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not thinking with our heads here.’

      ‘You’re right,’ she said, unwinding her arms from his neck and stepping back from him. ‘Besides, I need to get an apology out of the way.’

      ‘What do you need to apologise for?’

      ‘Patrick told me you had only asked me out to keep me away from the unit. I was angry with you for exploiting me without checking to see if what he’d said was actually right.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘He apologised for it earlier this evening. He’s going through a rough time in his personal life.’

      ‘And here I was thinking it was my kisses that finally convinced you of my motives,’ he said, with a wry twist to his mouth.

      ‘Your kisses are definitely very convincing,’ she admitted, lowering her eyes from the steadiness of his. ‘But … but aren’t we rushing things a bit?’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      She raised her eyes back to encounter his unwavering dark brown gaze. ‘We may be attracted to each other physically, but we’re poles apart professionally. You have issues with my study and I have issues over your decision to withdraw life support on Tommy Lowe. This is never going to work between us.’

      ‘Come on, Allegra.’ His tone became impatient. ‘You know the routine with head injuries. Once the patient is declared brain dead by the neurosurgeon we have no choice but to advise the relatives to consider withdrawing life support. It’s not fair to the patient or the relatives to let them hang in limbo for no gain.’

      ‘Tommy is a young child,’ she countered. ‘Numerous studies have demonstrated the possibility of recovery after more prolonged support in children.’

      ‘Yes, but exactly what sort of recovery are we talking about?’

      ‘A full recovery, of course.’

      He let out a short rough expletive. ‘You really are off with the fairies, aren’t you? Damn it, Allegra, you know there are degrees of recovery in these sorts of cases. Tommy could end up permanently disabled, either physically or intellectually or, God help him, both. He’d be totally dependent on his father or his mother if she survives. What sort of life is that for any of them?’

      ‘He’d be alive, that’s all that matters to a parent,’ she argued.

      ‘Is it?’ he asked, his eyes glittering with some indefinable pent-up emotion she couldn’t quite recognise.

      ‘Of course it is! Losing a child is the most devastating thing that can happen to a parent. The grief is total and all-consuming.’

      ‘So is the grief of being totally responsible for a child who will never grow up, either physically or mentally,’ he said, grasping her by the upper arms, his fingers biting into her tender flesh. ‘Have you thought about that any time in your fairy-dust study? Have you ever interviewed the relatives of a child who didn’t get your magical full recovery? Have you asked them what it’s like to have to change their adult child’s nappy several times a day, to spoon food and drink into them while most of it dribbles down their chin? Have you asked them what it’s like to lie awake at night, listening to their child uttering screams and cries that no physical comfort or words will ever ease? Have you asked them what it’s like for the rest of the family, their marriage, and all their other relationships? Have you?’

      She shrank back from the vitriol in his tone. ‘I—I … No I haven’t, but I—’

      He dropped his hands from her so suddenly she almost stumbled backwards. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, Allegra. I could see that from the first moment I looked at your study. You can’t keep people alive indefinitely without weighing the costs.’

      ‘Neither can you play God,’ she said. ‘You can’t possibly think it’s reasonable to wander through ICU and switch off ventilators, without giving the relatives adequate time to make that decision if it’s called for.’

      ‘Tommy Lowe will be given the same time frame every other patient in his condition is given. But once ten days is up, if there is still no brain activity his father will be informed of his choices. We can keep that child alive for months, but while he’s soaking up valuable resources, three or four other children will die for want of organ donation that Tommy’s brain-dead body could provide. Why don’t you go and visit some of them in the children’s ward? Have a talk to the parents sitting there hour after hour, with the clock on the wall ticking away their child’s last chance at a normal life.’

      Allegra knew his argument was reasonable; she was well aware of the lifesaving transplants that offered hope when all else had failed. It was, after all, sometimes the only comfort in losing a loved one to know that some part of them lived on, giving precious life to some other person who then could go on to live a normal life. Julie’s parents had made the very same difficult decision when their daughter’s ventilator had finally been switched off. But Allegra had always thought Julie had deserved more time. It gnawed at her constantly. She couldn’t help feeling her friend’s parents had been pressured into their final decision.

      ‘I understand what you’re saying, but I still think your bias against me is colouring your judgement,’ she said. ‘All I’m asking is for some extra time to work with Tommy.’

      ‘You’ve got a week,’ he said, moving past her to the door. ‘Ten days at the most, and then Anthony Pardle and I will have to organise a meeting with the father.’

      She swung around to look at him. ‘You don’t have to leave—I thought we were having dinner?’

      He gave her one hard look and opened the door. ‘Maybe some other time. I seem to have lost my appetite.’

      She frowned as he closed the door, the sound of his footsteps gradually fading before she turned and leaned back against the door, her shoulders slumping despondently against the hard surface. ‘Help me to prove him wrong, Tommy,’ she said out loud, the words bouncing eerily off the stony silence of the walls.

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      ALLEGRA arrived in ICTU the following morning well before her shift officially began, and painstakingly looked through the printouts on Tommy’s BIS monitor. There had been no change, which was dispiriting enough, but with the deadline Joel had now attached to the case, the sense of urgency seemed all the more gut-wrenching. She had hardly slept for thinking about the little boy’s life, how he would look in five, ten years’ time if he survived. Would he retain the slight build of his mother, or during adolescence develop the shorter and thicker set of his father? Would he do well at school? What sort of sense of humour would he have?

      And what about his aunt? Was Tommy close to her? Did he understand at his young age the difficulties of his father’s relationship with his own parents, Tommy’s grandparents? Did he see much of his mother’s parents and if not, why not?

      There were so many unanswerable questions that she was finding difficult enough—how much worse would it be being the parent and never having those questions answered? She had seen that level of devastating grief on the faces of Julie’s parents all those years ago and more recently on the faces of Robyn and Jeff Greeson as their precious daughter’s chest had moved up and down for the very last time. Allegra had seen the pain flash across their faces as they’d come to terms with the fact that they would never know what their daughter would have looked like on her wedding day, never know what sort of man she would have fallen in love with. Every birthday, Christmas or special anniversary would no longer be a cause for celebration but a reminder of their unrelenting pain.

      Statistics showed most couples didn’t survive the loss of a child and it was easy to see why. The burden of grief was like a sharp, invisible knife that progressively severed the ties of even the closest couple with cruelly isolating dissection. Allegra had felt it herself all the way through medical school and beyond. She’d felt as if she’d been walled inside a see-through barrier that no one could penetrate. She’d been cut away from the

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