If you could save someone's life, would you? Anyone's? Ali's older brother has a swastika tattooed on his knuckles, a prison ID number for nearly beating an immigrant to death, and spent his teenage years ruthlessly persecuting Ali for being gay. Blood may be thicker than water, but Ali has spent most of his life desperate to prove he is nothing like Tony. A committed vegetarian, charity-supporter, and blood donor, Ali would do anything for anyone. Ali may share parentage with Tony, but he’s determined not to share anything else if he can help it. So when Tony contracts leukaemia, and Ali is the only match for the urgently-needed bone marrow transplant, Ali is caught between two equally awful choices: to refuse and condemn a man to death, or to donate. And in donating, save the life of the man who nearly murdered Ali's Iraqi boyfriend?

Thicker Than Bone

There was a police car outside the opposite house. Lights on. A man shouting and swearing on the pavement, being bundled into the back of it. Mr and Mrs Little having another drunken domestic.


Ali rested his forehead against the cold glass and tried to breathe past the aftershocks of terror, the shiver of relief, and the hot tears making their way down his face.


“It wasn’t real,” he whispered fervently to himself. “It wasn’t—he didn’t—”


Because in his dreams, Yazid died. Alone, on the floor of their flat, because of Tony. He died.


The pipes rattled and the toilet flushed. Ali hastily tore his gaze from Mr Little mouthing off at one of the coppers, and started wiping at his face. He hadn’t had this nightmare in a long time. It would only upset Yazid, and…


Chapter 31