‘No, of course you can’t.’

‘What I can tell you, sir, is we should be finished by tomorrow.’

There were more flashes. He shielded his face, but well aware it was far too late. Turning, he hurried back to the taxi and jumped in.

‘Unbelievable!’ he said. ‘Go! Drive!’

‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Just drive.’

‘No problem,’ Mark Tuckwell said. ‘Your shout – I’ve kept the meter running.’

‘You what?’ Paternoster looked at the dash and saw, to his astonishment, that it was.

£24.30 was clocked up.

‘Tell me you’re joking?’

As he drove away, Tuckwell said, ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to add one night’s board and lodging to your bill? Full English included? Egg, sausage, bacon, black pudding and fried bread?’

‘Eden doesn’t approve of full Englishes. She calls them heart attacks on a plate.’

‘You sure you’re going to need to worry about her approval any more?’ Tuckwell said with a strange expression, which Niall Paternoster did not like. His friend had always seen through him.

‘Funny,’ he said, but it came out flat.

‘In case you do, Cheryl does a vegetarian option – it’s very popular.’

Paternoster didn’t respond.

64

Wednesday 4 September

Roy and Cleo sat once more in the Relatives’ Room outside the ICU. An empty carrier bag was on the floor at Cleo’s feet. As suggested by Imelda Bray, they’d brought from home Bruno’s favourite clothes, which the counsellor had collected from them when they’d arrived.

Grace was reading through the consent forms, on the table in front of him. He paused to glance at his watch. Coming up to 1 p.m. Ordinarily, he might have been thinking about lunch, but he had no appetite. He sipped a plastic beaker of water someone had brought him, his mind churning, despite his decision. Questioning it. He held his personal phone in his hand, googling once again the words coma, and then brain death.

‘You’re torturing yourself, darling,’ Cleo said.

She was doing exactly the same on her phone. She had it in her hand now.

‘And you’re not?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want this to be something that comes back repeatedly to haunt us. I don’t want either of us to wake up tonight, or any other night, and say, What if? That’s all.’

‘I guess – I’m the same.’

‘So.’ She turned and looked at him. ‘Your entire working life revolves around evidence that ultimately has to be presented in a court of law. Would it help to role-play now?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Let’s say you are Bruno’s lawyer, fighting me, the Crown Prosecutor. You’re arguing the case against donating Bruno’s organs. You already know my opening argument.’

‘That there is no chance, not the slightest chance, of Bruno coming back from where he is?’

‘Yes.’

Grace stared at her for some moments. He tried hard to return with a cogent argument. ‘People say medicine is a very inexact science,’ he came up with lamely. ‘There is always the possibility of a misdiagnosis.’