ll see me when I wake up, but he gets this tic at the corner of his eye when he’s worried, and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to wake up again, and he obviously doesn’t know either.” Her voice and her courage wavered. She had never said this to anyone. Not to her dad, not to Ferg, not to anyone. “Perhaps one day I won’t.”
“God, Jem.” Rosie used the heel of her hand to wipe her eyes. “I thought kids grew out of asthma. Shouldn’t you be growing out of it by now?”
Her indignation made Jem smile. “My birth mother smoked pretty much everything she could get her hands on while she was pregnant with me. Crack, heroin, you name it. She shot me out eight weeks early and basically buggered up my lungs.”
“That was good of her,” Rosie said with admirable diplomacy.
“Yeah. Needless to say, I’ve never tried to track her down. On the bright side, Harriet’s kept me stable for about ten years now. Tonight was a blip, but there were extenuating circumstances, so I’m hoping a blip is all it was.”
“Ten years, eh?” Rosie nibbled on a smoke-blackened thumbnail. “And she’s your respiratory specialist?”
“Yes,” Jem said, busy working the sums out in her head. “It’s more than ten. Blimey, thirteen, I think. I was referred to her just before I started as an ambulance tech.” She stopped counting on her fingers and looked at Rosie, who seemed to have developed a series of nervous twitches, chewing a nail one moment and twisting her hair into a knot the next. Jem buried a laugh behind her blanket. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” she said, adding a wistful sigh for maximum effect.
“Aye,” Rosie said, her hair so snarled around her pinkie that it had whitened the tip.
“She’s also very straight,” Jem added.
“Really?” Rosie frowned and slowly unravelled her little finger. “But I thought you and her had had a thing.” She folded her arms, obviously stumped. “Have you never had a thing?”
“Nope. She’s married to an orthopaedic surgeon called David, and they have two precocious children. What the hell is wrong with your gaydar?”
Rosie shook her head in dismay, but she was starting to laugh. “Clearly it’s defective. You just…you finish each other’s sentences, for fuck’s sake. If you were on the telly, I’d definitely ship you.”
Jem covered her face with her hands. “Bloody Nora. Please don’t ever repeat this conversation in front of her.”
Rosie waited until Jem peeked out, and then gave her a Scout’s honour salute, looking delighted. She had probably been worrying about Harriet since that night in the wood with Kyle Parker. “My lips are sealed,” she said, and checked her watch. “Your thirty minutes are up. Are you ready for the return trek?”
“As I’ll ever be.” Clutching her drip on one side, Jem took Rosie’s hand and managed to stand. “Nothing to it,” she said, tottering through a head rush that almost knocked her back onto her arse. Three steps across, she stopped to cough and felt Rosie slip an arm around her.
“Easy, I’ve got you,” Rosie said.
Jem leaned into her. “Do you think people would ship us?” she asked, and felt the low rumble of Rosie’s answering chuckle.
“The plucky paramedic and the wayward but debonair copper?” Rosie set them off walking again, slow and steady, each step perfectly coordinated. “I reckon we’d be a shoo-in.”