“Don’t move,” a woman with spectacularly plaited hair held her hand out. “You’re safe there, you might have internal injuries. I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Eva,” wide-eyed with concern, Charles squatted beside her. “What were you thinking?”
“Me? What were you thinking?” The dimpled pavement was digging into her side.
“A cyclist hit you.” The woman clarified. “Courier probably, couldn’t get out of here fast enough. I can’t get an ambulance.” She looked at her phone in disgust.
Major incident, Eva heard it in DI Smith’s voice.
“Don’t move.” Charles looked through the forest of legs crowding them as some pedestrians slowed for the drama, some stopped to help.
“I’m fine.” She shifted her weight to get up off the wet, cold, hard, hurting ground. “It’s just my leg.”
“Eva, please, you’re bleeding.”
“You recording this?” The woman with the fabulous hair slapped the phone of the teenager beside her. It fell on to the pavement. He yelled at her, scrabbling to pick it up. “You need some respect. What’s the matter with you? Get out of here.”
“Yeah,” A couple of the other crowd members backed her up.
The teenager snatched up his phone, held it up as though he was going to take the lady’s photo. She squared up to him. “Go on then and I’ll do a proper job of trashing it this time.”
He mumbled something and walked off.
Rain fell on Eva’s face. The kind lady held an umbrella over her.
“Thank you.” Eva murmured.
“Don’t mention it.”
No good deed. If Eva had done what she was supposed to be doing, she’d be safe at her desk right now. Those damn pools of liquid chocolate could always make her do whatever their owner wanted. Charles’ eyes now darkened almost to black, as he looked from her, up at the ring of fast disappearing people around them, nothing exciting enough to keep them there in the renewed rain.
Only a cyclist. It wasn’t like it had been the bus. Eva had to speak to Gordon, probably had another pile of messages stacking up on her desk. She wiggled her toes, nothing hurt more, she was fine. She sat up.
“Eva—”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
She wiped the raindrop rolling down the side of her face, held her hand out for him to help her up. He gestured at her fingertips. Red, oh. She wiped them down her coat. Dry clean only. She wouldn’t be wearing that tomorrow.
“Honey, I don’t think—”
“Honestly, I’m fine.” Eva smiled at the umbrella-holding lady. “Thank you so much for stopping. Charles.”
He helped get her vertical, her weight on her right leg, hop-stepping her away from the road. “We can get to hospital by taxi.”
“There’s a major incident, I’m only walking wounded, I have zero chance of being seen before the ball tomorrow. Dario’s pretty handy with a first aid kit,” one perk of having an ex-paramedic on the staff. “Get me back to Every Drop.”
She’d padded at her face with an increasingly red tissue three times before Charles gave up with the taxi apps on her mobile. With an arm round him, she was able to put more weight on her left leg with every step until they reached her building.
“I’ve got it from here, you need to get a tux.”
“That’s not important right now.”
“Yes, it is, one less thing for me to stress about. And you need to get home for Lily.”
He pulled her into a hug, only reinforcing where she was busy bruising. “Thank God you’re okay. I’m sorry I panicked. I would never mean for you to get hurt.”
He pulled out his handkerchief, pristine from where she’d washed it.
“Don’t get it—”
He patted gently at her forehead, held it against her cut. “Don’t work too late.” He kissed her on the top of her head and left.
“What happened to you?” The shocked refrain followed her up the building, echoed last by Dario as she limped into his office.
“Disagreement with a bike courier.”
“Shouldn’t you be in A & E?”
“Definitely not.”
“You want help?” he gestured at her face.
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
“Sit, I’ll be right back.”
The tea he handed her was welcome, even with its surprising sweetness. He peered at her face, appraising for longer than Eva was comfortable with.
“That bad?”
“And you’re certain you didn’t black out?”
She nodded.
“If you get it stitched, it’ll be less of a scar.”
“Let’s go with steri-strips for now.”
“Your knee sounds like ACL damage, the ligament, you’ll need a scan,” longer in A & E, “if you’re lucky it might just be a sprain but you could have torn it.” He cleaned her wound, making her gasp, and dressed it gently. “There you go. It probably won’t hold, but it’ll do for now. You really need—”
“I know, thanks, Dario. You’re a lifesaver.”
He kept her supplied with tea and snacks, coffee and takeaway until the 22:30 alarm on Eva’s phone cut through her last fruitless try of Gordon’s number. Go to bed, it ordered.
The Google tab she’d opened to search for up-to-the-minute stories on the impact the Seitu installation had on the local population for her keynote speech had changed. She hit refresh, but the date on the bad news stayed the same. Today.
“Dario, have you seen this?” She called him into her office where he read over her shoulder.
‘Reports are coming in from Seitu township, where a couple of hundred people have fallen ill. A viral epidemic is not believed to be responsible and, with the population density so high here, the authorities can only hope not. Living conditions in this shanty town may be to blame, but the charities adopting innovative ways to get clean running water to the residents have justified their intrusion by claiming such outbreaks would be a thing of the past.’
Eva scrolled past the photo in the middle of the article. The spiderweb of Every Drop’s raised water
