‘I don’t know.’ Chris was breathless with worry. ‘All I got was that the bridge is down. There’s been a crash and they want an ambulance. But, Amy, the ambulance has to come from Bowra on the other side of the river. If the bridge is down… If there’s a medical emergency here…’

Amy’s heart sank. Oh, no…

Iluka wasn’t equipped for acute medical needs. The nearest acute-care hospital was at Bowra. The nearest doctor was at Bowra! Bowra was only twenty miles down the road but if the bridge was down it might just as well be twenty thousand.

‘I don’t know any more,’ Chris told her. ‘There was just the one brief message and the caller disconnected. I’ve alerted Sergeant Packer but I thought…well, there’s nowhere else to take casualties. You might want to stand by.’

It was a woman and she was in trouble.

Joss managed to wrench the door open to find the driver slumped forward on the steering-wheel. Her hair was a mass of tangled curls, completely blocking his view. She was youngish, he thought, but he couldn’t see more, and when he placed a hand on her shoulder there was no response.

‘Can you hear me?’

Nothing. She seemed deeply unconscious.

Why?

He needed to check breathing-to establish she had an airway. He stooped, wanting to see but afraid to pull her head back. He needed a neck brace. If there was a fracture with compression and he moved her…

He didn’t have a neck brace and he had no choice. Carefully he lifted the curls away and placed his hands on the sides of her head. Then, with painstaking care, he lifted her face an inch from the wheel.

With one hand holding her head, cupping her chin with his splayed fingers, he used the other to brush away the hair from her mouth. Apart from a ragged slash above her ear he could feel no bleeding. Swiftly his fingers checked nose and throat. There was no blood at all, and he could feel her breath on his hand.