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condition.’
    Dan and Marion got up to leave. ‘Could I just see him once more before we go?’ asked Marion.
    Dan and Marion stood looking through the viewing window with Jane Merry standing between them. ‘His skin,’ said Marion. ‘It’s getting worse.’
    ‘I’ll mention it to the nurses again,’ said Jane Merry.
     
     
    Night Nurse Evelyn Holmes glanced up at the clock and saw that it was time to sponge down Keith Taylor. She had all the other information about his condition on the monitors in front of her on the desk nicknamed ‘The Enterprise’ by the staff due to its similarity to the flight deck of the famous starship. Sponging a patient’s skin and applying lanolin required the human touch.
    ‘There we are, my lovely,’ she cooed as she gently cleaned the skin of her unconscious patient, thinking to herself that Keith Taylor was round about the same age as her eldest boy who, at three in the morning, would be sound asleep in his bedroom and completely oblivious of the fight that her charge, Keith Taylor, was engaged in.
    ‘You are in a bit of a mess … aren’t you,’ she whispered as she patted Keith’s neck and face dry before starting to apply the cream. ‘But you’re young … you can fight this thing … In a few months’ time … you won’t even remember any of this … Oh, Jesus Christ!’
    The nurse recoiled in horror and felt her blood run cold as part of Keith Taylor’s cheek started to come away in her hand as she applied the cream. One minute she was making gentle circling motions with the tips of her gloved fingers, the next a hollow furrow had opened up under Keith Taylor’s left eye and blood welled up in the trough as the skin gave way and a portion of flesh doubled over to hang limply on Keith’s lower cheek like some giant, hellish, teardrop.
     
     
    Trevor Sands, called from his bed by an anxious duty doctor, had lost all semblance of urbanity. Sweat was trickling down his nose as he listened to Evelyn Holmes’ account of what had happened while he examined Keith Taylor for himself. ‘Ye gods, his skin is like tissue paper,’ he complained as his gloved hands probed gently. He took the bridge of Keith’s nose between his thumb and left forefinger while he tried to restore the loose flap of flesh to its rightful place but felt a hollow appear in his stomach when he felt movement between his fingertips.
    ‘Something wrong?’ asked the duty doctor.
    Sands looked at him, his eyes filled with disbelief. ‘The bridge of his nose … it’s collapsed …’
    Evelyn Holmes put her gloved hands to her mouth. She was unable to stop herself from saying, ‘He’s falling to bits.’
    The corner of Keith’s mouth was next to go causing the ventilator tube to hang at a crazy angle and deepening the living nightmare of all those around him. No one wanted to touch the patient so it was left to Sands, as the senior medic present, to try to reposition the tube but what he feared might happen did happen as Keith Taylor’s insides proved as fragile as the rest of him and his trachea collapsed. ‘It’s hopeless,’ he said.
    Keith Taylor died shortly after 4 a.m., before his parents could be summoned. Sands was waiting for them when they did arrive and invited them into his office. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it was all very sudden. It took us completely by surprise.’
    Dan Taylor looked at the man sitting behind the desk and thought how different he looked from the last time he’d seen him. This man was wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt and needed a shave. He was wringing his hands in front of him as he spoke. Taylor closed his eyes as Sands said, ‘We did everything we could.’ He’d somehow known the man was going to say that and it left him cold. ‘What happened?’ he asked in a voice he scarcely recognised himself.
    ‘We won’t know for sure until …’ Sands paused as he realised he was about to mention the post mortem that would have to take place