‘Meaning what, exactly?’ Grace asked.

Looking genuinely like he felt their agony, Williams said, ‘If you were to consider organ donation, we would have to carry that out soon after a diagnosis of brain death.’

Neither Roy nor Cleo replied. They both just looked at him.

‘If you decide it is something you might consider, Imelda is here to help you deal emotionally with that decision. Charlotte will be able to discuss with you the options regarding organ donation – and I want to stress on her behalf that you absolutely do not have to go down that route if you don’t want to. But, I’m sorry to say, the reality is that our technology can only support Bruno for so long.’

Grace stared up at him, then at the faces of the two women. Then back at Williams. ‘I thought you could keep someone on life support indefinitely?’ Grace said, his voice sounding very small suddenly.

‘Yes . . .’ Cleo added, clinging on to any flicker of hope. ‘You do hear stories of people in a persistent vegetative state, who make a recovery, sometimes months on, don’t you? Sometimes years on? Mel, the nurse, said yesterday that she’d seen people make a complete recovery.’

‘It does happen, yes,’ the consultant said. ‘But not in this case. We can keep his body technically alive for a while, but Bruno has zero brain activity. If we turn off his life support, he will quietly slip away as his vital organs fail and then we could not use his organs for donation.’

Grace looked up at all three of them and then at Cleo. She squeezed his hand again. ‘So, Doctor – and Imelda and Charlotte – if this was your child, what would any of you do?’

They looked at each other. Then Charlotte Elizabeth said, ‘Three people die in the UK every day waiting for a liver transplant, many of them children and teenagers. The figures are similar for heart and lung transplants. I’ve seen just how much parents of children in Bruno’s situation are comforted by knowing their organs have been given to help other people live. But I would never morally blackmail anyone into agreeing to this. It is an immensely personal decision that you have to make.’

‘It’s really my husband’s decision as Bruno is his son by his previous marriage,’ Cleo said. ‘But what organs would you want to take – harvest?’

‘That would be entirely up to you,’ Elizabeth said, looking at Grace. ‘You could give a part donation, such as heart, lungs, liver and kidneys, or a more full donation, which would include his eyes to help blind people see again, skin, bones, bone marrow.’

‘If,’ Roy Grace said, ‘and only if I agreed, would there be any difference to Bruno whether it was a partial or total donation?’

She gave him a deeply sympathetic and understanding smile. ‘The only difference would be in the number of people he could help.’

‘Is there the remotest danger Bruno would feel anything? Like, pain?’