Doreen had said not to call Jake. That was five seconds ago. This was now.

‘Jake,’ she yelled at the top of her lungs. ‘Jake, I need you now.’

He was with her before she’d stopped yelling. She was still searching for a pulse, but with her other hand she was hauling Doreen’s legs back onto the bed, shoving away the bedclothes that were half covering her.

‘She said angina. I think now…cardiac arrest. No pulse.’

Jake was on the other side of the bed, like her, searching for a pulse, then hauling pillows away, lying her flat, checking her airway.

‘Breathe for her,’ Jake snapped, and took the neckline of Doreen’s flannelette nightgown and ripped it to the waist. His big hands rested on Doreen’s chest for a moment, steadied, then moved rhythmically into cardiac massage. ‘Breathe,’ he snapped at her again. ‘Tip her head back, hold her nose and fill her lungs with your breath. Twice. Then I pump. Come on, Tori…’

She needed no third bidding. She breathed while Jake took a short break from chest compressions. Fifteen pumps per minute, down, down, down, while Tori breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed.

They needed an ambulance, defibrillator, oxygen, adrenaline, but there was no time, no space, to call for help. If they didn’t get Doreen back now, no amount of equipment or expertise would help her.

No more deaths. Please, no. Not Doreen.

Breathe and pray. Breathe and pray.

‘Don’t panic,’ Jake said softly and he must have sensed rather than felt her surge of despair. ‘Steady, Tori, slow and steady, don’t stop breathing until you’ve seen her chest rise.’ He wasn’t altering his rhythm. Down, down, down, over and over, over and over.

How long now? Please, please…

‘Early days,’ Jake said. ‘Two minutes, no longer. Big breaths, Tori, deeper, I’m going harder.’

He did, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a rib cracking. She winced but kept on breathing, kept on breathing. Another crack. And then…