Maybe, one day, there’d be occasion for a blog on that topic Sparrow thought now, as the car came within sight of the Thames, which flowed just as strongly—just as surely—in the dark as in the light. He looked at de Greer, who was also staring through the window at the water, but probably seeing something different. No one looks at the same river twice, he remembered reading somewhere. Or maybe it was drowns—no one drowns in the same river twice? Yeah. That sounded right. Any way you looked at it, you only drown once.
The paramedic shook his head.
Whelan couldn’t blame him.
Even with the gore on her sweatshirt, Shirley looked at peace, and might have been sleeping. Whelan couldn’t grasp the suddenness of the switch: from sixty to zero in the time it took to blow out a match. The ambulance’s blue light was still strobing, its relentless throb draining colour from them all: the paramedic himself, Whelan, the boy from the garage. The biker was long gone. Only in Shirley’s resting features did the looping splashes add life, probably because Shirley’s face alone lacked it right then, the others being in various states of visible emotion: shock, bewilderment, and a kind of resigned irritation.
This was the paramedic. He said, “You let her eat?”
Whelan could have taken issue. Even on their relatively brief acquaintance, he was pretty certain that letting Shirley Dander do anything wasn’t how those things got done. You just watched her do whatever she’d set her mind on. That or listen to her talk about it.
Besides: Eat? She’d spilled more than she’d swallowed. It was as well her sweatshirt was ruined anyway, because that barbecue sauce wasn’t coming out.
Without opening her eyes, Shirley said, “I was hungry.”
“You’re not supposed to eat,” the paramedic grumbled. “In case you need an operation.”
“Stitches.”
“You’re still not—”
“That was good, what you did,” Shirley said, this time to Whelan. “He was all washed up,” she added, a wistful note to her voice for some reason.
Whelan nodded. He could have done with a lie down himself, the previous minutes having been eventful, if not entirely as planned—when he’d trained the hose on the biker, he’d had visions of a water-cannon pinning him to a wall. The actual result was a pissed off biker, sopping wet but upright, and things might have got ugly if flashing blue lights hadn’t appeared down the road. As it was, the ambulance, still far enough away to be taken for police, encouraged departure: the biker, shinier now wet, had resembled a monstrous insect as he’d climbed onto his machine and gunned the motor, Whelan still hosing him, having raised his trajectory to ensure contact, which decreased the stream’s effectiveness but maximised its indignity. The boy was performing a rah-rah dance beside him, shouting “Aim for the wheels!,” though Whelan remained happy to mimic pissing. In its own way this was even more out of character than jumping onto a moving vehicle, but it had been a long night.
“I’d worn him out,” Shirley said, opening her eyes.
“Yes.”
“I’d have kicked his helmet clean off his shoulders.”
“I could tell.”
“With his head still in it.”
The paramedic was maintaining his disappointed outlook. “You shouldn’t eat chicken if you need medical treatment.”
“Is that an actual law?” Shirley asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Specific to chicken?”
Speaking of actual law, there was a police car approaching, and also a black SUV, probably one of those originally dispatched to the San. Without thinking about it Whelan reached out a hand, and Shirley took it and pulled herself to her feet, leaving the punnet where it lay. The paramedic started saying something about not moving when you were injured, advice probably worth listening to, though neither were. The last hour had either contracted or expanded, whichever was the right way of indicating that it had happened in its own time zone, while other events taking place elsewhere had moved at their own pace, leaving them stranded in a moment of their own. For as long as it lasted, it seemed they were partners; and if it were already beginning to end, well, only diamonds are forever.
“Where’s my chocolate?” asked Shirley.
From the back seat, Sparrow studied de Greer. She still thought she was in for a lobbying job, a whole new life, and in normal circumstances he’d enjoy bursting her bubble, but the last thing anyone needed was an hysterical woman in a moving car.
As if reading his thoughts, she looked over her shoulder. “Where are we going?”