‘Abbey, don’t try to get out,’ he snapped. ‘You can’t. Just tell me what to do,’ he ordered brusquely, moving as he spoke to check the child’s airway and vital signs.

The child-a boy of about thirteen-was unconscious and limp. He’d been wearing a brief costume that only covered his hips. His chest and arms and legs were a mass of angry red weals, and there were traces of tentacle still clinging to his skin.

‘Vinegar…’ Abbey hauled herself upright on her seat so she could see. Despite Ryan’s orders, she’d be out of the car if she could make her damned leg work. She couldn’t. ‘How much have you used?’ she asked the onlookers. Then, as no one answered, she looked down on the sand to where there were two empty flasks and two full ones. She took a deep breath, pushed her faintness aside and raised her voice to command.

‘Get all that vinegar on,’ she ordered. ‘And get the remaining tentacle off.’ She was speaking to everyone within hearing distance. ‘All of you. Get down on your hands and knees and rub every trace of tentacle off his body. There’ll be more venom going in while we watch.’

‘You…’ She pointed to a gangly boy of about sixteen. ‘Pour vinegar over everyone’s fingers while they work or you’ll be stung yourselves. You…’ She pointed to the youngest child-a girl of about twelve. ‘Run to the lifesaving club and say you need more vinegar. Scream it. Tell them Dr Wittner says she needs it and she needs it now! There’s a shop behind the club. Go up there and yell it, too. Tell them to bring all they’ve got Ryan, his breathing…’

‘Yeah…’ Ryan already knew. The child was half-dead from shock and likely to stop breathing at any minute. ‘Is there antivenom?’ He was trying to remember. Had there been antivenom available when he’d lived here as a boy? He didn’t think so.

‘Yes,’ Abbey snapped, and if her painful leg was causing her any problem Ryan couldn’t hear a trace of it in her voice. ‘It’s coming in the ambulance. Just keep him alive until then. Rod…’ Abbey looked across at the senior lifesaver and then winced as a shaft of pain fiercer than the rest shot up her leg. She shoved away her faintness as irrelevant. ‘Stand by to do mouth-to-mouth if-’