Help was needed. No one among the ciné crew would know where to turn for assistance.

“Keep back!” one of the drivers said, seizing me by the shoulders. “There’s been an accident.”

I twisted away from him and pressed in for a closer look.

McNulty was in a bad way. His face was the color of wet dough. His eyes, brimming with water, met mine, and his lips moved.

“Help me,” I think he whispered.

I put my first and fourth fingers into the corners of my mouth and blew a piercing whistle: a trick I had learned by watching Feely.

“Dogger!” I shouted, followed by another whistle. I put my heart and soul into it, praying that Dogger was within earshot.

Without taking his eyes from mine, McNulty let out a sickening gasp.

Two of the men were heaving at the crate.

“No!” I said, louder than I had intended. “Leave it.”

I had heard on the wireless—or had I read it somewhere?—about an accident victim who had bled to death when a railway crane had been moved away too soon from his legs.

To my surprise, the larger of the men nodded his head.

“Hold on,” he said. “She’s right.”

And then Dogger was there, pushing through the gathering crowd.

The men fell back instinctively.

There was an aura about Dogger that brooked no nonsense. It was not always in evidence—in fact, most of the time, it was not.

But at this particular moment, I don’t think I had ever felt this power of his—whatever it was—so strongly.

“Take my hand,” Dogger told McNulty, reaching between the lorry and the packing case, which was now teetering precariously.

It seemed to me an odd—almost biblical—thing to do. Perhaps it was the calmness of his voice.

McNulty’s bloodied fingers moved, and then entwined themselves with Dogger’s.

“Not too hard,” Dogger told him. “You’ll crush my hand.”

A sick, silly grin spread across McNulty’s face.