Chapter One - Losing Matt

'Is he dead?'

'His brain is. The machines are keeping him going. Once we switch off, that'll be it.'

No, it won't . . . I can breath on my own . . . I'm not brain dead . . . can't you see that, you stupid idiots . . . do an EEG.

'Didn't the EEG show anything at all?'

'Not a flicker. Still it's not all bad news. There's a young girl on the renal unit with a perfect tissue match.'

You can't use me as a donor . . . I'm not dead . . . look, I can move my fingers . . . can't you see my fingers moving? Look! Damn you! Look at my hands.

'How long do we have to wait?'

'Until the next of kin give the OK. There shouldn't be any problem, there's no close relatives. Shit! What's that? He's fibrillating . . . get the crash team . . . now!'

'We're loosing him . . . blood pressure 50/30 . . . no pulse.'

'Shit! Turn off that alarm . . . somebody, turn off that bloody alarm!'

I turned off the alarm by thrashing my arm out, knocking my bleeper on to the floor. When I retrieved it, the display flashed up Intensive Care's number - Shirley-Anne's parents had arrived. I had been asleep for two hours, the only sleep to come my way in the last twenty-four hours, and I didn't feel the least bit refreshed.

Shirley-Anne's parents were at their daughter's side, their eyes never leaving the child's face. The Staff Nurse stopped me by the office door.

'We've got an RTA coming in.'

'Have you said anything to her parents?'

She looked offended by the question. 'Of course not. All they know, is that her condition is critical ' and by the way, the Renal Registrar was has been in. I told him what the situation was so far, and said you'd ring him as soon as there was any news.'

'All right. I'll talk to the parents now.'

When I looked at Shirley-Anne's face I doubted that anything I could say would persuade them. She was so perfect with fine translucent skin delicately sprinkled with freckles, and golden hair that cascaded down in soft curls. Little Shirley-Anne Roberts was an angel.
How would I feel if I had seen those innocent blue eyes sparkle with life? How would I feel if she were my child?

'Brain dead?' Her mother repeated my last two words in disbelief. 'But you can't know that for sure. Suppose she comes out of it . . . it happens sometimes, you know it does.'

'There are cases when a patient has regained consciousness after a long time in a coma, but in those cases the EEG showed some brain activity . . . I'm very sorry, but your daughter's EEG is flat. It shows that her brain was deprived of oxygen for too long. She is clinically brain dead.

'But she's breathing.' Mr Roberts said. 'Look at her . . . you can see she's alive.'

I could feel my stomach tightening into a ball. It didn't matter how any times I went through this it never got any easier. There was nothing in my training that could help - somehow we were just supposed to know what to say.

'Shirley-Anne is unconscious, she can't breathe on her own.' I said. 'She has no response to light, no reflexes . . . she is totally unresponsive.'

'But she's breathing.' Mrs Roberts said weakly.

'The ventilator is doing the breathing for her. If we turn it off, her breathing will stop.' I watched helplessly as the couple clung on to each other in distress and wished there was something I could say to comfort them. Then I saw the Robert Smedley, the Renal Registrar, looking anxiously at me through the office window. He was a tall thin man, standing with his upper back rounded and hunched forwards. He peered at me through small thinly rimed glasses that perched on a long hooked nose and not for the first time, I thought he had the look of a predator.

I excused myself, and left Shirley-Anne's parents to grieve with some degree of privacy.

Robert waited until the office door was shut. 'Have you asked them yet?'

'It's too early.' I said.

He blinked rapidly several times and adjusted his glasses. It was a nervous habit I had noticed on previous occasions. 'I have the team standing by.'

'Then I suggest you tell them to stand down. The parents have only just been told of their daughter's condition . . . we must give them time.'

'Time is a luxury we can't afford.' He said. 'We have a full list of operations on tomorrow's list. We can't reschedule.'

'And the recipient, what's her condition?' I said.

'She stable . . . for the moment.'

'Then we can allow the parents some time to grieve for their child. I'll contact you as soon as there's any change.' I opened the door for him to leave the office. 'Goodnight.'

It was just after 9am when I spoke to Shirley-Anne's parents again. They had watched while the EEG and CT scans were repeated, and had spoken in length to the Sister of ICU about their child's condition.

'I'm sorry . . . the tests done this morning have shown no change in your daughter's condition.' I said.

They both looked at me with vacant eyes.

'I have to ask you something that might distress you.' I continued. 'But a decision needs to be made . . . I have to ask you if you would consent to donating your daughter's kidneys. We have a young woman in our Renal Unit who desperately needs a kidney and who is a perfect blood and tissue match with Shirley-Anne.'

Mrs Roberts pushed herself away from her husband's embrace and turned on me. 'How can you ask that when she's still alive? How can you expect us to agree to such a thing?'

'I'm sorry, I know how you must be feeling . . . '

'No you don't. How could you know? She's everything to us, she's our baby.'

She was right of course. How could I know what it felt like to loose a child? I said: 'Perhaps it might help to think of what Shirley-Anne would have wanted.'

'What she wants?' Mr Roberts shouted. 'She's only 12 years old, for Gods sake! She hasn't even heard of transplants.'

'I think she might have, because we found a donor card in her purse.'

The father looked surprised and turned angrily on his wife. 'Did you know she had one of those?'

She nodded.

'That doesn't mean a thing.' Mr Roberts said. 'She's too young to understand what it means.'

'But you still need our consent, don't you?' Mrs Roberts asked quietly.

'Yes, of course. It's your decision.'

She tried to dry her eyes with a damp handkerchief. 'I'm sorry doctor, but you'll have to give us time . . . '

'I don't need time.' Mr Roberts interrupted, angrily. 'No one is going to cut up our baby and help themselves to her kidneys, or any other part of her. You hear me? NO ONE!'

I left them alone, wishing there was something I could say to lessen the pain. By the time I went off duty, the three empty beds in the Intensive Care Unit had been filled with two road traffic accident casualties, and a man in his forties who had suffered a severe myocardial infarction. Shirley-Anne's parents had given consent for their daughter's kidneys to be used for transplant surgery.

It was a week after the angel died - 7 a.m. on Easter Sunday, and I was thinking of happier times. I could remember the days when I had hunted the house for the Easter eggs that my mother had only half hidden, and the Easter holidays that I had spent with Matt's family after Mum and Dad died. I remembered the pranks that made us the hooligans of the neighbourhood, when our names were on all the neighbour's lips as they blamed us for every little disaster. I remembered when Matt Bailey and Luke Stark was a force to be reckoned with.

We had both been dealt more than our fair share of life's bum hands and as I sat on the roof balcony of my rented room, black thoughts clouded my mind. There must be a point when you can say enough is enough, whether it's about work and all the crap you have to put up with from idiots who think their higher rank actually means they are superior, or relationships. The short-term ones that go nowhere except to a hot sweaty grunting night, when you wished you had spent your time more wisely and just gone to sleep, and the long-term relationships that are littered with broken promises, and regrets. And when you reach this point of saturation, when your senses are screaming at you to stop, what do you do? Walk away? Leaving others to think you have no integrity, no morals or do you carry on and ignore the bells inside your head?

The bells have saved me many a time. Saved me from becoming what others think I already am. It's like an internal alarm system, a safety valve ' the one constant in a volatile world. My internal alarm has only failed me on a few occasions, not that it didn't go off just as loudly and persistently as usual but I ignored it. I simply refused to heed its desperate ringing and so it eventually became deadened. Still there, but wrapped in insulation so that I heard it as a soft thud, hardly loud enough to make me listen up, hardly loud enough for me to hear at all.
I gazed out across the calm water, and tried to forget. The sheet of frosted glass, with the myriad of small boats painted on it in an abstract design, seemed to have the ability to suspend my thoughts - to press the pause button of my mind.

Every now than then, a yacht glided gracefully out of the marina, creating a disturbance that gathered momentum and fanned ripples towards the shoreline - to the edge of my consciousness. It was an epoch of real escapism, a blissful moment of nothingness, and I wallowed in it.

I was brought abruptly to my senses by the sound of a police siren that wailed grotesquely in the distance, echoing around the harbour. The trouble was back in the city, where crime and tragedy was part of everyday life. Not like here, I thought, where most of the residents were members for the growing 'Young Professionals' set. Where the average wage made a working man's hard earned pay packet look like a handout from social security. Where even the seagulls recognised the higher order of things and were careful not to dump on the rows of expensive, top of the range, cars.

I rented a room at the top of a four-floor house in this exclusive waterfront development. The family house was multi-let, a different tenant in each room. It was against the lease agreement but the Resident's Association was powerless to prevent it, and I was paying through the nose for my one room with a view.

The police siren had wailed off into the distance and I drank the last dregs of my tea in peace. I glanced at my watch. The bright morning light created a glare on the digital display, and the date showed up clearer than the time. My stomach churned. In two days time I would be saying goodbye to Matt.

After two miserable days of avoiding all human contact, I put on my only dark suit and thought about the humorous connotations of the day's date. It was April fool's day and Matt would have loved it 'what a brilliant day for a funeral' he would have said, but I couldn't have agreed less.

I arrived at Portsmouth Cathedral much quicker than I had expected or wanted to but as there was no official church car park it took me twenty minutes to find a parking space on a side road and by the time I got back the cathedral, the service had started.

I glanced along the rows of mourners and saw a few faces that looked familiar. Trudy was sitting alone on the back row, looking beautiful but desperately sad. She beckoned to me, and then took my hand as soon as I was within reach.

'Oh Luke, I can't believe it.'

I put my arm around her shoulders and held her tightly. I could think of nothing to say that might console her. There was no sense to be made of Matt's death, no blessed release from some debilitating illness, no thoughts of a long life that had been lived to the full.

The vicar spoke of a young man who had been loved by many, and who had given much love in return. Matt's love of the church was mentioned, and his love of sailing. It was at that point that his mother nearly fainted and Trudy broke down and sobbed against my chest.

Trudy hung on to my arm for the rest of the service and we walked arm in arm as we passed the line of wreaths and flowers, staring down at them and taking comfort from the words of sympathy. Like everyone else, we were stunned by Matt's death. I wondered if the lack of a coffin had added to the pain, and then realised that it was a stupid thought ' of course it had.

I knew only a few faces from the past who looked at me with inquisitive eyes as they wondered which side of the family I belonged to. I guessed that Matt's family was like mine and only came together at weddings, christenings and funerals. I had probably been to enough of their family celebrations to be thought of as one of them, and I think that Matt had secretly wished that it were so.

Trudy tucked at my jacket sleeve. 'I don't think I can bear this any longer. Are you going back to the house?'

'I'd rather not, but I don't want to offend Shirley and Jack.'

She nodded and wiped her eyes with a tissue. 'I have to catch the train back to London but I can't go until I tell you something . . . we need to talk.'

'I'll give you a lift to the station. We can talk in the car.'

Matt's mother accepted our words of comfort with floods of tears. 'Bless you both . . . you were good friends to Matt.' She hugged us in turn. 'I can't believe it, even now. He was always so keen on safety.' She searched my eyes for an answer. 'Lost at sea. It sounds like something from an old war film, not like real life.' She looked around and pointed to her husband. 'Look at Jack . . . losing Matt has destroyed him.'

Jack Bailey stood slightly apart from the family group, his eyes transfixed with shock and grief. He looked surprised by the whole affair, as if he hadn't taken in the fact that his son had died and he didn't know why the cards on the flowers referred to his son.

I put my arm around Shirley and she rested her head against me. I had always felt close to her and would be eternally grateful for her kindness after Mum died.

'Promise you'll come as see us.' She said quietly.

My eyes filled with tears and I had to swallow hard before speaking. 'I promise.'

We didn't talk for the first ten minutes in the car but sat in stunned silence, both of us hurting in our own ways. It reminded me of the car journey that I'd had with Mum, just after the hospital consultant had told her that she had six months to live.

'What time's your train?' I had stopped at traffic lights in sight of the station.

Trudy stared at her hands, twisting the many rings around her fingers.
She didn't respond.

'Trudy, what time is your train?'

She looked surprised by the sound of my voice. 'Not until six.'

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was 5.15 p.m. 'Fancy a cup of British Rail tea?'

'Can you afford it?'

'Things aren't that bad.'

She reached out to touch my arm. 'Sorry about Claire and everything. It must have been hell.'

I nodded slowly. 'I've had better times.'

'Are you still having bad dreams?'

'Occasionally.' I lied.

'I wish you'd go and see someone about them.' She said. 'One of the men in the office goes to a really good therapist . . . I can find out their name for you.'

'I don't need a therapist, they're just dreams.' I was telling the truth about that, but 'just' was an understatement. They had me screaming in my sleep. I had a sudden mental picture of earth hitting a coffin, and worms sliding across the light polished oak.

'Luke, are you feeling all right? You've gone as white as a sheet.'

'I'm fine, really.' I attempted a smile, and tried to concentrate on parking the car.

We walked into the station and across to the snack bar in silence. I bought the tea while Trudy found us a table.

'Can't you stay over for a couple of days . . . tonight at least?' I said, sitting down next to her. 'I'll let you have the bed.'

She managed a sad smile. 'That's very noble of you but I would never forgive myself if you fell through that camp bed again.' She broke open a sugar sachet and emptied it into her cup. 'Besides, we've got a big case staring at the Old Bailey and I'll not be forgiven if I do a disappearing act.'

'I thought you were only allowed to make the tea?'

'I've been promoted. Now I have the onerous task of carrying the files into court and mopping Judkin's fevered brow, whenever he works up enough sweat.'

'It's nice to know that all those years studying law haven't been wasted.'

She smiled one of her gorgeous slow smiles.

'Still, I suppose we shouldn't complain - at least we have jobs.' I said.

'Oh, yes. How's it going.'

'It's OK.' I said, feeling a little perturbed that lying was getting easier. 'I get all the bum shifts but that's what happens when you're a junior.'

'I think it's crazy not counting your time in the private sector. It's all experience, isn't it?'

'I think it's supposed to be a kind of punishment for daring to leave the National Health Service. I have to serve my sentence before I'm accepted back into the fold.'

'Well, I'm sure you'll wear them down in the end.' She placed her hand on mine and gave it a little squeeze. 'I've never known anyone with such determination . . . nothing can put you off once you get the scent.'

'Are you trying to insult me?'

She grinned at me. 'You know perfectly well that I admire you. I wish I had half your optimism.'

We were quiet for a moment as we drank our tea, and then she said:

'It's not true what they say about Matt. He wouldn't have fallen overboard . . . he was always so careful . . . and the idea that he jumped is ridiculous. Something else must have happened.'

'You can't know that for sure.'

The colour drained from her face. 'I spoke to him the day before he disappeared. He phoned and said he needed company and could I come down to see him.'

I felt hurt. 'Why didn't he call me? I only live down the road.'

Trudy went quiet and stared down at the table. She looked embarrassed.

'Is there something I don't know?'

She took a deep breath. 'We were going to tell you . . . we were having a relationship, we were in love. I'm sorry, Luke. We should have told you but Matt thought you would be upset.'

I was upset; upset that Matt hadn't confided in me, upset that my two best friends had probably fancied each other for years and I had been too blind to notice, and upset because I had loved Trudy since the day we first met.

'How long?'

'It started last summer, when we were on holiday.'

'Last summer, when we were in France?' I chuckled softly but it didn't hide my bitterness. 'Wow, I've got to hand it to you both - you really had me fooled.'

Trudy covered my hand with hers. 'Please, don't be like this . . . things are bad enough.'

She was right, of course. Why was she always right?'

I changed the subject. 'So what was it that you wanted to talk about? It sounded important.'

'It's about Matt. There was something different about him, he wasn't himself.'

'In what way was he different?'

'He sounded stressed . . . kept muttering something about lights and
shadows . . . like he was suffering from some kind of neurosis or
phobia. I thought he'd been working too hard, especially after all those headaches.'

'What headaches?'

'A couple of months back. Shirley took him up to casualty at Queen Alexandra.'

'No-one told me?'

'I expect Matt didn't want to worry you. It was about the time you and Claire split up and I'd forgotten all about them. They kept him in for a couple of days, did loads of tests and then said everything was OK. They thought he had a virus but I said it was more likely to be overwork and that he needed a break. It was my idea that he should take the boat out, I thought it would help him relax.' Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. 'Oh God, Luke. If it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't have been on the boat.'

I took her hand in both of mine and held it firmly. 'It's not your fault . . . '

'But I should have come down. I can't believe I said I was too busy . . . '

'But you didn't force him. He must have thought it was a good idea, and anyway Matt isn't . . . wasn't the sort of person to be neurotic.'

She tried to stem the flow of tears with a pathetic British Rail serviette. 'I didn't mean for him to go out that night, I meant in the morning . . . but he seemed to jump at the idea and kept talking about being save on the boat.'

'Didn't you ask him what he meant?'

'Yes, but he wouldn't say. He just said that everything would be all right and that he'd ring me in the morning . . . and there was something else.' She hesitated. 'I'm not sure about this . . . it might be nothing.'

'Come on, you might as well tell me everything now.'

'It's just that a few weeks earlier he had mentioned some people he'd met in Old Portsmouth. They were from a religious commune or new local church . . . Matt seemed really interested.'

'Did he mention any names?'

'If he did I can't remember them. He said he went to one of their meetings though.'

'Did the police know about them?'

Trudy shrugged. 'I don't know . . . I only just remembered myself today. It was when the Vicar went on about Matt's love of the church.'

We drifted into our own private worlds of a while, sipping absentmindedly at out tea and listening to the trains pulling in and out of the station. I remembered how Matt used to love trains when we were boys, and many hours of truant were spent hanging around the railway tracks. One of our favourite games was waiting until a train came into view, and then running full pelt down the side of the track and into the long tunnel ahead of the train. The drivers would shake their fists at us and shout threats of police but nothing deterred us ' nothing frightened us.

'We weren't afraid of anything.' I muttered.

Trudy looked at me. 'What?'

'Matt wasn't afraid of anything.'

She nodded.

'And if something was wrong, why didn't he ring me?' The hurt was still there. 'Why didn't you ring me and say you were worried?'

'I tried, but you weren't in. The answer machine didn't go on either, and your mobile phone was switched off.'

Shit! She's right. Why was she always right? The one night in weeks when I had decided not to stay in, when I had gone out rather than spend another evening as the sad lonely person that I had become. I had sat in the middle of two kissing couples, eaten enough popcorn to be sick, and I couldn't even remember the film.

We sat in silence, holding hands, our faces etched with sorrow. I was the first to speak.

'If he didn't fall overboard and he didn't jump, what did happen?'

'Exactly.'

'What about the police?'

'They say that without a body or any evidence to go on, they have to accept the Coroner's verdict that it was an accident.'

'So what we need is evidence.'

'Yes, and I have an idea.'

I groaned. 'If it's one of your crazy ideas, I don't want to hear it.'

She flicked her hand in the air, as if she was brushing aside an annoying insect. 'Don't be so negative, it doesn't suit you . . . and I'm being serious, so the least you could do is listen.'

'Sorry, go on.'

'Well, suppose we're right and Matt didn't fall or jump overboard, then someone either pushed him overboard or took him off the boat.'

'Yes, and?'

'So what we need is someone to do some investigating.'

'You mean, like Sherlock Holmes.'

'No, I mean you.'

'You're joking?'

'When are your next days off?

'This weekend.'

'Well, there you are. You've got the whole weekend free.'

I grimaced. 'Thanks for reminding me.'

'Sorry. I didn't mean it like that, but at least it would give you something to do.'

'So what am I looking for, exactly?'

'Find out what Matt did in his last few days. Speak to people who worked with him. Maybe he saw a crime committed and someone was trying to stop him from going to the police. Maybe he owed money to a loan shark . . . '

'Maybe he was a heroin addict and jumped overboard to escape a
gang of drug dealers.'

She punched me viciously in the shoulder. 'Not funny. Anyway, just because it happens in films, doesn't mean it couldn't happen in real life.'

'Agreed.' I said seriously. 'But I doubt that I'll have much success as Sherlock Holmes. I feel guilty if I question my bill at the supermarket.'

She leant forward and looked deeply into my eyes. 'Can't you at least have a go . . . please. Even if you find nothing, at least we'll have tried. It would mean a lot to me.'

I melted. 'OK, I'll do it, but on one condition.'

'What's that?'

'That you give me a big hug and kiss before you leave.'

I let her cuddle into my arms on the platform, and took my own comfort from the scent of her.

'I was going to give you a hug anyway.' She said. 'You didn't have to ask.'

I sighed and whispered softly. 'I know . . . I was just making sure.'