When Justin arrived at the hospital he was carrying a bunch of flowers that his mother had given him, saying, ‘Just take them!’ though Justin had said he didn’t want to.

Scott was in a private room on the third floor and as Justin was getting out of the lift he passed some girls his own age, or a little older, one of whom whistled – a wolf whistle.

‘…hot…’ one said.

‘His eyes!’ Justin heard as he passed them.

When he opened Scott’s door, his friend was asleep. He was lying on his back in the bed, and with his blond hair golden against the fragile blue cotton of the pillowcase he looked like an angel.

Scott’s parents (Scott’s mother!), who Justin had spoken to on the phone that morning, had said not to wake Scottie if he was sleeping, but to please go and visit his friend, if he would, because Scottie had been asking for Justin, whom he hadn’t seen now since the accident, more than a week ago.

Justin had said yes, that he would – ‘Yes, okay Mrs Connor’ – and had even managed to ask how Scott was doing, though he went to the bathroom after hanging up the phone and sat on the edge of the tub with his head in his hands.

‘Was that Scottie?’ Justin’s mother said, knocking on the door.

‘His mum!’ Justin called out, after swallowing, knowing all at once that his mother knew this – that she had spoken on the phone today with Mrs Connor when Justin had been at school and arranged for Leslie (Scott’s mother) to ring this afternoon herself, and ask Justin – personally – because Carol had herself tried when she wasn’t smacked out of her brain, though she wouldn’t have said this.

‘I need something,’ his mother said.

Justin opened the door.

‘But you’ve been crying!’ Carol said as he pushed past her in the hall.

‘I feel sick!’ Justin called. He slammed his bedroom door and threw himself onto the bed.

Scott’s hand jittered once and he rolled over. He turned to face Justin who was sitting on the chair beside the bed but he was still sleeping. He sighed and tucked his head down, chewing his lips and locking his wrists between his knees. He forced his hands into the covers and brought his feet up, dragging the edge of the covelet onto his hip.

Through the window behind Justin, bright sunshine was pouring into the room, brilliantly lighting the flowers into a blaze of color. It was warm, despite the whooshing of the air-conditioner. The summer smell of the flowers wrestled with the cold of the hospital disinfectant. From beyond the door came the muffled sound of a trolley passing in the corridor. Stainless steel implements rattled on a steel tray. From the nurses’ station, distantly, there were voices, and an occassional announcement, broadcast in the corridor though not in the room.

Scott was wearing one of those hospital gowns with a split up the back, though Justin couldn’t see the rear of it from where he was sitting. It had little teddy bears on it and it was caught up around Scott’s armpits and stretched over his chest, looking threadbare thin and the sort of thing you’d give to an eight-year-old. The darknesses of Scott’s nipples were visible beneath it.

Justin supposed that he could reach out and push Scott’s hair away from his forehead if he wanted to. Scott was a heavy sleeper and wouldn’t wake up easily – not simply from a gentle touch. Scott had slept in Justin’s bed a couple of months back (there was nowhere else at Justin’s house) and Justin had learned that it was possible to knee Scott while he was sleeping – and to do it quite hard – without waking him.

Still, though, Justin thought that he hadn’t better touch Scott, who might remember something from the accident, or suspect something – and he wouldn’t like Justin touching him if that was the case – if he knew that Justin had hit him, though Justin hadn’t really done anything that could have been avoided because Scott’s gear had, despite everything, been trapped.

Scott’s mother said that Scottie wanted to talk about it – had said this – that Scottie wanted to ask Justin what had happened and ‘get it clear in his head, Justin. He needs to,’ Scottie’s mother said, ‘– understand.’

At the foot of the bed there was a bathroom and Justin supposed that he could go into this. It would mean crossing around to the other side of the bed because the door was in the corner near the wall opposite. Justin washed his hands and when he came out of the bathroom he saw that Scott’s arse was exposed. The hospital gown was riding high over Scott’s hips and there was a wide split all along his back, broached by some white cotton strips, tied like shoelaces and stretched tight.

Justin made sure that Scott was sleeping. On his way back to the chair, Justin ducked his head and saw (not a scrotum!) something red and the black thread of a sutre.

The policeman said that Scott’s genitals had been removed – amputated. Justin thought that this meant Scott’s testicles had been removed – that they had been taken out of his sack and…what? – thrown away? He had heard the word genitals but thought it meant testicles.

Now, picking up the flowers and sitting down on the chair again, he supposed (from what he had seen) that they had cut Scott’s sack off and not replaced them – his testicles – with prosthetic ones as Mark had said they would, using the word ‘prosthetic’ at school on Wednesday, and explaining that it meant fake – ‘like fake tits!’

Justin swallowed and looked at the flowers. He lifted them to his face and buried his nose into them. They made you feel loose. Happy. His arm slackened and he was starting to laugh as though he had had a drug when he saw Scott open his eyes and jolt backwards in the bed as though he was afraid of him, Justin.

Awake now, Scott stared at him as though he was looking at a bright light. ‘I was dreaming,’ he said.

Justin stood up and locked one thumb into his jeans.

Scott sat up in the bed, pushing the drip cord away and pulling the hospital gown out of his armpits.

‘It’s got teddies on it,’ Justin said.

Scott frowned, smoothing it over his chest. ‘Hey, yeah!’ he said. ‘It’s like I’m a little kid!’

‘I brought you – flowers!’ Justin said, as though it was unbelievable – something he couldn’t himself believe in and had just become aware of.

Scott laughed.

‘Carol made me.’

‘’S okay.’ Scott took the flowers and breathed, burying his face into them like it was a pool of water. ‘Wow!’ he said, staring at them. ‘They smell okay.’ He seemed surprised by it and looked up at Justin like an animal caught in a car’s headlights, like he was dazed.

‘Carol says they’ll make you feel better.’

Not thinking about it, and while Scott was still frozen, Justin leaned forward and kissed Scott on the lips.

‘Here.’ Justin took the flowers and put them on the stand. He sat on the edge of the bed and started to pull at the coverlet. When he looked up again, Scott was looking at the door, which was closed. Tears were dripping onto his cheeks.

‘Are you crying?’

No answer.

Justin took Scott’s hand and turned it over. He pulled at Scott’s fingers, half-consolingly, and half in jest. ‘It isn’t that bad,’ he said.

Scott’s chest shuddered and he started to cry in earnest, with a sudden explosion of confused noise. He made a sound that Justin hadn’t known he could make, a long sound that seemed somehow animal, and was frightenning. It frightenned Justin. He kept his head down and pressed Scott’s hand between both his own; squeezing it hard, he gritted his teeth.

The sun was hitting Justin’s feet now, falling in the sky. The centre of Scott’s palm was pale and warm.

In a sudden explosion of breath Scott said something indecipherable that, as Justin turned it over again in his mind, came out as, ‘Theycutmyfuckingdickoff!’

‘What?’

‘Theycutmy fucking dickoff!’ Scott said again, in a series of breaths, his pale face contorting. Red lips quivered. He pulled his hand away from Justin’s and tears sprouted from his eyes. He covered his face with his hands, and between them, tears actually spurted, as though it was a water pistol.

Justin got onto the floor. He knelt at the side of the bed and pulled at Scott’s elbow. He pulled his friend sideways until Scott was lying on the bed, bent. He kissed his friend’s soft golden hair and pushed his hand between Scott’s shoulder blades where the skin was warm and smooth.

Justin supposed that there was something solid in his own chest, something metal or made of glass which would break. He put his head beside Scott’s and held his friend’s shoulders, trying to breathe slowly and calmly but feeling his breath rushing, feeling as if he would suddenly laugh with dizziness and not cry as he was meant to.

Had they really? Would they really have? he wanted to know. And at the same time he exploded with a sudden breath and managed to cry (though he laughed firstly). He thought not of Scott but of himself and what he had done – and was seeing Scott’s penis scuddering beneath the brake pad, and he, Justin, as his hand jammed the brake on hard. Scott’s broken penis between his fingers. He had had it in his mouth!

Justin cried in earnest, shaking his head and pushing himself backward from the bed. He sat on his heels and pushed his head into the side of the mattress.

Did they really, though?

There was a sudden guffaw, unwanted; and then he lifted his head.

Scott hadn’t moved. He was staring at the ceiling.

‘Do you want to see it?’ Scott said slowly and cynically through gritted teeth, as though it was something Justin couldn’t possibly want – as though he was in possession of something terrible – a monster – and had himself become a monster through association with it – his friend Scott!

Justin put his head down. There was a sudden burst of tears and he felt as though his head would soon burst. ‘I wouldn’t care!’ he managed, and wondered if Scott had understood what he said. He put the top of his head on the floor and bit his knee and knew that he was laughing and crying and unable to tell the difference between the two.

But what would it look like? he wanted to know. Would Scott show him? And what did they do with his cock? Was it in a bottle? In alcohol? Would they have thrown it away? In a wheelie bin?

In his jeans, Justin felt himself getting hard. He reached up and grabbed Scott’s hand.

There were minutes of silence.

And then Justin got up and went to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him.

When he came out the sun was burning gold into the room and Scott was watching Spongebob Squarepants. Justin sat down on the chair.

‘You can sit on the bed if you want,’ Scott said, sliding over. Justin hesitated but got up beside him. He took Scott’s hand and held it. Almost instantly, he was getting hard again. Between Scott’s legs there seemed to be nothing. The thin cotton blanket made a valley between his legs – and there was no lump, nothing. And there wasn’t anything there! Justin told himself.

‘Squidward!’ Spongebob was screaming. ‘Squidward!’

Justin turned his face and kissed Scott on the side of his head.

‘You don’t have to be nice to me,’ Scott said, pulling his head back and facing Justin.

‘I want to.’

Scott pulled his hand away.

Suddenly, breathing heavily, Justin put his hand on Scott’s thigh and felt Scott’s muscle stiffen. He turned again and kissed Scott, twisting himself in the bed and moving his other hand over. He placed it on Scott's inner thigh.

Scott pushed him away and got out of the bed, pulling the hospital gown down, though it only reached the top of his thighs. He walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

‘Can’t they give you a bigger one?’ Justin said when Scott came out of the bathroom.

Scott stopped, and he had that look again – that look which he seemed to have for months after the accident – as though he was staring at a bright light and unable to see clearly, but wide-eyed all the same. Like a rabbit! Justin said to himself. And Scott was so – pretty! He was like a boyl but not a boy and his thighs were almost touching each other.

Scott pulled at the gown. He tried to pull it over his thighs.

‘Do I look silly?’

‘It looks uncomfortable,’ Justin said. It was stretched across Scott’s chest and catching him round the throat.

‘Jake brings me a new one everyday,’ Scott said, getting back onto the bed. Inner thigh. Scott’s legs were open for a moment but Justin couldn’t see…and then the coverlet was back over him.

‘Jake?’

‘The nurse.’

‘Do you want me to get out of the bed?’

Scott shrugged his shoulders.

‘What time is it?’ Justin asked. He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to Scott.

‘Four-thirty.’

‘You can show me it if you want to,’ but someone knocked on the door.

It opened.

‘Well now, and who’s your handsome friend!’ The woman nodded her head and entered with a trolley. There was food on it – jugs of drink and an urn, Justin supposed. ‘Does he want a cup of tea?’

‘Do you?’ Scott said.

Justin was standing.

‘Or there’s cordial though you won’t be getting coffee out of me – wee bairns drinking coffee!’ She had a bright face and somehow made Justin feel like he was a kid again – as though he was a little kid which he didn’t feel was true anymore – that he was a kid at all, even a big one, for thirteen. ‘Bright and dark! Are you two going to be models, then?’ she continued. ‘Or famous actors?’

Scott was smiling and looking at his feet.

‘Pedophiles,’ Justin said. ‘And we’re going to kill women on the side – just to make a bit of extra cash. Sell their tits to perverts like your husband, who likes to fuck a good dead ho.’

The woman (her name badge said Sally) dropped the teapot, from which she had started to pour as though they wanted tea when they hadn’t said anything.

She jumped back and lifted her head up. Some of it had splashed on her shoe. ‘And is he a friend of yours!’ She said to Scott.

Scott was out of the bed. ‘He doesn’t mean it,’ he was saying. ‘He just…’

‘But what happened to you!’ the woman suddenly screeched, her voice rising to a sudden, unsustainable shriek.

In front of her, on the floor, Scott was squatting and picking up the tea pot. He dropped it and stood up, holding the lid in one hand.

If the woman hadn’t been standing in front of the mirror, Justin might have seen. As it was, her fatness blocked his view.

‘Why don’t you just fuck off?’ he said to her. ‘You don’t know us!’

An orderly came to clean up the mess, but by that time, Scott was crying again, standing where he had been. Justin had his arms wrapped around him and had been kissing him on the head, though he had stopped this when the orderly came into the room.

‘That bitch ought to be fired,’ Justin said, letting go of Scott and making fists out of his hands. ‘She looked at his…Do you know what happened to him?’

The orderly said nothing. He cleaned up the mess and departed, only pausing at the door when he left and looking Justin in the eye.

In an adjacent wing of the hospital, and three floors above Scottie’s room, Detective Inspector McMurdo turned to Carter, a Sargeant, who had been in the force only three years. ‘Well, what do you think?’ he said.

The sargeant, who was staring at the monitor, was shaking his head. He pressed his lips together and turned to McMurdo, grim-faced and pale.

‘You think he did it?’

‘Oh, I’m sure of it,’ McMurdo said. ‘He’s a right fucking nut – if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘But why do they...look like…?’ Christa Gouldorf muttered to herself, staring at the screen.